If there is a book I really want to read, I usually do so. Although I might go ahead an enter a ballot this year and just vote without nominating any books, and read the final contestants (assuming Vox doesn't load the ballot with books like "T-rex Troubles" that is).If these are one's consideration, it is strictly better to nominate books you know you want to read in order to increase chances of them being included in the PDF bundle.
If T-rex Troubles is the one I'm thinking of, it was way better than the one it was parodying :)
Personally speaking, as someone who is a SFF reader, the Hugo's haven't been relavant for over a decade now. They USED to be influential and could actually make an author's career (Orson Scott Card anyone?).
I'd say, that these days, it's not about quality of the Sci-Fi and more about whoever has been popular with a niche crowd. The voters don't care about quality from what I've seen of the winners in recent years.
In that light, the detractors are right, there is something going on (maybe politics, maybe something else) that has made the Hugo's largely irrelevant to most of the SFF readers. Now days it's more of a signal of what NOT TO READ rather than quality Sci-Fi.
Overall, I don't care much about the Hugo's, and the only reason I've been seeing anything about them is because of the controversy. In some ways this controversy has brought more attention to them than anything else has in the past decade and a half.
However, ironically, some of those that are bringing up the controversy (those making slates and such...or at least one of them) don't really jive with my common sensibilities (calling people like me SJW, or saying that White Caucasion guys from Utah who just happen to have some Portuguese in their backgrounds are minorities which experience the same social problems that those with different skin tones do...which is ridiculous)...and in some instances are offensive to the extreme.
That doesn't really build up any of my support, and the novels that they are submitting are not really novels that would impress me if they won Hugo's either.
Overall, the Hugo's are irrelevant to my reading habits these days. I suppose that means that they've lost a LOT of relevancy to many people who may have read many of the Hugo's in the past.
If T-rex Troubles is the one I'm thinking of, it was way better than the one it was parodying :)If there is a book I really want to read, I usually do so. Although I might go ahead an enter a ballot this year and just vote without nominating any books, and read the final contestants (assuming Vox doesn't load the ballot with books like "T-rex Troubles" that is).If these are one's consideration, it is strictly better to nominate books you know you want to read in order to increase chances of them being included in the PDF bundle.
Assuming you're talking about the infamous Dinosaur Hugo story, I didn't get that one either. Didn't seem particularly good or particularly SF to me. And to most of the voters, since it didn't actually win.
My thought on that, and this is purely speculation, isn't so much that it got nominated because it checked the right SJW boxes as is often said, but that it's more a matter of chasing one's literary tail. Much like awards in many fields tend to chase more obscure and different works because the people doing the awarding see so many of them, they stop appreciating the good stuff if it's similar to what they've seen before. Or at least want to pretend they do, so they seem more sophisticated.
Short version: It's because they've become more literary, not more SJW.
Why can't it be both? The literary crowd is also way more liberal than average. Those who don't fit in to the social circle feel like they are being ostracized, so they don't get involved in the award.
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GreyWolfLord, you also just flat out don't read books from major publishers, right? I'm not doubting your tastes or anything, just saying that given your preferences it makes sense that you wouldn't care about the Hugos, but your reasons are very different from those of the Puppies.
Or am I confusing you with someone else?
Short version: It's because they've become more literary, not more SJW.
"literary" is not a very well defined word, and it might be misplaced here. I don't think most Hugo winners have a lot in common with mainstream literary books - on the contrary, some of them are really weird, especially those who aren't straightforward SF books.
And, I'm pretty sure if you did a statistical slicing of the books that win or are nominated to the Hugos you'll find that much more of them than the average in the field are about (or even just include) elements that closely relate to the latest, most fashionable social rights topic. Pretending that that is coincidental is pointless - it is clearly not.
However, the quality of a book has little to do with such things. If the Hugo is more of an award for "best liberal minded SF book of the year" than anything else... well, what of it?
Why can't it be both? The literary crowd is also way more liberal than average. Those who don't fit in to the social circle feel like they are being ostracized, so they don't get involved in the award.Occam's Razor suggests you need to stop grasping at straws to make this about politics or culture instead of it being about how the field has grown and changed and the nature of literary awards.
Listen to what Flint and Martin have been saying, basically.
Where is the stretch? All I'm doing is taking one of the arguments Flint acknowledges and disagrees with and saying that it isn't as preposterous as he is claiming.
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Literary as used here refers to the subset of fiction called literary fiction in the states.
