I just finished The Free by Brian Ruckley. Reminded me so much of Joe Abercrombie's series but that's not a bad thing. I kept on thinking it was by Joe when reading it as the plot and world seemed so much like something he would do.
I like a grim dark book as much as the next person, but the problem I had with The Free is that there was no humour in it whatsoever (whereas you get some in an Abercrombie book), which made it a bit of a slog some of the time. It's got an interesting setting, granted, and I might go and read another book in the series, but it isn't really on par with any of the First Law books.
Question: the mother of one of my students is going overseas this summer and looking for some good recommendations for reading. She has two 16-hour flights. I'm not too familiar with her reading likes, but I know she read the Wheel of Time series and definitely liked it. Caveat: I teach at a pretty conservative religious school. My only concern is I don't want to pass along any recommendations that will come back and bite me in the butt because Language or Sex or something.
So, any ideas?
Is this reading for the student or for the mom?
Well if she liked the last few books in the Wheel of Time series, she could look at other books that Sanderson has done? I've only read the Mistborn series + Alloy of Law, which were pleasant enough and I'd have thought she'd enjoy them based on what you've said (I can't recall anything that might get you in trouble wrt Language or Sex in these books). I can't comment on the other books he's done though (the Supers series looks interesting).
I wonder how sensitive she could be about sex if she liked WoT. Mr. Jordan did not disguise his interests all that carefully.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Mistborn has some sort of subversive subtext for religion and such, but Sanderson is a Mormon and it's pretty safe for the religious in general, I would say.
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
@chuck steak, I finished off Sand. I really enjoyed it. Great worldbuilding with a good story and some engaging characters. I will say that given the Silo series, I was extremely surprised that...
...none of the main family died 'on camera.' I guess it's up in the air whether Vic dies in the nuclear explosion. Given how everyone else pulled through, in stark contrast to Wool, I would't be surprised if she managed to trigger the bomb remotely somehow.
I hope we get some more books in this world. I really liked the sanddiving and underground excavations. I'd love more of that, and to see what happens next of course.
The couple things I wasn't sure about that I'd like your take on:
Firstly, the drumming sound. Is this just the mining they are doing or whatever? Or do you have a take on what it is more specifically? Secondly, what are they mining there? And lastly, how are they stopping the rain, or containing it or whatever they are doing? And why? Just to be controlling dicks? I'm not sure if I missed some things, or if this is all supposed to be left to mystery.
Trying to get through The Affirmation. The only other Priest book I read was The Inverted World, which I enjoyed, and that's the only reason I've made it more than halfway through this book. The alternate world is incredibly boring. It's basically a collection of stereotypes and arbitrary details that get pages and pages of exposition. The protagonist is unlikable, which I can handle, but also terribly dull, which I can't. Both sides of the book remind me overwhelmingly of "Male Novelist Jokes." Especially the joke that goes, "His alcoholism was different from everyone else's, because he knew that he was going to die!!!" The protagonist's inability to relate to women is painful, and I have to say, is starting to seem like a reflection of Priest's. To call the plot slow is far too kind, and it seems obvious at this point that nothing will happen of any significance. Really the only thing the book has going for it is the central idea of the sides each writing the other, like that M.C. Escher sketch of two hands drawing each other. But 60% of the way through, basically nothing has been done with this idea. I've held on so long hoping for that sudden twist, but I don't see it coming.
@chuck steak, I finished off Sand. I really enjoyed it. Great worldbuilding with a good story and some engaging characters. I will say that given the Silo series, I was extremely surprised that...
...none of the main family died 'on camera.' I guess it's up in the air whether Vic dies in the nuclear explosion. Given how everyone else pulled through, in stark contrast to Wool, I would't be surprised if she managed to trigger the bomb remotely somehow.
I hope we get some more books in this world. I really liked the sanddiving and underground excavations. I'd love more of that, and to see what happens next of course.
The couple things I wasn't sure about that I'd like your take on:
Firstly, the drumming sound. Is this just the mining they are doing or whatever? Or do you have a take on what it is more specifically? Secondly, what are they mining there? And lastly, how are they stopping the rain, or containing it or whatever they are doing? And why? Just to be controlling dicks? I'm not sure if I missed some things, or if this is all supposed to be left to mystery.
Yeah, I thought the drumming was some sort of explosive mining. As it was described towards the end, it sounded like THEY were blowing shit up, magnetically pulling something out of the resulting dust which had a reverse cloud-seeding/rainmaking effect, and poisoning the water of the river they were near.
I don't think we get resolution of why. Presumably the mineral they are harvesting is sufficiently valuable to be worth all of that? There must be enough of them to make the refugee/prison camp worthwhile.
That's assuming the girl from No Man's Land is credible. The best unanswered question is whether she was legit or was somehow affiliated with the head bandit with the bombs who seemed to be of the watch-the-world-burn variety.
I wanted to know what the deal with "the gash" was (the deep crack in the sand near their annual camping spot). What would cause a thin rift like that to persist in the desert. I would have thought it would have filled in long ago with all the damn sand. Having read the whole silo series, I bet Howey has an explanation in mind, so, again, I hope we get more about this world/location.
I wonder how sensitive she could be about sex if she liked WoT. Mr. Jordan did not disguise his interests all that carefully.
