Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 161
- 4
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
A few things which irritate me about the LitRPG genre and web fiction in general. You may picture me as comic book guy for purposes of this rant.
I could go on but I feel better getting at least this much off my chest.
I've tried a few LitRPGs and web novels and find very few of them readable. Most are badly written fanfiction-tier slop that could (and soon will) be pretty easily generated by AI.
Your genre complaints are, IMO, applicable to the majority of SF&F today in general.
That said, "Hefting his mace, he swung at her as hard as he could" is not great writing (and noticeable when the author uses that construct over and over, which unfortunately I have seen even some better writers do) but it's neither switching tenses nor ungrammatical. It's a present participial.
More options
Context Copy link
Is that changing tenses? Consider the sentence 'While running, he saw Steve'. 'While running' modifies the verb 'saw', but it's not present tense on its own. It could also be written as 'He saw Steve while running' which makes it more obvious.
It's not 1:1 with your example, because he's not swinging while he is hefting it. He would heft it first, then swing. So it would be more similar to "going for a run, he showered off the sweat and went to sleep".
"Going for a run, he showers off the sweat" is no more correct, so it's not really about the tense here. "Going for a run, he listens to music" is only very slightly better. The issue isn't actually that the latter action has to take place during the former; it's that "going for a run" is actually a description of a static event, describing the start of the run.
So I'd say that "going for a run, he stepped out the door" is actually more correct than either of the other two, and also more in-line with the original example. It's an odd case where the sentence structure only works if the latter action is somewhat taken while the start of the former action is happening.
"Starting his run, he stepped out the door" is best of all. Or "Following the man, he stepped through the door behind him." In both cases the former action sort of describes and informs the latter but is also an action in its own right. I'd argue this is precisely what's happening in the sentence you described too. "Hefting" isn't actually separate from swinging the mace; it's a description that informs the swinging of the mace, similar to "Using all his strength, he swung the mace."
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There's nothing ungrammatical about it, it's just bad writing.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
There was this one story where it was like a dungeon/system apocalypse sort of thing. Dude ends up in a world where monsters and dungeons are gradually expanding in power and humanity is being driven back further and further, the population dwindling over the course of centuries as the monsters continue to gain in power.
And then the characters make some offhand comment about a magic spell that lets you switch gender which certain people who were "born in the wrong body" use to cure their condition. And then MC from Earth explains how in our world those people are oppressed and everyone shakes their heads about how unenlightened that is. Now, on an object level it makes sense that if such spells were available people with gender dysphoria would want to use them. But the language was very obviously dated as 2010+ progressivism, which would have no way of being the same in some fantasy world. And more importantly there is no way a world on the verge of extinction with massive attrition due to a constant multi-generational war against monsters is going to end up progressive, especially with regard to gender roles. They are going to want women pumping out as many kids as possible so they don't go extinct. Or rather, any subculture which chooses to be progressive in any way that reduces birthrates (as opposed to some free-love variant that encourages promiscuity but discourages birth control) will quickly die out and be replaced under such strong selection pressures.
I made a comment to this effect, to which the author replied "my world, my rules". So I stopped reading.
I recall something similar in another web novel. It was otherwise quite an interesting story, blending cyberpunk with a fantasy litrpg: earth was a cyberpunk dystopia, but got visited by aliens who gifted them access to a shared litrpg world.
Now, you expect some progressive politics to insert themselves in cyberpunk just by it's nature, but it was the fantasy litrpg part which embarrassed the novel. One of the aliens was from a race which was agender until a certain age, when they would become male or female. This was a great excuse for the author to show his MCs progressive bonafides, referring carefully to "them" and acting shocked when other characters - including other alien races - didn't.
But this was alien race. Calling a woman "sir" or vice versa is insulting for humans with a large amount of sexual dimorphism, but it makes zero sense that this race would have the same issues. To them, it would be completely "alien" to worry about someone using different pronoun.
Even worse, they weren't even speaking English. Every race had their own language filtered through a perfect universal translator. Did their language even have pronouns? Would the translator not just switch anything to the correct pronoun? It was a complete failure of world building
The litrpg space and progression fantasy genre is weird, it feels like the audience is vaguely right-leaning (lots of male video game nerds) but there are author cliques that purity test each other. And in order to succeed on Royalroad or Amazon, it really helps to get bootstrapped by other authors. For example the progression fantasy subreddit has a year-round pride flag, and it's run by a clique of authors who chase off anyone outside their political window of acceptability.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think you underestimate the degree to which many of these communities (e.g., trans, disabled, "neurodivergent," etc.) simultaneously regard themselves as oppressed and in need of unlimited support and validation, and totally valid and not in need of "fixing" and any suggestion that magic or sufficiently advanced technology would basically "cure" them is equivalent to suggesting genocide.
I am not exaggerating; I've seen disabled activists, for example, when it's pointed out that medical technology that could grow new limbs and organs would eliminate blindness, deafness, paralysis, and many other defects, respond that this is ableist and instead, such an advanced society should reconfigure public infrastructure to be more accommodating to "differently abled" people.
If I had to count all the settings I know of which offer extremely easy alignment of mental and physical gender, yet enjoy the fandom of many trans people who create explicitly trans OCs in those settings... well, I'd probably run out of fingers on at least one hand.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
At least that's better than the BG1 expansion from a few years back, which (in a world where perfectly effective magic to change your sex exists) had a transgender character. It was so fucking stupid that I did not and never will buy that expansion, no matter how good people say it is otherwise.
See the relatively new Harry Potter game, where they had a trans woman in 19th century Hogwarts, in the same universe where polyjuice exists, and presumably other forms of body-modification.