The divide between 'literary' or 'serious' and everything else (commercial, popular, genre, etc) leads to lots of weirdness.
One good way to think of it is that literary authors are usually supported by, essentially, patronage via employment at universities and such, and their continued employment is tied to how other literary fiction authors and critics view them. Genre and popular fiction authors, on the other hand, live off royalties and therefore are dependent on mass market appeal.
In the Hugo's this aspect shows up the most in the short fiction categories because no one makes money off them.
The weirdness you mention is what I pointed at. I agree that in the short story categories there does seem to be more of a tendancy to actual literary stuff, but in the novel category ("the big one"), I'm not really seeing it. And, I mean, Guardians of the Galaxy just one a Hugo. Not exactly The Great Gatsby, that.
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If the first thing you write is lit fic without any so-called genre elements, you get to be in the lit fic section of the bookstore, even if the next thing you publish is about time travel or magic.
If the first thing you write has any trace of genre in it, you are a genre writer and need to go to your corner of the bookstore where decent people dont have to look at you.
If your work has clear elements of a genre, but it has attained significant acclaim and accolades over the years, you may find yourself elevated to the rank of "serious" fiction. It's why you will find Maus in the Biography section, not the graphic novel section.
In short, only lit fic is good, so anything good that has genre elements must actually be lit fic, not genre fiction.
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If the first thing you write is lit fic without any so-called genre elements, you get to be in the lit fic section of the bookstore, even if the next thing you publish is about time travel or magic.
If the first thing you write has any trace of genre in it, you are a genre writer and need to go to your corner of the bookstore where decent people dont have to look at you.
If your work has clear elements of a genre, but it has attained significant acclaim and accolades over the years, you may find yourself elevated to the rank of "serious" fiction. It's why you will find Maus in the Biography section, not the graphic novel section.
In short, only lit fic is good, so anything good that has genre elements must actually be lit fic, not genre fiction.
See? Hogo voters are not the only nefarious book Illuminati faction that looks down on people that don't line up to it's ideology! literary fiction enthusiasts do it too!
I agree that many people unfairly disregard genre fiction. However, I disregard literary fiction, probably unfairly too. "Literary" is a genre, like any other. Realizing that relieves a lot of the anger about the subject.
Where is the stretch? All I'm doing is taking one of the arguments Flint acknowledges and disagrees with and saying that it isn't as preposterous as he is claiming.Why can't it be both? The literary crowd is also way more liberal than average. Those who don't fit in to the social circle feel like they are being ostracized, so they don't get involved in the award.Occam's Razor suggests you need to stop grasping at straws to make this about politics or culture instead of it being about how the field has grown and changed and the nature of literary awards.
Listen to what Flint and Martin have been saying, basically.
Because Flint and especially Martin know what they're talking about, they explain why your argument is wrong, and explain what's really going on.
Your reply consists of, essentially, "Nuh-uh!"
And other people involved in the community say they have experienced the problems, otherwise you wouldn't have half a dozen authors vocally complaining enough to organize their fans. In my experience, when you are closely involved in communities you get become blinded by these things.
Assuming you're talking about the infamous Dinosaur Hugo story, I didn't get that one either. Didn't seem particularly good or particularly SF to me. And to most of the voters, since it didn't actually win.
Short version: It's because they've become more literary, not more SJW.
No No no..."T-rex Troubles" is part of a series of dinosaur "erotica" available on Amazon (which were lampooned a couple of years back). The author also wrote "Ravished by the Triceratops" and "Taken by the Pterodactyl". I would link but I suspect its NSFW :)
Basically, based on comments about Sad Puppies having to actually "reign in" Vox, and Vox's stated goals, I am guessing that the strategy this year might just be to rig the nominations with, at least in part, absolutely loathsome, poorly written dreck which no one regardless of political affiliation thinks deserve an award.
As for the actual story the Sad Puppies love to complain about, I've never read it. However I don't really see the big deal as the story didn't even actually win, it was just nominated. So clearly the Hugos are not so biased as they claim.
I was assuming that in Caineach's "was way better than the one it was parodying", the one it was parodying was the nominee.Assuming you're talking about the infamous Dinosaur Hugo story, I didn't get that one either. Didn't seem particularly good or particularly SF to me. And to most of the voters, since it didn't actually win.
Short version: It's because they've become more literary, not more SJW.