Considering how long it is, Wheel of Time doesn't really have that many direct references to sex, and none of them are explicit. More wink-and-a-nod-if-you-know-what-I-mean kind of thing.
@chuck steak, I finished off Sand. I really enjoyed it. Great worldbuilding with a good story and some engaging characters. I will say that given the Silo series, I was extremely surprised that...
...none of the main family died 'on camera.' I guess it's up in the air whether Vic dies in the nuclear explosion. Given how everyone else pulled through, in stark contrast to Wool, I would't be surprised if she managed to trigger the bomb remotely somehow.
I hope we get some more books in this world. I really liked the sanddiving and underground excavations. I'd love more of that, and to see what happens next of course.
The couple things I wasn't sure about that I'd like your take on:
Firstly, the drumming sound. Is this just the mining they are doing or whatever? Or do you have a take on what it is more specifically? Secondly, what are they mining there? And lastly, how are they stopping the rain, or containing it or whatever they are doing? And why? Just to be controlling dicks? I'm not sure if I missed some things, or if this is all supposed to be left to mystery.
Yeah, I thought the drumming was some sort of explosive mining. As it was described towards the end, it sounded like THEY were blowing shit up, magnetically pulling something out of the resulting dust which had a reverse cloud-seeding/rainmaking effect, and poisoning the water of the river they were near.
I don't think we get resolution of why. Presumably the mineral they are harvesting is sufficiently valuable to be worth all of that? There must be enough of them to make the refugee/prison camp worthwhile.
That's assuming the girl from No Man's Land is credible. The best unanswered question is whether she was legit or was somehow affiliated with the head bandit with the bombs who seemed to be of the watch-the-world-burn variety.
I wanted to know what the deal with "the gash" was (the deep crack in the sand near their annual camping spot). What would cause a thin rift like that to persist in the desert. I would have thought it would have filled in long ago with all the damn sand. Having read the whole silo series, I bet Howey has an explanation in mind, so, again, I hope we get more about this world/location.
If I remember correctly, Vic and Conner come to the conclusion that Violet's story is legit and that means Brock is from that mining operation to the east and not a cannibal from the north like they originally thought. And he was sent to blow up all of the western cities so that people stopped coming to the easterners land "like rats". I wonder how far in the future this is supposed to be all taking place. It must be a couple thousand years at least. There are a lot of places he could go with this setting, and I also hope he explores some of these mysteries.
I wonder how sensitive she could be about sex if she liked WoT. Mr. Jordan did not disguise his interests all that carefully.
Considering how long it is, Wheel of Time doesn't really have that many direct references to sex, and none of them are explicit. More wink-and-a-nod-if-you-know-what-I-mean kind of thing.
No, but it is stuffed to the brim with women being spanked, hogtied naked, put in collars on leashes, subjected to waves of pleasure and pain, made to do humiliating and pointless things (usually while naked)... at a certain point, sex is superfluous. Of course, a lot of people have no problem with that stuff only so long as you don't call it out explicitly, so I guess it is still better to be careful with recommendations.
I wonder how sensitive she could be about sex if she liked WoT. Mr. Jordan did not disguise his interests all that carefully.
Considering how long it is, Wheel of Time doesn't really have that many direct references to sex, and none of them are explicit. More wink-and-a-nod-if-you-know-what-I-mean kind of thing.
No, but it is stuffed to the brim with women being spanked, hogtied naked, put in collars on leashes, subjected to waves of pleasure and pain, made to do humiliating and pointless things (usually while naked)... at a certain point, sex is superfluous. Of course, a lot of people have no problem with that stuff only so long as you don't call it out explicitly, so I guess it is still better to be careful with recommendations.
Most of that is in the context of slavery. Which makes your describing it that way kinda disturbing.
I wonder how sensitive she could be about sex if she liked WoT. Mr. Jordan did not disguise his interests all that carefully.
Considering how long it is, Wheel of Time doesn't really have that many direct references to sex, and none of them are explicit. More wink-and-a-nod-if-you-know-what-I-mean kind of thing.
No, but it is stuffed to the brim with women being spanked, hogtied naked, put in collars on leashes, subjected to waves of pleasure and pain, made to do humiliating and pointless things (usually while naked)... at a certain point, sex is superfluous. Of course, a lot of people have no problem with that stuff only so long as you don't call it out explicitly, so I guess it is still better to be careful with recommendations.
Most of that is in the context of slavery. Which makes your describing it that way kinda disturbing.
The concept of a slave completely in the power of a master is not exactly an unusual BDSM fantasy. And a tremendous amount of that stuff is in the context of female discipline structures somewhere between girl's boarding schools and nunneries.
I wonder how sensitive she could be about sex if she liked WoT. Mr. Jordan did not disguise his interests all that carefully.
Considering how long it is, Wheel of Time doesn't really have that many direct references to sex, and none of them are explicit. More wink-and-a-nod-if-you-know-what-I-mean kind of thing.
No, but it is stuffed to the brim with women being spanked, hogtied naked, put in collars on leashes, subjected to waves of pleasure and pain, made to do humiliating and pointless things (usually while naked)... at a certain point, sex is superfluous. Of course, a lot of people have no problem with that stuff only so long as you don't call it out explicitly, so I guess it is still better to be careful with recommendations.
