YABookgate

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
Has anyone heard of this book? Seems to be catching fire on Twitter, there was an American Sun article written about it too. Whether or not it's celebrating or condemning leftism is anyone's guess from the promo spots: a0834125-778f-47fd-9519-148329c33f77.jpg
 
Last edited:
The common problem that handling of political themes in a story share isn't even the contempt for the non-initiated; it's utter insecurity in your point.

Most stories would be content with a character doing a terrible thing that links to an overarching theme, have the protagonist go 'Dat son bitch', maybe have some debate amongst the characters about said theme and then let the plot progress into the next scene, trusting that they've engaged the audience enough to follow along.

However, a story infested with insecurities regarding how the audience will view the greater narrative, choking on the notion that their story has a 'responsibility' to ensure the audience doesn't hold to any problematic elements, will have a character doing a terrible thing that links to the surface level relation to a theme. Then have the protagonist go 'Damn, this is just so typical of x group and how persistent y problem is within the world', followed by every other good character in the cast nodding their head and telling the protag how valid their opinion is, and this whole scene was probably proceeded by an extra chapter or two of filler where the characters fuck about repeating their insistence of what's bad and what's good.
 
FuckMeGentlyWithAChainsaw said:
Also, I don't think anyone posted the source for that “stretched his legs” meme, it's a article from a Yale professor.
Click to expand...
That shit's a meme, wtf? It doesn't happen. Is this an elaborate troll from 20 years ago, or is he genuinely retarded?
BTWEURukyX.png
Only the first instance of the word is in reference to stretching his legs. Every other one is a different use of the word. This guy was trolling HP fans long before /tv/ made that copypasta.
 
Wodanaz said:
It's a copypasta, that doesn't happen.

Anyway, if anyone should find that review of HP that Stephen King allegedly wrote, please post it. I looked around and found this article written by Harold Bloom which is where the famous last line of the pasta comes from, but couldn't find the actual review itself.
Click to expand...

It's depressing how 100% correct the article is. Though I did get a chuckle of him describing Aphra Behn as fourth-rate playwright, since it's absolutely true she's a only taught because she's a woman who can be ideologically exploited.

To paraphrase a book of literary criticism from the early 90s: "Feminist scholars have expended a lot of effort to uncover and rediscover forgotten women writers. But what do you do with conservative women writers who don't fit the ideology when you 'discover' them?"
 
Henri Barbusse said:
To paraphrase a book of literary criticism from the early 90s: "Feminist scholars have expended a lot of effort to uncover and rediscover forgotten women writers. But what do you do with conservative women writers who don't fit the ideology when you 'discover' them?"
Click to expand...
Do they even exist?
 
Mola Ram said:
Personally I thought the whole house elf backlash was one of those brain-dead outrages that are a result of people who can't distinguish reality from fantasy, or more specifically folklore. House elves were pretty clearly based on various tales of helpful household spirits, fey creatures and the like, whose entire existence springs from a concept or a cause. Forcing them to line up with some real world group is no different from the brainworms infecting D&D that insist orcs are obviously black people.

"Harry Potter goblins = Jews" is a little easier to argue, but it's the same basic issue.
Click to expand...
You're not wrong though I would say it overlaps with a complete lack of knowledge of folklore. That's really the most depressing part is just how ignorant kids are these days. Like they don't see the House Elves and assume "oh there must be some cultural reference I'm missing." No they assume anything they don't know isn't worth knowing and so when they see House Elves they go, "oh it's black people!"

I'm seriously starting to get depressed not only with how dumb the youth are, but that even an attempt to try and correct any of it results in CRIMESTOP and "bored now" replies.

Oh man I remember that article about the Orcs == Black People. Especially because at the time, "the only thing they lack is a natural sense of rhythm" was a line used by the author.

Then RotK released and when this appeared on screen:
1698685242563.png

my pal leaned over and whispered "a natural sense of rhythm!"

It was a struggle not to get kicked out from laughing so hard.
 
Elwood P. Dowd said:
Yet Brando Sando does kickstarter after Kickstarter, raking in the bucks with leather bound, illustrated chonkers. Though I suppose his audience is largely adult at this point, it is an interesting case study. The exception that proves the rule? I'm assuming Tor hates what he's doing, but are powerless to stop him; oh, look here's another Trump screed from John Scalzi. That'll sell books.
Click to expand...

Brandon Sanderson is probably the most successful new author of the Millennium in genre fiction.

And yes, especially after that Kickstarter, Tor is well aware that Sanderson can walk any day, and his readers and money will follow after.

And Tor is furious that of the three most successful Tor authors of the past decade, two of them, Sanderson and Christopher Paolini, are conservative straight white dudes.

They all but wept tears of joy when VE Schwab, after a decade of pushing danger hair author after danger hair author, became the first to actually sell books.

Mexican_Wizard_711 said:
Do they even exist?
Click to expand...

Of course. And you can usually tell by which ones are ignored and which are favored by who gets glory from lefties. Examples:

They favor crazy cat lady beatnik Maya Angelou over the superior author, intellect and conservative Republican Zora Neale Hurston.

Ursula K. Le Guin is hyped as the greatest female scifi/fantasy author of all time. A fine writer, but the reason she is favored over the far more talented CL Moore and Leigh Brackett - who both preceeded her by decades as well is in terms of talent - is entirely political. Moore chose to give up writing to raise a family with fellow author Harry Kuttner - a cardinal sin for any feminist - while Brackett was so right wing she often polished scripts for the likes of John Wayne.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Boston Brand said:
Sanderson and Christopher Paolini, are conservative straight white dudes.
Click to expand...

