Unpopular opinions about books

[Midwit]

What even is that book?

It's about a kid who gets sent to one of those torture camps for troubled youths that somehow exist in the US, where he and his fellow prisoners are all forced to dig up a desert because the people running the site are looking for buried treasure. One of the other kids is black and can't read, but he's also a magical for some reason and this somehow ends up taking down the camp and I think he and his equally magical mother/aunt/grandma comes to live with the main boy after it's over. Bear in mind this is half-remembered shit from when I were a schoolboy so don't take it as definitive.

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

There is also a movie that produced some funny lines:

Tax:
Most children's literature for decades has been absolute trash. Combined with the forced down your throat nature of public education, it has probably done irreparable harm to reading as a pastime.

 

[Cnidarian]

The Gulag Archipelago is much more a real self-help book that can do wonders for your mental health than any actual "self-help" book that gets pushed to the mainstream by influences and e-celebs alike.

Go elaborate when you can.

 

[Fields Of Rye]

Go elaborate when you can.

Not the OP but having read it, its a very deep look into human psychology in times of crisis.

A big part of psychology is getting your own theory of mind under control. Gulag is full of very honest analysis of people under crisis.

for example; how those who believed in communism were usually relieved to be black bagged because they could imagine themselves being broken more easily than the system just sucking.

that concept literally kept my ass in grad school because I went from “oh gee I suck” to “nah, maybe this shit does actually suck, let’s start fucking sidestepping it instead of blaming myself”.

 

[Candlelight Desolation]

It's about a kid who gets sent to one of those torture camps for troubled youths that somehow exist in the US, where he and his fellow prisoners are all forced to dig up a desert because the people running the site are looking for buried treasure.

It also has a (VERY preachy and crass) sequel starring two of the side characters. That book in question is so bad it makes the first unreadable.

 

[ZsaZsaBinks]

I don’t like those kids’ books where the message is “be nice to each other uwu”. Same with the humanization of undesirable demographics. Kids don’t want to read books like that, the only people who fuck with those kinds of stories are teachers and parents.

 

[Alexander Thaut]

I don’t like those kids’ books where the message is “be nice to each other uwu”. Same with the humanization of undesirable demographics. Kids don’t want to read books like that, the only people who fuck with those kinds of stories are teachers and parents.

The best "boys" books are all pretty old IMO. Treasure Island, Call of the Wild, etc.

 

[Argos]

YA sf and fantasy should be separated from YA in general.

 

[kuzburger]

"The Stranger" by Albert Camus was overall a bad and stupid book. Camus tried to paint Meursault as some sort of tragic protagonist who is judged unfairly for his indifference and straightforwardness but that's stupid because Meursault can just decide to change and grow as a person but he never does. The guy who is like "Why aren't you a Christian? You're evil!" comes across as a strawman that makes the counterargument that Meursault is psychologically deficient seem flimsy. But that's not how people actually are, they aren't judging him for "not playing by society's supposedly stupid rules" - they're judging him because everyone is expected to grow as a person but he decides not to despite the implication that he has the capacity to. This psychological failure to thrive led him to kill a man for what basically amounts to "I was bored and didn't care about his life (or mine for that matter)." Everything I read indictaed that "You should not be a Meursault" - but then what are you supposed to be? It could have been significantly improved by adding more subtext or direct opposition against Meursault's deficiency, adding more foil characters that comment on Meursault and are better than him (because they choose to be), or having Meursault actually realize the gravity of this and feel remorse.

tl;dr: The Stranger sucks because Meursault is treated as a victim of society despite everything being his fault for never deciding to change as a person.

 

[McMitch]

YA sf and fantasy should be separated from YA in general.

All YA genre belong in the same place: the dumpster. By the time you’re eleven, you should already be dipping your toes into writings for adults.

 

[Clyde Cash's Left Teste]

I think In the Mountains of Madness could be been a couple pages shorter but that could just be me hating long descriptions of places

In general, I have been on a Lovecraft/weird fiction kick lately. I've read some Machen, I'm current working my way through Clark Ashton Smiths stuff.

Also Goldfinger is a rare case of the Movie being a lot better then the book.