Most of that is in the context of slavery. Which makes your describing it that way kinda disturbing.
The concept of a slave completely in the power of a master is not exactly an unusual BDSM fantasy. And a tremendous amount of that stuff is in the context of female discipline structures somewhere between girl's boarding schools and nunneries.
Yes. It's slavery and historical discipline practices. It's not sexy unless you are really trying to be into that kind of thing.
I wonder how sensitive she could be about sex if she liked WoT. Mr. Jordan did not disguise his interests all that carefully.
Considering how long it is, Wheel of Time doesn't really have that many direct references to sex, and none of them are explicit. More wink-and-a-nod-if-you-know-what-I-mean kind of thing.
No, but it is stuffed to the brim with women being spanked, hogtied naked, put in collars on leashes, subjected to waves of pleasure and pain, made to do humiliating and pointless things (usually while naked)... at a certain point, sex is superfluous. Of course, a lot of people have no problem with that stuff only so long as you don't call it out explicitly, so I guess it is still better to be careful with recommendations.
Most of that is in the context of slavery. Which makes your describing it that way kinda disturbing.
I was going to say the same as zakkiel -- Wheel of Time has very little sex, but kinda a lot of it is about sex.
I wonder how sensitive she could be about sex if she liked WoT. Mr. Jordan did not disguise his interests all that carefully.
Considering how long it is, Wheel of Time doesn't really have that many direct references to sex, and none of them are explicit. More wink-and-a-nod-if-you-know-what-I-mean kind of thing.
No, but it is stuffed to the brim with women being spanked, hogtied naked, put in collars on leashes, subjected to waves of pleasure and pain, made to do humiliating and pointless things (usually while naked)... at a certain point, sex is superfluous. Of course, a lot of people have no problem with that stuff only so long as you don't call it out explicitly, so I guess it is still better to be careful with recommendations.
Most of that is in the context of slavery. Which makes your describing it that way kinda disturbing.
The concept of a slave completely in the power of a master is not exactly an unusual BDSM fantasy. And a tremendous amount of that stuff is in the context of female discipline structures somewhere between girl's boarding schools and nunneries.
Yes. It's slavery and historical discipline practices. It's not sexy unless you are really trying to be into that kind of thing.
It definitely is not historical. RJ did not throw it all in for the sake of gritty realism. It's absolutely baffling to me that anyone would argue that it's not sexual - the sheer amount of this stuff is pretty conspicuous - but everyone has their own interpretation.
I wonder how sensitive she could be about sex if she liked WoT. Mr. Jordan did not disguise his interests all that carefully.
Considering how long it is, Wheel of Time doesn't really have that many direct references to sex, and none of them are explicit. More wink-and-a-nod-if-you-know-what-I-mean kind of thing.
No, but it is stuffed to the brim with women being spanked, hogtied naked, put in collars on leashes, subjected to waves of pleasure and pain, made to do humiliating and pointless things (usually while naked)... at a certain point, sex is superfluous. Of course, a lot of people have no problem with that stuff only so long as you don't call it out explicitly, so I guess it is still better to be careful with recommendations.
Most of that is in the context of slavery. Which makes your describing it that way kinda disturbing.
The concept of a slave completely in the power of a master is not exactly an unusual BDSM fantasy. And a tremendous amount of that stuff is in the context of female discipline structures somewhere between girl's boarding schools and nunneries.
Yes. It's slavery and historical discipline practices. It's not sexy unless you are really trying to be into that kind of thing.
It definitely is not historical. RJ did not throw it all in for the sake of gritty realism. It's absolutely baffling to me that anyone would argue that it's not sexual - the sheer amount of this stuff is pretty conspicuous - but everyone has their own interpretation.
It's baffling to me that someone would argue it is sexual. That's layering your very recent modern interpretation of what (to use the most common silliness) spanking means over it's much more common context, even only like 50 years ago.
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
It was pretty obvious to me even as a teenager that Jordan had some unconventional ideas about sex.
Not just all the spanking, but also the fact that the main character is polyamorous, the relationships between the Blue Sedai and their guardians, that one city where all the young people sell themselves to rich folk as sex slaves, the pirate nation where D/s is ingrained into the culture, the goddamn Seanchan and all their collared women...
And that's just what I can remember from before I quit the series.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
It was pretty obvious to me even as a teenager that Jordan had some unconventional ideas about sex.
Not just all the spanking, but also the fact that the main character is polyamorous, the relationships between the Blue Sedai and their guardians, that one city where all the young people sell themselves to rich folk as sex slaves, the pirate nation where D/s is ingrained into the culture, the goddamn Seanchan and all their collared women...
And that's just what I can remember from before I quit the series.
It's really fucking creepy that several of you keep bringing this up.
"Abject slavery, so fucking sexy, amiright?"
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Reading through the Broken Empire series. Just finished Prince of Thorns and started on King of Thorns.
Man, Jorg is a dick. Straight up. I love the genre though.
Spoilers about the series below!
Post Apocalyptic Fantasy scratches an itch in my imagination, that's for sure.
So after some location drops in the 2nd book, I'm pretty sure the Tall Castle is somewhere near Paris, in France. Jorg says there is an old necropolis nearby and gives the name, and when I ran it through google a cemetary with almost exactly that same name is in Paris.
