Total orderings

[mrissa]

We hates them, precious.

Some people are set up from childhood for total orderings: "Gina is my first best friend and Tina is my second best friend, so you're only my third best friend." I am not that person. I never was that person. I have the kind of life where I don't have to be that person. This is not accidental.

However, sometimes total orderings are demanded, and Hugo Award voting is one of those situations. So I'm thinking about which books are better than which other books. So far I've read three of the five novel nominees. I'm working on the fourth, and I read the first book in the series for which the fifth is second this weekend (got that, or do I need to add more numbers?). So far, the ranking is clear.

However. The book in my current third position was...drab. Mediocre, bland, blah. And I suspect that at least one of the two remaining books will have both higher and lower spots than the current #3.

So what would you do? Would you rather have a book that never ticks you off royally, never makes you want to scream, never seems to just be stupid -- but also never really excites you in a good way, either? Or rather: in what ways are lower-lows so off-putting as to balance out higher-highs for you? If the characters are gorgeously drawn but the plot, when poked, makes no sense? If one of the characters, with apparent authorial approval, spouts some bigoted or otherwise ill-informed notions (and at what length)? If the ending is tacked on and awkward and unsatisfying? Where does mediocrity pass up failed attempts at something better?

(Also, did you know it's my birthday a week from today? Birthday birthday birthday!)

(I do not play the game where I test my friends and family to see if they remember. If I wanted to play Memory, I'd get some cards and have Miss Siri play with me, since she's about the right age. What I want to do is celebrate my birthday. It's much more fun this way.)

Comments

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

I'll take a flawed but ambitious and exciting book any day of the week. No contest.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

For all flaws and all ambitions? Really? Because I think "ambitious and exciting" is unnecessarily positive: you can have books that are flawed but ambitious and not at all exciting.

What if the flaw is over-the-top overt sexism or something of that sort?

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

(points at Heinlein) And yet, I pretty much enjoy reading him.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Would you enjoy reading him as much if he was writing the same books now?

Also...well, perhaps we shouldn't get into it, but I'm not convinced that Heinlein's sexism is as unidirectional or as prevalent as many people do. He seems to be biased towards parenting in his later works, but that's true of his men as well as of his women -- it's just considered progressive for men and regressive for women. But there are also many cases where the women can run circles around the men in one (non-child-bearing) ability or another and then men know it.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Yeah, perhaps we shouldn't get into it. Or, maybe in person, where we can have the conversation much faster and gesture with our hands. And, you're a much more discerning reader than I am. I'll just concede the point right now, and save myself the sputtering. :)

Would I enjoy reading him as much as if he were writing the same books now... no, probably not. Context is everything.

heinlein

[cooperati.livejournal.com]

looking for flawed sexism in heinlein, try reading "i will fear no evil." it's more or less his own transgender fantasy rolling out in each page. this was also the first book i had to stop reading. i couldn't be sympathetic towards any characters and the story was just going to come to a dead end. i bought this book 12 years ago because of the cover and because my friends told me heinlein was good. well, later they spilled the beans admitting to me he wasn't good in some areas, after i complained to them how much of a problem he was. i still have this book in my car, because i want to finish reading it and burn it.

i can deal with flawed characters. in a few stories, there's a man who misquoted everything with the best of intentions, looking stupid to me but intelligent in his world, who maintained order and civility in a brutal society. lame, but indicative of his flawed upbringing. i don't think every character, even the protagonist, should be idyllic, or should maintain values of today. if there was a character who fought for abortion rights and gay marraige in a story for interplanetary dominance, i would be able to read it and sympathize with the character despite opposing his or her views on contemporary issues.

it's a flawed story i really can't abide. if the wicked witch of the east changed her spots because it was may 15th and everything was going to be honky dory for a week, the story shouldn't end for me. i have contemplated sequals this way. "let's drop her in acid. NO! let's pour water on her and let it act like acid! we'll melt her alive!" tre grimmsian.

anyways, sorry to interrupt. please go about your daily business.

-t-

Re: heinlein

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I would be cautious of ascribing personal fantasies to an author based on their writing. I, for example, frequently have horrible things happen to people's ankles and Achilles tendons in my stories (in fact, after this book I am on Ankle Ban), but I have neither desire for such a thing myself nor particular horror of it.

I think flawed characters and flawed stories are entirely, entirely different issues.

Re: heinlein

[cooperati.livejournal.com]

concerning heinlein, i would normally be as equally cautious about stating what goes on in any authors mind. but when it goes on so consistantly, and you have people explain to you as to why he might have sounded a little off-kilter (explaining that it was a particular time in his life when he explored such things, as well as fitting with the open-minded 70's slant.) when i write, or when i read, i look for a common thread with variations that keep a story in flow, without getting tired, like a good operetta or ballet. there were few variations on the theme i could accept beyond the first few chapters. it seemed to be repititious and nauseating, explaing that this person, living a woman's life (written by a man with a very bad view of how women could be, and focussing on how much of a slut this particular woman would be), wasn't a problem until i kept seeing the same types of phrasing "but this used to be a man, dude." it got tired, and how the evolution of the character dragged through the gutter(literally) when he became a she just ended my interest in the book, and heinlein altogether. i keep forgetting how aweful he plodded along with the same old mantra, "seeing things for the first time; first touch, first sensation, first desire..." yuck.

