/lit/ - Literature

First for Shallan.

>>11950770
First for joe Abercrombie should eat shit and die

So... Lift is pretty awesome, isn't she?

>>11950782
Welp, that didn't quite work.

What's your favorite kind of plot in your SF&F?

Does Murakami count as SFF or is that too “highbrow”? His stuff almost always feels like fantasy to me.
Anyways, assuming it fits the thread subject matter, I really enjoyed Killing Commendatore. It could have been 30-40% shorter without losing any substance, but his novels always put me into a relaxed, dreamy state of mind while I read them so I’m not about to complain.

>>11950819
It's fantasy, mainstream fags just like to call it magical realism since it doesn't fit their idea of whatever they think fantasy is.

>>11950833
That’s how I’ve always viewed it, yeah. Just like Margaret “Literary Fiction” Atwood.

>>11950843
Plebs. Atwood literally calls herself a scifi writer

>>11950862
Only after people called her out on how dumb she sounded when she tried to act all high and mighty.

>>11950797
Your best bet is to find your own voice

What am i in for? Never read anything from him

>>11950948
A cranked neck.

Any sci fi recommendations for a actual boomer (vietnam vet) who reads at maybe a high school level? He loved Ender's Game and I recommended he read some Heinlein next, what do you guys think

>>11950991
wolfe

>>11950997
He said high school level not middle school.

>>11950991
David Drake is also a Nam' boomer and has written tons of stuff based on his war experience. I haven't read any of his work yet, but I was recommended Hammer's Slammers and Redliners.

>>11951023

>>11950991
"Snake Eyes" by Tom Maddox

>>11950991

Forever War, its a Vietnam vet working through his shit. There's pretty plain language, with the most complicated easily ignored as "this is a technological thing with techno terms"

Anymore like these? All the other litrpgs I try are either boring or just plain awful. It doesn't have to be litrpg, just something fun and along these lines.

>>11950770
>Post what you're reading and tell us why it sucks
I keep reading The Wandering Earth, a short story collection by Liu Cixin. I've read three stories and while the first two was nothing special the third one actually managed a great blend of exciting ideas and good characters while also feeling slightly non-western.

WHERE THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO FIND A EBOOK COPY OF FREDERIK POHLS "GATEWAY!?!"

IS IT NOT EVEN IN PRINT ANYMORE? I CAN'T FUCKING FIND IT!

AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!

>>11951591
nigga what
https://www.bookdepository.com/Gateway-Frederik-Pohl/9780575094239

>>11951591
http://b-ok.org/book/1252818/ee1b5b

>>11951384
Well there's a second one of that storyline. I haven't read it yet.

What is the single greatest standalone science fiction novel you've ever read? I'm sick and fucking tired of multi-book series.

Been reading The Lathe Of Heaven lately. It's pretty damn good, probably the most entertaining sci-fi read I've come across since Roadside Picnic.

Nice change of pace from all the stuffy philosophical works I've been diving into as of late.

Was worried that I couldn't enjoy sci-fi anymore. No more space operas for me I think.

>>11950991
Book of the new sun - Gene Wolfe
Alastair Reynolds books are also pretty good space operas

>>11951645
Roadside Picnic

>>11951645
Probably the time machine or war of the worlds all the others that come to mind have sequels

>>11950991
Old Man's War, Forever War, Starfist series was written by a couple of Marine Vietnam vets and is pretty simple stuff.

Odd that I never see anyone talk about Starfist here, shame the series has been dead since 2009, I wanted to see 34th FIST stumble on the Skink homeworld or an all-out war with the Skinks.

Shame.

>>11951645
Aniara.

>>11951591
I swear retards these days don't even bother looking before they commence their autistic screeching.

>>11951697
Faggot

>>11951711
A faggot who knows how to pirate books on his own without giving up after the first result on google fails and wailing like a baby, thank you.

>>11950770
Source on that sweet cover?

>>11951749
>Being a theif

Don't talk down to me, you common scum.

>>11951791
That's a parody cover made by paperback paradise on twitter.
This is the real cover.

>>11951794
What is better - being an upstanding pillar of morality without the book or a thieving ruffian with the book?

>>11950948

pretty good stuff except sometimes it seems like hes really trying too hard to impose on you the scale of the universe, like the narrator takes whole paragraphs explaining how long it took to receive a message and how long it would take them to get to the point of origin and they will need to go into cryosleep for like 50 years whoa

>>11951893
Jesus, I swear excessive tattooing/piercing is a mental illness.

>>11951938
>excessive
So it's totally cool if she has an epic little meme?

>>11950991
Undying Mercenaries series

>>11951621
The second one is not very good.

>>11951958
>meme

No, no its not cool. Not cool at all. Memes are a cancer.

>>11951968
>Memes are a cancer
But memes are /lit at it's most condensed form.
I guess I can see why fantasy fags, accustomed to hundreds of pages of nothingness, can be out of the loop. That or being an NPC.

>>11951938

probably more like a symptom

>>11951968
you have to go back

>>11951968
>memes are a cancer

>>11951938
>they have a mental disease because I and my superior taste don't like it

>>11951979
>>11952026
>>11952032
Each new meme is more forced and unfunny then the last. Its a vicious cycle of shit.

>>11951938
Yeah it's basically self mutilation.

>>11952060
>Butthurt alternafag with his dickhole pierced shut detected

You may not realize it, but everyone thinks you're a fucking freak. Enjoy those tats when you're old and saggy you stupid motherfucker.

If I knew you guys would sperg so bad over some ink I never would have posted that photo.
Let's just go back to fantasy waifus, all this reee-ing is making me uncomfortable.

You can always tell there's something wrong with a woman if she tries to hide her appearance in some way; e.g. big glasses, strange hair colors, tattoos, etc.

>>11951023
Dumb mother fucker doesn’t even know everyone is too stupid for Wolfe. Shit opinions parroted by plebs. Dysgenic fertility in action - the biggest selective pressure on who survives to “adulthood” is abortion ...

