well you pretty much managed to pick the absolute worst genres for writing but the only one of those that may be worse than fantasy on average is romance.

also lol at sf having the best writers.

lol

+1000

also scifi having the best authors rofl

yeah tolkien is about as good of an author as david foster wallace oh uh maybe not so much

dids knows fan fiction is the way to go these days!

Too bad DFW offed himself, would have loved to see him take a crack at some hobbit ****. He probably would have found a way to work tennis into the story somehow.

Fantasy and Sci-Fi have this weird there when you get people who embrace their identity as fans of the genre in a weird cultish way. Do you know anybody who essentially makes "I like murder mysteries" a core part of their identity?

Then at some point because there's a perception that those genres are marginalized because they're too nerdy or something, you get people essentially trying to defend the genre as a whole and propping up a lot of crap because they are unable or unwilling to filter out the good from the bad. Super true with comic books where a combination of insecurity and being fed work that's on average pretty terrible has created a fan base with no ability to take a critical look any anything beyond the most superficial OMG HIS CAPE'S TOO SHORT type of nonsense.

**** like Star Trek, BSG, all that gets such a pass from nerds.

In terms of good Sci-Fi writing, I did enjoy the Hyperion books by Dan Simmons. Not for everybody, but pretty interesting.

ill never forget in high school there was this kid who used to use study halls to write powder puff girls fan fiction all day. he'd get super mad if anyone ever asked to read any of it, but he'd read powder puff girl books and sit there composing things on their forums for hours. also had a powder puff girls backpack iirc.

he was a little out there. very smart, though.

Benioff and Weiss very wisely hid most of the hardcore fantasy stuff to trap people into watching GoT. I found that weird because though I am not a fantasy fan, I am equally ambivalent about classic epics.

You went to school with [Ph.ill]?

Er, maybe not.

it's actually george rr martin who did that.

Yeah- the thing that makes GoT good is that Martin focused more on characters/relationships/politics/war and not so much dragons/magic/wizards. There's obv strong fantasy elements there, but it's not the strength of the series by a long shot.

FUTURE GoT SPOILERS:

Dids I bet you like Coldplay

As soon as the weather discussion started up, I was waiting for someone to post winteriscoming.jpg, and you guys did not disappoint.

Yeah, I agree with Dids on that one. I feel like the "realness" of the series was the biggest thing it had going for it, and the more magicky it gets the less distinctive it becomes.

There's definitely a fair bit of science fiction that I like, but as a genre I don't think its authors are that great. Its strengths are usually in interesting ideas and plots and less often in quality prose and characterization. The good ones, though, can definitely hold their own. Guys like William Gibson and Gene Wolfe are pretty legit writers.

No, but that's because murder mysteries don't really transport you to another world. I mean, the genre is called 'fantasy', doesn't that say enough? It's written about a world that's not your own. As such, not only does the author have to do a ton of work to establish this new world as functionally real, there are off-page/off-screen elements for the fan to wonder about - these elements don't really exist in murder mysteries (or genres like it).

Eventually, that special snowflake went to law school, right?

What I've heard of Coldplay is ****ing terrible. The lyrics are bad middle school poetry and the music is mostly boring.

by the way, it's powerpuff girls

Nah I woulda written star wars if it were me.

Kid got a 1590 SAT without using a calculator and went off to Harvard. No social ability at all but he was a bona fide genius. Would be a shame to waste that on law school.

dids once heard an owl city song where the lyrics were "I'd like to make myself believe / That planet Earth turns slowly" and he was incredulous at the violation of physics that such a lyric would require

so no i don't think he would like coldplay

lollll

that is a 100% true anecdote, at least all the important parts are

I don't recall that at all tbh- but it seems like a thing I guess I might have said.

THAT's his problem with that song? My problem with it is along the lines of "It sounds like a mental patient with the faculties of a six-year-old tried to write a Postal Service song".

i don't know you'd have to ask him specifically, i'm sure he doesn't like a lot about the song, that's all he said to me though