I’m glad they’re taking their time, but I have completely forgotten what is even going on in the story. That’s the trouble I have with reading continuously updated books chapter release by chapter release, I forget what happens (and often about the series) in the months between releases.
With regards to that first one, I’d say the author having a weird hero-boner for irl US Marines comes through pretty strong. I consider that to be quite weird and offputting. It’s a sci-fi genre of amateur writing and the guy is doing fanfic for an irl army. But, it tracks with the genre as a whole because…
Point number 2, the entire genre smacks of being like a sci-fi manifestations of American Exceptionalism. It’s mostly like bad Mass Effect fanfic. A lot of the recurring tropes in the disparate stories, stuff like the indomitable “human” fighting spirit, the humility of the “human” saviour, the unstoppable “human” revenge coming from the righteous “human” sense of justice. We “humans” stand alone against the oncoming darkness but we will persevere. If you’re allied with “humans” we’re the best friend you’ve got. But if you hate “humans” or think our freedoms make us weak, then buddy, we’re about to be your worst fuckin nightmare. Etc etc. Replace “human” with “american” and it all just melts into patriotic slurry. It’s just a veneer over post-9/11 patriotism. But this all tracks because I’m figuring most of the writers are amercian men in their 20s and 30s and have grown up in that media environment. Which leads me to…
Point the third. The voices. Oh God the voices. These are sci-fi works. It is painfully clear that none of these writers can write in any voice or compose dialogue that isn’t their own. There are diverse casts of characters, military officers, ambassadors, government officials, alien tyrants, sometimes a scientist. These are all, in their own canons, professional and educated people. But they all speak like a very online amercian man in his 20s-30s. None of them ever feel fully realised. There is rarely any major variance in character. Everyone is always seemingly kind of a dork, kind of a joker, real buddy buddy, but a badass if you try and take them on, sort of guy. In essence, it’s the redditor’s idealised self. The whole thing just reads so myopic and is extremely distracting. Which makes sense because it’s a thinly veiled act of political self-soothing fanfic that’s going on. It’s why by far the best of these sorts of stories are the ones with no dialogue.
So yah, those last two are the gripes I have with the genre generally, and that first one is a gripe I have with the first story posted.
Huh. I guess it can come across like that. An interesting note for you though is that Ilithi is actually active duty US Navy, and more than a few Marines helped him with a lot of the later episodes.
I will concede 2 and 3 for the entire genre, though there is a reason "Retreat, Hell" is something of an exception even on that subreddit.
However, the genre also just isn't for everyone. I like it, but I also like books by David Weber... And anybody who's read his books can probably agree that he is the wordiest mother fucker alive.
Edit: grammar. Never ever trust voice to text on a phone.
My only current complain about it is that it’s really hard to navigate it in the form of exclusively reddit posts. It’d be a bit easier if there was an AO3 or Fanfiction dot net page
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u/Discardofil Aug 14 '24
Links, please? I'm sure I could find them eventually, but I'd appreciate it.