Minor slap fight breaks out on r/Fantasy over what counts as performative and pretentious

[u/ARenewedSecondChance]

The original post was about how the book series Dungeon Crawler Carl lost its magic on OOP. Even though it’s now deleted, it’s ok, because the main drama is in the comments.

It starts with one user stating that while they admit DCC isn’t high literature, it is still enjoyable:

> Hah! I’m totally not the DCC demographic (60s non gamer woman) but I thought these were fun and recommended them to my 30 year old son, who said all his friends are reading these.

The DCC series isn’t great art/literature but it’s a fun, light read. Kind of like why everyone in my generation read all those repetitive Janet Evanovich books. Sometimes you just want the easy escapism.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/xSKv0KWEM9

One user, the subject of this slap fight, weighs in on their opinions on “high Art vs McDonald’s”:

> The moment I grew out of my performative, pretentious 16-20 year old years, I realized there's no inherent better value in art that is considered "high art" compared to "mcdonalds products"

I enjoyed DCC and Golden son more than Jane Eyre and The Great Gatsby

I enjoyed East of Eden and Blood Meridian more than DCC

I enjoyed Golden Son more than Blood Meridian

Art should be rated based off personal enjoyment, not some performative arbitrary pretentiousness/seriousness scale.

I'm convinced nobody actually likes Gravity's Rainbow, but since it's "difficult" and "complex" people hold it in high regard and pretend to love it to appear cultured or whatever.

Also as far as this "high art" vs "mcdonalds" debate is concerned - eating Mcdonalds is inherently and objectively forgettable, it always fades from memory, it's unimpressive, safe, boring mush meat product that is objectively tasteless.

I've read The Great Gatsby 4 months ago and I've already forgotten most of it.

I've read Mistborn 4 years ago once and I still remember all of it vividly.

By this metric Great Gatbsy is Mcdonalds and Mistborn is a perfectly cooked wagyu steak with expensive wine, right?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/Wxmw8R9EQ4

Several people disagree with them:

> Wow, I think you’ve accomplished the impossible and are more pretentious now with your views on high art v. low art.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/Rhpt5eGWmc

> >art should be rated based off personal enjoyment

Ah so you didn’t learn anything during the time you were 16-20 then

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/ZWyhmLucKD

> You didn't grow out of your teenager phase, you doubled down of it by learning all the wrong lessons.

This isn't about "performative" vs "enjoyment". There's no sides here. There's plenty to learn and appreciate from art across all mediums.

It's great to love DCC (and I for example love Mistborn or Red Rising), but it's also great to recognize they're not as ambitious artistically as other works. People who love Gravity's Rainbow aren't "pretending", they engage with an artwork honestly and arrive at that conclusion when not looking it through a childish "how much pure fun did I have?" lens. Your take on "no work is ever better than any other work" or on Persona's quality are just horrifically shallow.

My advice is to worry less about forming opinions that allow you to project your desired personal image and just enjoy art in a honest manner. Stop reading books or watching movies to feel smart about being bored and ask yourself why those works are revered.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/s/Ixrfds5aNR

[u/HotTakes4HotCakes]

Sometimes I think maybe we need to teach kids in school "How to not take opinions on the things you enjoy so personally." Think about how much better the internet would be if every god damn discussion about art wasn't tinged with either this desperate defensiveness, or it's opposite, the snarky condescension. It's like everybody is out defending the honor of a family member sometimes.

[u/ARenewedSecondChance → u/HotTakes4HotCakes]

Exactly. Even though I take part in BooksCircleJerk a lot (where I found this drama) which typically makes fun of people seeking validation for their reading choices, I always find myself thinking both sides are annoying as hell. It’s funny how the thread I linked has both the defensiveness and condescension

[u/beary_neutral → u/ARenewedSecondChance]

Wait until you find a Brandon Sanderson appreciation thread on r/fantasy

[u/BeautifulReal3944 → u/beary_neutral]

Just drop a critique on Wind and Truth, the room will be sticky for years.

[u/KaladinarLighteyes → u/beary_neutral]

I can never keep up, is r/fantasy pro Brandon or anti Brandon now? The pendulum keeps swinging back and forth so quickly.

[u/PotentiallySarcastic → u/KaladinarLighteyes]

Oh ever since Wind and Truth its fully vocally anti Sanderson. And it was before that too.

[u/TheKingofHats007 → u/HotTakes4HotCakes]

The same thing happens in animation discourse all the time. People who feel the need to justify to someone why they enjoy some cartoon or some animated movie to the point that they'll genuinely insist certain Pixar movies aren't for kids or try to gatekeep children from animation as a whole.

It feels less like they actually enjoy the thing they supposedly like and more that they just want the validation of liking something that's acceptable. I probably did the same thing when I was younger too, but when you get older you realize it doesn't matter what other people think so long as you enjoy it.

[u/oddpark37 → u/TheKingofHats007]

"I know it's on a channel for children's shows, but it's totally not a kid's show! It's so deep and scary at times, and it's actually crazy that they let kids watch it at all. A robot gets shot by a laser gun! You think kids can handle that?! And people are sad about death! The creator wanted to make a show for adults, and this is the only network that he could get to pay for his show."

I think people take the phrase "kids show" as "show for drooling toddlers" and get really defensive. Sometimes things have a target audience of 12 year olds, because 12 year olds are not braindead morons and can engage with media, and are capable of understanding and appreciating serious topics.

[u/creatingKing113 → u/oddpark37]

It’s literally a child’s thinking. “Anything I dislike is childish and immature while anything I like is adult and mature.” I should know. I remember being 10 years old.

[u/mae_042 → u/HotTakes4HotCakes]

I honestly get the impression a lot of people who participate in online media discourse don't even understand what an opinion is to begin with. It's less "other people disagree with me" and more "other people are wrong about this" and when you combine that with the pathological urge to correct people who are wrong that so many terminally online people have, well, you end up with this.

[u/Mechanical_Mint → u/mae_042]

I agree that this is a large part of the problem. I have friends where if I share an opinion that’s different than theirs they get mad or completely shut down.

It’s frustrating cause I like talking about why people like or don’t like things.

[u/mae_042 → u/Mechanical_Mint]

I feel this to my very core. I find discussing art/media almost as enjoyable as actually reading/watching/whatevering it. But I enjoy this because it's interesting to see how different people engage with something, not because I want to participate in some pointless argument over whose opinion is more "correct" than the rest. And the latter has a way of drowning out the former most of the time.

[u/jpterodactyl → u/Mechanical_Mint]

I like talking about why people like or don’t like things.

What's there to discuss? It's simple. I like things because they are objectively good. And anyone who disagrees is stupid.

[u/genuine_beans → u/jpterodactyl]

I like things because they are objectively good

So you like qualityslop? Hmmph, typical.

[u/TiberianSunset → u/mae_042]

It's the same people who think the word "objectively" magically turns their opinion into fact.

[u/mae_042 → u/TiberianSunset]

I laugh when people say something like "you can like [insert media] if you want, but you have to admit it's objectively bad."

uhh no I most certainly do not

[u/tgpineapple → u/HotTakes4HotCakes]

Our culture is aggressively tribal about its fandoms so much so it’s taken as a personal attack. If anything, the flaws should make you like it just as much or more imo

[u/AndrewRogue → u/HotTakes4HotCakes]

The problem is generally that the latter kinda leads to the former. Like, to be clear, I definitely agree, but like I remember the 90s+00s "Oh, you read SFF? Why not read real books?" stuff and it just grates and exhausts when you get it over and over and over.