No No no..."T-rex Troubles" is part of a series of dinosaur "erotica" available on Amazon (which were lampooned a couple of years back). The author also wrote "Ravished by the Triceratops" and "Taken by the Pterodactyl". I would link but I suspect its NSFW :)
Basically, based on comments about Sad Puppies having to actually "reign in" Vox, and Vox's stated goals, I am guessing that the strategy this year might just be to rig the nominations with, at least in part, absolutely loathsome, poorly written dreck which no one regardless of political affiliation thinks deserve an award.
As for the actual story the Sad Puppies love to complain about, I've never read it. However I don't really see the big deal as the story didn't even actually win, it was just nominated. So clearly the Hugos are not so biased as they claim.
Yeah, someone linked both in the last thread on this topic, but I'm too lazy to go back and look.
GreyWolfLord, you also just flat out don't read books from major publishers, right? I'm not doubting your tastes or anything, just saying that given your preferences it makes sense that you wouldn't care about the Hugos, but your reasons are very different from those of the Puppies.
Or am I confusing you with someone else?
Short version: It's because they've become more literary, not more SJW."literary" is not a very well defined word, and it might be misplaced here. I don't think most Hugo winners have a lot in common with mainstream literary books - on the contrary, some of them are really weird, especially those who aren't straightforward SF books.
And, I'm pretty sure if you did a statistical slicing of the books that win or are nominated to the Hugos you'll find that much more of them than the average in the field are about (or even just include) elements that closely relate to the latest, most fashionable social rights topic. Pretending that that is coincidental is pointless - it is clearly not.
However, the quality of a book has little to do with such things. If the Hugo is more of an award for "best liberal minded SF book of the year" than anything else... well, what of it?
Well, it depends on what you call a major publisher. I had a friend of the family recently write a book called the Martian which many wouldn't say was originally published by a major publisher, but I'd probably consider it being published and put into Walmart and other places I've seen it now as perhaps qualifying it have been somewhat mainstreamed.
However, many of the major publishers of Sci-Fi in the past are no longer major publishers of Sci-fi whilst other companies over the past decade such as Baen, Orbit, Solaris, EOS (apparently, after looking at my collection, I seem to like EOS more than I thought)...have been bigger in the Sci-Fi arena in what I look at than TOR. Many would not consider those major publishers, whilst deferring to TOR or Ace. I have read some Ace books (and in fact, have some of Alistair Reynolds books who I believe actually was a Hugo winner...so I don't completely avoid them...
On the otherhand, I have several family members that do write in the Sci-Fi independent arena, and thus by force of blood, I tend to be reading many more independents these days than I probably otherwise would.
However, many of them are published by Amazon...which I suppose one could call a major publisher these days...
There is also one that is an independent and publishes their own stuff (they live off of it, so I guess they must be somewhat successful).
If you consider the publishers other than TOR or Ace that I listed above, than I suppose you would say I read mainstream stuff from big publishers...if not...well...I do read occasional TOR and ACE books, but they tend to have authors that aren't really writing in the style I prefer to read. (At least currently).
I also seem to really like Ace as I have a lot of books from them (whilst looking over my collection today to respond to your question), and I would probably label them as a major publisher, though there are those who may not as well. I also read books that are not science fiction (But apparently fall as Sci-Fi for what the Hugo's look at these days) but great Space Opera. For example, I'm a HUGE Bolterporn fan and hence have a lot of books from the Black Library.
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Ah, I thought it was something more ideological and clear cut than that.
Also, if I may, it is incredibly awesome that you know Andy Weir. I read and enormously enjoyed The Martian and am passing it around my family and friends. I really hope he has another book or two in him, even if they take a long time to stew. Also, I wish him good luck with the movie deal - The Martian is a tough movie to adapt, given how technical it is. Did the Martian win a hugo? I can't remember, though I am pretty sure it won the Goodreads award for SF that year.
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The nature of commercial publishing has changed. Whereas before publishers wanted pulp novels to be short so that they could keep manufacturing costs down and at least hope to break even on an investment in a new title, now they want to maximize their risk up front on a planned series because they hope it will have a built-in market: if you buy the first one, you NEEEED to buy the second one or will never know how the story ends. It's like a home-grown book-of-the-month club.
In mystery publishing, they up front will ASK if you plan to have your detective be a series detective. They don't like stand-alone stories anymore. But that's for mass market. If you're aiming for the literary market, such as "An Instance of the Fingerpost" or "The Name of the Rose" (to use the mystery genre as an example) then they don't care if its planned as a series or not, because the higher price, smaller print run and likelihood of being reviewed in a major newspaper or magazine are more conducive to a return on investment.
