/lit/ - Literature

first for webnovels are novels too

>>10489987
Best served cold got reprint in Russia. It has 7 illustrations. Fuck yeah.

>>10489989
Heroes will be next in february.

>>10489971
War of the Worlds. Get Mars on our arse.

>>10489971
The Old Man and the Martian Sea was alright. And I liked sideplot about the development of Mars in the Poseidons Children trilogy by the same author.

>>10489971
Martian Time-slip is pretty good.

Why didn't you read A Practical Guide to Evil yet?

https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/

>>10490254
The intro/synopsis is like a burning hot iron rod jabbing into my eyes screaming "THIS IS BAD STORY! DO NOT READ!"?

>>10490274
I can see that happening, cause overall the whole "meta awareness" schtick is played out as seven fucks, but in this case the author works well with it. Try like 5 chapters maybe you'll like it.

>>10490277
I got halfway into the prologue before I couldn't stand it anymore. I probably would have read it a few months ago, but I've recently developed a sense of taste after reading through an 1100 chapter xiaxia and realizing that I just spent a whole week reading a giant pile of shit for no reason. My ability to take the bad with the good seems to be gone. Honestly, I've got a mountain of way better things that I can't be bothered to read piled infront of me, no need to bother with anything even mildly distasteful.

What do you do when you realize you'd rather just stare at a wall for 6 hours than even think about reading another book?

>>10490296
>What do you do when you realize you'd rather just stare at a wall for 6 hours than even think about reading another book?

Watch shitty let's plays on Youtube.

>>10489971
>What are your favorite books about the Red Planet?
Red rising

I once read a communist novella called The Red Star that might be of interest to someone. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The communist stuff later on got boring and dragged for a while but the story is excellent, sort of like A Princess of Mars (although it predates it) set during pre-Soviet Russia instead of America.

>>10489387
>Giving a story an african setting based on african myth doesn't make it original, but it gives readers an experience they haven't seen before.
In theory, but what actually happens is there's the same tired fantasy story about an edgy hero who fights the Dark Lord but everyone has blaxploitation-tier names.

What is everyone's opinion on The Man Who Folded Himself?

I'm thinking about getting into it next..

>>10490337
I remember not finishing it in middle school because I found it too degenerate

give me something SHORT (150 pages or less)

>>10490367
your dick

>>10490369

haha

What a shitty book. Terrible dialog, uni-dimensional characters (except maybe the wolf-girl and her mother), bad plot. It's hard to find a single good thing about it.
The races are bland, there is no novelty to it, one is the stuck-up elves who are gods, but not-really, except one of their subspecies are yes-really because they are magicians! And not just magicians, they are literally gods that raise mountains and flood market-places while trying to build statues, but wait, they can't make food or... water? Uh-um makes sense. The others are mostly absent except for the humans, who are stone-age villagers that will fight their mighty overlord for their injustices. I wonder how that will turn out, some humans equipped with stone axes and leather armor, against the super sayajins ultra-fast elves and their superb metalsmithing. Also their all-powerful gods that can make mountais higher than anything else appear beneath their (and their enemies) feet. Boy, I sure love to read some stories about genocides, can't wait for the next book! But wait, the humans found some magic armor conveniently left by the dwarves, with magic runes that block magic!, just outside their village, man, this incompetent humans who can't metalwork while every other race could for millennia sure sound lucky, huh!
Oh, there's also the intra-village politics, fun as hell! I hate reading about reasonable people in positions of power, better they be some dumb stubborn paranoids who think everyone is aiming for their jobs instead, right? After all, who doesn't want the privilege of having to go on hunts against killer-bears, and facing their overlord elves when they come knocking, and knocking down, their gates, right?

>>10490367
do androids dream of electric sheep
don't remember the exact length may, be a little more than 150 pages but it was still a short book

>>10489971
Is all of modern fantasy shit? Why can't any author hurry the fuck up and get to the point instead of wasting time on 73910 characters?

>>10490390
Is it better than the movie? Cuz I hated that.

>>10490399
Kys you soulless piece of scum

>>10490389
Sounds to me like you are butthurt over elves.

>>10490399
Blade Runner is one of the all time master pieces of cinema while Androids is just a good sci fi novel
the book and the movie are pretty different though and disliking one does not necessarily mean you dislike the other though disliking either makes you a tasteless pleb

>>10490403
Fuck off Elrond you righteous asshole. Should've pushed Isildur in the fire when you had the chance.

>>10490412
Maybe you should just stop reading books with elves in them if you are going to keep getting this upset.

>>10490403
I would actually enjoy it more if it were about the elves having their genocide against the lowly human scum. After all, a single elf lives 3ky, there have been at least 3 elven generations (9ky), and the elves have fought wars in that period, that's almost 10ky of elven supremacy, and during all that time they knew of metallurgy. Meanwhile, humans can't do fucking copper! Who the fuck wrote this shit?? 10ky without being able to produce copper while there are metalwork industries in other parts of the world? And these guys want to fight? Just kill them all already, they've proven themselves inferior. But somehow that won't happen, and that gets me mad.

If you want a challenging story, don't write about america willing to use their atomic arsenal against tribesmen. That's boring.

>>10490416
I'm not even him, just LARPing as an antielf xenophobe. I think he hates the book for reasons other than elfdom tho.

>>10490416
They aren't technically elves. They are Fhrey, nimble tall blonde beings with leaf-shaped ears who are also very quick and can do magic if they shave their heads. Once you get that descriptions you have already downloaded the book and you don't know, maybe they won't be so bad, right?