I'm still trying to figure out how they are working necromancy and magic into the series. Mutation? Tecnho Magic ala nano machines?
One of my favorite quips from Jorg is when he mentions something along the lines of "If you can't win the game, change the rules. I learned that from the book of Kirk."
It was pretty obvious to me even as a teenager that Jordan had some unconventional ideas about sex.
Not just all the spanking, but also the fact that the main character is polyamorous, the relationships between the Blue Sedai and their guardians, that one city where all the young people sell themselves to rich folk as sex slaves, the pirate nation where D/s is ingrained into the culture, the goddamn Seanchan and all their collared women...
And that's just what I can remember from before I quit the series.
It's really fucking creepy that several of you keep bringing this up.
"Abject slavery, so fucking sexy, amiright?"
Wow, there is a lot going on there. This is not the thread to discuss the appropriateness of shaming people for their sexual fantasies in general, so let me say: it's pretty clear to a bunch of people here that there is a sexual subtext to a lot of the, er, activities in WoT, especially between women. This is a function of being an alert reader, not personal perversion. Conversely, not noticing this is frankly naive, and if you find the idea that shocking, I strongly recommend you never open a romance novel. And definitely stay away from such lovely and innocent YA classics as Flowers in the Attic.
zakkiel on
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
Pointing out that a work contains a lot of sexual imagery does not mean we find abject slavery sexy. If the Seanchan collars were the only piece of the puzzle, I'd agree that they were purely a portrayal of slavery in a strange culture.
But taken with all the other unconventional bits in the series, it's hard not to include it in a long list of Domination/submission themes in Wheel of Time.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
Flashback was one of the most disappointing books I've ever read and I wish I'd never read it.
Simmons' has written some really fun books and at least one legitimately great one, The Terror. But he did indeed lose his shit at some point. I think you can track it in time to the point in Ilium (or Olympos, whichever was second) when the characters marching through the Moses like path through the center of the Atlantic Ocean come upon the Islamic nuclear submarine.
I really loved Ilium and I don't remember that happening, so that's got to be in Olympos. It's a shame that he can write good books and then write terrible sequels.
Finished off The Long War. Now there's a mistitled book if there ever was one.
There were too many individual narrative strands here, and none of it came together at the end. This was just a book in a series, rather than a book in its own right.
Fortunately, the setting remains interesting. So I'll probably read the next one at some point.
Yeah, I definitely can't say the series is particularly well written, but it's near the most fascinated I've been with a book's idea itself. I think the Long Mars is better, maybe not any more cohesive, but I thought it explored the idea better than the second, but worse than the first. It is another relatively open ending though, and I guess the fourth book may have been sufficiently written before Pratchett's death, but I have no idea if it will affect the fifth. I didn't ever feel a significant amount of what I think is his style though.
Reading through the Broken Empire series. Just finished Prince of Thorns and started on King of Thorns.
Man, Jorg is a dick. Straight up. I love the genre though.
Spoilers about the series below!
Post Apocalyptic Fantasy scratches an itch in my imagination, that's for sure.
So after some location drops in the 2nd book, I'm pretty sure the Tall Castle is somewhere near Paris, in France. Jorg says there is an old necropolis nearby and gives the name, and when I ran it through google a cemetary with almost exactly that same name is in Paris.
I'm still trying to figure out how they are working necromancy and magic into the series. Mutation? Tecnho Magic ala nano machines?
One of my favorite quips from Jorg is when he mentions something along the lines of "If you can't win the game, change the rules. I learned that from the book of Kirk."
Your first spoiler'd paragraph is correct.
The part you're trying to make sense of will (hopefully) eventually make sense.
(I gave up trying to type spoiler tags on my phone and went with gnomic utterances instead)
Pointing out that a work contains a lot of sexual imagery does not mean we find abject slavery sexy. If the Seanchan collars were the only piece of the puzzle, I'd agree that they were purely a portrayal of slavery in a strange culture.
But taken with all the other unconventional bits in the series, it's hard not to include it in a long list of Domination/submission themes in Wheel of Time.
I always thought it was much more about shame than anything sexual. Acting out of shame, shaming as motivation, and acting stupidly in an effort to avoid being shamed are probably the largest motivational factors in the series. Every organized group in the series is immensely prideful and use shame as a method of punishment. The Aes Sedai give their students punishments that are more about embarrassment than actual pain or denial of privilege, and the more public the punishment the more serious it's taken to be. One of their two most serious punishments amounts to a public lashing. You could consider that an S&M thing but, in the context of the series, it's about being publicly brought low.
The Seanchan collar their magic-using women, marking them out as less-than and dangerous, and then use that status to dehumanize them and teach their entire populace that to be gifted that way is so shameful that the only rational option is to submit yourself to slavery. Their punishment for conquered nobility not submitting to them is to reduce them to their meekest form of slave-servants in sheer clothing, shaming them for refusing to comply.
The Aiel are made to seem foreign and weird by removing the sense of shame from nudity and servant-status. Lack of modesty--in dress or behavior--are used almost universally as a method of making cultures appear alien from the point of view of the characters. Even with the Aiel, whose lack of body-shame differentiates them from the rest of the cultures, view other cultures' behavior as shameful and bizarre.