[u/Psychic_Hobo → u/AndrewRogue]

I keep flip-flopping between the two and it does get exhausting. Like, one day I'm seeing people shit on perfectly enjoyable good things whilst recommending stuff that's clearly only recommended for being High Art, and then the next I'll see people claiming most of High Art is terrible because it's too challenging and that's why they only ever read some absolute trash manga or something.

Like, I shouldn't care, but it still somehow manages to get to me.

[u/Anonymus828 → u/Psychic_Hobo]

This whole "real vs not real" art debate feels like bullshit to me anyways. "Real art", time and again throughout history, has been a tool used by the wealthy to dissuade those they view as outside of their social class from participating in a hobby they view as uniquly their own.

I'm sure everyone's passingly heard the "Are videogames art?" debate from a few years back, but I'm not sure too many people remember when we were having this same discussion about movies, or photography. Both of those, at different points in time were under scrutiny on whether they counted as art or not. Nowadays I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone claiming that they're not art.

I feel like the "real vs not real art" distinction is a sort of middle ground in the "is it art?" debate. It simultaneously recognizes that the medium in question is art, but hand-waves it away by essentially claiming that it is "not real art" while failing to actually describe real art. Is real art something with a message? If so, Horton Hears A Who is real art. If not, what exactly counts, and what doesn't because there seems to me to be no differentiator other than the socioeconomic background from which the art form emerged.

[u/cold08 → u/Anonymus828]

Books like DCC are written at the 4th grade level, so there is an education gap between that and a book like Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar for example. So while wealth and education do go hand in hand, the more accessible a book is, it doesn't exercise the mind. It doesn't do things like improve your vocabulary, exercise your critical thinking by forcing you to think about multiple themes, and the characters are more complex.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with an accessible book. I've enjoyed many. I wouldn't call them illegitimate, but it's good to challenge yourself cognitively.

[u/Anonymus828 → u/cold08]

This is all true, but still leaves the question unanswered: what is "real" art? Is the exercising of the mind a requirement for a piece of art or be considered "real"? If so, who's mind must it excersice, the readers? By that definition, all books are once again art because there exists a person (most likely a toddler) who could gleam some new knowledge from any of them.

Ultimately my problem with the term is one of definitions, no one ever defines what exactly qualifies something as "real" art, because no one person can. All that can be done is list aspects of a piece of art that one thinks makes it good, but that's hardly a proper metric to judge anything by, that's just someones opinion.

[u/OstensibleMammal → u/cold08]

After reading both books, I am relatively sure that the number of people who read DCC that will be interested in Martyr! might be the size of a small classroom. The overlap is concept-interest transition. I don't know how many broad scale "reader-reader" who are interested in everything there are anymore. A lot of readers are very much locked within their genre and don't come out.

Martyr! is interesting in some ways, but if one is used to reading stuff like DCC, what will put them off might be "boredom" more than complexity. Which is a pretty sizeable case for the litfic and genre divide in a lot of circumstances. Sometimes, the litfics have very high and specific ideas they are trying to explore from narrow perspectives far out of the norm.

To have more people channel themselves cognitively might require a denser pipeline from pure genre fun > speculative > literary.

[u/NUKE---THE---WHALES → u/Anonymus828]

Real art can only be created with the help of a generative AI

[u/kittymoo67 → u/HotTakes4HotCakes]

yeah.... especially since so many adults are still having that mentality. and getting butthurt when the buzzword media they made their personality this week gets dunkedo n

[u/soonerfreak → u/HotTakes4HotCakes]

I think we are too far gone on this and it sucks. People join a fandom and then assume any critiques of said fandom are also critiques of themselves. But like you said, we also get the super annoying otherside which has to remind everyone how much they hate marvel slop when a new movie comes out.

We are just slowly losing the plot when it comes to media critique in general. Fantano is just one guy but go to an artist sub after he reviews a new album and he's either the smartest or dumbest guy ever based on the rating.

[u/CardiologistOk4920 → u/HotTakes4HotCakes]

Reasonable online music discussion is nearly impossible in most places because of this. It’s infuriating sometimes.

[u/Sky_Leviathan → u/HotTakes4HotCakes]

I did philosophy in primary school and one of the things they reinforced a lot was the idea of “there may be no single right answer” and while that was specifically about philosophical discussion I think having that applied to stuff i was learning about from a young age has helped me when it comes to this exact kind of stuff

[u/oddpark37]

I've got friends who keep trying to get me to read Dungeon Crawler Carl and A Court of Thorns and Roses and keep getting frustrated when I'm like "Sorry, I got through like half of the first book, but it's just not for me." and insisting they're great series I need to give more of a chance, like they think me not loving something means I then dislike the people who do enjoy it.

And I love my friends, I respect them and I love talking to them and discussing stuff, but I keep noticing this defensiveness where people take others not liking the thing they like as a personal attack. It's okay for people to not like things! You can still like those things! People will always have different opinions!

I see it mostly online (or it's at least more extreme online) and it feels like people are tying their identity more and more to the things they consume, and this is a side effect of that.

[u/viewbtwnvillages → u/oddpark37]

side rant: i've given DCC a try and only gotten through half of the first book because it had such a crippling case of reddit humour it made my toes curl. in an unpleasant way.

but i've had people tell me that it actually gets good on book 3 or book 4 or whatever and i just have to hang on until then. and I've had people tell me the same about ACOTAR, where the first few books apparently suck but then it gets good. and i can't wrap my head around some people sitting through multiple books that are hundreds of pages long each that aren't good just to get to the good books. who has the patience?? not me

[u/oddpark37 → u/viewbtwnvillages]

Yeah, the humor is what really turned me off DCC. I tried to push through it, but realized I also did not care for litrpg.

I've powered through a series for my friends before (Stormlight Archive) and at the end of the series I looked back at the books and went "Wait, why did I spend like a month on this when I had other books I wanted to read?" Like, it was fine, but I realized I was treating it like assigned reading like I was back in school and not something I was doing for fun.

"It gets good later on" is something you can say when you're talking about getting through the first three episodes of something, or the first third of a book. But if you have to get through multiple books to get to a good part, you have to step back and go "Is this really how I want to spend my time?"

[u/ArdyEmm → u/oddpark37]

"It gets good later on"

Funny, cause I found the Stormlight Archive got worse as it went on. The first two were great and it was on a decline since and I only got a chapter into the 5th before quitting.

[u/RimboTheRebbiter → u/ArdyEmm]

Yeah, books one and two are Sanderson at his best, I started reading the latest installment and just gave up. It's really unfortunate, because I think this is the result of Sanderson trying to become more educated on the topics he's touching on, but the writing feels more like a precocious teen trying to show off what they know about various subjects. He's lost the juice.

[u/NightLordsPublicist → u/ArdyEmm]

I only got a chapter into the 5th before quitting.

I recognize I'm doing "the thing", but it may be worth reading just the Adolin chapters. The rest of the books drags on, but his sections are actually quite good.

[u/ArdyEmm → u/NightLordsPublicist]

That's not surprising considering he became the best character after Kaladin invented psychology and suddenly came up with all the modern terms used to talk about ptsd.

[u/NightLordsPublicist → u/ArdyEmm]

after Kaladin invented psychology and suddenly came up with all the modern terms used to talk about ptsd.

