The Reading Room - 2017-06-13

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12:59 AM

3

Q: Can we increase the tag length limit?

The 25 character limit on tag names has always been a problem for this site, due to our policy of tagging questions with the titles of the movies they're about as accurately as possible and the fact that those movies could often have rather long titles. This has lead to many compromises and worka...

feature-request featured tags

maybe we need this too

1:38 AM

Is character-development included in character-analysis?

There is exactly one question with the development tag. I'm about to ask another that might also need that tag, but I wonder if we should just destroy it, and allow its questions to gather under the character-analysis tag.

0

Q: What changed that made TenSoon want to run?

TenSoon is a kandra, a type of sentient magical creature in Sanderson's Mistborn series, and a proud one at that. After the events in the second book of the series, he travels to his homeland, willingly, to stand trial for several offenses that he had perpetrated against his people (and to warn t...

character-analysis brandon-sanderson

2:18 AM

@humn it's a little bit more complicated than that

5 hours later…

7:31 AM

@Riker What do you mean?

@Riker that post was inspired by us actually getting a character increase :)

8:01 AM

0

Q: What was this novel about an English man growing up in a mansion isolated from society?

I remember from school that a certain book was treated during English literature classes about an English man who grew up in a mansion isolated from society? He was taken care of and everything without having to interact with other human beings. When he finally came out into society, he had major...

story-identification questions are now 6.3% of all the questions on the site.

Eh.

2 hours later…

10:10 AM

Cosplay: Tar-Ancalimë, the first queen of Númenor.

8 hours later…

5:53 PM

@manshu Wasn't she due to catch another coach shortly after being dropped off?

@Riker No tag wiki is better than a pointless tag wiki, IMO. The latter, as well as smelling like rep/badge chasing, makes it less likely that someone will come along to write a proper one - it won't show up on lists of wikiless tags, for instance.

@Shokhet @Gallifreyan My author tag wiki excerpt template is "For questions about the author [optional: novelist / poet / playwright / whatever] So-and-so or about any of [his / her / their] literary works [optional: list some of the best known]." I think that's better than Benjamin's template which you quoted.

@Randal'Thor I considered adding some known works, but for most authors I don't know any, and with the title tag debate still going I was reluctant to add them.

@Shokhet Wasn't, like, half the book (and even more so in the previous book) about the two of them working out who they really were or wanted to be and reconciling the different sides of themselves?

Nice question btw! I might try to write up an answer if I can find time.

@Gallifreyan What do title tags have to do with mentioning an author's best-known works in the author tag wiki?

Congrats @Nathaniel on 1k rep :-)

@Randal'Thor I wanted to add something like "works include [the-sandman], [american-gods]" etc, to avoid adding stuff like "use with appropriate title tags"

That would make them usage guidance, as opposed the actual wiki.

@Gallifreyan Eh, you could just write them as titles rather than with tag formatting.

E.g. look at my excerpt for jorge-luis-borges.

Oh, congrats on 4k btw :-)

Cheers :)

I'd edit some more tags but I don't know a thing about them.

And busy writing that Witcher smut answer anyway.

5

Q: Are "The Witcher" books as explicit as the game?

The son of a friend wants to read The Witcher books. We both know the game and there are some moments where Geralt collects the Ladies "business cards" and this might not be appropriate for children. Are these moments only implied or graphicly detailed (like in A Song of Ice and Fire)? I also w...

adaptation-comparison witcher

^ Did you see this?

6:10 PM

@Randal'Thor couldn't find any sentence to back it up.

@Randal'Thor Yes. I wanted to find the passage in which Elend resolved his quandary. (It's the last blockquoted passage in this answer.)

That's a very well put-together answer.

@Randal'Thor Thank you! :) ... muru left a comment that may be useful.

@Randal'Thor Thank you :)

@Shokhet I need to wait until I have the book to hand.

@Randal'Thor Okay. No rush :)

6:13 PM

... which reminds me that I still have a half-written review of the Mistborn series for the SFF blog, which has been on my to-do list for the last year ...

I only have the third book right now (which is why I quoted so heavily from it), but just visited my neighbor's room in the dorm, and saw that he has all three :P

What @Shokhet will soon be :-P

@Randal'Thor :P

Every time I see that title, I initially think that it must be this book. (I haven't read The Book Thief)

@Shokhet And that in turn makes me think of this.

@Randal'Thor Oh. I thought you were going to reference this one :P

6:20 PM

Meh.

I initially thought Wikipedia misunderstood my last search. I'd never seen the first edition cover for that book.

I've long had an interest in Greek mythology, so I love the underlying idea of the Percy Jackson books, but the implementation of it is so disappointing.

