/lit/ - Literature

>Sanderson finally barely realizing he doesn't have infinite time to finish Cosmere
lol
https://www.brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2019/

I started reading Dr. Futurity!

Any tips on writing books?
Not looking for publishing really, just some respectable websites to post my shit.

>>14417359
>Still technically Christmas edition
Christmas last 12-20 days, depending on your preferences.

>>14416784
based, thats the one. golden path for me

>>14417380
>one other person read your book

Has anyone read A Little Hatred? How does it compare to the First Law trilogy?

>>14417359
Gonna repost from the end of the last thread:

Is there anything like a Star Wars reading guide? Or is it best to just read Thrawn and that's it? Or just not read any SW stuff and stick to Dune?

>>14417426
It's not my book.

>>14417448
I personally like the Xwing series.

>"booktubers" that talk about the best fantasy series when they have barely read anything

>>14417494
I know that one. Saw one of the most popular reviewers "rating all the book or series I've ever read". There were 12 and nearly all of them were published in the last decade or so.

>>14417461
Are all ten books good?

>>14417531
I haven't read the new one that came out like 13 years later yet. The first four are their own arc and the next three are their own arc by a different author with mostly different characters. Then the first author returns with a one-off and the second follows with a one-off.
I like all the ones I've read, but especially favor the second author's 3 book arc. The way Allston wrote the characters felt more personal.
Now that I'm thinking about it again I think it's time for me to start a reread so I can go all the way through to the one I haven't read since I picked it up a while back.

How do we stop the eternal sanderson?

>>14417623
Everyone dies eventually

>>14417616
Might be cool. I always liked the non-Jedi stuff in SW more than anything, and I like the N64 Rogue Squadron game, so I'll check these books out

>>14417448
I loved every last one of the Thrawn books and I hated Dune. I enjoyed every single last one of the Foundation books by Isaac Asimov, though and the Hyperion Cantos books.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdF_pedZpXbbJMtaOzgsckqxm6I_Yot2ozXdLeULXv-fI2dJA/viewform?usp=sf_link

got 50 votes but 2 are trolls, still need 2 more to put this to rest

Does anyone have a paperback copy of The Spectral Blaze by Richard Lee Byers that I can buy off them? Please and thank you.

>>14417996
Okay fine NSA, you have mine now.

>>14417448
I know it's leddit but this guide is quite good
>https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsEU/comments/7n5tvc/beginners_guide_to_the_star_wars_eu/

>>14417448
Death Troopers is a fun one-off if you are intrigued by quasi space horror in the SW universe.

>>14417359
>the dark is rising
love these. even named my dog Cafal because of The Grey King

>>14417432
I liked it but didnt love it. A few characters are children of either the main or former side characters of other books. Doesnt have the same payoff feeling that the blade itself had.

>>14417448
I liked the aftermath series but out of the older books I think outbound flight was my favorite.

/sffg/, how do I not suck at writing?

evidently, four months of daily practice hasn't done shit

>>14418271
That doesn't sound to promising then. The Blade Itself was my favorite book in the trilogy.

>>14418312
Read a lot of good authors, both from within and outside of /sffg/. Your mileage may vary, but I'd also recommend copyworking your favorite authors. It's one thing to admire good writing. It's a completely other thing to dissect it and figure out why it's good writing.

>an ancient evil awakens
i'm sorry but i'm never going to tire of this trope

Any recs for books that feature a LIKE earth enviroment, particularly in a modern scenario.

An example of this if some of you have checked it out is disco elysium and it's world.

The greater the worldbuilding the better thanks in advance. Similar stuff i'm interested
in are books similar to the fifth city world (althought lesser than my first mention) I'll post a wiki I believe most of you will find something interesting there: https://thefifthcity.fandom.com/wiki/The_Fifth_City:_the_Neath%27s_Lore_Wiki

>>14418342
I already tried that, it didn't really have an effect, because even though I realized the problems my scenes were guiding my writing and I couldn't figure out how to include the fixes without jarring breaks in the flow of each scene

>>14418455
Write poetry. It will improve your aesthetic sensibilities and word economy. Pic a scene you are fond of from something you have written and put it in verse. Better yet try to capture in poetry those special ephemeral moments in life. Another benefit is nothing makes you self-cringe as hard as initially attempting poetry, you get through that and nothing will stop you.

I am not joking, poetry is the pinnacle of language and improves everything below it, like water flowing down from the peak of a mountain.

>>14418412
Ace Combat's strangereal is just earth-like with more superweapons, but it's probably not what you're after

The Inverted World is contemporaneous and earth-like, but the precise reality of the setting is a big spoiler so I'll leave that out

>>14418547
not that anon but you got me curious about the inverted world. added to my list.

Is there a big (4+ books) horror series besides King's Dark Tower? Does "epic horror" exist?

>>14418645
>>14418645
Idk if you like Japanese authors and their horror style. They mostly make single horror books though. THis is the largest series.

>>14418645
questionable to call even the dark tower horror, but i'd be interested in reading the responses to your post.
are the dresden files horror, or are they more fantasy? premise sounds similar to hellblazer and i wouldn't hesitate to call that horror.

>>14418645
Idk if you like Japanese authors and their horror style. They mostly make single horror books though. THis is the largest series.

English of course.

>>14418712
sweet covers

>>14418645
Necroscope

>>14418744
are these worth a read? at least the first series? looks like might be good or might be 'orrible schlock

>>14418762
The first series is good and wraps all the plot points so you can stop reading there if you want, the vampire wars is good too but the last book is pretty weak, E-Branch trilogy is an okay spin-off, Lost Years is trash.

>>14418517
I bet that bird is named Sam...

Can anyone with good taste tell me what to read next? Nothing hard.

Jesus. I picked up coiling dragon because of the shills, and from the first page all I get is propaganda vibes. All that becoming strong to fight for home. And how women like men who fight.

>>14418871
The Dragon Masters

>>14417380

>All that Xianxia

Wow. You actually read through the entirety of these 2,000 chapter long power level trips?