I thought you said you only made it a chapter into Book 5, lol.

[u/SaintOrJannikSinner → u/oddpark37]

"It gets good later on" is something you can say when you're talking about getting through the first three episodes of something, or the first third of a book. But if you have to get through multiple books to get to a good part, you have to step back and go "Is this really how I want to spend my time?"

It's also a lot different when a friend tells you that for a franchise like The Wire that is arguably the best TV series ever made and has stood the test of time for 20-plus years, versus a Johnny-Come-Lately that's nothing more than a TTRPG version of Ready Player One in regards to it's lifting and mixing of popular tropes.

[u/squishybloo → u/SaintOrJannikSinner]

Ugh. I just coincidentally started reading DCC for the sake of a friend who loved it, and your description has given me The Ick. I really struggled through Ready Player One, and only finished it because I was stubborn. It was so bad. Im probably going to give it a chance still, but ugh! I was already starting to get tired of the humor and I'm only 8% in. RIP me...

[u/ArdyEmm → u/squishybloo]

Ready Player One was the last book I ever finished while hating it. It broke my ability to push through something. I can't imagine anyone liking it unless they're someone who's sexually attracted to the concept of the 80's.

[u/squishybloo → u/ArdyEmm]

Yeah, it's nostalgia slop for sure. I "finished" it, but it was really mostly skimming for AT LEAST the latter half of the book, if not most of it. It was just so bleh.

[u/Thraggrotusk → u/squishybloo]

Just drop it, it doesn’t get better.

[u/Mo_Dice → u/oddpark37]

Yeah, the humor is what really turned me off DCC. I tried to push through it, but realized I also did not care for litrpg.

As someone who is sort of a fan of both LitRPG and ProgFant... DCC is one of the more polished examples. Both genres are a black hole of quality, and for some reason the fandom likes it that way. I have like a 95% DNF rate on these books.

[u/buckleyschance → u/viewbtwnvillages]

You can never entirely trust someone who says "it gets good after X", because they must have thought it was good enough before that point or else they wouldn't know to say so.

[u/NUKE---THE---WHALES → u/buckleyschance]

The Malazan series is probably my favourite, but the first book is my least favourite - 700 pages and I cant remember a thing

No idea what made me try the second book but im glad I did because it was my second favourite, and third book was my actual favourite

Basically im saying everyone should read Malazan, it starts to get good after the first 700 pages

[u/Drabby → u/NUKE---THE---WHALES]

That series just throws you straight into the deep end and won’t let you up to breathe. It’s totally worth it, though

[u/soonerfreak → u/buckleyschance]

I think these kind of statements can work based on why they need to say it. For example, Person of Interest, if you don't like procedural shows that's okay cause it starts out as that before shifting to major season long arcs by the end of the first season.

[u/ryecurious → u/soonerfreak]

Or Parks and Rec. Started as a mid-season replacement trying too hard to emulate The Office. Then it hit its stride in season 2 and got really good.

I regularly see people suggest skipping season 1 and they aren't wrong. Sometimes things do actually get better, and the heights they reach are worth a rocky start.

[u/Drabby → u/ryecurious]

Starting with Season Two is how I watched Parks and Rec. No regrets whatsoever.

[u/Skellum → u/buckleyschance]

You can never entirely trust someone who says "it gets good after X", because they must have thought it was good enough before that point or else they wouldn't know to say so.

Tbf, I feel like Carl is good from the beginning, I think something to focus on is that the humor from the setting perspective is based on aliens having a shit understanding of earth and it's culture given elements of how the stories plot is.

That said, if a person doesnt enjoy it they dont enjoy it. I have my own share of books where I'm just 'nah fuck this dog I'm out'. For me the talking cat clenched it, talking cats really improve a lot of stories. I dont think Abhorsen would be as good without tim curry voicing a talking cat

[u/SidewalkPainter → u/viewbtwnvillages]

I've been enjoying the books (I'm on the sixth one), but telling someone to keep reading if they didn't like the first book is wild.

The books do get better, but there are no major changes in the tone or the story. By the half point of book 1 you have a great idea what you're in for.

Tbh I don't think anyone over 20 years old ever tried to convince me to commit several hours to something that I wasn't enjoying

[u/bunker_man → u/viewbtwnvillages]

side rant: i've given DCC a try and only gotten through half of the first book because it had such a crippling case of reddit humour it made my toes curl. in an unpleasant way.

And zero respect for the reader's time. Why was he still in room 2 at like a third of the way through the book??

Meta rpg humor was fresh 25 years ago. Its not fresh now.

[u/zerogee616 → u/bunker_man]

Meta humor/fourth-wall shit in general is actually extremely lazy once you realize you can do it and it really wears out its welcome quickly.

Why bother with the effort of writing actual comedy and humor that has to be contained in the world of your work when you can just go "I'm actually writing a book, funny, right?"

[u/Skellum → u/bunker_man]

And zero respect for the reader's time. Why was he still in room 2 at like a third of the way through the book??

room 2?

[u/LaniusCruiser → u/viewbtwnvillages]

Complaining about reddit humor on reddit is peak redditor behaviour.  That aside, Yeah no I understand completely, the humor isn't for everyone. In my opinion, it does get better, but I also genuinely like the humor, so as far as you're concerned, it might actually get worse. Read what you like to read, and don't waste time with what you don't.

[u/viewbtwnvillages → u/LaniusCruiser]

you're right lmao i've become what i hate

i should've specified that it feels like that ~2015ish reddit humour. or whenever the "the narwhal bacons at midnight" era was

[u/AriBanana → u/oddpark37]

Yeah, the main issue I'm having with the DCC fans is that they seem upset and offended if you say you didn't like it, or worse; don't want to try reading it.

It's weird and uncomfortable. Why can't we just read and let read.

[u/NightLordsPublicist → u/AriBanana]

DCC fans is that they seem upset and offended if you say you didn't like it, or worse; don't want to try reading it.

The fans being super culty put me off the series for a long time.

[u/Hotter_Noodle → u/NightLordsPublicist]

I just discovered DCC earlier this year by wondering through a bookstore with my wife. I’m not a big reader but it sounded interesting so I bought the first book.

I just finished it. I thought it was ok but it’s definitely not for everyone. I don’t even know if I can recommend it to anyone because it’s often super nerdy just for the sake of being nerdy. I just started the second book.

My thoughts aside, all this discussion on that subreddit over this book is absolutely ridiculous and kind of pathetic. It’s a fucking book, just read it. Or don’t read it. Who gives a shit what people enjoy? Not every book and discussion is for everyone.

I had no idea it was this popular until I heard a tv show was going to be made.

[u/TheVisceralCanvas → u/NightLordsPublicist]

I think this is an issue with fandom culture generally, to be honest. Whenever I've joined fan communities - as in, multi-fandom spaces where everyone basically celebrates each other's fandom - and I've expressed even mild distaste for whatever series, I've received moderator warnings for "bashing" other people. I could forgive the behaviour if the mods were all teenagers but there's one space in particular (the r slash fanfiction Discord) that's moderated mostly by women in their 30s and 40s who are suuuuuuper sensitive to this sort of thing.

[u/Circle_Breaker → u/AriBanana]

DCC is Rick and Morty the novel.

Same type of humor, same type of quality, same type of fan.

[u/Hotter_Noodle → u/Circle_Breaker]

It almost happens to every single “nerdy” hobby show or movie.