>>10490396
Out of somewhat contemporary fantasy I've read lately I've liked the first book of Locke Lamora, the Farseer Trilogy and Jonathan Strange. I don't know about you but I don't believe all modern fantasy is shit.

>>10489458
>If something got banned they'd slap a big "NOT FOR SALE IN NEW YORK STATE" label on the next printing and sell another million copies.
Good times. When will this happen again?

>>10490481
Strange and Norrell is such an offbeat thing I completely blanked on it. Yes, it is very good but all the series shilled here sound absolutely awful and I have no energy to read a doorstopper only to come out disappointed. Tell me about Farseer and Lamora tho.

>>10490490
It happened when Al Gore's wife tried to fuck with The Dead Kennedys

>>10487077
>>10489424
I thought it was self-published. Are publishers really willing to touch that crap?

What can you tell me about Gene Wolfe? Should I read Botns or is it a meme? I started reading it, but it was so abstract I gave it a time and forgot to keep going, now I'd have to read it all over again. I don't want to bother reading another "we are all doomed, this is how we suffer" story, is it like that?

>>10490551
The book is about a man who claims to be somewhat obsessed with saving the world from the dying sun. He also says at the beginning that, by the end, he will be ruler. But aside from all that it is, less explicitly but moreso, a story about a man desperate for self-discovery. In that, he is successful. The next set of books in the series, Urth of the New Sun, is more about his quest to fix the whole sun problem. It is generally less recommended because it turns out that characters are usually more interesting than that sort of thing.

>>10490301
Isn't it weird that doing something like this is probably more socially acceptable than spending 6 hours reading a book?

>>10490591
reading? LMAO what are you a fag?

>>10490551
As someone who's read the first two books and hasn't touched the last two for six months, it's not for everyone. In my view, it's just boring. It's VERY GOOD at establishing a particular mood and atmosphere, that of dreams and confusion. If you want that dreamlike, intentionally confusing and nonsensical but somehow just close enough to understandable that it feels like it makes sense feeling, then it's perfect. If you're like me and don't really give a fuck about it, it's a mildly interesting setting written competently. But, a lot like a dream, you'll read it for hours, then find that you don't actually remember anything that happened, and even if you do none of it made sense or had any purpose.
Maybe it gets better if you read the whole thing, but even if it's some sort of amazing revelation at the end and you suddenly think its a masterpiece, you still spent hours and hours forcing yourself to read something you didn't like. Like imagine if eating a hundred pounds of steaming dogshit gave you superpowers. How many people would actually eat it?

Are there any reviewers in the fantasy genre worth trusting? Most of the ones I see are blindly positive about everything they read, even if it's got Sanderson-tier dialogue. I want a reviewer who cares more about plot and characters and prose than a "cool" "magic system" and "interesting" and "creative" "worldbuilding."

>>10490496
>Tell me about Farseer and Lamora tho
They're no masterpieces. For me their main virtues are being decently written, not to long and more contained, if you get my meaning. They're about the adventures of a couple of characters, not about the fate of the world.

Farseer kinda feels like what Kingkiller is trying to be. A coming of age story with an orphan, an array of good/bad mentors, training interlaced with adventures in the country and some hints at romance. However it's way shorter, not pretentious and does not try to be something it's not which makes it work for me.

Locke Lamora is a thieving adventure in a big city with some magic and mysteries. It's mainly known for extensive swearing, starts out horrible but is surprisingly exciting and likeable. From what I've heard the sequels are shit but that does not matter as the book work fine as a standalone.

>>10490396
> The Lies of Locke Lamora
> Baru Cormorant
> The Blade Itself
> The Darkness That Comes Before (do not read past that!)
> Narrenturm

>>10490316
Thanks for the rec, I'm up for some soviet fiction.

>>10490604
This is Gene turf, you take those faggotous beliefs and shove them up your urethra cocksuck.

>>10490390
the premise of blade runner that we'd be fine with slavery of biological beings nearly identical to us that match us in intelligence just because we created them is quite absurd to me.

>>10490629
Wolfe down my cock you fagger than fag motherfucker!

Since were all shitting on modern fantasy this might be a bad place to ask but since its less stuck up then outer lit what are good suggestions for a book club for scifi and fantasy. Each book should take a normal person only a month to read.

>>10490633
in the novel they are less human and more synthetic than in the movie though

>>10490645
WE

>>10490604
I was in exactly your position, actually. Book 3 starts off really, really slow. But after the first 5% or so of it (according to my Kindle,) once he stops talking about the fucking city itself, it very quickly becomes the most exciting and concrete book in the series so far. The action tapers off in Book 4, but it remains concrete. I'm not sure why the first two books are so vague in comparison, but I highly recommend going through with the rest of it. If the first two books were Mulholland Dr., the next two are the original run of Twin Peaks - and David Lynch really is the best comparison I can think of for BotNS.

>>10490645
What's a normal person? I'm serious, I have no idea how fast people read. For me a month is like one of those 27 book series, or those 11 million word webnovels. I can't think of an actual physical book that's ever taken me more than a day to read.

>>10490669
slow down or read shit worth thinking about
you cannot convince me you'd read something like Infinite Jest in a month and comprehend much of it

>>10490695
Why would I read Infinite Jest at all?

>>10490709
You might have a small penis

>>10490709
it's a good book
do you just stick to stuff you can absorb fully in skimming? i guess that kind of makes sense in this thread since a lot of sff is popcorn tier bullshit but don't you want to read to learn from the author sometimes?