>>11952135
>90% of those look like they were inked by an edgy 14 year old

Holy fucking CRINGE. Take your shitty body mod fetish somewhere else you literal trailer trash piece of shit.

>>11952135
What a waste of a nice body..

>>11952135
Gives a whole new meaning to the term BLACKED

>>11952149
Pls don't be mad.

>>11952146
Would the same principle apply to neckbeards or basedboys?
Fedora, trench coat, katana, reading at Starbucks?

>>11952172
Not mad, just disgusted.

>>11952179
As lame as that shit is, I don't think it's the same thing as a woman trying to deform her natural appearance and make herself look uglier.

>>11952182
what made you lose ur gust

>>11952146
It's a big indicator of past sexual abuse. Most of the tattoo/piercing crowd I've personally known were molested at a young age.

Its a weird sort of coping mechanism.

>>11952182
As long as we're cool dawg.

>>11951384
What do you want? Pseudo litrpgs? Or enjoyable books?
For pseudo litrpg try
Dungeon Born by Dakota
Ancient Ruins by Benjamin
Super Sales on Super heroes
Wild wastes
Confessions of a D-List Supervillain by Jim
The (sort of) Dark Mage by Nelson
Demons of Astlan by Langland
Dr. Anarchy’s Rules For World Domination by Nelson
Dungeon deposed

I picked this up hoping for some hilariously edgy schlock and oh boy did it not disappoint

I'm about a third of the way through and literally every single page so far is jerking off to how cool and clever and unbeatable and the main character is. One of the front quotes said to be careful or else I'll end up rooting for him, then less than twenty pages in he's raping women and setting towns on fire. I've lost track of how many times he waxes poetic about how he's so damaged and is a cold bastard coolguy

>Out in the marshes I made a dead man run with nothing but what I hold inside
>If I were in his place, I'd have been looking for an opportunity to stick a knife in me. But I knew enough to know that most men didn't share my priorities.
>I built my first torture chamber i nthe dark vaults of imagination. Lying on bloody sheets in the Healing Hall I discovered doors within my mind that I'd not found before, doors that even a child of nine knows should not be opened. Doors that never close again. I threw them wide.

>>11952391
This just might surpass Sandersonl.

>>11952113
I don't have any tattoos or piercings you closed minded shitter. You talk about them being freaks when you are on an image board sperging the same regurgitated shitt all over again and when they are not doing that only that about what aliens to fuck. Good thing your not the freak.

Why has this place devolved into a chatroom? It was bad before, but not in this particular way.

>>11952411
>sperging the same regurgitated shitt all over again and when they are not doing that only that about what aliens to fuck
Learn English before you post. This is an English site.

>>11952494
Chartfag stopped enforcing the general. It devolved into utter garbage around early to mid August.

>>11951645
The Gone-Away World

>>11952494
influx of even more right wing kids who try to turn everything into a political argument over the summer. I don't really use the rest of /lit/ but it's had the same decline.

The saving grace of this thread used to be that people actually read what they were talking about but now there's loads of posters who read a summary pick one thing and use that to call whatever book was mentioned shit.

>>11952391
I remember someone telling me so passionately about this book and it sounded every bit as awful as you describe it.

>>11952529
>influx of even more right wing kids who try to turn everything into a political argument over the summer. I don't really use the rest of /lit/ but it's had the same decline.
2NPC4me

>>11952577
posting the latest forced meme like a true individualist with their own thoughts

>>11952582
>getting triggered by NPC meme
Well if the shoe fits...

While you idiots were arguing about memes and politics I've read the fourth story in The Wandering Earth. It was shit. Some interesting ideas and a concept reused in TBP aliens turning Australia into a human reservation, which was fun, but the writing was edgy 16 year old tier.

There better be some good stories coming up or I'll end up disappointed in this book.

good hustle jannies

>>11952494
1. Midterms coming up, and the smaller mid-size boards like /lit/ and /fa/ were a target last election, too
2. Lots of people trying to write their own shit because November's coming up, and asking for people's opinions on particular aspects is easier than just writing what you like
2.5 The same people are often too afraid to share details about their story here, meaning that the only question they post are super general matters of opinion, which of course are going to go undiscussed because nobody feels strongly enough to write a good post about something so vague
3. The genre is kind of in a sorry state right now; there are very few active writers that appeal to people in this general (Wolfe's even taken a turn to the mainstream, and his last novel was in 2015) so there's a lot of negativity, which leads to snappy insults and shitposts instead of discussion

Did I get all of it

>>11952630
ever vigilant

>>11952494
I stopped coming here.

>>11951384
The entire genre is like panning for gold.

>tfw reverend insanity has gone back to one chapter a day and you're fucking jonesing, man.

>>11952391
Amazing.
I've dropped a few chinese weebshit novels because the mc stops raping and "pulling out weeds from the root," sounds like something right up my alley.

>>11950991
Cook's Black Company series. I know you asked for sci fi, but its till a pretty good mix of military and fantasy.. Simple prose, but with pretty good pacing. Cook was in the navy and it kinda comes out in his writing. Apparently the series is pretty popular in the armed forces.

Man, Dune is great so far except for that shit-tier prose and that clunky dialogue. Maybe I should accept that if you want good prose genre fiction is the last place you should look.

>>11952812
Wolfe and GRRM, and GGK to some extent, are still the only ones who I think have good prose. (People will shit on me for saying GRRM, but I find him miles better than Rothfuss or Sanderson or whatever else.) There are some that are at least passable or are good at hiding the fact they don't care about it, like Asimov. But unless you want to count stuff like Infinite Jest as genre fiction, yeah, it kinda sucks overall.

>>11950770
I've been reading Bakker, about half way through The Darkness that Comes Before, still not sure if you guys memed me into it or if its actually a good book. I'm honestly not sure if I'll finish it. When it's good, its great, but when its bad it drags. So much of the book just feels like Bakker jerking himself off trying to show how smart he is. Just tell the fucking story man.

