/lit/ - Literature

>>15680251
Do you normally find humor smug because I think if you look at how comedy works, it thrives off smugness. That's not a bad thing. It's because they have to have some measure of irony at work. Otherwise you're left with sincere pun-making and wordplay, not even ironic pun-making and wordplay.

I read some Terry Pratchet when I was in elementary school. I think. The only thing I remember was there was a part where a centaur had to jump over a bit chasm, so it took a shit to be lighter for the jump. That is literally the only thing I remember. I'm not even sure it was Terry Pratchett.

>>15680251
I feel the same way. I find it rather hypocritical when the jokes can be boiled down to "this genre is dumb..." but the author is still writing within the genre and his stuff isn't dumb (like the stuff you like) because he's being ironic. I also don't enjoy random or particularly mean spirited humour. Good genre fiction can be funny without being comedic and most of the great works of literature will make you laugh at least once.

>>15680251
It’s like Rick and Morty. Aesthetically sci-fi or fantasy but otherwise peak normie to make people feel smart and edgy.
>Haha the big computer gave a random number as the answer to everything. Nerds BTFO.

>>15680251
Douglas Adams is Bahzinger in book form.

>>15680251
You lack a sense of humor

>>15680457
>random number
It wasn’t random. She came along in Mostly Harmless

>>15680251
I read some pulp books as a kid which were all in on the sex pest ultraviolence side of the fantasy genre, myth-adventures or something like that.
I don't recall them being anything but boner and belly-laugh inducing as a preteen which is more than I can say for all the fucking douglas adams terry pratchett shit.
I would give a kid the hitchhikers guide books though. They're perfect for a young audience. As far as adult humerous sci fi or fantasy? I have no clue. I can't imagine anything being all that funny, other than the subtle humor in for example the black company novels or the urth books.

>>15680251
I agree.

I like Snowcrash though.

>>15680251
I think it’s just the opposite of smugness: it’s cleverness sold to the unclever. simple jokes arduously spelled out to you with an elbow in your side “do you get it?? hyuck hyuck”
I know everyone here thinks Pynchon is shit, but at least he is aware of how ridiculous his jokes are.
>>15680457
basically this

>>15680251
I would love to write a comedy fantasy one day.
But I feel like it'd be ignored because it's not something serious :(

>>15680478
what do you think about >>15675219

>>15680251
>>15680396
yes, comedy was a mistake

>>15680457
The joke doesn’t end at 42, the joke was that the computation of the meaning of life through Earth was almost complete. When the Earth gets destroyed the entire computation gets thrown into the trash. Its Dramatic irony.

>>15680559
Good joke in prime lit, underrated these days due to current polpulation

>>15680478
Have you read any Jasper Fforde?

>>15680251
I get what you mean. At least when artists are smug they're trying to make it worth your while to consume their work, but when Douglas Adams writes he goes out of his way to insult the genre, lampshade his literary failures to block himself from criticism, and ultimately blame you, the reader, for reading and having expectations in the first place.

>>15680746
it's a sign of the age of the antichrist

>>15680457
So does the caveman think that by dressing up a man as an animal he turned him into an animal? Or is it supposed to be like a SF movie and the animal is played by a human.

The only times it’s acceptable to laugh are when you and your gf are making fun of people on tv, when you get a reference in one of pynchon’s books or when you remember a funny racist meme while in the shower.

Comedy is literally for soulless bugmen.

>>15680251
I feel like these things were more tolerable before the advent of reddit.

>>15680469
Mazinger was fine tho

Incessant comedy ruins reading for me. "Comedy" as a category in media, in general, is tasteless and mind-numbing.

>>15680558
what post is this referencing?
weren't there some other responsive posts to this?
are MODS covering for butterfly? why would they even do that?

>>15680251
For Hitchhiker's it's first and foremost a radio play, and it is an excellent radio play. The books were predominantly a cash grab and Douglas Adams didn't like doing them (the stories about him dodging deadlines have more literary quality than the books themselves).