>>14418798
thanks lad

>>14418960
Uh who hasn’t? Xianxia is better than contemporary fantasy, that’s for sure

>>14417432
A glib facsimile

>>14417996
There's no point in this after you skewed results by telling everyone what was leading

>>14417380
I also cheated by reading some comics. Weak year overall, though. Hello to the girl who added me after matching my review from /sffg/ thread to one on the site.

>>14418871
Stations of the Tide

What the top 3 Xianxia to read that is complete?

>>14419089
Every year /lit/ top 100 is made and everyone knows what is leading, because of the previous years being very similar.
I think this is fine

I predict that the Sanderson-esque Hard Magic autism will be fully subsumed into, and inseparable from, the litRPG genre by the end of the 2020s.

>>14418960
Coiling Dragon is 800something and I finished that one. Desolate Era is 1450 chapters and I'm not done yet. I don't want anything long or longer again.

>>14419151
I read some comics too (i.e., The Techno-Priests, Nameless, started both Secret War overall and Dark Nights Metal so someday I'll finish them. I don't remember what all manga I read.
I read Y: The Last Man around 10 years ago, fun series

>>14418960
Coiling Dragon is 800something and I finished that one. Desolate Era is 1450 chapters and I'm not done yet. I don't want anything long or longer again.

>>14419151 (Dead)
I read some comics too (i.e., The Techno-Priests, Nameless, started both Secret War and Dark Nights Metal so someday I'll finish them.) I don't remember what all manga I read.
I read Y: The Last Man around 10 years ago, fun series

>apocalypse happens
>protagonist is so gentlemanly that he's sad about being unable to pay for his looted food
Why did retro sci-fi have so much SOUL, bros?

i see people talking about Xianxia, any recs? I never read chinese fantasy but from the animated chinese movies I've seen I think I'd like it

Are there any books on prose?
Or do i have to go stumbling in the dark till i get it right?

>>14418315
Give it a shot. I liked it.

>>14419411
I don't know but i miss it, that's a great book.

>>14419423
>>>/a/webnovel

Redpill me on this Sanderson guy
Are his books that bad or is it just a meme?

>>14419877
It's mostly a meme but his books usually have the same issues for me at least. One being that his books start off strong but then he just goes full retard, The Stormlight Archives is a perfect example of this. The second being his attempt at witty and funny characters. He just can't do it but he keeps on forcing it into his stories. Again in Stormlight you have Shallan who is supposed to be some super smart and quirky prodigious teenage girl who can apparently shut down experienced leaders with words alone yet when we actually see her do this it comes off as a four year old going "no u". Her POV chapters in particular are embarrassing to read.

>>14419899
Christ. I like Sanderson but holy shit he is embarrassing when he tries to be witty. His dialogue is by far and away his biggest weakness.

>>14419899
>Shallan
Dropped the books because of her. Have no clue what Sanderson is trying to do with her but at this point I don't particularly care. Liked the series primarily for Kaladin and Bridge Four antics but now he's intertwined with her and to nobody's surprise has become a boring character as a result. I might pick them up further down the road when the series is finished or close to being finished.

>>14419609
>not anime
>not japanese
what did you mean by this????

>>14419924
>when the series is finished or close to being finished.
See you in 30 years if you still alive, and maybe 40 years if Sanderson continues to shelf his books for YA shit.

>>14420303
>implying that Sanderson writes anything aside from YA

>>14420404
>implying implications

>>14420480
>implying "implications" were implied

>>14419899
I for one enjoyed having the plot and action come to a halt so Shallan could 'slather' jam on bread and sniff her own farts for 20 pages.

some of the people in my group write the cringiest dialogue

>"it's dark as dicks here. dark as the darkest dicks that ever dicked around. dark as-"
>"we get it!"
>"like a black person pulled down his or her pants and said "check out this spectacular member!"
>"his or her?"
>"dude, it's the twenty-first century. we don't judge a woman by the color of her schlong anymore, it's just not civil. get with the times"

>>14420899
Why?

>>14420899
What sort of retarded group is this and why haven't you disassociated yourself from them yet?

>>14420899
woah hold on there m8, are you trying to give us all cancer?

>>14420899
Hey John... Didn't know you used 4chan too....

This thread is weird, sometimes I think its /litrpg/ general instead of /sffg/

>>14420969
yes, because most of you deserve it.

>>14420957
>>14420934
the sad thing was, this guy wasn't always this cringeworthy. he was actually a pretty decent writer at first, he just got worse at writing over time and nobody's really sure how to tell him we want him to stop coming

>>14421067
it's the same posters in both

>>14421075
Tell him to get off Twatter and the ship will right itself

>>14417359
The Dark is Rising is one of the best sff books ever

>>14421075
Sounds like you're letting it slide. Everyone give him criticism: Sorry but I don't like it. The humor falls flat. Yikes. Seriously?

>>14421157
>described as "contemporary fantasy"
>young adult
>female author
the trifecta of things that make me do a hard nope

>>14421192
It is from the 70's, before things got super retarded. Think of it as LeGuin-lite.

>>14421200
you make a decent case, but if anything, i'd have to read leguin first. been putting it off for a while because i keep discovering stuff that grabs me.

>>14421192
Literally a children's book but written to challenge instead of handhold. Not YA in the way you're thinking.

>>14421249
i'll make a note of it then, and add it to my backlog

>>14421152
hes actually pretty vocal about not using twitter so im not sure that's it. Id think he had massive brain trauma but it happened pretty gradually. can stress cause that sort of decline

Any good rational fic out there? Beside blindsight, I've already read.

>>14421416
A large part of this is rational (notably MOL, PGTE, and WTC). You may also want to take a look at Alexander Wales' short stories as a gentle intro (The Last Christmas, A Bluer Shade of White).
If you liked Blindsight, you may want to take a look at Greg Egan as well.
On a similar note, personally, I believe the Strugatsky brothers to be quite rationalist.
The World of Null-A was a big influence to rationalfic as well.

