Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - pengwenn

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6
1
Eric James Stone / Re: "That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made"
« on: May 24, 2011, 11:47:47 PM »
Congrats on the Nebula win for this story.  I just read the news and I think it's great that you won.

2
Eric James Stone / Re: "That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made"
« on: February 22, 2011, 07:45:54 PM »
Congratulations on the Nebula nomination for this story!!!!!!!

3
Eric James Stone / Re: "Attitude Adjustment"
« on: April 08, 2010, 11:09:51 PM »
most excellent

4
Eric James Stone / Re: "The Robot Sorcerer"
« on: October 26, 2009, 11:31:48 PM »
I just got caught up on some back issues of IGMS and I loved this story.  The world you created was really interesting and I hope you might visit it again someday.

5
Books / Re: What are you reading, part 3
« on: October 12, 2009, 04:33:42 PM »
I'm reliving a forgotten moment of my childhood.  I'm reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Suddenly I have this strong urge to buy a chocolate bar.

6
I'm always looking for some competition.  I play just about anything (except sports, racing and music game [Lips is the exception])

gamertag: Pengwenn

7
Movies and TV / Re: review: The Happening
« on: June 20, 2008, 04:49:05 PM »
The previews excited me.....the movie bored me.  It seemed Mark Wahlberg's only job was to stand there and wrinkle his forehead.  I've read interviews with M. Night S...(I'm not going to try to spell his name) that said he really pushed himself to crank up the goriness in this movie.  Compaired to others it was quite tame.  Most of the worst of it happens off scene and you see the effect or someone's reaction to it.  Or it happens so far in the distance on the screen that it lacks the intimacy to be really chilling.  I'm glad I only paid for a matinee but even then it really wasn't worth it for me.

8
Brandon Sanderson / Re: Similarity between warbreaker and dragonsteel
« on: June 17, 2008, 07:03:57 PM »
As long as he doesn't get too carried away like I think King did in the Dark Tower series.

9
Eric James Stone / Re: "The Ashes of His Fathers"
« on: April 28, 2008, 09:30:27 PM »
Congrats again!  And here I was thinking there really isn't a market for foreign sales for short stories.  Of course, I wasn't actually thinking of that when I read your annoucement, but reading it make me think about it and then you prove me wrong.  Anway . . . congrats!

10
Rants and Stuff / Re: Revenge of Grumpy Bear
« on: April 22, 2008, 04:10:23 PM »

Where do you live!? Arizona?

I left for my trip to England with snow in my yard, came home -after two weeks of sun- to what? Snow.

It's the 21st of April for heaven's sake! What's wrong with this place!

But I'm grumpy cause I'd rather be in England, enjoying what was an immensely satisfying vacation, then here.

Yes, I live in Arizona.  And now I'm grumpy that you got to go to England.  I've always wanted to go, but haven't been able to pull it off. 

11
Rants and Stuff / Re: Revenge of Grumpy Bear
« on: April 15, 2008, 08:38:34 PM »
I'm grumpy because my A/C was blowing hot air instead of cold and the temperature outside was in the upper 90s yesterday.

12
Books / Re: What are you reading, part 3
« on: April 14, 2008, 05:22:33 PM »
I finished Old Man's War (quick read) and I've moved on to The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis.  I seem to be in a science fiction mood lately.

13
Eric James Stone / Re: "Accounting for Dragons"
« on: April 10, 2008, 10:44:09 PM »
Wow, good news!  You're turning into a regular contributor to OSC's IGMS.  :)

14
Books / Re: Discuss
« on: April 09, 2008, 06:52:17 PM »
(WARNING STRONG LANGUAGE USED IN (I hope) A NONOFFENSIVE WAY)

I think it's a bad idea.  My reasoning is probably not going to make sense to anybody but it does to me and that's all I care about. 

With movies there's a very specific formula type system in place about what rating a movie gets.  If it has more than X number of swear words it can't be PG.  If it has X amount of blood and guts or naked body parts it can't be PG-13, etc.  The formula goes all the way from G to NC-17.

With books I think that would be hard to do.  Why?  Because half of the story is made up in the reader's own mind.  The author provides the words, but the reader provides the images.  And what an image one word creates in one reader's mind is going to be different than the image in another reader's mind.  To one it might be acceptable, to the other it could be unacceptable.  And what would that do for the language of a book?

If you were reading a book set in the 1950s about how blacks were being treated by whites wouldn't you find it a little odd if a white character called a black character an "African-American" instead of a "nigger" or "negro".  You'd want the language to fit the story.  If it doesn't it would pull you right out of the story.  But if authors are writing books worried about the rating that might get put on their book (and you know they'd put it right on the cover page for all to see) you might end up with stories that are "politically correct" but are not true to the story itself.

One specific example for you.  My brother wanted desperately for me to read Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson.  It's the first book in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever series.  When I said I'd consider it he said "oh by the way there's a rape scene towards the beginning of the book".  What?  I wondered why my brother would read a book like that and why he'd recommend it.  I decided I wouldn't read it.  For three years he kept pestering me about it.  When I told him why I wouldn't he explained to me why the rape scene is important to the story.  He also said it wasn't graphic.  I eventually read the book.  And he was right.

Yes, the main character rapes someone and no it's not graphic but it is powerful.  And it's crucial to the story.  Had the author tried to change that scene (or take it out altogether) for a more pleasing rating not only would that book fail but the whole series would fail.  So much in the series is riding on that one scene not for what the character does but how he reacts to it emotionally and intellectually.  That is what the scene is about.  (SPOILER: Covenant rapes the girl because in the real world he is a leper and can't feel anything in his hands and feet.  When he gets magically transported to The Land he is cured with a mud that brings vitality (and a second sight) back into his body that he hasn't felt in so long.  This overwhelms him and causes him to rape his guide.)   The scene is not in the book to titalate or arouse anyone.  It's there for the emotional upheaval the character goes through and the whole series is riddled with the consequences of that one action.

I wouldn't want a negative rating on a book cover to keep me from reading a good a book.  And I wouldn't want an author to be thinking of what rating his work might receive while he's writing it.  And I wouldn't want him to change his writing to get a particular rating higher or lower for some type of status or notoriety from the general public.  I do think that more content warnings need to be given for books listed on line in places like Amazon or Barnes & Noble.  At a book store you can handle the book and spot read pages.  But buying online is buying blind.  I would support a website that listed books and some objectionable contant that people could puruse.  Something like:

Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
content: rape

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
content: racism

Or something like that.  For me though most of the new books that I read have been recommended by someone who tells me up front if there's something there that I might not like.

15
Eric James Stone / Re: "The Ashes of His Fathers"
« on: March 27, 2008, 05:36:49 PM »
Well, I now have a subscription to Analog.   ;D

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6