I like Dirk Gently as a concept and character though, in a way it's more grounded and generally a better formed idea.

>>15682732
Some shit love poem.

>>15680251
>Is anyone else completely turned off by "funny" sci-fi/fantasy?
>I've read one each by Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett and they both seemed so...smug? Tryhard?
Haven't read them, but the description you gave me reminded me of the webcomic XKCD. The humor is pretty much every single stereotype Reddit is mocked for.

>>15682680
>I feel like these things were more tolerable before the advent of reddit.
Reddit is the real-life version of King Midas, except everything it touches turns into shit.

>>15680251
They're fine. Even shit like Rick and Morty is perfectly fine to watch and have a laugh, for me. What really puts me off are the fans. Being fanatic for something is already bad; being fanatic about a comedy work is ridiculous. People tell the same jokes over and over to themselves and their friends, then want so goddamn much to be noticed that they set up events on it. It eventually gets picked up by companies trying to profit off "geek culture" and a simple joke about a towel becomes Fucking Towel Day, LET'S CELEBRATE IT EVERY YEAR AND SHOW THE WORLD HOW PROUD WE ARE OF HAVING READ THIS BOOK.

Jesus Christ, people can't shut up.

>>15680251
snowcrash isnt really a funny book. its actually kind of boring later on unless you like history

>>15683439
What about bloomsday?

>>15680265
>Otherwise you're left with sincere pun-making and wordplay, not even ironic pun-making and wordplay.
hey that's what I do

>>15683483
same shit

>>15680251

No fun allowed

>>15680251
>writing off sci-fi / fantasy
Yep. Go right ahead

Unrelated but Monty Python was never funny.

>>15683542
Once some Anon said something along the lines of, only retards and truly smart people believe in religion. The retards do because it's easy to grasp, the smart people do because it's the lie they feed to retards in order to make them behave. It's the people of average intelligence that are the problem. They're smart enough not to be tricked, and realize that they don't need God for morals, but also stupid enough to not realize that religion is absolutely necessary to teach moral rules to retards.
Their lack of intelligence is also the reason they worship science like a religion, it's because it makes them feel smarter than they are. And there's definitely detrimental effects to rejecting spirituality, too.

>>15683439
Well said

>>15683658
Fuck you!
I fart in your general direction every day.
Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt like elderberries.

>>15680251
There's a lot of snarky shit out there.
I'm over it.

>>15683839
>Once some thirteen-year-old said

>>15683658
I agree and have always gotten shit when I say it.
The only funny part of the holy grail is when the historian gets his head chopped off. And that's not even that funny

>>15683839
>because it's the lie they feed to retards in order to make them behave
Isn't that just not believing?

>>15683990
>holy grail
The only part I find funny is the sight gag of the knight running and not getting anywhere, only to teleport and stab a guard. I like that fucking morons don't - because they can't - quote it until it's meaningless noise that makes their fellow redditors pretend to laugh at a reference they understood.
It's also a funny sight gag.

>>15684023
Yeah, I feel like the whole post you're replying to is probably from a really dumb person who incidentally was being manipulated by another really dumb person who was fantasizing about being smart by manipulating their fellow dumb dumbs.

>>15680265
>sincere pun-making and wordplay
So the only good kind of comedy?

>>15683439
Anyone who repeats jokes like in that image (especially Monty Python) should be shot. I don't want to hear about fucking Monty Python, Fawlty Tower, Bazinger, or stand up shit. I don't want to watch it the first time and repeating it over and over doesn't suddenly make it funny.

>>15680746
>Good joke in prime lit
DO
NOT
LAUGH

>>15683658
HE SAID THAT THING IN A REALLY FUNY VOICE!!! HOW QUIRKY!!! IT'S THE KNIGHTS WHO SAY NI LOLOLOLOLOL

>>15683839
>religion is absolutely necessary to teach moral rules to retards.
Do you have any evidence to back that up? For example, the current secular SJWism (as despicable as it is) seems to work quite well in inculcating certain self-abnegating behaviors (which is all morality really is).