God Tier:

Mother of Learning (great time to start reading, it is about to end)
A Practical Guide to Evil
Worth The Candle
Pact

Good tier:

Twisted cogs
Brennus
Unsong
Worm

You should check these out tier (mostly rationalfic, fanfic, and similar garbage that can be entertaining):
(Upper level)
The Games We play
The Gam3
Purple Day
A bluer shade of white
Harry Potter and the Methods of rationality
Twig
The Waves Arisen
------
(Lower tier)
The Good Student
Re: trailer thrash
The Metropolitan Man
Metaworld Chronicles

Stay away tier:

The Wandering Inn
Star Child
Savage Divinity
The Zombie Knight Saga
How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis
Super Powereds

Best chinkshit has to offer tier:

The Novel's Extra
Release That Witch
Emperor's Domination
40 millenniums of cultivation

(pic related, but outdated)

>>14421470
>How to Avoid Death on a Daily Basis
Elaborate. I only heard good things about hat.

>>14421470
You say pact is god tier but your pic says its ok tier

>>14421316
I think it can, but what other gems you got?

I started Hyperion, and I've noticed the prose is a bit dry and hacky when it comes to technical descriptions of things. But when the story gets down to people interacting and doing things, it really picks up.

Anyone else feel this?

>>14421470
Thank you, anon.

What are some good pulp-fantasy authors. I've read Robert E Howard, Robert Heinlein, Karl Wagner, Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber.

>>14421470
>metropolitan man
>low tier

WHy????

You guys read Age of Legends, by James Lovegrove? I liked the other Age of... books, but the blurb for this one reads like, not even like a crazy leftist, but like what /pol/ would say a crazy leftist would write. I'll probably get it anyway, but if anyone else did, is it as bad is it seems?

>>14419899
>witty characters
This does kill me a bit. It really came home to me when I started reading through Stormlight Archives. Dalinar is so much more compelling than the other characters precisely because he is a stone-faced autist who has precisely zero guile and never attempts, or even thinks of attempting, to be clever. The one time he makes a joke someone calls it cringe.

This character works so much better than the others precisely because, even though supposedly Sanderson is a funny guy IRL, the character-archtype he's best at writing is this Kingly father-figure. Dalinar is genuinely endearing BECAUSE he is so unsophisticated. And when you put this perfect, carved-from-stone archtype next to fucking Shallan or Hoid or anyone else trying to be clever, it only highlights how pedantic the writer's attempts at humor are, compared to the real situational humor of trying to have Dalinar do anything like a normal person in any scene.

Remember that time when Dalinar can't find his knife, so he walks outside in a highstorm in pouring rain with boulders flying around smashing shit all around him, kicks in the door to the barracks, asks some guy if he loaned him his knife, the guy says "no," he walks back to the feast hall, walks in soaked, and then sits down and realizes his knife was on the table?

This is hilarious. It's the funniest part of Oathkeeper. But it doesn't have one word of spergy lolrandom dialogue in it, it's just Dalinar being a brainlet. That's what Sanderson writes well.

>>14421593
Try reading some John C. Wright.

>>14421470
>+100 chapters

Are you fucking kidding me?

>>14419877
He can't write dialogue or characters

>>14417380
Mine is 19,839 pages across 39 books.

>>14421659
Oh boy, I was about to go on a rant about how shitty "Age of ..." was until I saw you weren't talking abou Sullivan's shitty book.

>In a post-Brexit world, the Myths and Legends of the British Isles are alive, and ready for war!
>As Great Britain struggles to face its new reality in a post-Brexit world, the government’s affable-seeming Prime Minister Colin Dubois plays a man of the people, while simultaneously purging the country of what he thinks of as “undesirables”.
Never mind, this sounds even worse than Sullivan.
>muh brexit
Oh no, whatever shall brits do? Imagine having to actually pass your own laws! What a bunch of nazis!

Well, good luck reading that shite, mate.

>>14421659
But /pol/'s version of crazy leftist behavior actually underestimated real leftists. I don't think any of them actually expected shitlibs to be so paranoid that they really thought Jeremy Corbyn was an antisemite.

Is this book worth getting? I'm aware it's mostly a retrospective look at the saga rather than a full novel, but I don't know where else to start other than with the prequel? Is Elric even worth it in the first place?

>>14419899
>Shallan
Nonononono the memories! Make them stop!

one more non-troll response and this can die

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdF_pedZpXbbJMtaOzgsckqxm6I_Yot2ozXdLeULXv-fI2dJA/viewform?usp=sf_link

how do I write a character that's intensely bitter, jealous and self-hating while still making him a whiny, unsympathetic bitch-baby? Channeling my own emotions feels like asking for trouble

>>14422643
Copypaste blogposts from this board.

>>14422643
Make him into a her.

>>14417359
What are some books that actually make dragons interesting without just making them "muh scientifically accurate dinosaurs?"

>>14422708
Care for a fling with the King of Dragon?

>>14422708
Cockfights too passe?

>>14422708
Maybe just chat one up?

>>14422708
What if you were the Dragon?

>>14421470
>rationalfic
what the fuck is this

>writing for months
>everything comes out like shit
>try getting input from friends
>doesn't help
>try getting help from a writing group
>doesn't help
>try practice
>doesn't help
>try confidence-boosting exercises
>doesn't help
>try writing songs instead of stories
>doesn't help
>try changing my medication
>doesn't help
>try going off my meds entirely
>doesn't help
>try therapy
>doesn't help
>try sleep deprivation
>doesn't help
>try getting more sleep
>doesn't help
>try stress exposure to trigger a hypomanic episode
>doesn't help
>try self harm as a punishment for poor quality work
>doesn't help
>try meditation
>doesn't help
>try exercise
>can't even do basic stretches
>try to distract myself with vidya
>games just make me more frustrated

I think it might be time /sffg/. I'm never going to be as good as I was. I'm getting stupider and more worthless every single day and the awareness is only making me more depressed and more anxious which only serves to exacerbate my mental decay by giving me brain damage.

There's no light at the end of the tunnel. There's only the oncoming train of inevitable retardation. I'm done living like this. I just want to live in a dream world where I didn't have to suffer the indignity of failure after failure and the bitterness of my own futile attempts at being anything more than a pinprick-sized shit stain on the toilet bowl of reality.

