[deleted]

There's more to translations than language. Our culture is different than the authors', so what would be a normal conversation in an author's culture may be full of useless repetition and formalities or may seem gruff and full of assumptions, depending on the differences in culture.

Damn I need to read these books again.

I tend to read past that stuff. Some teenagers act and speak differently to "average" teenagers. And some people really love dogs. We see on r/nextfuckinglevel and r/humansbeingbros and elsewhere that some people will risk themselves to save a dog or a cat or some other animal they only just met.

Thing to remember about stories is that, if the main characters were normal people, there would be no story.

[deleted]

>It is not only traumatic to the direct victim.

...okay but no one is making character statements about the indirect "victims" the way people do about the incredibly frustrating people that "repeatedly [refuse] to leave an obviously abusive relationship"? Sure, maybe the world needs to be more empathetic towards the indirect victims, but the world DEFINITELY is still not enlightened enough to stop victim blaming. Case in point.

Not the most intellectual contribution but I saw a meme (lol) that said something along the lines of, "in the past they pictured a future wherein we implemented ai to do menial tasks so people could be free to explore their passion. Instead we'll implement ai to do artistic tasks to people can be free to do menial tasks." I'm sure I'm butchering that interpretation but it's a bleak interpretation of late stage capitalism, imo.

Why don't you try reading for the enjoyment? Forget what books are considered great, just get to a book store or a library, open any book that catches your attention, try to read a few lines, read the description on the cover and see if the plot catches your attention.

We actually have a weekly what are you reading thread you can have a look at if you're curious! This week's will go up in about 30 minutes I think.

>Apart from the recent, dreadful Fairy Tale of course.

I wouldn't say it's my favourite book, but it's certainly far from dreadful. What's wrong with it?

[deleted]

The cocaine in the middle years may have had something to do with it lol

All Stephen King's book are too long. I assume he is such a valuable asset that no editor feels comfortable sitting down and blue penciling 10 to 20% of his tomes. I have truly enjoyed most of the books I have read by him but he does tend to go on and on.

[deleted]

It was the best of times. It was the blurst of times.

Once you've got, say, half a dozen or so in the style it wouldn't be to hard to generate more with some prompts.

Have you read much other fiction translated from Chinese? That's a feature of the language and the culture. Or would you have wanted the translator to add extra dialogue to make it more English?

Probably compounded further in Three Body Problem because the writer doesn't really care much about (individual) humans. The whole book series is just an extended allegory. The characters are essentially placeholders for specific virtues or failings in humanity. Dunno, maybe this is too much of a hot take but that's how it appeared to me and based on some interviews I've read of the author.

Yes is the short answer. However i find his worldbuilding to be part of his charm. The Tommyknockers is a book of his that could easily be half as long. You can tell he was.. ahem, over stimulated while writing it.

It was, yeah.

It's a valid take on a lot of his middle-career work. It, Tommyknockers, Dark Half, Needful Things, the Dark Tower series etc. He got so big that I think editors got scared to actually tell him to reign it in a bit.

Thankfully, as he's got older, he's either got much better at self-editing or some editor somewhere has had the balls to tell him straight up that he's waffling and he's by and large returned to the more streamlined, better and more effective writing of his youth. Apart from the recent, dreadful Fairy Tale of course.

There is a recent example of a childrens picture book creating entirely using AI that raised some interesting questions. I’d also recommend checking out Artificial Fandom Intelligence, an episode of the Fansplaining podcast. They are looking at it from a fanfiction/fan works perspective but raise lots of good questions for those only interested in traditionally published work as well. Last link - did you know there are already people using AI for audiobooks?? Check out that story here.

Sorry for the link dumping; I’ve just come across lots of interesting AI related stories lately!

TJR's books are so devourable (making up words again). I read all of them in 1-2 days. Was the short story Evidence of the Affair?

Iz like music, first you search fun, amusement, then feelings of all sorts, then you also have the patience to appreciate something by learning to love the particularity of it, even tough it's less accessible. And like music, you will find urself in a mood for good pop music, strong rap lyrics or smooth rnb, or in a I want to listen to 20 minutes tracks of american minimalists ahaha.

Daniel Pennac a French writer wrote on all of this pressure to read (we are the champs of that in France, country with the larger number of bookshop, but we still gatekeep reading lol), and in the end Pennac wrote just read, be with the worlds no matter how skip pages, chapters, wander away in your reading, never finish a book, no one cares, start with the end, whatever just read if you can. It's the best advice

I think TJR is great at balancing deeper themes and a page turning story. Have you read any of her other books?

Good to know you enjoy the magic. I think he gets a lot of criticism for including magic from his more snobby reviewers and readers who think it's unbecoming of a writer of his quality, but like you I think it's great and always appreciate a writer ignoring genre boundaries.

It's probably closer to Bone Clocks, but there's much less magic for most of the book, and the narrative is quite straight forward. I liked it a lot; it's very well written and the characters are charming and have strong voices. The magic comes in quite naturally and had some great links for previous books that made me excited to see what he'll do with this world in the future. It's focused on the musical scene in Britain and the US in the 60s. Mitchell writes about music and people that love music really well. My only criticism would be it did sometimes feel the characters were randomly running into famous musicians early in their careers a bit too much. It started to feel like a Simpsons episode where they all shout "Tony Hawk!? What are you doing here!?" But it didn't ruin the book for me.