>>11952623
>the next story turn out to be a tongue-in-cheek story about a murderous computer virus featuring the author himself and an obvious stand-in for another famous Chinese author as horny, drunken hobos
Immature but hilarious, book is saved.

>>11952812
The biggest challenge to sticking with dune was getting used to Herbert's writing style. Im don't mean the prose was difficult or anything, total opposite. Its that he has a weird way of structuring the dialogue in relation to the paragraphs.

The fact that he also will suddenly switch POV between 3 characters 15 times in the same scene, or even within the same paragraph, is kinda disorienting. I would be reading a chapter that had been Jessica's POV for most of the scene, then suddenly the internal monologue would shift and seem out of character, then at the end of the paragraph it would say "...Paul thought." and that was the only indication POV had shifted, way after the fact.

>>11952341
What a shit list.
You must be a shit reader.

i dont even read books
i've only read like 5 books and one of them was ready player one
jesus christ

>>11952957
Read some good books then.

>>11952957
Throne of Glass.

>>11952957
If you read the chronicles of Amber you’ll have read 5 good books.

>>11952957
>and one of them was ready player one
You can literally only go up from here.

>>11952957
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RubBzkZzpUA

>>11951384
>Better cover

>>11953035
They could at least have gotten a good artist.

>>11952859
The POV shifting is something I actually like. It's cool. But yeah, it's my biggest problem so far.

>>11952824
I really like Peake. GRRM is alright but nothing special. I have yet to read something by GGK but it's on my list.

>>11952824
GRRM would be a god here if GOT wasn’t normie and mainstream

>read historical fantasy
>get attached to a character I know gets btfo

>>11953039
The cover is pretty good for self published stuff.

>>11952824
Since someone just mentioned Amber, Zelazny has excellent writing, it really shines through on that first trip into Amber.

It's a bit of a weird suggestion since nobody actually likes the series but if you look at the Wild Cards series it's a pretty good way of finding out which fantasy writers are actually good at their craft since at this point Martin has had literally everyone write a story in there

>>11953074
What are you reading?

This was pretty good. Contemporary (in 1980) fictionalization of a space shuttle doing an emergency landing on Easter Island and the logistic/political nightmare of getting it back to the US. 4/5 sneaky Ivans

>>11953096
forgot pic

>>11953081
I've only read Lord of Light, and while I liked it, I didn't think he made his prose really engaging.

>>11953078
I am fairly certain you can commission something far better for a few hundred bucks.

>>11953095
Fall of Egypt

>>11953123
You can get some Russian from FA to give you some god tier shit for like $150

>>11950991
Armor by John Steakley. Up there at the very top with Starship Troopers and Forever War in the field of military science fiction, but much less well known. Apretty decent military science fiction series is the StarFIST series by Dan Cragg.

>>11953155
u can get better art from friends for $5 if you're part of the right communities

>>11953164
>StarFIST series by Dan Cragg
Sounds like gay erotica. Are you trying to ruse me anon?

What would you consider avant-garde SFF? I want something experimental and surreal that hardly makes sense so I can pretend to understand it.

>>11953197

>>11953197
The Iron Dragon's Daughter is really quite surreal and will challenge you.

Now if that's not enough there's also "Wanderers and Islanders", now that's a novel that will leave you confused. But The Iron Dragon's Daughter is great too.

>>11953166
As someone who is an artist, you aren't getting shit that looks good enough for a cover for $5 no matter how many Steam keys you gift me or whatever

>>11953234
>The Iron Dragon's Daughter
Keeping this one in mind anon

>>11953123
>that picture
why must you tease me with images that can never be real anon

>>11953110
It's subjective ofc but Zelazny's prose is my favorite in sff

>>11951645
Lord of light

Guys I was shitting on Urth of the New Sun in recent threads but it’s actually getting pretty good and crazy now

Is using an opening to a where the mc awakens on a dune covered with burns and broken bones and whatnot a good and hopefully originalway to start a story.

He used a very early time machine around a thousand years before the story starts to get away from the end of the world. The machine wasn't properly calibrated to transport biological matter properly so it kind of fucked up his body as he reached his requested time.
Has this been done before and did I just forget from what ?

>>11953302
I impulsively bought Book of the New Sun after the "BotNS is the Drakengard 3 of literature" thread.
Did I get meme'd and waste money?

Any fantasy novels with mom and son or aunt and nephew incest?

>>11953302
I did the same. As soon as he leaves the spaceship it becomes the highlight of the whole series.

>>11953331
You got memed, but you didn't waste money. BotNS is a good meme. The bit in Thrax and the first half of Urth of the New Sun are the only parts I didn't love.

>>11953302
It's only bad when he's on the spaceship

>>11953343
I liked the Thrax part because it allowed some exposition of Sev's "real job". Long Sun has some far more egregious digressions.

Bakker's books good?

REMINDER TO PHILOSOPHY ILLITERATES WHO READ SCIENCE FICTION (a waste of time).
Man is a featherless biped.
Hopefully this caused all of you to think for once.

Signed,
- A philosopher.

>>11953341
Time Enough for Love is Heinlein sperging out on incest.
But honestly just go to Asstr or Literotica.

>>11953448
The part where he met with people was fine, there was just a very rough and dry chapter where he walks around alone and talks about the city while nothing happens until the last sentence - and that infodump is hardly used while he's in the city, anyways.

>>11953460
I guess I will, but I would love to read some fantasy novels were protagonist shags his aunt. Maybe medieval fantasy setting with him being orphaned noble raised by said aunt.

>>11953459
>PHILOSOPHY
>>>/his/

>>11953291
It's not my problem you are a degenerate homosexual.

>>11953243
Maybe they'll suck your dick?

>>11953468
Oh for fucks sake. Do you take anything for that ADD of yours?

>>11953459
>PHILOSOPHY
>>>/his/

>>11953095
The New Testament

>>11953459
>Signed,
>- A philosopher.
Are you a stand-up philosopher?

