Is there a theme or trope you enjoyed as a young adult but as you got older you feel weird about? For me it was teen with middle aged adult. In my 20's I enjoyed it immensely. Now 40 I find it creepy.
Is there a theme or trope you enjoyed as a young adult but as you got older you feel weird about? For me it was teen with middle aged adult. In my 20's I enjoyed it immensely. Now 40 I find it creepy.
for me it's "much sex" and "stroke" more than anything else. In my 60's now and find the sex scenes in stories mostly boring nowadays lol
SunSeeker
Again, I disagree, as no matter how old, everyone loves a little romance—especially in their fiction—and with any good romance, there will be some sex in it, as the two are intricately connected.
But you're right, "much sex", "stroke" and any variety of 'kinks' just don't play for me as well as when I was merely late-middle aged. A decent plot and decent character develop are essential, but endlessly repeating sex scenes are often the only thing keeping most marginal stories afloat.
And yes, those categories are many authors bread and butter, yet for me, they're now mostly turn offs. I have no problem with a decent gay romance, even with sex, but two random guys getting it on with no emotional attachment leaves me bored beyond measure. While Scat stories I wouldn't even glance at even if they were rated solid tens, which they never are.
For me it's Asimov's Foundation trilogy.
When I read it first (1966) in a German translation I was fascinated an reread it some years later.
When it became in the mid-eighties easier in small town Germany to get editions in English I finally bought an English edition in the early nineties.
Guess what, I had problems to finish the three books. First I blamed my meager knowledge of English and started reading my old German translations instead, but had the same problem, the books no longer fascinated my over 25 years older self. I finally finished reading the trilogy in English, but haven't reread it since.
HM.
Glad I'm not the only one who had that feeling. Asimov, typical of a lot of hard sf writers, has interesting ideas, but cardboard characters. Maybe he should have stuck with robots.
As always, just as with famous films, sometimes what was once popular simply doesn't age well, while those that hardly got any attention when first released, or scant popularity, often prove the most cherished over time. As a stories immortality is never apparent till it's lasted a while, whole sheer popularity rarely survives for long as trends and a story's full impact tend to change over time.