@Randal'Thor I agree. I haven't read many of them (I didn't feel the need to), but it feels like Riordan dumped a corpus of Greek mythology into a book, and added some modern elements to make it a story.

@Randal'Thor Yes.

A friend of mine thinks that Riordan is the best author in the world, and that no other writer is worth his time. (We no longer discuss literature that much.)

@Shokhet It's so bloody American, and in the worst possible way.

If you want to see a good implementation of ancient mythology in the modern US, try American Gods.

@Randal'Thor I'm...not sure what that means, but okay.

6:24 PM

(I also have a soft spot for Michael Scott's Nicholas Flamel series, but I'll accept that objectively it's not really all that great.)

@Randal'Thor Oh, I liked those :)

I could understand that someone might have the same objections that I did (dumping a lot of mythology into the modern world), but he somehow did it better than Riordan.

I liked the characters a lot better, too.

@Randal'Thor It's on my list. If I understood YouTube's ~~trailers~~ ads for the TV series correctly, Gaiman introduces some new gods, besides.

@Shokhet Wow, you've read so many of the same books as me :-D

@Randal'Thor I'm having the same reaction :)

These were the new/popular kids' books when I was younger. We're probably close in age.

@Shokhet Tbh, I'm no longer sure what I mean by it either. I thought the reason I disliked PJ was because it felt way too modern-American and that somehow ruined the Greek-mythology atmosphere. But then along came Gaiman and did the same thing much better, so there must be something more specific that rubs me the wrong way.

@Shokhet I don't think Gaiman invents any of his own gods, but a lot of the ones who appear in American Gods are pretty obscure gods, not the classical ones that you always hear about.

@Randal'Thor It's been a while since I've tried Riordan's stuff, but it didn't feel like the myth and modernity melded very well.

6:31 PM

They come from a wide range of cultures, not just the Greek/Roman and Norse pantheons.

@Randal'Thor Got it. I think there was something in those ads about "new gods," but maybe that's all it is.

Bilquis, Anansi, Czernobog, ...

@Shokhet Oh yeah, if you count the new gods of media, technology, etc.

Most of the story is about the Old Gods (from ancient civilisations and cultures) against the New Gods (TV, internet, guns, and so on).

So arguably Gaiman "invented" the latter.

I see.

I feel like his view of gods (esp Sandman's Endless) are reflections of the values and mores of the society that they belong to...so it makes sense that media and technology will have corresponding gods.

user image

^ god(dess) of Media

Gillian Anderson playing David Bowie. Even I think that's awesome.

@Shokhet Maybe part of it was that he didn't just stick with one pantheon.

6:37 PM

@Randal'Thor Did you watch the new episodes?

@Shokhet Joking? @Randal'Thor is so ancient he doesn't like comics!

@Gallifreyan I used to think that comics had no literary value.

@Gallifreyan I've only seen the first episode. Still debating whether or not to watch the rest.

The main turnoff is the gratuitous sex and gore.

@Randal'Thor Debate a little more and you'll get all spoiled.

@Randal'Thor Don't think there's more gore.

And there wasn't any gratuitous sex either.

Which scene do you mean?

@Shokhet You are dead to me.

@Gallifreyan Hey, I've read the book. How much spoiled can I be?

But then, when the most vocal comic adaptations are the mainstream Marvel and DC comics, I understand.

@Randal'Thor I understand they started making up their own stuff with the new episodes (still haven't seen the last one myself).

E.g. they came up with an explanation for Mr. Wood, even without showing him directly.

And it made sense, and had a very Gaiman-y feel to it, and at the same time was not copied from the novel.

6:43 PM

@Gallifreyan Hey, I've changed! I don't know if you've noticed, but I've asked some questions about this comic series that I'm reading. It's called Sandman, I think :P

@Gallifreyan The Vikings stuff was ridiculously over-the-top gory, as was that weird scene at the end with Technical Boy's henchmen. Not much gratuitous sex in that first episode (unless you count Audrey), but I hear there's gratuitous penises all over the place in later episodes.

6:54 PM

@Randal'Thor I don't know where you hear that from, but I think you're hearing wrong.

I, at least, did not notice any penises flying around.

Don't say "pics or it didn't happen" :-P

Oh, there was the sex scene with the jinn, but I don't think there were any penises shown, though it was pretty explicit otherwise.

@Randal'Thor Thanks!

7:13 PM

@Randal'Thor I liked the first one - worth reading the rest?

@Shokhet @Randal'Thor it's also kind of intended for kids, sooo...

@Mithrandir That's true, but I was a kid when I tried them, and they still felt juvenile.

How much of a kid?

Kids' books don't have to feel juvenile!