>>10490608
Literally in the OP.
>http://greatsfandf.com/authors-full-list.php

>>10490713
Because I might read Infinite Jest? Or because I won't? Or just in general?

>>10490718
I don't skim, I just read in very long blocks. When I say a book a day, I mean the WHOLE DAY. When I read I start the moment I wake up and keep going until I finish, 16, 18, 24 hours at a time. If there are more books or it's longer I keep going. I've read for 48 hours straight, and I've read in 20 days for a week straight. I'm guessing most people don't sped NEARLY as much time a day, maybe an hour or two at most, but I just don't work lie that.

>>10490728
*20 hour days

>>10490728
i changed my mind you definitely have a small penis

Need good contemporary SF recs.

>>10490638
Rude tebehe lad.

What should i read next?
Distress
or
Schild's Ladder
or
Teranesia
or
Diaspora ?

>>10490799
>contemporary
y tho?

Just finished Replay by Ken Grimmwood
It enjoyed it a lot
Anything similar to it?

>>10490633
For most of history people have been fine with the enslavement of biological beings nearly or entirely identical to them, that match them in intelligence, and without even having created those beings.

>>10490319
cool
link?

>>10490799
Three Body Problem.

Why read contemporary tho?

>>10490874
wtf i want cyberpunk with niggers now

>>10488936
>The thing is, people who read genre fiction seem to not mind a lack of originality. In fact you could even say that lack of originality is what makes genre fiction what it is. After all, what is a genre if not a semi-formalized set of cliches? Don't people in this very thread complain bitterly if you deviate too heavily from established norms in their favorite genres? The fact is these unoriginal novels that come out year after year manage to sell many, many copies. How do you explain Brandon Sanderson's success? Sure his "magic systems" and "world building" is original on the surface (in that nobody ever thought of that exact configuration of descriptions before), but the underlying structure is the same old epic fantasy song and dance we've seen for the last 40 years and people lap it up.

>And if you think it's an age thing, that it's just the older readers set in their ways and the youth crave new things, then you've forgotten what it's like to be young. The youth don't have taste and don't know what they like. The first series a young person reads is indelibly imprinted onto their psyche as a favorite, no matter how shitty it is. There are people in this thread who feel nostalgia for Eragon simply because it was one of if not the first fantasy book they ever read. There's no other way to explain that except young people simply have no taste and will read anything you put in front of them.

what about pic related?

>>10489975
The Northern Caves was great. Anyone here read Floornight?

>>10490847
>>10490915
Because I've already read through most of the good 60s, 70s and 80s SF, and I want to catch up on the current trends and ideas of the SF world.

>>10489971

It's kind of the 19th/early 20th century version of YA but I liked John Carter, certainly better than the only other series about Mars that I've ever read

>>10490369
laughed

>>10490274

I was honestly intrigued but page one thoughtfully revealed a strong independent womyn so I instadropped

>>10490423
>10ky without being able to produce copper while there are metalwork industries in other parts of the world? And these guys want to fight?

The Aztecs would like a word

>multiple POVs
Enough of this meme.

>>10490367
I am Legend

160 pages and well worth a read

>>10491075
have you read all 11 books?

>>10490306
I read the synopsis and holy shit does it sound bad. It's like fucking Divergent levels of shitty YA-ness, not to mention the cripplingly blunt and obvious """social commentary""". HURR DURR THIS COLOUR OF PEOPLE ARE OPPRESSING THIS COLOUR OF PEOPLE.

Come on lad, get some better taste than that.

>>10490604
>Maybe it gets better if you read the whole thing

It's basically one book in four parts, so yeah some "random occurrences" in book one only become relevant in book four, some appear to serve no purpose other than revealing things about the world, setting tone, or foreshadowing. It's genre fiction for /lit/erati, and requires a modicum of literary familiarity to appreciate fully. I am perhaps lucky both to have studied medieval literature at university and European history as a hobby, because there are a lot of things in it that I doubt anyone will really get without that background knowledge.

There was no part of it that I felt was a slog, I got impatient with the first framed narrative until I realized what was going on and by the time you get to the canterbury tales section of book 4 you should be used to it already. Book 1 is maybe the slowest-paced but only in the sense that he doesn't even leave the city but even that serves a narrative purpose and the prose itself is never a chore to work through.

>>10491106
Rightfully ded. But it's not the same in the slightest. They were completely isolated, unlike the book, where they knew these things existed and didn't try to figure out how.

>>10491108
This. I can tolerate about 5, if I have to stretch. The less the better, though.

>>10491130

No, I don't remember how many I read but the only one I felt warranted a reread was the first. Actually now that you mention it I bought a hardcover compilation after finishing however many paperbacks which I never got around to reading, I wonder if it was the whole series...

Kim Stanley Robinsons Mars trilogy is probably the gold standard.
Stephen Baxters Mars is all good, and the first proper sf novel I read.
but to tell you truth I still enjoy the Old Mars of C.L. Moore and Leigh Brackett.

I need a new time travel book to read!
Help.

What does /lit think of this?

I can't be the only one reading this

>>10491241
I read it while eating mom's pancakes

>>10490985
Singularity's Ring by Melko

>>10491242
tldr please? Cover looks like normie popular book

>>10491234
Future Times Three (French: Le Voyageur imprudent)

>>10491241
Ballard is always a bit disturbing
I mostly liked The Drowned World tho
and Supercannes is on my to read list

>>10491242
Had a read about it online. Not sure about it desu. The premise seems interesting, but the premise of the premise seems cliche as fuck. A dystopian Britain where the state spies on you? Please, it's been done to death so much that we're doing it for real now.

