9.4 KiB
[HSF] [TH] Perilous Waif, a charming new novel-length transhumanist hard-sf fairytale from the author of Time Braid
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Author: u/EliezerYudkowsky Godric Gryffindor*
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URL: https://www.amazon.com/Perilous-Waif-Alice-Long-Book-ebook/dp/B01NBWXMP9
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Score: 41
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Created: 2017-02-14T04:11:15
Post:
Comments:
u/Anderkent [+8] (9 hours later)
u/None [+6] (11 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Anderkent [+8] (12 hours later)
FWIW it wasn't tagged [RT] or [RST] in the OP, so we all good :)
u/GlueBoy [+4] anti-skub (15 hours later)
u/eternal-potato [+6] he who vegetates (an hour later)
I've never bought books on Amazon before. Do I get a normal .epub, or am I forced to use their app?
u/xamueljones [+12] My arch-enemy is entropy (14 hours later)
You either get .azw3 or .mobi, but the conversion from either one to .epub is very easy since they are both flow-able text formats. You could easily find an app online which can convert for you or read from both file types for you (ex. Calibre).
u/ToaKraka [+7] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (4 hours later)
The latter.
u/SaintPeter74 [+5] (20 hours later)
I buy from Amazon all the time. I use Calibre, a free library software to manage my side-loads.
There is a plugin for Calibre which can remove Amazon DRM, found here:
https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/You will need to install the Kindle for PC app, then you just import the downloaded files into Calibre. Calibre allows you to convert to the format of your choice.
u/vorpal_potato [+3] (a day later)
As far as I can tell none of this author's books are sold with DRM. (Amazon's phrase for this is "Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited".) I was able to convert them in Calibre just fine without any fancy plugins.
u/SaintPeter74 [+1] (a day later)
Well, the plugin is pretty handy for the books that do have DRM. I didn't convert to e-books until I was sure that I would actually "own" the books I bought.
u/nerdguy1138 [+1] GNU Terry Pratchett (29 days later)
Ditto, I still buy from Amazon, but I immediately run them through the dedrm calibre tool. Works fantastically well.
u/Anderkent [+2] (9 hours later)
You get a standard .mobi if the author explicitly requested a sale without DRM; I don't think that's the case here.
Their web and phone app is pretty good though, I use it for all ebooks (even non amazon ones)
u/Salivanth [+4] (2 hours later)
I've heard of this, but had no idea it was by the author of Time Braid! Time to pick it up immediately.
u/None [+7] (18 minutes later)
[deleted]
u/EliezerYudkowsky [+11] Godric Gryffindor (28 minutes later)
I'd say it's basically Safe For Work.
u/gabbalis [+9] (13 hours later)
Ugh. Safe for work? I'm not sure I can read this. I have my Platinum Decadence Ranking to maintain.
u/Munchkingman [+8] (23 minutes later)
Yes. Much less. Most there is a kiss and some cuddling.
After I read Perilous Waif, I tried to read Daniel Black, a previous series of his, but couldn't get past the second book because of the raunchiness.
u/None [+3] (3 hours later)
I think he cut back during the third book. Its been a while since I read it though. He was floating the idea of having two versions of the books on his blog. One with tons of sex and the other without.
u/GlueBoy [+5] anti-skub (11 hours later)
The version I read had him spoiler
So... not really.
u/xamueljones [+6] My arch-enemy is entropy (14 hours later)
Personally, I only read the Daniel Black series as a guilty pleasure. It's pure wish fulfillment mixed with some nice discussions/problem-solving on how to use magic with engineering.
u/vorpal_potato [+10] (a day later)
Personally I've just stopped feeling guilty about that sort of thing.
u/GlueBoy [+3] anti-skub (14 hours later)
Yeah, same. It's the kind of shit you delete off your kindle after reading, lol.
u/None [+2] (12 hours later)
I meant the general number of scenes. Not the content.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
To add some content, it was a norse demigoddes, and it was as weird for him as it sounds for us.
u/Anderkent [+1] (9 hours later)
Yeah I dropped Daniel Black halfway through the first book, it took the worst parts of TB and just focused on those. PW is much better.
u/sparr [+4] (4 hours later)
less or fewer or both?
u/abcd_z [+8] (3 hours later)
Man, he is just never going to live that down.
u/HeckDang [+5] (5 hours later)
That's why people avoid writing em
u/None [+5] (a day later)
Goodness. You can't escape American cultural puritanical nonsense even on rational boards.
I've had to delete this paragraph three times to avoid sliding into ad hominum because I don't have enough context.
Please explain why you feel the sex scenes in TB were "creepy", and what exactly you mean when you say "creepy". Anyone else with this option, please feel free to chime in as well.
u/HeckDang [+2] (2 days later)
Never called em creepy buddy.
u/Dragonheart91 [+1] (2 days later)
But the post that you replied to did. (Or rather the post that IT replied to did.)
The "em" in your post functions as a pronoun and traces all the way back through references to the initial instance of the noun which was "creepy sex scenes" in the top level post with the adjectives added in.
u/HeckDang [+1] (2 days later)
I said that's a reason why people avoid writing creepy sex scenes. Because people can't live them down. My personal opinions on whether the specific sex scenes in Time Braid were creepy or not I did not make clear, although I can understand inferring that I might.
So to make it clear, I don't know. I read Time Braid 100 years ago or something and I remember thinking it was not particularly well written compared to whatever else I was reading at the time (a little too obviously wish fulfilment maybe, I vaguely remember my suspension of disbelief not holding up very well). I do remember the sex scenes being adventurous, and combined with my perception of the actual writing not being very good I am entirely capable of understanding why someone would think of them as creepy, even if that reaction isn't one that my own brain threw up for me.
If people like those sex scenes, that's great, and I'm glad people enjoy things. I do think though that it's uncontroversial to say that written sex scenes in general are highly polarizing, and I think that they are in some ways uniquely capable of attracting all kinds of criticism and negative reaction, regardless even of specifics of quality or content. I think this is one of a few common reasons that people who write stuff avoid publicly putting out explicit sexual writing attached to their name.
Shenanigans on top, including the kinds of things Time Braid got up to, I think tends to accentuate that effect, and further limits appreciation to a smaller niche. I think not everyone is into magical fantasy fetish power exchange or whatever. Funnily enough, I'm actually very sympathetic to the kinds of sexual topic ranges this guy likes to write about, but at least in that sphere I'm not a huge fan of his work based on what little I remember of Braid, and he hasn't seemed to have gotten much better either - even in Perilous Waif I find myself rolling my eyes a little at how unashamedly clearly and explicitly he keeps excitedly drawing all the D/s lines and whatever else over and over in such obvious language with limited subtlety or poetic quality. Reading it definitely jogged my memory of what Time Braid was like despite the fact that if you had asked me what it was like before I started reading Waif I probably would have been much less able to tell you, I'm pretty sure I never finished it in fact.
pinging /u/Arizth since you seemed initially curious about my opinion, you were a little heavy with the assumptions tho, I'm not American, I don't harbour puritanical motivations and I go to lengths not to be a purveyor of nonsense. Somehow you managed to slip in plenty to the hominem despite your efforts, huh. Let's try to keep it friendlier, yeah?
u/nerdguy1138 [+1] GNU Terry Pratchett (29 days later)
I was having fun with the story until chapter 5, then I hit the start of the torture. I felt this was a hard left turn for the tone.
u/abcd_z [+2] (6 hours later)
Right, because nobody on the internet has ever written a creepy sex scene. /s
u/HeckDang [+6] (6 hours later)
Often not connected to their real name under which they write Actual Books™, though