A Question for the 25 and under crowd - What have you read?
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Nellisir
Hero
This thread is so far off topic it's not even funny, and yet here I am commenting. <sigh>
Carter's strength is a plot point. Carter being "the best swordsman on Earth" doesn't exactly help your case either; it's another plot point and just establishes him as a white near-superhuman on TWO planets.
Is it racist? Frankly, I don't care, but arguing that "he's the best swordsman on Earth" like Burroughs didn't have a choice isn't a compelling arguement. He could have been the third-best swordsman on Earth, with exactly the same results, except that we wouldn't be having this conversation and Carter would be a little more relatable, instead of some weird Mary Sue fantasy of the ultimate man.
Storm Raven
First Post
Sure, but it doesn't establish somehow that Carter is an example of a white guy lording it over the natives, since he would lord it over pretty much anyone regardless of their planetary origin or ethnicity.
Having the central character of a story be a collection of superlatives is standard for ERB (actually, it is standard for pulp fiction in general, see, for example, Doc Savage). Barney Custer in The Mad King is a peerless swordsman. Tarzan in the various Tarzan books is so gifted in every way that he is a cartoon. Carson Napier of the Venus series is an extraordinary individual. That's just the standard of the pulp genre.
I'm not sure what culturally sensitive means. Do you think it's inaccurate to call the Apaches of 19th-century Arizona vicious marauders who torture their white victims? Or is it simply uncouth to mention it?
How would the Apaches describe themselves? Would they be offended to be called vicious marauders?
Storm Raven
First Post
The Apaches wouldn't even describe themselves as "Apaches". They call themselves "Inde". The designation "Apache" was coined by their adversaries, and may simply have meant "enemy".
NiTessine
Explorer
Only found the thread today...
I'm 24 (23 when it was first posted...), and I've read all of them. Not much in the way of Vance, though, mostly because I haven't got around to really delving into the Dying Earth stuff yet, or Jordan, mostly because life is too short. I don't think too highly of Brooks, either. Apart from Brooks, Jordan and Rowling, though, I'd rate all of them very highly.
Not that they didn't have their off days. Jerry Cornelius, man... what was Moorcock smoking?
I'm 24 (23 when it was first posted...), and I've read all of them. Not much in the way of Vance, though, mostly because I haven't got around to really delving into the Dying Earth stuff yet, or Jordan, mostly because life is too short. I don't think too highly of Brooks, either. Apart from Brooks, Jordan and Rowling, though, I'd rate all of them very highly.
Not that they didn't have their off days. Jerry Cornelius, man... what was Moorcock smoking?
Apparently anything and everything. Hermaphroditic super-spy? Really?
Nellisir
Hero
:blink:
So, hypothetically, if a "normal" white guy went to Mars and kicked ass, it'd be racist, but if a "super" white guy does it, it's not?
Right. None of which invalidates anything I said, or speaks to Carter as a racist character or not. One could make a case that the genre as whole, as it stood in its heyday, was racist. The fact that it was the norm in the genre doesn't change anything.
Storm Raven
First Post
It would change the dynamic significently, yes. If Carter had been a schlub on Earth but had gone to Mars and it turned out that he, by virtue of being the only Caucasian on the planet, was able to handle the various martians he meets with ease, then there might be a case for finding the book had racist overtones. On the other hand, if a character who is exceptionally competent in his home environment travels and turns out to continue to be exceptionally competent and succeeds on that basis, then all it does is demonstrate that the character in question is exceptionally competent.
And, as has been pointed out, Carter doesn't actually do much lording it over the martians in any event. He's a great swordsman, but he ends up as an underling at the end of A Princess of Mars (and doesn't progress any further in later books). He doesn't change martian society, he doesn't end up ruling over them, and their technology is superior to human technology. Basically, what you are left with is "John Carter is racist because he's a really good swordsman and strong". That's such a silly argument as to not even be worth considering.
And that's just considering only the materials in A Princess of Mars. Later books in the series make even clearer what a provincial backwater Earth is.
It invalidates everything you said unless you want to argue that somehow exceptionally competent characters are racist in and of themselves. I suppose you could argue that, but it would imply that no minority character could be exceptionally competent themselves, which seems to me to be a blatantly racist basis to make an argument. (Plus, it would tag as "racist" such a huge swath of literature as to make the term meaningless).
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MoogleEmpMog
First Post
I miss the cutoff by a year, so I didn't vote. As to the ERB tangent, I'll merely say that as a big fan of pulp fiction, I find the John Carter stories refreshingly FREE of the widespread racism that mars a lot of their contemporaries.
From the list, I've read...
Tolkien: I enjoyed The Hobbit a lot. I didn't much care for LotR when I first read it and vastly prefer the film version now. Obviously a giant of the genre and a great scholar, but his work became the genesis of the type of fantasy I loath and arguably of my loathing thereof.
Howard: My favorite fantasy author. A great stylist whose vibrant and energetic - and sometimes surprisingly spare, for the era - prose perfectly matches the savage worlds and characters he created. Solomon Kane may be my favorite character in fantasy.
Pratchett: On the other hand, Howard has some serious competition. I rank Pratchett as his equal as a favorite author, but lower as a FANTASY author because the fantastic elements of Pratchett aren't really to my liking (with some exceptions). Pratchett's humor, characterization and storytelling are all tops, but his actual fantasy is straight-up parody, much of it of works I dislike.
