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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33535 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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So who is one of these young novelists who is a man that isn't being recognized?

I think there are a lot of men writing power fantasy novels targeted at men, which aren't great literature, but are still very enjoyable entertainment that deserve to be promoted more. Stuff like Dungeon Crawler Carl and Cradle, which are really popular in certain circles on reddit, but which aren't mainstream at all. I think entertainment targeted at men deserves a bit more spreading power. Schools don't need sections for "feminist protagonists targeted at young women" anymore, they need sections for "Awesome protagonists targeted at young men".

For what it’s worth, those works specifically have gotten more mainstream. My dad picked up Cradle completely independently. It’s not like he was trawling progression fantasy subs.

But! Granta is a lit-crit magazine, picking “literary” authors for readers who want “literary” fiction. Lloyd’s article is also specifically talking about “Literary Blokes” pouring their hearts and souls into thinky, sophisticated novels. They have no intention of signal-boosting anything remotely popcorn fantasy. The existence of male-dominated genres doesn’t say much about the particular authors in which Granta is interested.

Entertainment for men is already widespread, you can get into, among others things, manga, anime, video games, and more.

The question at hand is whether there are young men novelists who are not being valued by the industry. To which I say, either the market matters or it doesn't. It's fine to say that selling more books isn't a metric of "upcoming" or whatever, but evidence has to be provided if you go that route. Who are these people that we're not seeing on lists of the people who write physical books (or would have, in another age)?

I chose a wrong word then. Entertainment targeted at men is doing fine, books targeted at men are not. If you want a specific name, Will Wight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Wight He deserves some more awards from some sort of organization that gives awards to people who write entertaining books. I think there are a lot of men out there who'd devour his books, but do not hear about him.

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