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4
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45
Joined
3 wk. ago

  • In our world.

    I would consider Wheel of Time as an example of fantasy with reskinned real world cultures.

    Andor is essentially a landlocked version of England, having a "Lion Throne" and ruled by a queen. Cairhien and Mayene bear similarities to France (Cairhien has the Sun Throne; Mayener names are reminiscent of French). Arad Doman resembles Arabic countries and Iran. (source: TV Tropes)

    It's well-written, but by nature of being fantasy, it sidesteps the challenge of writing meaningful interactions between real world communities.

  • I listened to one of the Audible samples, labeled Virtual Voice. Apple had one labeled as "Madison," so who knows whether they're all going to be labeled so clearly.

    It sounded like a TikTok narrator, passable but at the quality level I would expect from a Netflix second-screen show. The book was at the same quality level, too. (The author does "life and business coaching with innovative and adaptable strategies, transcending traditional boundaries.")

    I consider these kinds of books and narration to be slop, so I'm definitely not the target market. My worry is that publishers will use AI narrators as virtual scabs to lowball actual creators.

  • The first few chapters seemed like someone took all their antisemitic conspiracy theory / murder fantasies and model-swapped aliens for Jews.

    I can't unsee it, and I wish I could suspension-of-disbelief harder, because I was initially really interested in the premise.

    Edit: Maybe xenophobic / immigrants is more apt.

  • The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness. (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)

  • Fair enough. I get overwhelmed by all the ethical questions that come with being in the real world.

    My partner outsourced most of that mental work and focused on trying to be a good person from moment to moment. I think she would've broadly agreed with you from a karma standpoint.