Author Topic: What subgenres/types of story immediately make you say "Nope. NEXT!"  (Read 15164 times)

SonofSpermcube

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Are there certain topics, styles, or subgenres you just can't stand? 

I have given up on the following:
Domestic robot stories
Anything in 2nd person; I've only listened to (don't think I've ever READ 2nd person) ONE story in 2nd person that I even liked a little
Cory Doctorow



jrderego

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Are there certain topics, styles, or subgenres you just can't stand? 

I have given up on the following:
Domestic robot stories
Anything in 2nd person; I've only listened to (don't think I've ever READ 2nd person) ONE story in 2nd person that I even liked a little
Cory Doctorow

Anything with anthropomorphized appliances
Anything with dragons of any shape, size, color, or temperament
Anything geared to an age group
Anything that blends fantasy mechanics with anything else, i.e. he's a warlock and a banker in Manhattan, she's a goddess and a wedding planner to high income couples in Silicon Valley...
Anything that mixes "western" imagery with space opera

"Happiness consists of getting enough sleep." Robert A. Heinlein
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SonofSpermcube

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Anything with anthropomorphized appliances

One step down from domestic robots.  I'll make an exception for Talkie Toaster.

Quote
Anything with dragons of any shape, size, color, or temperament

It's hard, once you've seen it, to not picture said dragons fucking exhaust pipes.

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Anything geared to an age group

In the George Lucas/General Hollywood "it's for kids therefore it's okay if it's goddamn stupid, but while we're at it let's throw in some pop culture references" sense, hell yes.

Quote
Anything that blends fantasy mechanics with anything else, i.e. he's a warlock and a banker in Manhattan, she's a goddess and a wedding planner to high income couples in Silicon Valley...

As you state it, yes...when it's "non-fantasy character archetype + fantasy elements" then I agree.  But when it blends fantasy mechanics with real world mechanics in a nuts-and-bolts kind of way...I recently listened to "Your Corporate Network and the Forces of Darkness," and that was pretty funny.

Quote
Anything that mixes "western" imagery with space opera

"I liked Firefly better when it was called Cowboy Bebop." 

See also: that western holodeck episode of Star Trek TNG.



bounceswoosh

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Reply #3 on: November 15, 2013, 06:09:40 PM
I have trouble making it through alternate history stories. Although I liked the one about Castro. Ah, maybe it's just that most alt history is really just mil fic.



Fenrix

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What have I noped out of recently?

I think I struggle with werewolf stories.

Also I've run into too many Peter Straub stories in the second person where I feel he's a creepy(-ier) Peter Pan holding my hand telling me the story as we fly over the landscape. I'm pretty sure I hate that guy. And his sweaty, clammy hands.

All cat stories start with this statement: “My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...”


lowky

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I have yet to find a China Mieville story I like. 


SonofSpermcube

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Also I've run into too many Peter Straub stories in the second person where I feel he's a creepy(-ier) Peter Pan holding my hand telling me the story as we fly over the landscape. I'm pretty sure I hate that guy. And his sweaty, clammy hands.

Second person works...in text adventures.  Because it gives you a choice.  

I have trouble making it through alternate history stories. Although I liked the one about Castro. Ah, maybe it's just that most alt history is really just mil fic.

Don't forget libertarian wankfests.

I like good alternate (edit: and/or altered) history.  "The Eckener Alternative" was excellent.  Some of Harry Turtledove's early works break that mold, too:  "A Different Flesh" and "Between the Rivers" are emphatically NOT mil fic.  And when he does WWII, he doesn't just say OMG WHAT IF HITLER WON.  
« Last Edit: November 16, 2013, 04:08:42 PM by SonofSpermcube »



Mouseneb

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Zombies
Vampires
Romance
Humor

Romantic comedy zombie or vampire... ugh no no no!

Except for Love Bites, that was actually pretty good.

Every day is an adventure.


lowky

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Zombies
Vampires
Romance
Humor

Romantic comedy zombie or vampire... ugh no no no!

Except for Love Bites, that was actually pretty good.
What about werewolf mummy romantic comediy?

actually have you ever read blood sucking fiends and its sequels you suck and bite me by Christopher Moore?  I think blood sucking fiends is the best of the three.  Some of the characters show up in A Dirty Job as well.  Actually I would recommend any thing by Christopher Moore.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2013, 02:32:22 PM by lowky »



bounceswoosh

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Zombies
Vampires
Romance
Humor

Romantic comedy zombie or vampire... ugh no no no!

Except for Love Bites, that was actually pretty good.