I'm going to do it /sffg/. Tonight is the night I'm going to...

...fail to free myself out of cowardice. Just like I always fucking goddamn do...

>>14422940
do yoga consistently for a few months

also try some meaningful social interaction :-)

>>14423097
>do yoga consistently for a few months
that's what I tried doing. It was excruciating and only made me feel worse about myself

>also try some meaningful social interaction :-)
I have that. It doesn't help

>>14423108
>that's what I tried doing. It was excruciating and only made me feel worse about myself

stop being such a pussy about the physical stuff. the feelings of self-hatred are part of the practice and something to work through. yoga with adrienne is good for noobs, if a bit cloying. exercise really does help and is necessary, gets rid of a lot of that negative energy.

>>14422708
Iron Dragon's Daughter is about dragons even less than NGE is about mechs.

>>14417762
I have mixed feelings about Dune. Feels like a power-fantasy Japanese light-novel. Which is maybe par for the course for fantasy/SF, I don't know. I mostly stick to "literary fiction" but I liked The Hobbit when I read it recently, and I learned over the weekend that I still love the SW Prequels, so I wanted to try some SW books. I'll do Thrawn as you suggest (it seems to be a fan favorite) and I'll pocket that Hyperion rec as well.

>>14418104
Thanks, this seems useful. I was about to Google reddit threads because I figured they're probably more openly proud of "geek culture" and may have decent input.

>>14418138
I'll definitely check this out. I loved Galaxy of Fear as a kid, which was just Goosebumps: Star Wars Edition. Might be cool to check out SW horror for older readers.

>>14418279
Looks like Outbound Flight is also Zahn-penned Thrawn stuff, so I'll expand into that after the core trilogy. I'll take the Aftermath rec as well because the ST doesn't do a good job explaining how the First Order came to be, nor how the new republic started getting assraped.

>>14422708
Dragon Weather (saying much gives it away but they're threats)
Dragonslayer (they're justifiably mad at humans but also have to be put down)
Tremaire (they're napoleonic warships but in the air)
Bone Ships (they're sea monsters whose bones are crucial to every aspect of society)
Waking Fire (they're magic drugs)
Covenants (they're powerful political figures in the magic world)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uPcp1XT5HN_Fy5a38A-SrjpUQG2LvnShPul-fELLUbE/edit?usp=sharing

top 35:

14 book of the new sun
13 dune
12 lord of the rings
7 hyperion
7 a song of ice and fire
4 ubik
4 stormlight archive
4 foundation
4 dying earth
4 blade itself
3 wheel of time
3 solaris
3 silmarillion
3 roadside picnic
3 revelation space
3 neuromancer
3 blindsight
2 tigana
2 starship troopers
2 snowcrash
2 small gods
2 red rising
2 nine princes in amber
2 name of the wind
2 i am legend
2 hobbit
2 hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
2 gormenghast
2 ender's game
2 children of hurin
2 black company
2 a wizard of earthsea
2 a scanner darkly
2 aniara
2 a canticle for leibowitz

this probably wasn't worth the effort desu

>>14423718
>one other uberchad voted for small gods

>>14423718
4 by jrrt, 2 by pkd, 1 of everyone else

only 1 female author, leguin

0 poc? not sure but they all seem like whites/slavs

>>14423718
>12/25/2019 19:05:22 The Pride of Chanur The Dying Earth The Diamond Age The Lord of the Rings Godsfire
Catfag anon, I see you!

>>14423735
It was my only book to get more than one vote
(altho I probably would have put princes in amber down if I thought about it longer)

>>14423718
>top votes contain a bunch of books almost never even mentioned here
lol

>>14423828
You seem to be under the mistaken impression this general is for discussion.

>>14423786
Wow, imagine that! Who could have foreseen this? I certainly couldn't, with the recent increase in ledditors (you can tell by the reddit spacing) who think this is r/fantasy, I thought for sure there would be at least the ironic A Throne Of Glass in there somewhere. I guess the core lurkers are still here, although 2 votes for the meme of the wind indicates we still have room for improvement.

>>14423825
reeeeeeeeeeeee

>>14423718
This dumb fucking faggot poll link. I tried voting on it and it never worked. I wanted to vote Black Company

>>14423906
reddit spacing is a meme invented only a couple years ago or less that successly convinced gullible idiots such as yourself that it was something new when it's been common on 4chan since before reddit existed.

>>14424162
My favorite is when retards start screaming at an anon for using reddit spacing when they were just using regular old paragraphs.

>>14424162
>knows it's a meme
>falls for it

>>14424204
paragraphs and reddit spacing are different.
reddit spacing is a sentences separated by a space. where es paragraphs are multiple sentences without spacing between then which are then separated by a space from another paragraph.

>>14417380
>Advertising horrible taste

>>14422940
>months
it takes longer than that to become a good writer

You globohomos all look like reddit spacing fags to me but only because your paragraphs look like single sentences to me since im on a 4k ultrawide monitor and 4chan doesnt know how to format shit. A 2000 character long post (max limit for 4chan) is a few lines for me from the left to the right of my screen.

>>14424162
this
>>14424336
but also this

>>14424336
>4k
This is a bigger meme than reddit spacing.

>>14424579
it looks like shit even on a regular 24 inch 16:9 monitor.

>>14423906
>>14423786
Popularity lists are only valid if everyone pirates the same thing and everyone is forced to read everything. Popularity only occurs because specific books are shilled extremely hard. Stuff like Dune, LOTR don't even deserve to make the list.

give some books for my dragonrider or gryphonriders desire

So, i watched the lord of the rings.
Is the book much diferent from the movies?
Should i bother reading them?

>>14424652
Yeah I almost exclusively read scifi because most fantasy writing drives me nuts, it's almost always some Tolkien inspired dreck written by people who's knowledge of the pre-modern period comes from Hollywood movies and pop history books written by dumbasses who think peasants didn't bathe and that droit du sangur was a real thing.