Not true. Brandon Sanderson has described himself as leaning left on most issues in his YouTube channel, though admitting he used to be conservative. He even says that he gets upset when people attack leftists:


And as for Paolini, I'm not sure about him. But considering that he made the elves vegan and made Eragon become an atheist, color me skeptical.
 
Elwood P. Dowd said:
I'm assuming Tor hates what he's doing, but are powerless to stop him; oh, look here's another Trump screed from John Scalzi. That'll sell books.
Click to expand...
Yes, I'm quoting myself, which I guess is just a small step from speaking about myself in the third person? But since I mentioned Brando Sando and Tor/publishing generally, it was odd to see this video pop up in my feed, touching on all three of those:
Of note:
  • I had no clue a dothead was in charge of Tor Books. I just assumed Patrick Hyphen-Hayden and his psycho wife were in charge now, de facto if not de jure
    • She is also Sanderson's editor, odd that she has time for both
  • Sando's agent looks like he's in the opening stages of Alzheimer's
    • This whole internet thing is there, but...let's talk about Barnes & Noble for five minutes!
  • For some odd reason both got very, very vague when talking about paper vs ebook vs audiobook ratios
    • No clue why that should be the case
    • Agent even denied it has caused any kind of fundamental change in the business
  • Some sort of passive aggressive thing going on where the Dragonsteel title is next to Sanderson (Secret History) and the Tor book is between the interviewees?
    • Wonder if the agent sees any shekels from that, or not? We know Tor doesn't
Henri Barbusse said:
To paraphrase a book of literary criticism from the early 90s: "Feminist scholars have expended a lot of effort to uncover and rediscover forgotten women writers. But what do you do with conservative women writers who don't fit the ideology when you 'discover' them?"
Click to expand...
They bury them. Baroness Emma Orczy wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel in 1905, a book that in no particular order had (a) masked heroes (b)secret identities (c) something approaching secret societies and superpowers, etc. If she didn't precisely invent a whole bunch of superhero tropes, she sure as hell put them into the popular imagination. The guy who wrote Zorro, 1920ish, flat out admitted he just took the story and moved it to Spanish Empire California.

Only problem is she was politically to the right of Ghengis Khan. She literally believed in the divine right of Kings, among other things. Mary Shelley gets to be the "proto-feminist founder of Science Fiction," while Orczy gets ignored and preferably forgotten. Or better yet, shamed:

Emma Orczy made no secret of her reactionary politics. She hated democracy, and was a firm believer in British imperialism. During the First World War, she formed a society of upper-class British women dedicated to shame young Englishmen into dying in the trenches. She was also a rabid anticommunist and antisemite.
Click to expand...
My kinda gal! Sadly she'll never get her due as the "proto-right-wing reactionary founder of the superhero genre" this turn of the wheel.
😟
 
Elwood P. Dowd said:
My kinda gal! Sadly she'll never get her due as the "proto-right-wing reactionary founder of the superhero genre" this turn of the wheel.
Click to expand...

You find this a lot in literary criticism circles which IMO feeds into the idea that the RW doesn't produce art, I once read a purported short introduction into SF that mentioned Robert Heinlein once and never talks about libertarianism it was genuinely shocking how much the book contorted itself to never talk about the profound influence right wing authors had on the genre.
 
Gnillik Yot said:
Not true. Brandon Sanderson has described himself as leaning left on most issues in his YouTube channel, though admitting he used to be conservative. He even says that he gets upset when people attack leftists:


And as for Paolini, I'm not sure about him. But considering that he made the elves vegan and made Eragon become an atheist, color me skeptical.
Click to expand...

Sanderson knows how the game is played. He is lefty only by the standards of trad Mormon Utah.

As for Paolini? He had a teen rebel phase. He grew up, got married, had kids, and enjoys being the most financially successful author not named JK Rowling.

Both run in the same right wing author circles as the Baen/Writers of the Future lot, but keep much quieter about it.

Sanderson would rather sell another million books than say, he wants to vomit every time he has to share a stage at a Tor promo event with the latest obvious tranny whose book deal his royalties paid for.

If Sanderson goes independent, a lot of people are gonna learn he plays tabletop with Larry Correia and Jim Butcher for a reason.
 
Boston Brand said:
As for Paolini? He had a teen rebel phase. He grew up, got married, had kids, and enjoys being the most financially successful author not named JK Rowling.
Click to expand...
That's legit interesting. Yeah from the days of Eragon I would have absolutely guessed Paolini as bog-standard liberal.

And congrats to him. I was one of those who critiqued his books (and the marketing around them) but am legit happy he has had a good life.
 
Flexo said:
I mean we normally talk about him on the Young Turks thread but I was kind of surprised to see AJW releasing a video on a survey about how Gen Z apparently doesn't want romance.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=xhJLaVmf2uw
Here's the study.

So... expect YA to get worse before it gets better.

Also... this.
View attachment 5476345
Click to expand...

No, this would allow YA writers more freedom. Time & again, I've seen adult fantasy fans slam YA fantasy for having too much romance. I've lost track of the number of promising-looking YA fantasies that made me roll my eyes when the main girl falls for the hot, brooding vampire or fae tyrant.
If young readers are starting to demand more fantasies that don't focus so much on the romance, then I say good for them.
I don't give a hoot how hot the evil vampire is or how he makes the MC blush and she just don’t know why. Stick a stake in him!
I mean, romance is all fine and good. But certain popular YA books, in contrast to adult fantasy, has been hyperfocused on it to the expense of all else ever since Twilight.
I would much rather read or write a YA book about a vampire killer facing off against the old time vampires (think Lost Boys or Fright Night) than have to read or write the next Twilight. And if the youth of today want to call the vampire hunter asexual and give that book woke points due to no romance, how is that not a win-win?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom