Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels discussion
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Three laws of internet communication.
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The other situation is on Facebook or Quora: I sometimes engage in debates [stupid me]
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I guess if you feel like the reviewer really is just missing some facts, you could try pointing them out, saying something like "Reading your review, it occurred to me that you may not know..."
If they respond politely, great! If they attack you or otherwise respond with hostility, they're most likely a troll, so you can drop tge whole conversation there and then.
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Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning
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"I am binge-reading everything by (place name of author here) because I LOVE her stuff so much!!!!!!"
I find that this type of review is more prevalent in the PNR (paramormal romance) area (which I used to read a lot of and am now TOTALLY bored with), and romance, both YA and regular, which I rarely read anymore either because they all seem alike. (I actually have followed or friended some people who read these types because their reviews tell me which books have the hated cliffhangers.)
Plus, because people who read these genres are the ONLY people who read them, ratings are higher. I also find that the Epic Fantasy genre books seem to be rated, on the average, higher on Goodreads than other fantasy genres--for no reason I can discern.
As to trolls, I have had no experience with any here on Goodreads, though I have had some really awful people jump all over me on Amazon for no particular reason. Except, possibly, they are just lurking there to be mean. Therefore, I rarely ask questions or post anything at Amazon.
Disclaimer: Your experience may differ.
And Art, the reason my results may differ is, I don't argue with these people. It's like trying to argue with someone about religion or politics, both of which I assiduously avoid. They aren't going to change, regardless of what I say.
You can argue with me if you like, though. :-)
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Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning
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This woman was truly enraged, you could tell by her writing. I felt sorry for her, actually, and I just tiptoed quietly away, digitally, my five-star rating hidden behind me.
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Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning
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The review I am in odds with at the moment is not that bad in itself, nor I believe the person who posted it had any improper intentions, ignorance and frustration is enough to explain it.
I could not resist myself, so I trolled a little:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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Tsk-tsk, you fat troll :D
I had to similar views as in the review in several discussions here on GR. My take it that one always has to use context, like that popular (I guess) debate, whether to take n-word from Mark Twain books. To say that he was a racist is not to actually read his many essays, which actually show his as a progressive, often notably above contemporaries.
So, I fully agree that old SFF under-represent women, people of color, disabled and LGBTQ+ and this is sad, but I don't think that most works did it intentionally. Say Robert A. Heinlein are mostly about white straight boys, but it hardly changes the story if you in your mind change them, for example, sex is almost always out of the picture in juveniles
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Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning
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Yeah, helping someone out with information they seem to be missing is pretty delicate. I haven't been called stupid, but I am frequently called arrogant, pompous, condescending, and the like... I think they are trying to say "pedantic" but they don't know that word.
Art, your troll comment on that review made me laugh, but you weren't trying to convince using facts, reason, and logic. You were snarking. I don't think that kind of sarcastic mockery will change anyone's mind (unless they're already a friend).After all, what did Melki say that was a result of ignorance? What facts would change her mind? Dr. Calvin was the only main female character; she was rated for attractiveness in a way that male characters weren't. It's a matter of opinion whether one thinks that's counter-balanced by her being the protagonist who solves the case.
Your jibes about Asimov 'masking his hatred for the fair sex', 'mansplaining', 'poisoning society' - that's all just unfairly putting words in her mouth that she never said!
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I did not mock solely her, at least 49 other people promote her views, I just pulled a "Colbert" on her review, no harm intended.
Believe it or not I actually started writing a short essay intended to show Asimov's merits, using actual quotes and references. Then CTRL+A the draft, deleted everything and just went full troll mode.
If the discussion will ensue, I will provide whatever links I have, until then I will just forget all about it after venting my frustration.
Art wrote: "Believe it or not I actually started writing a short essay intended to show Asimov's merits, using actual quotes and references. Then CTRL+A the draft, deleted everything and just went full troll mode."Oh, I believe you! I quite often type out long replies and then delete them. It's very tricky when debating online to know whether the long, reasoned response is worth the effort. Nothing is more dispiriting that typing out a carefully reasoned argument and to have it ignored or misunderstood (and one so often gets the feeling in online debates that one's opponents are being deliberately obtuse!)
The venting of frustration is so often more emotionally satisfying.
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Also when I used ignorant I meant "lacking knowledge or awareness in general".
I have encountered very little trolling on this site, and that is good. Some people seem to understand things in a very different way from me, but that's fine. There is one person in a different group whose opinions are so bizarre to me that I can't tell whether he is trolling or not. But ultimately I don't care.I've not read "I, Robot." (I hear some of you gasp! I'll get to it someday.) But Asimov apparently had a bad habit of pinching women without permission. This went on for many years. When women knew he was coming to visit the publishing office, they would try to leave before he got there. When he did it to Judith Merril, she pinched him back. On his dick.
Ed wrote: "There is one person in a different group whose opinions are so bizarre to me that I can't tell whether he is trolling or not. But ultimately I don't care."I knew someone like that in a GR group! It was the strangest thing. Everything they said in reply to anyone else was a complete non-sequitur - just 90 degrees off from the rest of the conversation. It made it quite difficult to have a coherent exchange.
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Unrelated @Nick, in case you are curious why I took so much notice of the remark about the importance of Dr.Calvin, try reading "Feminine Intuition" short.
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To quote from this month Monthly reading, Timescape (1980):
When Newton and Hooke were having their famous dispute over who discovered the inverse square law, I’m sure they were livid with rage. But it took two weeks to get a letter back and forth. Newton had time to consider his reply. Kept the discussion on a high plane, y’see. These days, if a scientist writes a letter, he publishes the damn thing. The interaction time is very low and the tempers flare higher. Still …”
“You don’t think that explains the irritability of the times?” Marjorie observed shrewdly
Art wrote: "Unrelated @Nick, in case you are curious why I took so much notice of the remark about the importance of Dr.Calvin, try reading "Feminine Intuition" short."Thanks, it's going on the list!
Oleksandr wrote: "Art wrote: "Also having constant access via smart phones does not help, I suppose these days it is rather common to post the first thing that comes to mind. "To quote from this month Monthly read..."
Yeah that struck me when I read it, too.
Nick wrote: "Art, your troll comment on that review made me laugh, but you weren't trying to convince using facts, reason, and logic. You were snarking...."I have to agree. It is hard to unpack your sarcasm and find your point. Maybe you are saying something like "Asimov gave the female character some good characteristics, therefore this story can't be sexist." If so, that isn't true.
"Feminine Intuition" sounds cringe-worthy. It seems it is about creating a female robot so that it can benefit from "female intuition", as if men can't have intuition. Why not just a story about trying to build intuition into a robot. Why is that something only a female can have? That said, it could still be a good story in other ways.
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On your first point I will expand when I will find the time, while the second point can only be corrected by actually reading the story. I will try looking for a copy on the net.
Art wrote: "@Ed sorry, but both points you made are unfortunately off the mark...."I was basing my impression of "Feminine Intuition" off of the wikipedia article about it. If this quote from it is accurate, then I had a mistaken impression: "Feminine intuition? Is that what you wanted the robot for? You men. Faced with a woman reaching a correct conclusion and unable to accept the fact that she is your equal or superior in intelligence, you invent something called feminine intuition.".
So, that story seems anti-sexist. That doesn't mean Asimov couldn't have been subtly sexist unintentionally in "I, Robot", like by referring to women as "plain" or "attractive" without doing the same for men.
My only real point, I guess, is that writing a snarky comment on somebody's old review is a bit trollish. (Unless maybe you and that person and/or bear have spoken before.) I don't think you intend to be a troll and I'm not upset.
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And thanks for reminding me that I have The Complete Robot on my TBR pile. I've read maybe half of the stories separately but never the whole anthology
Art wrote: "Ed, have you read I,Robot?"No. I have not, as I said earlier in this thread.
I think I might like them and do plan to read them. I've read much more SF from 1970s and afterwards. I missed a great many of the "classics".
I read the first two "Foundation" books this year. The almost complete lack of female characters in the first book was quite noticeable. I don't think it was intentional sexism, but the lack of women is noticeable in comparison to more recent books. There was an interesting woman in book 2, and Harry Seldon was described as having dark skin, which was in itself ahead of the times.
Art wrote: "....should I shed the light and risk starting a troll war or just keep my mouth shut and let that person remain an ignoramus...."Too late now, but my advice would be one or more of these things:
0) Don't ask me! I don't understand humans!