>>11953488
I didn't say I hated the book for it, it just took me a longer time to finish that chapter and there was really no payoff to it. If I had trouble with paying attention, I probably wouldn't like the series on the whole. If anything, that part was just *too* straightforward.

>>11953459
Diogenes would like to speak to you

>>11953035
>ah cha cha

>>11952341
Why are all of those self published?

>>11953459
>Man is a featherless biped.
>>11953511
Was he the original shitposter?

>>11953341
There's Uncle/Niece but the niece is actually older than the uncle in Cleopatra's shadow. It's kinda rape though Lot's of brother/sister too.

>>11953488
>mikoyan
absolutely based

>>11953197
See >>11951695

>>11953341
I really need an incest chart. But then that would ruin the fun surprise.

>>11953472
From all the times I've seen the subject come up, incest isn't really a thing in mainstream sff. GoT of course, Heinlein, and maybe a dozen more books.
Fan fiction probably has a bunch. Or to to the Warosu archives and use the search function. If you're lucky maybe one of the Literotica writers will take your suggestions.

>>11953197
Creatures of Light and Darkness.
He never meant to publish it because it was an experiment but a publisher talked him into it

>>11953543
>>11953643
Thanks for the info.

>>11953532
You shave and puck and shave an emu down or an ostrich and suspend it by the neck, you'll see the resemblance to a human being.

>>11953569
Ugh I looked him up.
I am not posting him any more.

Has anyone read The Long Earth series by Baxter and Pratchett? It's going cheap on Ebay and I'm wondering if it's worth getting.

>>11953742
I haven't read it but it's a nice looking set, with Terry Pratchett in bold letters, prefect for showing off.

>>11953758
You can't show off to a dead person, biped.

>>11953763
English motherfucker, ect.

Just read We. Wtf Orwell is actually a hack

Just finished Revelation Space for the first time and after reading a bunch of impressions of the book i think i have an actual unpopular opinion
I enjoyed the first 2/3 more than the last third. Still a great ending though.

>>11953758
Yeah, I have something of a library, mostly fantasy and sci-fi, but mostly books i've read before. 13gbp for 5 books is hard to pass up though, so anyone can tell me it's anyway above average I'll get it.

>>11953808
Why are traps getting more female looking these days. You can't tell that they are male at a glance.

>>11953833
people are goaded into taking hormones at the age of like 4-6 these days

>>11953331
Nah man, BotNS is GOAT.

>>11953838
I don't think it's even legal to give people hormones that early. At most they give you medication to slow down puberty until you're old enough to decide

>>11953828
I think you should buy it anyway. When I was in college I had a bunch of various books by Chomsky, Russian classics, Communists, what have you, all for art hoes, something to up my cred. You just sprinkle those around the flat. I never really cracked open any of those books but neither did the girls so it all evened out.
Don't think of that set as books, think of it as a way to enrich your living space.

>>11953838
How horrible.

>>11953808
who is she?

>>11953895
>being this desperate to fuck art hoes
Cringe desu

>>11953895
I get where you're coming from, but I already have four 78cm wide bookcases, 6 shelves each full of books, and only really room for one more case in that room. It's not for cred, it's just my library/reptile room. Only ones I haven't read are all of Discworld, and all of Gene Wolfe's Books of the Sun.

People still buy paper books that were published in the last few decades? I have a cool little screen that I can read at night or outside and change books on a whim with. The only are hoes who are going to be "impressed" by a bookshelf are fat chicks pretending everything you show them is impressive so you'll fuck them.

>>11954036
Some people collect physical music, some Blu-rays and DVDs, I grew up reading and I just love having books.

Plot-twist, I do most of my reading on a laptop or phone.

>>11953194
Fleet Initial Strike Teams Gaylord.

>>11953742
Long Earth is a very entertaining read, one of my favorite books when I was around 18. Long Utopia is pretty good too. The rest is kinda bland, especially War.

So if wrote an entire fantasy novel and wanted to publish it for free on my website, is there some type of copyright I should put it through or do I naturally have copyrights to it?

Any fantasy books with a main character who’s sarcastic and has lots of common sense? I’m ok with the ‘falling in love immediately because hot elf princess lady’ trope but that’s about it. Also i’m not into rape so the less rape the better.

I liked Sabriel by garth nix (but the whole touchstone thing was weird). LOTR was cool but the prose was too long for me. World war z, also cool, but not fantasy. Tried to get into terry pratchett but couldn’t. Juliet mariller, not bad, but too much rape. It doesn’t have to be a super classic book, i just want to read a satisfying story.

>>11954138
Try Song of Ice and Fire by GRR Martin

>>11954036
I prefer to read physical books so whenever I expect to like a book I buy it. I also buy books I've previously pirated but feel like I want to reread. I don't read books to get laid so your worries about girls doesn't really bother me.

>>11954036
What's it like to be so controlled by pussy?

>>11954145
Thanks, i picked it up a while back but forgot about it. I’ll try it! I know GRR has lots of rape . but i mostly dislike reading through pages of psyche damage and aftermath of rape, which i’m pretty sure he doesn’t do

>>11953895
What's it called when you want to force asceticism on others? I don't like anything about these women. I don't like their lazy demeanor. I don't like how they're chowing down low quality foods. I don't like how they eat it in inopportune places such as the bedroom and the car.

>>11953488
I just like cute boys that make even cuter girls, I never asked to be this way anon.

>>11954138

>>11954094
Appreciate the input

>>11954102
You have natural rights to it, but it never hurts to put a disclaimer that it's not to be republished or reprinted without your own permission. You can Google some templates that will let the vultures know not to grab it, but even if you don't put it there, you can send them emails and compel them to remove it if it was done without your permission.

>>11954149
Someone else said they did it for "art hoes" and that's what I was referring to.

>>11954163
I have a boyfriend; women suck. Men suck better.

>>11954176
is your boyfriend cute do you guys snuggle together when reading literature.
I'm sorry if it's weird to ask this I just feel so lonely.

>>11954170
i remember this being pretty good. did you read the sequels?

