/lit/ - Literature

first for webnovels are novels too

>>10635230
>romance book
graceling i guess. like 10 years ago. good book from what i remember
>>10635230
>what are you reading?
cleric quintet. its just ok.

dont know what to read, so reccomend me a good fantasy book. read so much shit the last few months

>deconstructionist fantasy

>>10635737
Do you want a genuinely good fantasy book or pretentious, bloated crap you wanna read just so you can pretend you feel smarter for having read it?

>>10635746
No. what i TRULY want is a very comfy book.

Any good interspecies romance?

>>10635882
Go watch The Shape of Water if you haven't. Pretty good genre romance flick.

>>10635737
The Dragons of Babel if you want something different that's also great. (or the Iron Dragon's Daughter)

>>10635852
The Wizard Knight is comfy.

>>10635737
I unironically enjoyed The First Law books

>>10635737
well, what have you read?

fudge late gain
sanderfag a hack

>>10635891
shit film, disgusting

>>10635989
some. stormlight archives, mistborn, kingkiller, the first law, game of thrones, and some other mostly bad books. read quite a bit of sci fi too, but dont feel like reading it now

>>10633477
Try adding it to yiff.party's database. If you can view it immediately, it's not CUF, if you can't it's protected and you must pray for someone's generosity

>>10632930
So if I wanted to view chapter samples (words) from a writer on patreon would I be able with this furfag.party?
One of his characters /wife is a catgirl if that helps.

>>10635882
Perdido Street Station

>>10636010
Brandon Sanderson's books are to literature what Skyrim is to videogames.

He somehow manages not to excel at any facet of his work. To borrow from Bloom, he has no discernible talent. His dialogue is stilted and uninteresting. His characters feel more like plot-convenient afterthoughts than people. The plots themselves are generic filler, somehow managing to be even less interesting than million get-to-the-end-of-the-dungeon quests of Skyrim. His prose is "workmanlike" or "inoffensive" (read: shit) in the way that combat in Skyrim is "inoffensive". I challenge Sanderson fans (?) to name one thing that he does better than passably: one single thing he is actually good at.

The most common response to this is Sanderson's worldbuilding. Like Skyrim his worlds impress you at first with their scale and detail, but even this is quickly revealed to be flat and cliched. How many times can Sanderson get away with his utterly inane caste-system-attempting-to-be-some-kind-of-political-allegory?

>but muh magic system
Even if you're a fan of the sub-genre consisting of explaining everything about magic until it ceases to be magic (why would you be?), Brandon Sanderson does not do this particularly well. His magic basically devolves into people flying around and hitting each other because Sanderson (and his fans (?)) think this is the height of entertainment. People describe his works as anime but it should be specified that it's the anime aimed primarily at 10 year old japanese boys (yum).

>muh cosmere
Fans (?) of Sanderson think of him as some kind of genius and of his books as some kind of unified masterpiece because "it happens in the same universe xd". The "co-smere" is the shitsmear on the toilet-bowl which is his writing. Sanderson insults his readers (?) by using a gimmick originally conceived to sell capeshit with lacklustre tie-ins.

>B-But he writes fast
More evidence of him being a shit writer. It takes time to write and all the best fantasy authors spend a long time on their works to ensure we get the highest quality (see for example Rothfuss).

>you haven't even read all his books
No shit. I've read enough to make a judgement.

The only possible justification for people reading his mediocre works that I can think of is a desperate attempt to fill in the hours between now and the time they die. At least Skyrim has loli/shota(yum) mods. The fact that Sanderson's target audience is 14 year old mormons stops him on this front too.

Read BoTNS

>>10636218
Just try adding it to the database, only takes about a few seconds. Their server doesn't care whether or not it's furfaggotry or not. I added a few artists from artstation who weren't furfags.

>>10636010
>look ma
>i posted it for the 20th time in a row
>i'm so quirky

>>10636218
This is what it looks like when a CUF protected user is added, in this case it is nkjemisin.

>>10636254
and iirc, this is what it looks like when they aren't CUF protected

>>10636224
It wasn't funny the first time. And it isn't funny the third.

>>10636088
book of the new sun if you havent already. wheel of time should keep you busy if you get into it. and theres always malazan.

>>10636263
>>10636254
>>10636235
>>10636210
Thanks anon.

>>10636302
is malazan good? Have it laying here somewhere but never got around to reading it

>>10636333
It has some good in it, but overall I can't say it's a good series. You'll probably love it though since I can tell you're a pleb.

>>10636283
It's not meant to be funny. It's criticism.
So far the only person who has attempted to respond to it is >>10627946 and I'm pretty sure that was bait.

>Writes a side character that speaks and writes formal, language while dresses in a somewhat archaic, formal fashion, with the intended purpose to show that its merely something said side character is trying to cultivate something he's not.

>People who read it keep telling me that's not how people act and that I should rewrite him.

Are people just that dense or is it just me.

>>10636618
we answered your question last thread

>>10636642
I just want reassurance since people are stupid.

>>10636642
Do you think I should make more aspiring authors macros? They are getting numerous as of late.

>>10637002
No, your time has passed, the day of the second-level memes is here.

>>10637010
So I need to make more meta-memes like pic related?

>>10637040
You may rest, bold hero. You may rest.

>>10637045
O-okay anon.

Kiva Lagos was busily fucking the brains out of the assistant purser she’d been after for the last six weeks of the Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby’s trip from Lankaran to End when Second Officer Waylov Brennir entered her stateroom, unannounced. “You’re needed,” he said.

“I’m a little busy at the moment,” Kiva said. She’d just finally gotten herself into a groove, so fuck Waylov (not literally, he was awful) if she was going to get out of the groove just because he walked into it. Grooves were hard to come by. People have sex, and he was unannounced. If this was what he walked into, it was his fault, not hers. The assistant purser seemed a little concerned, but Kiva applied a little pressure to make it clear festivities were to continue.

“It’s important.”

“Trust me, so is this.”

“We’ve got a customs official who won’t let us take any haverfruit off the ship,” Brennir said. If he was shocked or scandalized by Lagos’s activities he was doing a good job of hiding it. He mostly looked bored. “Offloading our haverfruit is why we came to End. If we don’t sell it, or develop licenses, we’re screwed. You’re the owner’s representative. You’re going to have to explain to your mother why this trip was the cause of the financial ruin of your family. So perhaps you might like to join Captain Blinnikka in talking with this customs official right now to see if you can resolve this problem. Or you can just go on fucking that junior crew member, ma’am. I’m sure those are equivalent activities as regards your future, and the future of this ship, and your family.”

“Well, shit,” Kiva said. Her groove was definitely gone, and the assistant purser, her little project, looked pretty miserable at the moment. “That was a pretty impressive jab you just gave to someone who can fire your ass, Brennir.”

“You can’t fire me, ma’am,” Brennir said. “I’ve got tenure with the guild. Now, are you coming or not?”

“I’m thinking.”

“I should go,” the assistant purser said. “I mean, I can go. Maybe I should go?”

Kiva sighed and looked down at her conquest. “When are you on duty again?”

“Three hours.”

“Then you stay right here.” She untangled herself from the assistant purser, put on something acceptable for the outside world, and then followed Brennir out of her stateroom and through the ship.

>>10637106
So this is the power of the Hugos.

what's gri?

>>10637260
Your sex life.

>>10637260
used to mean gay rape incest.
now its pretty much anything with sex in it.

>>10637040
Please make more meta-memes

Anyone have a copy of the Black Company? Been looking to read it for ages

Is there any capeshit sff that's actually a good story and not just a good superhero story?

Worm is the latter

>>10637548
d-list supervillain(bad guy is being a bad guy but sometimes a good guy)
super sales on super heroes(empire building)
so not a hero(female mc)
windrunner(more anime than sanderson books)
theyre all more or less anti-hero stories though.
theyre all in all pretty good books though.

