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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Sometimes a book series is so important that you want people to put everything aside and just read it. I'm not the only one who feels this way about N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. The first and second novels in Jemisin's trilogy, The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gate won the prestigious Hugo Award for the past two years in a row—the first time this has happened since Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead won sequential Hugos in 1986 and 87. Now the final Broken Earth book, The Stone Sky, is out. You can gobble up the whole series without interruption.
There are a lot of reasons why this series has been hailed as a masterpiece. There are unexpected twists which, in retrospect, you realize have been carefully plotted, skillfully hinted at, and well-earned. There are characters who feel like human beings, with problems that range from the mundane (raising kids in a risky world) to the extraordinary (learning to control earthquakes with your mind). The main characters are called orogenes, and they have the ability to control geophysics with their minds, quelling and starting earthquakes. Somehow the orogenes are connected with the lost technologies of a dead civilization, whose machines still orbit the planet in the form of mysterious giant crystals called obelisks. To most people on the planet, the orogenes are known by the derogatory term "rogga," and they're the victims of vicious prejudice.
But Jemisin is hardly retelling The X-men, only with orogenes instead of mutants. She's created a sociologically complex world, and the more we read, the more we understand how the orogenes fit into it. As we travel with our protagonists across the planet's single megacontinent, we discover the place is full of many cultures, often at odds with one another. The brown urbanites from the tropics think the pale, rural people of the poles are ugly idiots; the coastal people aren't too sure about the inland people; and of course everybody hates the orogenes. These tensions are part of a long and complex history that we learn more about as the series develops. There are a number of mysteries to unravel in this series, but one of them is understanding the devastating origin of prejudice against orogenes.
[...] The Broken Earth is exciting, full of incredible technology, and powered by a dark historical mystery. It's something you can read to escape, or to ponder philosophical questions in our own world. In short, it's that rare series that appeals to a love of adventure, and to the urge to reflect on the unseen forces that drive our civilizations.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @06:27PM (7 children)
*BBZZZT* wrong
you're just falling for the same problem we all experience as we get older. We see the underlying patterns and realize SO MUCH is not overly new. There are still new stories, but harder to tell the "new" sometimes when its built on familiar patterns. Even then, there still are original stories.
I see you still like to operate from an absolutist perspective, how's the whole "no censorship" thing going? Seems to be failing, I had to ADD a sentence to pass your shitty filter. Same text before, new text after, should still trigger it...
Ya done fucked up boy!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday September 18 2017, @07:55PM (6 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots [wikipedia.org]
or maybe 9: http://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/basic-plots.html [how-to-write-a-book-now.com]
Yes, there are many ways to present the plots -- as many ways as books in the world -- the question I guess is whether the plot is the story, or the way the characters are developed and run through the plot.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday September 18 2017, @08:05PM (1 child)
The story is in the telling. The plot is just the vehicle.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @08:43PM
Finally, a car analogy! Now I get it. Thank you.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @08:27PM (3 children)
This list is interesting and sounds comprehensive... until you realize it isn't. For example, they don't have:
1) Survival stories (such as "The Martian")
2) Slice of Life stories (such as "Yokohama Kaidashi Kiko")
3) Philosophical plot-twisting stories (like "I Am Legend" the book, not the movie/etc)
4) Satire/commentary (such as "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies")
5) Mysteries (including but not limited to Detective stories)
And that was just with 60 seconds of thinking.
This list reminds me of those people who say "Hollywood never makes anything new." Then, when confronted with a list of new innovative movies Hollywood has done, abruptly changes the goalposts saying that "those don't count" and "I was talking about blockbuster movies."
What have those Romans done for us, anyway?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 18 2017, @08:32PM
The aqueducts!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday September 18 2017, @08:48PM
I'm not familiar with the references in 2-4, but wouldn't a survival story just be a monster story where nature is the monster?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday September 18 2017, @10:53PM
Overcoming the Monster, Voyage and Return, Rebirth, The Quest, Comedy.
Voyage and Return, Rebirth, Comedy, Tragedy
Overcoming the Monster, Rebirth, Tragedy
Comedy
Overcoming the Monster, Tragedy, Comedy
I assure you I spent about as much time thinking the above responses.