>>15683990
Monty Python and the Holy Grail was a lot funnier in 1975 when almost every portrayal of the middle ages up to then was the Errol Flynn Danny Kaye bright green tights sort of thing. Now every medieval Hollywood movie is the monochrome 'realistic' kind where everyone wears dark brown leather and acts like they're in a Charles Bronson movie, and so Holy Grail gets the rug pulled from under it in terms of the pop culture its parodying.

>>15683439
WE ARE THE KNIGHTS WHO SAY NI-

Pratchett's mid to latter works and books for kids (same period) were his best work. The first half of his body of work is painfully self-aware and satisfied in merely being meta, but later on he settled down and figured out how to actually write fleshed out characters rather than flat genre spoofs.

Douglas Adams works best as a radio-play.

>>15684737
Whoa Pepe! Not cool!
I know you're trying to be funny but these are very serious times we are living in. Young black men are literally being holocausted as we speak and you think it's a good moment to be cracking jokes? Like, really?
Listen we've been friends for a while, but since you started hanging out on that 4channel site you've been getting kind of, how do I say it...smug. Tryhard, even. If you're going to keep acting like this I can't hang out with you anymore.

>>15680251
You know those annoying English guys? The ones who dial their accent up to 11 when they're around non-Britbongs to try to look clever or LE RANDUM. Kind of like Total Biscuit or that sort. Hitchhiker's guide is the kind of book I imagine those guys reading

>>15684998
This trash is literally Big Bang Theory in book form.

>>15684998
What?

>>15680457
>Haha the big computer gave a random number as the answer to everything.
It's not even the answer to everything. It's the answer to some undisclosed super question about everything.
>>15680707
>the joke was that the computation of the meaning of life through Earth was almost complete.
The rest of the post is correct but it's also not a question about the meaning of life. Like, the whole point of the joke is that no one knows the question. It gets me mad that a bunch of reddit style nerds keep parroting
>the answer to life and everything is 42 lmao so funny
We don't know what 42 is an answer to. It's a simple stupid joke, and yet no one seems to get it.

>>15682635
Pretty sure the latter

>>15680251
i loved that book as a child, it was probably the first book i ever loved. i don't think you should write it off entirely it's great for getting new readers into reading preciseley because of that smugness. feels like you're smart and in on a joke. that's valuable even if it's not intellectually challenging

>>15680251
Personally I don't find Terry Pratchett particularly smug, though I haven't read the Color of Magic since high school, so the smugness your talking about might just be a British humor thing. I noticed it more in Adam's work with an over all vibe of "Big universe ending thing, but muh tea and Sunday crumpets."

>>15685020
YOU KNOW THOSE ANNOYING ENGLISH GUYS? THE ONES WHO DIAL THEIR ACCENT UP TO 11 WHEN THEY'RE AROUND NON-BRITBONGS TO TRY TO LOOK CLEVER OR LE RANDUM. KIND OF LIKE TOTAL BISCUIT OR THAT SORT. HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE IS THE KIND OF BOOK I IMAGINE THOSE GUYS READING

>>15687824
Are you American or something?

>>15687857
YEAH BUD.

>>15680251
I liked them when I was a kid. I did not find them funny at all. They really aren't. Still interesting books.

>>15680559
God I wish that was me

>>15680251
Snow Crash is actually pretty good. Somehow the author was able to walk right up to the line of irredeemable cringe and never actually cross it. Worth a read.

>>15688835
nah the sex scene with the teenage girls needle vag and the endig was pretty cringe

>>15687353
>as a child
This is the key. It's trash written for children, but unfortunately reddit-using, nigger-loving adults made a subculture out of it.