>>10637566
doesn't look like theres a lot of winners. Ive gotta wonder, what is it that defines the other case.

The Dark Knight for example is usually counted since you can cut out batman and it's still an awesome action movie. The same goes for wonder woman albeit as a war movie, but then you also have the incredibles in there where you can't really separate the heroes.

Then you have the watchmen and kickass which earn their points by being scathing deconstructions of the genre

Conversely, there are stories where superpowers play a different story role that are remembered terribly (my super ex-girlfriend, handcock) because they were all gimmick and no substance

>>10637509
You dumb faggot.

https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/8014195/The_Chronicles_of_the_Black_Company_-_Glen_Cook

>>10637629
well i recommend to you atleast have a look at d-list supervillain and super sales on super heroes.
the former is basically more about relationships between people and how those shape people. the overarching story is simple. mc was wronged and went villain mode. its about the things that happen inbetween though that make the story good. super sales is weird. i only read it because it was post here a few months ago. basically mc has a superpower to modify anything he owns but hes not strong enough to do anything meaningful. some day when buying bismuth from the black market instead he gets slaves. turns out if he owns people their power increases his power. from that point on the story picks up in a lot of unexpected and more often than not hilarious ways. think about what can be done if you can modify or change anything about anything you own. so mc goes with the idea and founds a company. super powers still play a role but the story is mostly about deicisionmaking and greyareas. the story has no black or white morality. its pretty much all ambigous but nothing every truly bad happens. same with d-list supervillain. nothing really bad every happens. well apart from the world pretty much ending in the second book and being unfucked with the help of biz markie.

>>10636088
The Black Company

>>10637692
honestly, that sounds like a parody version of Worm. Then again, I can't really complain either. The only idea for superhero story I can think of is a blatant fanfic about a metahuman kid who avoided becoming a hero because she was a coward but then when the generic endbringer knockoff attacks she and a bunch of other people with useless powers join the fray out of a feeling of responsibility. Meanwhile the all-powerful hero she looks up to becomes a turncoat out of cowardice making the whole thing a retarded fucking sermon about courage being the real strength

>>10637737
yeah nah. you wont find anything that simple in the books i recommended. motivation for many characters are actually very vague and can be taken or interpreted many ways. theres not really a clear cut answer in both the series i mentioned.
i say give them a try and judge for yourself.
i actually recommend the audiobook versions of both d-list supervillain and super sales. theyre both pretty terrific if you are into audiobooks.

>>10636224
As someone that enjoyed Skyrim, I'll check his work out.

>>10636224
Agree 100% with this post. His work is overrated anime garbage without any prose or depth to disguise his shitty world and character building.

He is a SK-tier level hack.

>>10637106
>Kiva Lagos was busily fucking the brains out of the assistant purser she’d been after for the last six weeks of the Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby’s trip from Lankaran to End when Second Officer Waylov Brennir entered her stateroom, unannounced. “You’re needed,” he said.

Please tell me you made this up as a spoof and it's not actually a book that was written and published

>>10637924
Just check the Amazon preview. There's a search box that you can use for stuff that isn't included in the full preview.

>>10637981
Like this

>>10635230
Story with the most indepth world?

>>10638002
Anything set in the real world.

>>10635230
So what's/lit/ view on edgy and/or dark fantasy?

>>10638007
Is it that hard to world build?

>>10638010
If you're asking about grimderp then the answer is it usually sucks. It can be good if it's well written and not too nihilistic, but more often than not the writers focus exclusively on making their worlds and characters as terrible as possible which can be beyond tedious and boring.

But if you're asking for non-nihilistic dark and gritty fantasy then sub-genres like Sword & Sorcery and Heroic Fantasy are my suggestions.

>>10638037
I was just being a smartass.

>>10637106
I wonder if it gets worse the more read, but I definitely won't be reading this to find out.

noob here, can i ask for your advice?

are there any books which focus on real human drama, preferrably dark with romance and tragedy in a serious manner, but still with aesthetic standards or is all fantasy derp hero slays the dragon and saves the world and forced edginess?

>>10638160
Rigante series by Gemmell

>>10638053
I don't even know any examples of dark and nihilistic fantasy that people keep mentioning besides Bakker.

>>10638187
Consider yourself lucky then.

What if I did the witch king thing where it's prophicied that no man my slay the villain, only the wording is "nobody" not "no man"

and so he's killed by a ghost

What if I did the witch king thing where it's prophicied that no man my slay the villain, only the wording is "nobody" not "no man"

and so she's killed by a ghost

>>10638522
Make it "no arm of flesh" and it's a skeleton that does it.

Just read I Will Fear No Evil by Robert A Heinlein

Wowee. Certainly different than most scifi however I couldn't help but question what it was even about.

The, admittedly, erotic shopping and clubbing and sex adventures of a 100+ year old male billionaires brain transplanted into a mid 20s model body.

Nothing really happens except the protagonist almost immediately craves the dick and to be slapped around after becoming a woman.

SJWs would hate it yes but ultimately without merit

>>10638551
>Nothing really happens except the protagonist almost immediately craves the dick and to be slapped around after becoming a woman.
Well what would you do if you became a woman?

>>10638558
Immediately prepare the transplant to a suitable male

>>10638546
books about a lich raising an army when?

>>10638570
Anyone who could become a woman and wouldn't use it as an opportunity to fuck other men is fucking gay.

>>10638579
captcha ate my pic

I challenge anyone to name a worse science fiction novel than Floating Worlds by Cecelia Holland

Keep in mind this is a feminist novel about a poor woman living in a anarchist utopia betraying her species by siding with a barbarian alien race who treats women like cum rags who are fighting against a human fascist Mars

She does this because she is roughly and frequently fucked by every alien she meets before being turned into a alien muslim housewife

>>10638596
why would a feminist ever write about that?
are you sure shes a feminist? might just be a chick with a rape fetish. most women want to submit to a strong man. im pretty sure feminists are closet subs that just want a man to tell them what to do.

>>10638708
Yes to be fair it may be that the feminist title has been thrust on to the book. Its still awful

I just realized

Mina
>has yellowish horns and eyes
>calls herself "alien queen"
>probably lactates acid

is mina a troll?

>>10638734
the absolute STATE

I'm trying to remember the name of a book recommended here. It was described as a political fantasy novel but more action oriented and it didn't get into too much background minutiae even about some central characters... I've also heard of it mentioned alongside game of thrones, but for different reasons. iirc it was about an assassin, although I know it doesn't sound really specific or unique.

>>10638858
malazan book of the fallen?

>>10638551
That book is notorious for being terrible. Other candidates for "worst Heinlein novel" include The Number of the Beast and The Fifth Column.

What does /sffg/ think of the Prince of Nothing series? I am reading the first book right now and I think it's pretty good in terms of world building (the fact that the setting is not pseudo medieval europe is a huge plus) and characters, the philosophy behind them is also pretty interesting. I haven't read fantasy since Gardens of the Moon, but I found the Malazan books too autistically structured and I dropped them.

>>10638862
I don't think it was a series and it doesn't sound familiar, but I may just read that, thanks.
I think it was also focused on a single revolution.

>>10638881
I gay the rape, nothing, and prince of the Incest of Like series.

>>10637655
Thanks man, was talking about physical tho
Know the cover-artist and wanted to get my hands on the original

>>10638890

did you have a stroke anon?

>>10638881
>What does /sffg/ think of the Prince of Nothing series
The first one is great, the rest are trash.

>>10635981
That's because they're unironically good.

>>10639158
Yes but Red Counrty was a letdown.

>>10638881
Loved it. You're in for a ride.