Oof, I wasn't aware of that. It's just such a failure of imagination, to me. In a world where magic exists and can change you in all kinds of ways, nobody would be trans as an identity! They would just be a woman (or man) by virtue of magic, and nobody else would ever know who didn't know that person before. If anything, these writers are missing out on some interesting material - in a world where you can change sex as easily as putting on a magical girdle, what do gender roles and the relationship between sexes look like? Surely, nothing like our world, and that could be really interesting to explore! But no, instead people have to waste interesting material by forcing it to be a morality lesson about our world instead of letting the fictional world be its own interesting thing. It's so aggravating. :(
More options
Context Copy link
It is well-established in Potterverse that magic, evidently, doesn't allow you to modify yourself long-term. Otherwise there would be no ugly wizards. A lifetime supply of Polyjuice sounds like something pretty much no one could afford.
https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Transfiguration
See the section on Human Transfiguration. Even if no spell lasts permanently, what's stopping you from re-casting it regularly? That's about as onerous as doing makeup or getting a haircut.
As a known steadfast supporter of my feminist idol, JK Rowling... it really doesn't bear thinking about too deeply. I am actually an unironic fan of the Harry Potter series, but it's absolutely not the sort of world in which the author spent a lot of time doing the kind of "worldbuilding" that engages with the real world and considers how magic would actually affect it. The Potterverse is less plausible than any superhero universe (which is saying something). It's meant to be English boarding school drama, with wizards. Rowling invented spells because they were clever, funny, or solved a temporary plot hole, and then forgot about them. "But why don't wizards just...?" is a question that will drive you crazy if you let yourself ask it once.
More options
Context Copy link
From the descriptions, fine changes appear to be less like doing makeup and more like plastic surgery, in terms of the skill required and the danger. (Most examples deal with transforming a human into an animal, presumably with stock spells). And then you're one antimagic spell or environmental effect (such as one installed in the bank) away from the glamour washing off, or worse.
Thus, even if some rare talented Transfigurationists or those able to secure the services of one practiced it, it would not be widespread or practical in daily social life. And that's just when we talk about external appearance. Transfiguration evidently does not solve aging, and it's debatable whether it can impart complex function the body didn't have, such as switching out your reproductive system. (What happens if you try to get pregnant on Polyjuice?)
More to the point, I think, in the Potterverse and in most pre-Millenium British fantasy novels magic has an implicit moral understructure. For example, the love of one person sacrificing themself for another is a powerful protective force against evil. Dumbledore makes it pretty clear that there are far deeper forces in the world than the paltry stuff that wizards usually throw around and regularly criticises Voldemort for fundamentally misunderstanding how magic works. You cannot feed yourself on magic - you cannot transfigure food. There is literally a room full of Love in the Department of Mysteries that is so terrible and dangerous that his lock-pick melts when he tries to enter.
I suspect that part of this moral superstructure is the implicit rule that you cannot magically hide your true self for long. Voldemort literally becomes ugly as he mutilates his soul. Harry’s father has an inherent nobility and his Animagus form is a stag, where Wormtail becomes a rat, and it is not possible I think for that to be reversed.
Trans people then seem to be ruled out. Even if you believe the trans identity is the reality, then I would think that spells would work better.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
This sounds like you're gesturing to a plausible culturally-prescribed use of such a spell that would be quite anathema to both our trads and our progs: fix your society's undesirable sex ratio with magical sex change as opposed to (or in addition to) war.
See, that would have made sense. Assuming the magic sex change spell carries fertility with it (not sure how that interfaces with chromosomes, but maybe you can handwave magic that), I can easily imagine oppressive social norms that forces everyone to do like a clownfish thing. They have to be female in their late teens and early twenties to have a bunch of kids and then when they get older they turn male and go off to war to protect the society, with the most successful (and surviving) war heroes getting rewarded with breeding the younger females. Oppressive and constricting to be forced into as a citizen, but super beneficial for the society and the people ruling it since you get the advantages of both sexes, and maximizes chances of survival against an enemy force that outclasses you. (It especially makes sense in a LitRPG context where you can do easy fights and level up while young and will be multiple times stronger when you're older)
I'm not saying the author needed to make it be a rationalfic and actually do that. I can suspend disbelief enough for them to have a relative normal medieval culture or something close. But it makes no sense to make everything about the world gritty and harsh except for their gender norms.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Surefire giveaway that the author is trans themselves, or at least moves in social circles where they have to interact with a lot of them. Really common in recent years for some reason.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm back at my computer. But not sober enough to put together the best recommendation list. Some additional thoughts:
Re #1: I have tried Russian and Chinese litrpg and Wuxia, and honestly, maybe you don't like reading about people inappropriately spouting progressive values, but a world of power-hungry psychopaths that read like if KulakRevolt were given super-powers is even more depressing to me. What is there to root for? Why would I want any of these people to win?
Re #2: Agreed that the John Carter movie was good and tragically mismarketed, but (seconding @WhiningCoil) the books are fun but if you've read the first couple you've read them all, and this is actually true of a lot of the old pulp stuff (like Tarzan, Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Lensmen, etc.) They all follow a very predictable formula and the writing is often not up to modern standards either. Even some of the more modern classics (Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven) don't really stand the test of time, IMO.
Re #3: I see ranting all over the Internet that "No one is writing books (men) want to read" when there is in fact an entire ecosystem of indie-published authors doing just that. Now a lot of what they write is awful, and a lot of it is marketed with not much more of a hook than "This will really trigger blue-haired progs!" but apply Sturgeon's Law and you can still find gold amidst the dross. (Devon Eriksen and Travis J Corcoran come to mind- also plenty of right-wing trad published authors like Larry Correia and John C. Wright).
