what are you reading?
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Mormagil
bring back the corvee
Thoth-Amon
Hypochondriac
- Apr 4, 2006
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Powers
Good Morning USA!
Voice of God said:
Soon as I'm finished Catcher, I'm going out and buying Neuromancer and A Scanner Darkly, hopefully I'll have read the latter before the film comes out.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is rather good, horrible disjointed wrting style but I feel that's probably the point, it makes everything feel out of place and un ordered, and quite isolated to be honest.
speed said:
Read this post and the one previous.
Tongue_Ring said:
Oh yes, such genres are known for their prose, characterization, plot, and overall worth to society.
Seriously, someone is going to have to explain the attraction of both genres. Stephen King's writing is turgid and overly verbose, and I cant read any other fantasy or sci-fi without laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of the plots heavy-handed characterization, and amazingly bad dialogue. I;ve heard a Terry Patchett or Practhett is good, same with some Harrison bloke. Is it the escape from reality, the clique nature of the genres, or the overall lack of intellectual stimulation needed to read such books, that induces such passion?
yes the fans of Sci-fi and Fantasy are very passionate, visibly moreso than the "fans" of other genresspeed said:
Voice of God
Harmless Bum
speed said:
Yeah, and metal is stupid simple loud music listened only by degenerates and anti-social misfits.
Sci-fi and fantasy are escapism, but so is every god damn fictional novel ever made. I don't really understand what makes people so condescending towards fantasy and sci-fi. All fictional books have fictional elements (hence the name fiction), so if a book also has also a fictional world where it is happening, it is automatically bad? Writing a certain genre does not mean that the writing is bad. That's like saying people drawing with pencils have no talent, because the "real classics" are done with paint. Of course there's lot of shit, but there's lot of shit regardless of genre.
Fantasy and sci-fi also offer a great place for a writer to experiment, to create something that is not bound by the laws of reality and generally explore way more freely than other genres. Also sci-fi especially, fantasy to lesser extent, has been known to be very socially aware and critical towards the problems of our time and the problems a certain vein of development could lead. There is an actual subgenre focused on ecological issues. So that much for the "worth to society" thing.
Apparently you haven't really read fantasy or sci-fi. King is overly verbose, yes, but he isn't really a good example of either genre. Pratchett and Harrison (Harry, I presume) are mainly comedic writers*, so I wouldn't go there either, although Harrisons "Make Room! Make Room!" is a good social commentary.
There's several good authors of these genres mentioned in this thread. Go check them out. Personally I'd go for Dan Simmons and George R.R. Martin, so you could get rid of that elitist "bad prose, characterization, plot and lack of intellectual stimulation" attitude. You sound like a classical music buff who discredits rock music of any musical value because "It's loud."
*at least most of Harrison's work that I've seen/read.
thank you for saying exactly what i was thinkingVoice of God said:Yeah, and metal is stupid simple loud music listened only by degenerates and anti-social misfits.
Sci-fi and fantasy are escapism, but so is every god damn fictional novel ever made. I don't really understand what makes people so condescending towards fantasy and sci-fi. All fictional books have fictional elements (hence the name fiction), so if a book also has also a fictional world where it is happening, it is automatically bad? Writing a certain genre does not mean that the writing is bad. That's like saying people drawing with pencils have no talent, because the real classics are done with paint. Of course there's lot of shit, but there's lot of shit regardless of genre.
Fantasy and sci-fi also offer a great place for a writer to experiment, to create something that is not bound by the laws of reality and generally explore way more freely than other genres. Also sci-fi especially, fantasy to lesser extent, has been known to be very socially aware and critical towards the problems of our time and the problems a certain vein of development could lead. There is an actual subgenre focused on ecological issues. So that much for the "worth to society" thing.
Apparently you haven't really read fantasy or sci-fi. King is overly verbose, yes, but he isn't really a good example of either genre. Pratchett and Harrison (Harry, I presume) are mainly comedic writers*, so I wouldn't go there either, although Harrisons "Make Room! Make Room!" is a good social commentary.
There's several good authors of these genres mentioned in this thread. Go check them out. Personally I'd go for Dan Simmons and George R.R. Martin, so you could get rid of that elitist "bad prose, characterization, plot and lack of intellectual stimulation" attitude. You sound like a classical music buff who discredits rock music of any musical value because "It's loud."
*at least most of Harrison's work that I've seen/read.
i just wouldn't have been able to articulate it so perfectly
Voice of God said:Yeah, and metal is stupid simple loud music listened only by degenerates and anti-social misfits.
Sci-fi and fantasy are escapism, but so is every god damn fictional novel ever made. I don't really understand what makes people so condescending towards fantasy and sci-fi. All fictional books have fictional elements (hence the name fiction), so if a book also has also a fictional world where it is happening, it is automatically bad? Writing a certain genre does not mean that the writing is bad. That's like saying people drawing with pencils have no talent, because the "real classics" are done with paint. Of course there's lot of shit, but there's lot of shit regardless of genre.
