Damien G. Walter - Latest Comments

Re: The New Aesthetic and I

Guest — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:33:35 -0000

More visual garbage based on another bad idea resulting in still, no esthetic at all -- only more verbal bullshit that provides absolutely nothing to nurture, to edify or to inspire its viewers - All based on Socialist Commie crap with aims of undermining the USA from within and attacking and neutralizing the impact of its art, music, literature, film, thought and the impact of its artists, performers, creatives and thinkers in the name of worthless failed flawed communism. The New Esthetic was and is no different from the New Esthetic and by the way, Aesthetic is Queens English and the United States adopted New English so the proper spelling is Esthetic. We are not global and we are not all the same. But we are all bored to stillness by the loss and lack of what was a former American Tradition -- I aim to to re-establish an Art tradtion because only from that point can one then evolve toward something "new." Wake up we have all been duped and sold bills of goods.

Re: A Game of Egos

damiengwalter — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:38:31 -0000

Just adding a test comment.

Re: Why crap books sell millions

Marcus Speh — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:10:31 -0000

Recently, Tim Parks has written about this issue in NYRB. I don't agree with his conclusions at all (rather too trivial) & couldn't help responding at length (not in simple language, alas) but it's still worth following the debate I think, which is about simplicity of form, granted, but behind it, there lies something else...

Re: Why Science Fiction is the literature of change

Marcus Speh — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:05:35 -0000

Just to let you know that I really enjoyed your post in the Guardian. I'd felt and anticipated what you've brought out in the open more than thought about it, but you're absolutely right and now I can't wait to check out your "weird fiction". Cheers from Berlin.

Re: A Game of Egos

S Wylie — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:09:11 -0000

This piece is very relevant to today's news:

"David Cameron says there was "no grand deal" with the Murdochs in return
for their newspapers supporting the Conservatives before the 2010
election." - Nick Robinson, bbc.co.uk
It's very revealing that the PM can find grandeur in the concept of such an understanding. It suggests a mediaeval type of consciousness. Perhaps he would be better employed as a script-write for 'Game of Thrones'.

The stem article also says:
'He said he had "wanted the support" of as many media chiefs as possible
when he was opposition leader, so he could "take the country in a
different direction".'

What about the support of the public? Apparently that is delivered by the media chiefs, great potentates of the realm that they are. As their media empires diminish under the onslaught of the Internet, we are invited to mourn with them the decline of investigative journalism. I'll give it a miss. If the Murdochs continue to sink into the mire, we may yet join the 20th century before the 21st is over.

Re: A Vast Bit of Hod

damiengwalter — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:09:15 -0000

Thank you!

Re: A Vast Bit of Hod

Gerardo Delgadillo — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:23:17 -0000

This story is bloody good (loved the beginning). ;)

Re: Secondary World Problems

Cécile Cristofari — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 19:27:12 -0000

I do agree that worldbuilding can be a tricky thing when done in a self-conscious way by the writer, before they even tried to write anything. Especially if they have little knowledge of historiography, politics, sociology, and what generally makes the primary world more complex than a nifty coloured map with the Houses of the Four Winds at the centre and the Dragonlords at the edges, or whatever else may sound fantasy-ish. I tend to think that good worldbuilding is a natural side effect of good story-telling: when a writer knows what repercussions an alien element will have on an imagined society, and how little things affect the big picture, then the world can create itself with no need for awkward infodumping.

Well, seems that now I really have to translate my dissertation quickly so I can send it to you ;) (all right, five hundred pages on the mechanics of secondary worlds might be a bit of a poisonned gift, as we say in France, but hey...)

PS: hope you've been well since Eastercon! ;)

Re: Secondary World Problems

Simon M Garrett — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:50:34 -0000

While I agree that world-building is, more often than not, a vain, grandiose popped pavlova of an effort, I don't agree that it is a flawed idea in principle -- it's the motivation that matters.

Let's assume a SF&F writer invokes a fantasy world, but does so in order to disconnect the reader from the world in which they live, to give both writer and reader a more neutral space in which to introduce ideas, less stained by our daily experiences. In so doing, we think about the meaning and implications of events in this constructed world, in this disconnected space, and then we see the connection with our real world. We learn something and, of course, a good writer makes the learning-story enjoyable.

If I may use JK Rowling as a positive, if pedestrian, example here (how dare I!) her world lets children and adult alike see the evil of judging someone because of what they can or cannot do. They reader feels the injustice, the bitterness and twisting blackness of being consumed by hate for mudbloods. Then the reader returns to the real world and sees more clearly the same dark path taken by racists and people who mock others for the physical or mental abilities.

So, I'd say SF&F doesn't work when it's *only* talking about "Pretend-world" (e.g. DnD wanklit), but it does work when it uses other, constructed worlds as a means to inform our understanding of this world in which we live, which is (I think) the entire reason we tell stories to each other.

Re: Secondary World Problems

damiengwalter — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 07:59:28 -0000

And Mike has posted some further thoughts on all this today…
http://ambientehotel.wordpr...

Re: Secondary World Problems

E. M. Edwards — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 06:03:12 -0000

@mjohnharrison lays out some clear-eyed analysis of fantasy or secondary world building. Bringing in laterally among it, an oft overlooked point:

Literary fiction employs secondary world creation, but often does a more fantastical job of it. Think of the 'worlds' of authors such as Kafka, Faulkner, Durrell, Calvino, Borges, Eco, or Pynchon - landscapes which have parallels but not slavish verisimilitude with the real world of which they are shadows.