I agree with all of this. There are always tradeoffs in life, and in product consumption decisions.
More options
Context Copy link
The indie part is key. The complaint is not that nobody is writing books for men; the complain is that none of the mainstream publishers are publishing books for men, nor are any of the established awards recognizing them. Hence Sad/Rabid Puppies and "I just hope you like Amazon Exclusives".
And, of course, this has broader consequences. Bookstores can't stock copies of web novels. Since weeding manuals explicitly call for the removal of old books, libraries are increasingly populated by texts no man wants to read.
I just picked up the first Craig Alanson book, Columbus Day. It’s so painfully self-published. Minimal cover, no logos, I’m not even sure it had a copyright page. And there is a distinct lack of editing. This made more sense when I read the author’s note in the back, in which he expressed shock and delight at the reception for what he described as “talking beer can” novels.
He also wrote about the Amazon self-publishing process. I think it’s pretty neat that was even possible. What would have been a total vanity project in 1970 has shifted more and more towards viability. Not for everyone, but as a way to clear these underserved markets.
But prestige can’t be democratized like publishing. It’s much closer to zero-sum. Every award that goes to a webnovel is one that doesn’t go to an ingroup novel. I don’t just mean that in a CW sense; conventional awards are entwined with conventional publishing, so they’re incentivized to hype up the latter.
Point is, I think the practicality of self-publishing is directly opposed to success in the awards and conventional publishers. It’s a threat.
More options
Context Copy link
I haven't stepped into a Barnes & Noble in years, but I understand that it's mostly walls of romantasy and Brandon Sanderson nowadays. But you know, it's a chicken-and-egg problem that has more to do with the ruthless pursuit of quarterly earnings than it does with some malicious cabal of white female NYC publishers refusing to greenlight anything a man will read. What genre has always outsold every other genre? Romance. Who buys the most books nowadays? Young women. Hence Twilight, 50 Shades, Sarah Maas, and so on.
I'm skeptical that there is some breakout male author who could bring in male readers the way these authors bring in female readers (the last truly cross-gender mass phenomenon was probably Harry Potter and even that was a majority female fanbase). I'm very skeptical that publishing would refuse to print it if they actually smelled that kind of money.
The fact is that the publishing industry has changed dramatically in a lot of ways since the golden age of SF. Not just in tilting more strongly towards female preferences, but tilting strongly towards "Only books that are bestsellers and will bump our QEs are worth supporting." (See this phenomenon also with movies, which have turned into a different kind of formulaic slop, but not exclusively targeted at women.) The death of the midlist is I assume common knowledge by now. It used to be that agents and publishers would cultivate a relationship with an author whom they expected to produce books over the course of a career, and if every book wasn't a best-seller, as long as each one paid out, it was good enough, because the cumulative earnings were enough to sustain the author (and his agent, and his publisher). Nowadays, not so much. Publishers don't want a long tail from middling sellers, they want bestsellers and are only willing to invest in a book that has a chance of becoming that, and they are only willing to invest so much in an author who doesn't break out.
Hence Brandon Sanderson (whose fanbase is large male) doing fine, and Stephen King and Haruki Murakami and a few others, but only if they are huge sellers with already established names. Meanwhile, while even the John Scalzis and Larry Correias are making a decent living, you will not usually find them occupying premium real estate in a bookstore.
I am not denying there is also a "publishing sneers at white males" problem, but it's not happening because publishing is unwilling to pick up money that's lying on the table.
Your links, are, unsurprisingly, also rather distorted views of reality.
The Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies affair was a reaction against leftism and SJWs in science fiction. Female-coded, to be sure, but their complaint at the time was not "Nobody is writing books men want to read" but "Nobody is writing books we want to read." Seriously half of it was Vox Day's abiding hatred for John Scalzi.
That /r/romance_for_men cartoon: well, I am not really a romance reader, but I've read a few (so I could at least say I had some understanding of the genre) and while I realize meme-cartoons aren't meant to accurately reflect reality with high fidelity, the Alpha Male Wolf Pack Mafia Boss Billionaire is basically a gross exaggeration of the most formulaic and traditional romance story ever, the one that has been the stock romance story for as long as there have been romance stories: women want to read about an impressive and desirable man falling in love with a woman who is plain and generic enough that any (female) reader can imagine herself in her place. It's no more complicated than that. No, that doesn't leave much for the male reader, but I will say that if you want cute love stories with actual functional couples, there seem to be quite a few that do not feature Chad Thundercock or BDSM.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that there isn't much real "romance for men" outside of indie publishing, but again, that's because men don't buy romance.
As for your beloved idol Dread Jim, I almost literally laughed out loud that he thinks John fucking Ringo is not right-wing enough. Apparently if you don't have women literally in chains... oh wait.
Well, there's always Tom Kratman.
As for this:
It's been a while since I read Lucifer's Hammer, but he's really glossing over how much the theme of that book was "When civilization collapses, white people become farmers and engineers and rebuild, and black people turn into rampaging cannibals." Yeah, the cannibal army wasn't exclusively black (and ironically enough, it was led by a messianic white man...) but I am pretty sure it wasn't 13%. Basically the majority of blacks in southern California joined the cannibal army, and any white people who didn't want to get et joined them. I don't think Niven and Pournelle were intentionally being "racist" (they threw a few black characters in with the good guys as well) but like, I am Niven fan but yeah, he knew what he was writing. (Including the motorcycle gang who takes a girl scout troop as sex slaves, but fortunately a boy scout troop rescues them and now every boy scout has his very own girl scout clinging to his feet, Frazetta-style.) You're taking at face value rants from a guy who thinks a book is too leftist if there is even a hint of female agency.