I finished BotNS recently. Should I start Malzahan, or would I be disappointed?

>>10490367
Get into Sleator. Marco's Millions and Singularity are the best ones.

>>10490490
you're not going to like it

>>10491234
Overlords of War by Gerard Klein
What's with the French and time travel?

>>10490423
Did you read the book? The elves made sure that they stayed ignorant.
Speed readers are the worst.

>>10491606
If after hundreds of years the humans can't place a single spy in the form of a slave, which the elves have, to look for information, or can't otherwise get the information in any other way, they deserve to get killed, but they won't because of plotarmor, and this is what I was criticizing.
>Speed readers are the worst.
>"stop saying bad things about books I like or else imma call you names!"

Does anyone read Elliot Kay's Poor Man's Fight?

I was excited to see a new book in the series, but its from the perspective of Tanner's girlfriend (who is apparently cheating on him what the heck?).

I like Tanner he is an autistic goody two shoes who can kill any motherfucker. Is No Medals For Secrets any good?

>>10490490
That new book about Trump's first year in the White House will probably get a big "READ THE BOOK THE WHITE HOUSE TRIED TO BAN!" label on the paperback considering they're trying to stop it's release.

Anyways here's the article I was talking about:
https://www.nomadicpress.org/interviews/paularabinowitz

>That book [Women's Barracks] is alternatively understood to be an autobiography or a novel, depending upon whose story you believe. [Tereska Torrès] had been in the Free French Army. It was shaped by Meyer Levin, her husband, who had been a war correspondent. He was also the author of Compulsion, which is the novel about the Leopold and Loeb case that became the Hitchcock movie Rope. He said, "Hey, this thing could really sell.” So he helped shape it into this story, and it had this incredibly famous cover by Barye Phillips of these women in an army barracks taking off their uniforms. They are in various states of undress, and in the foreground there is a kind of butchylooking woman. She has got shortcut hair, and is wearing her cap still, and her uniform, and she is smoking, and she is eying these women. This book sold pretty well, because people are always interested in the war. It came out in 1950, and people are still fascinated by the Second World War, and it had this salacious cover. But its sales really took off because it became the object of the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials that was convened by Ezekiel Gathings of Arkansas. They were using this volume as exemplary of the sort of, as they called it, “current pornographic materials” that were flooding the market. So as a result of this publicity, you know, there is nothing like saying that something is pornographic to make sure that it gets well sold. To the point where by the 1960s, the tag line for Memoirs of Hecate County, Edmund Wilson's novella from the ‘40s which has a whole section entirely in French, was blazoned with “Not for sale in the state of New York.” That was a way to sell the book. Anyway, as a result of this congressional hearing, and all of this fanfare that went on, it sold in the millions of copies. So a good thing is always something that everyone wants to imitate, and so all these other publishers [did that].

where do i find hyperviolent space romance?

>>10490396
When I recommend books yall ignore it and call it shit without reading. Yet, you praise wheel of time.
Go fuck yourself.

>>10491653
>rabinowitz
kek

>>10491669
Your recommendations are probably shit.

There's a couple of anons that recently read/are reading Wheel of Time, it doesn't mean the whole thread is praising the series.

>>10491164
Newfag. This book was the SFFG meme book of the Year for 2014. If you haven't read it. Fuck off.

FANTASY IS BRAINDEAD FAGGOTRY

>>10491234
Warlords of Utopia by Lance Parkin

>>10491870
That's why you make the jump to Weird Fiction :^)

>>10491928
I'd rather make the jump from a bridge, to be honest with you family

What were THE books of 2017? I'm tired of seeing the same old tired books circlejerked. What was good in 2017?

>>10492008
The Last Days of New Paris, The Book of Dust, In Calabria, Borne

>>10492008

>>10492035
how much fucking free time, bad taste and disposable income do you have, dude?

>>10492069
We should make a pie-chart for each book rating G,R and I individually.

>>10492094
Something like this.

>>10491981
I'd rather you jumped from a bridge too.

>>10492084
Dunno, probably too much of 1 and 2, not enough of 3

>>10491870
>>10491981
What are you doing in here if you don't even read faggot?

>>10492151
done

>>10492173
shitposting and laughing at retards after a day of hard work
you?

>>10492221
Actually reading?

>>10492035
Can you read Book of Dust as its own thing, without the previous Dark Materials books?

>>10492284
on 4chan?
good job

What fantasy and sci-fi stories contain conspiracies?

>>10492035
>Book of Dust finally comes out after ten thousand years
>Story 1 of 3
>Story 1 is a prequel even
Fuck that.

>>10492426
Isn't there a gif version where she slides down the hill and the roots bounce?

Any books featuring spies? Fantasy or sci-fi.

the three stigmata of palmer eldritch featured mars pretty heavily, probably one of my favorite sci-fi novels hands down.

>you’re forced to immigrate to a bleak, unfertile landscape where the only respite from day-to-day suffering is the release of drugs that make you hallucinate you’re back on earth

just such a unique picture of space colonization

>You will never be part of The Culture

Just kill me now desu.

>>10492084
Alright hot shot why don't you tell me why those books are bad huh faggot?

>>10491164
>Being this new
It was written by a republican

Is reading an science fiction or fantasy novels better than playing video games?