>>15688952
Stephenson is just a lover of the cute and funny. Who can hold him to account for that?

>>15680251
Humor has always been deeply woven with the genre. Asimov was a famous comedian.

>>15680279
I read 99 percent of Pratchett as a kid and I still remember the plot to most of them, I think that's a different author.

>>15680251
I don’t know, but there is uncool STEM vibe from these books. They are very popular among IT guys/software developers.

>>15683658
You have to be in the right frame of mind. Idk it's like the fish slapping scene never makes me laugh but the flying sheep always gets a giggle.

>>15684738
Agreed. Small gods is fantastic for example.

>>15682635
The Latter, you can see when the zoom out on the world it has strings. It is meant to be like a play or Opera with props.

>>15685061
I mean thats okay man, just take solace in knowing that what your doing is part of the computational effort to find out the TRUE meaning of life.

>>15689008
>there is uncool STEM vibe
Just say autism bro.

>>15680251
I agree partially with you, as I also found the Hitchhikers guide to be somewhat forced (Especially in the later entries), but I really liked the 1st and the 4th book, the latter mainly because the whole sci-fi thing is toned down a lot, leaving the story more enjoyable.

>>15688835
The redeemable quality of snow crash is that it's just a libertarian pulp romp.

It was a rocky afternoon aboard the spaceship on 06/24/2120, the anniversary of my once meaningful date of birth. Sitting in my window seat as the belligerent space debris pelts my portal glass, I scanneed my shipmates, coming to terms that even if they knew it was my birthday, none of them would have thought about my party, or even would have thought to help me plan it. No flour, no cake, and a single candle. Whoop-de-doo. Subsequent to the annihilation of my home planet, Earth, I've found the company up here in space to be rather cosmopolitan. Pigsy occupied the seat a row behind me while snoring away. Sandy was in the seat ahead of me. Last but least, there's Apeface, who stood in between the rows of the seats laughing to himself whenever he was thrown off balance by the turbulence. Once his nonsense and my irritation coalesced to a boiling point, I stood up. "Apeface!" I snarled. "Do you not understand the gravity of the situation?" As I spoke, a stream of pebbles decided to unload all over the ship, and I was drowned out by the noise. I mustered again the fury to speak yet I was drowned out this time by Pigsy's sleep apnea. "What is it with you?!" I cried, falling back into my seat. Sandy's face appeared over the backrest of his seat. "Well!" Sandy began. "In my hometown, we would all gather together on Sundays at the local church. It was how in the Catholic, Judeo-Christian faith, we truly partook of the Lord Jesus himself!" I shifted in my seat during the silence that ensued, counting each of the rocks that pelted on the ship. "Isn't Pilot Horseface a priest?" I asked. Sandy stormed off to the front, muttering about mass in space or somesuch. I hunched over. "I'm so tired..." I moaned, to no one in particular. But then something happened that woke me up like ten cups of coffee and a sense of purpose and direction. "Don't worry," the hot breath on the back of my neck said, "It's just a...phase." My entire body was covered in goosebumps. I was too terrified to look behind me. Was that Pigsy? No--Pigsy's snores never stopped. Angered and filled with confidence now that I knew it wasn't Pigsy, I swirled around and stared at the person who had spoke. "Was that supposed to be a pun?" I asked the pilot, who was returning from the bathroom. He stared back blankly, mystified, and continued walking. He and Sandy entered the cockpit. I sighed and looked at the candle. Ahh, my only friend. *ping* "Gentlemen", the intercom suddenly interrupted, "After deliberation, we've all decided that we've left behind something on Earth too important to ignore any longer." Had we all decided? "We will be landing tomorrow--we will be looking for wheat." And with that, the system shut off. I sat, dumbfounded that we were going to brave the horrors of what had become of Earth again, all for a plant. I would have looked less distressed if I had not seen Apeface as he was hanging from the ceiling, chanting: "Get that bread. Get that head. And go to bed. Yeah!".