>>10638201
>>10638010
Ignore that anon. He salty no one likes his dated and worn out prose s&s shit books.

>>10638886
>>10638858
Shadow Campaigns
The long price quartet
The dagger and coin series

This might be pointless to ask but apparently Freddie Mercury was working on a fantasy novel around the early point of his music career. It was set on a land called Rhye.
Some of these ideas were made into songs, like seven seas of Rhye, white queen, march of the black queen, ogre battle and lap of the gods. (I'm guessing what songs were developed from the rough stories).

So I'm asking on the off chance that someone might know more about it, more about the plot, characters or setting?

>>10639358
p.s. I ended up finding a speculative synopsis. It's probably the closest I'm going to get

The Concept
Let's say that it's a fantasy story about a land called, shall we say, Rhye. Rhye is mentioned several times, first on "The Seven Seas of Rhye" on Queen and Queen II, and also in "Lily of the Valley" on Sheer Heart Attack. So it makes sense that the story is about a land called Rhye.

Queen does not make it entirely clear on how the land of Rhye is divided. It could be divided as "above the ground" and "below the ground" or 2 kingdoms separated by a mountain range, or simply 2 kingdoms, one in the east and one in the west.

Anyway, Rhye is divided into two parts, the "white" side, which is prosperous, peaceful, and life is good, ruled by the benevolent White Queen. The other half, the "black" side, where life short, grim and violent, is ruled by her sister, the malevolent Black Queen.

It appears that the "white" side is suffering from the effects of the fading of the protective magic, which is beginning to erode the quality of life there. The Black Queen, noticing the weakness on the "white" side, decides to launches a full-scaled invasion of the White Queen's domain. After all, there's rich farmland, fine shipping and trading, slaves and taxes that can be taken to enrich her.

>>10639364
Sounds like a song of ice and fire.

Any idea on the Tax policy?

>>10639369
>It is a gift. A gift to the foes of the IRS. Why not use this loan? Long has my father, the Head of Accounts at Gondor kept the forces of the IRS at bay. By the accounts of our investors are your dividends paid! Give Gondor this fixed-rate loan, let us use it against them!

Holy shit I'm late.

Read online: www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/soi.aspx
E-book: https://archive.org/details/TheCompleteWorksOfHPLovecraft_201412 (including like 30 additional stories)
Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFZrqYn5f_0

Are the Legend of the Galactic Heroes books any good? I've heard great things about the anime, will propbably watch it soon

>>10640401
cant speak for the books but the anime is fucking fantastic. its full of political plays, wars and everything is very interestingly written.

>>10639431
ayy, already read that, probably the best Lovecraft story

>tfw literally not intelligent enough to comprehend or understand book of the new sun

89 iq is a curse

>>10640538
statistically speaking 89 is above average if we take all of the world into account, anon.

>>10640401
The books are okay. I liked the ones I've read (1-4), but sometimes the phrasing can feel a bit clunky.
I'd say try the books, and if those don't cut it for you, then get the anime, the voice acting is really good, and the classical soundtrack pushes it further.

>>10639431
You activated my autism. Please correct image next thread.
>22th
It's 22nd

>>10640401
its shit fuck the chinks in this thread that force this meme

>>10636218
>>10636254
>>10636263
>>10636210
>reading self publishing hacks who use patreon
worst of the worst you lot are.

>>10640816
>tfw outed as a brainlet
I'll fix it.

>>10637843
Sanderson is even worse.

What is everyone reading?
I'm trying Darrow Electric Boogaloo 2

>>10639319
>le tips

>>10640538
>tfw 200 iq
>still dont understand it

>>10641618
>tfw 117.5 iq
>in the sweet spot to understand it perfectly

>>10641666

89fag here.

I understand the basic sypnosis: not-edgelord murders waifu, gets ban't, goes to urth-mexico for redemption, sets new waifu free, ban'ts himself rather than be kill, climbs a mountain, gets spook'd by an alien goat, climbs more mountains, kills alien god, breaks his rock and i just made it to the part where he starts eating dead guy's cheese

im so fucking lost and i cant connect any of the relevancy. what's point to any of this?

>>10641746
He's a symbol of humanity - everything he does turns out bad, even though he's got good intentions or he thinks he does. The Conciliator is Jesus Christ, who Severian wants to be like but he fails because humanity is fallen.

>>10641768
>jesus christ was a raptor

>>10641773
And a lion and a lamb and a tree and a vine.

>>10641778
anon please, im not very smart

what does the claw represent. why is it a claw?

>>10641787
It's actually a thorn.

It's a complicated book, you're not going to get it all the first time no matter how smart you are outside of 117.489 IQ. Take notes on your questions, keep reading, and read it again after you finish.

>>10641806

i guess its more about detail and patience than intellectigence huh

GIVE ME SOMETHING TO FUCKING REEEEEEEEEEAD.

I'd like something long, religious, with some mystery to it, and characters that don't take themselves too seriously.

>>10641857
It's not long, but read Vampire$

>>10641817
Yeah. Intelligence helps you pull connections together faster, especially if you're well-read, but patience is what's actually required for comprehension.

>>10641857
Count to the Eschaton.

>mfw angry brainlet can't scheme the Gene
https://www.waggish.org/2007/gene-wolfe-the-book-of-the-new-sun/

>>10641866
>>10641868
Cheers for the suggestions.

Vampire$ sounds a little bit too edgy and uninspired to grasp me, and Count to the Eschaton sounds a little too weird.

I guess I'm interested in mundane stories but interesting people.

>>10641978
Maybe you should try outer /lit/.

>>10641985
Problem is, those stories are too mundane.

I want a middleground between the hero's journey saving the world from doom and a normal day in Dublin.

At the same time I want fully realised interesting characters.

Maybe I don't know what I want.

>>10642005
You want Cugel.

>>10641978
Vampire$ has phenomenal action scenes and very immersive character psychology, just like "Armor" by the same author. More bleak than edgy.

>>10641884

>tfw literally can't understand this understanding of gw

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>10642039
>>10642039
You're not the angry brainlet, the author of the article is, and he misunderstands GW.

>>10642018
Jack Vance's Dying Earth series? I'm looking at it now, if that's what you meant. Looks pretty interesting.

>>10642031
Armor looks like the more interesting to me of the too. I'll give it a closer look. Thanks for the tips anon.

>>10642056
>extremely verbose article is misunderstanding incarnate

m-maybe i have hope after all

>>10641978
Only read the first myself (Coint to a Trillion), but Count to the Eschaton is pretty good. Not hard reading or thematically (still not bad though), but amazing in terms of sci-fi inventiveness. I second that recommendation.

>>10642005
Daniel Black by E William Brown

>tfw despise the hero's meme

humanity is shit, and everything we do is the same. are there any good non-campbell books?

>>10641554
Latro in the Mist. I just finished the first part, it's really good.

Which is better for a first novel? First person, or THird person limited?

>>10642530
Second person

>>10642530
first person for dialog, third for narration.

>>10642530
A mixture of both

>>10642530
you will never be published

>>10642530
first person with majority of the story being told from third person by a background character

Just got done with this.

Quite a bit of the writing, especially in the middle third of the book, has a dashed-off quality, probably the result of indifferent editing. Most annoying were repeated uses of "freaky"/"freakish" and "weird". There's also quite a bit of clumsy repetition when describing various large-scale cosmic phenomena. Wright has an extensive vocabulary so, again, I'm inclined to chalk this up to a combination of laziness and poor editing.

As throughout the series, far too much hinges on the Montrose/Rania relationship that Wright just can't make come alive.

A character from the first few books appears out of nowhere to play a significant part in the ending. Wright should have dropped some hints that the guy was still around in the past few books; that he didn't looks sloppy as hell.

