/lit/ - Literature

Goodreads Group
Requirements: A goodreads account and being 18+
Features:

Member Profiles: Being able to see what /sffg/ has read, is reading, and will be reading. Maybe you'll find someone you didn't know about and will want to read.

Group Updates: Look at the Group Updates thread for access to the group updates account. The simplest way would be to open a private tab or different browser and log into the account that way. There's no issue with being logged into multiple accounts at once. Feel free to stay logged into it. On the home page, you'll see all the activity all the group members want you to see. There are currently 83 members.

Bookshelves: Anyone can add to these, though only I have so far. They provide an overview of what the entire group thinks of a book. A book doesn't need to be added to be viewed.

If there's something else there ought to be, let me know.

Is the group reading thing only valid for those on discord or there's going to be discussion here as well?

Started reading Elric of Melnibone. What should I expect? I'm around that part where Yyrkoon doed the thing after the barbarians attack.

>>14635284
Discord only most likely, if that even.

>awful garbage web novels with literally chapters

How does China do it

>tfw sci-fi shelf is full

>>14635434
10000 chapters***

I finally got around to finishing up "Gormenghast" and "Titus Alone" after reading "Titus Groan" with the book club a long while back. It turns out this whole series is nonsensical post-modern garbage and dino-anon was accidentally correct.
If you like the first book, read the second and skip the third altogether as the story leaves the castle and meanders aimlessly through the middle aged shower thoughts of some worthless Beatnik.

What are you going to read in February?

>>14635490
>>14635434
By writing every day without the slightest regard to anything except the quantity pumped out.

>>14635634
I'm going try to read at least 1 novel per week for feb. Max possible for a week would be three. It's not that difficult to read for 6 hours every other day really.

>>14618155
I would watch an Amber anime. It would need a rewrite to add in pantsu fanservice and stronk womyn to sell to the degenerates but this could result in a better story overall. It won't because Corwin is a white male individualist and that won't pass the censors but it could have been. "Lord of Light" wouldn't have this problem; Brahma is even transgendered, right? Hell, this story adapts itself.

after finishing shadow of the torturer should i take a break to read hyperion

>>14635634
I don't know. Time to go back to my wishlist where I keep track of what I want to check out next. Probably some diamond dozen trash. In the meantime, I'm going to finish Instantiation by Greg Egan first. I wasn't very impressed by the first story although I'm sure he'll have some wild shit in store. And at last, I am one story away from finishing the big PKD short story omnibus.

< Terminal World - Alastair Reynolds

>>14635815
Why not just keep on reading Book of the New Sun and finish that? It's easily one of the best books you'll ever read in your life. Hyperion is decent too but for the Keats masturbation.

Any books featuring (but not necessarily being in the spotlight) god-like intelligences from another dimension taking interests in the mortal realm, a la the daedra from the Elder scrolls? People sacrifing things to get power from these would be gods?

No Lovecraft.

Listening to the audio book for this thing and the narrator has everyone doing a retarded French accent because the people are French/Chinese haaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha every single fucking character, this boomer is trying to sound like a chinese woman speaking french. what a legend

>>14636079
its so long i never read anything of that length before so im intimidated

>>14636792
>never read a multi-book series before
Well ok then

>>14634207
A month ago people were home for the holidays, newfag. We see an increase in speed every holiday.

>>14635455
>SF Masterworks
based dinoposter

What are some sci-fi/fantasy books that have really intimidating, well-written villains?

I just finished do androids dream of electric sheep. Can't believe this was published in 1968, Dick was a mad lad.

What do you all make of the book? Took me a while to process it, but I like the interpretation that Deckard learned empathy, and even though he is disappointed that the frog was fake, he still loves it and is no longer bound by what bogged him down in the past. Although I found his attitude towards the goat contradicts this a bit, but perhaps because he realized he only felt he needed it to be "complete" only to realize it didn't do much at all. Seems like the other time of the book is a pretty basic "emotions are what separate us from androids" but I didn't get that as much.

>>14636310
audiobooks can get extra retard some time, i remember grabing a robert heinlein one and just like shutting it down 5 mins later after realizing the music and special effects werent just part of the intro but kept going

>>14637370
There's a couple companies that go all-in on the "radio play" style audiobooks because they can charge more and the main audience for them (long haul truckers) like the extra stuff.

>>14637370
Imagine being a brainlet that can't appreciate graphic audio.

>>14635080
Thinking about writing a secondary world with its own complex mythology (similar to Tolkien), but something I want to add that’s my own idea is that the characters in this world can realize that they aren’t real and live in a fictitious reality, and the people that learn this eldritch truth can no longer see the physical world, but only the words of the book they exist in. In one instance, a person who saw the truth literally gave up on reality. He had suffered so much in his life all for the pursuit of one goal, only to realize that it never mattered in the first place and that none of it was real, and he goes mad from it. Is this a good idea, guys?

just finished pushing ice by reynolds (revelation space).
gotta hand it to him, he's got a pretty good imagination when it comes to this grandiose semi-hard sci-fi and far future stuff. at first i was pissed because it seemed i was reading a rendezvous with rama clone, but he pulled the ol' bait and switch on me.
most hard sci-fi i've read suffers from boring plot and characters and reynolds seems to be among the best when it comes to actually making his characters decent. (when i say decent i do mean 'decent'. not great)

getting started on house of suns next, afterwards i'm up for some fantasy. maybe i'll finally get around to reading earthsea or the chronicles of thomas covenant. anyone want to recommend one over the other?

>>14635634
Probably the Foundation Trilogy, been meaning to get around to it.

>>14637465
I’ve only read Thomas covenant and it’s some dark depressing stuff.

>>14637850
but is it edgelord misery porn stuff like game of thrones or is it just a sad series where sad things happen?

>>14635634
More Earthsea and possibly some PKD if there's time for it.

>>14636310
kind of a shame if it's taking you away from an amazing series.

>>14635634
Reading Worm again. I wish I could move on.

>>14635634
Mona Lisa Overdrive

>>14637465
You read Pushing Ice and you thought it had decent characters? Even with both MCs being retarded and the Chinaman turning into a plot device? I mean, the plot was weird but alright, but the characters sucked.

>>14638294
Can you read that on a ebook? or there's only the site. I couldn't read on the site, the spacing fucks me up. I would like to try and read that, people say it's addictive, I could easily fall for that.

>>14638367
i'm comparing it to other hard sci-fi characters, like for example the ones in forge of god and anvil of stars, or randezvous with rama or space odyssey. they were so forgettable they were like a memory singularity that sucked up my memories of those books along with them.

like i said. decent, not great. svetlana was such a humongous cunt that i'll remember her. the chinaman was never a character to begin with. bella was also decent.

but to be completely honest, i was also thinking of the revelation space characters when i made my post. sylveste, iliya, sky, skade. all decent and fairly memorable. and of those four, i only had to google skade to get her name. and i read the books over half a year ago

>>14637320

its great, and made me enjoy blade runner double.

>>14635080

40th for BIRDBOI

>>14635634
Definitely reading:
The Hallowed Hunt, The Fugitive and the Vanishing Man (if it gets uploaded), Burn Cycle
Possibly reading:
Penric's Demon, Tombs of Atuan, A Conjuring of Assassins, Knight of the Silver Circle and anything else eyecatching in the new releases

Feb's a shorter month so I'll probably try and end up with 7 books read not including the one I'm finishing off right now

>>14635634
i'm reading a history of china.
trying to get in as much world history and philosophy as possible this year so i can try and tackle wheel on time in 2021.

>>14638480
>>14638480
>trying to get in as much world history and philosophy as possible this year so i can try and tackle wheel on time in 2021
Now this is an A tier post.

>>14638378
I've got an ebook version I think someone in this thread linked me it
I'll upload it if you want it

>>14638480
i can't believe people this based exist

>>14638378
>>14638497
Here it is
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ce9bgys3egzcwzw/Worm_-_John_McCrae.mobi/file

FAO anyone else reading that link'll only last 2 weeks because I didn't bother to log into mediafire first

>>14637448

>>14638503
it's on libgen retards - https://libgen.is/fiction/CD8292DBA55B0C1E1FC6D2C549B8CF0E

>>14637861
>>14637850
Thomas Covenant is shit.