That's another hole with these awards, they don't include self-published titles.
As said above, they do. Most of the fanzines are certainly self-published, and there are no rules against self-published books.
And as a cynic, I wonder just what the response to Game of Thrones would be if Vox Day wrote it. Let's postulate a world where Martin kicked off about 90 or so from a heart attack; we take all the manuscripts for Game of Thrones to an alternate world and give them to Vox Day to publish through whatever his publishing house is.
Day wrote a GAME OF THRONES rip-off novel. It was terrible.
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I was kind of struck by all the Martin adulation I've seen online. I was reading him during his Tuf Voyaging/Dying of the Light/Wildcards days. I never bothered to pick up any of his Game of Thrones books because I was totally burned out by all these long series when it started. The same goes for Jordan and Goodkind (though I don't think Goodkind is really that good a writer, his first one was ok, then it dragged on and on - advances be damned, it has to end sometime). I'm still not reading it (Game), HBO is more than enough for me when want some of that.
And as a cynic, I wonder just what the response to Game of Thrones would be if Vox Day wrote it. Let's postulate a world where Martin kicked off about 90 or so from a heart attack; we take all the manuscripts for Game of Thrones to an alternate world and give them to Vox Day to publish through whatever his publishing house is.
Man I bet that would be a feeding frenzy. I can feel the winds of deconstruction across the dimensional boundaries.
I can see a connection between you not reading ASoIaF and you believing it would have been accepted poorly if written by Vox Day. Frankly, and I say this as a big Martin fan, A Game of Thrones is ten times better than anything else he's written before, and A Storm of Swords is in some ways probably better than any other fantasy novel I've read. If all you know of the books is their pale and increasingly distorted shadow that is the HBO show, I can see why you aren't very excited about it.
People didn't like A Song of Ice and Fire because of Martin's politics, they liked it because it is an awesome book. Consider it - the novels sold millions of copies even before the HBO show, and of those millions it is really hard to believe most of them know or care who the author is.
For examples of authors with despicable politics still being adored for the great stuff they've written, see Lovecraft and Orson Scott Card.
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I can see a connection between you not reading ASoIaF and you believing it would have been accepted poorly if written by Vox Day. Frankly, and I say this as a big Martin fan, A Game of Thrones is ten times better than anything else he's written before, and A Storm of Swords is in some ways probably better than any other fantasy novel I've read. If all you know of the books is their pale and increasingly distorted shadow that is the HBO show, I can see why you aren't very excited about it.Yeah, I haven't read the books. Don't get me wrong I think the series is very good for what it is.
But I also think that if it didn't have "blood and boobs" it wouldn't be anywhere near as popular as it is. It would make a very interesting PBS kind of thing (though without the money for all those actors and sets), but it wouldn't have the mass audience it has without all those hot young things popping up nude in Littlefinger's bordello or whatever from time to time. (You might catch an old guy on the "throne," but not flashing a lot of skin.)
And it is a similar thing with the violence.
My point being I don't think Martin is indulging his political sensibilities or worldview in this work (unlike Goodkind). It's a pretty reasonable stab at telling a realistic story in this kind of world.
But if Vox Day (insert anyone with views you find as reprehensible) had written something like this? The usual people would be all over it. Incest, gratuitous violence, subjugation of women, etc.
That's the thing. The show took the "sex and violence" thing and dialed it up to a thousand. The books are very violent, though for the most part not gory, and it actually doesn't have a lot of sex in it. What sex it does always either advances the plot or serves to develop characters. In other words, nothing like the gratuitous, endless, pornographic scenes in the show. Really, the reason people associate the books with sex is because it exists in them - unlike earlier works, such as the wheel of time, A Game of Thrones included words like "penis", had sex in the early parts (which caught attention) and touched on subjects such as incest and rape in an unflinching manner. It never had the... shall I say sticky feeling that the show oozes with.
And same goes with violence. The show seriously exacerbated the source material there.
Essentially, a lot of what is subtle and smart about the books had to be seriously dumbed down to make what is otherwise an incredibly complex show more accessible.
The books really just don't have the elements or the feel that you think they do based on watching the show. It's the reason I stopped watching it in the third season after a lot of teeth-grinding through it, despite it being a high budget, well acted show based on my favorite series.