 

[Haffhart]

Most children's literature for decades has been absolute trash. Combined with the forced down your throat nature of public education, it has probably done irreparable harm to reading as a pastime.

After Dahl and the Inklings wrote in the mid-century, there was L'Engle, Lloyd Alexander, Diana Wynne Jones, Selden and Sachar and Snicket, of course Rowling and Riordan - and many others I'm too tired to remember. You guys seem older. Yes I remember the biased biographies and sheer propaganda, but if the last few decades lacked good kids' literature I wouldn't be in this thread.

It also has a (VERY preachy and crass) sequel starring two of the side characters. That book in question is so bad it makes the first unreadable.

I don't know about this sequel, but Holes was alright - the movie in particular was a good weekend afternoon flick, and a touchstone for my generation. Again, I think you guys skew older.

I don’t like those kids’ books where the message is “be nice to each other uwu”.

Not you rejecting the bedrock of the West (the New Testament - a fantastic adventure centered on the theme of Love. Read Chesterton).

 

[AnOminous]

"The Stranger" by Albert Camus was overall a bad and stupid book. Camus tried to paint Meursault as some sort of tragic protagonist who is judged unfairly for his indifference and straightforwardness but that's stupid because Meursault can just decide to change and grow as a person but he never does.

I was going to say I disagree and clearly Meursault was supposed to represent the banality of the viewpoint he was presenting, essentially an empty vessel unwilling to be filled with anything, and both his life and death were meaningless.

Looking it up, though, Camus actually thought you should sympathize with him. So I guess since he'd also like "death of the author" stuff, I'll stick to my version where it's actually a good book if it meant what I think it did.

I think less of Camus but not of the book. After all, Camus may have been too dumb to write the book he wanted to write, but he did manage to write the book that I read, which was pretty good.

That said The Plague is a lot better.

 

[Halbschwanz]

• As an enjoyer of weird fiction, I think the genre distinction between fantasy and science fiction is more arbitrary than people hype it up to be. People will usually be quick to say that writing science fiction requires reliance on scientific principles, but conversely fantasy doesn't require magic. An element of the fantastical is present in both, and it's not like every person who writes sci-fi spends their daylight hours in a laboratory. Not every fantasy story takes place in another world and even sci-fi stories will incorporate magic under the auspices of being 'psychic' in ways that allow them to ignore any law of physics that is inconvenient to their storytelling. When the argument of science fiction being speculative comes up, you can very quickly point to some of H.G. Wells seminal works and realize that a lot of the assumptions he was operating under no longer apply. That would mean the sci-fi label if applied strictly as a speculative one would mean that it is only "scientific" as a temporal label. Fantasy also encompasses so many different types of worldbuilding and narrative styles that can also apply to sci-fi that trying to draw distinctions between them can actually be harder than you think when it really comes down to it.
• I heavily prefer short form fiction to novels, and I am really picky books that come in a series. I prefer being able to chunk through a story then have time to digest it because I have a bad habit of having to clear several hours for when I read a book so I don't set it down and forget to come back to it.
• Fanfiction and creepypastas are perfectly fine places to start learning how to write, provided you eventually learn solid writing techniques and can move on to original fiction. Staying with those is basically sitting in the shallow end of the authorial pool with your floaties on.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

• As an enjoyer of weird fiction, I think the genre distinction between fantasy and science fiction is more arbitrary than people hype it up to be. People will usually be quick to say that writing science fiction requires reliance on scientific principles, but conversely fantasy doesn't require magic. An element of the fantastical is present in both, and it's not like every person who writes sci-fi spends their daylight hours in a laboratory. Not every fantasy story takes place in another world and even sci-fi stories will incorporate magic under the auspices of being 'psychic' in ways that allow them to ignore any law of physics that is inconvenient to their storytelling. When the argument of science fiction being speculative comes up, you can very quickly point to some of H.G. Wells seminal works and realize that a lot of the assumptions he was operating under no longer apply. That would mean the sci-fi label if applied strictly as a speculative one would mean that it is only "scientific" as a temporal label. Fantasy also encompasses so many different types of worldbuilding and narrative styles that can also apply to sci-fi that trying to draw distinctions between them can actually be harder than you think when it really comes down to it.
• I heavily prefer short form fiction to novels, and I am really picky books that come in a series. I prefer being able to chunk through a story then have time to digest it because I have a bad habit of having to clear several hours for when I read a book so I don't set it down and forget to come back to it.
• Fanfiction and creepypastas are perfectly fine places to start learning how to write, provided you eventually learn solid writing techniques and can move on to original fiction. Staying with those is basically sitting in the shallow end of the authorial pool with your floaties on.