>>14638569
Thank you for your service.

>ask questions
>no one answers
>someone copies and posts exact question >>14635634
>hundreds of (you)s
>autistic special needs posters cling onto the post with a photo
I watching you faggot. This wasn't the first time you stole my (you)s.

>>14638598
>posts on an image board
>mad that a post with an image is better received than one without

>>14638598
Welcome to /sffg/, do enjoy your stay, also here's your complimentary Cyborg Elf.

>>14638598
are you fucking dense? if you want to get (You)s you add an image that's the most obvious shit, and if you want a thread to take off you samefag some posts with your phone
you fucking retard

>>14638577
okay so that's two votes against thomas covenant, but i still want to hear some arguments. not that i need them, i might for no reason decide to read earthsea anyway.

>>14637465
Both Thomas Covenant and Earthsea are fantastic but Covenant is so good because of the payoff so if you're not willing to tolerate the misanthrope protagonist you won't get there.
>>14638598
Threads were dogshit all week, so stuff's getting answered at the end of the week because posters are coming back

>>14638497
>>14638503
>>14638570
Thanks guys! I wonder how long it will take to read.

It's almost a shame that this is a followup to Curse of Chalion.
That book was so superb partly because the reader is never quite sure how the plot will develop until it does.
Paladin loses this quality once the pilgrimage ends, everything involving deduction can be pretty much immediately sussed out by the reader. The saving grace that stops it from stooping to the level of a lesser writer is that Bujold is at least smart enough to quickly have her characters catch up to the reader's level of understanding even if that brief lag does grate.

>>14638636
i like the strong opinions thomas covenant generates. i think i'll probably read that next. if anything, at least i know for sure i'll never forget about earthsea, since i've been hearing about it all my life. on the other hand, i just found out about thomas covenant last year and if i don't read it i might easily forget it. maybe i'll drop it, or maybe i'll be hate reading it by the end, but i'll at least start it.

>>14638694
Earthsea's well worth reading for a number or reasons but I like it because it probably has the best sense of place of any fantasy series ever. I'm honestly surprised nobody has really tried to copy the setting
Even without consulting the map you get a real feel for what the land is like a where everything is, especially in the first book which is so travel focused.

>>14638694
The writing is shit. I hope you like I'm a leper ad infinitum

>>14638700
noted. i like the sound of that. hopefully i remember to pick up earthsea after this because being a wagecuck it takes me half a year or more to finish a 10 book series. but i like the sound of this.

>>14638709
i guess i'll find out. glokta from the first law books was like that and he was tolerable. but then again tyrion from song of ice of fire was also like this and i found him insufferable.

my favorite part of the judging eye is when there is a blizzard so achamian and co have to go through notmoria

>>14638634
MC rapes someone (thinking that the fantasy world he got transported to was just a dream), which makes both leftypol AND bigots very angry.

>>14638745
Remember, no weeping.

Any fantasy with elements of the Roman Empire in it? I know there's Codex Alera but that series was sort of hit and miss with me.

>>14638834
What am I? A faggot? Only faggots weep.

>>14638810
The rape was okay. It's everything else.

>>14638810
bit too spolierish for me so i'll leave the thread now, but i just want to pose two questions for anyone interested to ruminate over

1)seems like this rape is clearly meant to be presented as the wrongful actions of a character who's been displaced from his reality and not entirely conscious of what he's doing. why would this make leftypol angry? is leftypol just angry at any depiction of rape?
and if so, the way to appease leftypol's anger is to do what? not depict rape in books ever? not depict anything bad happening to women ever?

2) why would bigots be mad about rape, exactly? i guess this is dependent on the context but i'm a bit of a bigot myself and i'm not sure how reading about a rape in a book is supposed to get me mad.

>>14638810
this, r/fantasy absolutely hates Thomas Covenant. not just for the rape and the depression but also becasue the trilogy talks about how escapism is for faggots and how we should face reality and that makes redditors seethe.

>>14638841
Sixteen Ways to Defend... - Fall of Roman Empire
Rigante - Roman Britain and then beyond
GGK's got Byzantine stuff
Latro in the Mist - Roman solider lost in greek myth
For hist fic The Shadow of Ararat and Masters of Rome get mentioned a fair bit

>>14638897
lol you absolutely didn't read past the first trilogy if you took that conclusion from it

I didn't realise how fucking long the poppy war was until I went back to finish it.

You can tell it was a debut by a really young author because it's 600 pages long despite having a more simplistic plot than most 300 page books. Just so much world and magic building that I'm not sure I want to reread through before I finish it off.

>>14638382
>Bella
>decent
Literally only because she was written to be sympathetic despite essentially dooming the crew. Svetlana was right but she had to be made into Hitler to make Bella look good.

>>14635910
Didnt enjoy, I recommend Pushing Ice, Chasm City Revelation space series, everything else is subpar

>>14639414
svetlana was right. and bella was wrong. in the initial argument. svetlana was wrong about everything after that. he didn't make her into hitler, he just made her petty and vindictive.

>>14638598
(You)

Don't spend it all in one place

what's the most /lit/ role-playing system?

>>14636792
You're selling yourself short then. Or try The Chronicles of Amber. Each of those is only about 200-250 pages, so they're more easily digestible. If you liked Shadow though, definitely finish the first series at least.
>>14638634
The prose is too repetitive. If I ever see the word "carnelian" again I'm going to rape a teenager.
>>14637320
I liked it more for the satirical elements. Good dark comedy. I wouldn't say he learned much though, aside from accepting (not fighting) his place in life.
>>14638480
Based and Sharapilled. Make sure you read up on world mythologies as well, and don't skip the Celts.

currently readan ringworld is preddy goode

Oh boy there we go with the fantasy again.

>>14639915
No one is interested in living the the future or the real world.

>>14639915
>he says while posting patreon thots in fantasy get up

>>14639597
I didn't have any other Reynolds pictures to post.

Who else here is mildly excited for Bone Silence, the third book in the Revenger series? The series has been a neat little adventure with good sci-fi ideas so far. Though the cover art for the third one sucks.

>>14639915
How do these internet whores manage to make lovely things so offputting? I'm getting serious uncanny valley vibes from your pic even though it's all composed of shit that I like.

>>14638480
I'm reading War and Peace and Once and Future King for WoT prep.

>>14640434
revenger is YA. if you like it you're literally a child

>>14640445
> I'm getting serious uncanny valley vibes
Too much photoshop makes them look unreal

>>14638901
> Sixteen Ways to Defend
That's not really the Roman Empire. It's just a story set in KJParkers world, he seems to be trying to sugguest all his books may actually be set in the same world but at different times, that happens to be set in a city with certain Roman-like elements. A coliseum and gladiators doesn't automatically make a book Roman.

>>14640717
the guy was asking for "elements of the roman empire"
nerd

>>14635080
February reading (choose any):
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34484.Small_Gods

Chateau Cascade by Dusty Ridgeman - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50265674-chateau-cascade

there was a tie so instead of arbitrarily choosing one we'll hold discussions for both. you can read as many or as few as you want. discussion in the discord.

>>14640727
>elements of the roman empire
Exactly!

By your logic any book featuring say aqueducts, mosaic floors or public baths with plumbing automatically make it about the Roman Empire.

>>14640717
literally everything about it is roman except from not using irl names

>>14640760
are you actually fucking retarded?
>automatically make it about the Roman Empire
no, it makes it i n c l u d e e l e m e n t s o f t h e r o m a n e m p i r e you absolute moron

>>14640757
>a book everyone has read and a self-pub book from some writefag itt
lol you moved to a discord and fucked it up even more somehow

>>14640797
small gods had only 2 votes in the 2019 poll, didn't even make top 20 list. also a bunch of zoomers have probably never even heard of pratchett

>browsing new releases
>tor is doing a gimmick where they release a 4 part series at a pace of 1 book a month with each book being a 500 pager
This can't possibly help sales right

getting mad at goodreads again, looked up a book and the top 5-6 reviews were all DNF
hilariously bad system of sorting reviews

>>14640862
also it's now recommending me robin hobb books in german for some fucking reason

>>14640786
No it's not. The so-called-Romans are all black to start with.