So yeah, where we are now is indie publishing for anything outside the mainstream or a very few Sanderson- and King-level big names. And that's because publishing (at least the industry as it is today) is dying a slow death.
It's funny that you mentioned that. Last night, I was waiting to meet up with some folks and I arrived early enough that I needed to kill some time, which I did by walking into a Barnes and Noble. The sci fi and fantasy section had a clear view of the entrance, and after a while I noticed something odd.
The place had a ton of customers, but nobody was buying books. Almost everyone who left was carrying a coffee from the integrated Starbucks. Those who weren't walked out with board games or things that would have been purchased from a toystore in days of yore.
I eventually bought Adrian Tchaikovsky's new book when I left because it felt wrong to be at a book store where no one was buying books.
More options
Context Copy link
Well, the main point is that “romance for men” would be about a male protagonist who meets a woman and they have a romance. It’s not just about what the male character is like, but about whose perspective the plot is written from.
Unironically, there’s more romance stories for gay men than there are for straight ones. Presumably this is just a market thing, but I don’t know why it doesn’t even seem to exist. Are there a lot of lesbian romance stories?
I’d probably be a reader of this genre if it actually existed. As it is, occasionally I read fanfiction about male protagonists (probably 80% written by women, but occasionally not bad), and take what I can get from the scraps of media that incidentally have romantic content. Japan has visual novels, but they’re too weird and too Japanese for me, but I liked Katawa Shoujo and some western fan VNs are tolerable.
So you say “men don’t buy romance”, but this is a chicken-egg problem: I can’t buy it if it doesn’t exist.
Well, what would a male romance look like to you? For most men, I'm going to guess it would be something like the classic "Hero goes on a quest and gets the girl in the end." Do men want more "romantic" content (scenes with the girl being cute and sexy and falling in love with him, the two of them having intimate encounters and emotional conversations) or do they want action with the girl naturally falling in love with him because he's so cool and brave?
Basically I think what male-oriented romance exists would mostly be found under another label.
There are tons of anime romcoms aimed at men where the relationship between MC and FMC is the primary draw, rather than being a subplot of another genre. In fact, most of them take place in the standard high school setting and have no speculative elements. Toradora!, Komi Can't Communicate, Don't Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro, Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!, Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie, Tomo-chan Is a Girl!, My Dress-Up Darling, Teasing Master Takagi-san...
I am specially fond of Nagatoro; my heart melted when I read chapter 114. I was so proud of Senpai forfinally having the courage to ask Nagatoro to pose nude for him ; it's a very beautiful scene that is the culmination of six years of character and relationship development. Likewise, the scene that sold me on Komi was the blackboard conversation in episode 1; I was blown away by the music and the animation and the way Tadano and Komi connected. These are not scenes about something else that happen to include romance; they are romance scenes.
I don't see why you couldn't write romance books aimed at men that were similar. Indeed, some of these titles started out as light novels, and to the extent that the novels on /r/romance_for_men successfully appeal to their target demographic, that seems to be exactly what they are doing.
I've only read or watched a couple of those. And I see what you mean about them appealing to a "male romance fan" but- well, does it not strike you that there is a large overlap between the male protagonists of those stories and the generic, uninteresting, personality-less girl being mocked in that /r/romance_for_men cartoon?
I gave Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie a try for a couple of volumes, to practice my Japanese reading comprehension. (The Japanese is very simple, though it's full of idioms.) Anyway, I bailed because the male protagonist, Yuu, is so annoyingly... well, non-masculine. Unassertive, cringing, insecure, less smart, less confident, and less cool than his girlfriend... I kept wondering "What does she see in him?" But you have made me realize I was seeing it from the wrong angle, as a story appealing to women (who I guess in Japan find an unthreatening submissive softboi a turn-on?) But no, it's appealing to men- or more specifically, to boys who feel insecure and unmasculine and unable to compete in traditionally masculine ways, but want to imagine the cute, smart but devoted and affectionate girl will still fall in love with them.
Have you read Haruki Murakami?
His books are usually billed as "fantasy" or "magical realism" in the West, but they all have this theme: a rather dull guy with the personality and initiative of a bowl of oatmeal is kind of dragged into a quest he doesn't really understand, pulled along by a hot chick who's often on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl spectrum and is probably underage or barely-legal, and at some point she will strip off all her clothes and do him for no apparent reason other than that he has a penis. Then a couple of other women including the librarian and the MILF and the MILF-librarian will do the same.
(I am only slightly exaggerating- Murakami bingo is really a thing.)
And now I have realized that you could kind of consider his books "romances for men." An ordinary guy goes on a quest without having to actually do much, and gets laid like pipe without having to put in any real effort or value.
Unironically I recommend him because his stories are surreal and weird and often funny, and really convey a different kind of mindset, with lots of sensory impressions Western writers don't usually dwell on, but the male protagonists always annoy me. And this is perhaps why "romance for men" doesn't appeal to me much. I am hardly a "manly man" who wants to go out and conquer kingdoms, but I guess I am a traditional enough man that I want to see men working, striving, struggling, and earning their rewards. A guy who offers no apparent distinction but has women falling on his dick anyway is not a fantasy for me, it's a mystery.
