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MileyCyrus comments on October 2012 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: RobertLumley 01 October 2012 03:16PM

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Comment author: MileyCyrus 03 October 2012 11:54:25AM 1 point [-]

Could someone recommend a fun romance novel? Preferably heterosexual with some dominance/submission.

Comment author: arundelo 04 October 2012 07:56:02AM 2 points [-]

Disclaimer: I have read very little romance. Also I'm not particularly into the dominance/submission dynamic.

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is the O.G. of romance novels. It's funny and engaging and has well-drawn characters. No dominance stuff though.

Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind is a good read (with obvious cultural baggage) that has a bit of this dynamic between Rhett and Scarlett.

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead is not a romance per se, but the romantic subplot is full of power games.

Rand is a love-or-hate author. If you read the first chapter and you don't like it you probably won't like the rest. If you decide not to read the whole book, though, then before putting it down you might as well skip ahead to the (in)famous scene in Chapter II of Part 2. Trigger warning for sex that a fly on the wall would find indistinguishable from rape.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 04 October 2012 10:29:16AM 1 point [-]

Hmm, maybe I'll read P&P since it comes free on the Kindle.

Comment author: Alicorn 04 October 2012 03:44:48AM *  1 point [-]

Sharon Shinn writes speculative fiction, and most of it's pretty heavy on the romance, all heterosexual so far as I can remember. I don't know if it'll push your BDSM buttons - there's nothing explicitly like that I can think of, although she does tend to throw characters into weird not-necessarily-sexual power dynamics, does that count? Start with Archangel.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 04 October 2012 06:37:15AM 0 points [-]

Thanks! I'll check it out.

Comment author: palladias 03 October 2012 08:36:29PM 1 point [-]

Kushiel's Dart (but not the sequels). The worldbuilding is delightful.

Comment author: Yvain 03 October 2012 11:55:52PM 3 points [-]

How strange! I had the exact opposite experience. By mistake I read Scion first. I then went in order, got to the end, and looped around to Dart. I thought Scion stood on its own extremely well and have been recommending friends start with it; I was almost unable to finish Dart and dismissed it as "Guess she hadn't learned how to write yet".

(My friend who started with Scion on my advice also ended up enjoying them all except Dart, and I suggested to Alicorn that she not start with Dart, she refused my suggestion, and then she disliked Dart and didn't read the others which was my prediction all along.)

Kushiel's Avatar continues to be my favorite of all of them, and the new Naamah series isn't bad either.

Comment author: Alicorn 04 October 2012 12:49:00AM 0 points [-]

I started the next one, but haven't finished it yet, may yet plod through to get to the later ones if I am bored on an airplane in the future.

Comment author: Alicorn 03 October 2012 11:49:38PM 2 points [-]

I have not enjoyed these books at all. Kushiel's Dart's virtues, while not nonexistent, probably don't include something best described as "fun" - it is not light or humorous or particularly merry.

Comment author: palladias 04 October 2012 01:50:42AM 1 point [-]

I liked all the descriptions of how the different parts of society work logistically.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 04 October 2012 03:39:36AM 0 points [-]

Good catch! I'm just trying to ease into the romance literature as I've never read one before. But I thought I might enjoy one because of how often I fantasize about being married.

Comment author: palladias 04 October 2012 01:50:39PM 2 points [-]

If you're interested in romance->marriage, you may actually like Amish romance novels.

Comment author: MileyCyrus 04 October 2012 02:27:30PM 1 point [-]

Will check it out, thank you!

Comment author: arundelo 04 October 2012 07:56:59AM 0 points [-]

Of course not many romance novels are about married characters! :-)

Comment author: MileyCyrus 04 October 2012 10:07:02AM 1 point [-]

Really?? Shows how little I know :(