Still, this was a great way to tie up the series, and the ending, despite my complaints above, was absolutely on point -- exactly what's needed to end a long series.

>>10642835
>far too much hinges on the Montrose/Rania relationship that Wright just can't make come alive.
Totally agree. Wright can't write women, which sucks because he ought to be able to, but even with Rania being offscreen for the majority of the series she's not that great of a character. Her reminisces in CtI gave a lot of depth to the relationship, and they should have been spaced out through the rest of the novels, a piece of the Monument voyage as prologues maybe, from Rania's perspective even.

>Wright should have dropped some hints that the guy was still around in the past few books; that he didn't looks sloppy as hell.
Agreed. There was room for it. Imagine him showing up at the duel with Jupiter, that would have been the perfect opportunity.

The ending was amazing, though something nags me about it that I can't place. Have you read Awake in the Night Land? Similar in many ways to the end of Last of All Suns, which suffered from a similar problem in regards to making the relationship come alive.

Generalissimo Montrose of the Milky Way was the best part. He finally gets a chance to defend the Earth.

My writing problems just keep getting stupider. I finally had an idea that had everything I wanted only to realize I had accidentally come up with a lovecraft/kitchen nightmares crossover fic

>>10642530
that depends on the story. use third person if you want to switch pov, or first if you either need to justify your character's actions, or use unreliable narration

>>10642859
One of the problems with the series is that so much gets glossed over by the scale that there's a basically unlimited amount of narrative history to retroactively modify the present. Wright isn't always as disciplined with this as he should be, and the history of Rania and Montrose's relationship is the biggest example. We absolutely should have seen more of it before the last book.

>the ending
I've read Awake in the Night Land. There are some thematic similarities with The Last of All Suns but I actually liked CtI's ending better. A key difference of course is that the protagonist doesn't survive.

The only good woman character Wright has ever written was in Iron Chamber of Memory. That being said, Rania interposing herself between the duelists was completely believable, even obvious. That, at least, he established pretty well.

My friends i come here practically an ignorant of sci fi lit having myself consumed mostly supernatural horror lit. Apart from some Assimov short stories which I found nice but not so engaging I haven't really read much in the genre. This weekend I saw both Blade Runners and I liked how they approached the themes of humanity and empathy as well as the bleak settings and the proposed use of technology in the future so I was wondering if you'd possibly could recommend something along those lines. And what I mean by along those lines is not necessarily a carbon copy but a story where there's some deeper meaning behind the text or at least an attempt at commentary, if the setting is kinda dark in nature then even better. I'm not one for star wars or star trek kinda stuff with huge space fights and armies so nothing too epic in scope, smaller scale stuff is usually better imo.

>>10642905
Which one would you choose?

>>10641746

Some of it doesn't make sense until literally the last chapter, and if you don't remember it by then you might miss the way in which it is relevant. I don't consider myself amazingly intelligent but by the end I couldn't think of any significant element that I didn't understand or question that went unanswered.

To put it another way, each book has a "goal" or destination that Severian is trying to reach/achieve and at the end of each book the journey is (mostly) concluded, but the goal doesn't pan out for whatever reason. He finds out what his "real" goal is at the end of the last book, and as far as I can tell every character gets some kind of resolution/explanation by that point.

except the fucking green man wtf

>>10642966
again, it depends.

my first novel used third person. It wasn't remotely well thought-out but it happened to be the right choice because the MC was supposed to come off as a weirdo (3rd-person hides the character's thought processes which would humanize them too much) and it freed up the POV when needed

my second is first-person because the mc is supposed to be an unreliable narrator and his emotional state is supposed to be center-stage, but it will switch to third-person for other scenes that focus on other characters.

That's a thing you can do by the way, but you need to be careful about how it alters the reader's perceptions and context

>>10642161
If you want to avoid the hero's journey, probably best to avoid stories that have heroes or antiheroes. Go with weird fiction, horror, political fantasy or chick-/lit/. You might be safe if you go with detective sff, but avoid stuff like dresden that has a heavy action emphasis

>>10642005

this is why I read dinosaurs, from an era when literary writing had not yet been divorced from SFF, which resulted in the former turning into (often literal) shit due to fastidiously dull content and retarded prose-experimentation, and the latter turning to shit because "LMAO it's just genre fic who cares bro"

>>10642966

what are you writing about? I mostly agree with other anon, but I don't use first person myself unless it's epistolary (though a "the narrator is telling you a story" tone can sometimes be pulled off). It can bring up narrative issues, i.e. you have to wonder how much detail, why he would write it in novelistic prose, how much the narrator would actually write in his diary, how well he would remember dialogue to be believable etc. that's why in BotNS Severian's photographic memory is A) mentioned at all, and B) kind of a joke to other writers, and it works better in a pre-electronic setting because it is more plausible there. It is also useful to immerse the reader in the setting if you can pull off an anachronistic tone (many can't).

I would say however that it's pretty much a tight-rope act, you can have a mediocre third-person narrative but first person is usually either good or cringe-inducing shit. Real time first person is also fanfic tier garbage (I nodded to the crows).

>>10638881
Currently on book two, The Warrior-Prophet. I thought I was going to *really* like it, but honestly, it's alright. I'm just not emotionally invested and don't give much of a fuck about the characters save Akka. Otherwise I kinda give a shit on what Kellhus ends up doing . I do not plan on reading the trilogy after PoN.

Bakker's biggest problem for me is that he's just got too much shit crammed into the books, namely characters and places. I guess he's going for something big and grand here, but as I stated about, I could care less about 99% of the characters.

>>10643053
>what are you writing about?
Honestly? The first few novels are just going to be popcorn entertainment to lure readers in a false sense of familiarity.

>>10642906
>The only good woman character Wright has ever written was in Iron Chamber of Memory.
Not even sure I agree with you there. She was more believable but she still had this veneer of fantasy out of step with the rest of the story.

>>10642906
>One of the problems with the series is that so much gets glossed over by the scale
I think he would have done well to make do with less writing for the same scale, so we weren't aware of all the extra stuff that was going on that could affect the plot. Del Azarchel's perspective was another thing that was missing, we get a little of it in Architect but he's an opaque character right to the end.

>>10642955
Probably Snow Crash.

>>10638187
A song of ice and fire

>>10643271
>she still had this veneer of fantasy out of step with the rest of the story
Yeah but wasn't the whole point that what looks like a "veneer of fantasy" actually is a sign of something fantastical?

>Del Azarchel
Architect of Aeons should have been written entirely from his perspective. That would be the reader's introduction to the transgalactic intellects, a break from following Montrose around, and a revelation that Reyes is still alive. Also might have given us a bit more perspective on the Jupiter breeding program which is mentioned several times as a great crime but without much resonance since we never really find out what it consisted of.

>>10643356
>Yeah but wasn't the whole point that what looks like a "veneer of fantasy" actually is a sign of something fantastical?
The point was that the seemingly mundane main characters were actually fantastical, wasn't it? It's been a while since I read it, but I do remember wincing at the girl's dialogue.

The hero losing his v-card to the temptress hit hard, though. That and the end are my clearest memories from it.

>Architect of Aeons should have been written entirely from his perspective.
Now I'm going to be sad. An entire novel where we get to be the bad guy, maybe even in first person, as Azarchel does glamorous villain stuff in a register more appropriate to Wright's prose.

>without much resonance
I was disappointed about this. It was a major even in the history of humanity, history broke along its axis, but looking back I care more about the victims of that one criminal in Golden Age who raised AIs to be emotionally dependent on her, or the people in the cruise ship Grendel's mom overturns in the Chaos novels.

is the thread ded or is hiroshimoot sticking his ricedick into the serverracks again?

>>10643958
both probably

>>10643958
It's slowly fading into the oblivion of forget. And thank God, we may finally be released. If it finally dies I'm left with one general and one board on the entire site.