That said:
Indeed, it does make me wonder if there is an untapped market there in the West. Maybe someone will eventually tap it. I suspect, however, that cultural differences would make it a hard sell. Boys would have to overcome the stigma of reading "romance" and, let's be honest, a story like I have described, where an ordinary boy wins the love and affection of a hot girl out of his league, would be scorned and mocked across social media and booktock, and become loser-coded.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Well, I can’t speak for what most men would want. Maybe it’s just me and… maybe @Primaprimaprima and like a guy I know from school in the corner, but no, I’d want romance content as the main enchilada.
Basically, “guy is going about life, meets woman, forms connection with woman, the two understand each other on a deep level, passion ensues.” When you wrote this: “scenes with the girl being cute and sexy and falling in love with him, the two of them having intimate encounters and emotional conversations”, well I guess I like the last bit the most. I find myself bored in some action movies waiting for the emotional character moments to happen.
I like romance stories because I like romance, I like thinking about romance not as a reward for what’s actually important, but as something that itself forms people into who they are and is one of the keys that makes life meaningful. Not “I became the best version of myself to gain you,” but “I became the best version of myself because I met you.” Romance isn’t about reward but about recognition; seeing yourself in the other. Becoming complete through intimate union.
But I am literally the guy who will be at a party and go, “hey, these video games are fun, but what if we sat in a circle and talked about our feelings?” So if you’re looking to me to find out what “men” are into, god help ya.
Also — immediately after I wrote my first message I went to cuddle with my girlfriend, and she was telling me she’s been reading a romance novel, “but not like those romantasy books, I don’t understand the non-human thing.” Well, I don’t either honey.
IMO, the appeal of paranormal romance is two things: (1) A man who is a werewolf or a vampire or something is just that much more Alpha (and allows the whole "taming the beast" theme to become much more explicit- I mean, if your love can tame a literal werewolf how desirable must you be?). (2) A lot of women (especially on the nerdy spectrum) don't want to admit they are the kind of Basic Bitch who likes romance novels, but if you dress it up with fantasy elements, then they are "fantasy" fans.
More options
Context Copy link
I’m generally not interested in “fluffy” romance, where the romance is literally the only thing going on. But as long as there’s something else going on in the plot then I enjoy those types of stories quite a bit.
Quite a few anime and VNs fall into this category, but you already said you don’t like things that are “too Japanese”, so, yeah, unfortunate.
More options
Context Copy link
The thing that gets my goat in most romcoms is, after the meet-cute, they put in a music montage of them talking at a diner. That was the entire ‚they fall in love‘ scene. You had one job. I know writing good dialogue is hard, but this is the heart of the movie.
Then they move on to the stupid obstacle/reason why they can‘t be together of act II which would never happen in a million years. Then it‘s time for the excruciating ‚it was so stupid, I love you‘ ending dialogue.
Who watches this and for what purpose? romcom enjoyers must want to see attractive people humiliated by the terrible dialogue and irrational situations. It‘s like in fight club when tyler bashes blondie‘s head in.
More options
Context Copy link
...Have you tried Kage Baker's The Company series? If not, I'd recommend it, and let me know what you think if you give them a try. I read them years ago and have been waiting all the time since to find someone else who'd read them as well.
Hell, I'd recommend them generally as very good and extremely interesting books. The romance is a big part of it, as is mystery, and a heaping helping of Phillip K Dick.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The thing is, famous authors start off as un-famous authors. Their reputation is grown by getting good publicity and bookshelf deals from the publisher while they're still nobodies, and they don't want to do this for men as much as for women and minorities. That's why by-men-for-men fiction only thrives in places like Japan and genres like litrpg where it's customary to pluck authors from the highly-ranked webnovel lists, which make it possible to gauge their potential without investing in them.
It has happened to western authors, too. Andy Weir and E. L. James both started out writing web fiction (literally fanfiction in the latter's case) before getting acquired by a mainstream publisher and making it big. But that was 14 years ago.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, I like bookstores and libraries. I want to hang out in bookstores and libraries. I don't want to download new books, I want to browse and buy them in person.
I used to love bookstores and libraries. But now there's like 90% chance that when you enter the establishment the first thing you would see a huge trans flag and a bunch of BLM slogans, if not pro-Hamas agitation. And whatever books are emphasized are selected accordingly. Which kinda spoils the mood quite a bit. So I still go to libraries - and local libraries where I live, while usually hosting a lot of lefty types, are not as aggressive in pushing politics - but I no longer think any bookstore or library is the place I'd feel welcome and comfortable.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I mostly watch Chinese period dramas, and frankly I like the “everyone is an asshole” thing, mostly because it’s not out of step with an actual medieval society. Read about War of the Roses, read about any medieval period. They acted that way because they were basically very polite warlords and understood that everything they did would either expose them as weak or show them strong.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I await your recommendations with bated breath.
D. Rus - Russian author, has definitely been cheated on before or betrayed at least once by some woman in his life. https://www.amazon.com/stores/D.-Rus/author/B00LYQO4XI
warning: just because its not progressive doesn't mean its good.
Inadvisably Compelled - Saw multiple attempts to cancel him on reddit because he was "racist". I asked someone for evidence onetime. They posted a screen grab of the author being anti-immigration a couple of times and then what was maybe a joke that had clear racial tones. The stories don't really stand out to me as being filled with political opinions either way.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Inadvisably-Compelled/author/B09KMRDXY7
I thoroughly enjoyed his paranoid mage story. Blue core was mixed quality and a little too heavy on the sex and harem elements at times. System Delenda Est is on my to read list.
Terry Mancour - Spellmonger series https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Mancour/author/B004QTNFOO
The main character is of the world that he is in. Which is a medieval world. He doesn't shy away from power and responsibility over others. MC is a former soldier. MC gets married and has kids within the story. It certainly doesn't feel like a progressive hero.
