WTF IS THIS SHIT
https://twitter.com/misterbloat/status/1672967411136442371
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 UFOs Are A Psyop Shirt $21.68 |
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SCI-FI FANS, EXPLAIN THIS SHIT
WTF IS THIS SHIT
https://twitter.com/misterbloat/status/1672967411136442371
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UFOs Are A Psyop Shirt $21.68 |
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Adult or YA?
powerful
>the briefest of seconds
>both paraphrasing the movie Pitch Perfect and putting out her fist
This is some Alan Partridge prose.
There is a place for Alan Partridge reading genre fiction audio books.
Also, check out T Kingfisher if you want unintentional partridge in a horror novel.
I've written sneedposts better than this
thankfully quality is subjective, otherwise millennials would have no acclaimed works to their generation
>54 year olds are millenials
millenials are the fans
Supposedly these are in-character thoughts from a zoomer. It's written like that to show their (zoomer) perspective, not because the author is a zoomer themselves.
But if that was true you'd lose an excuse to feel superior to some nerds who give out the nerd book award for nerds, so I can see why nobody did cursory research.
Here's the thing: if your writing is "true" to the story and as a consequence sucks, you should reconsider the story.
Scalzi’s writing is consistently cringey though. It’s not just this one book.
Cringe? In sci-fi? I'm shocked. Shocked! Well, not that shocked.
>with a very few exceptions
No, not true at all. Certainly not even close to Scalzi-tier squeeing. The worst bantergay I can think of in classic fantasy is David Eddings and he's not nearly as bad as modern Scalzied shit.
fricking embarassing
Yeah it's really terrible, they're coming Dunes style of storytelling.
copying*
This had to be written by a women.
If only the author knew, finally, somewhere out there, to some one person, he had finally passed as a woman.
Underrated
>Did the thing
There is a scene in Throw Mamma From the Train in the 80s where Billy Crystal teaching a creative writing course tells one of his students that if you want to set your novel in a submarine, it's probably worth looking up what the 'thing' does.
Life mimicking art?
This got traditionally published and ran by professional editors. They know what they're doing.
>not pictured, an editorial comment saying this line is stupid and the writer should hang himself
>actually not pictured: Tor's editorial staff
Is there really a sci-fi book from the same year that's better than this, though? The entire genre seems years tapped for originality and excitement.
yes this
*sigh*
somehow, we got past edward
this gives me confidence in my own writing.
I am no longer so critical of the quality of my writing. holy frick.
this dreck sold nearly 2 million copies.
culture has become a blended pablum of itself.
>this dreck sold nearly 2 million copies.
I dont believe you. People dont even know what the locust awards are.
Awards keep books in print, they don't affect initial sales. Those came from Scalzi's name brand. He's popular regardless of your opinion of him
I've read fricking FANFICTION that had more competent writing than this, Jesus frick. I should print this out and tape it to my desk so that, if I ever get too critical of my own writing I can just glance at it and realize I will never be this terrible.
the pics that SHATTERED and DEVASTATED IQfy
This is literally just DFW writing. Why do you guys shit on this and not infinite jest?
I've never read anything by David Foster Wallace, and neither have any of his fans.
What is the Locus award?
One of the bigger prizes in Sci-Fi literature
I don't know of any sci-fi or fantasy award that hasn't been a complete joke for at least a decade.
Shirley Jackson Awards for horror are pretty decent
Given yearly to the most diverse individual writing genre fiction.
>most diverse
If that' Scalzi, then when did diverse ever mean established white middle aged writer?
He is clearly a homosexual which is institutionally categorized with the darkest of Blacks.
Italians are not legally white
*Locust
>What is the Locus award?
Something named after an insect. Apparently, equally repulsive.
>that name is familiar
>look it up
>he's the lead singer of one of my favorite bands
???!!!??
I'm gonna puke reading this
I'm moronic. Mike Scalzi is the singer.
They are siblings. Talented family
legit? or idle bullshit?
They were born 7 months apart, so it's the latter.
Finished my first draft a couple weeks back and I can't tell you how encouraging this is. I might be a pseud and a hack but at least I'm not whatever the frick this is. The state of modern fiction is a blessing in disguise.
>at least I'm not whatever the frick this is.
I bet $1,000 the author is either black, female, or doesn't know what gender they are.