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Really, the reason people associate the books with sex is because it exists in them - unlike earlier works, such as the wheel of time, A Game of Thrones included words like "penis", had sex in the early parts (which caught attention) and touched on subjects such as incest and rape in an unflinching manner. It never had the... shall I say sticky feeling that the show oozes with.Just for the record, plenty of earlier works of fantasy have had sex in them. Probably including the word "penis", though I don't particularly recall.
To be honest, the violence, or his particular take on that, is more distinctive than the sex. That's what I've usually seen called out as the change from other fantasy. Though I'd say even that is exaggerated.
Explicit sex in epic fantasy? Could you provide examples?
And to hear Martin speak of it, he seems to feel that people complain much more about the sex than the violence. I heard him say in an interview that he can describe an ax splitting a head in two with no problem, but mention a penis entering a vagina and suddenly he gets flooded with angry emails.
Really, the reason people associate the books with sex is because it exists in them - unlike earlier works, such as the wheel of time, A Game of Thrones included words like "penis", had sex in the early parts (which caught attention) and touched on subjects such as incest and rape in an unflinching manner. It never had the... shall I say sticky feeling that the show oozes with.Just for the record, plenty of earlier works of fantasy have had sex in them. Probably including the word "penis", though I don't particularly recall.
To be honest, the violence, or his particular take on that, is more distinctive than the sex. That's what I've usually seen called out as the change from other fantasy. Though I'd say even that is exaggerated.
Explicit sex in epic fantasy? Could you provide examples?
And to hear Martin speak of it, he seems to feel that people complain much more about the sex than the violence. I heard him say in an interview that he can describe an ax splitting a head in two with no problem, but mention a penis entering a vagina and suddenly he gets flooded with angry emails.
GRRM has said that Swords and Sorcery type novels were an important inspiration, and I don't think they have been shy on the sex and violence. To be fair I really haven't read a lot of older non Tolkien fantasy, so someone else would be better informed here.
GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire sort of was a crucial turning point I think in modern fantasy. His was the first complex, long epic series to incorporate gritty elements and to also make ALL the money doing so, without which Abercrombie, Lynch, Rothfuss, etc wouldn't have emerged. But I think there was already a trend in that direction. Memory, Sorrow, Thorn by Tad William clearly provides an antecedent for ASOIF for instance.
And I will go ahead and firmly agree with you that the show really does double down on the sex and violence in a way that book doesn't. My eyes roll so hard every time we get a brothel seen, and me and my friends have been genuinely angry over the last two seasons about the sexual violence inflicted on several main characters, things which hurt the narrative and never occurred in the book
That's another hole with these awards, they don't include self-published titles.As said above, they do. Most of the fanzines are certainly self-published, and there are no rules against self-published books.
And as a cynic, I wonder just what the response to Game of Thrones would be if Vox Day wrote it. Let's postulate a world where Martin kicked off about 90 or so from a heart attack; we take all the manuscripts for Game of Thrones to an alternate world and give them to Vox Day to publish through whatever his publishing house is.Day wrote a GAME OF THRONES rip-off novel. It was terrible.
This just makes me insanely curious...
Explicit sex in epic fantasy? Could you provide examples?And to hear Martin speak of it, he seems to feel that people complain much more about the sex than the violence. I heard him say in an interview that he can describe an ax splitting a head in two with no problem, but mention a penis entering a vagina and suddenly he gets flooded with angry emails.
Well, read Stephen Donaldson (so that's at least back to the 70s and mid 80s). His earlier works are not to explicit, but when you get to The REAL STORY...you'll start wondering if he was writing for Penthouse or Hustler. It actually is probably worse than anything in those. That's probably his most explicit book (of course, I'm not one to usually read explicit stuff, Donaldson has such a command of the English Language that I normally love his stuff though. I hated the Real Story by the way).
The Mirror of her Dreams and a Man Rides through were also pretty explicit in some parts of that series.
But if Vox Day (insert anyone with views you find as reprehensible) had written something like this? The usual people would be all over it. Incest, gratuitous violence, subjugation of women, etc.
There are people that are upset about these things in the novels, even though Martin wrote them.
You probably just don't frequent those kind of sites. One particular review/breakdown I recall tallied up how many of the named female characters in the first four books were raped or threatened with rape. Spoiler alert, the figures were near 100%.