Those are some that stick out in my memory. Just about any translated Chinese Wuxia story will be filled with hollow characters. The MC in those stories will stack up dead bodies faster than sticks. And depending on the temperament of the author will either fuck his way through hordes of women, or constantly be betrayed by conniving bitches.
More options
Context Copy link
Sounds delicious.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I bought all the John Carter books in their hardcover format with the Frank Frazetta artwork on the dust jackets, because I am a man of culture.
They are ok. I've read up to The Chessmen of Mars, and each novel seems to have the same strengths and weaknesses. I find the characters profoundly boring, with almost no life or dynamism to their actions. They won't surprise you in anything they do even once. However, each novel tends to have at least two or three interesting hooks or twist in the overall texture of the world building.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
On mobile so I can't pull up a long list of recommendations. But the politics issue doesn't happen in all parts of the genre. Or at least not all web fiction.
My biggest personal grip with litrpg is when the story reads like a D&D campaign converted into a novel. The fights feel like a string of meaningless encounters. The MC bumbles their way into saving the world. The setting is nothing but a contrived excuse to bully the MC when he is young.
This was the big problem with Worth the Candle for me. It felt like the author had a list of a hundred 'super cool D&D adventures' that he wanted to fit in, and just slotted them one after another, with only the barest excuse for why they were happening. I grant that this is somewhat justified by the setting, but it doesn't make it good writing.
That was a story I bounced off of early. I think I didn't get past the first encounter. Because it has that feeling. Yeah maybe D&D stories can be really fun and awesome, but most of them are trash. For good reason: part of the whole point of D&D is to get into fights that then utilize the mechanics of D&D. But if the mechanics suck or are boring in any way this whole strategy sucks. You are just gravitating towards a more sucky thing.
I can say I have tried to write at least progression fantasy, or form of litrpg lite. Its hard. I set out with a goal of keeping the blue boxes interesting and readable, but I think I failed even at that simple goal.
I do really love the genre though. I'd rather read awful LITRPG any day over most "good" fiction.
More options
Context Copy link
See I found that good. Actually I'm not sure why it would be upsetting to you. Oh no! Too many cool ideas!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I see plenty of merit in points 2 through 5, but as has already been noted I think you at least chose a weak example on point 1.
Yeah I'm open to that and also didn't expend any real effort here. You know what I mean. The point is made. Yes I could be happier with it. It's difficult for me to be ugly, even on purpose. Take no joy in the awful stuff and would sooner screen it out than collect and revel in it. Else I'd be on /r/drama.
More options
Context Copy link
How about first-person present tense books?
While there's often an unfortunate association there, I don't think that the problem is so much inherent to the grammatical qualities of the perspective as it is the thoughtlessness the author employs in selecting any perspective at all. This is closely related to the oft-commented-upon "books as wannabe movies" problem.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Regarding 3/4/5, there has to be a name for this trope. No matter how alien or unusual the scifi or fantasy setting, somehow the main character is a Perfectly Modern Progressive with all the Correct Opinions on race/sex/religion/whatever, all the good guys share those opinions, and all the bad guys oppose them. It's not quite A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but along those lines.
This is sadly also endemic in assorted AIslop, in my experience you have to prompt LLMs pretty heavily (introducing its own set of issues) if you do not want your hypothetical fantasy/medieval world to be ruled by modern American politics. Not even relatively uncensored Chinese models are wholly immune to it.
More options
Context Copy link
What was wrong with this book? In this context
I read it as an early teen (now far too long ago) and I remember loving the concept (also a massive Twain fan) but then finding the ending so bad it retroactively ruined the book for me.
More options
Context Copy link
Present-mindedness. It’s annoying. It’s like we cannot wrap our heads around the idea that people exist or even could exist that think in ways that we disagree with. I like the Mist Crown series by Sarah Maas, but its so annoying to read a medieval peasant acting like a modern, feminist, atheistic modern American as though the author literally couldn’t conceive of a premodern woman in a premodern world.
She can't!
Probably not. Most modern fantasy authors have good imagination except that they never really deep dive into other cultures or time periods and I think it’s a huge blind spot. Someone living in 16th century France would find just about everything about the modern European mindset weird. We’d find them strange as well. And honestly im not even sure that people as recent as the Victorian Era might not walk around modern London and wondering why people there are acting so strangely.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Values are fundamental. To a first approximation, no one actually wants values diversity, whether in their fiction or anywhere else. Good things are good, bad things are bad, more bad things are not good.
People like reading about things far away in time or distance because they crave novelty, but they want some recognizable values-coherence to bridge the gap because novelty is not terminal, but values are. Victorians write poems about Brave Horatius at the gate and I enjoy the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Pentateuch for the same reason: because all these deliver a perception of values-consonance across vast gulfs of time and space; we have our cake and eat it too.
The elements you highlight are there because the people generating them consider them terminal, and so their fiction cannot do without them.
Why not?
Authors include non-terminal values all the time. The most popular reason has to be giving the good guys something to punch. The second is probably verisimilitude. How do you know these elements are indispensable, terminal, rather than artistic decisions?
More options
Context Copy link
I think this is more true today than it used to be. Zoomers seem incapable of enjoying a story in which a character has values different from theirs, and furthermore they are prone to assuming that the author is endorsing those values. (This is a generalization and I hope I'm not right, but it's what I gather from most young book reviewers nowadays.)