Now, you could obviously consider shaming as a sexual desire. Maybe Jordan was into that, I dunno. But it's also an extremely an extremely common source of anxiety. I used to date a girl whose mother used shame as her justification for everything. Instead of "don't go out without a coat, you're catch cold" it was "don't go out without a coat, people will talk".
Further, the fact that so many characters behave as they do out of a desire to avoid social shame (rather than anything involving nudity or punishment) also seems to speak more from an anxiety angle than a sexual one. Characters are constantly acting out in a generally petulant or spiteful sort of fashion because they view someone's actions as defaming them. Any time someone is rescued, their first response to anger at their rescuer for daring to imply they couldn't save themselves. People who are wrong and know they are wrong avoid sharing that information because they don't want to seen as incorrect. The Aes Sedai's primary characteristics (serenity and agelessness) avoid the shame of 1) appearing changeable, anxious, or uncertain and 2) appearing old or feeble. The Aiel's entire philosophy of life is built around avoiding bringing shame on yourself or shaming others.
The fact that the nudity and corporal punishment are (as far as I can recall) never described as sexy or arousing especially seem weird for someone who is writing about their fetish. Occasionally a non-viewpoint character will leer or something when the viewpoint character is naked, but no one is ever described as being aroused by their own nudity.
Now, I will say that Jordan obviously had some deeply-entrenched ideas about social status and romantic partnership. He seems to have been incapable of conceiving of a marriage that was an equal partnership, or a social structure that wasn't built around oppression in some format. He was also wildly sexist, but appeared to be conscious of it and just supremely incompetent at actively counteracting it (at least that's how I've always read it).
I can see where someone would think Jordan was a dirty old man from all the nudity and spanking, but as someone who is into that stuff in real life and a member of the talking-about-it community, it has never come across sexually to me (one man's opinion and all that, obviously).
It's a perfectly serviceable techno-thriller. It's just that we've come to expect much more from Stephenson. I liked it better when he published them under a pseudonym, then it was clear what you were getting.
Reading through the Broken Empire series. Just finished Prince of Thorns and started on King of Thorns.
Man, Jorg is a dick. Straight up. I love the genre though.
Spoilers about the series below!
Post Apocalyptic Fantasy scratches an itch in my imagination, that's for sure.
So after some location drops in the 2nd book, I'm pretty sure the Tall Castle is somewhere near Paris, in France. Jorg says there is an old necropolis nearby and gives the name, and when I ran it through google a cemetary with almost exactly that same name is in Paris.
I'm still trying to figure out how they are working necromancy and magic into the series. Mutation? Tecnho Magic ala nano machines?
One of my favorite quips from Jorg is when he mentions something along the lines of "If you can't win the game, change the rules. I learned that from the book of Kirk."
Your first spoiler'd paragraph is correct.
The part you're trying to make sense of will (hopefully) eventually make sense.
(I gave up trying to type spoiler tags on my phone and went with gnomic utterances instead)
I started reading that series, but the main character is a monster. It felt like reading The Awesome Adventures Of Ramey Bolton. And I was not sure if it was supposed to be that way or if the character was intended to be a crass badass. I suspected it was the latter and quit reading fairly soon.
Was I wrong? Because I felt that character was beyond redemption even after the first couple of pages.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Reading through the Broken Empire series. Just finished Prince of Thorns and started on King of Thorns.
Man, Jorg is a dick. Straight up. I love the genre though.
Spoilers about the series below!
Post Apocalyptic Fantasy scratches an itch in my imagination, that's for sure.
So after some location drops in the 2nd book, I'm pretty sure the Tall Castle is somewhere near Paris, in France. Jorg says there is an old necropolis nearby and gives the name, and when I ran it through google a cemetary with almost exactly that same name is in Paris.
I'm still trying to figure out how they are working necromancy and magic into the series. Mutation? Tecnho Magic ala nano machines?
One of my favorite quips from Jorg is when he mentions something along the lines of "If you can't win the game, change the rules. I learned that from the book of Kirk."
Your first spoiler'd paragraph is correct.
The part you're trying to make sense of will (hopefully) eventually make sense.
(I gave up trying to type spoiler tags on my phone and went with gnomic utterances instead)
I started reading that series, but the main character is a monster. It felt like reading The Awesome Adventures Of Ramey Bolton. And I was not sure if it was supposed to be that way or if the character was intended to be a crass badass. I suspected it was the latter and quit reading fairly soon.
Was I wrong? Because I felt that character was beyond redemption even after the first couple of pages.
Oh you're not wrong about the redemption part. The main character has done terrible things. He continues to do terrible things.
Spoilers for near the end of book 1, BIG SPOILERS
He dies near the end of book one from a stabbing, and an angel visits him, and offers him redemption, along the themes that anybody can be redeemed if they allow it. Jorg refuses due to his pride, and the angel likens him to lucifer, and how that angel fell.
The Broken Empire series tell the story from the viewpoint of a competent antagonist who's actions, while not justified are at least understandable based on what he has been through and the world he is living in.
Spoilers for character aspects in book 2, The things I'm saying don't really spoil anything major.
In the 2nd book Jorg meets a rival to the empire throne who would be your protagonist in another fantasy book. He is a person who brings people together, settles things honorably, that sort of thing. At least as far as I've read. It's interesting to see their actions from the viewpoint of your general antagonist in any other novel.
