Have you read "The Water Knife"? This is basically the background to the story (though they're in a cold war, and the US nominally still exists, but is allowing states to close their borders to each other).
Please dont read it. The author is a huge misogynist and sadist and a total raging lib. The premise is basically the whole book, there are a few points of intrigue that are passingly interesting and the rest is just really fetishistic and male gazey portrayals of extreme torture and sexual violence/exploitation including of minors. I am mad at myself for reading three quarters of that book expecting it to get better and it never does and it is my mission in life to make sure no one ever reads it.
Is he? I always got a bad vibe from his stories. But they are horror stories you aren't supposed to like them. My radar isn't the strongest, but I never read it like that. I got the vibe he was blackpilled and taking it out on the reader. Did I miss some discourse? Or did his later works get worse?
just extrapolating from how he presents himself in 'The Water Knife'. The most charitable interpretation I can give is that he has something like Quentin Tarantino on some level having anti-racist feelings but still desperately wanting to say the n-word: he's torn between sexualizing women and being horrified at exploitation which he synthesizes in a really unfortunate way. Personally, I don't think that charitable interpretation is warranted given the scene that made me finally realize how depraved that book is. (CW: extreme violence)
spoiler
The third main character who is 12 (who has virtually no plot impact and really just exists for scenes like this!) has her hand fed to a hyena after watching her protector be tortured to death. Why? Because she did not pay for the privilege of being talked into sex work by her friend who is also brutally murdered in front of her.
No matter what high-minded purpose he's trying to reach with scenes like these, the obvious glee with which their written make me believe he's just an imaginative creep. Hardboiled Marquis de Sade.
Maybe. In an earlier book windup girl the protagonist character is a women who was doing survival sex work and she was written in a compeletly sympathetic light and to my understanding there was no actual sex scenes. It was about her inner life as it related to her making the best of a bad situation, and then doing a hero's journey. Although, my radar might just be miscalibrated.
Hmm... I wonder if writing dystopian novels about the impendong climate collapse, and then living in the impending climate collapse has been bad for his mental health. I know I have seen sensationalist accounts of catels doing stuff like that.
I think your take makes sense though. I was honestly not going to read it anyway just because I don't need that level of horror in my life. Even though I prior had a positive look on him as a writer. So I am never going to have any more context to examine it.
if you're looking for a similar, more hopeful, if somewhat less here's the science I can't recommend 'Parable of the Sower' enough. Also good contrast in terms of presenting sex work and extreme exploitation as a plot and character element in away that is actually insightful and critical—not just fetishistic.
That is an excellent reccomendation. Howerver, I remain a little baby. I read two of butler's books and it made me too sad. I was trying to expand my horizions or whatever but instead I just ended up with a small depressive episode.
I don't think I am emotioanlly strong enough to handle the emotional weight of empathizing with a margalized story like that. Especially now a days.
I get that makes me kinda a shitty comrade. It's in the self crit pile. But that pile is under trying to make rent or whatver right now. I don't have the strength for it.
As for the book - it's a noir set in a dystopia. It's not pretty in the slightest, and you should absolutely take those criticisms as valid content warnings. That said - it's a noir. It's about the depths to which human beings can sink. I don't think it's exploitative in that sense; all the violence and sexual abuse is portrayed as repulsive and sordid. It's a hyperrealistic painting of Hell.
the states that border the Colorado River go to war over water rights
Have you read "The Water Knife"? This is basically the background to the story (though they're in a cold war, and the US nominally still exists, but is allowing states to close their borders to each other).
I remember reading about that book but have no memory of the details and I bet it stuck in my subconscious
Please dont read it. The author is a huge misogynist and sadist and a total raging lib. The premise is basically the whole book, there are a few points of intrigue that are passingly interesting and the rest is just really fetishistic and male gazey portrayals of extreme torture and sexual violence/exploitation including of minors. I am mad at myself for reading three quarters of that book expecting it to get better and it never does and it is my mission in life to make sure no one ever reads it.
:yikes: thank you
Is he? I always got a bad vibe from his stories. But they are horror stories you aren't supposed to like them. My radar isn't the strongest, but I never read it like that. I got the vibe he was blackpilled and taking it out on the reader. Did I miss some discourse? Or did his later works get worse?
just extrapolating from how he presents himself in 'The Water Knife'. The most charitable interpretation I can give is that he has something like Quentin Tarantino on some level having anti-racist feelings but still desperately wanting to say the n-word: he's torn between sexualizing women and being horrified at exploitation which he synthesizes in a really unfortunate way. Personally, I don't think that charitable interpretation is warranted given the scene that made me finally realize how depraved that book is. (CW: extreme violence)
spoiler
The third main character who is 12 (who has virtually no plot impact and really just exists for scenes like this!) has her hand fed to a hyena after watching her protector be tortured to death. Why? Because she did not pay for the privilege of being talked into sex work by her friend who is also brutally murdered in front of her.
No matter what high-minded purpose he's trying to reach with scenes like these, the obvious glee with which their written make me believe he's just an imaginative creep. Hardboiled Marquis de Sade.
Maybe. In an earlier book windup girl the protagonist character is a women who was doing survival sex work and she was written in a compeletly sympathetic light and to my understanding there was no actual sex scenes. It was about her inner life as it related to her making the best of a bad situation, and then doing a hero's journey. Although, my radar might just be miscalibrated.
Hmm... I wonder if writing dystopian novels about the impendong climate collapse, and then living in the impending climate collapse has been bad for his mental health. I know I have seen sensationalist accounts of catels doing stuff like that.
I think your take makes sense though. I was honestly not going to read it anyway just because I don't need that level of horror in my life. Even though I prior had a positive look on him as a writer. So I am never going to have any more context to examine it.
if you're looking for a similar, more hopeful, if somewhat less here's the science I can't recommend 'Parable of the Sower' enough. Also good contrast in terms of presenting sex work and extreme exploitation as a plot and character element in away that is actually insightful and critical—not just fetishistic.
That is an excellent reccomendation. Howerver, I remain a little baby. I read two of butler's books and it made me too sad. I was trying to expand my horizions or whatever but instead I just ended up with a small depressive episode.
I don't think I am emotioanlly strong enough to handle the emotional weight of empathizing with a margalized story like that. Especially now a days.
I get that makes me kinda a shitty comrade. It's in the self crit pile. But that pile is under trying to make rent or whatver right now. I don't have the strength for it.
It's really good! Classic noir in a realistic near future apocalyptic Phoenix.
I'm getting mixed messages, what would you say to bubbalu's criticisms?
I don't know anything about the author.
As for the book - it's a noir set in a dystopia. It's not pretty in the slightest, and you should absolutely take those criticisms as valid content warnings. That said - it's a noir. It's about the depths to which human beings can sink. I don't think it's exploitative in that sense; all the violence and sexual abuse is portrayed as repulsive and sordid. It's a hyperrealistic painting of Hell.