Been a while since I've read this much (even though it's still not alot) What I've read so far: A Maze of Death (Philip K. Dick): lacks in execution, has an ending we collectively loathe now because we've grown out it as a species. Does have interesting ideas with characters and world building (but that's what he's good at I've heard). You kind of wonder what else is there.
City Of Illusions (Ursula Le Guin): Some good prose in there, but mostly story telling, which is strong, as I was continuously triggered to find out what came next. Sketches a great world of fallen civilization. Protagonist is great, especially later on.
The Marathon Photograph and Other Stories (Cliffard D. Simak): Very nuanced sci fi. What a gentle way of approaching this genre. Shares great insights in his writing and while it's not going to wow you with events, it might definitely blow your socks off because of it holding back where others would blow it out of the water.
1984 (George Orwell): What a fucking genius. Little over half it kind of started to drag a bit, but the last quarter was an amazing display of helplessness and desperation. The concepts thought of are timeless and are now more relevant than ever.
Animal Farm (George Orwell): Cute fairy tale about the dangers of communism.
Currently reading: Thinking, fast and slow (Daniel Kahneman): opening my eyes very rapidly about what being human entails (or at least, the lessons I'm learning of how biased everyone actually is and how difficult it is to decouple yourself from that). I'm really enjoying his anecdotes.
The "waking up from a dream", or "it was all in the imagination" or "it was all told by a story teller" bit is something that might've been interesting and innovative at the time (and I don't have any gripes with it personally), but I don't see any modern writer doing it because it gives you an easy way out. I did, however, really like the dread he finishes with. I guess that's the "true" ending, but the main story can just be seen as filler and doesn't have much weight to it like this. Maybe there were some interesting dynamics I missed during the main part, that would be intriguing to find out about in a re-read, but I don't know, it kind of cheapened the entire experience for me.
Yeah thats pretty shallow and overused trope, when You are teenager You think its super deep and eyeopening but when You get older You realize its just lazy. If i recall correctly Dick also used it in "Eye in the Sky" and other works. A testament to the era perhaps? You know lsd, hippies, transcanding mundane reality. That kind of vibe.
On May 23 2019 17:06 Silvanel wrote: Yeah thats pretty shallow and overused trope, when You are teenager You think its super deep and eyeopening but when You get older You realize its just lazy. If i recall correctly Dick also used it in "Eye in the Sky" and other works. A testament to the era perhaps? You know lsd, hippies, transcanding mundane reality. That kind of vibe.
EH.
Literally everything is a trope. It just depends on how it was setup and executed. Hell even readers mood/preference factors on how much one story will be enjoyed no matter how "well-done" it seems. It wouldn't matter if the reader wasn't up to that form of work at that moment.
Everything is a trope and everything is overused to some degree. Unless you are implying nothing can ever be enjoyed
There's no one true way of enjoying storytelling lol
Well, my impression of Philip K. Dick has always been that he has great *ideas* for stories, but is not very good at working them out into actually great stories. Very many of his stories have served as inspiration for movies which have turned out far better than the novel (or usually, short story) that he originally wrote.
Sure, but I'm also saying we've grown out of it culturally. At one point it was all innovative and then the next best thing came along which we focused on. It's in our repertoire and I'm sure at one point it can be used again to great effect, but it'll have to be perfect, because if it's not, it'll just be groaned at.
I don't think the issue with 'it was all a dream' is that it has been done many times before. I think it's largely a cheap ending. The way it can work is if there are hints along the way that things are not as they seem (sort of a Truman show that doesn't reveal towards the end, but there are all those oddities that keep crashing into the real).
But there is a sort of feeling of meaningless that comes from 'it was all a dream'. You are invested in a story and a world, and in the end none of it happened. It's basically a broken promise the reader- a story's beginning promises to the reader that it's going to be a certain sort of story- comedy, horror, grimdark, high fantasy, etc. If you pull the rug out at the very end 'nope. It wasn't that sort of story' and there were no buried clues that can be seen in retrospect, it's just a straight up cheat. All that stuff I wrote before? None of it matters. You could make a switch part way through- a sort of Matrix I reveal. But you gotta drops clues right away that something is up and Matrix I is really good at that.
Without the clues, and just pulling the rug out at the end, it's surprising all right. But it isn't clever. It's just a box of nothing. Which is just really disappointing.
In larp design this kind of trope or solution is called "false floor" and its consider an example of bad design. If You give players/readers/movie goers some false reality - You invest them emotionally in it and then at the end drop the bomb "its dream, alternate reality, matrix or whatever" without actually giving player/reader means to pierce the veil and get to the true meaning before it its just gotta make them angry and frustrated. Its lazy design.
Matrix isnt a false floor because the veil is pierced pretty early and the entire story is build about it. If during the entire movie we would follow Neo's life in Matrix and he would be given a a pill only at the end it would be shitty movie. A great pilot for TV series, great opening for the story but if it would end just there it would be bad.
" the road to hell is paved with `good intentions` "
There is too much adult interference in children's lives. This "zero tolerance for bullying" becomes a weapon to bully others. You can bully people with the threat of the bully label. Its better to let kids settle stuff amongst themselves. I watch the whining and complaining that goes on amongst adults under 25 and I wonder to myself "did this person ever lose a physical fist fight in their lives?". Generally speaking, adults under 25 do not know how to deal with the word "no".
One of my biggest customers is a very large nursing organization. The Canadian born and raised nurses under 25 are pretty close to useless; as a group they have a reputation for being very mentally weak.
On May 23 2019 19:45 goody153 wrote: Everything is a trope and everything is overused to some degree.
I disagree. While it might be true in regards to plots we can still find some truly orginal works in world construction for example.
The next thing you read as "JAW DROPPING" is basically mediocre to somebody who is ahead on the reading curve of the same genre/theme/tropes/etc.
It all depends on the reader. Mood, readers experience ,reading preference, genre preference and etc etc
You may think of yourself as an elite but i doubt that people have inflated egos lol
Everything is a trope. The most recent thing you read as amazing somebody on another part of the world at some time already found it boring as hell.
I bet one of the things you found amazing with is probably garbage to me or just plain unimpressive.
Enjoyment of fiction isn't absolute like how laws of science/math works.
You are usuing too much strong quantifiers for my teste and on top of that most of what You wrote isnt even on topic. Sure i agree that that perception of work quality is relative. But thats not what i am claimed. I wrote that there are original works created at least in terms of world building and i stand by it.
About a third of the way through this but I don't think I'll finish it. Feel no attachment or interest for any character, and it feels gross the way this author is writing female characters in first person. Other authors have done that well (Bleak House comes to mind) but something feels off here. Not surprised to read that the author was accused of sexually abusing his children and committed suicide.
This was really long but good read. It's amazing how bad the racism was back then. Even many on the Union side considered blacks to be an inferior race that should be kept separate. Also interesting how many people were against Lincoln in his lifetime and his struggles and imperfections. Things really get whitewashed away so that you only get a caricature things so it's really educational to read a good history like this.
Also I can understand better why people still defend the Confederacy even though it is so reviled. I think it doesn't matter how morally wrong your side is, you'll defend it when you're being slaughtered, invaded and pillaged by an outside force. The scale of devastation the South suffered from the war is hard to imagine. Actually the suffering on both sides is pretty hard to imagine, and I'm thankful not to have experienced anything like that. In these times when people keep saying "the country is more divided than it has ever been", I think it would be good to recall the horror of the Civil War.
EPT
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