Re: Secondary World Problems

E. M. Edwards — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 13:19:40 -0000

They're a funny old thing, those secondary worlds. There are ones that set up camp in a completely 'different' world supposedly, than our own. And then there are those which try to cover themselves in a thin veneer of the fantastic slapped loosely (and often awkwardly) over our own.

In the latter case, the 'wizarding world of Harry Potter' comes to mind. A place were we can vicariously be a part of a classist society of witches and muggles, wave our silly wands and save the day, or at least the interests of the right sort of wizard.

The former is even more sweaty palmed in its creation, often little more than fantasy backdrops for fandom to play out their table top and online roleplaying fetishes.

My very worst writing impulses have come from the second group cited above. Not that story is meaningful either, but even its tyranny isn't more than a heap of beans compared to the loathsome habit of 'world building.' If you start writing by building your world before you bother with the rest of your book, you've not put the cart before the horse you've shoved both wheels sideways up its arse and yelled Tally ho!

Re: The New Aesthetic and I

S Wylie — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 15:03:37 -0000

She looks great in the sweater....I still don't get the New Aesthetic after reading and following the links and all. Still, the Old Aesthetic also pretty much passed me by. At least I have learned that tumblr isn't only for old men to publish their lifetime collection of porno pics.

Re: The New Aesthetic and I

Gav — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 05:11:14 -0000

Oh no I get it.

Rejection and criticism of it is also perfectly valid.

I got the impression you were of like mind. Oh well.

Re: The New Aesthetic and I

damiengwalter — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 05:00:18 -0000

oh no I got that. Disdain is a perfectly valid response to the New Aesthetic. But it's an I response. I'm not part of this. I don't get this. etc etc.

Re: The New Aesthetic and I

Gav — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 04:52:25 -0000

Sorry for not being clear Damien. I was posting with sever disdain. Read my comment again but imagine the person writing it with gritted teeth.

Re: The New Aesthetic and I

damiengwalter — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 04:40:20 -0000

Ha ha! Yes. I think it is the aesthetic of your Hip Creative Overlords. That is somewhat true. But then, they really are your Hip Creative Overlords. They do all the creative mind-control that keeps they corporate world turning by selling useless products to the masses. I don't know who you are or what you're in to. But the chances are you're in to it because one of these people told you to be. I wish the world wasn't that way, but it does seem to be.

Re: The New Aesthetic and I

Gav — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 04:35:52 -0000

I see. So The New Aesthetic is Hipster Crap?

No, wait. The New Aesthetic is something recorded in 1's and 0's?

Oh hang on. You mean that the New Aesthetic is the appeal of not earning credit for your work?

Ah. It's all of the above. We should be bowing down to the Hip Creative Overlords, our backs bowed over over an Apple Mac keyboard, striving for someone to give us thumbs up Like on a social media site? How depressing. I'm staring at the event horizon of the creative abyss and it's already staring back.

Re: 5 indispensable guides for fiction writers

S Wylie — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 15:39:44 -0000

well, I've just ordered both, since I'm supposed to have read them even before reading this article.....

Re: Understanding Christopher Priest

Luke — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 02:58:59 -0000

Harrison's better stuff certainly transcends being merely "clever", though. And his prose is so damn good it usually makes up for it when it isn't.

Re: Stop. You are not a machine.

Lavimem — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 08:42:12 -0000

Why ask the question and not
provide an attempted answer. Many question are ask. it is time for
answer. To this question in particular I come to understand that ther is
mass hypnosys provided by mass médis social média publicity at large
and materialistique view. To escape this hypnosis an individual must
take him/herself apart experience with silence in order to let
selfconscience to arise.

Re: Stop. You are not a machine.

Garret Dean Johnson — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 13:47:00 -0000

Amen, brother.

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Re: Understanding Christopher Priest

jophan — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 04:27:15 -0000

Priest is just being Priest. Saying what's on his mind without feeling compelled to observe customary manners or showing any consideration. I very much doubt he is driven by jealousy or disappointment at not being on the list himself. He is widely regarded as a brilliant author and he knows it, so there's hardly any insecurity there.

It's not good style to call people incompetent; some opinions you may well hold to yourself, but there's no reason to believe that he doesn't think exactly what he wrote or that he's being motivated by something else than what he declared himself. And he's far from the only one to have frowned upon his year's list.

Re: Understanding Christopher Priest

Bryan Thomas Schmidt — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 02:17:26 -0000

I thought Priest's post was unprofessional in unnecessarily attacking people in a hurtful way. It's one thing to say "there are more deserving works" and name them. It's quite another to belittle others and their work. It's really inappropriate, no matter how praised your work is. It's a sign of forgetting what it's like to be in their shoes. And it's the opposite of the kind of support we should be showing each other in this industry. Good post, Damien.

Re: Understanding Christopher Priest

Peter — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:32:49 -0000

Thanks Al Reynolds for pointing out Damien's error in the Ballard/Priest timing (even if his response implies he didn't mean what he wrote).

I agree with others who note that Damien seems to have gone astray in this article.

For me, Priest's post was an enjoyable read, well written and reasoned. It made me want to look at some of the books he praised, as well as those he derided.

Trying to get to the same level of vituperation with the "hissy fit" epithet or suggesting "he's just jealous" seems to be an act of transference.

I respect Christopher Priest. I've heard of him. Up until today I'd never heard of Walter, Damien G.