>>10491164
Did he fuck your girl or something? Why you so salty?

>>10492124
But what about gay rape, gay incest, incest rape, and gay incest rape?

>>10490833
Diaspora!

>>10492426
John Barnes, Duke of Uranium trilogy.

Actually Kaleidoscope Century too.

>>10492773
Yes?

Can anyone suggest a book series with lots of character viewpoints that centers mostly around politics, backstabbing, etc. in the same vein as ASoIaF? Preferably something also in a medieval European setting, but something sci-fi would be cool, too. Thanks

>>10492996
Red Rising, but the sequels more so.

>>10492773
They're both just entertainment

>>10490608
Castalia House

>>10493196
>rave review of Everyone Likes Big Chests
You can trust Jeffro though.

>>10493196
>cuckalia house

>>10492996
You might like Asimov's Foundation stories.

>>10493323
>t. soyboy

>>10492069
>>10492069
I keep remembering that there are more inforgraphics like this one. One for gay shit and one for loli shit although I'm not entirely certain.
Are there any downright incesty books like Wild Wastes?

>>10491311

I'm about to finish botns and would also like to know this

I am considering writing a book. Should I bother with a publishing company or just make it available online for a 1$ or however much you feel like donation and shill myself online?

>>10489991
does it have post shivers?

>>10491729
Just starter it today, pretty knew to sci-fi/fantasy and it seemed pretty well reccomended.

>>10493644
Nobody pays for authors on patreon. Not even smut authors, unless they have some gimmick around their shit like fenoxo. If you can't make it on patreon you probably can't make it. Unfortunately, publishers are still the way to go, if you want people to actually read your shit.

>>10493687
Fug, I thought so. Oh well, thanks anon.

>>10493506
funny how pol is still using that as an insult while they suck down Alex Jones Super Male Soy Pills.

>>10489971
Tips on making a Saturday morning cartoon Transformers style robot a compelling character? The story I have in mind would see him thrust into a more morally complicated world than what he's used to. So far all I can think of is having him struggle to understand conflicts between more than two factions. Most of the other stuff is just a rehash of "Classical myth hero encounters gritty real world problems" but with a slight tint of 80s commercialism

>>10493806
Holy fucking cringe, soyboy.

>tfw finished demon princes
>and both Hyperion books

fug. These multi-world space-y novels are good. Now waht

What are my dinos reading?

>>10493011
>>10493472
thanks, guys. i'm going to check out both.
also, i know this doesn't really belong in sffg but if anyone can recommend a non-sci-fi/fantasy series along the same lines as ASoIaF i'd love to hear about it.

>>10493983
ASOIAF wouldn't really work in literary fiction because the only thing that allows for such extravagant wanking is an unfamiliar world that requires exposition. Even in a historical fiction novel, the world and its history are understood at a basic level by the reader. That ASOIAF style of "historical mysticism" isn't really something I know much of coming from outside the sff genres.

>>10493928
Lafferty's short stories atm

>>10493877
>both Hyperion books
Read the sequels then, Endymion and the Rise of Endymion.

>>10494018
So, no sort of grand strategy, medieval-Europe inspired works that don't delve into magic?

>>10494249
someone recommended the accursed king series. haven't read any of them, but it sounds like its what you're looking for

>>10494257
I've read the first book and can vouch for at least that scratching that ASOIAF itch.

>>10494263
do you know of anything else that scratches that itch? i'd love something with a great deal of spying, doublecrossing, court politics, etc. can be fantasy or anything, i'm not picky

>>10493983
Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy is alright.

>>10494270
Wolf Hall maybe?

>>10493928
Reading some non sff right now, after that I'll probably go for some more Wolfe.

>>10493928
I finished reading Blood Music just before new year. Which I thought was pretty fitting desu. Still thinking about what to read next.

>>10493983
>a non-sci-fi/fantasy series along the same lines as ASoIaF
The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell.
The Grail Quest by Bernard Cornwell.
The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell.

So what did you guys think of Oathbringer? I found it a bit slow, but still, [SPOILERS]Odium finally stepping onto the stage[/SPOILERS] was pretty cool.

>>10494292
Never read any Cosmere stuff, should I?

>>10489987
>>10489989
>>10489991
What's this?

>>10494296
Stormlight Archive is pretty cool as far as high fantasy goes, just don't go in expecting some masterpiece because it's not. Dialogue can be cringe and prose is barely serviceable, but the guy does have interesting ideas and the best working ethic in the business.

>>10494292
I found the Dalinar flashbacks to be really good, but the books as a whole were pretty meh for me.

3/5.

I'm really interested in were the Mistborn story goes in the next "era", one more book in the western style and then it was ~1980's IIRC.

>>10494343
Do you recommend Mistborn as a whole? My only Sanderson so far has been Stormlight.

>>10492486
Calm down, dude, it's just a simulation.
You're on board the GSV Anon Always Delivers.

>>10494351
Yeah!
Personally I think it's his best work, really like the magic system.

>>10494325
> Best served cold got reprint in Russia.
Can't you read?
Btw here is mine collection of this series. BSC is on the way.

>>10492773
Slightly.
You'd better play video games and read scholarly articles about it to expand your vocabulary.
There, read this, it's neither fantasy nor sci-fi, but entertaining all the same:
https://ontherapyaspse.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/geoffrey-miller-the-mating-mind.pdf

>>10493644
>I am considering writing a book.
why on earth would you do that?

