Sir Digby Chicken Caesar
15.4K posts

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar
@timpac
Principled Conservative Michigan outdoorsy-dad.






“Who gets back up three days later after he gets murdered in public? Who gets back up under his own power? Buddha didn't do that shit.”








Andy Weir is one of the most successful novelists of our generation. Both The Martian and Project Hail Mary have gone on to be successful Hollywood films at a time where new stories aren’t getting a lot of play in cinema. PHM is already one of the most successful films of all time. So it fascinates me to see a bunch of amateur writers or those with a fraction of his success taking pot shots at his prose. He’s a master storyteller. You don’t reach that level of breakout success if you’re not. Stop criticizing the people who have already proven their skill and work on your own!


My contention is that the “American Tolkien” isn’t someone like GRRM or Robert Jordan. They’re essentially telling European stories, dealing with matters of rightful kings and chosen ones. The American Tolkien is Burroughs, and his LOTR is the Mars series. A Confederate veteran travels to a savage world that resembles a fantastical version of the Arizona desert. He must learn the ways of the locals, master the wilderness, and carve out a prosperous life for himself through grit, bravery, and sheer exceptionalism. It doesn’t get more American than that.

Best cheese

In the last years of his life, Roger Ebert famously claimed that games were not art (he was talking about computer games, but it applies elsewhere). He gave these three reasons to back up his opinion: 1) He himself didn't play games 2) You can win a game 3) Art must have a single visionary. This seemed odd as an objection, because films are famously collective projects. Penny Arcade skewered Ebert with the single comment: "If a hundred artists make art for two years, how is the end product NOT ART?" 1/3



