It was pretty obvious to me even as a teenager that Jordan had some unconventional ideas about sex.
Not just all the spanking, but also the fact that the main character is polyamorous, the relationships between the Blue Sedai and their guardians, that one city where all the young people sell themselves to rich folk as sex slaves, the pirate nation where D/s is ingrained into the culture, the goddamn Seanchan and all their collared women...
And that's just what I can remember from before I quit the series.
It's really fucking creepy that several of you keep bringing this up.
"Abject slavery, so fucking sexy, amiright?"
Wow, there is a lot going on there. This is not the thread to discuss the appropriateness of shaming people for their sexual fantasies in general, so let me say: it's pretty clear to a bunch of people here that there is a sexual subtext to a lot of the, er, activities in WoT, especially between women. This is a function of being an alert reader, not personal perversion. Conversely, not noticing this is frankly naive, and if you find the idea that shocking, I strongly recommend you never open a romance novel. And definitely stay away from such lovely and innocent YA classics as Flowers in the Attic.
1) I'm not shaming anyone for sexual fantasies. I'm saying that a women being brutally dehumanized till she no longer views herself as a person but rather as a pet or a piece of furniture is not meant to titillate. And the fact that you use this exact thing as an example of sexuality hints in WOT is fucking disturbing. It's like watching Roots and thinking "Damn, there is some hot bondage action going on with this Toby guy". Bringing up the Seanchan as an example of kinky shit in the series is a microcosm of the entire problem with your argument.
2) The fact that many people think something doesn't mean shit. Many people think alot of silly things. As I said earlier, if you look at someone getting spanked and think that's supposed to be titillating, that's based on your own very modern viewpoint. Only like 60 years ago it was considered perfectly appropriate by many to spank your wife if she got out of line. This wasn't tittilation, it was corporal punishment. A kind common in many religious institutions for instance, from which the Aes Sedai draw many inspirations.
Shryke, as a disinterested observer (I only ever read 1 book of that steaming pile of poop, so I have no horse in this race), I will kindly advise you that you're doing yourself no favours with your line of argument on this topic and would gently advise that you drop it.
As a total aside to...all of the above. Acquired an ARC of Adrian Tchaikovsky's latest, Children of Time.
Probably going to burble at length about it later, but suffice to say:
1) It's very much a sci-fi novel. If you want more of his fantasy stuff, this is not so much the book you want (though he is also releasing some fantasy stuff)
2) Without doing some early-book spoilers, it has one of the most convincing portrayals of a non-human civilisation perspective that I've read in...well, certainly this year, probably in the last five to ten, alongside Mieville's Embassytown. Absolutely blown away by the overarching portrayal.
Whenever it hits bookshelves, if you're in a sci-fi mood, with a slightly odd timescale and interesting perspective caveats...it's going to be worth spending money on.
It's a perfectly serviceable techno-thriller. It's just that we've come to expect much more from Stephenson. I liked it better when he published them under a pseudonym, then it was clear what you were getting.
He's gunna be at my local badass-ish, bookstore at the end of the month.
I probably going to go and have him sign my kindle or whatever.
They moistly come out at night, moistly.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Reading through the Broken Empire series. Just finished Prince of Thorns and started on King of Thorns.
Man, Jorg is a dick. Straight up. I love the genre though.
Spoilers about the series below!
Post Apocalyptic Fantasy scratches an itch in my imagination, that's for sure.
So after some location drops in the 2nd book, I'm pretty sure the Tall Castle is somewhere near Paris, in France. Jorg says there is an old necropolis nearby and gives the name, and when I ran it through google a cemetary with almost exactly that same name is in Paris.
I'm still trying to figure out how they are working necromancy and magic into the series. Mutation? Tecnho Magic ala nano machines?
One of my favorite quips from Jorg is when he mentions something along the lines of "If you can't win the game, change the rules. I learned that from the book of Kirk."
Your first spoiler'd paragraph is correct.
The part you're trying to make sense of will (hopefully) eventually make sense.
(I gave up trying to type spoiler tags on my phone and went with gnomic utterances instead)
Finished King of Thorns. This is just a crazy fucking series. I love it though. It is post apocalyptic fantasy pulp. I might also be a bit worked up from seeing the newest road warrior as well.
Re-read Sourcery. Slightly less triffic than Mort, but still full of laughs. One bit demonstrates just how brilliant Pratchett was, as he calls Rincewind a sort of "two-legged miner's canary", then puts an asterisk after it. In the time it takes for your eyes to travel down to the footnote at the bottom of the page you've thought "wait, but canaries do have two ..." and the footnote says "alright, but you get the point".
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I like a grim dark book as much as the next person, but the problem I had with The Free is that there was no humour in it whatsoever (whereas you get some in an Abercrombie book), which made it a bit of a slog some of the time. It's got an interesting setting, granted, and I might go and read another book in the series, but it isn't really on par with any of the First Law books.
Well if she liked the last few books in the Wheel of Time series, she could look at other books that Sanderson has done? I've only read the Mistborn series + Alloy of Law, which were pleasant enough and I'd have thought she'd enjoy them based on what you've said (I can't recall anything that might get you in trouble wrt Language or Sex in these books). I can't comment on the other books he's done though (the Supers series looks interesting).