>>14640874
yeah just like irl

>>14635634
American Gods, hope you faggots aren't pulling a meme on me for recommending it.

tfw becoming a dino reader because the new releases suck so much

>>14640872
goodreads recommends me foreign language editions of books all the time. goodreads is a retarded website but there's nothing better. i could make a better site, except I have no idea how to get correct information for all the thousands of books and editions.

>>14640955
I mainly comment on it because I'm impressed at how bad something amazon bought out solely to sell books is so bad at doing it.

"I love sucking cocks thanks" as invite message.
Always silliness.

>>14640041
Being a defeatist such as yourself does not mean you have to have shit taste.
Why make matters worse for yourself?

>>14640073
Those are the best thots. Shows their dedication to the art.

>>14640445
That's cuz you are... well, you know.

>>14640434
Sounds like some weeb engrish video game.

>>14640955
>i could make a better site, except I have no idea how to get correct information for all the thousands of books and editions
Yeah, that part is pretty easy.

>>14641010
ok tell me where to get an infodump i can legally use and i'll build a better goodreads

>>14641033
they were being sarcastic anon

>>14640619
I disagree. I'm not even figuratively a child. I'm just a sad sack of meat, bones and broken dreams.
It seems to me that the only thing that likens Revenger to YA (young adult) is the fact that the two main characters are both young, and act accordingly. That in itself doesn't make these books YA. They might have been marketed as such, and the author may indeed have had half an intention to write the books as such, but the books simply do not feel like YA books. This is because I have surmised that Alastair Reynolds, though a very fine author whose books I often enjoy, is simply not capable of writing YA.
Thus the Revenger books leave distinct impression that he heard of the term Young Adult, about how much cash it is raking in in the 14-24 counterculture market share, perhaps he conversed on the topic, as an amusing thought exercise, with his other serious sci-fi author friends like Stephen Baxter, and perhaps while coming home from his evening jog, putting on some 40-year old rock music, he thought to himself: "To hell with it, I'll give it a go. After all, how hard can it be?"
But he just didn't have "it". He was already just another successful middle-aged sci-fi author and not a chubby 20-something deviant who has already written pages upon pages of erotic fan-fiction before changing the characters and setting and repackaging it as a "YA novel". You can't make this kind of an omelet by just reading about it on Wikipedia. And this is why Alastair Reynolds, when writing Revenger, did not achieve in writing a run-of-the mill YA book, but he got what he always makes: a solid book of science fiction, just with a few younger characters.

>>14640997
It isn't.

Revenger being called YA is literally because of goodreads users mislabeling it btw
that site strikes again

>>14640987
> does not mean you have to have shit taste
I never said it was what I thought but it's the reason fantasy is so much more popular than sci-fi.

>>14639628
Yes, well, the initial argument having been the one that sealed the fate of the entire crew.

>>14640797
A writefag is better than a fag who doesn't write

>>14638634
https://news.ansible.uk/plotdev.html
>Clench Racing

>This is a social and competitive sport, that can be played over and over with renewed pleasure. Playing equipment currently on the market restricts the number of players to six, but the manufacturers may yet issue the series of proposed supplements to raise the maximum eventually to nine.

>The rules are simple. Each player takes a different volume of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and at the word "go" all open their books at random and start leafing through, scanning the pages. The winner is the first player to find the word "clench". It's a fast, exciting game – sixty seconds is unusually drawn-out – and can be varied, if players get too good, with other favourite Donaldson words like wince, flinch, gag, rasp, exigency, mendacity, articulate, macerate, mien, limn, vertigo, cynosure.... It's a great way to get thrown out of bookshops. Good racing!
>[...]
>Let me explain the tenuous relevance of these modest exercises to my main subject. Here we have two of the most accomplished of contemporary bad writers inadvertently showing off one of the most valued qualities in their art. I refer, of course, to predictability. Donaldson's use of language is so repetitive and his characterization so limited to a few clumsy responses that he finds himself coming back again and again to the same beloved words, to the extent that you can predict their occurrence reliably enough to be able to leaf through and be sure of finding one almost immediately. Nimoy is even more adept in this esoteric art: his banal thought falls so naturally into clichés that you can predict whole lines at a time.

>[...]The publishers know the public knows what it wants: it wants more of the same. Safe books. No surprises. Familiar surroundings from page one. And this means that even writers with considerable literary pretensions have had to learn the Art of the Predictable as part of the basic equipment of their trade. In Gene Wolfe, who is rather a subtle writer, this only results in the occasional irritating embarrassment; in Stephen Donaldson, who is about as subtle as a lead brick, it results in contemptible gaseous claptrap. Examples follow in due course.

>>14641180
oh look it's another autist moaning everything isn't wolfe

Are there any books that are similar to the Japanese light novel series Kagerou Daze?

>>14641307
your gonna have to describe what you mean/want since the wiki article is so fucking long

>>14641040
He, nigga, he.
Pls don't mangle the English language, thank you.

>>14641033
You really need to learn more about what happens behind the scenes of high-traffic sites and how it scales.

>>14641046
>The galaxy has seen great empires rise and fall. Planets have shattered and been remade. Amongst the ruins of alien civilizations, building our own from the rubble, humanity still thrives.
Sounds pretty weeb-ish to me. Or YA.
Does it have technomagical mecha?

>>14641058
I think it's due to the far lower barrier of entry for fantasy. Or space fantasy, just like Star Wars (before Disney ran it into the ground).

>>14641307
What is wrong with people like you and your slanty-eyed obsession?
If it's not Japs, it's worst Koreans. If it's not Koreans, it's chinks. Are Vietnamese next?
What about Thailand? Oh wait - ladyboys. I guess you are already obsessing over Thailand.

>forgot to take my meds last night
>fell asleep worrying about how far my mental abilities have decayed
>had a bunch of depressing nightmares where my mom got cancer, i lost my ability to comprehend thematics and symbolism, and half of Hogwarts's departments being shuttered due to lack of funding
>wake up exhausted at 10:30
>tell a hasty lie on slack that I woke up sick and waited to feel better but i didnt so I don't get fired
>try to back to sleep
>more bad dreams
>wake up at 2:00
>go to the barnes and nobles at union square
>place looks like its getting ready to close down

how was your day /sffg/

>>14641318
A godlike entity creates a series of very similar realities and incarnates into each of them, and then at a specific point in each reality's time, the incarnation "judges" whether that iteration is "successful" or not. The incarnation has no awareness of its true nature until that moment of judgement.

>>14637861
The latter. Definitely not edgelord stuff

F&SF Jan/Feb 2020

Save, Salve, Shelter - Essa Hansen (Apocalyptic SF)
Pasha is a collector trying to save the genetic profiles of as many species as possible, which will buy her a spot in the final spaceships leaving Earth with the last remaining humans, but that is only secondary to saving as many live animals as possible. She feels much more comfortable with animals than with people and effects of the DNA corruption are far less evident to her than she believes
Enjoyable

Air of the Overworld - Matthew Hughes (Comedic F)
The continuing adventures of Baldemar
It's fine

Banshee - Michael Cassutt (Near Future SF)
The Chinese have perfected transitioning humans into whatever what they want to be. The 64 year old male protagonist's, the program director for a private spaceship company, daughter has transitioned into a velociraptor and neither he or her mother know how to feel about it. Most of the story is office politics. In the end transitioning becomes accepted by society and the discrimination against them is greatly lessened and only astronauts who have transitioned into forms suitable for long-term spaceflight are allowed
Ok

Chisel and Chime - Alex Irvine (Nominally F)
A story about hitobashira, human sacrifice to appease the gods for protection after something has been built
Ok

Elsinore Revolution - Elaine Vilar Madruga, translated by Toshiya Kamei (Simulated Reality SF)
Female AI protagonist escapes the AI patriarchy
Meh

