Ummmmm.  It's a book.

I can't tell if you're being serious or not...

Many fantasy books suffer from rather simple good/evil lines and if you use traditional west culture symbols and write it from a white person's view about an euroamerican style "white" society fighting orks or whatever it might easily look bad if you want to think about it from such perspective.

Unless you have some other reason to believe the writer has such and such views its usually better to just assume youre reading too much into it than think its some kind of a freudian slip.

Racism has a part in just about every fantasy story out there, doesn't say anything about the authors.

Fantasy races (Humans, Elves, Orcs etc.) are not the same as the real world races, so it doesn't make sense to see racism in fantasy stories.

Pretty painful reviews so far...  I guess I'll hold off until some of commas get pruned in v2.0.

"Unamommer" is Angie Gallant, the wife of Mike Gallant who was banned from Quarter To Three for continually stalking Brad in every thread. They see anyone who doesn't share their political views as racist and evil and have pretty much said as much on Quarter To Three.

All 4 of the negative reviews on Amazon.com come from Angie Gallant, her husband, and two friends of hers. It's one of the most vile things I've ever seen. Someone taking their political zealotry to such a point to write a "review" (this was the first review Angie has written since the start of the year) and then spread it out onto Reddit for the sole purpose of bashing someone who doesn't agree with her radical political beliefs.

No sane person would think that the Urxen and Trogs are stand-ins for Mexicans or other non white races.  It's a fantasy book.  

I have not had a chance to read the whole book but I know that most of the snippets I've seen are taken from dialog of a character who is 15 year old boy. Angie misrepresents that dialog as being the narrator's voice. This would be like someone arguing that Mark Twain is a terrible writer because of the dialog of Tom Sawyer. 

I would urge all fair minded people to condemn that sort of behavior.

Thanks for the info.

Sadly if that's true that means there are no real reviews of it yet to be found (or at least easily found). Do you know if there are any upcoming reviews of it and possibly from whom?

thx in advance

I love how when people say that the book has racial or political undertones, the stock response is "No, it's cliche fantasy, just like all other cliche fantasy!", as if that would entice someone to buy the book. Honestly, if those reviews had convinced me that the book was a nerds version of Atlas Shrugged, as opposed to a D- creative writing term paper, I'd actually have been inclined to buy it.

Also, the claim that Random House are going to put their staff to work on Elemental's clunky mapmaker and design a campaign with their own time and resources is ludicrous. Of course Stardock is going to be making the vanity novel campaign, and of course it will take time and resources away from the task of fixing the game. As usual, though, the Stardock employee who visits the thread lets that "convenient misunderstanding" stand, just like that old thread where people were praising them for not offering retail exclusives, in the first place.

I've had to edit this post a few times, because I can't stop laughing at the thought of a kid opening up a box of cracker jacks for the "free prize" and then pulling out a little card that says "free prize coming in September".

EDIT: I'm inclined to take Istari's "simple explanation" with a huge grain of salt, considering how many threads and posts by random people on this issue I've seen deleted. I hope that the Stardock folks don't think unkindly towards me because of that!

...and there's the context.

Thanks, Istari. That effectively banishes this foolishness. My only concern is that people will be swayed by that without knowing it for the venom that it is.

I'd agree that her smear campaign (if indeed she and her husband are the ones doing the Amazon reviews) is despicable and borderline defamatory.

That said, the snippets I've seen (assuming they weren't doctored) point to a godawfully poorly written book.  No racist agenda, just plain old bad text.

I think it is possible to write a good story that doesn't have any "racial or political undertones" and is not "cliche fantasy". If it's really a good fantasy story, it shouldn't be hidden political propaganda. Of course it can represent the author's philosophical views (like the Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth Series, which is close to my views), but it shouldn't refer to the current political situation in the real world.

It is worth noting that when a book comes out which is based on a game, it's almost universally going to be awful. I'm sure there are exceptions, but the bar is not exactly set very high here. So this is one area where I'm quite willing to forgive Stardock if the product is not great.

Books based on roleplaying games can (sometimes) have a slightly higher quality to them, but when it's based on a video or computer game (or card game) then your usually thrilled when it's no worse then mediocre.

Good fiction that tells a story has a point. It has lessons. It conveys values. Within those elements, the author is free to (and indeed should!) grind his own political/moral/philosophical axes. When you read a (good) work of fiction and those elements are invisible to you, that doesn't mean that they don't exist - it just means that you've already internalized them.

I would say that we must be careful of things taken out of context or abused to support a position. The "comma attack" is definitely not pretty, but I read the Horus Heresy and enjoy it...these little editing points are not my first priority, or even anywhere near that. Do I enjoy the book, is it good? I'll be able to find that out when the postman gets here.


Also...


Yeah, you really like to attack, don't you? While I think that's not good, it doesn't invalidate what you say.


The story must have a point, of course. Must it have lessons...must it convey values? Whose values? Do you agree with those values? It can be a good story even if you don't agree with and haven't internalized the author's own stuff therein. A book comes from a person, so these elements being invisible are ignorance on the part of the reader or cowardice on the part of the author. Usually a mix of both.
...and if you've already internalized them, well, that means your mind is like a fortress...with its gates unbarred and unguarded. Not a good way to go.