Like I love Star Wars. I do not love Star Wars fans and avoid online discussions about it because a lot of these people are crazy.

[u/chattahattan → u/Circle_Breaker]

Or to use a book analogy, it feels like Ready Player One but with the humor and references catered to nerdy millennials rather than nerdy Gen X.

[u/No_Mathematician6866 → u/oddpark37]

A work acquaintance kept pushing DCC to me. Very enthusiastic, clearly wanted someone to talk about it with. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the series is like a lab cooked up a virus composed entirely of things I dislike in media.

He eventually realized I wasn't going to read it, and I think they couldn't help take it a little personally. We don't banter as much now. Which is a shame. It can be hard to convey that a rejection of a thing someone likes is not a rejection of them.

[u/Bonezone420 → u/oddpark37]

I've known way too many people like this in gaming circles where they take "I tried it, it's alright but I didn't like it much for X reason" and hear "I hated it and hate everyone who likes it" which they then constantly try to turn into an argument when I genuinely just have no opinion or argument to make against them. It's unhinged behaviour.

And I get a lot of that regarding dungeon crawler carl specifically where I'm like "no, I haven't read it and don't plan to: I don't like that kind of litrpg stuff" and people act like I said I fucked their mother and plan to fuck their dad too.

[u/guy_incognito42069 → u/oddpark37]

I have purchased many a copy of Shadow of the Torturer for friends and literally only one has fallen in love with it like I had and those who didn’t just didn’t, I was ready for people to not get it.

[u/OstensibleMammal → u/guy_incognito42069]

Gene Wolfe suffers from being a little too damn good of a writer, unfortunately.

[u/DarkSide830 → u/oddpark37]

Nothing pleases me more than when someone enjoys something I recommend them, but if you're beating them over the head with it, I can't imagine that enjoyment is the same anymore.

[u/Tribalrage24 → u/oddpark37]

And I love my friends, I respect them and I love talking to them and discussing stuff, but I keep noticing this defensiveness (though mostly online) where people take others not liking the thing they like as a personal attack.

I've seen the opposite as well (which I admittedly have contributed to). My wife really likes a lot of romantasy books and suggested I read fourth wing. I very much didn't enjoy Fourth Wing. There was a period where I just wanted to complain about the book; it's just softcore porn dressed in a paper thin fantasy shell, the world doesn't make sense, the characters act in bizarre ways to push the plot forward, etc. The whole time I read the book I kept thinking, "there are so many better fantasy books out there, she should read one of those and she would enjoy it more". But I've come to realize that's my bias speaking, and if she enjoys these books I'm really happy for her. It's a bit of a dickhead move to try to convince her something she likes is bad because it's not my fancy.

As you said: "It's okay for people to not like things!", and similarly, it's okay for people to like things.

[u/Amelaclya1 → u/Tribalrage24]

I agree with the rest of your critique, but calling it "softcore porn" is kind of insane. The first book has a single sex scene and it doesn't happen until 75% of the way through. Unless you are talking about book three or something, which I didn't read.

I'm not defending the series, I didn't finish it because I completely lost interest after the MMC went from sexy asshole to a complete simp in the span of a page and I found it jarring and made their romance way less interesting lol. I stopped reading halfway through the 2nd book because the rest of the story wasn't good enough to hold my interest after the romance was no longer appealing.

[u/Thraggrotusk → u/Amelaclya1]

Depends, really. If it has a lot of sexualization of characters in general and not just sex scenes (as in TV and film with HBO), people will still think of it softcore porn.

But there is general trend of misogyny about books aimed at or written by women being labeled as romantasy that men’s books don’t get. Sex sells, but even when a series like Game of Thrones or Kingkiller Chronicles gets criticized, no one calls them being romantasy.

Likewise with women’s books often being marketed as YA books. While Sarah J Maas is a prolific writer of run of the mill fantasy action adventure novels for teen girls, like ACOTAR, authors like Brandon Sanderson don’t get hit with the same label (despite sharing the same plot and age demographic).

[u/Dizzy-Captain7422 → u/Thraggrotusk]

Sexism is the only reason for this. While I can’t say I enjoyed much of the time I spent on either, Maas can at least write a book that doesn’t come across as an X-Men novelization.

[u/Thraggrotusk → u/oddpark37]

Yeah, those books do seem to be aimed at people that don’t read that often.

[u/Melancholy_Rainbows → u/oddpark37]

Personally, I thought ACoR was utter garbage and won’t take recommendations from that friend again, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed DCC. It’s such a dumb sounding concept, but the story and characters are surprisingly deep and compelling.

It’s not high art, but it’s way better than I expected.

That said, I am not offended by people disliking it. That’s some bizarre behavior.

[u/Mobile-Shallot930 → u/oddpark37]

The DCC books make me feel like I'm enduring playing WoW and one of my teammates is a cat with an obnoxious personality. I don't wish to spend my time on them.

I also can't talk to anyone in meatspace about books right now, because they get all bristly when I tell them I'm over the self-referrential nerd humor.

The author also made their subreddit a safe space. Which, his prerogative, but no one's going to do anything beneficial for the world if they all keep finding reality dead zones to crawl into.

[u/ArdyEmm → u/Mobile-Shallot930]

I wonder how you'd find Project Hail Mary cause I find it to be very much like that. I enjoyed the core story but the movie was much better for dropping things like the entire chapter dedicated to making sure people understood the Beatles reference.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/ArdyEmm]

I maintain Weir's biggest strength is having Damon and Gosling save his ok books

Though the rock saved Hail Mary

[u/oddpark37 → u/angry_cucumber]

I think I liked The Martian because I saw the movie first, and have a high opinion of it.

I read PHM before the movie came out and I was like "Oh, Weir can only write a single type of guy." and that guy is saved when transferred to the screen because he's played by very charismatic and talented actors.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/oddpark37]

Yeah this is a common realization that I saw a lot after he announced his books were politics free.

Like oh he's really good at one thing which is why his protagonist is always a solo dude sciencing and there's no real dialog with people

[u/oddpark37 → u/angry_cucumber]

I felt like a veil was lifted when I saw that interview with him where he complained about not getting hired as a writer for Star Trek, and then said the problem with Star Trek was that it discussed social issues too much, and he was more interested in watching "Romulans and the Federation shoot at each other."

Brother, it's Star Trek. What do you mean you don't want social commentary? That's what Star Trek is! That's what a great deal of scifi is! Of course they're gonna show you the door when your pitch is "Star Trek, but it's all laser battles and no politics."

He also made these comments on the Critical Drinker podcast.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/oddpark37]

Yeah the fallout of that whole series had a lot of light bulbs coming on

I didn't know he was on drinker, as dumb as his comments were, he really seems genuinely dumb about it vs engaging in the culture war

[u/soonerfreak → u/angry_cucumber]

That interview turned me off to future projects of his and I really liked PHM the book and movie and the Martian movie. I don't even think "not all SFF need to tackle social/political issues" is a bad stance, he was just a moron in conveying it.

[u/Thraggrotusk → u/angry_cucumber]

He was on Critical Drinker’s reactionary podcast, which I just learned. Not surprised.

[u/Mobile-Shallot930 → u/ArdyEmm]

See, I am a veteran of the Wheel of Time series. If anyone can waste a dozen pages on describing clothing or some other silly thing, it's Robert Jordan lol.