>>10493825
Make him a delusional kid with a severe and debilitating mental illness who caused a traffic accident in a world where Transformers do not exist.
You should also stop posting here until you're 18 and read Crash by J.G. Ballard.

>>10493928
Necrotech

>>10494270
just read John LeCarre and Ian Fleming and pretend it happens in space
that's what i do
and technically, it does

>>10494292
you can use ctrl+s, anon

>>10493644
your writing is going to have to be pretty good to find a publisher. if you think you have the chops, you'll need to first submit to agents who'll then try to sell your book to the publishers.

>>10493687
there are other better options for online publishing without going through patreon.

>>10494355
Does that mean I can become a little girl at last?

>>10493644
publishing if you want your career to go anywhere

What should I read to get a basic understanding of the Arthurian legends?

>>10494438
Once and Future King is a pretty easy way to go.

>>10490614
Stop posting your Russian gay crush in every thread.

>>10493214
Is Jeffro very tasty?

>>10490874
>that match them in intelligence
Empirical data disagrees.
That's when triggered people usually start shouting /pol/.

>>10490608
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/84023-j-g-keely
I disagree with many of his reviews though.

>>10494463
>implying blacks did not enslave blacks
>implying arabs did not enslave whites
>implying whites did not enslave whites
I'm going to shout /pol/ because you're stupid, not because you're implying that whites are smarter than niggers.

>>10494417
What do you think?
You already are a little girl, anon.

>>10492857
Just let the graph add up to more than 100% because of books simultaneously in several categories.

>>10494438
le mort de arthur
once and future kings

>>10493877
>>10494233
Absolutely don't do that unless you're a girl between 16 and 23.

>>10494517
The ice planet with the tunneling creatures was the most interesting place in the entire series though.

>>10494393

>>10494488
Alright. In my haste, I assumed that you were specifically referring to the instance of slavery that is used so overwhelmingly often as an example that most people assume it is the only one. I now realize that your original statement >>10490874 was correct, but I still don't browse /pol/.

>>10490633
Bitch most of the world is perfectly fine with pimp sponsored prostitution right now, you think doing laundry is worse than cranking dicks?

>>10494590
>most of the world is perfectly fine with pimp sponsored prostitution
[citation needed]

>>10494636
If they weren't it wouldn't exist, there's no culture in the world in which pimps don't actively enslave the vulnerable.

In america it's usually niggers though.

>>10494590
dunno, you tell me?

>>10494488
Remember gingers have no souls and the Irish are the blacks of the Caucasian race.

wack
not enough inter-hive bickering
too much
>his breasts & her beard

and there's still another book left

>>10491241
>>10491268
High-Rise is a good book

>>10492857
How about sets, then?

>>10494798
Red pill me on MemePalmer. Is it meme?

>>10494862
It's not badly written but it's overflowing with gimmicks and there are a lot of characters to keep track of.

>>10492124
>G not green
>I not Indigo

>>10494292
>shallan
Kaladin's dilemma was also pretty stupid. Besides that, nothing much. It feels like Sanderson likes way too much to reuse characters instead of introducing new ones. Szeth should've died, Moash should just disappear, he's pretty annoying, about as much as Shallan. All the new characters introduced were from other kingdoms and they aren't very interesting. Venli's development was dull, I'd accept it if it was Eshonai, but it was a little bit off since Venli's the one who was the psycho all along, but now suddenly after being possessed by demons she turned better than she was before?

>>10494865
>a lot of characters to keep track of.
Are they POV characters?

>>10494894

Also the whole Elhokar fiasco. Like what the fuck was even the point of having him almost become a Radiant an instant before getting rekt?

>>10494898
>Are they POV characters?
No.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a book-circle-ish book of the month? Like every month we vote and decide upon a book/story to be featured in the OP so we can discuss it with each other? I'm thinking something short, like max 150-200 pages so that everyone who wants to can partake.

>>10494972
sure, as long as it gets its own general. i'll gladly participate

>>10494972
it has to have lots of gri or nobody is gonna participate

Anyone know of decent vampire fiction?

>>10494983
>as long as it gets its own general
The reason I suggested a shorter book and a long time span was so that it would not need its own general, I envision it more like background noise than enough to populate its own thread. But maybe it would not work.

>>10494985
>lots of gri
Sounds reasonable enough.

>>10495061
start here if you must but i bet it'll just annoy too many people to be worth it. definitely advertise it here if you do start a new thread

>>10495078
I'll think some more about it. I certainly don't want it to be like say last year after the release of Oathbringer when the thread turned into Sanderson General.

>>10495004
Fevre Dream is pretty good.

>>10495170

>GRRM

You'll excuse me if I show some doubt. Care to sell me on it?

>>10495004
blindsight

>>10494918
He's probably coming back in a "what a twist!" moment in a later book.
It's not like we've had that one before Jasnah..

>>10495004

>>10495178
GRRM had a decades-long SFF writing career before he burned out somewhere around the second or third volume of ASOIAF.