Anyway, my point is that the reader has accountability, too, and none of that needs to affect whether or not the story is enjoyable. Of course, enjoyment in the face of disagreement requires humility, but that's another topic altogether.



Also...

I think you're absolutely right, it does not have to have any of that. In fact, a story is quite refreshing when it does not. I think referring to the actual situation with a fantasy story is called hiding. It's an attempt at deception.

It's pretty easy to verify. They use their real names in the reviews. They're not hiding what they're doing. They're just hoping no one else points out what they are doing. 

Hopefully people without an axe to grind will read the book and post their own reviews, positive or negative. A handful of people with an axe to grind can sully a first impression in reviews but they can't overcome the general consensus in the long run for good or bad.

If you download the amazon kindle app for your pc / android / iPhone/Pad / Kindle you can download a sample of the first 3 chapters.  After 3 chapters I was hooked enough to spend the price of 2 cups of coffee on it. 

It's not fine literature and doesn't pretend to be and I didn't expect it to.  

I'm reading 'The Demon Aweakens' by RA Salvatore as well currently and I'd consider the quality of both to be equal. 

It's a fun little romp, and along the way you'll learn more about the context of the world the game takes place in. 

I've definitely spent more money on worse books.

But everyone's got different tastes, so just pop over and try the first couple chapters off amazon.

 

Who is attacking? This is English Literature 101 stuff I'm saying.

The values of the person writing the story, of course. Now, it doesn't need "lessons" or "morals", but virtually all novel-length fiction does, even if it's trivial stuff like "Don't always trust the people closest to you".

Of course, that was my point.

I agree 100% Are we supposed to be arguing?

Yes, here I'm at a disadvantage. In order for me to evaluate the Elemental book strictly on its merits, I would have to pay at least $10 to purchase a vanity novel. To be perfectly frank, I and a number of my friends participate in NaNoWriMo , and I've been putting off reading some of their stuff, even though it's been freely offered to me. I honestly doubt that Brad's first novel will be any better than any of those, and there's simply no way that I'm going to pay to find out. I'd review it honestly if they sent me a free copy, though. I don't care about the DLC code.

Context is always there. Some authors are just better at "hiding" it than others. An author can only write on the basis of his or her life experiences, and that's just a fact. Some of the most successful authors make no attempt to hide their politics. An example that Brad would appreciate would be Ayn Rand, whose books would be meaningless without political context. In short, using fiction as a substitute for real-world testing of political ideas is not only acceptable, its often quite good reading.

To call up racism in a book is just pathetic.  This couple sounds like a drain on earths oxygen, I wonder if they post on here as well...if they have such a beef I bet they come here as well.

 

Out-of-context character assassination with nothing to back it up. If you're gonna spread dirt in a cross-forum flamewar the least you can do is to provide a link.

 

 

I'd say that fair-minded behavior needs to go both ways.

 

Hmm I don't see how it is out of context, if a person has a history that could be seen as a clouded judgement it is very much in context.  You don't find it odd that she would even want to do the review considering the history....and not just doing the review in one place? 

 

You have a very sharp view on this, how are you connected?

LOL, as if Istari is completely unbiased when Brad literally pays him to post here.

Says the guy who only exists on this forum to defend Stardock's E-Honor.

This is the part where you accuse me of being in on the conspiracy, I bet.

(a) Rune, please stop trying to stir up shit.  Just because someone doesn't agree with you, it doesn't follow that they're a dupe, plant, shill, etc.  Make your point without resorting to personal attacks, get karma, win.

(2) Given the inflammatory review by her husband (aka the guy kicked off of QT3 forums for "stalking" Brad) on Amazon and her own site's, it is highly suspect that this is ANYTHING but a smear campaign on their part.  Hell, she hasn't had a posting since January but some obscure book tied to a niche game is worth that much of her time?  I call shenanigans on her.

This is ridiculous. 

 

I post on QuarterToThree. I'm one of many people who found Matt Gallant's posting habits regarding Brad to be seriously out of order. But his wife has never gotten dragged into it, and she is an excellent poster as well as a talented eviscerator of awful books. That is some of the worst writing I've seen for a very long time. It's perfect fodder for her site. 

 

You sell things like that, prepare for awful reviews. Now, Matt has his review up on Amazon, which is fair as the couple obviously have the book and just as obviously think it's terrible (with good reason, it appears!). So, where's the proof that the other accounts reviewing it are their friends?

 

Finally:

 

This is a lie. A ridiculous lie. Grow up, for Christ's sake.

Not even close.

Fiction is a story of whatever the author wishes to write.  It does not have to have any bearing on the moral fiber of that author, nor does it have to possess any inner desires of what that author may have packed away.  It's a story, plain and simple.

The only thing that you can take with you about the author is whether he/she is a talented writer or not.  If you start judging the author's characer based upon his works, it says more about you than the author.  It's a ridiculous premise that you propose that "virtually all novel-length fiction" falls under your premise.