Falling Angel - Albert E. Cowdrey (Urban Fantasy)
Male and female duo investigate the supernatural in L.A
Disliked

The Key to Composing Human Skin - Julianna Baggott [SF]
Let's use viruses to create propaganda rashes on people! Even better, let's use the virus to project their memories so that no one can hide anything from anyone
Ok, but it's one of those "I have a idea I want to write about and I don't care about the execution really"

Interlude in Arcadia - Corey Flintoff (Supernatural Fantasy)
Male Feminist tries to be a Good Ally helping M'Lady but because of Misunderstandings that shouldn't happen because he's a College Professor of Greek and Roman literature and thus above reproach his day goes very wrong. He suspects this is a plot against him from the most recent female student of his that he's been having sex with, he's married, because he told her that her ideas her were dumb and she should think more like he does. She has summoned mythological creatures to harass him

Three Gowns for Clara - Auston Habershaw (Anti-Fairy-Tale)
A pastiche of fairy tales. "What if these fairy tales were cynical"
Liked

The Nameless - Melissa Marr (Allegorical)
Men are rapacious wolves and all women must violently stand against them
Disliked, more for its writing than its themes

The Leader Principle - Rahul Kanakia (Satire)
Corporate influencers have taken over and many people give everything they have for nothing in return due to their parasocial relationship
Ok, but I should have liked it more

>>14641516
Looks like I forgot to put spaces in for the spoilers in trying to keep it to 3,000 characters. I'm going to delete it and repost.

F&SF Jan/Feb 2020

Save, Salve, Shelter - Essa Hansen (Apocalyptic SF)
Pasha is a collector trying to save the genetic profiles of as many species as possible, which will buy her a spot in the final spaceships leaving Earth with the last remaining humans, but that is only secondary to saving as many live animals as possible. She feels much more comfortable with animals than with people and effects of the DNA corruption are far less evident to her than she believes
Enjoyable

Air of the Overworld - Matthew Hughes (Comedic F)
The continuing adventures of Baldemar
It's fine

Banshee - Michael Cassutt (Near Future SF)
The Chinese have perfected transitioning humans into whatever what they want to be. The 64 year old male protagonist's, the program director for a private spaceship company, daughter has transitioned into a velociraptor and neither he or her mother know how to feel about it. Most of the story is office politics. In the end transitioning becomes accepted by society and the discrimination against them is greatly lessened and only astronauts who have transitioned into forms suitable for long-term spaceflight are allowed
Ok

Chisel and Chime - Alex Irvine (Nominally F)
A story about hitobashira, human sacrifice to appease the gods for protection after something has been built
Ok

Elsinore Revolution - Elaine Vilar Madruga, translated by Toshiya Kamei (Simulated Reality SF)
Female AI protagonist escapes the AI patriarchy
Meh

Falling Angel - Albert E. Cowdrey (Urban Fantasy)
Male and female duo investigate the supernatural in L.A
Disliked

The Key to Composing Human Skin - Julianna Baggott [SF]
Let's use viruses to create propaganda rashes on people! Even better, let's use the virus to project their memories so that no one can hide anything from anyone
Ok, but it's one of those "I have a idea I want to write about and I don't care about the execution really"

Interlude in Arcadia - Corey Flintoff (Supernatural Fantasy)
Male Feminist tries to be a Good Ally helping but because of Misunderstandings that shouldn't happen because he's a College Professor of Greek and Roman literature and thus above reproach his day goes very wrong. He suspects foul play from the most recent female student that he's been having sex with, he's married, because he told her that her ideas her were dumb and she should think more like he does. She has summoned mythological creatures to harass him

Three Gowns for Clara - Auston Habershaw (Anti-Fairy-Tale)
A cynical pastiche of fairy tales.
Liked

The Nameless - Melissa Marr (Allegorical)
Men are rapacious wolves and all women must violently stand against them
Disliked, more for its writing than its themes

The Leader Principle - Rahul Kanakia (Satire)
Corporate influencers have taken over and many people give everything they have for nothing in return due to their parasocial relationship
Ok, but I should have liked it more

>>14641347
>living in a major metropolitan area (NYC)
I wouldn't even visit, let alone live in such a place.

It's been the usual. Living is like swimming, eventually you tire and drown, and it's much more difficult for some to keep their head above water than for others.

I have a few books in my 'To Read' pile, which should I read first?

>Imajica - Clive Barker
>The Black Company - Glen Cook
>The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe

>>14641647
Put the three books in front of you.
Don't read the spoiler text below until you've done the above.
Your post number is odd, so start from the right to left.
Open to a random page.
If the first letter on the left leaf is a vowel, read that one.
If it's a consonant, proceed to the next book.
If they are all consonants, repeat the process until you get a vowel.

>>14641622
>two weeks ago the union square B&N started removing whole shelves from each of the book cases
>one week ago the row of graphic novel bookcases was straight-up gone
>this week, all books on the shelves are facing outwards

it fucking hurts /sffg/

>>14641754
It's your fault for making locations part of your identity.

>>14640434
I want the third Prefect book already.

>>14635634
Children of Dune and Ubik

this is the slog of slogs boys

Seriously, name a big pleb filter than this.
although I love the first trilogy, and thought it had great elements, the setting wasn’t very original, yes I know this is on purpose. Books of the South brought in amazings african and Indian myths and hierarchies, yet I always hear that people just “couldn’t get into the books of the south”. Wtf? It’s definitely been my favorite part so far, so much that I was actually annoyed going back to the northern perspectives in Silver Spike. But admittedly I ended up loving Silver Spike too, for Case and based Limper

>>14640934
You've been memed

>>14635634
Library at Mount Char

>>14642425
They don’t like having not croaker as the PoV

>>14642425
hey man I only stopped reading there because I was a broke teenager and couldn't afford the next book.

>>14635634

Ian M. Banks Culture Series. I read the first two, merely like Consider Phlebas but loved The Player of Games. Basically want to get my hands on anything and everything megastructure related. Recommendations welcome, preferably in a long series that goes super in depth about the science and what a spaceborne future for humanity might conceivably look like.

>>14642425
>not reading SS after the first trilogy

Guys I want read on phones and tabs now and I heard Adobe Digital Editions runs like shit on androids is there any other apps that I can use to open epub files with? Appreciated

>>14642425
the first 100 pages of gardens of the moon are the ultimate pleb filter

>>14640862
Goodreads is a shit website, but the fact that it's been effectively on maintenance mode since amazon bought it is honestly better than the alternative. I can't name a single website that had a redesign/major "upgrade" that didn't turn out to be terrible in the past 5 years at least (probably more like 10+).

/sffg/, I can't do it anymore. I've lost the ability to write. My writing spree ends here

>>14642794
Your posting spree as well.

What artificer specialist makes the most sense for a body-modder who wants to turn his heart into a phylactery?

>>14642362
There's mention in a long interview on the authors blog.
>Reaktor: Scorpio in “Absolution Gap” was brilliant, is there any chance of more books portraying hyperpig or, in general, stories told from not quite human perspectives or cultures? Do you have plans yet for the next Prefect Dreyfus Emergency?
>AR: Scorpio is one of those characters I never expected to be as popular as he was, and yet he’s a firm favorite. He will come back in some form. I re-read Absolution Gap this summer (a clue to what I’m working on next) and was taken with his character, so I’d like to revisit him in some context.
>As for Dreyfus, all being well there’ll be another one along, but not for two or three years. I do have a sense of what I want to do with him as a character, over five novels. Eventually he’ll retire from Panoply and leave the Yellowstone system.

>>14642362
I'm still one third through the second one. The dialogue is so stilted...

>>14635634
either eon by bear,a fire upon the deep,lord of light, or some rationalist fiction

>>14643171
Eon is good but the sequels are just silly. His best books are probably Blood Music, Forge of God and it's sequel, Queen of Angels and Darwins Radio

>>14637320
I loved the whole thing with the fake police station and Phil Resch.
>>14635634
Dune Messiah and either start Fellowship of the ring or Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

>>14641677
Imajica won, and I've read the first chapter so far.
Is this Clive Barker, because it's so far reading like Harry Potter?