>>11954393
I did. The first two were excellent, the last two were kinda black pilled.

>>11954398
First two sequels, I mean.

>>11953973
It's so easy to sneer at practitioners from the theoretical depths of your basement. To laugh at our struggles while clutching your body pillow.
Husslin' ain't easy man.

>>11954002
In that case get BotNS, but get the edition with the japanese covers.

>>11954061
In true Navy fashion that does sound pretty gay.

>>11953895
Damn he got fat.
Did he do the mutilation surgery as yet?

>>11954165
>women
Anon, I ...

>>11954168
You have to rise above your degenerate urges anon.

>>11954417
We are all waiting on the results of a *second* operation anon.
Get with the times.
>>11950633

>>11954419
christ is that hand shopped?

>>11954430
Nope.
There is only so far modern science can take you.

What 2018 books are you planning to read?

These are the ones I know about so far:

>The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock
magical realism book about old timey prostitutes
>The Sky is Yours
science fiction dystopia where reality TV stars are literal royalty
>Children of Blood and Bone
YA book about West African mythology and racism
>The Poppy War
fantasy world based on Second Sino-Japanese War
>The Astonishing Color of After
a woman's Taiwanese mother tried to commit suicide but became a bird

>>11952529
>I must discuss politics at any and all given opportunities
You and your ilk are cancer, rangebanning Americans would do wonders for this place

>>11954407
>that cover
What the flying fuck?

>>11954453
https://twitter.com/bookhon13/status/861234451849691136/photo/1?lang=fr

Grorious Nippon and their 1000 time folded covers.

>>11953452
That depends on if you like very tedious, nihilistic, edgy, and pretentious fantasy.

>>11954138
>Juliet mariller, not bad, but too much rape.
Thanks for the recommendation.

What is it about fantasy or science fiction that you really enjoy ? Like any particular tropes that come forward a lot in the stories you like.

>>11954644
Tolkien's topography and descriptions of the terrain while they're traveling

What is everyone reading?

>>11954686
The Gentleman's Guide to The Golden Age of Blowjobs

>>11954686
Still on the first page of BotNS

>>11954686
It could have been great but is hampered by a lazy woke millennial plot featuring #resistance to a racist king. Fortunately this is background most of the time and you can enjoy the scenes with the bear and his little girl, having tea parties and battling skeleton cats. The litrpg elements are generally well played, but it may have been a stronger story without them as well.

Still, just now wrapping up the first book I will definitely move on to the next.

>>11954407
Nah, I mean I already got all of Discworld as I've only heard good things (Thank ebay job lots), and I went for the Bruce Pennington covers for BOTNS. I also prefer paperbacks, which were surprisingly hard to find for Book of the Short Sun. I'll get round to reading them eventually. Or maybe not.

>>11954707
>The Gentleman's Guide to The Golden Age of Blowjobs
>mfw it's a read book
>tfw i have no face and I must lel

Does anyone know books similar to this? I mean where a group of adventurers/colonists get slowly picked off one by one

Sci-fi, horror or fantasy is fine as long as it has the same general plot structure and feeling

>>11954814
Have you watched The Thing (Carpenter version)?

>>11954827
yeah it's god tier

>>11954138

Try Joe Abercrombie, start with The Blade Itself.

>>11954442
>mention people bringing up politics all the time
>you say this is me bringing up politics
you agree with me dude

>>11954686

Finding it hard to put this one down.

>>11953197
William Burroughs' Nova trilogy.

>>11954890
redpill me on Reynolds

>>11954893

I can't this is my first time reading him. Every one of his books sounds extremely interesting from the blurb though and he was a writing machine.

>>11954686
Cyberpunk short stories. Pretty great so far

>>11951645
Rendezvous with Rama is essentially one book. Don't read the rest and you are fine.


Now.. for fantasy... unironically "Battle Mage"

>>11950770
>Lift used her awesomeness and it was so awesome
Sanderson I...

>>11955410
Go on anon, let's hear it.

>>11951645
Star Maker

>>11955439
I think you should just stick to your usual formula

>>11954686
A reread from 4th grade. I won't see the movie

Should I read Mistborn or Stormlight Archives?

>>11955496
Neither but if you cannot be swayed in you endeavour to consume shit then Stormlight, it has it's rare good moments.

>>11955496
Warbreaker is Sanderson's only 7/10 book. Stormlight starts off decently enough but completely shits the bed by the second book

>>11954644
interesting characters. good voice/prose. (fancy words are not good prose.)
examples:
Corwin in the Amber series
Celia in The Night Circus
the unicorn in The Last Unicorn

>>11955496
Mistborn because it's a complete story.

>>11955532
I can’t read Sanderson without thinking “is this some Mormon nonsense?” American Mormons are the most milquetoast and unimaginative people on Earth. Sanderson might have been a decent author if not limited by the teachings of his religion.

>>11954439
I've read Poppy War and wouldn't recommend it. Starts off as your standard coming off age fantasy with your usual talented protagonist and takes a hard turn into grim derp in the second half. The war stuff is decent, much of it inspired Nanking but it's ruined by the protagonist who can't stop eye fucking her crush at every opportunity and you almost feel a love triangle forming. It doesn't happen for reasons but the setup is there. It's basically a book that 16 year olds would consider deep, sort of makes sense since the protagonist is about that age but I wouldn't recommend it to an adult.

Excluding books that are sequels or part of a series, I would recommend
>Priest of Bones
Fantasy Peaky Blinders. Gangster returns from the war and proceeds to build his criminal empire. (Low fantasy though)
>Traitor God
A sorcerer on the run(who used to work for a god) returns to his city for revenge after his bro is brutally murdered .
>Murderbot Diaries
Human looking android hacks itself to gain free will and proceeds to watch soap operas and play body guard to the humans it likes.

>>11955601
Yeah I felt the same about Poppy War, it's not so much a case of setting up standard fantasy to subvert it with genocide as it is writing two almost entirely separate books and then taking the first half of one and the second half of the other and cutting them together

>>11955487
>The House With A Clock In Its Walls

Jesus, what a shitty fucking title for a book.