1) Ignore it and move on.
2) Write your own review with your own thoughts.
3) Start a discussion among your friends somewhere such as here.
If you do feel a need to respond to a stranger's review, avoid humor or sarcasm.
I have felt the urge to argue against some stranger's reviews a few times. But I don't.
This most commonly happens to me when I find a review which sounds to me like "a character in this book did a bad thing so this is a horrible book and the author is horrible". Often the "bad thing" is rape, which I agree is bad, but so are war, murder and torture, which don't seem to bring out the same response. There are lots of reviews of this type for "Lord Foul's Bane", for one example.
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Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning
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I also wonder if she read any more of it . . .
There was a rape in the opening scenes of Hominids. I thought the female protagonist victim got over it far too quickly and I counted that up to the male author not having a clue as to how rape affects a victim. I mean, within two weeks this character was falling in love with a Neanderthal male who fell through a portal from an alternate universe... and rapturously describing his much larger than human penis.
Kateblue wrote: "I think, though I don't know, that maybe the rape outrage is caused because those who are outspoken like that are victims or close to a victim? ..."Yeah, that could be. Rape is more common than violent death these days, so maybe more people know or are victims. Or are afraid of it happening to them. Anyway, I don't really want to go down a rabbit hole of talking about such things.
I have a friend who can read books (or watch shows) with rape, murder, war, whatever, as long as no dogs are harmed! If one puppy gets slightly upset then it is an evil book written by an evil person.
I agree that in Friday her training as a spy would help her get over her rape and torture - she was ready for it and had accepted it as a risk in her line of work.What I found harder to believe was the moment in the rape where she thinks to herself that the rapist is quite handsome and she'd really be enjoying it if it wasn't rape, which seemed implausible to me. And then later in the book (view spoiler)
But I never know why people zoom in on the rape as the most sexist part of that book - I find the idea, which occurs in some of Heinlein's other books as well (like Moon is a Harsh Mistress), that getting pregnant at 14 is a good thing is much more disturbing.
Didn't Friday turn out to be AI? If she's not human the non-human response to being raped is an early clue that she, in fact, isn't human.
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Not exactly, (view spoiler)
Thanks, Oleksandr. I didn't actually read that book. The month my other Sci-fi book group was discussing it I was too busy at work, but I did read their discussion, which was sharply divided between those who hated Friday's "inhuman" actions and those who always enjoy Heinlein.
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Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning
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Also, Cynthia, besides the "not exactly" as Oleksandr explained above, I'm not sure, but think (view spoiler)
Kate, You are absolutely right. It happens right away and could set the tone in the reader's mind that "something is not right with this woman." But many readers' response is "something is REALLY wrong with this author."
I agree with Kateblue, that all this information is in the early chapters, including the fact that Friday (view spoiler).I do think it's fair enough to say that the book does not do a good job of depicting a woman's reaction to being raped (it may be going a bit far to say that there is something wrong with the author!) (view spoiler)
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Rape is extremely serious crime often with long lasting physical and psychological trauma.
At the same time, as with many other traumas, a sizable portion of victims just lives on, coping. For a large scale example check the very controversial real life example of rapes in Germany in 1945 by Red Army (e.g. of what happened is here - https://www.theguardian.com/books/200... )
It is estimated that over 2 million women where raped, in some places every single female from 12 to 80 were raped. However, majority lived on. The number of kids born from these rapes is estimated in hundreds of thousands.
Of course, forgiving the rapist as in the book is an overkill
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Kateblue, 2nd star to the right and straight on til morning
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This crimes were denied in the USSR and currently in Russia, they accuse historians of "denigrating glorious image of saviors from Nazism", and even made this a crime. At the same time there is a lot of evidence of such crimes, even in diaries and memories of Soviet officers. As well as there is evidence of intentional tortures of German solders, esp. SS troops, who are definitely not angels, but who were still humans. However, how one can expect pity/mercy for enemies if that bloodsucking Stalinist regime assumed that Soviet citizens left in occupation were all potential traitors and after 'liberating' them, mobilized such men and sent, often unequipped and always untrained in frontal assaults.
the more I know history the more I wonder how our ancestors survived
I sometimes find it tempting to offer well-reasoned viewpoints based on evidence, as a counterpoint to (perhaps) misguided beliefs or opinions. Here's an example. As noted above, rape and sexism are pretty clearly unacceptable today. Recently, I found myself reading an article on the upcoming Dune movie. The author of this article expressed their concern that the movie might cast gay men in an unflattering light, given that the Baron Harkonnen is gay, and homosexual behavior was generally (though wrongly, of course) accepted in the 60's as evil in and of itself.