I enjoyed Eat Slay Love, and then went back and read the prior two books.  But I do still like some renditions of zombies.



ungelic_is_us

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Anything by Scott Sigler. *shudders*

The whole classic literature + horror trope thing. Actually, I would really enjoy that--if the people adapting the works understood the book they're adapting and are skilled enough to seamlessly adopt the author's original style. I tried really hard to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and was completely thrown out of the book by the clumsily inserted zombie passages that sound nothing like the surrounding text. Most of the time, it seems like the writers doing the adapting understand neither the book nor the period in which they're writing.

Series that get continued by other authors--I'm looking at you, Brian Herbert. Same problem as above--if you can't capture the voice of the original author, I'm not interested.

"Non fiction" New age/Christian/self-help books. Nope, nope, nope.




Scatcatpdx

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First of all
"I liked Firefly better when it was called Cowboy Bebop."
Amen and Amen. I never cared much for Firefliy

Anything over  PG-13 or  R to X (forget NC 17) Including Homoerotic fiction.

Bad Christian end times fiction. It made me an amillennialist.

Fantasy I can get into  urban fantasy but so I the story sounds like D&D castles and medieval like settings I am out of here.  

I may still read depending on the story but my stop over worn cliches of  evil corporations and  religious right theocracy or Christian bashing. .

« Last Edit: February 25, 2014, 08:43:21 PM by Scatcatpdx »



Moritz

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- derivative work.
I might as well read the original or something else altogether.
- satire based on specific work, e.g. spoofs of Tolkien or whatever. I am picky with humour, and if the humour just stems from ridiculing something else, I can only bear it for about 20 minutes, not a whole novel.

Other genres I will probably pass, but usually stay away from:

- fantasy based on D&D type tropes
- military SF or hard SF without aliens and/or meaningful speculations about the future
- urban fantasy that is actually paranormal romance
- the flowery prose of 1920/30s pulp story, which I will only read/ listen to if they are classics you should know in the genre

OTOH, I did read everything by Stephanie Meier (spelling?) just so I can say "I know it sucks, I actually read it"  :o



eytanz

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My two biggest story elements to avoid are zombies and superheroes. I can sometimes enjoy stories that feature these elements but I'm considerably less forgiving.

Any story which expects me to take vampires seriously. I don't mind them if they're (deliberately) silly.

Anything relentlessly grim. I'm ok with a considerable amount of darkness and horror, but I get quickly bored if there's no other emotions in the story.

Anything that assumes that it's readers will invariably be Christians. I don't mind Christian themes, I just don't like being expected to bring them with me.

Edited to finish a sentence I seem to have abandoned mid-way.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2013, 07:05:10 PM by eytanz »



SonofSpermcube

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Anything that assumes that it's readers will invariably be Christians. I don't mind Christian themes, I just don't like being expected to bring them with me.

This is the kind of sentiment that puts me off Cory Doctorow. 


...what are the stakes here?  If he doesn't keep the internet running smoothly, then the consequence is that the internet doesn't run smoothly.  It's not much of a life-changing consequence, and he said himself he doesn't really care about the money or the prestige, he said he only cares about sending that one packet, but then changed the subject before he told me what that packet meant.  Without knowing what that packet is, or at least what it represents, early in the story, there just wasn't much tension in this conflict, for me.


He doesn't get the conflict in "Shannon's Law" (EP291) because it isn't axiomatic that this is a thing that should matter.  For someone with Doctorow's resume, it would be.  You'll note in that thread that pretty much everyone who loved it was in IT.  That story was the IT geek equivalent of Twilight:  it was written for a narrowly specific audience and had little to nothing to offer anyone else. 



Moritz

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My two biggest story elements to avoid are zombies and superheroes. I can sometimes enjoy stories that feature these elements but I'm considerably less forgiving.

Any story which expects me to take vampires seriously. I don't mind them if they're sill.

Anything relentlessly grim. I'm ok with a considerable amount of darkness and horror, but I get quickly.

Anything that assumes that it's readers will invariably be Christians. I don't mind Christian themes, I just don't like being expected to bring them with me.

Oh yeah, all of these. Zombies are boring.



Windup

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Most absurdist fantasy fails for me, and horror is often a hard sell.  Though weirdly, "Welcome to Nightvale" works for me, and it combines the two.  Go figure.  Maybe it's the humor.

Zombies.  I do not get the current fascination with zombies. 

"My whole job is in the space between 'should be' and 'is.' It's a big space."


Hombarume

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I really have trouble with 'Classic' sci-fi. I will not read or listen to anything before 1980. Things we have discovered since these stories were written severely inhibit my suspension of disbelief. Stuff that has Martians or something clearly impossible like that.

Poorly executed time travel. The Grandfather paradox just kills it for me.