Yeah, this is why I was wondering who these recommendations were for
Ha ha ha ha. I've read The Long War and completely forgotten it when the title came up.
It was a book based on an idea with not enough plot to hide this and not enough idea to make it really work.
The couple things I wasn't sure about that I'd like your take on:
I'm assuming not very, but I'm her kid's teacher, so I'd rather be safe than sorry. haha
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I don't think we get resolution of why. Presumably the mineral they are harvesting is sufficiently valuable to be worth all of that? There must be enough of them to make the refugee/prison camp worthwhile.
That's assuming the girl from No Man's Land is credible. The best unanswered question is whether she was legit or was somehow affiliated with the head bandit with the bombs who seemed to be of the watch-the-world-burn variety.
I wanted to know what the deal with "the gash" was (the deep crack in the sand near their annual camping spot). What would cause a thin rift like that to persist in the desert. I would have thought it would have filled in long ago with all the damn sand. Having read the whole silo series, I bet Howey has an explanation in mind, so, again, I hope we get more about this world/location.
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Considering how long it is, Wheel of Time doesn't really have that many direct references to sex, and none of them are explicit. More wink-and-a-nod-if-you-know-what-I-mean kind of thing.
No, but it is stuffed to the brim with women being spanked, hogtied naked, put in collars on leashes, subjected to waves of pleasure and pain, made to do humiliating and pointless things (usually while naked)... at a certain point, sex is superfluous. Of course, a lot of people have no problem with that stuff only so long as you don't call it out explicitly, so I guess it is still better to be careful with recommendations.
Most of that is in the context of slavery. Which makes your describing it that way kinda disturbing.
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The concept of a slave completely in the power of a master is not exactly an unusual BDSM fantasy. And a tremendous amount of that stuff is in the context of female discipline structures somewhere between girl's boarding schools and nunneries.
Yes. It's slavery and historical discipline practices. It's not sexy unless you are really trying to be into that kind of thing.
I was going to say the same as zakkiel -- Wheel of Time has very little sex, but kinda a lot of it is about sex.
It definitely is not historical. RJ did not throw it all in for the sake of gritty realism. It's absolutely baffling to me that anyone would argue that it's not sexual - the sheer amount of this stuff is pretty conspicuous - but everyone has their own interpretation.
It's baffling to me that someone would argue it is sexual. That's layering your very recent modern interpretation of what (to use the most common silliness) spanking means over it's much more common context, even only like 50 years ago.
Not just all the spanking, but also the fact that the main character is polyamorous, the relationships between the Blue Sedai and their guardians, that one city where all the young people sell themselves to rich folk as sex slaves, the pirate nation where D/s is ingrained into the culture, the goddamn Seanchan and all their collared women...
And that's just what I can remember from before I quit the series.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
It's really fucking creepy that several of you keep bringing this up.
"Abject slavery, so fucking sexy, amiright?"
Man, Jorg is a dick. Straight up. I love the genre though.
Spoilers about the series below!
So after some location drops in the 2nd book, I'm pretty sure the Tall Castle is somewhere near Paris, in France. Jorg says there is an old necropolis nearby and gives the name, and when I ran it through google a cemetary with almost exactly that same name is in Paris.
I'm still trying to figure out how they are working necromancy and magic into the series. Mutation? Tecnho Magic ala nano machines?
One of my favorite quips from Jorg is when he mentions something along the lines of "If you can't win the game, change the rules. I learned that from the book of Kirk."
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Wow, there is a lot going on there. This is not the thread to discuss the appropriateness of shaming people for their sexual fantasies in general, so let me say: it's pretty clear to a bunch of people here that there is a sexual subtext to a lot of the, er, activities in WoT, especially between women. This is a function of being an alert reader, not personal perversion. Conversely, not noticing this is frankly naive, and if you find the idea that shocking, I strongly recommend you never open a romance novel. And definitely stay away from such lovely and innocent YA classics as Flowers in the Attic.
But taken with all the other unconventional bits in the series, it's hard not to include it in a long list of Domination/submission themes in Wheel of Time.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I really loved Ilium and I don't remember that happening, so that's got to be in Olympos. It's a shame that he can write good books and then write terrible sequels.
Yeah, I definitely can't say the series is particularly well written, but it's near the most fascinated I've been with a book's idea itself. I think the Long Mars is better, maybe not any more cohesive, but I thought it explored the idea better than the second, but worse than the first. It is another relatively open ending though, and I guess the fourth book may have been sufficiently written before Pratchett's death, but I have no idea if it will affect the fifth. I didn't ever feel a significant amount of what I think is his style though.
Your first spoiler'd paragraph is correct.
The part you're trying to make sense of will (hopefully) eventually make sense.
(I gave up trying to type spoiler tags on my phone and went with gnomic utterances instead)
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I always thought it was much more about shame than anything sexual. Acting out of shame, shaming as motivation, and acting stupidly in an effort to avoid being shamed are probably the largest motivational factors in the series. Every organized group in the series is immensely prideful and use shame as a method of punishment. The Aes Sedai give their students punishments that are more about embarrassment than actual pain or denial of privilege, and the more public the punishment the more serious it's taken to be. One of their two most serious punishments amounts to a public lashing. You could consider that an S&M thing but, in the context of the series, it's about being publicly brought low.
