aldarion

Didn't know that there was anyone arguing it doesn't, but... nice article.

So what are best forums for discussing anime and similar? I found AnimeVice and that's it.

He didn't. He was in fact quite clear that Lord of the Rings was inspired in large part by his experiences in the First World War: Dead Marshes especially, but also Sauron and Saruman and their forces of industrialization.

Agreed. Still, said narrow slice of fantasy is often in love with plate armor, which coexisted with gunpowder.

Rest of the series: https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/08/07/building-a-fanta... https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/08/08/building-a-fanta... https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/08/09/building-a-fanta... https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/08/10/building-a-fanta... https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/08/11/building-a-fanta... https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/08/12/building-a-fanta... https://warfantasy.wordpress.com/2023/08/13/building-a-fanta...

ASOIAF is a postmodernist cynical take on fantasy. But that does not mean it is realistic. In fact, it is less so than Lord of the Rings.

I have found that the main prerequisite for a successful adaptation is finding the people who love the original work.

Just read up on how much influence Sir Christopher Lee had on Lord of the Rings movies.

Tolkien was actually the master of fridge logic... and fridge horror. Martin describes everything in detail... with Tolkien, he only hints at things, but when you understand things he is hinting at... let's just say that Middle Earth has a lot in common with Cthulhu Mythos.

Tolkien was not a medieval historian himself, but he was the next best thing to it: he was a professional linguist. And lingistics require knowing and understanding historical context in which languages had developed. Add to this Tolkien's own experience in the First World War, and it is not very surprising that his world is very realistic and internally coherent.

GRRM was... a script writer. He manages to get some of the details correct, but once you scratch below the surface, his worldbuilding largely falls apart.

I actually read that blog a lot. Author really goes deep into detail, and all articles are excellent.

I don't think you can use space opera there. It is more about the plot than it is about the setting itself.

Basically, space opera can be science fiction, science fantasy, pure fantasy or anything else.

No, that just means it gets details wrong. But it is still science fiction - and (tries to be) rather hard sci-fi.

I don't think you can call FTL a "fantasy". It is simply a plot device necessitated by the interstellar setting.

Yep. Warhammer 40k and the Event Horizon are what made me fall in love with the genre.

"Is it really necessary to spell out that a civilization capable of building a FTL starship is also capable of building a sufficient defensive technology?"

We have had ICBMs for a long time, yet no sufficient defensive technology as of yet.

Beyond the fact that using them would lead to MAD, that is.

Laser weapons as such would be "hard" sci-fi precisely because we have working prototypes.

Basically: hard sci-fi: we have concepts and understand how to apply them, but it may not be practical (e.g. Orion drive) soft sci-fi: we have concepts but no idea how to apply them (e.g. antimatter power plants) science fantasy: anything goes, technobabble as a veeneer for lack of science

But yes, writing convincing science fiction is hard.

Interesting. I do think being in shape helps as well, though.

I'm happy about this, though I might give the original Dwarf Fortress a shot again - I tried playing it (the original) before, but I simply couldn't make sense of what was going on on the screen.

Since I am a Croatian, I found this article on Operation Flash fairly interesting. Article is in two parts, and fairly detailed - this is only the first part.

Found it through this site, and just remembered to come back here to tell you - thanks for finding this.

Nothing lasts forever, and we have been on the downturn of the civilization for the last hundred years or so. This is merely the time when we started running out of the reserves that our ancestors had secured us, and thus problems started becoming apparent.

Europe is shutting down nuclear power plants because apparently a lot of people (and many politicians) believe they will cause us to glow in the dark.

Insanity.