Escape Artists
Escape Pod => Science Fiction Discussion => Topic started by: SonofSpermcube on November 15, 2013, 01:46:30 AM
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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
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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
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Anything with anthropomorphized appliances
One step down from domestic robots. I'll make an exception for Talkie Toaster.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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I have yet to find a China Mieville story I like.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. .
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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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.)
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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".
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Lewis specifically wrote them as allegories, though, and intended them to have moral teachings. Someone like Mieville, whose politics certainly infuse his own writing (and who is no less open about it on a personal level), but who doesn't cloak them in metaphor or expect the untutored to be drawn in by them won't have the same reaction from readers. You don't get surprised afterward by Mieville; if you read his books, you are immediately aware of his position in re: Marxism, anarchism, etc., and if you weren't already in favor of anarcho-communistic political arrangements, you're unlikely to be convinced by the books themselves.
So it's not that people are putting down the books because of Lewis' worldview; he *explicitly* wrote them to be Christian allegories and intended them as such. Compare that to an author who happens to be Christian and whose worldview strongly influences his writing. Let's go with Tolkien, since he and Lewis are often lumped together anyway as contemporaries. The War of the Rings is unquestionably written from the point of view of a Christian, and themes of sacrifice and redemption and etc. are positively everywhere in them. There's even a blatant Christophany in Gandalf's fall and triumphant return. But Tolkien doesn't get nearly as much blowback because he wasn't setting out to write a Christian allegory; those are just symbols and themes that were potent to him. You can see the influences if you read the books with foreknowledge of the author's predilections, but you can't cross out "Gandalf" and write in "Jesus" and have his lines make a lick of sense.
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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".
It is always disappointing when readers engage and criticize the author and not the work. Tearing down the author merely serves as a mechanism to try to spoil the enjoyment of the work by others.
On a more important note, Kibitzer, is your aversion to Oz due to Baum's works or the spate of responses (e.g. Wicked) and mashups to said works?
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For my part, I love Narnia - and I still think some of the books are great fantasy tales. (There are also parts of The Last Battle that I think are fascinating, while other parts are problematic.)
That they are allegorical never bothered me - but I guess that might be because I was the choir? I do understand it bothers a significant number of readers.
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Cory Doctorow
I'm curious about this one. I've only read a little bit of Cory Doctorow (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and Eastern Standard Tribe) but I kinda liked what I read. The main characters seem a little over the top "cool", but really no different from other similar characters (e.g., Hiro Protagonist)
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I have a terrible time reading reading:
1. Space Opera
2. Alternate History (if it bored me the first time …)
3. Comedic Science Fiction (the only exception might be Douglas Adams)
I guess I like my science fiction to be flat and affectless, about the science and curiosity. I was tempted to add another sub genre like "thriller" science fiction simply because I hate it when an otherwise interesting book gets marred by some ham-fisted, lame conspiracy or tension. I've abandoned books by Ben Bova, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Gentry Lee simply because the "thriller" elements that have been added are so contrived I just can bear to slog my way through them.
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Cory Doctorow
I'm curious about this one. I've only read a little bit of Cory Doctorow (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and Eastern Standard Tribe) but I kinda liked what I read. The main characters seem a little over the top "cool", but really no different from other similar characters (e.g., Hiro Protagonist)
I think the thing that bothers me most about Doctorow (I know I'm not SonofSpermcube but I have issues with him too) besides his overly-cool MCs is that his endings aren't, for lack of a better term, "good". Which is to say, the stories come to an end because that's where they end, but they never leave me feeling like the story is over. And not in a good way.
It's similar to how I felt at the end of The Scar by China Mieville. Spoiler -- use rot13.com to descramble:
Ng gur raq, Neznqn qbrfa'g npghnyyl tb gb gur Fpne. Gurl whfg yvfgra gb Urqevtnyy gryy gur fgbel bs jung ur fnj, naq gura gurl ghea onpx, naq nyy guvf jnf sbe anhtug. Gur Ybiref qba'g svther bhg jung gurl jnagrq gb svther bhg, Qbhy qbrfa'g trg pybfher, naq Oryyvf jnf hygvzngryl xvqanccrq sbe abguvat.
Though I love The Scar, the ending drove me CRAZY. I don't need a happy or sad ending; I just need closure.
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On a more important note, Kibitzer, is your aversion to Oz due to Baum's works or the spate of responses (e.g. Wicked) and mashups to said works?
That is a really good question. I'll give you some possible reasons but I don't know if they're the whole answer :)
I guess to me, they're a special case of the fairy tale thing. I have a bit of a problem with people using other people's worlds -- it feels a bit like fan fic. Now again, that's not to say it can't be done well and both Pseudopod and PodCastle have published good examples of how it CAN work.
(hat tip to Scattercat)
Another reason is, I never saw The Wizard of Oz until last year. Yes, I mean the 1939 film, not Wicked nor the Sam Raimi film. It's not as deeply embedded in my psyche as everyone who saw the film growing up. When I saw it last year, I wasn't charmed, I was weirded out. Seemed like a bad trip to me. It's funny because you can't avoid blowbacks and references to Oz in everything from The Simpsons to the Bill Willingham "Fables" series but still, it just never meant that much to me.
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FWIW, the "bad trip" aspect is part of what I like about Oz. It's a very vivid and surreal place.
Even I never bonded with the original Wizard of Oz book. As I mentioned in the Tiktok thread at Podcastle, my first love was Rinkitink, which isn't nearly as trippy. (Still quite odd, mind you.)