>>14424869
Kate Elliott's Crossroads/Black Wolves series has people riding giant hawks.

>>14424881
Books are far better than the movies

>>14424894
Tought so, gonna give it a read.
Tough i think reading the hobbit first would be better correct?
Silmarillion is already read.

>>14424902
Thats what I did. Hobbit, then the main trilogy then Silmarillion.

>>14424881
In ROTK this is cut down to 'I am no man'. They're good adaptions but compared to the books they're hollow facades

>>14424918
If i wrote like tolkien would people say i am a pretentious bastard?
I just love the way he writes shit.

My bookfu.

>>14424931
who is this cutie
she looks like a slut

>>14424962
Soulcatcher. Sister of The Lady. They are twins. From the Black Company books. They are pretty good.

>>14424981
they both look like huge sluts

>>14424993
Soulcatcher is the slut but only for two men but really just one but is very lewd with her body, Lady is pure waifu material and only for one man as well

>>14421493
I just didn't see a reason for it to exist. Literally everything about it was subpar and unenjoyable. Not sure what to say.
>>14421510
The list is a newer version of the list, where I completely abandoned the opinion of others and ranked it as per my own enjoyment.
>>14421596
I thought it was a bit simplistic and lacked the distinctive beauty that many of A. Wales stories have. It was an entertaining and a worthwhile read, but ultimately just something you read over an evening or two and then don't think much about.
>>14421716
Which one are you talking about? Some of these have over a thousand chapters. Length is what many find appealing about web-novels (traditional publishing pushes authors to publish shorter works because of money). Still, a lot of fantasy is 10+ book series of fat books, so there's nothing insane about 1.5 million word webnovels.

>>14417432
Well worth reading. I think it’s stronger than the first law books.

>>14417359

NOOOOO NOT MY DUIKER, NOT MY BOOKY SPEAKY HISTORIAN. NOT MY MLEM CUTY SURVIVOR OF THE EMPIRE.

NOOOO YOU CANT JUST NAIL HIM TO A TREE AFTER HE WAS FORCED TO SEE 10.000 SOLDIERS CRUCIFIED AT THE GATES OF AREN. YOU CANT JUST HAVE HIM TAKEN BY HOOD WHILE A BROKEN JAGHUT GHOST HAS PITY ON HIM.
NOOOOO NOT MY CUDDLY WOOF WOOF DUIKER, NOT MY SWEET PRINCE WARRIOR POET HISTORIAN.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

>>14425306
He gets better.

>>14425317
yup. perfect way to retroactively ruin your best book.

>>14419312
Wrong because litRPG writers can't resist the protagonist having better, separate powers from others, even in a game world where the rules should be equally applied.

>>14425347
So litRPG is literally just Isekai without pictures?

>>14424918
if you want to know why this wasn't in the movie, just imagine the actress stopping in the middle of the hectic battle scene and reciting this entire quote while trying to maintain the same pathos throughout all six sentences and waving her arms around and emoting like a stage actor.
it would never work and it would probably cause the death via second hand embarrassment (cringe as the kids call it) of every person who was subjected to it.
if you want to shit on hackson, it would be better to shit on him for the major changes he made to the plot, not for minor adaptations to the format like that
>the ghost army easily resolving the battle for minas tirith instead of men doing it through their own strength

>>14425364
They're closet to japanese web novels (no editorial oversight which they would have when they become light novels)

>>14425374
Jesus wept.

>>14425373
I said it was a good adaption. The only thing I really don't like about the films is that the scouring of the shire was completely cut

Top 20 is the best that can be done, and even then, 3 votes is not a lot. Anyway, for the last 3 we are doing a poll.
https://www.strawpoll.me/19138621

>>14425386
ah, fair enough.
my bad, dawg

>>14425394
>name of the wind

>>14424881
>>14424894
>>14424902
>>14424916
>>14424918
>>14424927
>>14425373
>>14425386
>>14425397
>there are Tolkien lovers ITT right now
Why don't you faggots go back to rebbit? The only good thing Tolkien wrote was the hobbit. Lotr is shit. It was probably yall redshit fags who voted it in the polls (yall have no problem putting your emails into things).

>>14425490
Stop saying y'all and appropriating my southern culture, thank you.

>>14425019
>where I completely abandoned the opinion of others and ranked it as per my own enjoyment.
You are learning. See why I do my charts the way I do? When you listen to people they tell you shit that you can't verify until you read it for yourself.

>>14425484
I hope /sffg/ is proud. This is embarassing.

>>14425490
based
>>14425507
Are you the selfpub chartfag? I have read everything I put into my charts, but given that people enjoy, for example, Worm overwhelmingly more than Pact, and my preference for Pact wasn't that big, I put it in an incorrect order.
After a while I realized that people are fucking retarded and I can't justify doing shit like putting The Wandering Mediocrity into OK tier.

>>14425394
You know a lot of those books are meme books that people shill others to read so they can suffer? WoT being a prime example. Also any Sanderson fan that read oathbringer would be wary of Sanderson, and not recommend him much.
With a few exceptions those looks like reddite users voted on that poll. It doesn't portray what I read from every, single, thread, in 2019.
I'm surprised that hitch hiker galaxy wasn't number one, but that would have been too obvious.

>>14425496
People from all over the world use y'all (you all), my one gallon hat friend. Please expose yourself to the world, and stop trying to hide behind a barrier.

>>14425490
>if you like what i dont like you are reddit
>if you like the classics that shaped western fantasy you are reddit
ok then

>>14425386
The scouring wouldn't have worked in the movies.
It works in the book because the ring isn't *actually* the source of conflict in the book, only its main manifestation. Therefore the hobbits can go home and use the lesson they learned.
In the movie, for obvious lenght reason, the ring is extensively shown as being the main conflict. Therefore it wouldn't have made sense to conclude the story, then have a secondary conflict popup at the end seemingly out of nowhere. Hence why no bombadil either.

>>14423718
Why didn't you make a strawpoll or some shit like that for a practical voting?