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Really, the reason people associate the books with sex is because it exists in them - unlike earlier works, such as the wheel of time, A Game of Thrones included words like "penis", had sex in the early parts (which caught attention) and touched on subjects such as incest and rape in an unflinching manner. It never had the... shall I say sticky feeling that the show oozes with.Just for the record, plenty of earlier works of fantasy have had sex in them. Probably including the word "penis", though I don't particularly recall.
To be honest, the violence, or his particular take on that, is more distinctive than the sex. That's what I've usually seen called out as the change from other fantasy. Though I'd say even that is exaggerated.
Explicit sex in epic fantasy? Could you provide examples?
And to hear Martin speak of it, he seems to feel that people complain much more about the sex than the violence. I heard him say in an interview that he can describe an ax splitting a head in two with no problem, but mention a penis entering a vagina and suddenly he gets flooded with angry emails.
GRRM has said that Swords and Sorcery type novels were an important inspiration, and I don't think they have been shy on the sex and violence. To be fair I really haven't read a lot of older non Tolkien fantasy, so someone else would be better informed here.
GRRM's Song of Ice and Fire sort of was a crucial turning point I think in modern fantasy. His was the first complex, long epic series to incorporate gritty elements and to also make ALL the money doing so, without which Abercrombie, Lynch, Rothfuss, etc wouldn't have emerged. But I think there was already a trend in that direction. Memory, Sorrow, Thorn by Tad William clearly provides an antecedent for ASOIF for instance.
And I will go ahead and firmly agree with you that the show really does double down on the sex and violence in a way that book doesn't. My eyes roll so...
Rothfuss? there's nothing gritty about Rothfuss.
I heard about the sexual violence scenes you mention. I was so glad for having stopped watching the show when people told me about that. It just demonstrates how far the show strayed from the point.
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But if Vox Day (insert anyone with views you find as reprehensible) had written something like this? The usual people would be all over it. Incest, gratuitous violence, subjugation of women, etc.There are people that are upset about these things in the novels, even though Martin wrote them.
You probably just don't frequent those kind of sites. One particular review/breakdown I recall tallied up how many of the named female characters in the first four books were raped or threatened with rape. Spoiler alert, the figures were near 100%.
There's a difference though, between using rape as a cheap source of internal turmoil for a female character, and rape just being a part of the story in a meaningful way.
In a medieval type world, in time of war with the like of The Mountain walking about, it really is nearly impossible for a woman to not be at least threatened with rape at some point.
If you look at the number of female characters who were actually raped, not just been in risk of it (which, again, will just happen naturally with the dogs of war walking about) the number you will come up with will actually be very low. There were some minor characters and mentions of off screen events, but think there's a single POV female who was actually raped (Daenerys). Note that I am not including stuff like
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Thinking back, maybe less in actual epic fantasy. I remember some in Darkover, for example.
And then there's Delaney. :)
Well yeah, clearly Martin didn't reinvent all of fantasy. He certainly revitalized and reshaped one subgenre of it, though, possibly paving the way to new sub-subgenres (I'm thinking Grimdark).
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But if Vox Day (insert anyone with views you find as reprehensible) had written something like this? The usual people would be all over it. Incest, gratuitous violence, subjugation of women, etc.There are people that are upset about these things in the novels, even though Martin wrote them.
You probably just don't frequent those kind of sites. One particular review/breakdown I recall tallied up how many of the named female characters in the first four books were raped or threatened with rape. Spoiler alert, the figures were near 100%.
Is this the one?
Is this the one?But if Vox Day (insert anyone with views you find as reprehensible) had written something like this? The usual people would be all over it. Incest, gratuitous violence, subjugation of women, etc.There are people that are upset about these things in the novels, even though Martin wrote them.
You probably just don't frequent those kind of sites. One particular review/breakdown I recall tallied up how many of the named female characters in the first four books were raped or threatened with rape. Spoiler alert, the figures were near 100%.
No, but that's interesting.
I was referring to this.|
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So yeah, it is as I remembered. The abundant rape in the book is not used to take away agency from the female characters or as a cheap "big character moment" kind of thing. It is used on characters ranging from minor to unnamed, by villains, the same villains who also come up with incredibly vile ways to kill both males and females. In other words, it is used for the most part to help provide the grim tone of the novels.