>>10643966
atleast posting works.
for whatever god damn reason half the boards wont load for me right now and many threads dont update until i refresh several times.
>>10643967
unfortunately i wasnt implying that /sffg/ was dead in itself.
i mean for all the shit that goes on here we are the last bastion that stands against /outerlit/

Jesus christ, Rothfuss is a giant hack. First book I enjoyed more translated.

>>10635852
Chamiel

>>10638890

Need some good cyberpunk.

>>10643972
Outerlit is probably the worst single board on this entire site. People don't believe this because the ADHD-ridden kids that infest other boards only end up here if they misclick /lgbt/ or /m/ but the overall smugness combined with the kind of idiocy you only find in a Philosophy class at Unis(even there in small but highly concentrated doses) is the kind of pretension no one with anger issues and a fully loaded Glock could stand without eventually making a run for the border.

Good thing is they're too smug/stupid to actually post here and when they do it's pretty obvious.

>>10644309
Altered Carbon and the first 70 pages of Neuromancer. That's it.

>>10644288
He looks like the unholy union between Robbie Coltrane, a badger and Scalzi's psichotic issues. What do you expect?

>>10644328
I wasnt expecting anything to be honest. I read the first one because I found it on the desk of a girl I was seeing and it was fine. Then I read the second on english before it was translate and feel very flat and lazy. I just finish it on spanish and it was way way better.

>>10644324
>Altered Carbon
is the tv adptation any good?

>>10644348
>is the tv adptation any good?
Duno, go ask >>>/tv/

>>10637106
sounds hot

>>10644348
Yes it's pretty good. No, don't ask those retard on /tv/, if there is a thread 90% of it is probably about minorities or women pr shit like that.

So, I finished Sword of the Lictor, and while the climax felt more like a proper climax instead of the transitions of the first two, it kinda seemed like Wolfe was making shit up as he went after reaching Thrax.

Still liked it, though, seemed somewhat more philosophical than the first two.

>>10644348
Enjoyable. Made some interesting changes, some of them pretty good.

>>10642955

Just started reading Abercrombie - The First Law.

Holy shit does the prose get any better? Enough people have told me it's a good series that I want to stick with it but damn the writing is bad. Normally I can deal with it but fuck it feels like I'm reading Eragon.

What are some novels with a a focus on visuals, more environmental fluff, and not just the dialogue, ideally also the atmosphere?
I want some comfy novels to read and immerse myself in.

>>10644569
I felt the same way while reading, I convinced myself that it was good by the end. The only good characters that makes you keep reading are Byaz and the torturer. You keep reading thinking you would get more of them.... but no. You get a bunch of people that you don't want to know what's going on.

>>10644556
This entire chart is shit. it not like i read kek, but they still shit

>>10644556
>princd of thorns

I'm still angry I got meme'd into reading that shit. Literally CRAWLING IN MUH SKIN - teen edge bullshit.

>>10644633
hey man, if you didn't like Prince of Thorns then you should totally check out the Red Queen's War

>>10644651
Was it you, you mother fucker? Give me back those hours of my life you venomous bastard RREEEEE

Not falling for it again.

>>10644348
Made some stupid changes that completely mess up the tone.
Hope that Amazon Snow Crash adaptation is more accurate.

what do you guys think about witcher books?

>>10644633
When you get a chart or personal recommendation, you go on goodreads, read the blurb, then some reviews to get a feel if you want to read or not.

>>10644767
Too SJWy for me desu

>>10644584
The Dying Earth.
Redwall.

>TFW I want to write my novel as a series of corresponding letters between a child and her parents.
Will it work?

>>10645005
Sounds boring as shit. More when you think that it would make it impossible for them to meet or they wouldn't be exchanging letters. And then they can't fugg .

>>10645076
>More when you think that it would make it impossible for them to meet or they wouldn't be exchanging letters.
That's the entire point of the novel

>>10645005
No that sounds far too experimental and strange, I don't think anyone would ever want to read something as out-there as an epistolary novel, that's just a step beyond what could ever be an accepted genre.

>>10645087
Aren't a few classical books written as epistolary novel

>>10645109
Second-person present-tense was pretty much the standard until 1700, dude.

>>10645005
Corresponding letters anon. I see you still want to continue with this shit, even though years have passed. I thought you would have grown out of it by now.

>>10639036
This. After the first one, I was hyped but like them going through the desert, it's just a long slog and, it's biggest sin, boring.

>>10644767

The short stories are the best part. Ciri can fuck off, I signed up for monster hunting not a dumb bitch trying to not get raped or die in a desert

i want to feel dead what scifi book can do this

>>10645405
your diary

>>10645405
You don't need no science fantasy to do that. Your real life is enough for you to an hero.

>>10644660
what about Red Sister if that doesn't tickle your fancy, it's different than his other work I swear

>>10645405
Gateway
BotNS
Blindopraxia

>>10645598
I kinda tolerated Prince of thorns, but red queen was the same shit only with a coward fool. It was shit.

Red Sister was about loli lesbians who kill. Meh

>>10645405
>i want to feel dead what scifi book can do this

Three Stigmata by PKD "The Dick" K Dick

>>10644569
>Just started reading Abercrombie - The First Law.
>Holy shit does the prose get any better?
His prose is good. You clearlly don't know what is really bad - like Sanderson or P.K.Dick stuff.

>>10646016
>I'm bored
>let me shitpost a bait comment for lulz

Why haven't you read Daniel Black as yet?

I've come to the conclusion that the scale of the story I'm planning has gotten away from me, and as such I'm scrubbing the evil faction and final battle because I realized it was looking more and more blatantly tacked on.
As such, I'm getting to the trouble of where I've isolated the big plot points now without the looming threat of big bad evil war, and don't have much of a climaxed ending.
I'm basing it off of old French Fairy Tale format, should I just double down and go, "The Fairy did it to complete a complex plan to marry off a bunch of royal children to be indebted to me forever"?
Is it too contrived to pull a, "I can save your sick family, do these tasks for me and they'll be saved".
Just trying to find the right balance between modern writing and old fairy tales.

>>10647152
Can you come up with multiple fairies and multiple motivations, tying them all together at various points in the story?

>>10647152

>>10647163
I was planning for the MC to run into another fairy somewhere along the way, but yes, it seems the best course of action is to throw in more of them.
>>10647173
If it makes you feel better, I don't and probably won't ever have a blog.

>>10644633

How did you not know this by the end of page 1?

>>10646951
I am finishing it. Feels like I am reading one of those cheat isekai anime. He tends to delve too long on the engineering and building of stuff instead of actually progressing the story more quickly. Which leads to the reader thinking much more time has passed than it actually has, until he says "I just got here last week" when it feels like months passed. And adding to that, from all the girls only a couple are any good. Overall, pretty mediocre books.

The amount of aspiring authors in this thread is getting out of hand desu.

>>10647646
Is there a better place to ask construction questions? I only asked here because of the genre.

>>10647694
join a writers society and ask them.
there many writers that actually do twitch streams and answer any questions you might have too.
just pick a society that has writers that do work you are reading frequently or which you want to write like.

>>10646951
Fuck off.

>>10647742
I meant a better place on 4chan.
/ic/ is more about art, and I'm not far enough along to go to the critique threads here on /lit/.
And what writers stream on twitch?

>>10646016
Nice try, Joe.

>>10647765

Critique threads are full of pseuds who only want to read melodramatic pseud shit desu, could try /tg/ story threads but they are not as good at writing/criticism as /lit/

>>10648047
I guess it's better than nothing. And it's not like I'm a good writer (yet) anyways, so I'm sure I'd be in good company.