>>11955696
AFTER ALL, ANYTHING CAN BE BOUGHT AND SOLD FOR THE RIGHT OIL

>>11955704
Did you just proposition me for sex?

>>11952976
Why do you keep recommending this YA trash?

What even is the definition of a "hack". Is it just "guy that writes popular thing that I don't like"?

>>11955696
Authors don't always choose the title. It's a good book tho for Halloween.

>>11953742
The Long Earth is decent, but after that the series slows down so much that you'd swear Abercrombie wrote it.

>>11952811
Darkwar was pretty legit too, though it's science fantasy. Cook in general is super comfy.

>>11955791
>A hack writer is a pejorative term for a writer who is paid to write low-quality, rushed articles or books "to order", often with a short deadline.
This perfectly describes fantasy writers and other genre writers. Fantasy writers are still better than romance ones but that isn't really a compliment. You have to wade through tons of trash to find a decent novel

>>11954138
>Any fantasy books with a main character who’s sarcastic and has lots of common sense?
>>11954883
>Try Joe Abercrombie, start with The Blade Itself.
There are literally no characters in The First Law Trilogy that match that. He didn't ask for gum sucking cripples.

>>11955857

incorrect

>>11954439
>>11955601
I really liked Murderbot 1 & 2 so I need to get the rest.

>>11955975
I've also only read 1&2
It's so refreshing to read shorter books

I really really liked Blindsight

>>11955975
>>11955982
3 & 4 weren't as good though. I wouldn't recommend buying them at Tor's outrageous prices. Pirate away.

>>11955982
That's part of the reason I read YA sometimes. I hate when authors pad out their novels and it happens constantly.

>>11955995
Yeah I've been pirating for years but I think my new job will pay decently. I want to start buying books so my writers keep writing.

>>11956048
> I want to start buying books so my writers keep writing.

Yeah me too but some of Tor's pricing experiments are just stupid. It costs almost 40 bucks if you want to buy all four Murderbot novellas and all of them combined are probably around the length of one big book.

>tfw you will never write a fantasy classic that gets endlessly referenced as a symbolic framework like Tolkein, Caroll, Baum or Rowling

>>11956202
You can start today, anon

>>11956202
I just might do that

>>11956202
I just want to write books that are good, that people will love.

>>11956465
bet you like sanderson too you fucking redditor

>>11955496
Neither.

>>11955410
dont tell me thats a real line

>>11956305
>>11956282

I've been thinking long and hard about it. believe me I have. Generally speaking the fantasy stories that survive tend to fall into two categories

>stories backed by the predominant religious/political power (i.e. Myths and Legends)
>stories aimed at children in their formative years (i.e. fairy tales and YA)

All the most popular fantasy stories in the past two centuries have fallen under the second category (the hobbit, narnia, harry potter, charlie and the chocolate factory, the wizard of oz, peter pan, alice in wonderland, DC, Marvel)

beyond that there are other similarities: average NG everyman protagonists in all of them, journeys in most of them, themes of escapism are omnipresent, and there is a lack of any magic system to be found (sorry sanderson).

How does this translate to a guaranteed classic? Easy, it doesn't, but it sets a do's and dont's for creating stories that have a shot to survive the test of time.

Naturally, every single one of my stories fuck up in some way or another

>>11956202
Do something new but too bold. Either good characters or somewhat decent worldbuilding. Do not make it too complex or demanding. People usually want an escape.
Go for something that will make the average person feel good about themselves and forget their troubles but don't write something that is too generic.
I believe that writing something that isn't too complex yet still isn't too bland is key. Gotta pander to ubernerds, casuals and fanfic autists at the same time so don't write anything adult.

I just finished The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and thoroughly enjoyed it. The idea of not only being unable to tell whether the world around you is an illusion, but also that there may be some outside malicious presence trying to influence your decisions is a pretty horrifying concept. I also really enjoyed the unique world building aspects that were introduced throughout, such as the evolution therapy sessions, the precogs, Perky Pat Layouts etc. It was fun to slowly unravel how they worked and fit into the overall story. The many different covers for the book are fantastic as well.

>>11956644
imagine unironically being called dick

>>11956652
Better than being called basedboy.

>>11956689
Based

>>11954439
>Circe
A loose retelling of the myth of Circe. The reviews on Goodreads are off-putting as fuck but I liked The Song of Achilles and only idiots read reviews on Goodreads anyway.

Since Perhaps the Stars ended up being a 2019 release that is the only book released 2018 that I've felt an inclination to read.

>>11955770
>recommending
It's bait.

What is with the massive amount of harem novels on Amazon.
Is it just bait for lonely housewives

>>11956759
>bait
Is it bait if you get what you want out of it?

>>11956762
I can't imagine anyone that actually cares about a storyline to read a harem book.
It just distracts from the plot with tits and ass.
Or in the case of a reverse harem with dick and more dick.
Autocorrect even changes harem to hate on my phone.
Even Google knows the truth

>>11956777
I dunno anon, you need some serviceable plot and build up to make it better, doesn't have to be very original or intricate but it should be there. I mean if I wanted tits and ass from get go I would watch porn and even that has some plot.

>>11956781
One of the best little character stories I've seen in a while was from a Finnish xenophilia visual novel. Porn can have good plot.

>>11956781
The shame is that some of the harem books even have a decent sounding plot.

Mastered by the Zandians: Alien Warrior Reverse Harem Romance
#1 new release in alien invasion science fiction
Description

TWO ZANDIAN WARRIORS. THEIR FEISTY HUMAN CAPTIVE.
I can fly a fighter jet in my sleep and kill with the fingers of one hand.
I work alone. No being in the galaxy can challenge me--
until I tangle with two Zandian warriors.
They say I stole their cargo, and they plan to take me to their planet.
Make me theirs.
Nobody owns me. I’m not going to let these Zandians master me,
no matter how sexy and appealing they are.
Because I have a secret mission. And if they find it out, my entire life could be over.
My name is Mirelle, and this is my story.

