Sci-fi books and comics that should be made into films. - by SubJeff
Vasquez on 7/12/2012 at 08:34
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Where Ender's Game fits in a personal 'Best Of' sci-fi list is entirely dependent on opinion.
duh
SubJeff on 7/12/2012 at 09:27
I've not treat the short story of Flowers. I think the novella is wonderful though, both as a work of sci-fi and as a touching story about the way people treat others.
demagogue on 7/12/2012 at 10:00
Quote Posted by Vasquez
duh
I don't think what he said was trivial in the sense that some works get anointed into significance because they're culturally important or whatever -- even if you personally didn't like it, you couldn't say it wasn't objectively "important" or "one of the best" works in some sense (like, e.g., Dune, at least the first book) -- whereas others may be well crafted, but whether they're actually important or "one of the best" doesn't go much deeper than some people personally liked it, it was "the best" for them, and others didn't so they don't have to say it's the best of anything.
I think he's saying Ender's Game is more like the latter and not the former. Great for some people personally and that's what you can say about it, but not like inherently great for all scifi literature.
Vasquez on 7/12/2012 at 11:31
There isn't such a thing as "objectively one of the best". Even if you look at the questions the story asks or answers it provides, whether they're "good" or "important" are still up to the person reading it. Some stories are found "best" or "important" by a larger audience, some not, but that still doesn't make it an objective truth. You could say a story that is liked by lots of people is more "universal" and therefore "better", but also it might just mean it's more generic.
SubJeff on 7/12/2012 at 12:37
I broadly agree Vasquez but I think you can say objective things about art.
Vasquez on 7/12/2012 at 12:57
About technical things, of course, like grammar in literature. The significance of art is subjective - even when there's 100 people saying "this is important!" and 1 saying "no it's not", the latter is not objectively wrong.
SubJeff on 7/12/2012 at 18:41
They can be. Objectively the first mention of a technology or use of a term is important, buy you'll always get some idiot not getting why.
Subjectivity is overrated. If you think my piano playing is better than Ludovico Einaudi's that may be subjective. But its also wrong.
Chimpy Chompy on 7/12/2012 at 19:31
If we define importance as having influence on a style of art, or causing the formation of a new one, that's pretty objective.
Vasquez on 7/12/2012 at 19:47
Quote Posted by Chimpy Chompy
If we define importance as having influence on a style of art, or causing the formation of a new one, that's pretty objective.
I agree, and that sort of influence is quite easily measurable too (at least in retrospect). But that still doesn't mean it's also objectively
good ;)
SubJeff on 7/12/2012 at 20:54
I think you're confusing something being objectively good and whether or not you like it.
Subjective appreciation of art is all nice and good but sometimes it just isn't valid. The lint in my pocket is not a superior piece of art no matter how much I protest that it is, that it represents the artificial recesses of the world that have been created by man, that I've chosen lint because I want to juxtapose the importance of the existence of such places with the mundane nature of everyday things.
I can argue it.
Some twit could fall for it.
But it is not good.
You could say that Raphael's Transfiguration isn't for you, you don't like it, you don't like the subject matter, you don't like the style. Fine. But you'd be an idiot to say it's a bad painting.