>>14425526
>The Wandering Mediocrity into OK tier.
It belongs in trash.
The fucking mc is so stupid. "Don't kill goblins, I don't want to die, but don't kill the goblins that are trying to kill me.

>>14425306
You...You are really heartless, you know that?

>>14424888
I almost exclusively read fantasy because recent sci-fi is all pew-pew shit.

Recommend me something.

>>14425543
No they don't. Only Southerners, some black people, and progressive whites that like to mimic black people on Twitter.

>>14425573
Texas is not the world faggot. Everyone in my region uses it, and we aren't Americlaps. Neck yourself you ignorant burger.

>>14425594
The word is synonymous with Americans though, the American South to be specific. Nobody gives a fuck about your shitty little region wherever you're from.

>>14425630
People gives plenty of fucks.
They spend their hard earned shekels to come here.

>>14425394
here's >reddit

>>14425886
>5. The Kingkiller Chronicle

>>14425509
Truly. At least we may take comfort that it received only 2 votes and thus can come as a statistical anomaly. The way of kings, on the other hand....

We managed to avoid the worst of the brunt, though. If JKR, Robin Hobb, Jemisin, Sullivan or Lynch had made it, I'd find somewhere else to go.

Been reading the Culture series all year. Easily the best sci-fi I've ever come across

>>14425594
where are you from that isn't america that people use "y'all"?
is it an english speaking country? is it one of those americanized western countries like the netherlands or scandinavia?

>>14417359
>sci-fi is so shit these days that it's basically just tech fantasy
I hate it so much.

>>14425630
No one else thinks this.

>>14426026
non american here, i've certainly always associated it with the american south. i've seen other people on the internet use it only very recently

>>14426043
Yeah it's part of the current "woke" lingo for some reason. If you hear/read it coming from a non-Southerner you know exactly what kind of person they are.

>>14426118
that's been my impression as well.
since two people in the thread already said it wasn't associated with southern accents i actually googled it, but even wikipedia is telling me it's usually southerners or blacks who say it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%27all

>>14426118
>>14426134
Odd, I find pleasure in using it. See how those water thieves like it ya know?

>>14426118
>>14426043
>used to use yall since the 90s
>because most people only say it and type actual grammar on the internet their isn't digital proof
>I'm apparently woke for being a non Klapistani who used yall since the 90s
>Wikipedia is the end all to knowledge, if people from a place doesn't update it, it will be updated magically

>>14426165
Blame faggot dangerhairs and woke leftards on twitter. You sound like them now. Sorry.

>>14425394
>BotNS and Hyperion in the top 5
You guys!
>No sign of Iain Banks anywhere
You guys...

>>14425529
I personally started screeching after I saw WoT, Sanderfag, and that fat guy so high. I will be making sure that pollfag counted votes correctly soon, and I hope this is all just a big misredditstanding (haha, I am so funny).
One of the people who voted for Jordan also voted for two memes (my diary desu and isekaii futunari shit), so perhaps we can declare his vote invalid and push Jordan of the list?
>>14425886
Yes, our list is still infinitely better. Even if I dislike Dune and Tolkien, having shit like that on the list is much less embarrassing than Harry Potter or Rothfuss.
>>14425910
There's nowhere else to go. There are a bunch of good forums for literary fiction, but for fantasyfags this is the best I found.

Anyway, fuck leddit, and preemptively fuck "muh tribalism" faggot
Still a decent list

>>14426165
no need to get so prissy, cunt
if you hadn't acted like a faggot and insulted that anon for suggesting that the phrase was primarily associated with the american south (which it is), i wouldn't have bothered to look it up and you wouldn't sound like a mouthy idiot.
i'll take what wikipedia is saying over some touchy faggot on 4chan who won't even say where he's from to substantiate his claim

>>14425394
I had literally zero expectations but this was really disappointing. Let's change our name to /a/ while we are at it. Stormlight really?

>>14426213
pollfag here, i spotted one error, canticle got 3 votes (i didn't combine canticle and *a* canticle).

for next year (if i'm still around) how should the polling be done? some guy said strawpoll but that doesn't allow write-ins.

>>14426224
I mean, this place turns into the Sanderson and Sanderson general whenever he releases a new one.

I think Tad Williams is better than Sanderson.

>>14425394
THIS POLL HAS ENDED
because a mistake was spotted and I am breaking the tie by voting for gormenghast

>>14426241
is there no way to set up a google sheets form withour requiring a login? i'm sure having a login filters a lot of the memelords and shitposters but it filters a lot of regular posters too.

>>14426279
Also
>inb4 muh hurin won
Hurin and nine princes suddenly got 4 votes in the span of 2 minutes after hours of having 1 vote (this happend after I had already edited the image as well). Someone clearly tried to rig the poll.

>>14426279
>>14425394
your poll has children of hurin and nine princes in amber in 2nd and 3rd place but they are not in your chart

>>14426244
Dude that man literally shitting a book every month. I think you are right. Even reddit has more contrary fantasy opinions.
>>14426241
Use poll.ly next time. But with write-ins people can meme like G A S J E W S or some shit.

>>14426317
>>14426320
Oh nevermind, good catch then. They are decent books though to be fair though.

>>14426317
Sorry, I just voted late and only saw starship troopers and hurin and some other book I thought was ok.

>>14426322
>>14426241
Perhaps we should have a nomination period? This way shitty shounen doesn't win by the virtue of being popular alone, because serious votes are split among semi-obscure books (like, both roadside picnic and doomed city getting votes).
>>14426326
Yeah, but Tolkien already has 2 books in the top 20, and Gormenghast is probably the Peake of fantasy (get it????).

>>14426279
>black company
based, we did it friends

>>14417359
Adored these books as a kid. Annoying that they get labeled YA bc they're not shit like Hunger Games or Maas or whatever at all. They're just really good fantasy kids books, but I guess publishers think 2019 children are too dumb to read a decent book until they're teenagers.

>tfw there's an cool looking book but it's written by a woman so you instantly know it's rubbish and give up on it

>>14426768
Just read books anon. Life is too short for it to run out of surprises.

>>14426785
i've been burned too many times. this was the straw that broke the back. only a woman could write the man who was cucked to death.

