PC043: Sweet, Savage Sorcerer

[Nobilis]

It's not parody if all you're doing is making yet one more of whatever you're parodying.

Made me laugh in a few places, but it was the kind of derisive, "Oh, I can't believe it's this bad" laughter you find at a screening of Killer Tomatoes or Plan Nine from Outer Space.

[Talia]

It had moments of levity for me, it did. I saw what she was doing. But.. it still made me want to gauge my eardrums out to stop the pain.

GAH

Upon further consideration, I suspect this story works better in print.

[eytanz]

As some people have already said, the problem with parody is that it often has to adopt all the bad features that it parodies. And sure, there's merit to spending time with a bad story in order to make fun at it - but the side effect is that you just spent 30 inutes or so listening to a bad story. Which can be great - indeed, just two nights ago I watched "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" on DVD, and loved every second of it - but for this to work as an experience, you need to come into it knowingly. In other words, if you expect good literature and get a pastiche of bad literature, you're not going to enjoy it.

Which is a roundabout way of saying - I knew what to expect, because I happen to have read this before, and I enjoyed it. But I don't think I would have had I heard the story unknowing.

[Windup]

I'd like to examine whether the people who don't like this story like Mills and Boon/bodice rippers. Do you feel it's being unkind to schlock romance? Also, is fantasy sacred, it shouldn't be mocked?

I'm not a fan of bodice rippers, have nothing against giving schlock romance a little kicking around, and fantasy is definitely not sacred.  Like lots of others, I see where the piece was trying to go, it just failed to clear the trees at the end of my runway.

[MattArnold]

Did anyone else think the title was an exclamation? Like, "Sweet Jesus!" or "Holy Crikies!"

I got the joke of the parody in the first paragraph, and chuckled. That is all the length the joke is good for. By the time the Sorcerer was on stage, I was saying "Yes. I get it. Move on." After that I needed the story to go somewhere else to continue mocking from a distance. When I skipped to the end and realized it stayed there permanently, I moved on.

Sweet Savage Sorcerer, Batman!

[ladyjai]

I'll echo displeasure. I realized it was bad enough to be a parody. So... I suffered through it. At the end, I was hoping for a payoff.


I got nothing!


Even through there are little things which tips a person off it is a parody, (primarily that Podcastle doesn't publish material this bad), there is not enough to make me laugh. Mostly wince. sometimes cry. Other times, fight the urge to hit DELETE.

then I get to the end. I'm thinking, there's got to be something, a sentence, something that we've earned by listening to this (purposely) bad writing. Make me laugh. Like our flash fiction.

yeah, I'm still disappointed.

[stePH]

Even through there are little things which tips a person off it is a parody, (primarily that Podcastle doesn't publish material this bad),

Cough *yetibehindyou* cough *deadgirlsweddingmarch* cough *blackribbon* cough *letsnotevengetintotheminiatures*

[Talia]

hmm, Yeti Behind You was quite good, actually. I dont see a comparison there :p

[stePH]

hmm, Yeti Behind You was quite good, actually. I dont see a comparison there :p

Well, I gave it, and the others mentioned, one star.  I hated them all.

Tastes differ, I guess.  Can't be helped.

[Heradel]

hmm, Yeti Behind You was quite good, actually. I dont see a comparison there :p

Well, I gave it, and the others mentioned, one star.  I hated them all.

Tastes differ, I guess.  Can't be helped.

...Except with large sticks and other pointy bits.

[Anarkey]

Wow, I am so alone with my opinion.

I absolutely loved this!  I laughed through nearly all of it, but especially the ending. 

Naw, I'm with you, too.  There are a few of us dissenters who enjoyed it.

Yeah.  I gotta join in with the dissenters.  I had fun with this one.  Though I should note that Friesner's humor is often hit or miss for me.  This time it hit.

One of these days, I shall be in the majority.  And then love/hate in equal measure to the masses.  One day! 

Wait, maybe I already was in the majority once.  Didn't most everybody hate the small town rocketship story?  See?  I can fit in.

[JoeFitz]

Harmless fluff. A bit too much pron but mercifully brief.

[deworde]

Also, I call your attention to the fact that the territory is called "Alraziah-le-Fethynauri’in-ebu-Korfiamminettash" ...

This (joke?) is lost on me.

Still don't get it.  But thanks for posting the map; I've got a game of Fantasy Geography going on at another board, and this gives me some more places to use.

Dear god, has it really reached the stage where the genre is so unbelievably broken, that "Alraziah-le-Fethynauri’in-ebu-Korfiamminettash" doesn't seem ridiculous enough to be a joke? Really? Alright, this is a genre where a hero's titles can fill a paragraph without it being parodic, but come on.

I've read the story before, and the first time I hadn't really encountered the "bodice-ripper" genre, so it fell a little flat. This time I actually started cracking up on the train. But I will admit that if it had gone on for two minutes longer I'd probably have contracted diabetes.
There does seem to be a chronic combination of "don't mock my genre" and "ooooh, it's supposed to be a joke" going around. I mean, this is a story where halfway through, we watch the heroine's reactions flick between lust and violence like a schizophrenic pendulum on hormone replacement therapy. "She'd kick him in the shins" for god's sake.
For me, this is so bad it's funny. Which is entirely the point.

[DarkKnightJRK]

I think Nobilis said it best--it's pretty hard to make a parody when it's as bad as the story it's paroding. Think of the great parody movies over the past few decades--Young Frankenstein, Airplane!, Blazing Saddles--I think what truely makes them good parodies is that they work just as well on their own as humor (Hell, I doubt many people know Airplane! was a parody/remake of a very over-the-top film in the '50s).

This story isn't in that league at all, IMHO. In fact, it's more along the lines of most modern "parodies," like Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans.

[stePH]

Dear god, has it really reached the stage where the genre is so unbelievably broken, that "Alraziah-le-Fethynauri’in-ebu-Korfiamminettash" doesn't seem ridiculous enough to be a joke? Really? Alright, this is a genre where a hero's titles can fill a paragraph without it being parodic, but come on.

I'm probably not the best judge, as I don't read high fantasy any more.  The Lord of the Rings is just about all I know.

This story [is] more along the lines of most modern "parodies," like Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans.

God's Balls, Epic Movie was awful.  I think I laughed exactly once in the whole thing.  (But unlike Napoleon Dynamite, at least I could tell where it was trying to be funny.)

[Unblinking]

It's not parody if all you're doing is making yet one more of whatever you're parodying.

That was exactly my reaction.  It was clearly trying to make fun of over-the-top fantasy, but in the end it was just over-the-top.  I gave it a chance, but didn't finish it.