>>10635737
Elminster the making of a mage
Forsaken house
Homeland (R.A.Salvatore)
Dissolution (war of the spider queen)
Elfshadow
The Lies of Locke Lamora (more like fantasy oceans 11)
order of the stick (a webcomic, but its kind of like a fantasy novel)

its a shame how few good fantasy books outside D&D there are

>>10648066
You don't have to be a good writer to be published.

Has anybody read this? Does it live up to the first two?

>Tehanu
Why?

>>10638586
"I told you full well" doesn't make a damn lick of sense

>>10644767
it started about the witcher.. and then its a million other people while the witcher is crippled...

Dnno

>>10648562
If you were a native English speaker you would automatically recognize part of the phrase "you knew full well" and completely miss the awkward construction, anon.

>>10647425
>pretty mediocre books.
Yes, but you enjoyed yourself right? If you don't find the engineering fun the series probably isn't for you.

>>10648082
>its a shame how few good fantasy books outside D&D there are
Just kys you pos.

>>10644309
Book of the Long Sun.

>>10636224
Is malazan dark souls then?

Any books about or involving all-girls schools? Or just in general something with a female protagonist, preferably in the high school to college age range, in an academy/institute/etc...
The grimmer, bloodier, crazier, and bitchier the better.

>>10648748
Orphans of Chaos.

>>10648084

True, see: >>10644633, >>10637106

>>10649040
good rec

Chasm City by Reynolds has a Char Aznable type in it. That makes it instantly 5/5 in my book:
>alpha male hotblooded rivalries/convoluted revenge plot tweest season
>my ship is 3x faster than yours
>psycho conditioning
>MY WAIFU, MY LAIFU
>revenge plots
>Eduardo Mass and Char Aznable/Casval/Quattro Vagina with more psychopathy etc (the eye thing got me real good) and Gundam Origin like Char keikaku
>I can't believe the Fraw Bow/Peace Princess: Revelation Space edition actually fucking died

Plus some of the Reynolds good stuff. The atmosphere is pretty different from book 1 and the hard-medium scifi appears to have been tapered down pretty considerably until it's low medim with lapses into medium in certain interludes (the characters know less about the science than the ones in the previous book so you get some dumbed down explanations) and with more bio stuff on top of the astronomy.

Characters appear to be handled better than the previous (and first) Revelation Space novel and are better handled. Sadly the worldbuilding seems good but some of the more highly conceptual fun stuff appears to have gone down the shitter Fuck Dream Fuel, made the Melding Plague look like a jobber and there's much less cosmic horror in this one, although it does tie in nicely with book one. There are still psychotic characters mainly the protagonist and dolphins but thankfully it's not 50 Extreme Shades of Volyova's Psychopathy like book 1.

>>10636224
>rothfuss
is he even writing right now? I was under the impression he was just lapping up the fame from his first few hits. He even said himself that he "Can't write because of Trump"
cant speak for the quality though

>>10648082
salvatore is actual trash

Hello anons. I am in desperate need of help. I used to read a lot of sci-fi when I was a young lad. I loved Arthur C. Clarke and H Beam Piper, Asimov and Philip K. Dick, Heinlein, the strugatskys, Lem.

My problem is I find new sci-fi especially of the last 10 years to come in one of three categories

1. Bloated and enormous multi volume works in the 74th cycle of Autism

2. Muslim gay furry immigrants vs Trump

3. A strong and brave tale about #2 written extremely badly that won a Hugo award.

4. China Meiville

5. #1 but tied to some existing movie or game based IP.

I really just want sci fi with laser guns and the occasional earth shattering epiphany. Can anyone point me at something new and good?

Yes this is all subjective and I should probably kill myself but I'm desperate to read something new that isn't non-fiction.

>>10649433
>5 categories
Not three.

Just wanted to add that sci-fi horror is also very good as is what I would call weird worlds like Roadside Picnic.

>>10649433
thats actually hard to answer. sci-fi in general isnt written like that anymore. more often than not its badly written schlock. theres good written schlock though. genuine scifi and good space operas with intrigue and layerd plot that you cant see happening from a mile away isnt really a thing anymore. youd have to dive into older works for that. but i have a tip for you or any genre for that matter.
go to goodreads and try looking through lists that contain the things you want in a book. and then go to the lower rated entries. they are more often than not much much better than anything that tops the lists. because goodreads is basically overwhelmingly made out of normies that only read heavily marketed books. its still a good way to find diamonds in the rough tough.
for my part i stopped giving a fuck and lowered my standards. i found i enjoyed a lot of books even if they arent well regarded generally by the general consensus.

>>10649040
>>10649107
>author's bio pic is him literally tipping his fedora
decent coverart for once though

>>10649473
Not him but why isn't sci fi written like that any more? What changed?
>why does it now suck?

>>10649518
Actually I'd also like to ask if there's a market for old style sci-fi now?

>>10649518
the audience changed.
people dont read because they want to they read,they read because theyre told to read a specific thing through marketing or other means.
there was an article some time ago about how purchasing trends with books changed.
for example books used to sell well over a long period of time sort of like how pc games tend sell consistently. now its however about how many books you can sell on release. and then move on to the next big thing. i can give you a video game example of this. take the xcom remake.
the first game was made multiplatform. it sold really really shit on consoles but decently on pc initially. sales kept on going though. and through no small part of the long war mod the game conistently sold well over 4 years rather than just a bunch in the first release weak that the game waranted a sequel. and hiring of the group that made the mod by the actual developers to make a bunch of official free mods for xcom 2.
this little example is supposed to show you how the demographic changed over time.
this really only applies to the "big" book publishers and writers. i also seem to remember a certain academic paper doing research about this over the timespan of 10 years by checking barns& noble sales in the us, waterstones sales in the uk and hugendubel sales in germany which all resulted in similar changes of trends specifically in sci-fi and fantasy. i think this was an MIT paper but im not entirely sure. i remember gettiing it from sci-hub though.

tl;dr:
less people read books consistently nowadays even if they are easier to obtain. thus many books are now formulaic to appeal to a large demographic that is easy to market to and so profit can be calculated and projected before it is even sold.

>>10648656
I just mean he could sum up lots of pages with "I spent a week building the wall" instead of listing every possibility of how to build a wall beforehand, which materials, shapes, and then some. To finish, he could just describe how the wall looked. I would have enjoyed myself more if the girls were better. Again, not terrible books.
Has the author written anything else? I noticed the last book is from 2015. Is it concluded, by the way? I have yet to finish the last book but I read here somewhere that there were still books to come out, although seeing as it's been 3 years I can't see how.

>>10644487
It only gets better

>>10648082
Latest lock lamore is really awful

>>10649433
Blindsight and Echopraxia are pretty good heavy-hitting modern scifi with a grim tone, I can't promise it's similar to any of the authors you've described but imagine a slightly less idealistic Lem.

>>10649620
The second was bad enough that I didn't manage to finish it years ago, if it gets even worse than that...

I've read BotNS, BotLS, BotSS, Urth, 5th Head and Latro, where do I go next with Wolfe? Honestly the premise of Wizard Knight does not sound that interesting to me.

>>10648118
It's incredibly disappointing. Just imagine the worst parts of the Tines plot from Fire repeated at book length.

>>10649433
One solution is to just not read new works unless it's by an author you are already familiar with. The market for newly released literature of any sort is heavily driven by heavy readers with considerable indifference to quality.

>Asimov, Clarke
Stephen Baxter is an heir of sort to Clarke, although I haven't actually read anything of his since the Xeelee books in the 90s. He's an old warhorse, give him a shot. Kim Stanley Robinson is another, more similar to Asimov than Clarke.

The much-shilled Three Body Problem is Clarke With Chinese Characteristics, sort of.

>Lem
He's pretty unique...maybe Peter Watts? I've only read Blindsight but it's good.

