2 ms·

You cut out the rest of the sentence which I think is important "but I shall never disparage anything I once loved, because the love was real." I actually had t

You cut out the rest of the sentence which I think is important "but I shall never disparage anything I once loved, because the love was real." I actually had trouble reading the His Dark Materials trilogy because I was so unfamiliar with some of the details of Roman Catholicism until some people helped me with it but it's no different to me than almost any other fantasy/science fiction where the religious stuff comes to the fore ala A Canticle for Leibowitz or the Dune series. I had more issues where there are several points in the His Dark Material trilogy where in lieu of showing or plot actions illustrating something there are long exposition dumps that are disguised as overheard conversation which felt like a crutch.

indigochill 4y ago
> other fantasy/science fiction where the religious stuff comes to the fore ala A Canticle for Leibowitz or the Dune series My feeling is HDM is to Dune what Eragon is to Lord of the Rings. The former in these comparisons don't apply much imagination to their real-world influences. The latter in these comparisons are still clearly inspired by real-world themes and tropes, but they're more imaginative in how they combine and diverge from their inspirations, probably owing to a richer depth of experiences and influences that the respective authors had been exposed to.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > My feeling is HDM is to Dune what Eragon is to Lord of the Rings. This is an interesting comparison. I have not read Eragon, but I have read reviews that say it's a transparent reskinning of Star Wars. Assuming that's true, the form of an analogy between Eragon and Lord of the Rings would be Eragon : Lord of the Rings :: Star Wars : The Sword of Shannara But that's one of those somewhat-malformed analogies where the relationships cross the :: instead of mirroring each other to either side of it. Like "Shakespeare : Tolstoy :: Romeo and Juliet : War and Peace"; there isn't actually a relationship between Shakespeare and Tolstoy, but if you have three of the elements, you can force the fourth.

indigochill 4y ago

> other fantasy/science fiction where the religious stuff comes to the fore ala A Canticle for Leibowitz or the Dune series My feeling is HDM is to Dune what Eragon is to Lord of the Rings. The former in these comparisons don't apply much imagination to their real-world influences. The latter in these comparisons are still clearly inspired by real-world themes and tropes, but they're more imaginative in how they combine and diverge from their inspirations, probably owing to a richer depth of experiences and influences that the respective authors had been exposed to.

thaumasiotes 4y ago
> My feeling is HDM is to Dune what Eragon is to Lord of the Rings. This is an interesting comparison. I have not read Eragon, but I have read reviews that say it's a transparent reskinning of Star Wars. Assuming that's true, the form of an analogy between Eragon and Lord of the Rings would be Eragon : Lord of the Rings :: Star Wars : The Sword of Shannara But that's one of those somewhat-malformed analogies where the relationships cross the :: instead of mirroring each other to either side of it. Like "Shakespeare : Tolstoy :: Romeo and Juliet : War and Peace"; there isn't actually a relationship between Shakespeare and Tolstoy, but if you have three of the elements, you can force the fourth.