>>10494862
it's very contrived by immensely enjoyable. It's barely scifi, more weird near-future fantasy. I suggest you download a preview on amazon or something because you'll very rapidly realise if you'll enjoy it or not

>>10494798
I thought it was probably the worst of the three she's done so far. the inter-hive bickering was boring, not enough FUNK. also how am I meant to be invested in Antarctica if you've never mentioned it before Ada?? Also holy shit Hobbes fuck off

>>10495004
Greg Egan @gregeganSF
In 2018 from me:
1) PHORESIS, a novella about building a bridge between worlds. Literally. Subterranean Press, April.
2) THE NEAREST, a novelette about your feelings for the people closest to you. Tor dot com, mid-yearish.
3) 3-ADICA. VR vampires/3-adic numbers. Asimov’s, Sep/Oct

>>10495332
VR VAMPIRES

>>10495307
Hopefully not. It will be instadrop for me. Kaladin should just off himself, he's had one good moment since the start, the rescue on the plains against the parshmen, now he only makes shit. After this whole Kholinar thing, which is partially his fault how it turned out, he should just commit sudoku and get it over with, instead of feeling sorry for himself every other chapter. He doesn't even have a waifu anymore, what's the dude hanging on to? Or at least stop crying, for fucks sake. The scene where he meets his parents is embarrassing. "hahaha imma such a cool motherfucker look at me pierce the ground".

>>10492773
Probably novels if you have good taste. Maybe when developers work out how to make good games I'll change my mind.

Has anyone read this series? Is it good?

>>10495346
Or maybe Elhokars' death were Sandersons attempt at some GRRM killing?

>>10494445
>Is Jeffro very tasty?
I see what you did there

>>10489971
Martian Chronicles master race

>>10491981

By all means, go with our blessing

>>10493806

If you liked Lies of Locke Lamora, I recommend Prince.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12267737/1/Prince

Ostensibly it's a Harry Potter fanfiction set in a "Venecian AU", but in reality it's its own thing with some proper names taken from Harry Potter. Really struck me with the same appeal is the first Locke Lamora.

>>10493928

About to finish BotNS for the first time, thinking about Dying Earth, Clark Ashton Smith, or more Wolfe.

>>10494356

What is a magic system? Is Harry Potter waving his wand and saying "Confusticatio!" a magic system, even if a crude and primitive one? Or are we talking like
>Borfrees raised his hands with fore and pinky fingers extended, the rest clasped by his thumbs, then began to wail and howl in a pitch that cracked the windows and shattered a drinking glass, until finally with a loud CLAP of his hands his hotpocket began to steam and swell

I don't want to endure a thousand pages of Sanderson just to understand a meme, so if you give me a suggestion/example then the shorter the better

>>10495969
In Mistborn, with out spoiling too much, the magic system is about different metals.

They swallow the metal and "burn" it to gain different abilities, some can only use one metal and others can use them all.

>Regularly gets outsold by tie-in novels
>In a near continual meltdown and as a result his marriage is failing
>Couldn't fulfil his contractual obligation and lost a sweet publishing deal
>Tried to become a professional blogger but ended up generating 1/10th of his no-name archrival's blogspot.
>Ritualistically embarrasses himself on twitter so often his friends and fellow authors have asked him to stop mentioning them
This is depressing, at least Mieville faded into irrelevancy quietly.

>>10495332
>gregeganSF
fuck greg egan
such a self-obsessed drama queen. who the fuck shys away from the internet, and is so "paranoid" they can't post a picture of themselves. I want to track the bastard down and get a mugshot just to bring the ass down a peg

>>10495998
Isn't he the prez of the SF writers' guild?

>>10496059
>former

>>10496059
>Isn't he the prez of the SF writers' guild?
Isn't it some "literally who" lesbian?

>>10496074
>Her most popular book has 128 ratings on Goodreads
Jesus, It can't get more literally who than that.

>>10496068
Well RIP, can't say I'll shed a tear.

>>10495998
Forgot
>Publicly bragged about how he went begging to Baen to publish a book Tor rejected
>Baen rebuffed him and decided to order several more Correia books instead
I'm pretty sure this broke him more than Trump winning the election.

>>10495346
I don't see him coming back. Sanderson would be dumb to try it. Jasnah not being dead was obvious from the start.
Agree on Kaladin being a giant fuck-up since WoK. I get where Sanderson is going with it, but he's about reached a point where it's outstayed it's welcome. I think Kaladin spending some more time in his hometown, maybe reconnecting with his childhood sweetheart, enjoying some whole times would have helped his character tremendously. Instead he acted like a douche and flew off after 3 pages. Also, for a supposed spren of honor Syl seems pretty fine with Kaladin chasing a betrothed woman.

Hi fellas, I haven't read a lot of scifi but I've been meaning to get into it

My local bookstore (quite literally) only has Heinlen, does he have any worthwhile books?

>>10496212
A couple, most notably The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger In a Strange Land (which is honestly not as good but more famous because of sex).

>>10495078

Outer /lit/ will vote for tryhard pseud shit and it will dissolve into meme-spouting

>>10495993

Oh I see, thnx

>>10496217
I'll check to see if they have those two, thanks friendo

>>10496202
>Also, for a supposed spren of honor Syl seems pretty fine with Kaladin chasing a betrothed woman.

Maybe Sanderson is adding a polygamy (don't know the right wording) relation to his work?

>>10496074
>>10496084

so progressive and courageous

>>10496240
>don't know the right wording

harem?

>>10496238
Unless the owner have very specific taste, they should. You should probably order from the web or go to a library in the future however, in my opinion Heinlein gets repetitive quite fast. Especially noticable is his characters that are almost always minor variations of the same archetypes.

>>10493928

>>10496240
>mormon fantasy

Is Goodreads the only place one can retrieve bibliographic info with good data on series membership? This seems to be difficult to find since it isn't technically a periodical and authors often create them after the first book has been published.

Welp, that "ending" was garbage.

>>10495316
>Blindsight
>LOL SPACE VAMPIRES U GUISE!