Interestingly, only one character has rape as any sort of major component in their story,
A couple of other serious mistakes/misinformations in the articles:
1) The claim that the book has more rape than the shows - I mean seriously, the books go into much further detail about the War of Five Kings than the show does and so the reader gets exposed to more numbers. However the emphasis and amount of "screen time" dedicated to rape is much lower in the books than in the show. The addition of several rape scenes to early seasons and straight up invention of rape occurrences in later seasons made sure of that. Claiming there's more rape in the books because in one scene it says "and then the Dothrakies raped 1000 women" is just downright silly.
2) "Only villains get revenge when they are raped"? Ignoring for a moment that not many protagonists get raped, Arya definitely gets to enact some vengeance on rapists, as well as Brienne and - and I can't believe I even need to say this - Oberyn Martell takes revenge against the Mountain for his sister.
So aside from deliberate misinterpretations of the books by people who think the mere concept of writing an epic fantasy is a conservative rite of patriarchy reinforcement, I really don't think there is solid ground to argue that the book has a rape problem.
Maybe it's just that I grew up reading fantasy/SF the crazy 70s and 80s, but I wouldn't call anything from ASoIaF (the books specifically) sexually explicit. Some of the Tyrion/Shae scenes come close, but I don't remember any of those going much past stiffing nipples to actual description of intercourse. I'm not saying the series is kid friendly or anything, but that's for other stuff.
There's a decent amount of sex in the Rothfuss' books (See...well..everything with Felurian), and I would say there are gritty moments. In particular I am thinking about all the stuff dealing with the abducted girls that happen towards the end of the second book.
There is sexual violence in GRRM's books, but not much of it happens on page, a lot of it happens to tertiary characters that admittably we are not super invested in, and largely exists in the form of threats. This is in contrast to some other fantasy authors, who double down on it as a way of showing the evil of villains in a cheap attempt to shock the reader (Goodkind loves doing that), or the TV show...which just seems clueless at times.
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There's a decent amount of sex in the Rothfuss' books (See...well..everything with Felurian), and I would say there are gritty moments. In particular I am thinking about all the stuff dealing with the abducted girls that happen towards the end of the second book.
There is sexual violence in GRRM's books, but not much of it happens on page, a lot of it happens to tertiary characters that admittably we are not super invested in, and largely exists in the form of threats. This is in contrast to some other fantasy authors, who double down on it as a way of showing the evil of villains in a cheap attempt to shock the reader (Goodkind loves doing that), or the TV show...which just seems clueless at times.
I think there's a big difference between "some bad stuff happens" and "gritty". With Kvoth being a super capable superstar at everything, a lot of light hearted humor and mostly good natured and well meaning characters (and, importantly, villains that are easy to identify as evil people of evil without much moral grayness) I'd hardly classify the Kingkiller Chronicles as gritty.
and yeah... Goodkind is one of those extremely rare authors who have written books that I read and regretted reading when looking back at it from the distance of a few years. I mean seriously, the sex stuff goes too far with no good reason in those books, and there just isn't enough actual substance to support that.
There's a decent amount of sex in the Rothfuss' books (See...well..everything with Felurian), and I would say there are gritty moments. In particular I am thinking about all the stuff dealing with the abducted girls that happen towards the end of the second book.
There is sexual violence in GRRM's books, but not much of it happens on page, a lot of it happens to tertiary characters that admittably we are not super invested in, and largely exists in the form of threats. This is in contrast to some other fantasy authors, who double down on it as a way of showing the evil of villains in a cheap attempt to shock the reader (Goodkind loves doing that), or the TV show...which just seems clueless at times.
I think there's a big difference between "some bad stuff happens" and "gritty". With Kvoth being a super capable superstar at everything, a lot of light hearted humor and mostly good natured and well meaning characters (and, importantly, villains that are easy to identify as evil people of evil without much moral grayness) I'd hardly classify the Kingkiller Chronicles as gritty.
and yeah... Goodkind is one of those extremely rare authors who have written books that I read and regretted reading when looking back at it from the distance of a few years. I mean seriously, the sex stuff goes too far with no good reason in those books, and there just isn't enough actual substance to support that.
Well...we'll see. I think the next volume of the Kingkiller chronicles is definitely going to be way darker than the prior two books. I would be honestly shocked if the somewhat light-hearted tone lasts the first half of the book.
And yeah...Goodkind starts out okay. It's not very original but you can forgive a lot because its the first book. You think the series is going to get better. But if anything each book is worse than the last. I think I got 4 books in and just...realized it was trash and only going to get ever worse.