[Tulpa]

You know I used to reach for that M John Harrison quote all the time (Used to sounds like I did this in my youth, I'm mostly thinking of myself 1-2 years ago, though), but I've started to avoid doing so. It's just awkward to take a quote out of its original context and use it to decry something completely different.

The way in which M. John Harrison uses 'worldbuilding' is discrete and distinct from the general use of the term. It has more to do with a response/rebellion against the late capitalist infatuation with escapism in all its forms. Worldbuilding is impossible because there is only the world we live in, and to create another one is a fantasy scenario outside of a Borges short story, not something that can be achieved. To try to escape from this world by building a new world is not only impossible but an act of cowardice, a refusal to deal with the problems of modern life. (spoilers: this is what every single one of his books is about yes even the lit fic he wrote about mountain climbing)

Whatever I'm pretty sure I'm like 1 of 3 people here that have actually read his books so this is me saying "that quote has fuck all to do with chrono cross, which is a game I would describe as a triumph of writing over worldbuilding in the harrisonian sense"

radical dreamers sucks because it doesn't have any of what made chrono cross so good (the art, the bizarre characters, the atmosphere, ok I guess there's some overlap between the two games as far as music goes so there's one thing)

Edit: just to specify how I know for certain that Harrison is talking about something completely different from this thread, he has said in comments that he was not talking about people making video games or playing DnD, but about the escapist dimension that can be present in both those activities.
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[Tulpa]

Regarding Final Fantasy X, this is probably a sentiment that's been expressed before, but I found myself having difficulty caring about all of the plot stuff about anime church, and the potential death and doom and gloom given that death means nothing to the people of the setting, that they can literally visit the afterlife whenever they want and see their loved ones, etc. It's a perfect example of the details of the story undermining the actual plot.
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[Tulpa]

[Tulpa]

Don't know who you've been reading, most good/respectable fantasy critics pay more attention to works of original fantasy than they do to works of derivative war of the roses with the names changed bullshit.

Strange Horizons review section bears this out: Afrofuturism anthology, Book of the Dead (which to quote: "Many of the best stories in the collection take as their impetus the complex, uncomfortable historical relationship between the west and Egypt."), Lavie Tidhar books, Sofia Samatar books, etc.

granted, the Hugos tend to favor the bland over the interesting, the retreads of western culture over the new, but the Hugo awards are widely considered to be a joke by everyone except the winners.
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