>>14635314
I'm currently reading it as well, started the series with The Weird of the White Wolf yesterday, which I know's wrong because you need to go with the chronological order as opposed to the release one in this case, but really enjoyed it and I'll probably continue with it after I'm done with Moby Dick and The Call of the Wild. If the stories are true, both of us are in for quite a ride and will have a bitchin' time with the series that was hugely influential for not just dark fantasy, but fantasy in general. Moorcock was basically the anti-Tolkien as he puts it, so I'm quite intrigued to see how it all builds up to a spiraling finale that is Stormbringer.

>>14635634
Moby Dick, The Call of the Wild and The Elric saga. It's going to be a good reading month.

>>14643464
>Moby Dick
WHITE
WHALE
HOLY
GRAIL

>>14642858
>Scorpio is one of those characters I never expected to be as popular as he was
wtf is that bullshit? literally one of the best scenes in Absolution Gap was Scorpio falling and getting helped back up. How do you write that scene thinking Scorpio isn't a favorite?

>>14643423
I recommended that people ignore imajica. Enjoy your shit read.

>>14643878
Weaveworld a better choice?
Or just ignore everything Clive Barker that is not Books of Blood?

>>14643883
I only read two clive books. Imajica was the longest shit book I read. You may like it depending on your disposition.

>>14643883
Read his short stories.

>>14643883
I DNF weaveworld 400 pages in, majority of that was running around england, rarely does something cool happen.

>>14635314
>Elric kills everything in his path
>Elric goes over his head
>Elric summons patron to save him
>Elric kills everything in his path again
>Elric goes over his head
>Elric relies on his sword to save him
Repeat the above for ever until he gets fucked by his sword. However, Elric is goat.

>>14635634
I'm reading Count of Monte Christo again. I need to read something will quality.

>>14644310
>until he gets fucked by his sword
Did the sword grow a body and penis?

>>14644379
No, they're in a symbiotic relationship and rely on one another, though Elric suspected from the beginning the sword was sentient and had a lot more power over him than the other way around. It ultimately proves to be his demise.

>>14644379
fleshhilt
patent pending

>>14644420
People are writing about having sex with their guns. What's a sword?
Hell. That randi guy wrote about fucking his revolver.
I guess sex with a harem and animals (catgirls, dragons, were[insert animal here], etc) doesn't cut it anymore. They are going with weapon fucking. They should have just gone to mommy fucking. But I guess it's more outrageous to fuck your mom/sister, than fuck a dog/cat.

elric's mainly interesting so far because it shows where a lot of "dark elf" warhammer/D&D stuff was ripped from
story itself isn't sold on me yet

>>14644318
I tore through Monte Cristo until I got to the Sinbad stuff then I lost interest

>>14644593
There's a real hump you have to get over after he visits his employer again, there's a time jump and perspective switches to the two young guys travelling through Italy
But it's all to a point, definitely worth powering through that part

>>14644589
>story itself isn't sold on me yet
Where are you at and where did you start with?

>>14644451
Back in high school, my mate and I were searching r34 for airplane porn and we saw it humping a tank. We burst out laughing.

>>14644697
Still reading the first book, I went by internal chronology since that's how they got collected and republished rather than by publishing order

>>14644733
Stick with it, it gets better. The second one is really good.

>>14635634
Gaskun sent me some his space opera books. Gonna take a look.

>>14641373
World of Tiers and Chronicles of Amber

>>14638682
The second half definitely was weaker but I loved how it was more of a traditional fairy tale. I wish it hadn't been based off of "but the Golden General had even MORE unfinished business!" though. Didn't mind the standard Bujold middle-aged-woman-having-a-crush plot.

That first half though, with the rising tension and the dust could getting closer, that was fantastic.

Do you think you'll read Hallowed Hunt?

>>14642680
CoolReader

>>14643558
thanks anon I was looking for that

Does Brandon Sanderson's stuff get any better after Mistborn?

>>14645384
Yeah I started Chalion because I wanted to read the Penric books so I'm gonna continue in publication order
might take a month off though because I have new releases to read now

Also Paladin of Souls is growing back on me a bit simply because of how quickly Bujold's having the characters all become aware of their dilemmas, outside of that little bump the book does a good job of never feeling like it's stalling

>>14645632
I love how the gods are characters too, and how there really does need to be a holy war because there really can't be a reconciliation. Such a horrible thing justified so deftly. Haven't started Hallowed Hunt but I have a feeling the demons are going to be a big part of it.

>>14645592
Rated on a purely Sanderson scale warbreaker is good and the start of Stormlight is good
But I'd only put them on a level with mistborn book 1, there's no real definitive step up in quality. Stormlight just benefits from being even more anime derivative which suits his style better.

>>14635634
the rest of Gibson's neuromancer trilogy

>>14644715
There a comic with a guy fucking an airplane with huge breasts...

How the fuck are we at page 9?
What off topic shit is pol, bible thumpers and philosofags posting? Why the mods just sitting back?

>>14646205
welcome to 4chan sweatie

Reading Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and I'm surprised at how gentle the pace is. I get that Swords and Deviltry is both an introduction and one of the last sets of stories written but it's paced just like your standard epic fantasy which I didn't expect from S&S.
Also outside of a few turns of phrase and some pretty hilarious sexism this could've been written in 2019, nothing feels that dated about it.

>>14646205
It's better we're slow on a saturday than we're fast with someone sperging out and making the thread not worth reading like we were last week

>Sandman Slim Series

Worth a read, or no?

>>14646211
>newfag thinking this is work as usual
Lit wasn't like this years ago when that sticky was made. We used to boot pol back to pol or trash, and philosofags to >>>/his/ now we are being buried in shit after those fourx2 channers got shut down. They are trying to take over lit, and hiro ain't doing shit. A lot of people already left because of the newfags such as yourself shitting up the board.

>>14646270
It's not slow. An hour between posts usually carries us to page 6, we reached page 9 with an hour's gap. I don't know wtf is going on.

>>14637320
My overall feeling about the empathy stuff in the book was that the overall message was that humans are capable of empathy even when they know something is fake (the frog, the android he has sex with, Mercerism after the revelation) and that this ability is more of a strength than a hinderance. It felt hopeful to me.

>>14646305
>/his/
>years ago when that sticky was made

>>14646382
Listen newfag, let me educate you. His was originally made because the philosofags were too much on lit, we complained about it in /q/ and hiro made /his/. It was supposed to be /phil/, but he said it was for all the humanities subjects. We had a rest for a few years, now the ate chan refugees are here thinking that their shit belongs in lit, and not /his/. And apparently the active mods on /his/ don't want those newfags shitting up their board, so they are banning them and forcing them on lit, and our lit mod apparently is just lubeing up the poop chute and just taking it raw from /his/.

Good or Evangelian meem cringe?

>>14646441
/q/ was containment for cringy redditors, ouch on admitting you complained there. So sorry /lit/ is no longer your safe space.

Low post rate with high thread rate leads to problems.

>>14646467
Q was originally a place to chat with mods/admin.
When hiro took over from moot he was there regularly as he learned about the community he bought. Almost everyone complained, hundreds of posters. It's why hiro listened and made /his/. It is now shit, but it was a way to talk. If I recall correctly /q/ or 3 something was a hidden board.
You using "ouch" and bringing up reddot(to try and distract people from seeing you are from there) just shows you're an underage newfag. Underage b& says "ouch".

>>14646927
oof

What's the best Philip K. Dick novel?

>>14646986
Rebbit

>>14646294
Maybe the first three books, but it gets even more repetition than Dresden files does

>>14647096
Scanner Darkly or Ubik.

God damn this shit is satisfying. Best fake history anthology ever?

>he doesn't buy japanese version of his favorite fantasy books

SHIGGY

>>14643357
>Dune Messiah
Puke

>>14647333
There have been similar books.

>>14647333
>fake history
I don't know if it would be considered fantasy, but I've been thinking of starting reading Flashman, is it any good?