Surprisingly, no, it’s a white guy
>The Kaiju Preservation Society - John Scalzi
>This was a SF portal fantasy and a metafantasy. By metafantasy I mean that this was meant to be an escapist fantasy for the author, characters, and the readers who wanted to escape the COVID-19 pandemic. It's utterly filled with three elements: cultural affiliation signifiers; pop culture references; and Scalzi's brand of humor. If you don't like all of those, you're already in for an uphill trek to enjoyment. The protagonist's catchphrase was, "I lift things", which he repeats often in various ways. I'm mostly indifferent, so that certainly didn't help at all. For me those weren't the problem though. What was, was that I just didn't find it interesting, engaging, fun, or enjoyable. Somehow a story about literal kaiju in an alternate Earth was made to be prosaic, banal, and insipid. I felt nothing at all for any of the characters, or really anything in the book. If it weren't for that it's relatively short I wouldn't have finished. The title is very accurate though and that was part of the problem. Maybe others would like it more, the current GR ratings would suggest that, but I don't know in terms of /sffg/. I think it would've worked better in a visual medium, whether that would be a movie, TV series, graphic novel, or whatever else. I'm not angry, just disappointed.
>Rating: 2/5
https://warosu.org/lit/thread/20067176#p20067420
No, the Kaiju author is John Scalzi, an 80th level arch-numale, here seen attempting to satirize book covers featuring women in sexy poses.
ngl, I would tho
crikey
Oh this is the Old Man's War guy.
For me it became extremely obvious like halfway into Old Man's War that he's a dogshit author
You didn't realize that in the second chapter?
Yeah if anything was going to put you off it would be the scene where the drill sergeant nearly sucks off the self insert protagonist for inventing a cartoon woodpecker or some shit for an advertising campaign.
Even Dan Brown doesn't write things as convenient as that!
NTA, but different strokes but that's one of the scenes in the book that I actually loved. The drill sergeant being some utter misanthrope who goes out of his way to uniquely hate every person he comes across, not because he's meant to be cool or admirable or edgy, but because he's a fricking weirdo. He's an intense uncomfortable weirdo who probably lived on IQfy himself and they probably put in charge of the training program because he's not going to be upset that everyone he trains dies.
And the woodpecker isn't some amazing work of art the protagonist is really proud of, it's a piece of lazy shit he hacked out and then forgot about. And then he gets this weirdly intense confession that the goyslop he squirted out and forgot about is intensely meaningful to this one fricking lunatic.
I have no idea what purpose it's meant to serve in the story. It's a scene that doesn't really do anything and none of the characters are enjoying it. But I laughed. I imagine protagonist Joe just shuddering as he gets out of that interaction.
And that sergeant meets everyone. Coincidences happen in real life, and it's fine in stories as long as it's not overdone.
In general I quite liked the Old Man's War series at first. It's a pretty interesting premise, you don't usually get the stock human empire announcing 'yes, we're being evil. It's on purpose, we're otherwise quite reasonable and sane people who'd rather not. We're acting evil because we're currently living on the planet of someone who wasnt evil enough and we're a tiny insignificant cum stain of a species surrounded by other species who think we taste good. Shut up and grab a rifle'.
The author just then fricked it up by deciding actually no, that's wrong. Akshually military dictatorships are bad-wrong. Also humanity is a big enough of a deal to disrupt the entire galaxy and aliens just want to hug.
I have no idea what the frick happened. It's like he wrote a book and then regretted it and wanted to unwrite it and it's goddamn moronic.
The white race has truly fallen
Why the frick happened to Scalzi? He used to be a semi respectable writer
Once you look him up, you realize he really never was. He only wrote Old Man's War because he felt that military sci-fi would be easy to sell.
He's the definition of soulless.
it's a certain kind of modernist talent to cynically write something great.
Oh man, Old Man's War was neat (if a little Mary Sue). Did he see how studio expects loved movie references and just write hoping for a movie like Ready Player One?
Was he not ripping off Heinlein but without any grit/masculinity anyway?
I saw it as a kind of Homage to the movie Starship Troopers, rather than the novel. But also a "So your guys need super suits? Frick you mine are going to be green so they can breath in space" or some shit like that. It was ok. I like Forever War better though.
>John Scalzi
How far the mighty have fallen
Oh nice, you crossposted what I wrote after I reposted it in /sffg/. Honestly I was too generous with what I wrote and how I rated it. I rarely skim when I read but I couldn't help it with this. I should've just dropped it and wrote something far more scathing.
>John Scalzi
Wasn't this the guy Vox Day had a feud with?
Far as I know, Scalzi was a very active and prominent community organizer. He had/has a major blog on scifi, which naturally touched at length upon issues of political correctness. Further then he managed to write award-winning novels. He's basically the perfect golem, he's the white man who golemized himself to success by criticizing white men.
>covid 19
Does this mean the book is saturated with liberal politics or is it just poor writing?
No then it would be marginally more likely, an actual tiny slim chance, to be weird and interesting. Instead it’s a thin blooded aging white dude whose biggest worry is offending those people.
>Finished my first draft a couple weeks back and I can't tell you how encouraging this is
shouldn't be encouraging at all, if you're white.