Fantasy and sci-fi also offer a great place for a writer to experiment, to create something that is not bound by the laws of reality and generally explore way more freely than other genres. Also sci-fi especially, fantasy to lesser extent, has been known to be very socially aware and critical towards the problems of our time and the problems a certain vein of development could lead. There is an actual subgenre focused on ecological issues. So that much for the "worth to society" thing.
Apparently you haven't really read fantasy or sci-fi. King is overly verbose, yes, but he isn't really a good example of either genre. Pratchett and Harrison (Harry, I presume) are mainly comedic writers*, so I wouldn't go there either, although Harrisons "Make Room! Make Room!" is a good social commentary.
There's several good authors of these genres mentioned in this thread. Go check them out. Personally I'd go for Dan Simmons and George R.R. Martin, so you could get rid of that elitist "bad prose, characterization, plot and lack of intellectual stimulation" attitude. You sound like a classical music buff who discredits rock music of any musical value because "It's loud."
*at least most of Harrison's work that I've seen/read.
Haha, well thats what I wanted to read. Someone passionate about the genre, explaining its merits.
But you have admit, 99% of fiction is plagued by bad prose, characterization and lack of intellectual stimulation. And no, I see nothing elitist about it. Is taste a crime? Why eat hamburger when one can have a filet? Oh the cliche.
Voice of God
Harmless Bum
speed said:
Well, I said exactly that myself. Most of everything is crap.
What I meant with elitism was the rather arrogant view that fantasy and sci-fi are plagued with inferior writing more than other genres and that's why they should be looked down upon. You did say about other genres that "such genres are known for their prose, characterization, plot, and overall worth to society", implying that sci-fi and fantasy do not have these characteristics. You were probably being somewhat sarcastic there, but just in case.
Taste is not a crime, everybody has unique taste in arts. This is basically like arguing over music genres, there's really no point. There's good literature in every genre. If you don't care for sci-fi or fantasy, fine, but I hope you don't go blaming books to be bad literature just because their sci-fi or fantasy.
I'm passionate about this because there exists a lot of prejudice and false preconceptions towards sci-fi and fantasy much the same way there exists lot of prejudice towards metal music, and I'm really tired of hearing the same old "isn't that stuff for kids?" or "you should read something good" or "when will you grow out of that death metal thing?". As a metal fan, I believe you understand how frustrating that can be.
On a personal note, I think that limiting oneself into only few genres in anything is not the best way to go, and I try not to do that, but people have to have favorites.
Voice of God said:Well, I said exactly that myself. Most of everything is crap.
What I meant with elitism was the rather arrogant view that fantasy and sci-fi are plagued with inferior writing more than other genres and that's why they should be looked down upon. You did say about other genres that "such genres are known for their prose, characterization, plot, and overall worth to society", implying that sci-fi and fantasy do not have these characteristics. You were probably being somewhat sarcastic there, but just in case.
Taste is not a crime, everybody has unique taste in arts. This is basically like arguing over music genres, there's really no point. There's good literature in every genre. If you don't care for sci-fi or fantasy, fine, but I hope you don't go blaming books to be bad literature just because their sci-fi or fantasy.
I'm passionate about this because there exists a lot of prejudice and false preconceptions towards sci-fi and fantasy much the same way there exists lot of prejudice towards metal music, and I'm really tired of hearing the same old "isn't that stuff for kids?" or "you should read something good" or "when will you grow out of that death metal thing?". As a metal fan, I believe you understand how frustrating that can be.
On a personal note, I think that limiting oneself into only few genres in anything is not the best way to go, and I try not to do that, but people have to have favorites.
Yes, I was being sarcastic after tongue rings comment. I dont know of any well-written romances, spy novels, self-help books; so...
I was only commenting on the genre phenomenom as Ive noticed such a preponderence of scifi, horror and fantasy buffs, and Im just not a fan; thus my original statement was merely an attempt to question if anyone read something either than these genres.
La Rocque
I am that I am
'Unspeak' by Steven Poole, how words became weapons, how weapons became a message, and how that message becomes reality -
Book starts with the UK, Anti-Social Behavior Orders aka Asbos, its a laugh riot on a serious subject 'what is anti-social behavior according to the law'?
Book starts with the UK, Anti-Social Behavior Orders aka Asbos, its a laugh riot on a serious subject 'what is anti-social behavior according to the law'?
not really moreso than non-fictionspeed said:
most of "classic" non-fiction is really truly completely unreadable to a random guy of the street, so saying that non-fiction is better than fiction is unmistakeably elitist
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