It was fucking shit.

>>10489971
>What are your favorite books about the Red Planet?

The Martian Chronicles is one of the most beautiful science fiction books I've ever read actually.

>>10496338
what's it like, not having received a proper education? does your social worker have to read these posts out to you, as a result of how you never learn how to read?

>>10495835
see >>10492209

>>10496373
It. Was. SHIT.

>>10492426
Is this really how the city was described as? Descriptions always go over my head and I'm always surprised by the armor/place/creature/plant illustrations.

Hypperion is a lot more fucked up than I thought it'd be. Just starting the scholar's story

>>10495998
>>10496142
>stalking some loser who writes books you don't like
>"i-i'm not mad! i'm not mad! TRUMP!"

>>10494292
I liked some parts but they were few and far-between, tons of stuff overstayed it's welcome like:
Dallanar's drinking
Shallan's insanity
Kalladin's honor issues (which remained unresolved)
The capital chapters
The spren world chapters, those I think are the worst offenders, I love the spren concept but their world sucks balls and the fact that what was shown of their society is basically human society is a huge missed opportunity
>>10495346
>spoiler
I'm pathetic enough to love stuff like that as long as there is not too much of that, i even re-read those chapters once for the feels

>>10496202
>Also, for a supposed spren of honor Syl seems pretty fine with Kaladin chasing a betrothed woman.

Subjectivity of honor is a big question constantly tackled in the series. Besides, there is no honor lost if you don't give any oaths. Basically if Kalladin was all like "hey wanna bang and just bang cos i find you sexually attractive" there would have been no issue cos no further expectations.

>>10496507
>mfw this works both ways
Will Scalzi ever stop obsessing over Vox Day?

>>10493825
IT'S MY CHILD CARTOONS
BUT GRITTY
AND REALISTIC
WITH SHADES OF GRAAAAAAY

>>10494249
tons of it, absolutely tons of it, but here is the wrong place to ask. The reference desk at your local library can probably send you home with a truckload.

>>10494857
Those spiky circle graphs like the ones that talk about your Stand.

Can somebody recommend me a book similar to a shonen anime where the world isn't too grim, the protagonist doesn't have gray morals and he/she becomes stronger to fullfil his/her goals?

>inb4 GTFO weeb fag

>>10496331
It was perfect, you're garbage.

It's not about the alternate history, anon.

>>10496628
Treason by OSC is right down your alley. It's about this exiled prince traveling around the world picking up new superpowers to save his country.

>>10496503
oh man it gets worse

>>10496240
For someone seeking to add new taboos and make an unique culture, he really avoids putting in our own taboos into his work.

>>10496627
But that wouldn't capture the intersections either.

>>10496603
and gay sex?

next thing I'm gonna read :
>Move Under Ground is a horror novel mashup by Nick Mamatas which combines the Beat style of Jack Kerouac with the cosmic horror of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. It is available as a free download via a Creative Commons license, CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 according to the License information in the CC version of the book.
hopefully i'll finish it

>>10494972
>>10495115
i think its a good idea. the hardest part would be finding /sffg/ books under 200 pages. im up for it though.
if you did it in another thread it would just die. id say just put it in the OP for next thread.

Re-reading this book, read it in my teens (15 years ago) and I have a nostalgic image about it in my head.

Just 50 pages in, but I really enjoy it!

Anyone else re-reading something from their youth?

>>10496774
I think I will simply pick the first book myself, decide on some arbitrary date to post some basis for discussion/random thoughts on, put everything in an image and post it early in the next thread (or the thread after that). Then if people participate and/or like the idea we'll vote for the next book and keep going.

>>10496816
Necrotech

>>10496766
>the Beat style of Jack Kerouac

>>10496802

The Hobbit and then LotR once I finish, haven't read in ten years at least but the Hobbit was the first book I read that didn't have pictures in it, age 5 or 6, and LotR became my favorite book(s) around 14 or so. Actually better than I remembered so far.

>try to write
>everything feels tired and hackneyed
>surely it's not good enough to be published
>go to bookstore
>current authors all write tired and hackneyed shit
I want to die

>>10497023
time for drugs desu

>>10497023
if anything that should make you feel better about yourself, anon. if those hacks can get represented & published than surely you can two.

>>10496910
>The Hobbit

I actually bought the first copy of The Hobbit that I lent at my school and read when I was maybe ten.

>picture related, it's older than my mom

>>10497023
>>10497047
ye have a pump of K lad

>>10496743
what if all the friendships weren't actually friendships but they wanted to bone instead, doesn't that sound smart and mature?

>>10497077
Why does it have Link from Wind Waker on the cover?

>>10497088
The cover art and small illustrations were made by Tove Jansson, who made "Mumin trollen".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tove_Jansson

>>10489971
Have you read your russian SciFi yet?

>>10497077
>1962
>55 years old
>older than your mom
Pics of your mom? I'm into milfs.

>>10497077
Wow, my book is no way near mint condition but it's worth some money:

https://www.blackwell.co.uk/rarebooks/book.php?id=59766

>>10497098
Ah, Moomins. I remember that

>>10497082
only if bikini babes everywhere

New Thread
>>10497283
>>10497283
>>10497283

>>10497130
Hello swed

>>10497023
Never forget that poorly written Twilight fanfiction is a best seller. Most people have incredibly low standards.

>>10489971
essential list of patrician taste:

Lord of the Rings
Dune
Prequels Dune
Mistborn first trilogy
Mistborn second trilogy
The Witcher series