It's fine just submit to Baen
even worse if you are a man as well.
you only have a chance if you put a wig on and claim to be trapped in the wrong body
This
. You could write this generation's Moby Dick and it won't be published over "MUH DICK"
sci fi has been dead for a while
I don't want to agree with you, but I don't think I've read any sci fi newer than 2000 in over a couple of years. Maybe one exception.
Man, I should really start writing SciFi.
Ernst Cline and his consequences have been a disaster for science fiction.
?t=29
physically painful to watch
This shit is surreal
>I've written sneedposts better than this
You deserve the Hopper award. Much better than their insectoid prize.
It's laughable, the implication here that Devo's discography would take longer to listen to than They Might Be Giants'. TMBG have about twice as many albums as Devo.
uh oh nerd alert
1d4 mental damage every single time I see this posted.
It would be great satire if it were a satire.
>And, of course, Kevin Smith
there's something really truly incredible in listing out all the mid depressing pop culture shit you invested in in your pointless life like some kind of achivement. This is basically a paean to spiritual poison.
The first time I saw this posted I thought it was a shitpost someone on here made and gave them a (You) because I laughed at how stupid and long it was. Didn't know until years later it was from an actual book holy shit lmao
>Japan? Did I cover Japan?
>Yes. Yes indeed.
What's this from?
It's Ready Player One.
SF died with Harlan Ellison. Nobody apart from critics reads modern Print SF. Have you seen their sales?
The only lit sci-fi that sells is YA
>SF died with Harlan Ellison
You might be right. SF needs an angry old man telling authors they're crap.
Actually Ellison and Scazli were on good terms
Yeah, and Scalzi used to be good. Then Op's pic related happened after Ellison left us.
The Three Body Problem won the Hugo in 2015.
Bad translation of bad prose, clunky contradictory expository polemic dialog, rediculous metaphors, poorly understood scientific concepts, hateful characters, and deus ex machina ending.
Modern sci fi is in the fricking toilet.
How many people read A Desolation Called Peace.
How many people here even know what it is?
It won the hugo awards in 2022.
I know what it is but I haven't read it. It is on my tbr though.
I was going to thank you for the recommendation... then I checked out the preview (pic related).
Seems, like Three Body Problem, just run on sentence one after another, because the author can't figure out what they're trying to say, and lack the economy of vocabulary like Clarke or Bradbury to state things simply, yet grandly.
I'm not above flowery prose, but is the whole book like that?
Am I a brainlet for thinking this is word-vomit, one that makes your eyes glaze over? I feel like I have read nothing with how little this image evokes emotions and imagery in my head.
No that's why I posted, it's from early in the book, the first chapter I think. I know the author is trying to world build... but I don't need to know about 3 kinds of (presumably) virtual reality media.
Change the technology to Beta Max, VHS, Laserdisc, and without your Sci Fi glasses on, this is just word salad copied from a wiki.
Also, just checked Booktube is jizzing about this book, which is usually a redflag.
This person has made up more words than Shakespeare. Who besides self sniffing farters would ever enjoy this?
>Bad translation of bad prose, clunky contradictory expository polemic dialog, rediculous metaphors, poorly understood scientific concepts, hateful characters, and deus ex machina ending.
100% correct. The Three Body Problem has to be one of the shittiest (or at the minimum, overrated) books I have ever read in my life.
I seriously don't understand why the vast overwhelmingly majority of asian media like literature, movies, tv, anime, and such have a need to have a long, expository, and cumbersome use of dialogue explaining shit. Maybe there is some asian literature that is incredible which doesn't have a need to have an awkward explanative dialogue inserted every other scene.
>locus award
as a sci-fi fan whats that?
OP, you don't understand, this is clearly a commentary on the reddification and marvelization of Western culture. This is actually stunning, brave and deep
John Scalzi is the worst little freak imaginable and it gives me great pleasure to see him eating shit from all comers on this. Somehow 2010s Reddit guy has become the fricking pop SF archetype.
Any recommendations for sff books from last 5 years or so? All awards/online lists these days are too polluted by politics to be trustworthy...
Sea of Tranquility
It is deflinitely better than the posted stuff, but it really left a bad taste in my mouth by ruining Glass Hotel retroactively.
The whole time travel thing is poorly thought out and stupid, and it undoes the beautiful ghost-story motif of the previous book by badly applying a sci-fi explanation to events that were fine as they were. Much Much better even.
holy shit man, i didn't even know that glass hotel was related to sea of tranquility. SoT was the first book that I read by the author. gotta check out glass hotel too.
It's her best, imo, but maybe I'm just sick of pandemic stories. Station 11 is also good, but the whole central plot I'm checked out of.
Hope you enjoy GH as much as I did
I really enjoyed the Salvage Crew by.... (googling) Yudhanjaya Wijeratne.