The Seanchan collar their magic-using women, marking them out as less-than and dangerous, and then use that status to dehumanize them and teach their entire populace that to be gifted that way is so shameful that the only rational option is to submit yourself to slavery. Their punishment for conquered nobility not submitting to them is to reduce them to their meekest form of slave-servants in sheer clothing, shaming them for refusing to comply.
The Aiel are made to seem foreign and weird by removing the sense of shame from nudity and servant-status. Lack of modesty--in dress or behavior--are used almost universally as a method of making cultures appear alien from the point of view of the characters. Even with the Aiel, whose lack of body-shame differentiates them from the rest of the cultures, view other cultures' behavior as shameful and bizarre.
Now, you could obviously consider shaming as a sexual desire. Maybe Jordan was into that, I dunno. But it's also an extremely an extremely common source of anxiety. I used to date a girl whose mother used shame as her justification for everything. Instead of "don't go out without a coat, you're catch cold" it was "don't go out without a coat, people will talk".
Further, the fact that so many characters behave as they do out of a desire to avoid social shame (rather than anything involving nudity or punishment) also seems to speak more from an anxiety angle than a sexual one. Characters are constantly acting out in a generally petulant or spiteful sort of fashion because they view someone's actions as defaming them. Any time someone is rescued, their first response to anger at their rescuer for daring to imply they couldn't save themselves. People who are wrong and know they are wrong avoid sharing that information because they don't want to seen as incorrect. The Aes Sedai's primary characteristics (serenity and agelessness) avoid the shame of 1) appearing changeable, anxious, or uncertain and 2) appearing old or feeble. The Aiel's entire philosophy of life is built around avoiding bringing shame on yourself or shaming others.
The fact that the nudity and corporal punishment are (as far as I can recall) never described as sexy or arousing especially seem weird for someone who is writing about their fetish. Occasionally a non-viewpoint character will leer or something when the viewpoint character is naked, but no one is ever described as being aroused by their own nudity.
Now, I will say that Jordan obviously had some deeply-entrenched ideas about social status and romantic partnership. He seems to have been incapable of conceiving of a marriage that was an equal partnership, or a social structure that wasn't built around oppression in some format. He was also wildly sexist, but appeared to be conscious of it and just supremely incompetent at actively counteracting it (at least that's how I've always read it).
I can see where someone would think Jordan was a dirty old man from all the nudity and spanking, but as someone who is into that stuff in real life and a member of the talking-about-it community, it has never come across sexually to me (one man's opinion and all that, obviously).
It's a perfectly serviceable techno-thriller. It's just that we've come to expect much more from Stephenson. I liked it better when he published them under a pseudonym, then it was clear what you were getting.
I started reading that series, but the main character is a monster. It felt like reading The Awesome Adventures Of Ramey Bolton. And I was not sure if it was supposed to be that way or if the character was intended to be a crass badass. I suspected it was the latter and quit reading fairly soon.
Was I wrong? Because I felt that character was beyond redemption even after the first couple of pages.
Oh you're not wrong about the redemption part. The main character has done terrible things. He continues to do terrible things.
Spoilers for near the end of book 1, BIG SPOILERS
The Broken Empire series tell the story from the viewpoint of a competent antagonist who's actions, while not justified are at least understandable based on what he has been through and the world he is living in.
Spoilers for character aspects in book 2, The things I'm saying don't really spoil anything major.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
1) I'm not shaming anyone for sexual fantasies. I'm saying that a women being brutally dehumanized till she no longer views herself as a person but rather as a pet or a piece of furniture is not meant to titillate. And the fact that you use this exact thing as an example of sexuality hints in WOT is fucking disturbing. It's like watching Roots and thinking "Damn, there is some hot bondage action going on with this Toby guy". Bringing up the Seanchan as an example of kinky shit in the series is a microcosm of the entire problem with your argument.
2) The fact that many people think something doesn't mean shit. Many people think alot of silly things. As I said earlier, if you look at someone getting spanked and think that's supposed to be titillating, that's based on your own very modern viewpoint. Only like 60 years ago it was considered perfectly appropriate by many to spank your wife if she got out of line. This wasn't tittilation, it was corporal punishment. A kind common in many religious institutions for instance, from which the Aes Sedai draw many inspirations.
Probably going to burble at length about it later, but suffice to say:
1) It's very much a sci-fi novel. If you want more of his fantasy stuff, this is not so much the book you want (though he is also releasing some fantasy stuff)
2) Without doing some early-book spoilers, it has one of the most convincing portrayals of a non-human civilisation perspective that I've read in...well, certainly this year, probably in the last five to ten, alongside Mieville's Embassytown. Absolutely blown away by the overarching portrayal.
Whenever it hits bookshelves, if you're in a sci-fi mood, with a slightly odd timescale and interesting perspective caveats...it's going to be worth spending money on.
Goodreads
SF&F Reviews blog
He's gunna be at my local badass-ish, bookstore at the end of the month.
I probably going to go and have him sign my kindle or whatever.
Finished King of Thorns. This is just a crazy fucking series. I love it though. It is post apocalyptic fantasy pulp. I might also be a bit worked up from seeing the newest road warrior as well.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
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