anyways, i wouldn't say that heinlein, from this example, is in any way in need of therapy. this is a fantasy of his. any mental journey is a fantasy. but i don't make a claim that this is a habitual fantasy of his. this "trans" theme of his was workable, and he did it thoroughly, but the conclusions of the characters wasn't worthwhile to me, chiefly because of his sexist views, or maybe something within the last ten pages of the book i still haven't read. i skimmed them, searching for something redeamable, but nada.

as for flawed characters and flawed stories, no. they are too related to me. yes, you can have a character that is allergic to peanut butter without having that in relation to the story line. but you aren't likely to mention that specific weakness or flaw unless it was in direct relation to some at least miniscule corner of the story. and if one might mention it, one risks the complaint that several people have concerning tolkien, too much irrelevant data.

on the other hand, too much irrelevant data is something pleasing to some readers. it has been hailed by a few of my friends.

i feel like themes should fit. in fact, i am working on a backstory that doesn't fit into the main theme of my main characters. the middle east 6000 years ago hardly relates to eastern europe 1000 years ago. so i'm making it as an addendum, an apocrypha, to keep the flow separated and uninterrupted. heinlein sought a theme, and maintained it, but did so with bad results that makes me look badly upon him, as far as i can for one single book.

i have been exposed to the idea that his own character has an evolution. heinlein changed over the decades. at least, this is what's been said about him. i can believe it. though, i just picked up an early short story of his that deals with alot of physical transformation, and adaptation, by most of the characters.

hey, thanks for the response.

-t-

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

Exciting to me in the context of above didn't necessarily mean positive, rather I was using it as meaning engaging strong emotion in me, the reader - whether positive or negative. I was talking about your alternating hurl the book/and cry because it was so damn good reaction.

Frex - I found Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand an ambitious, but ultimately for me an unreadable book. I stopped maybe a hundred pages in, and have never had an urge to pick it up again. An ambitious work, but one that didn't have any excitement for me.

I don't think overt sexism would necessarily be a problem, though I can't think of a good example I would recommend. (Though I am not sure that I agree that overt sexism is a flaw, rather it is a contextual thing that if done properly immerses the reader in a specific mindset. If on the other hand you are saying that that the author is setting up an advocacy stance of overt sexism, that would probably be a harder sell. Not a deal breaker, but I am having trouble thinking of a novel with such a position that I would call ambitious.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh. Um. I never have the "cry because it was so damn good" reaction in alternation with "hurl the book." Seriously, I never have. I think it's because when I want to hurl the book across the room, that jolts me far enough out of the story that my other reactions are more muted.

I think this is why I react poorly to romances where the characters fight like cats and want to kill each other and that's just a sign of their fiery passion. Because my fiery passion doesn't work like that.

Yeah, I was talking about the author, not the characters, being overtly sexist. Sometimes the line between the two gets blurry -- if a character is generally portrayed as reasonable and then comes out with some piece of blatant sexism or racism, it can be hard to tell whether this is advocacy or a known character flaw in some contexts -- but there are examples that are firmly on one side or on the other.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I think for me it comes down to which would I read again sooner or more often.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Heh. In this case, neither.

But I take your point on the upper end of the scale.

[palinade.livejournal.com]

Um... have I mentioned that I dislike hard sf that has the science layed out at the cost of characterization? Cardboard characters, no matter if they're in a RL setting, a future dystopia, or a fantasy realm, all leave me cold. They are right. out.

I can swallow a story with a crunchy plot and fairly developed characters if they aren't predicatable.

I can't read mediocre stories--where the characters, plot, and concept are all. just. boring. Predicatable. Flat. Like soda that's lost all its fizz, I just can't swallow it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Is crunchiness a positive or negative attribute for plot?

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I'd incline towards dumping books that annoyed me. "Flaws" are fine, most books that have great bits also have flaws; not all flaws enrage me.

In other words, it's personal and idiosyncratic.

Big enough flaws might leave me saying "doesn't deserve the Hugo" even if those particular flaws didn't catch me emotionally.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I'll keep a book with great bits and terrible bits, because I can re-read the great bits and skip the terrible ones. I will not keep a book which is honorable but boring all the way through.

But this would be easier to comment on if I knew what books you were talking about.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In this case, Blind Lake (or pretty much any Robert Charles Wilson book you please) is the mediocrity and Robert Sawyer's Hominids is the one that's better in its good spots but much, much worse in its bad spots. It's complicated by the fact that Hominids is not up for the Hugo this year (its sequel, Humans, is), so I don't have to directly compare the two. But I anticipate that Humans will have some similarities to its predecessor, so.

I've now managed to do total orderings of the novella, novelette, and short story categories. So that's...a thing. I guess.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm more interested in where a book's "good/interesting" graph centers than its magnitude.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Would you rather have a book that never ticks you off royally, never makes you want to scream, never seems to just be stupid -- but also never really excites you in a good way, either?

That's a false dilemma.

Or rather: in what ways are lower-lows so off-putting as to balance out higher-highs for you?

Well, that always depends, doesn't it? To each her kinks and her squicks.

Playing Memory

[(Anonymous)]

And Miss Siri would love to play with you. :) One of her favorite games.

Heathah

[careswen.livejournal.com]

(I do not play the game where I test my friends and family to see if they remember. If I wanted to play Memory, I'd get some cards and have Miss Siri play with me, since she's about the right age. What I want to do is celebrate my birthday. It's much more fun this way.)

I agree entirely. Birthdays were a huge deal in my family, and I'm gonna be princess for a day, and everyone's gonna know it. Personally, I think they should last longer than a day. Perhaps a week?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Funny you should say so. My family tradition is a five day minimum for regular birthdays, more for "big" or "special" birthdays. Which this is, being my golden birthday and all.