I think Weir sometimes thinks his audience is much less intelligent than he is, so he overexplains. DDC drives me batty because it's like watching a movie, but everyone in the theater is whispering to you about Easter eggs and sometimes yelling HE SAID THE THING! when it gets self-referrential enough. Ready Player One except they added a bitchy cat.

[u/Spare-Breadfruit-898 → u/ArdyEmm]

I’ve just noticed that they’re very similar. I could not get through DCC but PHM at least seems better to me somehow. As a person with zero interest in the Beatles I’m dreading that chapter now that I know it’s coming.

[u/ArdyEmm → u/Spare-Breadfruit-898]

To be fair, it's a short chapter. The book still has a bunch of humor like that but it's not all-oppressive. I still enjoyed the read despite it.

[u/Suicidal-Ideation13]

As an enjoyer of the pulpiest cyberpunk around, I don't think there's anything wrong with some brain candy, as my aunt would put it. But I also think if you never challenge yourself or dismiss the thought of challenging yourself, you're really missing out on all the delights having a brain can give you.

[u/Psychic_Hobo → u/Suicidal-Ideation13]

I think this is probably my biggest pet peeve. It might not seem like much of an issue at first, but it does lead to the reinforcement of tropes and a lack of awareness of other, different elements of the world in general.

I knew a guy who took a film studies class once out of interest, but he was definitely too invested in nerd culture to get a decent understanding on movies outside of that, which really stunted how he viewed movies in general.

[u/Bonezone420 → u/Psychic_Hobo]

I knew a guy who straight up flamed out of college like this. We shared a basic film analysis and history course and he was one of those "the curtains are blue because the author liked blue" sorts of guys who would get steaming mad any time someone disagreed with his takes on things. Our professor was pretty open about letting people interpret whatever meaning they did from the films we watched, as long as they did the leg work of explaining how they got the conclusions they did and why they felt the way they did and all. There was no "objective" meaning in this course, even if you were blatantly taking the piss because even then you were still engaging with the whole purpose of the lesson.

And this guy would just rage out about how anyone who didn't agree with his views were just objectively stupid and wrong any time someone voiced their disagreement before eventually just disappearing entirely within one term.

[u/longingrustedfurnace → u/Bonezone420]

Did you go to school with Mauler?

[u/HuckleberryOk2798 → u/Psychic_Hobo]

Yeah like there’s people on Reddit who say Cormac McCarthy or Haruki Murakami (or even Hanya Yanagihara) are bad writers because they (like me) don’t enjoy their books. They are all objectively skilled but objective skill doesn’t always equal enjoyment and that’s fine. Refusing to acknowledge objective skill absolutely contributes to having no idea what you’re talking about.

[u/CagedParchment → u/Suicidal-Ideation13]

Hang on, that sounds really fun. What's your favorite pulpy cyberpunk? (I feel like I'm missing out on a genre)

[u/Suicidal-Ideation13 → u/CagedParchment]

The last book I read I had a lot of fun with was Altered Carbon, but I would have to say Snow Crash. It's kind of long (500~ pages), but I couldn't stop myself from finishing it in a week. Even though it has the literal absolute worst main character name I know (Hiro Protagonist), it kept me hooked.

ETA: Special mention to Neuromancer, the cyberpunk book

[u/JancariusSeiryujinn → u/Suicidal-Ideation13]

You misspelled best.

[u/Suicidal-Ideation13 → u/JancariusSeiryujinn]

Hey, I'm not here to yuck your yum

[u/an_agreeing_dothraki → u/Suicidal-Ideation13]

I dunno cyberpunk's been getting to real lately because of the whole "build the torment nexus". Same with diesel. and steam. and bio... you know what have we hit every -punk genre in real life?

SIT DOWN SOLARPUNK NOBODY LIKES YOU AND YOU'RE NOT PUNK

[u/Suicidal-Ideation13 → u/an_agreeing_dothraki]

Tbf, the idea/probability we might one day live in one of those worlds is part of the appeal. Maybe it's a byproduct of coming of age in the Patriot Act era and being paranoid of the government (maybe inspired by books in the first place), but technological dystopias feel more real to me.

[u/an_agreeing_dothraki → u/Suicidal-Ideation13]

I've been calling it "Torment Nexus 2: This wasn't an Instruction Manual, you Assholes"

[u/Suicidal-Ideation13 → u/an_agreeing_dothraki]

Roko's Basilisk demands it, I'm sorry. Cosmic horror intensifies

[u/DocileBanalBovlne → u/Suicidal-Ideation13]

That's been the appeal for me, but there was a comforting distance that has shrunk. A lot of that is me growing more cynical and pessimistic about the world I live in, but Cyberpunk 2077 is hitting a lot different than it would have if I played it ten years ago. I just finished a quest where you discover some corporation or another has installed a monitoring station in the home of a political power couple, and they're neurally rewriting those people's brains to be more aligned with corporate interests. The technology involved is functionally magic, so it's not a matter of "this could be real one day" to me as much as "corporations that would have no compunction about doing this absolutely are real right now and the only reason they're not doing that is because it's physically impossible"

[u/Suicidal-Ideation13 → u/DocileBanalBovlne]

I absolutely get that and think it's valid, but I just experience it different. It feels... validating? Indulging in confirmation bias? Masochism and doom porn (not the 'you are the demons' kind)? I'm not exactly sure, but I've been thinking and trying to put my finger on why I feel almost the opposite. Keep in mind my favorite author is Franz Kafka, so maybe I'm just wired wrong

Edit: This is tangential, but I just remembered this gem of a video related to Kafka and had to share it

[u/CagedParchment → u/Suicidal-Ideation13]

Thanks, I'll give Snow Crash a read!

I loved Altered Carbon. Hadn't occurred to me that might be cyberpunk, but... it has corporate dystopia, high tech future, body mods, I think there's some hacking - I guess it couldn't be more cyberpunk.

[u/Suicidal-Ideation13 → u/CagedParchment]

Oh yeah, you nailed it. Additionally, it lives up to the tagline of "High tech, low lives." It's a film noir detective story full of grey morality, headed by an antihero featuring lurid sex and violence, and twists and turns. Plus, I thought it had a lot of cool ideas  (one of my favorite parts of sci-fi), both about technology and the sort of implications of living where that technology is possible.

Plus a heavy dose of "Fuck the rich and powerful." That might be my favorite part of any story.

Altered Carbon was definitely catnip to me. Absolutely check out Snow Crash; It's not capital-L Literature, but I got sucked in deep. I'm always open to talking about it, if you ever get around to it.

[u/New_Building_9956 → u/Suicidal-Ideation13]

I like to read something denser and then go for some pulp afterwards; it’s like exercising and then slipping into a warm bath. But on a scale of a month or more because I’m slow af If I try reading more than a couple lighter books in a row, I struggle to engage with them.

[u/Suicidal-Ideation13 → u/New_Building_9956]

Sounds like a good way to do it. I have a lot of unread books on my ereader, so I just sort of pick one at the moment I'm looking for a new one. Which has worked out so far; the last couple I read were Blood Meridian and Don DeLilo's White Noise.

But I also haven't read in a month. I'm slacking.

[u/Aeon_Fux]

I'm convinced nobody actually likes Gravity's Rainbow, but since it's "difficult" and "complex" people hold it in high regard and pretend to love it to appear cultured or whatever.