It's about a guy who has been turned into an AI and charged with keeping watch over a bunch of salvagers. Except everything is budget. He's a budget AI. His ship and his computer is budget, strippe down to keep to weight limits. The salvagers are basically gig economy workers.
It realy helps if you've played Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress, because it's very much intended to be a love letter to that sort of random event generation game. With him going near mad as he tries to save his guys - who are all uniquely awful candidates for their current profession - from unexpected shit trying to kill them, and occasionally thinking he should just let it. Some readers seem frustrated that the guys can be quite so shit, but that's their point in a way.
I also enjoy how it's positioned in an odd place between serious, comedy and horror. It talks about things like how the AI can't be an engineer or do anything really meaningful because people already found the best of any career and copied their brains a bunch of times. The best engineers are these ultra autistic savant AIs, and everyone else are just blue collar. But the people and tech of the future are so callous at times it wraps around to being kind of funny in that way 40k was originally meant to be seen as parody. And when it starts leaning into horror the protagonist is a machine strapped to a rocket and can gtfo at pretty much any time. But the humans can't. So really it's just a fun sort of building tension as things go more and more breasts up.
Not the perfect book or anything close, but more memorable than anything else ive read in years.
Gone World, Tom Sweterlitsch
Do white people really? Christ.
>AI will never replace human made literature!
The human made literature:
when I first started reading fantasy and sci-fi I thought to start with big award winners. Now I know that it's literally a warning stamp
they're not a bad guide up until the 1980s or so
What a stupid thing to say. Old awards are a perfectly fine way to start and find good books and authors when you have no idea what to read.
Obviously, some winners are crap - I didn't like The Man in High Castle, should I start crying about terrible awards? No, that's moronic. And for every winner there are 3-5 nominees that you can look up and learn more about.
"Warning stamp" is the publication year, awards are secondary criteria when it comes to modern shit.
Robert Heinlein won some awards also Frank Herbert. You gotta learn to find some diamonds in the sea of shit that is sci-fi.
It is now, if something wins a hugo or a nebula just stay away from it.
The only award for scifi/fantasy that means anything these days is the dragon con award, because its literal fans voting on something they liked instead of scalzi and his homosexual cliques picking and choosing a winner.
Yeah sorry if I wasn't clear, it wasn't actually a recommendation. I was just pointing out that hugo award winners are trash no one has read now, too.
>Yeah sorry if I wasn't clear, it wasn't actually a recommendation
Burying the lead there, Anon. But I appreciate the correction. Just glad I checked out the preview!
Even Reddit hates the major sff awards now.
Bros, when will IQfy start its own literary magazine? I don't think we're much worse than this.
Aren't there like 3 magazines getting people's shit already?
Women took over publishing.
Scalzi is a garbage writer. In fairness to him, the first excerpt is written in the voice of one of the characters which, while still terrible, is at least aware. Sadly mainstream sci-fi is largely Whedonized trash these days.
What's the point in writing when the modern audience available is...that?
This shit had no audience. Literary awards are made by israelites and given to israelites, not for any sort of literary merit, but for marketing purposes. The goyim wont read boring, ugly prose by Hershel's nephew, but slap a cheap foil sticker on it, get your shabbos goys in the media to run some fake reviews, and suddenly you've got a best seller.
If I ever self publish a book I'm going to slap ten fake literary awards on the cover. And if anyone calls me out on it I'll just point to the Hugo Awards, Newbury medals, and Nobel prizes and say they're doing the same damn thing.
Vox Day warned you when they started to take over the Hugos. Did you listen? No. You could've prevented this.
Are there any good science fiction books that came out in the last few years?
My God it's like a collage of fatherless nutjobs, which it probably is.
it's the face of modern literature. Next time you're at a book store and you're looking at author names on book covers, these are the faces you can't see.
The only one I recognize is the Babylon 5 guy
Again, another one beaten into shape by Harlan Ellison.
Contemporary, modern refers to the 20th century.
I didn't know Lindsay Ellis was a species
this is the average reader in 2023
with a very few exceptions, scifi and fantasy have always been this kind of embarrassing onions shit
>THERES NO NEED TO BE RUDE CHUDS!!
What is with the millennial/zoomer love of "um if you don't like it then just keep it to yourself mmmkay??" Frick you b***h if I inhale a piece of pollen I dislike I'm going to tell everybody.
Don't forget the "Oh yeah, have you written a book? No? Then you can't criticize."
it's a polite veil for controlling other people's speech.
In other words, it's a rhetorical formulation which allows people to fool themselves into thinking they're open-minded and freedom-oriented people (which is the party line), while enjoying the convenience and effectiveness of a simple-minded authoritarianism.
I'm not a fan but reading twitter is worse