@Mithrandir IMO, yes, definitely. You will come across some inconsistencies later on in which characters are considered to be "good" and which "bad", which might be a little jarring at times, but I really enjoyed them anyway.

I'm a great fan of "geographical fiction", where the (real) locations can be almost as important as the characters.

@Mithrandir Older than ten, younger than 14 probably.

@Mithrandir Yes, read the rest.

(You'll never see the ending coming....)

7:18 PM

@Shokhet I preferred The Kane Chronicles over PJO/HOO, and Magnus Chase was better than both of them.

@Shokhet @Randal'Thor alright, I'll see what I can do.

/afk

@Mithrandir I only skimmed them after reading one PJ book. I may have actually read the Kane books.

Did they travel through obelisks, or am I confusing this with another Egypt/modern world kids' book?

@Shokhet The ending was AWESOME.

Helped that it was one of the books where I successfully disciplined myself not to peek at the last several chapters, so it struck me with its full effect.

@Randal'Thor rot13: Jura Wbfu orpbzrf Znergulh? Gung jnf whfg, "jbj."

@Randal'Thor I usually don't peek at the last chapters, but sometimes I jump to the last paragraph or two at the end of a chapter and "ruin" a cliffhanger.

@Shokhet Heresy!

@Gallifreyan I can't help it!

Sometimes I'll cover the page with my hand to make sure I don't do that :P

7:29 PM

@Shokhet Lrnu, gung naq gur Sbhe Fjbeqf orpbzvat gur ubbx.

I totally didn't see that coming.

WHAM. Amazing. Suddenly everything fits together.

Yes.

Btw, @Mith is from Puzzling, so he may be able to read rot13 text almost as easily as normal text :-P

Vg nyzbfg znqr zr jnag gb erernq gur jubyr frevrf, fb V pbhyq jngpu Znergulh naq jbaqre jung Wbfu jnf guvaxvat. (V qvqa'g erernq obbxf ng gung gvzr, oryvrivat gung vs gur fhfcrafr jnf ybfg, gurer jnf ab cbvag va ernqvat vg ntnva.)

@Randal'Thor Well, then, that's his fault :P

I'm using rot13.com

I also really liked the magic in the books. (Must find better adjective than "magical.")

@Shokhet Oh, I've reread plenty of books. And I agree, that's definitely a series to go back to at some point.

Along with the two we were discussing the other night :-)

And Bartimaeus, and Mortal Engines.

hoping for more shared fandoms (?)

@Randal'Thor At this point, I don't reread books because there are just so many that I haven't read yet for the first time.

@Randal'Thor Ooh, Bartimaeus was nice.

7:37 PM

:-D !

I haven't read Mortal Engines.

> London is hunting its prey.

> For too long, London has been hiding in the hills, safe from bigger, faster, HUNGRIER cities.

> Now London must feed.

^ blurb on the back cover of the first Mortal Engines book

@Randal'Thor Jura Angunavry qvrf ng gur raq... :'(

@Randal'Thor Sounds...interesting.

The basic conceit is "Municipal Darwinism": cities on wheels, like massive travelling caravans, the larger consuming the smaller and only the strongest surviving.

It's kind of steampunky.

There's also a lot of humour and some subtle in-jokes.

Interesting.

Anyway, gotta go now. ttfn!

7:42 PM

@Shokhet @Randal'Thor I can a bit if I try, but I'm not trying ;)

@Shokhet bye!

What really infuriates me is that I somehow LOST book 4 (the last one) before finishing it! It's the only time that's ever happened to me, and I've wanted to go back to it ever since.

@Shokhet Yeah, they did.

I've gtg too. Later @Shokhet and @Mithrandir :-)

o/

@Mithrandir Travelling through obelisks? Sounds like a ripoff of WoT.

7:44 PM

(I come back and everyone leaves. *sniffs armpits*)

The architecture of Superman: A brief history of The Daily Planet. #SupermanDay http://smithmag.co/lCnMJc

Tweeted by SmithsonianMag on June 12, 2017 at 10:30 PM

8:01 PM

user image

^ Today's inspirational literature quote, from How to Talk to Girls at Parties, by Neil Gaiman, Fabio Moon, and Gabriel Ba.

Napoleon Wilson

8:37 PM

@Gallifreyan Well, there were penises in the sex scene with the Djinn, though. But other than that, true.

@Gallifreyan her hair looks like mine

(in poofiness)

(I don't have red hair)

2 hours later…

10:17 PM

EXCERPT: Writer Clay Cane Explores Hip-Hop Masculinity in New Book http://bit.ly/2s7TkUl https://t.co/dc3HzLtbOp

Tweeted by Colorlines on June 13, 2017 at 9:09 PM

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Jun '1713

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