>>14647333
Look, I'll give credit where credit it due. Its excellently put together (barring the nigh unforgivable error of not including a map) and there's such a volume of information that it's rather impressive and immersive.
But so much of it is such abject garbage. Like Grover, Kermit, and Elmo. But again, the volume of it all makes that practically unavoidable.

>>14635080
Suggestions for fun books written in 1st person POV?

>>14642858
>2-3 years
GOD FUCKING DAMMIT I HATE THIS SHIT
FINISH YOUR SERIES' WITHIN A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME
DON'T TAKE A GODDAMN DECADE TO WRITE THREE (3) BOOKS FUCK YOU

>>14643558
SPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDER

>>14646270
>tfw kinda sorta wnat to read the sci-fi series that the Fafhrd guy wrote

>>14647096
Time Out of Joint / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / can't remember the third I really liked but he has a LOT of great stories

>>14647365
but i do

>>14647633
Define "reasonable amount of time"
For both total series duration and each individual book.

>>14645384
>middle-aged-woman-having-a-crush plot.
Picked up

Books with this feel?

I'm reading the white luck warrior, about halfway through and just got really fucking triggered when

Maithanet kills the crazy kid and then esmenet tries to get him arrested and he just walks out, it's infuriating how she just doesn't listen to him and Kelmomas keeps getting away with ruining everything

>>14647971
MATING PRESS

>>14647971
Game of thrones

>>14638634
Covenant is awesome, fuck the haters. I'm on his new series and A World of Ice and Fire and between the two i'm getting crushed reading in bed like a skinny virgin under a hamplanet.

>>14647333
I don't know how I lost interest.

>>14647971
Warbreaker I'd guess.

>>14647971
Paladin by C J Cherryh and the Deed of Paksenarrion

>>14647971
By the Sword - Lackey
Alanna - Pierce, YA
Hild - Griffith, historical fiction

>>14648249
Fuck esmenet.
Never have I hated females more than her. Well adare is still first place, but whoremenet is a close second.

>>14648700
I liked her until this bit

>>14648728
Esmenet is just a hyper realistic depiction of women

Any good non-human mc book?

>>14648923
Warriors by Erin Hunter
Demons of Astlan by J.L. Langland(kind of mc starts off human and often acts or pretends to be human)
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Everybody Loves Large Chests by Neven Illiev
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

That's just off the top of my head what I've read. All fairly enjoyable in my opinion. Just google for books with non-human MC's and you should find plenty if you don't like these.

>>14648923
Book of the New Sun

>>14648923
Darkwar by Glen Cook.

Just finished Hyperion and loved it. Is the sequel worth reading or is it disappointing?

Books of Babel are great, why did you tell me they were shit, one guy?

>>14647333
>best anthology
That would be the silmarion

rec me books where protagonist isn't a chad with perfect moral compass

It paid off. Book of the Ancestor #3 was a really satisfying conclusion. I'm not in the mood for typing right now. So I'll just say it was good.
And if you're an audiobook listener like me, then get the Heather O'Neill version. She's much more suited for a story like this, and she really helped give it life. I took a risk and changed readers from book 2 to 3, and it paid off.

>>14635634
The King in Yellow and The Island of Dr. Moreau (the former arrived in the mail 2 days ago, the latter most likely on Monday.) Looking forward to them. What about you anon

>>14641550
3 Gowns for Clara looks interesting

>>14648662
>>14647971
>the Deed of Paksenarrion
Seconding Paks

>>14649287
prince of nothing, prince of thorns (not the same book, also this one is kinda meh)

malazan (no mc and pretty grimdark)

>>14635314
Elric is kino, but the best incarnation of the eternal champion will always be Corum.

>>14649619
Why do moorcock's booktitles sound so sexual?
>The Sword and the Stallion
>The Oak and the Ram
>the Bull and the Spear

It isn't just me that noticed that right? Im not even a Coomer but this shit is so glaringly obvious its weird.

>>14649306
Not touching anymore sister books. Book one was enough to turn me off.

>>14649730
Does he use his silver hand to touch himself?

>>14642680
Moon Reader works well for me

>>14649056
Fall of Hyperion is different and worse but not bad. Skip the last two books in the tetralogy.

>>14649850
That's fair. I was shaky on the first book too. I might have dropped it there, if I had anything better to read. But since the only other choice I had at the time was the tedium of Borne, I just jumped into the second book. Which was better than the first. And then the third saw the story come together in a really satisfying way. It's not the most fleshed out story, or the most intriguing of plots. It just became something solid and fun. Characters grew. Their arcs concluding. Everyone showcasing their potential. And I really ended up caring about Nona.
Still I don't blame you for not going further with it.

>>14648923
Ka

>>14642680
I used lithium before, it was pretty alright

Well, I finished Children of Dune.
Ending sort of made up for the slog in between.
Going to take a break to read something before diving into the remaining three.

>>14647333
see >>14649193
Not just because LoTR, also just genuinely good on it's own.

Who the fuck recommended this garbage?
I'm 33 chapters in, and it keeps getting worse and worse. The same ideas get repeated over and over and over. The protagonist is such a dumb bitch. Like, you have this pretty interesting premise where a scavenger finds this odd creature that can absorb other life, and she raises it like a child. But it's all wasted on a character who is actually too stupid and too impatient to do or say anything of interest. The creature, Borne, tries to lead the conversation somewhere interesting. And then then fucking cunt starts complaining in her inner monologue about how bothersome she finds it all, and then says something to shut the conversation down. I can't imagine the autoer actually bothered to right such a stupid fucking cunt.

All she thinks about is her trap, how weirded out she is by her alien-baby, and fucking some frail old man. That's literally it. Survival, baby, fucking. Survival, baby, fucking.
There must be at LEAST 10 sex scenes in only the 33 chapters I've read so far. Literally 1/3 of the book is dedicated to her uninteresting relationship. 1/3 is dedicated to wandering the world in the most interesting manner possible. 1/3 is repeating the same schtick with borne, because she keeps talking the poor creature in circles.

This is the first book I actually detest. I haven't been reading long, mind. Most books I've read so far range from just ok, to amazing. This is the first book that I'm afraid I have to call "bad". Never recommend it to anyone again.

>>14647880
Not a full fucking decade to write a trilogy or taking several-year breaks between books in said trilogy.

>>14650681
>Going to take a break to read something before diving into the remaining three.
Don't. God Emperor is the best one of the series. Save the break for later and then you can read Heretics and Chapterhouse together.

>>14650893
well shit man, I thought it was good, sorry you didn't like it. had a good laugh at the review. i really like weird fiction i guess.

How about this: it's the Koom Valley Accords from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, but instead of a peace treaty mediated by humans it's an agreement between the Dwarves and the Trolls to do nofap.

Back in October, I posted my thoughts about reading the first Cradle book, Unsouled. Turns out out over the last 6 days or so, I read a book every day of the Cradle series, which is all that is out. I'll post a summary of my thoughts sometime, or maybe I won't.

Completely reductive statement: It's fun for what it is.

>>14651413
I'm too intelligent to read things like that personally.

>>14651429
What do you consider fun?

Is Lem any good?

>>14651477
his work is really philosophical, not really fun reading.

>>14649306
>lawrence
hahaha hee hee hoo ha he ho hee hoo hee hahah hee hoo hee ha hoo heh hah he hahha hoo hah hehheheh hahahah hoo hee haahah

/sffg/, i give up

I wrote and I wrote and I wrote every day for four months, but in the end I accomplished very little, and I was never as good as I once was. I don't know whether I only succeeded the first time thanks to hypomania, or whether the rapid decline of my mental capacities has whittled away the one skill I needed to accomplish my dreams.

all I do know is that I haven't written in a week, and even if I try I won't be able to bring myself to start again

>>14651802
ok

>>14651802
We don't care

>>14642695
Any time I recommend Malazan I don’t even mention how rough the first book is. If they finish it, they are gifted with enough autism to continue. Plus, if they don’t suffer through Gardens they won’t appreciate how much better book 2 is.