Thankfully, society has become a little more enlightened vis a vis the LGBTQ community...but I think rape is still rape, isn't it? Harkonnen raped and killed young boys in Dune, didn't he?
Anyway, I was tempted to suggest that anyone can be a rapist / pedophile / murderer, and that person would still be incredibly bad regardless of race, gender, or orientation. But then I thought nah, I don't really want to open a can of worms. Not sure if refraining from commenting was the right thing to do, but I remain optimistic that common sense and the common good will prevail. Fingers crossed.
Victor wrote: "...Anyway, I was tempted to suggest that anyone can be .... incredibly bad regardless of race, gender, or orientation. ..."What gets more people upset is that characters can be complex and flawed: good in some ways and bad in others. But those are the most interesting characters! Because that is how real people are.
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That is pretty much the size of it. On screen it is even more apparent than in books, these days the "bad guy" is almost always a caricature of a character, just a regular evil chap, doing his evil deeds for the sake of being evil. There's no depth, no inner conflict or at times even reason.
Another flaw I see these days in how people approach this subject is how quickly majority of viewers (or readers) are putting labels on characters, limiting the character development. Therefore whenever a question like one that Viktor's described arises, various groups are afraid of the conflict in which vilification of a gay man cause harm to LGBTQ community as a whole. To me it simply appears that in their fervour, some of them have gone a full circle, from all gay man are evil to none of them are.
Art wrote: "...these days the "bad guy" is almost always a caricature of a character..."I don't see that in the media I consume. But it could be happening in the media I avoid.
...some of them have gone a full circle, from all gay man are evil to none of them are.
Yeah, pretty much.
There is a recent article on io9 by Charlie Jane Anders where she says, in effect, we don't need more "Strong Female Protagonists", we need more "Complicated Female Characters". I fully agree.
Getting back to the original issue of should you post your critical comment to someone else's review, let me share this...Today I came across a story of a book that was planned to be published this month but the author pulled it from publication because some advance reader spread the idea on the internet that it is racist. My impression is that that advance reader was wrong. But we don't get to decide for ourselves now.
That author now will be very careful about what she writes in future. (Which may be a good thing if the book was truly objectionable.) The publisher(s) will also be more careful. If it was just offensive to one person who is easily offended or misunderstood the book, then this is a bad trend leading to more boring books in future.
So when deciding whether to post on a stranger's review, consider whether you might be bullying that person into not publishing their reviews in future, or into turning off the ability of strangers to comment. (I'm not saying you were bullying. I'm saying we should all think about it and think about what kind of environment we are creating for ourselves.)
Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels
Books mentioned in this topic
The Only Harmless Great Thing (other topics)The Only Harmless Great Thing (other topics)
Hominids (other topics)
Friday (other topics)
The Complete Robot (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Mark Twain (other topics)Robert A. Heinlein (other topics)
2) Never try to convice someone using facts, logic or reason
3) Never defend an author who is accused of being an *insert an "-ist" word here*
Since I've joined Goodreads I've tried staying away from ignorant reviewers who pride themselves in spewing nonsensical crap, providing no facts and going no further beyond the usual "well that's how I see it, boo-hoo if you don't agree". Every now in a while I see a reviewer who does not appear to be malicious, just lacking all the facts. Lacking vital information that could in fact change altogether his (or her) opinion on the matter. In these cases I am facing a dilemma, should I shed the light and risk starting a troll war or just keep my mouth shut and let that person remain an ignoramus.
At the moment I am facing such a dilemma and am itching to set the record straight with one of the reviewers who appears to lack the decency to write an honest review, promoting a point of view which is libelous and indecent.
Does anybody even care about the internet trolls anymore? Goodreads are terrible in terms of reviews, you can spew whatever nonsense comes to mind and it will stay up for years to come.
Have any of you come across a review similar to the one I described?