You say you enjoy the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Pentateuch because of "values-consonance" but how similar are those characters' values to yours, really? Sure, they fit into the general Western monotheistic tradition, but Bronze Age heroes really weren't much like you and IMO the gap between your values and theirs is probably greater than the gap between your values and the average Blue Triber's.
Conversely, do you not enjoy the Iliad and the Odyssey? The Tale of Genji? The Ramayana? Even though they express very different values? Or, if you want to get Jungian, because they express archetypes that aren't so very different after all.
To the original point, though, yes, it's not just modern writers who cannot conceive of characters (especially heroes) with values different from their own. The Victorians were definitely guilty of this. Probably Homer was guilty of this. But here and there we do so some writers who stand out for trying.
One of the other commenters here recommended the book Middlegame some years back, and I bought it and read it. I was disappointed and edified in roughly equal measure; the concept and writing and worldbuilding seemed quite excellent, but the villain was a naked ideological caricature to a degree that it deflated much of the climax for me, to a degree that the experience was itself likely worth the price of admission. The author was writing a wild fantasy, but they very clearly wanted core elements of both the heroes and the villains to be intimately familiar to both themselves and their audience, and so they wrote what I presume to be their ideological worldview straight in. Not sharing that worldview, the dissonance was sufficient to shake the whole narrative apart for me. Then again, maybe it's no worse than confirmed atheists experience reading Narnia.
I may be deceived, but my assessment is "pretty close". See various discussions of the Cardinal virtues versus the theological virtues; we Christians hold the latter to take precedence, but prize the former as close runners-up, indispensable, intertwined and of extreme importance. With regards to the Iliad, if you haven't seen it and don't mind video, this this seems a good summary of the consonance. for those who prefer text, the real kicker:
...And from the other side, I am a Christian, but recognize the glory in war and so on which he argues is the other half of the Iliad.
I've had a bunch of really good conversations revolving around this question and my own thoughts on it; I'll refrain from the usual link spam but this dialog seems on point, at least to elaborate my own perception. Suffice to say, I believe my thinking and values is in fact much more similar to that of a Bronze Age perspective (and a classical perspective, medieval perspective, and so on) than it is to what I understand to be central examples of Blue Tribe thinking and values. One of the reasons I think that is the contrast between my own belief that the wisdom of previous millennia has more-or-less undiminished relevance today, compared to the belief which seems normative among Blues that human thought has progressed, such that the things we know now have made the wisdom of previous millennia trivially obsolete. Likewise, their attitude toward perceived historical enemies, and their judgement against historical populations and their sins and crimes. I may be wrong about this, but I've put a fair amount of thought into it and really don't think so.
I haven't had the pleasure of the last two, but I'm saying I do enjoy them because I don't believe their values are very different. I reference Macaulay, who published his verse in 1842, near two centuries ago and an ocean away, written about a man two thousand years ago and an additional continent away; It seems to me that Macaulay wrote the verses because he perceived values-consonance with Horatius, and I quote him because I perceive values-consonance with both Macaulay and Horatius. Maybe this perceived values-coherence is an illusion, or maybe not. For what it's worth, I've dabbled in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and as far as I've gotten the values there seem much more foreign; there's plenty of what I might call "common humanity" still visible, but there seems to be a strong emphasis on a flavor of might-makes-right pragmatism that I don't recognize in western material till, say, Machiavelli. Those parts feel much more modern than the rest.
But this is what I mean by "having our cake and eating it too"; in general people love novelty, but are comforted by the idea that while the details can vary wildly, there's a core nature that remains the same. It seems obvious to me that when Blues write feminism into a post-apocalyptic fantasy, they're aiming for basically the same thing.
More options
Context Copy link
I have more general thoughts on your post that I may flesh out later. Responding to this specifically, I think the dirty secret of 2016-2023 is that most woke callouts and twitter mobs were directionally accurate. People are actually pretty good at making friend/enemy distinctions and picking up on hidden feelings. Obviously the actual content of many of the accusations were bollocks but I strongly suspect that most people who ended up having trouble with the woke (including me) were genuinely reluctant or fake converters to the cause and thus, by woke standards, enemies.
The same is true for authors' values. Seen from a purely political, non-artistic perspective, putting badthink in your books is transmitting it to your readers. Rooting for the Empire is a common issue. To quote Blake re: Milton's Paradise Lost: "[Milton] was of the Devil's party, and never knew it". Even putting this aside, you run into the problem that in a hostile society lots of authors do deliberately assign their real views to a villain, to give their grievances and fantasies an airing with plausible deniability. In pre-liberal times, it was common (I am told) to write long volumes of risque smut before the heroine abruptly realises her mistake and spends the final chapter as a fallen, repentant woman.
One might believe that the artistic merit / enjoyment engendered by a book massively outweighs its potential for spreading badthink with plausible deniability, or one might not. But I will put forward that these positions are both preference choices rather than one being correct and the other being a fallacy.
More options
Context Copy link
I have seen the inane "you choose what to put into your story and therefore creating a story where X' controversial thing happens which is kinda like X controversial thing that happens in reality makes you literally Hitler" criticism more than enough for my lifetime.
E.g. "putting generically evil goblins/orcs/demons into your story mirrors xenophobia". Although I suppose this is less about having values different from theirs and more about assuming Xenophobia to be a Sin, rather than a reaction that's bad when it's based on the wrong assumptions and good when it's based on the correct assumptions.
