Aha! I only know a little about FATE. Sounds interesting, might be my kinda thing. Although I dunno whether I need an excuse to feed my old dice addiction.
The Taltos novels have been at the front of my backlog for a while, just can't seem to make time for them. Even though I've loved everything I've read by Brust.
@KRyan Whedon Syndrome is what all of his works suffer from if allowed to go on long enough. Up to a certain point, his shows have a wide variety of sources of tension and drama. Past that point, they increasingly rely on "Give favorite character what she wants. Take it away as brutally as possible. Repeat."
heh, I grew up on Hardy Boys and the like nonetheless
also a lot of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells
and a bit later basically everything I could find by Asimov, though that's only a minor fraction of what he's written because oh man has he written a lot
I started with mysteries too, first Hardy Boys type stuff, later adult mysteries. Then a mix of SF, fantasy, and horror. Asimov and King were my favorites.
In writing, there's a much broader range of ways to deal with the issue constructively. I admire Margery Allingham because it's obvious that she has great mastery and control --but her characters are just as obviously never going to bend or twist just because the plot demands it.
Heck, the character she's most famous for started out as a comic relief secondary character in one of her first books, but kept taking over the story. In her next novel she bowed to the inevitable and we never saw the original protagonist again.
Allingham "polished" her prose until it "shone overbright" and then read it out loud to her husband, who took it as dictation, so that the prose would get a little rough again.
@BraddSzonye Heinlein is bizarre. we read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for a class, which we all loved, and for our independent reading a friend of mine read the supposed "spiritual successor" to it. He was supposed to give a 5-minute presentation: he gave a 20-minute rant (which was hilarious) about how awful the book was.
my favorite bit was the slide that had just one statement: "It reads like Robert Heinlein fan fiction.... written by Robert Heinlein."
I think FATE is actually pretty good at supporting improvisational complexity, because it deliberately invites all the players to join in constructing the story and characters as needed.
I'm always a bit puzzled by the nerd rage over the satirical politics of Starship Troopers (the movie), as though Heinlein's version was not some kind of scary dystopia
From what I can tell, he didn't mean for it to be a scary dystopia. But I've never been fully sure.
I haven't actually read Starship Troopers but my girlfriend hated the movie precisely because she felt it stripped out all the politics and questioning of the society
Movies aren't as well-suited for that kind of introspection as novels are. Not much room for subplots and side development, and the director's “gaze” is a lot more insistant than an author's.
@Problematic Right franchise, at least. LucasArts computer game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.
@Lord_Gareth Eh, "mod powers" are overrated by people who don't know what they are. I can see deleted comments and vote on edits and flags. I have no individual power, I'm just part of the Council of the Learned, if you will.
You don't really get evil-laughter level powers unless you nominate yourself for them and the community approves.