>Heinlein
Charles Stross is sort of a leftish Heinlein imo, although he lately seems content with turning out potboilers in his "Laundry Files" series. Start with Accelerando, drop it and never pick up another book Stross has written if you find it too smarmy.

>H. Beam Piper
Vernor Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep/A Deepness In The Sky). His more recent books haven't been great though.

Ada Palmer has a pretty good if slightly aimless science fantasy series going right now (Terra Ignota, starting with Too Like The Lightning). I'm not sure you will like it but it's new and pretty good.

Ted Chiang isn't big on lasers but has some good concepts. The bad news is he releases maybe one short story per year, the good news is that he's built up a decent catalogue at this point.

I'm going to shill for John C. Wright as well. Start with The Golden Age and if you like it then go to Count to a Trillion for something crazier and less focused. He's kinda sorta similar to A.E. van Vogt, a bit more bloated and quite a lot more coherent.

>>10649640
Give Wizard Knight a shot, it's better than it sounds.

Other than that, Peace.

>>10649587
He wrote a science fiction novel about space Yakuza, and a loli super soldier fucking up people. It was entertaining.
He is currently working on Daniel Black book 4, which is named thrall. It was supposed to be released last year, but he had to rewrite it.
https://williamscorner.blog

The Daniel Black books are really for people that like building things. The author was a programmer, that is why so much focus on building is going on. People I talked to said they loved the series because of this. Do you love survival books? Like what you would do to live? Thats kind of what the Daniel books are about.

It could have been less cringey with all the "fuck my big boobies mi lord", but you can zone those out, and by the end you forgot it even happened.
The way Hekate's worshipper acts does piss me off, the "bad ass bitch" comment got old after the first use. The "you nut" pissed me off too, among other things but I got over it.

>>10649844
Thank you for reminding me just how much I hate Stross.

>>10649433
>to come in one of three categories
>lists 5
>can't even count and wants to read science fiction
Try undying mercenaries by Bv Larson
Library at mount char
Shades of Grey
Metro 2033
Hull zero three

>>10649433
I read Stross' Scratch Monkey and it was the spiritual successor to I Have No Mouth and Must Scream. It also has elements of Karellen and the overlords. You'll see what I mean.

Ada Palmer is a self proclaimed Wolfefag who loves Bester's the Stars my Destination (which I also highly recommend). Palmer's prose is dense, Bester's prose is workmanslike (like asimov and the other ones you've listed)

Peter Watts' Blindopraxia looks like it's descended from Reynold's Revelation Space and Evangelion honestly. Eva certainly feels more PKD and a small amount of ACC than a lot of authors that aren't the Strugatskys and Lem at any rate. But neither Reynolds nor Watts write in your liked styles, but the content can match.

>>10649872
In terms of content and style he's a better version of Scalzi. Unfortunately his work absolutely reeks of sexual desperation and the resultant overcompensation/fantasy.

Honestly I fucking hated Stross until I tried Scratch monkey. Can't get into Accelerando or the others. By the way, I also hate Mieville and his clones while loving Asimov and Philip K. Dick, Heinlein, the Strugatskys and Lem.

>>10649872
Coke can space ship.
Space internet hub.
Virtualization

>>10649847
>oh i don't want this particular book
>recommends that exact book

>>10649844
This is probably one of the best posts I've seen in a while, have you read anything modern which feels like Pohl? I loved Gateway and the rest of Heechee but haven't really been able to match it.

>>10649908
Of course the adam palmer and three meme problem fags would like this post.

>>10649433
Have you checked out William Gibson? His Sprawl trilogy was very influential. It's cyberpunk though.

I'm surprised that the main character was called Witcher (using Neoligism), because in English he should have been called Warlock.
From Russian books (I know they are translated into Swedish), I could recommend Perumov's "Diamond Sword and Wooden Sword" (I forgot how they are called in Swedish translation, but all the ridiculous allusions are played in the book itself).
By the way, these books were popular in Eastern Europe, and Swedish readers noted the parallels between the setting of Perumov and the setting of Dragon Age.
In English, an uncomfortable book was left (uncomfortable - in terms of narrative, because it explains the entire folklore of the universe). This is the book The Doom of the Gods, where in the apocalyptic features the destruction of the old world and the old gods (which, in turn, destroyed the world where the main god was Wotan) is perished.
In turn, in the "Diamond Sword and Wooden Sword" appears degrading world, captured analogue of the Roman Empire. The whole society is divided into castes. The last of the emperors dies in debauchery and power is transferred to his successor, which is controlled by the evil society of the Higher Magicians, who are also mired in debauchery. Mages control the Church of a single Deity, which calls for the destruction of the lower races - elves and gnomes. This is despite the fact that people built their own state on the bones of elves, bringing them down to the rank of slaves.
The story begins with the fact that a young elf who works in a caravan of circus performers (where the fallen god Votan works) runs away and gets to the Lord of the Rains - the dead god who occasionally sends acid rain to people's lands, destroying all life. Further, she falls into the circle of the Higher Magicians, who want to use it to manipulate the Lord of the Rains. In parallel, there is an arch of confrontation between rebellious magicians, whose agent named Fess enlists the support of the young Emperor and together they begin to confront the circle of High Mages. And this is against the background of the uprising of elves and gnomes, who have found the weapon of the apocalypse, and with it help to destroy the empire of people and each other.
Special attention is paid to the description of the vice of the Higher Magi. So, the daughter of one of the masters tries to persuade the elf to lesbianism, the other cohabits with a succubus.

>>10649433
I'm this guy.

>>10649473
Thank you I'll give this a try.

>>10649541
Thank you for an informative but sadly depressing reply.

>>10649844
This is an excellent post and while I may not agree with you on every point there are some in there I haven't heard of and will try.

Though I am not going near Stross as the idea of a lefty Heinlein sounds excruciating (I am aware that Joe Haldeman exists and that the first forever war was pretty good).

>>10649873
The metro books which I have tried are interesting if poorly translated in the editions I got.

>>10649893
Despite what I say above you make scratch monkey sound pretty good.

>>10649895
I agree with you. I tried the laundry series in particular and it did not parse well.

>>10649908
I too would like to know more on this topic.

Is it interesting that there few modern authors in the field who really have a distinctive voice?

>>10649937
When I was a teenager reading them as they were released yes. I think they'd seem sadly and very weirdly dated now.

Good idea though.

At the moment all I read non fiction wise are (And I know I know) Warhammer 40K novels as at least they're consistent in what they are but I like giant spaceships and everything being silly. It helps with my day job having a lot of reading and thinking in it to switch off.


Have a nice picture.

In addition, there is an absolutely remarkable Kharkov writer Andrei Dashkov, who is famous for his insane settings. Unfortunately, he did not translate into English, but this is something amazing.
His fantasy books are similar to Dark Soulz's games (although he wrote his books before these games came out). His heroes are werewolves and damned aristocrats who travel the same damned worlds. In sensations, I would compare his books with Neomycon and Providence by Allan Moore. His worlds are ruled by insane kings and monstrous mages. To learn the prophecy, one of his heroes is forced to impregnate a female dwarf mutant to make a homunculus-diviner from his sperm. A monstrous sorcerer, a creature with a thousand eyes, lives in a castle, where he is served by animated statues that feed travelers with food prepared from their friends. Warlocks-hermaphrodites, animating the bone dragon. City of freaks living underground. Pedophile pedigree, noble necrophilia ...
Dashkov's fantasy is too great to describe in one post. The sensation of his books is like watching the early clips of Marilyn Manson, or that episode in Dark Souls, where you pass through the Lake of Ashes to meet the Last Dragon.