>>14422331
Yes. Moorcock is weird and wonderful.
"The Eternal Champion" stuff is memorable as it leads you all over the place.

>>14426826
Oh yeah. Fitz is a special brand of misery porn

Just finished the Sprawl trilogy. Mona Lisa Overdrive was simply packed with too much stuff; how do you expect to have meaningful arcs for so many characters in so few pages? At the end Gibson just has to straight up infodump the plot on the reader, so they can figure out what happened with the ending. In aggregate I did like the series.

>>14426768
I'm taking a chance right now. I won't even mention the name of the author or look it up for fear of what's to come. Hopefully, nothing dreadful.

>>14425306
Oddly enough I was hit way harder by Mallet's death than Duiker's and Mallet is barely a character. Probably because Duiker's was much less sudden.

>>14418708
>are the dresden files horror
absolutely not

>>14424931
Soulcatcher is a bitchy slut. Lady is top tier

>>14425490
shut the fuck up faggot

>>14427280
>soulcatcher is a slut
How many men has SC slept with?

>>14427421
me

>>14427280
>Lady
>not a bitch

>>14427496
Nice

>>14421560
I listened to Hyperion years ago on audiobook but ended up dropping it half way from boredom. I should try to give it a read again.

>>14424918
cringe dialogue

>>14427597
Shes not though

>>14417359
Fuck off and die you faggots, nothing of value or taste came form Sci-fi, so just die

>>14427742
Pull up a catgirl and stay a while /outerlit/izen :3

>>14427785
Retvrn redditor

>>14427800
Is it the scaly ones for you then?

>>14427836

>>14427840
You're not giving me a lot to go on here

>>14427857
YOU ARE GAY

>>14427865
Oh, is that it? Here we go then.

Anyone have download links for the 4 Death Dealer books by James Silke? I only found the first two books but not the last two. Mobilism had the last two but the links are dead.

>>14427876
Nigga

>>14427913
I don't believe so.

>>14427939
yes

>Trull > Tehol/Bugg >>>> Beak >>>> Anyone else worth mentioning

>>14426279
>gene wolfe on top
>black company
>dying earth top 10
honestly this is not a bad list. we're just missing guy gavirel kay

Bakker is the God incarnated.

>>14423718
That doesn't look like you did anything to the spreadsheet. I really hope you didn't count those all manually rather than having spreadsheet functions them for you.

>>14423208
>Iron Dragon's Daughter
I wanted to like it but I hated it. We have furnace elves and shit which was interesting, and suddenly the girl protag is in highschool smoking weed and getting a train ran on her by a bunch of low status english chavs.
I must have quit somewhere along the line because I don't remember anything after that. I must have, it can't be right that I lose memory of a whole book.

What the fuck was up with that?

>>14423718
>starship troopers
Cant believe people like this book. I am not left-wing or whatever but its pure military propanga.

>>14425490
Lord above is my witness, I've never said that to anyone, but you should KILL YOURSELF

>>14428202
Not shitting on him, I actually really liked Tigana, but doesn't he just write "kinda like real world but now and then not really, but it's still kinda like real world" ?

>>14421470
>A Practical Guide to Evil

Started this and gotten a few chapters in. So far it's pretty interesting, minor spelling and grammatical errors disregarded, I just really hope there's a good reason for the empire being so interested in the mc

>>14428376
The world is a McDonald’s and we are the burgers

I'm a mess /sffg/. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that no matter what I do, no matter how far I go in life, I'm always going to be a disappointment to myself. I can't even register the idea of not putting pressure on myself as anything other than complete and utter failure, and no therapist I've talked to seems to know how to make me satisfied with my own accomplishments.

what am I even supposed to do with an instinct this fucking insatiable?

https://pastebin.com/hX3EVZ8t

get a hobby

>>14428983
like reading?

>>14428990
sure, it works for me

>>14425529
Then list those books and those exceptions mr. smartie-pants communist. It doesn't do anyone any good to hear you expound on your own cleverness without being able to see of which that is composed.

>>14423718
Dear J***** C***** (the way you've presented shows your info)

It would have helped a lot if you specifically said you would disqualify series names if they were submitted instead of individual book names or vice versa.

Furthermore, it is very silly to not provide any sort of stats in the image to provide it legitimacy and out of laziness.

It gets worse though. For example, you've added various ones to together. "4 blade itself"
The Blade Itself, first book of The First Law Trilogy has 3 votes. You added the vote from Before They Are Hanged into that without renaming it The First Law. There are other similar where you added some together and not others. This is especially the case for A Song of Ice And Fire.

For anyone interested, I did a couple spreadsheets functions and cleaned it up a bit. Here's what it looks like without combining the books into series. None of this was counted manually.

https://pastebin.com/CQLFS5wm

Poorly planned, executed, and presented as expected. >>14355982

I've been attending to Christmas matters the last several days, including today, so I was unable to make the threads or really do much of anything.

I've read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers by Heinlein and found them really interesting, even though I wouldn't say I 100% agree with the politics of either book. Can anyone recommend similar works that have interesting political/philosophical angles like these?

>>14428972
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergraphia

>>14429136
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergraphia

pardon, but i'm not fluent in nonverbal communication. is that supposed to mean "just write"?

>>14429104
As /sffg/ is a small, informal community I do not mind the informal approach. Also you have dying earth listed twice

>>14428972
If you are your own personal judge, then you're the one who can, or cannot give yourself a pass.

>>14429246
and my problem is I don't have the ability to give myself a pass. How am I supposed to lie to myself if I know I'm full of shit?

>>14429104
>>14429226
dying earth, neuromancer, silmarillion are all listed twice.

your main complaint is that individual books and series were combined, so now you have game of thrones, asoiaf, and storm of swords all listed individually. very questionable if this makes a better list.

