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/lit/ - Literature

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19298823 No.19298823 [Reply] [Original]

How awful the state of science fiction must be if something as turgidly written as this is considered the benchmark. Some of the worst professional writing I've read in ages.

>> No.19298852

>popular thing bad

>> No.19298885

>>19298852
In this case yes, this popular thing is bad.

>> No.19298888

>>19298823
it’s only considered the benchmark by boring people. Asiimov is still far and above

>> No.19298895

>>19298823
It's for people who like world building (which is the laziest form of writing).

>> No.19298900

>>19298823
>this is considered the benchmark
It's popular but not THAT highly regarded. People would more easily mention Asimov or Dick before Hebert, and authors that came after him like Gibson are just as influential
It's decent

>> No.19299123

>>19298895
I can see what you mean, like you can imagine someone thinking that a complex universe = good writing but then you can just say that anything is bad through that metric. Modern novels that are so married to conveying the feeling of conversation or how it feels to live in very sexy short concise prose isnt necessarily good either.

>> No.19299177

>>19298823
>>19298900
I would say that this is only a benchmark as it pertains to worldbuilding. Someone like Asimov or Simak I think is better at showing the impact of scientific concepts on life and therefore are the benchmarks in that regard.

>> No.19299196
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19299196

God this shit was so kino, ik its kinda being a slave to sensations and shit but the atmosphere, the scale of these legions of bloodthirsty warriors being baptised by blood and losing themselves in majestic song

>> No.19299227

>>19298888
I have read four foundation books and they have all have had dull prose. The only commendations are for the characterization.

>> No.19299230

>>19298823
A E S T H E T I C C C C C C C C C

>> No.19299236

>>19299227
really? the characters were the weakest thing in it for me.

>> No.19299243

>>19299236
What was the strongest thing then? The concept of the clashing of the foundations was neat but the mentalists leave a sour taste albeit the Mule was an interesting character disregarding the lame hypnosis.

>> No.19299255

Is there any twentieth century science fiction with good prose?

>> No.19299259

>>19299243
The complex economic and political forces at work in the book and whereas I wasnt invested in the characters as characters, I was interested in the actions they would take as representatives of the section of society they were written to represent in response to these conditions.

>> No.19299263

>>19299255
Clifford D simak

>> No.19299266

It's a children's book like The Hobbit. People like it because it's accessible. It's not Paradise Lost or Proust. Give it a rest, not everything has to be the best ever.

>> No.19299368
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19299368

For me, it's Eon.

>> No.19299393

For me its the obscure internet semi-erotic sci-fi story written by a literal who that caters to my autistic fetishes.

>> No.19299395

>>19299196
What a midwit post

>> No.19299396

It’s actually Moby Dick tier in terms of literary merit.
How many novels successfully interweave multiple allegories into one story?

>> No.19299400

>>19299266
>People like it because it's accessible
lol no, at least not in 2021. normies consider it incredibly difficult, with articles about how you need charts and wikis to understand it and endless tweets about how people have to give up right at the start because they can't follow the paul-mohaim conversation about the gom jabbar.

>> No.19299403

>>19299395
Hating Dunc is midwit tier.
You can’t into high art.

>> No.19299405

>>19299266
Your genre sucks. Own it, you reddit faggot.

>> No.19299411

>>19299396
How much of an idiot you have to be to think the literary merit of Moby Dick lies in it’s allegories? This is the intelligence of the average Dunetard, of course this novel gets praised as a masterpiece by these dullards.

>> No.19299412

>>19299400
I did give up on that exact part a few years ago kek but Dune was one of the first books I picked up after getting into reading. After reading a bunch of the old classics and postmodern shit and re-trying, it’s completely trivial to read but I generally agree with you

>> No.19299432

>>19299403
>Denis Villeneuve
>high art
Let me guess, you also think Christopher Nolan and David Fincher are the greatest directors ever, enjoy the flicks of Quentin Tarantino and watch only American movies?