>>14651802
You can do it anon. Take a break, read something new, and try again

>>14651802
what are we gonna do without more derivative genre trash oh noooo

I've added 2,000+ as "read" on goodreads now. It could be considerably higher, but effort. That being said, I only currently have 409 shelved as "novels". Most of these I read in my teen years, long since gone. Very few of these would be considered "proper" or "acceptable" novels, even within the confines of SFF. Makes me realize just how little I've read in terms of novels over the past decade. Really, I've read basically nothing overall and it'll always be that way.
I expect most don't add even a small fraction of what they've read for various reasons.

>>14651861
ok

>>14651848
>>14651808
>>14651812

The guy’s just venting, but hey, if the tough guy larping gets you through the day this is a good enough place for it

>>14651861
i added the first goosebumps book and called it a day

>>14651936
ok reddit

>>14651802
If you're truly a writer at heart then go to sleep, eat something nice, have a nice drink, then get back to it. Not much else to be said.

Hey lads, I've got a mouse in my room and my girlfriend is a vegan so we can't just kill it. We gotta wait for the non-kill trap to work its magic. I get a bit iffy about the idea of a rodent running around while I'm trying to sleep, but she's good. Probably because she sleeps next to one (me).

Any of these audiobooks any good? I've never read a Terry Pratchett novel. They worth a read?
Posting this, but checking Goodreads now.

Finished Guy Gavriel Kay's Tigana. Overall it was a great read. One of the more memorable "villains" I've come across. I found myself rooting for Brandin and Dianora more than anyone else. Devin was quite weak as a main character, but he quickly becomes supported by a far more interesting cast. The epilogue felt a but quick to me, I'd have liked it a bit longer after all that. How do Guy Gavriel Kay's other works measure up to this one?

>>14638841
Latro in the Mist

>>14652234
>my girlfriend is a vegan
how do you put up with the stinky farts?

>>14651820
I don't see what's wrong about gardens of the moon

>>14652266
It’s weird, Tigana made me feel all out of sync. The Dianora sections were great, really absorbing stuff, and then the sections with Devin and co. felt so functional and flat. I hear it get a lot of praise for having the “good guys” blur good and evil in their pursuit of revenge, but it felt like GGK was always taking his foot off the gas and saying, “Well of course they’re still good.”

I also thought his love scenes felt really shoved in outside of, once again, Dianora’s. Devin would just meet someone, have life-affirming sex, and be on his way and never really think about it ever again. Maybe that’s just the chad experience, who knows?

>>14652300
It’s okay but doesn’t have any of the best parts of Malazan in it. Then again midnight tides was my favorite so I probably just have weird taste

cringe or kino?

>>14652388
>feminist fantasy

>>14652402
kek, well, that's enough for me

>>14652348
I do get what you mean. The Devin and co sections felt a bit disjointed at times. As far as the blur between good and evil goes, it never went past lip service. It's constantly made abundantly clear who is who in this regard. Both sides are just a bit more in the middle, rather than far ends of the spectrum. Alessan merely realized the cost his endeavor would have, that doesn't mwan he's blurred the lines. Especially when these costs turn out to be remarkably low. The things that took me out of it the most were Devin and Catriana being unnecessarily gloomy at a few points. Compared to a few other characters these two have relatively little dog in the whole fight, and yet act more impacted by it than others.

You're right concerning the love scenes. They were all incredibly unnecessary and even a bit off putting. Catriana could have simply told Devin that being heard would mean death in the closet. Alienor was a truly bad way of drawing a parallel between intimacy and the loss of Tigana. Baerd and Dianora would have worked just as well without, and the whole night walker affair was the biggest disconnect in the entire book.

Tried to read Japanese fantasy novels. They are all complete garbage. Do people even read in Japan or is everything just put into creating mangas.

Wow Mother of Learning is finally finished.

>>14651936
shoo shoo faggot, nobody cares about your problems or schlock story

>>14652234
be honest, how large is your vagina?

Not sure if my copy of Elric of... is fucked up or not

He makes his pact with Arioch, gets told to use The Ship Which Sails Over Land and Sea and then the mirror smashes and he finds the girl/where the villain has gone

Can't tell if I'm just reading it wrong or if there's pages missing somewhere amongst that

>>14652234
> I've got a mouse in my room and my girlfriend is a vegan so we can't just kill it.
It's not like you plan to eat it. Just kill the fucker.

>>14652570
Where's the mobi?

>>14649432
>no mc
It was Fiddler.

Recently, I've read book 1 of Wheel of Time and dropped the series in disgust (though the part where they go from starting village to big city was entertaining enough).

Some months ago, I stopped my read of Malazan at some 40% of book 2, and in the meanwhile I forgot most of it so I started book 1 again. After Jordan, this is like a godsend - well written, dynamic, a true blend of gritty and high fantasy. My only qualm being that the magic system is at the same time intricate and generic - you have warrens, hosts, flying yadda yadda... and giant balls of energy being thrown around.

I was sort of dissapointed that Malazan did not have a better magic system considering Glen Cook's influence, where magic is sinister and subtle, and flashiness is the weakest and most dangerous-less form of it. That being said, I've re-read Chapter 1 of Black Company, book one. What a ride. What a setting, certainly the best opening chapter I've read after the unbeatable chapter 1 of LotR.

>>14635455
Nice editions anon. I'm not a big fan of how SF Masterworks look, but they feel great in hand and are really comfortable to read. Based on your Dune editions, I'd say you follow the same philosophy of usability. Now go buy some Gene Wolfe and Stand on Zanzibar.

And for my third post in a row, I'd like to recommend everyone to pick up 'Swords and Dark Magic' short story collection and find CJ Cherryh's 'A Wizard in Wiscezan' - a fantastic example of how fantasy world can be built up in a nick of time by a great writer. Shame she ventured into SF throughout her career.

Peace out.

>>14652300
Too many people are introduced all at once. As soon as you begin to get a grasp on things the pov shifts. They also take the absolute piss out of the reader while doing this; iirc Crokus's arc begins in the pov of an assassin who dies while attempting to kill him and then you get to be Crokus. As if it doesn't already have the biggest cast in fantasy.
Also the plot lines are fairly weak. You start with Tattersail at Pale. You don't find out about why this war is occurring, why there is friendly fire and Tattersail gets cut as a pov character.
Then it transitions to Darujhistan where the whole strategy is to lay some bait so big bad will come and stomp the city for them. But you don't know jack shit about big bad or about his opposition, the whole thing is just a convoluted way for characters to meet.

The pale stuff is later explained, but given the series' propensity to abandon pov characters in favour of new ones, arcs need to be more self contained than that. Books 2 and 3 succeed in this, but at the cost of there being two simultaneous books meaning characters you like don't get mentioned for ages. Book 4 is where character abandonment peaks, you spend a huge amount of time before ever meeting someone from previous books, enough that you might doubt it's a sequel. But the new character is so strong that you're able to finally move past Malazan's pov shenanigans.

>>14652535
Japanese light novels contain filler.
But when it comes to the amount of fantasy being put out, and to new ideas you don't see in western fantasy, Japanese fantasy is top tier. Read:

Accel World. It's far better than the series.
Chrome Shelled Regios. Mostly an extension to the 26 episode series that manages to cover the first 14 novels.
Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei. Great world, great magic system, the author is a cunt. I think it benefits greatly from his script being interpreted into a series. Unfortunately the series only covers a novel or two and these days the novels are manually translated into Russian > machine translated to English > edited by narcissistic twats who self admittedly change the story (with insubstantial text addition) to what they think is best.

I think literally everything I've read ended up getting an Anime or the translation was dropped. Maybe just watch anime.

>>14652570
It got repetitive. (still, I read till he got out)

>n-no guys harlan ellison is good you just need to read more! it's literary!

>>14652234
Small Gods (Discworld) is the current book of the month selection. Dunno about audiobook quality.

>>14652899
you should read her fantasy novels and series lad they're all good

>>14649730
Cock is literally in his name, it probably had some psychic effect on him growing up.

>>14652691
Did Elric lead a host of blind men to attack Oin and Yu?