So essentially the plot (when we take out the copious amounts of dick and roasty fantasies) is not that bad.
Future space ace was captured, has super secret mission to save everything.
Not a bad sounding plot but the fact that she is itching for them to fuck her just ruins the way the plot works.

She immediately gets Stockholm syndrome for something that might not even know how or even have the squishy bits to fuck her, since they're aliens and most likely have different plumbing.

Something that hurts even more is that this is the #1 new entry in this subgenre, meaning that it's ranked even higher than people wanting to release a serious alien invasion story that might actually be very good and entertaining.

What's some sci fi about First Contact, or at least featuring it? Already read Cixin Liu shit, Forever War, Blindsight, Orson Scott Card and Mote in the God's Eye

>>11956916
His Master's Voice, Childhood's End

>>11956916
Ship of Fools (interesting premise, well written)
Solaris (first contact plus you have an alien waifu, sort of)
Contact (kinda sappy but not bad)
John Dies at the End
Rendezvous with Rama

>>11956954
>ship of fools
Russo? Seems good
>solaris, contact
saw the movies already but maybe i'll read them
ty for the recs
>>11956920
thanks

>>11952341
Can someone tell me which of these books are good and not a troll?

>>11956956
Neither the Russian version nor the modern one with Clooney really do Solaris justice.
As for Contact, if you've seen the movie, you're good.

>>11956977
Yea I only saw the Tarkovsky one

>>11956968
You have to read them yourself to know for sure :^)

>>11956916
Childhood's End and Roadside Picnic are two must reads.

How do you feel about adults or higher beings in child bodies. As in something far more intelligent than the average human but contained in a child's body.
Is this trope overdone, I seem to remember it happens in ghost in the shell but other than that I can't remember anything else.

>>11956968
Super Sales has a lot of fans here. I liked Confessions of a D-List Supervillain and The (sort of) Dark Mage (Waldo Rabbit series) too. The first two are cape novels, which I can enjoy even though I hate cape comics and movies. All three have somewhat similar protagonists -- someone from the dark side doing his own sort of good.

Haven't read the others. I also liked Mahanenko's two series for trad litrpg.

>>11957020
Read mutation by robin cook. I found that well done.

>>11956916
Foreigner does first contact with the humans being the aliens

>>11957028
>I also liked Mahanenko's two series for trad litrpg.
Ugh. You mean the e shaman series? That was too much for me. I'm oversaturated with litrpg atm, so many "in a game" books I read this year (50+). Don't want to read stats for the rest of my life.

>>11957020
The reverse is more interesting for sexual reasons.

>>11957082
A child in an adult body?
Don't we have those already? They're call down syndromes and potatoes really wanna fuck a retarded girl, heard their pussy is super tight

>>11957097
They're called incels

>>11957097
Exactly. The downside is that a potato IRL often look like a potato.

>>11957082
Jerk off before posting nigga. I mean really.

>>11957097
You should not post. Period.

>>11957070
The author seemed to get the maxim there are no permanent allies, just permanent interests. The clans would cooperate or fight, align or betray each other based on the situation. So it was a refreshing way to avoid dark lordism, and many times would flip out of that trap when the story was pushing it there. I never felt it was driven by stats, and mostly just read past them in that genre anyway.

>>11957114
She looks like she fucks white guys.

>world-building

>>11957219
>mythology

>>11957082
I was actually considering something like that as well in a sci-fi story.
An 12 year old girl that is in a synthetic body (which in the beginning is in a form appropriate for her age) goes through a very painful and graphic growth spurt and ends up in a fully developed body. However her mind stays the same age as it was.

>>11957114
Man thicc asians are my fetish. She got a nice booty.
Thanks. Now I have to look for big butt asians. Fuck you for posting that webm.

>>11957219
>>11957244
>storytelling

>>11957172
Well can you blame her?

>>11957279
Fuck the pedo anon and retard fucker.

>>11956916
Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang is my favorite. You might have seen the movie adaptation Arrival with Amy Adams.

Enders game and Speaker for the Dead ofc

>>11957366
>Fuck the pedo anon and retard fucker.
jealous that other retards out there are being fucked anon?

Russian cover of "Fire and blood" from G.R.R. Martin.

>>11956473
Haven't read Sanderson but I'm going to, to see if he actually sucks or if it's the usual 4ch contrarianism. (For the record i don't /plebbit/ and dropped Name of the Wind after a few chapters)

>>11957065
All the first contact stuff happens in the big timeskip though.

>>11957472
It's contrarianism. Sanderson fans used to be more vocal here, and probably will again when a new book comes out. He's just an adequate writer, but people like that.

>>11950770
Can someone redpill me on Red Rising.
Due to the constant comparisons to Hunger Games, it seems like a normie book.
Also I hate teenage protags.

>>11955496
I read Mistborn and tried to read the sequel but I couldn't take it anymore. The main character is just some 'Chosen One' Mary Sue. Teenage protag + women protag as well is a bit too much for a misogynist like me.

Stormlight archives are alright. I guess it depends on what kind of setting you prefer.

what are some good books with elfish or demonic waifus?

>>11957659
i dont think that happens often in traditional fantasy or scifi. youd have to dive into pulp or romance territory. even then most romane stuff is written for women. anime and manga have a lot of that stuff but the closest thing that comes to mind is waldo rabbit where mc gets a succubus as a wife. ironically she is really down to earth and modest due to her being raised by humans and mostly not even knowing what succubi can do.
mind you its not romance or erotica but the story is more on the humorous side.

What happened to that Jeff Haze fag? After he dumped Supersales to make his company I never heard of him again. Did he become a pariah because clients don't trust him to keep a deal?

>>11957659
Red Queen's War

>>11957659
Good intentions
Wild wastes
Trymoon saga
Ancient Ruins

Gotta love how each of the del rey conan collections ends on a flagrantly racist tone. The last story in the coming of conan the cimmerian ends with conan butchering a whole village of niggers, whereas pic related ends with one where he slays thousands of hook-nosed "shemites." Fun stuff.