>>10650000
>Is it interesting that there few modern authors in the field who really have a distinctive voice?
nice digits
I think the problem with a lot of modern authors is that they're not writing for scifi fans, but more generally for people who read, and are trying to lure these new targets into scifi. Scifi (and to a lesser extent fantasy) just isn't as popular as it was, and fans of the entire genre (like us) are in a minority significant enough that authors can't waste time setting themselves apart from other writers in the genre, when they're fighting as hard as they can to lure normal readers in.

>>10650000
The books of the series "Metro" are poorly written. They are written by poor graphomaniacs. In my country they are considered a second-rate fad.
The same goes for the books of the Stalker series.

>>10650000
I read Neuromancer about a month ago. Still holds up.

>>10649966
Do you know how paragraphs work?
Unrelated shit are flowing into each other.

>>10650022
Squat bro, how's the weather?

>Raistlin casually zaps Gnimsh
:-(
I feel like Raistlin is supposed to be a somewhat likable antagonist but fuck his sociopathy

>>10649620
>ever reading more than the first

getting my new ereader today, what's the best site to find some good books for free my dudes

>>10650194
any torrent search engine
mobilism.org
google: ebookname + .mobi or .epub

>>10650194
also #ebooks on undernet, rizon or irchighway theyre basically the same channel the bots that server there are the same.

>>10650022
The first one's pretty good, though I agree about the sequels.

>>10650097
>Raistlin Majere
>dragon lance
>2018
>at all
You really desperate cosmerefag. Try Daniel Black as I suggested. You a STEMfag, so you might like it. Heavy stem works starts in book 2.

>>10650194
gutenberg.org
archive.org

>>10649433
>Can anyone point me at something new and good?
>heavy chortling

>>10650365
Sir, *tips*.

>>10649791
Yeah, I was afraid of that. Thank you, though.

>>10650434
I see you are a dino of culture my purple brother. How passeth the day?

>>10649856
The sex scenes didn't bother me at all, in fact I thought it was pretty tame. The two witches were indeed the worst girls, Hecate's being in the leadership. Best girl was the cat.

I think there was not enough of the survival theme. It's one of my major gripes with it. In the first book they could have easily stayed a whole month holed up in that cave he dug. Then some weeks on the road to the castle. Instead he got quickly to the castle and spent pages repeating things about the wall. Same thing about the journey to the city. To the point that in the 3rd book he says "I just got here a couple months ago", when it could've been years.

The book Tamer does building and survival better, I think. The first half of the first book is complete horse shit. The second half improves a little and the second is above average. Not enough sex though.

>>10649537
Have you ever heard of John C. Wright?

>>10649966
>I'm surprised that the main character was called Witcher (using Neoligism), because in English he should have been called Warlock.
Nah, Warlock has more to do with a man making contracts with devils, "witcher" is someone who can do "witching" which is folk magic (dowsing is also called "water witching").

>>10650022
2033 bangs (it's especially good YA)
the rest are shite

>>10650474
No but I'd like to anon. Do tell?

>>10647335
>If it makes you feel better, I don't and probably won't ever have a blog.
You're using 4chin as your blog fagget.

>>10650474
The grand high fedoralord?
Savior of pulp?
Absolver of SF's sins?

SF Signal: Who is the better writer: you or Gene Werewolf?

Zombie John C. Wright: Pardon me, but I was drinking brains when I read this, and laughing sprayed brain goo all over my computer monitor. Well, since I am merely one of a glassy-eyed horde, whereas Gene is a genius, I think this question answers itself. I suggest you rush right out an buy yourself a copy of Shadow of the Torturer, so you can see the absurdity of the question.

Are there any fantasy novels that include romance between two men? Name of the Wind kind of played with my feels, but nature of Kvothe's relationship with Bast isn't like that.

>>10650736
Sure Gene Wolfe is amazing, but why don't this fckn thread move to something more contemporary, you're like dad rock of fantasy

>>10650746
Steel Remains
Imajica
Dhalgren
let the right one in

>>10650746
Lord of the Rings

>>10650756
Because the fucking dinos are pushing Wolfe 24/7. When you push something else, they shit on it, then go back to Wolfe.
The sffg pseuds don't even read. They read botns years ago, and to try to fit into our daily conversation by mentioning the one book they read and can discuss.

>>10650802
>dinos
I wouldn't call a series from the 80s a dino series.
Long Sun is a mid 90s series and Short Sun is younger than aSoIaF

Gene Wolfe has 16 works post 2000 (3 less if you don't count the 2010s) and 8 works or so in the 90s.
How is he a dino?

>>10650445
He could have held up in the first cave, but I think he wanted civilization. And he wanted to get there before the roads were over run by monsters. (and the only actual military trained persons would have pushed on without him if he didn't move. You have to remember how serious Marcus and Thomas take their commission). Some people are arguing it here https://williamscorner.blog/2018/01/29/daniel-black-open-thread/#comments you can check that out.

>The book Tamer does building and survival better, I think.
There are 3 Tamers when i search google
>Tamer: King of Dinosaurs by Brian King
>Tamer: King of Dinosaurs 2 by Michael-Scott Earle
>Tamer of Horses by Amalia Carosella

>>10650852
The persons that like him are the dinos, not Wolfe himself. Wolfe is the only "new" author they want to discuss. Otherwise it's conan and princess of mars

Gene Wolfe's first novel 1970
George Martin's first novel 1971

Is 1970 the cut off point for a dino?

>>10650855
>There are 3 Tamers when i search google
>>Tamer: King of Dinosaurs by Brian King
>>Tamer: King of Dinosaurs 2 by Michael-Scott Earle
>>Tamer of Horses by Amalia Carosella
Hahahahaha. It's not the one with the horses. Apparently, one of the authors of the first book split and the book got better because of it.

>>10650000
>Though I am not going near Stross as the idea of a lefty Heinlein sounds excruciating
stross' sci-fi books are pretty good. Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise both read well and as said Accelerando is good, iirc that book in fat with modern ideas in a sci fi context.

>>10650862
GURM is going to die before his books are completed. So he is going to be a dinosaur anyways.

>>10650802
I saw the random interview looking up JCW and the Wolfe reference amused me since he's a local meme. Haven't actually read BOTNS yet.

>>10650022
>>10650000
roadside picnic is solid. but if you're looking for lazer battles look elsewhere.

>>10650339
I wanted fantasy and I got fantasy. It's enjoyable enough. I will probably read some of the later trilogies too.

>>10650873
What kind of building are we talking about here? Magical? I don't want Robinson Crusoe kind of survival (although I loved that book when i was small) I want magical building and survival.
A magical Robinson Crusoe if you will.

>>10651011
It is fantasy (Daniel Black that is)

>>10651066
Stone age, yes. But with dinosaurs. Not much magic to this one. The scales are still pretty grand and the girls are much better.

>>10635981

I unironically thought the First Law trilogy was one of the shittiest series I've ever read

Thoughts on Michael Flynn's stuff? I'd personally recommend Spiral Arm quodrology (pic related) and Eifelheim. For Irish secret agents in space and medieval settings, respectively.

>>10651100
I don't care but pussy, I want magic.
Almost every "other world" fantasy is filled with cute girls being donkey dicked. There is very litte magic and magic building though.

New Thread
>>10651204
>>10651204
>>10651204

>>10650651
*tips fedora*
*genuflects*
>sorry master, I must go all out... just this once
*channels Vance so perfectly GRRM is gobsmacked*
*channels Van Vogt until the Van Vogt estate can't tell the difference and offers a book deal*
*channels Hodgson with a pitch-perfect conclusion to the Night Land saga nobody even knew they wanted*
Ahem. Yes, good sir, I have found that from my own most humble pen a certain demand for that scientifiction that our forefathers cut their blessed teeth may be found, and that brave writer willing to face the scorn of the world and the terror of the blank page may well be able to follow in my footsteps.