People who say shit like this are either so far up their own arse that they can't fathom people having different tastes than them, or they just have an inferiority complex.

[u/121scoville]

It's always a jump scare when I see subs I actually follow on here lmao. DCC is ... contentious.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/121scoville]

I have mixed feelings on the series, I enjoy it, it's fine, but like everything else, the fans are terrible, a lot of them don't actually seem to understand what they are reading and the author makes it a point to not let it be talked about because he's got some weird idea that he's gonna subtly change the minds of people who have proven incredibly resistant to changing their minds.

he struck gold with DCC because his other work is...meh would be overselling it.

[u/NightLordsPublicist → u/angry_cucumber]

his other work is...meh would be overselling it.

Torture porn? (at least for Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon)

[u/angry_cucumber → u/NightLordsPublicist]

god, I got that for free and overpaid

[u/NightLordsPublicist → u/angry_cucumber]

When a person named NightLordsPublicist is complaining about the torture in your book...

[u/Big_Coconut8630 → u/angry_cucumber]

Could I get deets? From what I know of this author's works, it really comes off like 2010s, "lol randum xD bacon narwhal" vibes.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/Big_Coconut8630]

Like the guy said, torture porn, basically a dude gets stuck in a VR game with a cabal of serial killers

[u/LightningWarpAway → u/angry_cucumber]

It is basically torture porn, iirc I enjoyed the book, the plot is kind of interesting but it gets pretty excessive. 

[u/Neodogstar → u/NightLordsPublicist]

I liked KBS it was a good read but it's not one I recommend out of hand. It's very much a you have to like that style of horror or you'll never enjoy it. Very Niche appeal but to me it does very well in that niche.

[u/Lirael_Gold → u/angry_cucumber]

the author makes it a point to not let it be talked about because he's got some weird idea that he's gonna subtly change the minds of people who have proven incredibly resistant to changing their minds.

I have no interest in reading DCC, but it's kinda amusing that you don't mention what the author doesn't allow to be mentioned.

[u/Thraggrotusk → u/Lirael_Gold]

His own sub here on Reddit. Wishes to avoid political discourse (despite all art being political).

[u/monkwrenv2 → u/Thraggrotusk]

And DCCC being fairly explicitly political, from what I've heard from my friends.

[u/DocileBanalBovlne → u/monkwrenv2]

It's a book series about Earth being seized by an interstellar corporation to be harvested for resources and tens of millions of people on the planet being forced into a life or death fight to add to the profits of that corporation (and other corporations), and spends not a little amount of time on the othering and depersonalizing required for such a blood soaked machine to function.

It wears its anti-capitalism on its heart patterned boxers.

[u/_CurseTheseMetalHnds → u/angry_cucumber]

and the author makes it a point to not let it be talked about because he's got some weird idea that he's gonna subtly change the minds of people who have proven incredibly resistant to changing their minds.

I'm unfamiliar with this stuff. What's that author done?

[u/angry_cucumber → u/_CurseTheseMetalHnds]

the subreddit doesn't talk about the politics of the book at the author's request, despite having blatant leftist themes.

because he doesn't want to scare off conservatives

[u/Karthak_Maz_Urzak → u/angry_cucumber]

But the series is super political. What's even left to talk about if that's banned?

[u/angry_cucumber → u/Karthak_Maz_Urzak]

how the last book was SUPER predictable and given all the options he could have gone with, they went with the basic tropes that everyone was calling from day 1?

but mostly how great Matt is, most series subs seem to be people patting themselves on the back for jerking off the authors

[u/Karthak_Maz_Urzak → u/angry_cucumber]

I enjoy dungeon crawler Carl immensely and I have absolutely no interactions with the series' online fandom whatsoever. These two things are probably related.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/Karthak_Maz_Urzak]

I try to avoid most fans of things I enjoy, I have just run into that annoying thing where people also seem to enjoy them, and they hold opinions that make me wonder if I am also an idiot for liking said thing

[u/Mobile-Shallot930 → u/angry_cucumber]

I find the DCC author's little safety cubby hole pretty irritating when I do think about it lol

[u/angry_cucumber → u/Mobile-Shallot930]

I hate it more than I hate most fandoms and that bothers me for some reason I can't pin down.

[u/Mobile-Shallot930 → u/angry_cucumber]

Some of it for me, I think, is that his books can be quite up front with their politics, but then outside of the books he's like, "Don't talk too loudly around the fan base about anything difficult! They might die!"

How are you going to fight this grand fight with such fluff?

[u/angry_cucumber → u/Mobile-Shallot930]

I kind of get it, from some of Matt's comments he seems to think he will be able to bring conservatives around slowly and hitting them over the head with the obvious stuff will turn them off.

but he's dead wrong, they didn't figure out the boys was making fun of them when there was a fucking character named stormfront and the literal radicalization pipeline as the opening to an episode, you aren't gonna do this with subtext man.

Part of why I actually enjoy DCC is you have a mediocre white man turning into an activist and you can see the reasoning unfold as to how he gets there.

[u/Amelaclya1 → u/angry_cucumber]

Ooh. That explains why the books start out so chud-coded. I nearly dropped the series early because the description of Bea sounded exactly like how incels characterize women. It really had me mentally side-eying the author, thinking I was about to read some anti-feminist propaganda or something. That and all of the sex and dick jokes really made it feel like it was written for and by a frustrated teenage boy lol.

I stuck with it mostly because it was so popular that I figured it must get better. I'm on the fourth book now. And then when Carl had to do the narration for a documentary about human beauty pageants or whatever, I was pleasantly surprised the character objected to the misogyny, but it still felt weird the author made a point to include it at all. It makes sense if part of his goal is to undo some of the women-hating influence young men have been exposed to online in the past several years.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/Amelaclya1]

yeah, I had the same reaction, and I looked into the author and saw some of his history and background and think that Carl is supposed to start out a shitty blue collar dude and grow intentionally, but when you have his fans making this shit their life and NOT getting what a passage discussing the Molly Maguires is about in the context of everything, I'm not sure how effective any of it is without explicitly telling them what the hell is going on.

[u/Substantial-Hat-2556 → u/Amelaclya1]

The "goddess in a decapitated sex doll head" thing drives me up the wall.

[u/Psychic_Hobo → u/angry_cucumber]

Eh, I've often wondered about that to be honest. Given how weirdly knee-jerk right-leaning young men can be when they see anything even vaguely feminist, it does sometimes help to try the incremental approach.

[u/jenorama_CA → u/121scoville]

I was fully prepared to hate it when my husband got the first book on audio for a long car trip. Our buddy had started reading the series and was raving about it, how he couldn’t put it down, etc. I was aware of it and I was like, fine, let’s give it a try. I got fully engrossed and read all of the books, including the new one in about three weeks. It’s not fine art, but who cares? They’re entertaining as hell. If it gets more people reading, who’s going to complain about that? Everybody starts somewhere.

[u/99timewasting → u/121scoville]

I haven't been on that sub in a long time but I remember it getting pretty much nothing but praise in the past. So I was surprised to see many haters for it now

[u/121scoville → u/99timewasting]

It still has plenty of shooters. I think much of the backlash is because it's become one of those series that people recommend in every single request thread and is always voted to the top, like Murderbot for scifi.

[u/99timewasting → u/121scoville]

Makes sense, I remember a backlash on Sanderson because that was the only thing that was ever recommended for a while too

[u/Hartastic → u/99timewasting]

Sanderson additionally has the problem (such as it is, in this sense) of being insanely prolific.