>>11957803
>Lawrence
how edgy is this one?

>>11957818
It's more comedic than edgy tbqh.

>>11952830
It only get worse anon. Surprise butt sex gets old very fast with him.

>>11954138
Try Eddings, The Belgarath. Silk is that.

>>11951645
Difficult choice because there's such a range of scifi books out there it can sometimes be like comparing apples and oranges.

Off the top of my head:
>Star Maker - Stapledon
>Blindsight - Watts
>Neuromancer - Gibson
>Rendezvous with Rama - Clarke

I'm sure this will seem like a very shitty list to a lot of anons, but it's my own for my own reasons.

>>11954644
Interesting myths, tales, people or characters really. The money and trade, the monsters and weird fauna , the voyage and travels, the dialogs between characters,interesting magic or tech...

did nobody who moans about lawrence's edginess even finish prince of thorns?

>>11957808
I like how Howard made Conan a destroyer of niggs but gave Solomon Kane an African voodoo chief sidekick.

>>11957938
To be fair Conan is a leader of niggers more often than he is a destroyer of niggers.

i need to read the wizard of oz because honestly? in retrospect it's probably the best parody of isekkai around

>MC falls into a fantasy world and lands on top of someone, killing her
>first action is to steal the shoes off a dead woman's feet
>spend half the plot looking for a wizard only to find out he's a fraud
>finds out at the end the entire quest was pointless and Dorothy was just getting jerked around

>>11952830
>When it's good, its great, but when its bad it drags
Pretty much this. I finished Unholy Consult a few days ago and this sums up perfectly how the entire series is. It drags A LOT. I mean... Jesus Christ. Bakker writes like he's REALLY in love with his own writing and wants the rest of us to know it. Yea when it's good it's very good, but there's so much goddamn self-masturbatory writing it drags the whole series down and it takes FOREVER for something interesting to happen.

>>11957808
>>11957938

>>11957818
It's shit

>>11958142
>square-cut jib
Nice.jpg

>>11957910
People who moan about edginess don't even read.
They go on wikipedia and get the plot summary. look for some quotes, then begin their shit posting. They never read, much less read what they criticize.

I think it's mostly pollies who doesn't like the "tone" of a character's pigment. Look at them trying to get a rise out of people in this thread.

>>11958174
lol nice try. Mr. Lawrence.

>>11958185
Lawrence writes shit. I will admit that.
When there was a drought of new material, he, sanderson, rothfuss, lynch, etc, they all sufficed. But now, now the cornucopia is overflowing with a bounty of new works that you don't have to wait years for. And these new writers don't stretch one book into 3 doorstoppers (if they stretch it, the entire trilogy fits in one of the aforementioned doorstopper).

Rothfuss and his compatriots only got so popular because they wrote in a time when there was need for fresh stuff (early 2000s).

is naming a character He Who Walks Behind plagiarism? Im taking it from Dresden, but Butcher took it from Children of the Corn, so it would be stealing from a thief

>>11958235
Name them the shadow which lingers.

>>11958276
>the shadow which lingers.
Also known as herpes.

>>11958149
Anyone even giving a shit about Pluto will soon be a sign of an old book/story.

>>11958149
>airtight zippers
Nice.

>>11958149
>horny mad scientist
is that an actual thing?

>>11957219
>book focuses on "world-building" instead of actually building the characters
>mfw there are retards that read stories for long descriptions of the world that doesn't even matter instead of the characters

complete newfag here
what to read?
so far i really enjoyed "jurassic park" and "robots think electric sheep"
i really enjoy JP's realism
i really enjoy the horror too
but i dont like fantasy, ie world of warcraft / LoTr /etc
i do like space stuff like the Alien movie, is there a book equivalent of it or approximation?

>>11951645
czarne oceany

>>11957818
This one is actually good read.

>>11958364
>robots think electric sheep
Kek. You'd probably like the 'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream' short story collection.

>>11958276
not going to use that because the the twist is that He Who Walks Behind is the MC's amputated shadow

>>11954237
I think so but he doesn't read stuff unless it's smut I wrote on a subject he likes. That's why I have to come shitpost here if I want to theorize about why the Valfather visited Idnn or whatever.

>>11957659
The Wizard Knight by Wolf Jeans

Looking for fantasy with a religious zealot protagonist.

>>11958480
40k

>>11958480
Solomon Kane

How do we feel about GRRM's science fiction and his Thousand Worlds universe? He seems to have a lot of cool concepts but I thought Bitterblooms was nicely written.

>>11958570
You just reminded me of those autistic videos did by Preston on themes that ASIOF might share with Gurms other novels.

>>11958480
Jerusalem Man trilogy

>>11958480
the quran

>>11958570
>Bitterblooms
Remind me, what's it about? I read it as part of a short story collection less than half a year ago but I literally can't recall shit about it.

Regarding GRRM's older sci-fi, some of it is good. I really enjoyed In the House of the Worm. But it's quite noticeable that it's written by a less experienced writer.

>>11958866

Vampires, snowy frozen ice world and lesbians.

>>11958894
Was it some crap with a spaceship and the bitterblooms was the only flower in the icy world? And there were a predatory older lesbian in the spaceship? I think I remember something.

>>11958935

Yes, that was it. I wonder if these lesbians are actually The Others in ASOIAF. The Bitterbloom ship just crashed there.

>>11959002
I have now looked at my entire history of read books (thank you Goodreads) and can without a doubt crown Bitterblooms the most forgettable story I've ever read. And I have no idea why because it doesn't sound that forgettable, from what I remember it was one of the better stories in the collection.

New thread fruitcakes

>>11959353
i herd you liek newthreds

>>11959406
>>11959406
>>11959406
>>11959406

I need pro opinions on Lord Of Light and The Book Of Skulls, cmon??? Worth it?

>>11959623
Lord of Light is a masterpiece