@Listener
I don't think you'll like much of anything by Mieville, then; the man is nearly allergic to closure. Even when he wraps things up at the end, he tends to subvert it somehow. (Most elegantly, perhaps, in "Kraken," where pnabavpnyyl, gur erfbyhgvba bs gur cybg vf gung gur ragver obbx arire npghnyyl unccrarq va yvarne ernyvgl. [ROT13 for spoilers.])
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On a more important note, Kibitzer, is your aversion to Oz due to Baum's works or the spate of responses (e.g. Wicked) and mashups to said works?
That is a really good question. I'll give you some possible reasons but I don't know if they're the whole answer :)
I guess to me, they're a special case of the fairy tale thing. I have a bit of a problem with people using other people's worlds -- it feels a bit like fan fic. Now again, that's not to say it can't be done well and both Pseudopod and PodCastle have published good examples of how it CAN work.
(hat tip to Scattercat)
Another reason is, I never saw The Wizard of Oz until last year. Yes, I mean the 1939 film, not Wicked nor the Sam Raimi film. It's not as deeply embedded in my psyche as everyone who saw the film growing up. When I saw it last year, I wasn't charmed, I was weirded out. Seemed like a bad trip to me. It's funnt because you can't avoid blowbacks and references to Oz in everything from The Simpsons to the Bill Willingham "Fables" series but still, it just never meant that much to me.
Have you read any of the books?
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Hah! I just listened to the episode of Toasted Cake you guest hosted. It's quite relevant to the discussion here.
http://toastedcake.com/2014/01/toasted-cake-97-making-friends-by-gary-cuba-read-by-graeme-dunlop.html
Also, nice job with the meta-commentary subverting the format of the podcast surrounding the story about subverting the format of the faerie story.
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Are there certain topics, styles, or subgenres you just can't stand?
I seem to be alone in this thread in saying... none ;-)
I can't think of any sub-genre that I universally dislike.
Sure - I'm less likely to look at some. All of the rapture-fic I've started has been left unfinished. But because it's been terribly written - not because of the topic area. I'm an atheist and still love Narnia!
I like the books I like. I stop reading the ones I don't. Those categories don't really seem to align well with (sub)genre groupings.
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I still have a soft spot in my heart for Narnia, but I was aware of their allegorical underpinnings from the time I first read them (having been raised in an evangelical Christian family, it was considered a feature of course). Even though I've shifted away from many of the assumptions embedded in the Narnia books, the nostalgia seems enough to sustain my enjoyment these days (and hey, they are well-written children's lit). I can appreciate what a big turnoff it would be to discover the allegory afterwards. That strikes me as creepy, like realizing someone only befriended you in order to proselytize to you.
My story turnoffs are:
- Anything overly sentimental, in a sickly-sweet sort of way, unless it's really well executed. I don't mind being emotionally manipulated, but the moment I see the strings, I get annoyed. (Example: pretty much everything Mike Resnick has ever written. Ken Liu occasionally falls on the wrong side of the line for me, but I usually tend to enjoy Ken's sentimental stuff because his execution is so good that it doesn't feel cheap.)
- Faithful Pet (esp dog and/or cat) stories, particularly when the pet dies at the end, a la Old Yeller. Okay, it's basically a sub-sub-genre of "sentimental", but this one really annoys me because it's usually SO blatantly cheap and manipulative. (Example: I'm thinking of a couple Resnick stories again...)
- Male power fantasies. This would be anything that reminds me vaguely of a video game plot, where the point seems to be setting up obstacles just so we can admire what a badass Mr. Manly Muscle Man is as he punches, shoots, and karate-chops through anything that stands in his way. (Example: Conan stories, and some golden-age SF)
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Have you read any of the books?
Nope. NEXT!
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@Listener
I don't think you'll like much of anything by Mieville, then; the man is nearly allergic to closure. Even when he wraps things up at the end, he tends to subvert it somehow. (Most elegantly, perhaps, in "Kraken," where pnabavpnyyl, gur erfbyhgvba bs gur cybg vf gung gur ragver obbx arire npghnyyl unccrarq va yvarne ernyvgl. [ROT13 for spoilers.])
Interestingly, I actually like Mieville a lot because his books aren't easy to read and his worldbuilding is brilliant. That said, I still haven't figured out WTF happened at the end of Embassytown.
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@Listener
I don't think you'll like much of anything by Mieville, then; the man is nearly allergic to closure. Even when he wraps things up at the end, he tends to subvert it somehow. (Most elegantly, perhaps, in "Kraken," where pnabavpnyyl, gur erfbyhgvba bs gur cybg vf gung gur ragver obbx arire npghnyyl unccrarq va yvarne ernyvgl. [ROT13 for spoilers.])
Interestingly, I actually like Mieville a lot because his books aren't easy to read and his worldbuilding is brilliant. That said, I still haven't figured out WTF happened at the end of Embassytown.
Haven't made it through anything, don't care for Mieville at all.
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I have two that I'm getting pretty tired of lately:
1. stories where the main conflict is how terrifying it is to talk to girls/that one girl.
2. stories that are ostensibly science fiction, but the happy ending is that the person stops doing quite so much of that awful science and spends more time with romance or their family.
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I have two that I'm getting pretty tired of lately:
1. stories where the main conflict is how terrifying it is to talk to girls/that one girl.
2. stories that are ostensibly science fiction, but the happy ending is that the person stops doing quite so much of that awful science and spends more time with romance or their family.
What's an example of each?