[polishgenius]

I'm pretty sure that's what Nick Harkaway writes.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

I'm still waiting for somebody to write a grimdarkpunk book.

[HoosierDaddy]

I don't hate the "Grimdark" phrase, but rather the connotation. However, if everyone agrees that it pertains to awesome fantasy of a sort, I can get behind it.

I rather didn't like the "fantasy for people who don't like REAL fantasy and only want to see negative shit" connotation it had for a while. I might be behind the times, here.

[Obdigore]

HoosierDaddy, on 07 October 2014 - 03:50 AM, said:

I don't hate the "Grimdark" phrase, but rather the connotation. However, if everyone agrees that it pertains to awesome fantasy of a sort, I can get behind it.

I rather didn't like the "fantasy for people who don't like REAL fantasy and only want to see negative shit" connotation it had for a while. I might be behind the times, here.

I don't mind the connotation, if you are using the original connotation of Humans, and humanity, being on the verge of extinction with callous and cruel things done to/by humans in the name of good, evil, and other names that we can't pronounce.

WH40k is essentially about the disgusting things humans have to do to survive as a race, and the end of the human race as we know it. That is grimdark. Abercrombie isn't grimdark. Lawrence isn't really grimdark, imo.

I mean, how does the WH40k intro go again, where this was pulled from? Something like:

In the Grim, Dark future of humanity, there is only war.
The age of science has fallen, never to rise again,
Something something dark gods,
something something undead emperor is the only hope of survival,
something something this is the end of humanity, and the remnants are only holding off the extinction a tiny bit longer.
(I paraphrased a bit)


Post Apocalyptic Fantasy would be the best place to put Lawrence, you could toss 'A Land Fit For Heroes' by Morgan and a couple others in there as well. Abercrombies' 'a king and a half' would fit (even if it is 'teen'), although the rest of his stuff wouldn't. Bakker should go back to pontificating about the meaning of his sex masters with a therapist, and there honestly isn't a lot of other stuff I've read (at least that is good enough to remember) that would fit into such a sub-category (either GrimDark or PAF(yes that is Post Apocalyptic Fantasy)).

[QuickTidal]

On a sidenote: One of the main trollish vitriolic jerks who started the original campaign to use grimdark derogatorily (you may recall her biggest plunk in the pond was to go to verbal online war with Bakker and Watts) is apparently on the verge of being outed. A couple of big authors have discovered her identity, and have noted that this person is leading a REAL Jekyll and Hyde life because she is, according to one of those authors, "Is a somewhat celebrated new writer who should have known better"

So there's that. Found that the other day.

Also, isn't Abercrombie's world a post-apoc world? What with the ancient tech on display? Or did I dream that in the second book when they go into the tower?

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 07 October 2014 - 01:00 PM

[Mentalist]

QuickTidal, on 07 October 2014 - 12:59 PM, said:

On a sidenote: One of the main trollish vitriolic jerks who started the original campaign to use grimdark derogatorily (you may recall her biggest plunk in the pond was to go to verbal online war with Bakker and Watts) is apparently on the verge of being outed. A couple of big authors have discovered her identity, and have noted that this person is leading a REAL Jekyll and Hyde life because she is, according to one of those authors, "Is a somewhat celebrated new writer who should have known better"

So there's that. Found that the other day.

Also, isn't Abercrombie's world a post-apoc world? What with the ancient tech on display? Or did I dream that in the second book when they go into the tower?

The thing about the First Law world is that

Spoiler

the Empire, w/e it was is apparently a proto-Roman state, but the magicians gave them Nukes. And some cataclysm destroyed the Empire, but the rest of the world didn't seem to notice.
Juvens, Maker and Co knew about such things, supposedly. But then you get demons and Underworld tossed in.

Which is really why I gave up trying to take it seriously as a coherent world. Abercrombie's world building is very much a Rule of Cool thing, rather than something plausible and coherent and comprehensible. Unlike, say, Malaz Wu, or Bakker's Earwa, I never felt a strong desire to map out just how the hell the Circle of the World came to be what it is.

[polishgenius]

Grimdark is more about attitude than anything else, so it's perfectly possible for a book to be both post-apocalyptic and grimdark (I know the term came from Warhammer 40k, but I don't think it ever had that specific a connotation as a label/subgenre). Really, there aren't all that many second-world fantasies that aren't post-apocalyptic (or at least post-cataclysmic) when it comes down to it - LotR is.

QuickTidal, on 07 October 2014 - 12:59 PM, said:

On a sidenote: One of the main trollish vitriolic jerks who started the original campaign to use grimdark derogatorily (you may recall her biggest plunk in the pond was to go to verbal online war with Bakker and Watts) is apparently on the verge of being outed. A couple of big authors have discovered her identity, and have noted that this person is leading a REAL Jekyll and Hyde life because she is, according to one of those authors, "Is a somewhat celebrated new writer who should have known better"

If I'm thinking of the same person, she's OTT and rather irritating, but Bakker didn't exactly cover himself in glory there (or in other instances of online discussion).

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 07 October 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

If I'm thinking of the same person, she's OTT and rather irritating, but Bakker didn't exactly cover himself in glory there (or in other instances of online discussion).

He didn't. In fact he gave in to the trollery too hard and it showed.

But yes, this person has made a lot of people's lives very uncomfortable online including one bigger author who got very depressed after being attacked by her.

I have a few odd guesses at who it might be, one of which would not surprise me in the least.

I just think it's interesting that it's apparently someone we likely all know of as a newish genre author, whose double life online has been to behave like an awful, awful human being to others.