Mieville: I've read Perdido Street Station and The Scar, and liked the second better. A true current-gen fantasy great, albeit not one I particularly enjoy compared to some of his contemporaries. Like Tolkien he builds an amazing world, and his is more interesting to me. On the flip side, I experience at least as much values dissonance with his odd 19th century Marxism as with the pulp greats, and unlike many more modern authors he's at least as heavy-handed with it.
Vance: I've read the Complete Dying Earth. I enjoyed it, but not hugely.
Moorcock: Stylistically uneven, with a core narrative weaving through much of his work that justifies, even expects, repetitive themes and even characters. Despite all that and cramming WAY too many Elric stories into WAY too little reading time a few years ago, I find I actually enjoyed many of them quite a lot, and will continue to read more of his work.
Lieber: I expected to love Lieber but actually merely like his work, kinda. I'm not sure what it doesn't have that I was looking for.
Jordan: The only Jordan I've read is the very beginning of the Wheel of Time and half of one Conan pastiche. The former helped turn me off of an entire generation of epic fantasy (not that I needed much help), the latter made me practically gag as a Howard fan. Blech.
I haven't read Brooks or Rowling. Brooks because I dislike the type of fantasy he writes. Rowling because I'm only really interested in Harry Potter due to the popularity of the series (its subject matter being pretty well outside my area of interest) and have been, almost inevitably, suffused with spoilers. I've read snippets of all three and only Rowling appeals to me as a writer.
If you were going for five major writers of MODERN fantasy, I'd say only Pratchett, Rowling and Mieville belong. Brooks and Jordan fall into the previous generation, and George Martin is much more famous today than either.
Other important 'current-gen' writers include Sussanah Clarke (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell), Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere, American Gods), Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, Elantris), Jim Butcher (Dresden Files), Naomi Novik (His Majesty's Dragon). Butcher's work inspired a TV series, Novik's is under consideration for a movie deal by Peter Jackson, and Gaiman's rep from both books and comics is sufficient to get his name as a writer to headline major motion pictures. Clarke is more of a literary pick, and Sanderson probably doesn't belong in a top five list if you're going by fame.
If I had to pick a who's who Top 5 of modern fantasy, I'd say:
Rowling
Pratchett
Martin
Gaiman
Butcher
From the list, I've read...
Tolkien: I enjoyed The Hobbit a lot. I didn't much care for LotR when I first read it and vastly prefer the film version now. Obviously a giant of the genre and a great scholar, but his work became the genesis of the type of fantasy I loath and arguably of my loathing thereof.
Howard: My favorite fantasy author. A great stylist whose vibrant and energetic - and sometimes surprisingly spare, for the era - prose perfectly matches the savage worlds and characters he created. Solomon Kane may be my favorite character in fantasy.
Pratchett: On the other hand, Howard has some serious competition. I rank Pratchett as his equal as a favorite author, but lower as a FANTASY author because the fantastic elements of Pratchett aren't really to my liking (with some exceptions). Pratchett's humor, characterization and storytelling are all tops, but his actual fantasy is straight-up parody, much of it of works I dislike.
Mieville: I've read Perdido Street Station and The Scar, and liked the second better. A true current-gen fantasy great, albeit not one I particularly enjoy compared to some of his contemporaries. Like Tolkien he builds an amazing world, and his is more interesting to me. On the flip side, I experience at least as much values dissonance with his odd 19th century Marxism as with the pulp greats, and unlike many more modern authors he's at least as heavy-handed with it.
Vance: I've read the Complete Dying Earth. I enjoyed it, but not hugely.
Moorcock: Stylistically uneven, with a core narrative weaving through much of his work that justifies, even expects, repetitive themes and even characters. Despite all that and cramming WAY too many Elric stories into WAY too little reading time a few years ago, I find I actually enjoyed many of them quite a lot, and will continue to read more of his work.
Lieber: I expected to love Lieber but actually merely like his work, kinda. I'm not sure what it doesn't have that I was looking for.
Jordan: The only Jordan I've read is the very beginning of the Wheel of Time and half of one Conan pastiche. The former helped turn me off of an entire generation of epic fantasy (not that I needed much help), the latter made me practically gag as a Howard fan. Blech.
I haven't read Brooks or Rowling. Brooks because I dislike the type of fantasy he writes. Rowling because I'm only really interested in Harry Potter due to the popularity of the series (its subject matter being pretty well outside my area of interest) and have been, almost inevitably, suffused with spoilers. I've read snippets of all three and only Rowling appeals to me as a writer.
If you were going for five major writers of MODERN fantasy, I'd say only Pratchett, Rowling and Mieville belong. Brooks and Jordan fall into the previous generation, and George Martin is much more famous today than either.
Other important 'current-gen' writers include Sussanah Clarke (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell), Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere, American Gods), Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, Elantris), Jim Butcher (Dresden Files), Naomi Novik (His Majesty's Dragon). Butcher's work inspired a TV series, Novik's is under consideration for a movie deal by Peter Jackson, and Gaiman's rep from both books and comics is sufficient to get his name as a writer to headline major motion pictures. Clarke is more of a literary pick, and Sanderson probably doesn't belong in a top five list if you're going by fame.
If I had to pick a who's who Top 5 of modern fantasy, I'd say:
Rowling
Pratchett
Martin
Gaiman
Butcher
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