FormCritic wrote:Green Ronin Publishing actually made an RPG setting about this sort of literature.It is called Blue Rose, and it sets D&D in the world of the modern fantasy novel where liberal politics are the key campaign issues and evil is defined as being insensitive to minorities, disrespectful to women and harmful to the environment. Depending on your political bent you can regard the Blue Rose setting as either a new high in gaming or a wonderful satire on modern fantasy writers.There are, however, some equally cloying examples from conservative politics. Robert Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land mostly to comment on modern culture and religion. He wrote Starship Troopers as a commentary on the anti-war movement of the Vietnam Era. Starship Troopers actually includes multiple scenes where characters spew hippy rhetoric and other characters demonstrate how stupid their Leftist arguments are.Dune is a thinly veiled metaphor about oil and Islam.Aslan has a few speeches in the Narnia stories, but he gets a pass because lions are cool and the books never pretended to be anything but metaphor.I prefer my metaphor more honest. I like Wagner's Cold Light, which is about how extreme devotion to law and good can become more evil than the evil it fights. In Wagner's stories, real evil is far older than mankind, and human attempts at evil are kind of pathetic against the real horrors hiding around their world. I like Moorcock's Elric stories, where Elric is just slightly less disgusting than the asshats he kills. But, I suspect that the anti-hero appeals more to my generation than it does to the younger generation of readers....judging by the crap they buy and read. (How Mercedes Lackey ever published a second book is a mystery to me. It was probably the same publisher who read one Wheel of Time novel and still wanted to read another one.)
jonjhargreaves wrote:Have loved the KEW Kane stuff, thanks to this thread.http://www.amazon.com/Where-Summer-Ends ... 1933618973Saw this, any thoughts on his Horror stories from those in the know?Thanks,Jon
JasonZavoda wrote:FormCritic wrote:There are, however, some equally cloying examples from conservative politics. Robert Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land mostly to comment on modern culture and religion. He wrote Starship Troopers as a commentary on the anti-war movement of the Vietnam Era. Starship Troopers actually includes multiple scenes where characters spew hippy rhetoric and other characters demonstrate how stupid their Leftist arguments are.Dune is a thinly veiled metaphor about oil and Islam.Aslan has a few speeches in the Narnia stories, but he gets a pass because lions are cool and the books never pretended to be anything but metaphor.You're just mean. :cry:
FormCritic wrote:There are, however, some equally cloying examples from conservative politics. Robert Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land mostly to comment on modern culture and religion. He wrote Starship Troopers as a commentary on the anti-war movement of the Vietnam Era. Starship Troopers actually includes multiple scenes where characters spew hippy rhetoric and other characters demonstrate how stupid their Leftist arguments are.Dune is a thinly veiled metaphor about oil and Islam.Aslan has a few speeches in the Narnia stories, but he gets a pass because lions are cool and the books never pretended to be anything but metaphor.
FormCritic wrote:I just re-read this post.I have a problem with a $45 compilation book from an author who did not really write all that much...and the $45 book has "Volume 1" in its title. PDT_Armataz_01_02 But, wow! We're getting such a good deal at $27.95! :roll:
FormCritic wrote:I guess I differ on how they look on the shelf. I prefer them [ex-library books] because I think they look good.
FormCritic wrote:He wrote Starship Troopers as a commentary on the anti-war movement of the Vietnam Era. Starship Troopers actually includes multiple scenes where characters spew hippy rhetoric and other characters demonstrate how stupid their Leftist arguments are.
MetamorphosisSigma wrote:Can't win with military SF, which is why I don't read it anymore.
Kingofpain89 wrote:MetamorphosisSigma wrote:Can't win with military SF, which is why I don't read it anymore.Even though they are far from literary masterpieces, I really enjoyed The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell and a few of John Scalzi's books. Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades were quick and enjoyable to read. Lots of stuff exploding, some decent bloody fighting, and some off-the-wall tech makes all the difference. Who needs deep characterization and feelings when you have nukes and particle beams wiping out entire cities? :twisted:
MetamorphosisSigma wrote:I find it a little ironic that on a site frequented by people who would spend hundreds on several loose leaf pages in a ziploc bag, or 1500% of retail for an adventure module signed in a different color ink by the author, high end small press books seem overpriced .
Nogrod wrote:FormCritic wrote:He wrote Starship Troopers as a commentary on the anti-war movement of the Vietnam Era. Starship Troopers actually includes multiple scenes where characters spew hippy rhetoric and other characters demonstrate how stupid their Leftist arguments are.Not to be nitpicky, buy I am pretty sure Starship Troopers was written in the late 50's and predates Hippies and the Anti-war movement. It doesn't invalidate your point though. He does skewer hippy-esque thinking and was obviously very pro-military.Zach
MetamorphosisSigma wrote:Yeah, but dead on this time, for the most part . Aslan doesn't get a pass from me, though. Even when I was 11 and reading these, I got to the part where he surrenders himself as a sacrifice to save Edmund, and face met palm. I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before that point, and it only goes downhill from there. Lewis was a hamfisted hack, IMO. And except for Dune. There's a whole lot more going on there than commentary on Islam and oil. The book may be allegorical on some level, but it's more complex than that, and there's certainly no one-to-one correspondence between people/organizations/events in the book(s) and real life. Those Fremen (free men) dudes are American-style revolutionaries of some sort, for starters...
The Fremen are great fighters and survivors, but they are wrong about just about everything else. They live on a backward world with a religion about godlike worms and a nasty, fabricated messiah tradition. They explode into jihad and inter-planetary massacre that their supposed messiah doesn't want but is powerless to stop. They upset a feudal, dynastic system that has not accounted for their existence, but they bring no freedom, no peace and no real solutions except the freedom to be considered an infidel if you do not fit their childish misconceptions about the universe.
MetamorphosisSigma wrote:.[sarcasm]Naw, that description doesn't sound like Americans and America at aaaalll.[/sarcasm] Seriously, if you read that three times fast, it sounds a little familiar, doesn't it?
FormCritic wrote:Two novels I read this week on my Nook:Use of Weapons by Iain Banks and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. The two books seem to have been written from a very similar model...although with quite different results.I can see why Slaughterhouse Five is a classic. Vonnegut manages to write an entire book with no plot, no point, no actual storyline and very little to actually say (except that all of us are weak and foolish and the concept of a hero is an illusion)...and still be brilliant. He even inserts himself into the story freely, occasionally crossing paths with his main character, without seeming hopelessly arrogant. Slaughterhouse Five is an accomplishment.
FormCritic wrote:MetamorphosisSigma wrote:.[sarcasm]Naw, that description doesn't sound like Americans and America at aaaalll.[/sarcasm] Seriously, if you read that three times fast, it sounds a little familiar, doesn't it?No, it doesn't sound like the issues of the American Revolution at all.
FormCritic wrote:I can see why Slaughterhouse Five is a classic. Vonnegut manages to write an entire book with no plot, no point, no actual storyline and very little to actually say (except that all of us are weak and foolish and the concept of a hero is an illusion)...and still be brilliant. He even inserts himself into the story freely, occasionally crossing paths with his main character, without seeming hopelessly arrogant. Slaughterhouse Five is an accomplishment.
