9.2 KiB
[HF][WIP] Daybreak on Hyperion - would this fit here?
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Author: u/Aorii *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4wdd7k/hfwip_daybreak_on_hyperion_would_this_fit_here/
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Score: 4
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Created: 2016-08-05T23:45:27
Post:
What do you think?
Born into noble prestige and gifted with genius intellect, Pascal was a promising officer cadet who rose to national fame before even graduating. At the mere age of nineteen, he had everything a young man could wish for...
Except his habitual arrogance had destroyed every opportunity of a close friendship.
Seeking a companion that would meet his protracted list of requirements, Pascal decided to craft the 'perfect spell' for the upcoming familiar ceremony. If those in his world were not fit to accompany his brilliance, then he would summon a best friend through his own hands -- one that was mature, intelligent, knowledgeable, bright, and cute to boot.
He received far more than he bargained for.
This is the story of how three wills -- historian, general, and sovereign -- joined to forever alter a continent.
https://krytykal.org/daybreak/
Comments:
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+2] (27 minutes later)
It seems a bit Marty Stu-ish, just from the blurb alone. I know that's not part of the criteria, but it does make it less likely for a given person to actually read it. Also not really getting a rational vibe from the blurb, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
u/GaBeRockKing [+6] Horizon Breach: http://archiveofourown.org/works/6785857 (2 hours later)
I tried reading it a while ago. The upside is that it wasn't quite Marty Stu-ish, because the charachter described in this blurb isn't as much of a focus as Minor Spoiler The downside is that the light novel format feels sort of... I don't know, weird, in english. It reads as sort of stilted.
u/Aorii [+1] (a day later)
huh, I never thoughts the synopsis ended up feeling that way. Thanks for letting me know.
Stilted because its plot and exposition is dialogue driven? o_O (that's really the only real sign of a LN)
u/i_dont_know [+1] (6 hours later)
Been a while since I read this, but while I remember liking some parts, it would have been better without the light novel "format" and the constant near-rape.
u/ggrey7 [+1] (a day later)
Read a volume a while back. From what I remember, the world building was interesting, but the LN-ish tone and character interactions put me off. Also, as mentioned in the comments, the summary will probably scare readers away though I think the fic seemed rational.
u/Aorii [+1] (a day later)
So... how's the LN tone/format and the fanfic tone/format posted often here any different?
Usually the only real difference between a LN and a traditional novel, stylewise, is that LNs are extremely dialogue-driven. I don't really get how that's necessarily a bad thing?
u/ggrey7 [+1] (a day later)
Sorry for being vague. What I meant by LN-ish tone is that most light novels have a tendency towards exaggerated prose and character interactions (unfortunate side effect of being written for teenagers). Dialogue-driven stories are great, but not when the dialogue feels contrived, e.g. characters are put in annoyingly maudlin moments where conversations get overly theatrical.
u/Aorii [+1] (2 days later)
I actually find this a bit questionable, since anyone who has read Game of Thrones or all the literary mediums influenced by it (i.e. much of today's historical/fantasy drama), the characterization and dialogue is almost always exaggerated. Not quite the same quirky way that Japan does it sure, but pretty much everyone has major issues and half the cast talk a little bit funny.
But alas, thanks for the explanation.
u/ggrey7 [+1] (2 days later)
Actually, they're quite different. Yes, many fantasies tend to overuse flowery medieval language, and some fantasy authors create their own linguistic culture. But the issue isn't the divergence from modern (English) language and culture: it's that LN dialogue is frequently inane, focused more on the "quirkiness," if you will, than emotional coherence in the context, i.e. congruity with the characters' expected spectrum of responses. For example, you get a lot of conversations where characters expatiate implausibly just to show what kind of person they are. LN has a lot of "telling," as opposed to the ideal of "showing."
TL;DR Fantasy characters can talk funny as long as they don't pass the threshold where you lose suspension of disbelief. The threshold, as with any literature, is largely subjective preference/standards, but there is a sort of industry rubric that lets critics identify bad dialogue.
u/Aorii [+1] (2 days later)
Do you remember what aspects of the conversations in Daybreak annoyed you then? (since I look down the list and think: yes, this is pretty much what I measure against when I edit; but it's as you said, it's pretty subjective) At any rate, thanks for the advice.
u/ggrey7 [+1] (2 days later)
Forgot to mention that all the things I mentioned might not apply to Daybreak because I really don't recall the specifics as it was more than a year ago during a LN binge (it stood out by virtue of its excellent English in the flood of subpar writing/translations). That's why I didn't specifically say dialogue, but rather tone and character interactions. My fuzzy feeling is the characters felt too much like staple anime characters, but that's useless without pointing to details and I don't feel up to combing the whole volume.
I'll PM you a review the summary and Ch. 1 excerpt, but that might not be representative of later chapters. On the other hand, first impressions..
u/Vakuza [-3] (2 hours later)
It's a good story with nice worldbuilding, better than all the damnable fanfictions that keep getting posted here. Personally I think it more than fits.
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+9] (2 hours later)
"Damnable" fanfictions? This strikes me as somewhat akin to immigrating to Toronto and saying that, really, the people there are lovely, except for all those damnable Canadians.
u/TennisMaster2 [+5] (5 hours later)
While it's probably true that /r/rational's majority population are consumers of fanfiction, I disagree with the implication that it's somehow oxymoronic or hypocritical* to enjoy the subreddit devoted to sharing rational fiction of all sorts while finding fanfiction distasteful.
*I don't think I've hit the mot juste, here. Anyone?
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+5] (14 hours later)
Not hypocritical, exactly, but rather ... missing the point? Using the word "damnable" implies that the fanfiction is trespassing on space that was meant to be used for original fiction. That it's not supposed to be here, essentially. Given that original fiction is the relative newcomer, and that fanfiction continues to make up the majority, I stand by my "too many Canadians in Toronto" metaphor.
u/TennisMaster2 [+1] (17 hours later)
Different perspectives, I suppose. Damnable doesn't carry that implication with me at all, and I can't honestly pretend rational fanfiction predates all works of original fiction that meet the criteria of rational fiction. Rationalist fiction, maybe, though you'd still have to contend with The Phantom Tollbooth. Certainly not rational fiction.
u/UltraRedSpectrum [+1] (18 hours later)
I was referring to the specific tradition of rational fiction we're in right now, the one built around/out of the LW diaspora. Other than that, the disagreement is just about what implications the word "damnable" has, and while I'm sure we could both write pages on why our particular interpretation is correct, there is such a thing as too pedantic.
u/Vakuza [-2] (11 hours later)
A rational story doesn't have to be a fanfictions, one thing I love about some of the stories posted here is that they have well thought out worlds ( Limelight, Mother of Learning, Practical guide to Evil ) but it's something IMO fanfictions always lack. As an example picture Harry Potters character Petunia then read the first chapter of HPMOR, its so confusing considering what the character was like and now suddenly she's completely different. HPMOR would have been better if it didn't reuse characters and only the world because all the character development that was originally made is so hard to preserve.
u/Roxolan [+1] Head of antimemetiWalmart senior assistant manager (2 days later)
There is an explanation for that one. HPMOR has a point of departure (well, several) decades before the first HP book, and the ripples of it change the personalities of many canon characters, Petunia in particular. It's even explained in the first few chapters, though we don't know the deeper causes at that point.
(Many other characters are changed for purely Doylist reasons however.)