>>14653274
looked it up on google books and that entire part is missing, I just had the chapterhead for Ship and then he was entering the portal pretty much

must have some weird abridged or just fucked up version lol

>>14651104
It's more the case that I have to since it's coming in the mail. It'll be less than a week so it's not that bad.

/sffg/, I'm starting to realize that all the creators I've looked up to accomplished their dreams before they were the age I am, and even the ones who didn't were at the very least on their goddamn fucking way. All of them had talents and skills they could rely on, and after all these years all I have to show for it is that I'm worse and worse and worse than I was before.

I'm having chest pains right now. It's not a heart attack. God I fucking wish it was a heart attack. An excuse not to force myself to suffer through the pain of seeing every one of my good qualities leave me and the ensuing failure they leave in their wake. I'm not sure how much more of this I can live through, and even now I'm not sure if I have the strength to see tomorrow.

Give me a sign /sffg/. Give me a sign to throw open the window, step out and quit this ongoing disaster I call my life

>>14653686
It's over anon, just take the black pill already.

>>14653686
Just remember, you have the luxury and privilege to whine about this.

>>14653050
Harlan Ellison is better as a personality than a writer.

>>14653013
There are many more light novels published in English than you might think and more quickly than you'd think. It's just a matter of a bit of patience, such as with Mahouka

>>14635284
>expecting any than people blogging about what they want to blog about

>>14650965
Maybe you should try reading stuff that is released on a weekly basis.

>>14652535
Light novels don't count. There are actual novels though.
>everything just put into creating mangas.
Mostly, yeah.

Didn't like the first (internal chronology) fafhrd and the gray mouser book much at all.
Despite it being sword and sorcery if anything the biggest problem was the overly descriptive writing coupled with action scenes that failed to excite.

>>14653084
Nigel Planer does the first 20 or so Discworld novels and he's excellent

/sffg/, I swore a vow tonight. If I'm not published by the age of 30 I'm going to take my own life

>>14653855
If by published you mean officially, they are not fast. You typically get something like one novel translated every 6 months, which is typically twice as long as they take to write in the first place.
Worse yet, companies don't buy the write to publish translations until the fan translations become popular. And even in the case where the fan translator was hired by the official rights holder and is himself officially translating the novel, they start over from book one at a slow speed.
There has been a number of occasions where a series I was reading was dropped by a fan translation team because the rights were purchased, causing a decade long delay before the next translated novel is released.
Mahouka isn't as bad as most. The fan translations have not stopped, the official translations are being done every 3 months (the same pace as they are being written), and are a mere 16 novels or 4 years behind.
Official translation efforts are far from impressive.

How old are you right now?
>>14654145

>>14654148
That's more because they only want to pay a few translators and editors and want to limit how many are released at a time. One person works on several series. They could do a lot more and more often, but they choose not to do so. There have been times where manga volumes were released many at a time officially. That's just how it goes.

>>14654164
It's always trade off between speed and quality.

>>14654164
>>14654171
Let alone how low sales are and how little profit is made from most series. I'm amazed any are done at all.

>>14654151
I'll be 27 in 2 weeks

Does being self-published count?
>>14654189
If not, how large must the publishing company be?

>>14654200
If I can find it in a chain bookstore, it counts. If it's self-published I'll kill myself on the spot

>>14654215
>implying there will be any chain bookstores left in 3 years

>>14654229
In that case, I'll find another metric.

>>14654215
bro even if your book gets bought by a publishing company, the chain bookstore has to buy it, they need to be physically created and shipped, all of which is outside your control.

>>14654145
Wouldn't you just online publish?
Even if that doesn't go well you could probably market yourself through YT or social media, perhaps as an aside to critiquing better peoples works.
You don't need some publisher to gate keep you from being shit. Just be shit.

>>14654257
If no bookstore buys it despite being published by a mainstream publisher, it must have been a pretty shitty shitty book wasn't it.

>>14654262
If my exepcations of myself ever fall to that degree, my life will be so worthless and pathetic that I will beg my friends and family to put a bullet in me if it ever comes to pass.

>>14654280
You're in luck! New Jersey legalized assisted suicide last year. That's near you.

>>14654171
You mean speed, cost, and quality.
Even then they could increase speed / maintain cost and quality by reducing the amount of books being simultaneously published. Which will add readers of fan translations to the set of potential buyers because they will actually catch up to the fan translations which are limited by official Japanese releases.

>>14654174
As with the western market, books are a somewhat secondary market to movies and TV.
If anime were handled better, and there is huge international interest, light novels could make it here.
Also there's too many rights holders involved. English light novels should not demand the price they do.

>>14654280
>If my exepcations of myself ever fall to that degree
What meritocracy?

>>14654326
>reducing the amount of books being simultaneously published
Ha ha, no. Better to make a lot of small bets than a few large betters in hopes that one of them pays off and subsidizes the others.

>>14654331
M E R I T O C R A C Y
..............IS...................
..............A...................
.....M....Y...T....H..........

>>14654331
I know enough about society to know that real life isn't a true meritocracy. Most people who succeed succeed first and foremost because they were born rich, though in the case of artists that rule is a bit more lenient because of the demand for authenticity and relatability.

That said, being rich alone does guarantee success, it just gives your an advantage from the start that anyone sufficiently talentless enough can throw away (see the case files labeled Jaden Smith). There's still the prerequisite of skill and talent.

In truth, I doubt I have those – In fact, I'm almost certain I don't – but I was lucky enough to be born into the economic situation that would allow me to compete in the first place. If I have that and still fuck it up, I deserve whatever horrible death I design for myself when I'm thirty and still a failure compared to the writers that I grew up wishing to be

>>14654145
why waste time?

>>14654370
>being rich alone does guarantee success
Oops, you accidentally typed what you actually believe.

>>14654383
well, apparently a small loan of a million dollars can make the dumbest fuck on the planet into the president, so fair point.

>>14654381
because there was a time years ago when I thought I had the potential to be something instead of nothing. If there's even the slightest chance that potential still exists, I have to do everything in my power to bring it to the surface or I deserve torture, not just death

>>14654370
Both talent and skill are worth far less than luck. Especially to begin with.

>>14654407
it'd be easier for you to vent in the discord

NEW THREAD
>>14654445
NEW THREAD

>>14654414
That still doesn't change anything. I have spent my entire life failing at accomplishing my dreams and settling for less. This is one dream I will not allow myself to fail at any cost to my life or my soul. If I fail this, if I let myself lower my sights, my soul will die regardless of whether or not my body does.

This goal is my last stand. There is nothing except this.

>>14654454
first world melodrama

>>14654454
>I have spent my entire life failing at accomplishing my dreams and settling for less
As have I. But some time along the way I have come to value other things as well. Enough that should my dreams never come to fruition what's left leans slightly towards the positive.

>>14654472
how many failures before enough is enough. There's nothing enjoyable about failing over and over again

>>14651192
The weird parts are the good parts. But in m opinion, the weirdness is wasted on the two boring humans, who make zero effort to investigate the weirdness. Rachel doesn't want to know anything, and Wick doesn't want to share what he knows. So every moment where things appear to be developing, stops short and resets. I wanted to give Rachel the benefit, that she was just too shocked by Borne to ask the right questions. Or maybe she was trying to supress Borne or something. But she doesn't appear to have any real ethical code beyond "don't hurt kids". And she only ever asks questions when Borne insists on a matter. She's not inquisitive, or cunning, or anything really. I guess the only thing she has, is a tiny shred of humanity in that dumb brain of hers.

I only have 4 more chapters left. I'm expecting some revelations about Borne, Rachel and the company. But I don't care by this point. I don't like Rachel or Wick, and the relationship is obnoxious. The straw that broke the camel's back for me, was when Rachel killed the Magician with a rock, monologuing about how "she doesn't know me". Which is a real dumb bitch thing to think in that moment.

>tfw haven't read hg wells yet
am I gonna make it?

>>14653871
Yea. And they are poorly edited, with grammatical errors and bloated more than a dead sperm whale.

>>14652234
>Jordan /pol/erson bait
Pol what are you doing? Why did you slip a non sffg book in there for?