>> No.19299438

>>19299411
So do it. Write a story that seamlessly weaves contemporary geopolitics and ancient religious politics together while still being unique.
A great novel is about more than prose. It’s not Ulysses or The Brothers Karamazov by any stretch of the imagination, but dismissing it as schlock is just pure arrogance and ignorance.

>> No.19299443

>>19298823
genre fiction has incredibly low standards and they are only getting worse since it's now written by/for people who learned what fiction even is by playing videogames. most readers of that stuff, much like YA people, are completely blind to prose so that they will straight up not understand what you're talking about when you criticize how their dragon/spaceship books are written. you might as well be talking to dogs. they don't know any better and they never will.

>> No.19299446

>>19299432
No, Denis Villenueve is the greatest director ever and diarrhea shits all over those amateurs.

>> No.19299545

>>19299438
>A great novel is about more than prose.
there is literally nothing in a novel but prose. that's what it's made from, words forming sentences forming paragraphs. if you can't pull that off well then it doesn't matter how clever you are with your "unique ideas," you are crippled as a novelist. the fact that you can wave your arms about and pontificate that it's "about geopolitics" or that it has "allegories" doesn't change the fact that the moment-to-moment experience of reading it sucks and anybody with standards will struggle to continue. this is the basic disconnect of the genre-literary worlds, that you guys merely ENDURE reading as a chore that is required to access the "worldbuilding" etc, so prose doesn't matter to you, whereas readers of literature derive pleasure from the act of reading itself and see no reason to bother with something that it fucking sucks TO READ.

>> No.19299632

>>19299446
Denis is probably the best out of the big budget hollywood directors I'll give ya that. Nolan should've just done a Bond series, he's just an action movie director who watched 2001 all the way through.
Sortly vaguely on topic, did anyone else catch that Kierkegaard quote that got throw into Dune, Part 1? Pleasantly surprised by that.

>> No.19299665

>>19299395
yeah if mccarthy had written this youd be blowing it

>> No.19299725

I don't think it's bad, it's just really long and pointless. It's a more sophisticated Star Wars, it has absolutely no value beyond enjoyment. Nothing about it has any intellectual value for the real world.

>> No.19299840
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19299840

>>19298823
>turgidly
Ooooooooooooooh, somebody found his thesaurus! Good for you, Anon. Good for you!

>> No.19299899

>>19299400
That's a function of modern nerd culture. They demand to know what an "untuned baliset" sounds like, or else the book is inaccessible.

>> No.19299932

>>19299196
I love atmosphere, scene building and feeling like I'm in the world. Don't listen to >>19299395 he just wishes he was smarter than he really is. Action scenes, unless well choreographed shootouts or punch ups, really bore me. I would sleep through every marvel film my ex made me go to, no matter how big the explosion.

>> No.19299939

>>19299840
Do you actually think "turgid" is an obscure word lmao? The state of /lit/

>> No.19299946

>>19299840
>t.thinks turgid is a rare and difficult word
NGMI zoomer

>> No.19299951

>>19298823
Its a YA novel, why even read it as an adult? What did you expect?

>> No.19299979

>>19299939
>>19299946
Turgid is not a difficult or obscure word. But it is a word most often used by people who wish to appear more intelligent than they actually are.

>> No.19300001

>>19299196
Truly the best scene in the movie.
Iirc the books never describe Selusa, just reveal that it is in some way another hell world like Arrakis.
This scene was the one place where they really diverged from the source material to make something new and they knocked it out of the park.

>> No.19300019

>>19299255
Gene Wolfe
Ursula K Le Guin
Jack Vance
M John Harrison
Michael Moorcock
Samuel R Delaney

All have prose thats somewhere between good and great, and there's many others.
The SciFi fandom in general is more motivated by ideas than prose so if you listen to them you'll read a lot of stuff like Dune and Foundation before you find the real gems style wise.