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Quote from: Scatcatpdx
Bad Christian end times fiction. It made me an amillennialist.

I would be fascinated to read good Christian fantasy fiction that doesn't smack the reader over the head with a sledgehammer.  Unfortunately, that's all just a one trick pony.  "Jeezus is coming, and the homonaziathiestabortionists are going to round up all of the true believers and send them to the re-education camps to turn them into homonaziathiestabortionists.  But just when you think the homonaziathiestabortionists are winning, Jeezus pops out of the sky and all the homonaziathiestabortionists go to hell instantly.  The End! 
P.S.  It's all really going to happen."

I liked the Narnia stories when I read them at 12 years old, so I'll grudgingly give C.S. Lewis a pass on this. 
Coincidentally, I listened to "Homecoming at the Borderlands Cafe" (EP 148) today, which was Christian science fiction.  My advice is don't do that. 



Listener

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I really have trouble with 'Classic' sci-fi. I will not read or listen to anything before 1980. Things we have discovered since these stories were written severely inhibit my suspension of disbelief. Stuff that has Martians or something clearly impossible like that.

I'm not QUITE that anti-classic, but I am likely to give classic stories less of a chance.


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DKT

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Quote from: Scatcatpdx
Bad Christian end times fiction. It made me an amillennialist.

I would be fascinated to read good Christian fantasy fiction that doesn't smack the reader over the head with a sledgehammer.  Unfortunately, that's all just a one trick pony.  "Jeezus is coming, and the homonaziathiestabortionists are going to round up all of the true believers and send them to the re-education camps to turn them into homonaziathiestabortionists.  But just when you think the homonaziathiestabortionists are winning, Jeezus pops out of the sky and all the homonaziathiestabortionists go to hell instantly.  The End! 
P.S.  It's all really going to happen."

I liked the Narnia stories when I read them at 12 years old, so I'll grudgingly give C.S. Lewis a pass on this. 
Coincidentally, I listened to "Homecoming at the Borderlands Cafe" (EP 148) today, which was Christian science fiction.  My advice is don't do that. 

Wait, are we talking only about End Times fiction, or Fantasy/SF by a Christian that's actually good? If it's the latter, it exists, though it's difficult to find. Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time is tops in my book.


kibitzer

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I don't understand why C S Lewis gets such a bad rap. I really don't.

Anyways, genre stuff that turns me off:
* zombies. enough already.
* Almost anything to do with Oz.
* Reworkings of classic fairy tales.

That said, in the hands of a good author these things can be very good indeed. I would have said I'm completely over epic fantasy until I started reading Martin's Game of Thrones series.


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You like Narnia but not Oz?

...we can't be friends.



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C.S. Lewis suffers from having done too good a job at concealing his allegory.  Lots of people read Narnia as young kids before they know enough about metaphor and comparative religion to catch the parallels.  (The first time I read "The Last Battle," I was just wildly confused by everyone abruptly acting bizarre and out-of-character.  Once you understand that it was aiming to adhere to the similarly bizarre modern interpretations of Biblical "prophecies," it makes a lot more sense.)  Then, later in life, people are either told or, worse, discover for themselves that this fun fantasy world was actually Christian proselytization.  Even if you're a Christian, that can be really disappointing, like being told that your smoothie was full of spinach and kale and therefore was actually good for you or that you just ate a tofurkey sandwich or something.  If you're not, you can feel downright betrayed, at which point the tendency is to turn savagely on the works themselves (and goodness knows they do have their flaws.)



kibitzer

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See, I don't follow that argument. Putting down a story as proselytising because it's based on a particular world view is misleading and unfair. Every writer brings their own world view to their stories. Admittedly some bring a stronger flavour than others but you may as well say, don't ever read an L Ron Hubbard book because he invented a religion and clearly, his books are proselytising. Or Orson Scott Card, for that matter. I know he's a controversial example because of homophobia comments and such but does that completely negate his earlier works? The Ender series? I'd expect people to be more vocal about the Alvin Maker series but I rarely hear anything about that. They're still GOOD STORIES.

I'll own up and say that I was brought up a Christian in a reasonably fundamental Protestant so my reaction to the books is quite favourable, and The Last Battle in particular because it has some incredibly interesting speculations about the afterlife. And Voyage To Venus is an incredible contemplation on original sin. But at the end of the day they're GOOD STORIES.

I get annoyed because people seem to reject Lewis out of hand merely for his beliefs. It's like, "Oh. Lewis! He was a Christian and therefore his writing is propagandist, dangerous and unworthy of your time." Obviously, I'm exaggerating for effect but Lewis cops it a lot more than other writers, with other views, who are equally "subversive".