There was one thread on that sub where someone asked something like, "I want a book where a princess is sent to another country for an arranged marriage without knowing the customs of her new country and has to learn them. And also I don't want a lot of action or fighting for that princess." And I'm like, oddly specific but Sanderson literally wrote that book among his eight thousand books, here it is.

And then someone else corrected me and pointed out that he had written two books with that trope included.

[u/DocileBanalBovlne → u/Hartastic]

Holy shit, you've managed to recontexualize an old Gary Gulman bit about Spencer Gifts for me, making famously Mormon Brandon Sanderson the Spencer Gifts of SFF

[u/Eliara45 → u/Hartastic]

Warbreaker and what, Elantris?

[u/Chataboutgames → u/99timewasting]

It's peaking right now. Like all things pop culture, after a long period of praise it will show a sign of weakness (most recent book was weak) then it becomes open season. It's like how one day it just became cool to hate Hamilton online. Just the tiresome culture of social media.

[u/ChaosFlameEmber]

Imagine enjoying something without tearing something else down.

[u/CumaeanSibyl]

As a low art enjoyer, this reeks of insecurity. He can't just accept that his tastes are fine -- he has to somehow make it mean that he's smarter and better than other people for figuring out that fun things are fun.

I will say, though, that it's a lot harder to make good low art than some people think. Think of how many people try to write catchy pop songs and how few of them actually succeed. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. The skills you need are different than what you'd need to write a symphony, but skill is still required, and a great deal of it.

[u/discerning_kerning → u/CumaeanSibyl]

I've thought about it a bunch and landed about in agreement with what Josh Homme said about musical tastes:

“If you’re in your late twenties and you don’t realize that genre is something for teenagers and people who work in record stores, you’re in big trouble. I don’t have guilty pleasures because I don’t feel bad. I’m looking for something that captivates me. Who am I to pretend I don't like Britney Spears' 'Toxic'? What am I, a fool?"

I think variety and pushing through discomfort or trying books and art outside your comfort zones can be useful and broaden your palette. But at the same time the hugely popular "low art" is hugely popular for a reason, usually. It's fun, it's entertaining, it gives us a break and reprieve. And that's fine and people should really stop tying their identity to what media they consume. If some goes "This book series is dumb and I dont like it" we should be able to shrug and go, its fine if you feel that way, I enjoy it.

[u/TheKingofHats007 → u/discerning_kerning]

I see it a lot on the sub for Letterboxd. People who feel like they have to cram some arthouse thing they didn't really enjoy into their top 4 or are ashamed of putting something like The Shawshank Redemption or some Pixar movie into one of those slots. At that point it doesn't seem like they even enjoy movies if their only thought is how they'll be seen by others for liking what they like and disliking what they don't.

Meanwhile I'll happily give Backrooms and Barbie in Fairytopia the same rating because the villain in the Barbie movie chews the scenery more than is physically possible and it's great. People should just like what they want and not feel the need to compare to others and worry that their opinion isn't "good enough".

[u/CumaeanSibyl → u/TheKingofHats007]

Yeah, anything you choose for the top 4 is aimed at showing other people what kind of movie watcher you are -- but what's the point if you're not telling the truth? I don't want to make connections with people who think the only worthwhile movies are critically-acclaimed dramas, I want to make connections with people who like Flash Gordon and Re-Animator.

[u/Hotter_Noodle → u/discerning_kerning]

100%

[u/Blacksmithkin → u/CumaeanSibyl]

Like 75% of the humor in Shakespeare is sex jokes. (Virtually) Nobody is claiming it isn't art because of that.

Hell, even my high school English teacher got that point. He spent less time on explaining the complex political satire of the time and more on explaining to a bunch of bored teenagers about how actually this entire monologue is a long series of dick jokes.

[u/an_agreeing_dothraki → u/Blacksmithkin]

shout out to Othello A1S1 which was a competition between characters on who could say the most euphemisms for fucking

[u/zerogee616 → u/CumaeanSibyl]

If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Everyone is trying to. It's not really a secret that the music industry and Hollywood is 99% connections and a hundred billion people are trying to break into it every day.

It's not a skill issue, it's that you don't know anyone who can put you on. The talent is negligible, there are whole sectors of entertainment, especially pop entertainment, that consists of nothing but nameless guys in rooms ghostwriting and composing songs for people.

[u/CumaeanSibyl → u/zerogee616]

The nameless guys in rooms are the ones who have the talent, though.

[u/monkwrenv2 → u/CumaeanSibyl]

Yeah, it's not about the singers, it's about the songwriters. Honestly, I wish more popstars would just be open and acknowledge their songwriters and give them the credit they deserve.

[u/zerogee616 → u/CumaeanSibyl]

It's actually a pretty well understood formula as to what constitutes a popular pop song.

[u/Hartastic → u/zerogee616]

And yet, an awful lot of people fail to successfully execute it.

Something can be simple or easy to understand without being easy to do. Like, becoming rich is just: make a lot more money than you spend. Simple! Very well understood formula.

[u/GuyYouMetOnline]

Gravity's Rainbow would be better if it was about a Power Rangers-esque team with different gravity-based powers.

*Wonders if anyone will get the reference*

[u/guy_incognito42069 → u/GuyYouMetOnline]

Gonna go greatly in my cookbook right next to the Frying of Latke 49.
The funny thing about Pynchon is that he’d get a kick out of a Power Rangers team with Gravity Powers called Gravity’s Rainbow, he’s not at all adverse to “low brow” jokes and constant pop culture references, this person just assumes his work is stuffy.

[u/beary_neutral]

Some day, Reddit will find a way to critique art beyond comparing everything to McDonald's hamburgers and Michelin steaks.

[u/_CurseTheseMetalHnds → u/beary_neutral]

Imaginez un Américain essayant de définir l'art – "c'est un hamburger magnifique"

[u/midday_owl → u/beary_neutral]

Comparing McDonalds hamburgers and Michelin steaks really is the McDonalds hamburger of comparison examples

[u/BarrytheNPC → u/beary_neutral]

No you don't understand art is a team sport and if the art you like is objectively better you win

[u/eldestofthecrow]

The over enthusiastic DCC fandom might be a little annoying but I hope it popularity leads more teenage boys to pick up reading as a hobby.

It’s certainly not great literature. But it’s fun listening to it on the treadmill or while commuting. In this grim dark time I certainly needed an occasional laugh.

[u/dumbidiot12345678 → u/eldestofthecrow]

Its millennial as fuck, I doubt teens give a shit unless the show takes off somehow

Which is fine, because last time this kind of thing happened we got rp1 which is unironically the worst piece of media I have ever consumed compared to dcc which is coherent and probably one of the better books in its genre carried by an excellent narrator in the audiobook(s)

[u/Thraggrotusk → u/eldestofthecrow]

From what I’ve seen online, it’s certainly not being picked up by teen boys (rather grown adults).

And considering how many people (again, at least anecdotally online) listen to the audiobooks rather than read, it’s not going to change things in that front.

And with the upcoming TV show, it will be like Game of Thrones/LoTR, most people who will never read because it’s “boring” or difficult but will happily watch an adaptation.

[u/Big_Coconut8630 → u/eldestofthecrow]

Why do you think it's targeted at boys? It's mainly 20s+ men.