> I was unable to make the threads or really do much of anything
well that's obvious

Am I weird for making my characters have something of a rhotic accent. I'm sick and tired of hearing bongs in every fantasy adaptation, and I want to make it clear that my characters are not apart of that faggy shit.

this was really good, i liked the many different povs instead of just croaker. also soulcatcher causing chaos is fun

>>14422046
>Oh boy, I was about to go on a rant about how shitty "Age of ..." was until I saw you weren't talking abou Sullivan's shitty book.
Well, now you got me curious. I remember the Riria books being decent enough, how bad is the new stuff?

>Never mind, this sounds even worse than Sullivan.
Oh yeah, his books have generally been good, Age of Voodoo and Age of Heroes are on my recommendations list for anyone that asks, but there have been a few that just...
He has a book about vampires where the vampires are refugees in England and he tries really hard to make you pity the poor bloodthirsty monsters illegally entering the country by the thousands who are always on the verge of turning into mindless murderers and had to write the villains of the book as cartoonishly evil caricatures. And he did it completely unironic.

>>14429226
>>14429460
Yeah, I said a bit of clean-up. I didn't go through it entirely. That wasn't my my main complaint. My complaint is that it wasn't one way or the other. The inconsistency. I didn't say it was a better list or completed. I fixed the ones listed.
unique() is very specific, a single character, including a space is treated as separate. I forgot to trim spaces. Could have done a fuzzy match as well, but didn't bother. It wasn't intended as a replacement or substitute.

How do I enjoy reading /sffg/? Especially when it comes to the author describing scenery or characters.

>>14429477
>not apart
I agree, since it isn't "not a part".

>>14429688
picture it in your mind? if its hard maybe it comes after reading a lot

>>14421593
Schuyler Hernstrom
Michael Shea
Charles Saunders
Byron Roberts

>>14429729
>>14429688
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

>>14421593
Robert Zoltan

>>14429735
i wonder if its related to reading as a kid and developing this "skill"

>>14429735
Should I just give up on reading then?

>>14422331
>Is Elric even worth it in the first place?
The first Elric stories Moorcock wrote are worth it, but not so much the later ones. I suggest getting pic related since it collects the earliest Elric stories.

>>14429747
It's probably an organic problem.

>>14429753
I don't know. I have particularly vibrant visualizations so I can't say. I don't mind reading non-fiction where I don't visualize anything though.

>>14429753
no, i would just find books that really interest you so you can really dive in and see if that helps

>>14421593
If you haven't already you should read Wagner's pastiche novels Conan - The Road of Kings and the Bran Mak Morn novel Legion from the Shadows.

>>14424931
>>14424981
God damn, they look like this girl I have a bit of a crush on

/sffg/, it's just occurred to me that I've done nothing to introduce my villain and basically haven't even planned out his backstory or personality in any damn capacity.

>>14429735
I’m fairly sure I have this and it doesn’t really detract from the experience of reading. I basically go into a trance but there isn’t any actual simulacra that I get to view in my minds eye or anything.

>>14430023
Part of me wonders if anyone has a proper ability to visualize things. Does anyone seriously have the ability to basically hallucinate images at will? I find that hard to believe. Talking to irl friends about this goes nowhere because I can’t be exactly sure what the fuck any of them are trying to describe to me when they talk about “picturing something in their head”.

>>14429982
|:)

>>14430028
yes i can see things that are just as real as watching youtube

>>14430101
Huh. Maybe this is why I got next to no visuals even on ~600 uq of LSD

>>14430111
Different anon. Sometimes to amuse myself I'll imagine somewhere I've been before and walk through and look around it. It's easier with actual places. Fabricated places take a lot more effort as I don't have actual personal visual memory to rely on, so then it's usually constructed from stuff I've seen in various media, similar to a dream. Of course it's also people to entirely create it from "nothing", but that's difficult.

>>14429735
Isn't this basically the NPC meme?

>>14430136
That’s insane to me. I tried to picture a place I used to work at and could only hold a super transparent image of a hallway I used to walk through every day in my head for a couple seconds at a time. Even then I’m not really “seeing” the image in the same way I would with my eyes, it’s more like a schema of the hallway. Hopefully brain scanning technology advances enough for objective studies on this sort of thing to be done before I die. I feel like the phenomenon can’t be described with words at all.

>>14430186
To me it isn't really that different to replaying a song in your mind.

>>14430181
No, this is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie

>>14417359
>(kevin and vince stay out)
Based on a quick search it seems like you randomly included this from BoJack Horseman for reasons only known to you.

>>14421470
Have you considered actually updating the image so that you aren't giving bad info that you don't believe in?

>>14425555
>strawpoll
>practical
Choose one

I just finished Enders game are any other books set in this universe worth reading?

>>14426280
Not having a login is the default.
The login was used to mitigate rigging.

>>14418877
>admitting that you're a gullible idiot so that you will be preyed upon even more

>>14417762
Please don't avatarpost.

>>14429832
https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/
This generates random people who don't exist.
AI sure is neat.

>>14430338
The one about bean or whatever his name his. Maybe called enders shadow. It's been years but I think it's literally the same story from the other kids point of view but its still pretty good if I remember

I didn't write again tonight. third time this week.

pathetic.

why am I such a failure /sffg/? Why is it that I can't do anything correctly, even if my fucking dreams and the entire worth of my life hang on it? why couldn't I have just been born like one of those REAL people whose live are the only ones of consequence and value. Why couldn't I have just been born a brainless amoeba with no concept of his own worthlessness?

why can't I just work up the courage to die

>>14426900
MLO didn't bring enough new stuff to the table IMO but overall the series was good.

>>14430382
Your fate is worse than death.
You aren't allowed to have such an easy end.

>>14430392
I've tried encourging this waste, I've tried inspiring this waste. nothing. I've tried training it, altering it, preparing it. nothing. I've tried beating it, I've tried burning it, i've tried ripping the fuckin hair from its head. it still won't do what it needs to do.

it. is. worthless.

>>14430403
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peJ7NWU0WMA

>>14430338
>enders game
I thought this was like a series of 10 books or something, not just one.

NEW THREAD
>>14430511
NEW THREAD

>>14426216
>want me to dox myself

>>14429104
three body problem is part of remembrance of earths past trilogy - listed separately