There's a sort of encompassing label for SF-F, it's called "speculative fiction".

Short fiction can be really fucking good. It's a shame it's sort of mostly limited to a quasi-indie sphere nowadays.

 

[AnOminous]

Short fiction can be really fucking good. It's a shame it's sort of mostly limited to a quasi-indie sphere nowadays.

Almost nobody can actually make a living writing just short fiction. Each short story is an entire story despite its length and not many people have that many ideas. One of the last people who really succeeded at writing nearly nothing but short fiction was Harlan Ellison.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

Almost nobody can actually make a living writing just short fiction. Each short story is an entire story despite its length and not many people have that many ideas. One of the last people who really succeeded at writing nearly nothing but short fiction was Harlan Ellison.

Pretty much, and Ellison lived in a totally different era and played every card he could to succeed.

 

[sarna]

Almost nobody can actually make a living writing just short fiction. Each short story is an entire story despite its length and not many people have that many ideas. One of the last people who really succeeded at writing nearly nothing but short fiction was Harlan Ellison.

And even a guy who is good at writing shorts, like Dave Drake, will inevitably turn to novels because novels pay and shorts don't.

In general, I have been on a Lovecraft/weird fiction kick lately. I've read some Machen, I'm current working my way through Clark Ashton Smiths stuff.

I've been running through all the Robert E. Howard that's on Project Gutenberg right now and having a blast. If you never read him, the old Conan and King Kull stories have way more in common with Lovecraft than you'd think from watching the modern movie and comic versions. Some real good cosmic horror in there.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

I think In the Mountains of Madness could be been a couple pages shorter but that could just be me hating long descriptions of places

In general, I have been on a Lovecraft/weird fiction kick lately. I've read some Machen, I'm current working my way through Clark Ashton Smiths stuff.

Also Goldfinger is a rare case of the Movie being a lot better then the book.

And even a guy who is good at writing shorts, like Dave Drake, will inevitably turn to novels because novels pay and shorts don't.


I've been running through all the Robert E. Howard that's on Project Gutenberg right now and having a blast. If you never read him, the old Conan and King Kull stories have way more in common with Lovecraft than you'd think from watching the modern movie and comic versions. Some real good cosmic horror in there.

If you can find them, all the Manly Wade Wellman stuff is good. The guy was a writer for 50 something years and was a Weird Tales regular. Some label him as "The American Tolkein" because of his focus on american folklore. He did a string of characters like John Thunstone, Judge Pursuivant, and John The Balladeer (who would go on to inspire D & D's bards). In the last decade or so of his life, he returned to his famous characters and pumped out a few John Thunstone and John the Balladeer novels.

He was sort of a friend/mentor to Karl Edward Wagner and David Drake. "Golgotha Dancers" is one notable public domain story by Wellman.

and, of course, I'm also going to go plug for Frederik Pohl's "A Plague of Pythons" because it's public domain and pretty fun. Pohl's a pretty good writer and even his more minor novels are well thought out. This one's got a very creepy "Weird Tales" vibe to it.

 

[Clyde Cash's Left Teste]

I've been running through all the Robert E. Howard that's on Project Gutenberg right now and having a blast. If you never read him, the old Conan and King Kull stories have way more in common with Lovecraft than you'd think from watching the modern movie and comic versions. Some real good cosmic horror in there.

I got into Howard a couple years ago and loved it. His horror stuff, King Kull, Solomon Kane, Conan all great stuff. Hell, I think the ending of By this Axe I rule is more powerful then what it got revised to for Phonex on the Sword. Both good stories though