[polishgenius]

QuickTidal, on 07 October 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

I have a few odd guesses at who it might be, one of which would not surprise me in the least.

I bet it's not Kameron Hurley.

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 07 October 2014 - 02:08 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 07 October 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

I have a few odd guesses at who it might be, one of which would not surprise me in the least.

I bet it's not Kameron Hurley.

Agreed. She can be a real angry person, but she does that in her own persona, not a fake one.

[worry]

I bet it's ol' whatshername, with the hunch back and wonky eye.

[Coco with marshmallows]

QuickTidal, on 07 October 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

polishgenius, on 07 October 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

If I'm thinking of the same person, she's OTT and rather irritating,

-SNIP-
whose double life online has been to behave like an awful, awful human being to others.

worry, on 07 October 2014 - 07:03 PM, said:

I bet it's ol' whatshername, with the hunch back and wonky eye.

OH MY GOD - it's APT?!?!

[QuickTidal]

Coco with marshmallows, on 07 October 2014 - 07:36 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 07 October 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

polishgenius, on 07 October 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

If I'm thinking of the same person, she's OTT and rather irritating,

-SNIP-
whose double life online has been to behave like an awful, awful human being to others.

worry, on 07 October 2014 - 07:03 PM, said:

I bet it's ol' whatshername, with the hunch back and wonky eye.

OH MY GOD - it's APT?!?!

This case is getting closed! ~ Ford Fairlane

[Mentalist]

polishgenius, on 07 October 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

Grimdark is more about attitude than anything else, so it's perfectly possible for a book to be both post-apocalyptic and grimdark (I know the term came from Warhammer 40k, but I don't think it ever had that specific a connotation as a label/subgenre). Really, there aren't all that many second-world fantasies that aren't post-apocalyptic (or at least post-cataclysmic) when it comes down to it - LotR is.

QuickTidal, on 07 October 2014 - 12:59 PM, said:

On a sidenote: One of the main trollish vitriolic jerks who started the original campaign to use grimdark derogatorily (you may recall her biggest plunk in the pond was to go to verbal online war with Bakker and Watts) is apparently on the verge of being outed. A couple of big authors have discovered her identity, and have noted that this person is leading a REAL Jekyll and Hyde life because she is, according to one of those authors, "Is a somewhat celebrated new writer who should have known better"

If I'm thinking of the same person, she's OTT and rather irritating, but Bakker didn't exactly cover himself in glory there (or in other instances of online discussion).

Personally, I feel "grimdark" are those works that like to take the fact that the world is screwed and beat the reader over the head with it. That's the ironic connotation of "grim". Otoh, there's perfectly good "dark" fantasy, which is set in a bleak world, but which takes itself perfectly seriously.

[HiddenOne]

QuickTidal, on 07 October 2014 - 12:59 PM, said:

On a sidenote: One of the main trollish vitriolic jerks who started the original campaign to use grimdark derogatorily (you may recall her biggest plunk in the pond was to go to verbal online war with Bakker and Watts) is apparently on the verge of being outed. A couple of big authors have discovered her identity, and have noted that this person is leading a REAL Jekyll and Hyde life because she is, according to one of those authors, "Is a somewhat celebrated new writer who should have known better"

So there's that. Found that the other day.

Also, isn't Abercrombie's world a post-apoc world? What with the ancient tech on display? Or did I dream that in the second book when they go into the tower?

You better not be spoiling something else for me QT, else we can't be bros anymore

Edit: clarity

This post has been edited by HiddenOne: 07 October 2014 - 08:06 PM

[Malaclypse]

Grow up, people - you don't like the name? When was the last time you got to choose the petname that the world at large decides upon for anything? Don't expect to be offered the opportunity in future either. If you're just engaging in pointless bitching, fair enough but don't imagine it is anything else

[QuickTidal]

HiddenOne, on 07 October 2014 - 08:05 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 07 October 2014 - 12:59 PM, said:

Also, isn't Abercrombie's world a post-apoc world? What with the ancient tech on display? Or did I dream that in the second book when they go into the tower?

You better not be spoiling something else for me QT, else we can't be bros anymore

Edit: clarity

Apparenlty I'm not, according to another poster. Not to worry.

[polishgenius]

Malaclypse, on 07 October 2014 - 09:21 PM, said:

Grow up, people - you don't like the name? When was the last time you got to choose the petname that the world at large decides upon for anything? Don't expect to be offered the opportunity in future either. If you're just engaging in pointless bitching, fair enough but don't imagine it is anything else

Since when are you one to complain about pointless bitching? Of course I don't think my moaning will ever make a difference. But I do it all the time anyway. I'm the King of High House Grumpy.

[HoosierDaddy]

Jorg would tell you all to shut the fuck up or he'd beat you with a stick until you are dead.

SO. Shut the fuck up because I don't want Jorg to murder me in my sleep.


Fuck. I'm probably getting murdered in my sleep by Jorg because I figured out his plan.

[Morgoth]

QuickTidal, on 07 October 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

polishgenius, on 07 October 2014 - 01:38 PM, said:

If I'm thinking of the same person, she's OTT and rather irritating, but Bakker didn't exactly cover himself in glory there (or in other instances of online discussion).

He didn't. In fact he gave in to the trollery too hard and it showed.

But yes, this person has made a lot of people's lives very uncomfortable online including one bigger author who got very depressed after being attacked by her.

I have a few odd guesses at who it might be, one of which would not surprise me in the least.

I just think it's interesting that it's apparently someone we likely all know of as a newish genre author, whose double life online has been to behave like an awful, awful human being to others.

This whole thing must have passed me be entirely. What happened?