>> No.19300031

>>19299545
well said man

>> No.19300158

>>19300001
>Iirc the books never describe Selusa, just reveal that it is in some way another hell world like Arrakis
I remember it being a barren volcanic planet. Dunno how that got turned into a planet with torrential rain

>> No.19300167

>>19299979
Nah dude, that's just your own projection. It's just a word like any other and fits the context of the OP fine.

>> No.19300467

>>19300019
>Michael Moorcock
Is elric a kino read?

>> No.19300513

>>19300158
Something something opposite of dry ass Dune.

>> No.19300577
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19300577

>>19298823
It's fine it's just babby's first adult sci-fi so it's where most people stop.

>> No.19300597

>>19299545
very good point anon. I'm gonna get shit for bringing up Nabby but he really was on to something when he said that style and structure were all that mattered in literature, and "ideas" were a dime a dozen. Genre fiction is seen as lesser because it is a literature of ideas first and foremost, and that's why genre fiction writers that really focus on style (Mervyn Peake and Clark Ashton Smith come to mind) are able to transcend the genre

>> No.19300638

>>19300467
Uneven. He apparently wrote most of those books only when he needed money, and so would sit down and pump out a novel in like three days. And they read like it. But when it's good, it's good.

>> No.19300710

>>19298823
And some of the best music of the ages technically sounds like shit compared to modern stuff. It's about the vision and pushing the artform.

>> No.19300740

>>19299400
You're just seeing the loud mouths, I always assume there is a larger group of people who think and say the opposite of the most obnoxious twitter posters

>> No.19300763

>>19299368
I liked Greg bears halo books.

>> No.19300925

>>19300710
No it doesn't. Modern music (pop) sounds like actual trash.

>> No.19300993

>>19298823
Dune isn't the benchmark of science fiction. Nobody wanted to publish it at the time so Herbert had to go to a car repair manual publisher and talk them into publishing his shit. It's success is based on the nerds of the 60s and 70s that read it. Nobody holds Herbert up as an example of a good writer, either. Who even knows that he wrote outside of the Dune saga?

>> No.19302047

>>19299632
What was the Kierkegaard quote?

>> No.19302065

>>19299545
Jesus what a KO punch

>> No.19302228

>>19298823
>something as turgidly written as this is considered the benchmark.
it's well-known that it's a poorly-written book, its other merits are seen as making up for that

>> No.19302241

>>19298823
only faggots think its poorly written.
IE- the majority of the quasi homosexuals on this board

>> No.19302246

>>19299545
seems reductionist. it's like saying the only thing that matters about film is cinematography and anyone who pays attention to mis en scene, sound, narrative, etc is dumb

>> No.19302560

>>19299196
>HAMBURGERY HAMBUGERRRRR BUMBUMBERYYY MHMMMMMMM

>> No.19302573

>>19299255
Sturgeon
James Tiptree
every other SF I’ve read, especially the big names, was written in a very dull style

>> No.19302692

>>19302246
Film is constructed of more elements than writing but focusing primarily on cinematography is the best way to produce a good film.

>> No.19302703

>>19298823
>50 years later
>brainlets still can't handle third person omniscient

>> No.19302909

>>19302246
bad analogy. you're singling out one discipline involved in filmmaking, but when i say that prose is all there is i'm correct in the literal sense. all that exists in a novel is words on a page, with everything else being just their by-product: "characters," "story," "lore" etc are only impressions forming in a reader's mind in response to words on a page. any ineptitude with language also undermines "character," "atmosphere" and whatever else people like to talk about because where the hell would those come from but from processing a skillfully put-together sequence of words? this is also why a more literate reader will tend to mistrust translations (and an ignorant non-reader will think it's okay to just watch a movie adaptation since, you know, "the same stuff happens").

(incidentally, similar "medium-denial" thinking is applied to movies. just like how genre fans ignore bad prose in pursuit of a fake "world," superhero movie fans ignore how dull a new marvel movie is AS A FILM because they want to spend time with their surrogate dad iron man or whatever)