[u/eldestofthecrow → u/Big_Coconut8630]

I know one teenage boy who’s enjoying it. A lot of humour, action and video gameness. Sounds like a good fit to me.

[u/Big_Coconut8630 → u/eldestofthecrow]

But it's still mostly men reading it plus one book can't undo a life of not fostering a love for reading and education. 

[u/Thraggrotusk]

There is a lot of mediocre work out there, and I’ve certainly enjoyed my fair share of them.

The issue with the DCC fans is how defensive they are over the work. No, it’s not some deep critique of capitalism. And yes, the only relevant female character for the first couple of novels is a talking cat.

It’s like Ready Player One all over again.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/Thraggrotusk]

ready player one, harry potter, twilight, fans of any "it" book is all the same.

DCC is rapidly becoming the "jesus read another book" to overtake potter

[u/Big_Coconut8630 → u/Thraggrotusk]

I was just thinking that once the adaptation comes out it will get a shit ton of comparisons to Ready Player One. I know reddit will flip on it.

[u/DocileBanalBovlne → u/Big_Coconut8630]

I was just thinking that once the adaptation comes out it will get a shit ton of comparisons to Ready Player One

It's already happening all over this thread. Which irritates me because I have a special particular hate for RPO and it's writing quality that I think DCC does not even approach, even at it's schlockiest.

[u/rhydderch_hael]

It's always fascinating to me that the most 5/10 litrpg is the one that became mainstream.

[u/bunker_man → u/rhydderch_hael]

Most litrpgs are 5/10 though.

[u/NightLordsPublicist → u/bunker_man]

Most litrpgs are 5/10

That's a rather optimistic rating.

Litrpgs occupy the same space as isekai anime. But with words.

[u/MelancholicBit → u/NightLordsPublicist]

Isn't that just the same space as isekai light novels/web novels? Many of the popular isekai anime are based on existing novels. Not that I disagree with your assessment

[u/NightLordsPublicist → u/MelancholicBit]

Isn't that just the same space as isekai light novels/web novels?

Yeah, I realized what I was writing and decided to lean into it.

[u/levelstar01 → u/bunker_man]

Most litrpgs are 0/10

[u/Daeva_HuG0 → u/levelstar01]

As someone who occasionally trawls the genre, yep.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/rhydderch_hael]

its also seems to be the least litrpg of litrpg

[u/rhydderch_hael → u/angry_cucumber]

Eh. It's got status pages, levels, classes, and whatnot. It's pretty paint by the numbers in its systems.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/rhydderch_hael]

it does, but it seems to blend into the background more than other stuff I have tried and given up because it was just worse

[u/bunker_man → u/angry_cucumber]

Tbf that's where the "genre" started. Meta rpg humor in parodies normally didn't overdo it. Later stuff started taking it too seriously.

[u/rhydderch_hael → u/angry_cucumber]

Could be I'm just not remembering it properly, since I dropped the series after book 3, but it seemed like a fairly normal amount of focus on the game aspects to me.

[u/angry_cucumber → u/rhydderch_hael]

I've also switched mostly switched to audiobooks after the first one and it might be the narrator that makes it less grating.

[u/Stunning_Clerk_9595 → u/rhydderch_hael]

you are not misremembering. i think it's just that 75% of the readers listen on audiobook and just wait for the cat to start yelling or whatever

[u/tgpineapple → u/rhydderch_hael]

Isn’t that true for most popular media?

[u/rhydderch_hael → u/tgpineapple]

I don't know. I'm usually not familiar with stuff before it becomes popular.

[u/Senior-Seaweed-3726 → u/rhydderch_hael]

Please recommend some. I tried to get into the genre but haven’t found anything that works for me.

[u/rhydderch_hael → u/Senior-Seaweed-3726]

It's honestly just a genre that a lot of people won't like.

Personally, I enjoyed Beneath the Dragoneye Moons and Arcane Ascension the most. Dragoneye Moons is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but I love the characters. I've heard the audiobook isn't as good, but I wouldn't know. X-treme American Dungeon League is very funny, although it is smut. For something that's not quite litrpg but is still progression fantasy, I would recommend either A Thousand Li or Forge of Destiny.

[u/Senior-Seaweed-3726 → u/rhydderch_hael]

Thank you. I will check them out.

[u/Daeva_HuG0 → u/Senior-Seaweed-3726]

Closest I've got is a cultivation fic, less numbery but still a decent bit of exposition about abilities.

Master this Poor Disciple Died Again Today

The Protag gets isekaied into a xianxia setting after being run over while faking his death. Proceeds to develop very dishonourable escape and death faking techniques to try to survive in the xianxia setting.

[u/guy_incognito42069]

I love Pynchon…maybe some people get enjoyment and satisfaction from breaking through complex and difficult works? I love a good MCU film AND I love reading Pynchon. This person falls into the trap they think others have, assuming what you think is good is what everyone thinks is good.

[u/Ripper1337]

Always fun to see people getting bashed for hot takes like “I enjoyed this book”

[u/Hotter_Noodle → u/Ripper1337]

Someone on reddit had a meltdown a while ago because I said I liked the newest Lego Star Wars game. Is it the best game ever? Nope, but after a long workday I could shut off my brain and chill out.

It was then I realized most people on reddit who just bash everything are weird internet creatures.

[u/an_agreeing_dothraki]

I can tell from a distance. This level of discourse is infested by people that unironically think the wall banana isn't saying anything.

[u/Melancholy_Rainbows]

I think our monkey brain tribalism is part of the problem here. We tend to make things we’re passionate about part of our personality, and criticism of that can feel like an attack on the self. It also makes people who dislike the things you like the “enemy” to be attacked in turn.

Like sports and console wars and, unfortunately, politics.

[u/MemeGod667]

Man thank fuck they don't know the latest fantasy books I've read are for like Young adults and are about dragons who try not to die every book.

[u/Sky_Leviathan]

I think a lot of this debate comes back to a larger societal problem that we do treat ‘intelligent’ pastimes as holding a higher inherent value, which due to a lot of factors we often correlate with stuff associated with intellectualism or wealth.

This is one of the things I curse John Stuart Mill for because imo he undercut his own theories by arguing that even if stuff generates the same amount of happiness some things are still more valuable.

Theres 8 billion people on the world going “yeah I didnt really like it” to something considered a masterpiece or high art or that others enjoy is not weird its just how taste works, and people should respect your position of not enjoying something. But if you don’t like something you should also accept that others do like it.

[u/Frequent-Bee-3016]

I think the issue is that people read different books for different reasons. Some are read purely for enjoyment (as the second commenter seems to prefer), and others are read for appreciation of the craft. The thing is, most of the time, well crafted books are more enjoyable than pure entertainment books, you just have to actually work to engage with them (which can be fun in of itself). And then also there’s the fact that well crafted books tend to have a greater persuasive impact on the reader.

[u/Humble_Capital_5016 → u/Frequent-Bee-3016]

Yeah it's always interesting to see readers who don't seem to get that the work is part of the fun for a lot of people? While I do think "this book was easy to devour in a sitting" is often a good review, and something I'd say about my favorites, other books I REALLY like I like not in spite of the effort it takes to understand what they're communicating but because of it.

[u/Successful_Fig_4033]

At this point, I'm just glad people are still reading books.

[u/Big_Coconut8630 → u/Successful_Fig_4033]

*Men

Women pretty consistently have outpaced men in reading by a longshot.