More options
Context Copy link
Yeah, David Chapman writes a lot about how value has collapsed all into one set of 'good' versus 'bad' where it used to be a lot more distinctive. https://meaningness.com/systems-crisis-breakdown
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
You would probably hate all of my worldbuilding then. I'm currently working on a science fiction story involving two city-states with distinct value systems, which are mutually opposed to each other without one being painted as clearly right or wrong. The philosophical basis on which they ground their outlooks are comprehensible while also being clearly self-serving, and both outlooks would probably be abhorrent and hellish to most modern readers while still serving a pro-social function within the Hobbesian tragedy-of-the-commons that characterises the world they live in. Part of the point is to break apart any conception of “The Good” as much as possible.
I love this kind of shit in storytelling. While I have accepted that shared morality is probably necessary for social cohesion and these values get expressed and reinforced through outlets like fiction, I love it when writers attempt to paint a world entirely in shades of grey while never telling the reader what to think, and find morality tales dubious at best and anger-inducing at worst; they try to simplify complex moral questions down into simple thought-terminating cliches and easy copouts.
Time was, we just called that "good writing". But it's depressingly uncommon these days. :(
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm probably in the tail-end of the openness-trait, but I value authenticity and aesthetics, and these categories are so loose/vague that I tolerate a lot of diversity of thought. I want more stories which are different and unique in the sense that Made In Abyss is. I feel like art is a kind of escapism, and that making statements about current real-world events undermines this escape
More options
Context Copy link
Challenge accepted. ("No one could ever want X". Well then, it is the philosopher's duty to want X. No generalization can be allowed to stand without an exception.)
I agree that value diversity within a given concrete mode of life is hard to consciously wish for in a direct sense (unless you're a certain unique type of individual at any rate). But certainly if we zoom out and consider a patchwork of distinct modes of life, there is no issue. I don't agree with how Islamic societies treat their women, but in an abstract sense, I'm happy that Muslims are able to continue on with their cherished values all the same. (Selfishly, it provides a further object of contemplation for me.) And fiction is an ideal medium for exploring such alternative modes of life.
More options
Context Copy link
I don’t value that personally because it’s not authentic to the period or setting. It’s like having a character in 1500s France Google something. To me it’s jarring because people living in premodern times absolutely do not see the world like modern Californians.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Most of these don't seem specific to LitRPGs?
1 is just a low verbal IQ thing, which pops up in web fiction because it is not filtered and edited the way commercial fiction is; you are reading straight from the slush pile.
2 is something you regularly see in all fiction, including mainstream blockbusters and prime time dramas; if you want something that depicts intelligent and competent characters instead of taking cheap writing shortcuts, you need to specifically filter for rational fiction or similar (e.g. hard science fiction).
3 is a blue tribe shibboleth, which you also see all the time in commercial fiction. If anything, web fiction is more likely to depict genuine respect for religion, because it is less gatekept.
4 and 5 is just projecting modern values into past settings, which, again, happens all the fucking time in commercial fiction. As Eliezer Yudkowsky put it:
More options
Context Copy link
This reminds me of a plot point in the Wheel of Time series. At one point Perrin is back at his hometown which is being attacked by monsters, and people there look to him for leadership (which he consistently refuses, because he doesn't feel like he has the right to command them). It is only when one of the other characters gives him a speech to the effect of what you said, that he realizes he needs to step up and be a leader to those people in a trying time.
More options
Context Copy link
If regular stories gave me what I wanted (fast pace, well-written, very high stakes, characters developing morally and in power) then I would eagerly read them. There's something deeply wrong about the publishing industry that these books are so few and far between.
The Rage of Dragons is the best "traditional" book I've read in a while and it was originally self-published.
More options
Context Copy link
And yet.
(in this metaphor, what's Xianxai? Gas station sushi?)
More options
Context Copy link
This sounds perfectly natural to me.
Agreed on all the political points though.
It's
an appositivea participial phrase and isn't wrong in any way. I suspect OP could have chosen a better example.Edit: The issue is with the hefting I suppose. Probably wielding would be better.
More options
Context Copy link
"Xing his Y, he Zed" is meant to describe two concurrent actions. "Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she pressed send on the email."
But hefting a weapon and swinging the same weapon are consecutive, not concurrent—in GURPS terms, a Ready action and then an Attack action.
Yes, that's why the OP was right to say that it's grammatically (or syntactically, or whatever) incorrect.
Semantically incorrect; as in your example, the grammar (including syntax) is fine.
But I'd say that it's semantically fine too so long as the swinging motion is also a hefting motion. Uppercut? The sentence is correct. Horizontal? Defensible, since the attacker was exerting vertical force to keep the mace moving horizontally, but the intended implication should be "wow this mace was heavy" or at least "the attacker had to transition from raising the mace to attacking with it in a single motion" rather than "the mace had to be lifted before the swing began". Overhead bash? Incorrect, since the lifting motion for that ends before the aimed ("at her") part of the swing begins.
But regardless, if this is the worst prose that @TitaniumButterfly sees in his web fiction, I want to know what he's reading! I've enjoyed several web serials, but it's usually been much clearer that any editorial feedback did not come from professionals with English degrees, and you either make peace with that or you don't.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
But who even tosses their hair over their shoulder and hits Send at the exact same time? Most people don't have the coordination for that. You ever tried to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time? It's that sort of thing.
She's obviously going to toss her hair first, and then hit Send a moment later.
I'm doing it right now, and I am killing it. Skill issue. /s
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think the complaint is that he actually hefted his mace before swinging (not while swinging, which is impossible), so it should be "He hefted his mace and swung at her".
Yeah but that just sounds worse to me. No accounting for taste I suppose.
Well, it would be more like
but I don't think that sounds any better
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I would say that the heft is part of the swing. You lift and make a motion towards your target, but I would not say that the swing starts only once the weapon is at the correct height.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link