What are you reading in 2025?

[Mannahnin]

Finally finished Gary Alan Fine's Shared Fantasy, which closes with some more dense sociology, where the beginning and middle of the book have more relatable ethnography of gamers and amusing anecdotes. Still, even through the end there are still interesting historical insights into gamer culture of the late 70s and early 80s, including an important dynamic at the time between younger gamers (whence we got the term "munchkin") and older gamers with greater social status.

@Steampunkette @Ruin Explorer @Clint_L @Voadam

I got sucked into revisiting this thread from last year today, and remembered that we had a general discussion about how uncommon sexual assault was in our gaming experiences, compared to what the article reported from Fine's book. That reminded me that I did note this surprising and depressing observation when I read Shared Fantasy this year. Just verifying now that I've read that. Fine did report it being very commonplace in his field observations, to the extent that one reason some of the boys and men he gamed with objected to women and girls attending games was that they felt a social pressure to tone down the subject matter if women were present.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

one reason some of the boys and men he gamed with objected to women and girls attending games was that they felt a social pressure to tone down the subject matter if women were present.

Those dudes were this close to having a breakthrough.

 

[prabe]

Those dudes were this close to having a breakthrough.

Their reaction sounds distressingly like the reaction some gamers have to safety tools. With a large stinking heap of sexism on top, of course.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Both characters are flawed and ultimately selfish. That's part of the horror of the story, what makes it compelling.

Whether they literally read their stories aloud as they type, there are authors I'm pretty sure hear their language in their heads. When you record audiobooks, you can tell.

I'm also reminded of George Lucas' dialogue. Some of those sentences required actors to work really hard to try to make it sound natural.

Shelley was from an era that thought that people had to be taught moral codes, so the monster heading out into the world without decades of going to church and schooling was a moral empty vessel.

This, of course, flies in the face of what any parent knows -- that even preverbal children have a sense of fairness and of right and wrong -- but those were the times they lived in.

And that was the two-part crime of Victor Frankenstein - usurping the power of creation, then abandoning his creation. The Creature does talk a lot about being a being that aspired to be good, yet forced himself to do evil to get his revenge. Personally, I think that rings false, considering the degree of premeditation in the Creature's many murders.

 

[Voadam]

@Steampunkette @Ruin Explorer @Clint_L @Voadam

I got sucked into revisiting this thread from last year today, and remembered that we had a general discussion about how uncommon sexual assault was in our gaming experiences, compared to what the article reported from Fine's book. That reminded me that I did note this surprising and depressing observation when I read Shared Fantasy this year. Just verifying now that I've read that. Fine did report it being very commonplace in his field observations, to the extent that one reason some of the boys and men he gamed with objected to women and girls attending games was that they felt a social pressure to tone down the subject matter if women were present.

Yeah, I expect there were examples of it and that he found multiple instances of it in his interviews and observations.

I still find it a jump to the Danielson reported conclusion that sexual violence was often integral to the gaming.

"Men in private gaming groups often expressed an explicit and violent male chauvinism. Fine detailed the violent actions verbally role-played by gamers through their fictional characters but says that violent role-playing does not indicate violent real-world behavior and may even have therapeutic value by providing an outlet for aggression. This type of role-playing meant that sexual violence and misogyny often (but not always) became integral to the gaming, and Fine himself observed the frequent use of rape and violence against female nonplayer characters encountered during gaming sessions, as well as sexist jokes."

I guess it comes down to how "often" is understood or how broadly misogyny is defined or how much it is misogyny versus sexual violence. Is often taken as unfortunately high given the subject, or does it mean majority?

I see roleplaying violence as common then and now and can easily see considering it integral to the gaming as it is a big part of the default game play, the game mechanics, and the baseline action fantasy. It synchs up with expectations easily.

Sexual violence, and not just as a background element but the frequent active rape of NPCs during game sessions to the point that it is considered integral to the gaming just seems counter to both my experience of all male gaming in the 80s and what seems reasonable to expect. I could see some making that a regular big thing for them in their games and push it regularly, but that seems like it would be niche at best. Like the Gor subgroup of fantasy fans as opposed to the Lord of the Rings baseline. I can see it existing and existing a bunch, but having it be considered the integral baseline seems off.

 

[jian]

Both characters are flawed and ultimately selfish. That's part of the horror of the story, what makes it compelling.


I'm also reminded of George Lucas' dialogue. Some of those sentences required actors to work really hard to try to make it sound natural.


And that was the two-part crime of Victor Frankenstein - usurping the power of creation, then abandoning his creation. The Creature does talk a lot about being a being that aspired to be good, yet forced himself to do evil to get his revenge. Personally, I think that rings false, considering the degree of premeditation in the Creature's many murders.

Yeah, there’s a lot of toxic masculine “someone else made me do it” self-pitying and blaming others in the monster’s narrative. This is pointed out in some derived works such as The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss. One of that novel’s protagonists is the Bride of Frankenstein and she has a lot to take the monster to task for when she finally finds him.

(The Bride in question is the reanimated Justine Moritz, a maidservant whom the monster frames for the murder of Victor's brother William, so she has very good reason to dislike him.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Whether they literally read their stories aloud as they type, there are authors I'm pretty sure hear their language in their heads. When you record audiobooks, you can tell.

Though in honesty, it's been long enough that I don't know if I can tell, reading silently, at least most of the time--some folks who routinely turn phrases brilliantly, I'll probably presume they hear their prose.

Reading your work out loud before publication is such basic writing advice -- you'll hear it in every college creative writing class -- it always amazes me when writers, especially screenwriters, clearly don't do it. Heck, I do it for stuff I do at work, when it has to absolutely be the best it can be.

 

[prabe]

Reading your work out loud before publication is such basic writing advice -- you'll hear it in every college creative writing class -- it always amazes me when writers, especially screenwriters, clearly don't do it. Heck, I do it for stuff I do at work, when it has to absolutely be the best it can be.

I've heard the advice often, but I've never done it. Probably because I am one of the folks who does hear it in my head as I'm composing it.

I will acknowledge that working as long as I did recording audiobooks improved my dialogue immensely.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've heard the advice often, but I've never done it. Probably because I am one of the folks who does hear it in my head as I'm composing it.

I hear it too, but I find it incredibly useful. Hearing it out loud is different, the same way as editing something printed on paper lets you spot things you miss on screen. I would try it as an experiment and see.

 

[Nellisir]

I really didn't like the Dark Tower and the tonal shifts were one of the reasons why. The Gunslinger is wonderfully atmospheric and then it’s a slow slide into incoherence. I think he changed his coke supplier between novels and it really shows.

5 years (82-87) between The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three; 4 years (1991) from that to The Waste Lands; 6 years (1997) between that Wizard and Glass; and then he had his accident in 1999 (he wrote The Little Sisters of Eluria in 1998, but it was a novella and not released as a stand-alone part of the series).

The accident was a real life-changing event for him. After he recovered one of his big goals was to finish The Dark Tower, and he banged out The Wolves of Calla; The Song of Susannah; and The Dark Tower in quick succession. Personally I think this is where it went a bit awry; his editor appeared to have given up any sort of editorial control and each of those could use a serious pruning.