/lit/ - Literature

What's the Final Fantasy VII of literature?

>>15355185
Powers - Anubis Gates

Ironically though I spit on Sanderson, Mistborn is one of the acceptable choices, for just entertainment.

>>15355130
You are still cutting other stuff out of the OP fucking retard. You have also made this thread early again when the last one hasn't even reached the bump limit.

>>15355201
>Sand
stopped readin right there and then

You guys are fucking up this general with this worthless little shit war about discord servers. I wish the goodreads mod would return to make the threads, at least he kept it organized and often had good discussion initiator questions in there.

>>15355341
Rarely did anyone actually respond to the questions. Also the threads would have happened without him, as they do now. We are the ones who remain.

I weep for us

First for Sandyman did nothing wrong

>>15355583
His earlier stuff was better, but even then not that great. "Nothing wrong" is a stretch.

Who's the greater science fiction writer? Gene Wolfe or Lem?

>>15355820
Wolfe obviously. Lem was too busy playing with his robots and aliens to remember to be human.

>>15355820
>>15355857
Lem's probably a more refined writer though, and he arguably retained more quality per book than Wolfe did. Lem's also actually funny.

>>15355185
this was discussed here >>>15290943

>>15355820
gene wolfe is a terrific writer but arguably lem is a better science fiction writer - purely in the sense of sci-fi being a genre that reflects on the human condition through the lens of technology or some bollocks etc etc. basically Len uses the genre more. Wolfe is still a top chap though

>>15355933
Wolfe covers everything Lem does, while also considering the human implications. He might be weirder about it, but Wolfe more thoroughly demonstrates that the distinction between genres isn't a fundamental.

>>15355857
>Lem forgot to be human
That's literally not true. Did you not read the end of Solaris?

>>15355820
Wolfe and it's not even close.

>>15355969
Ok I haven't read that Lem but I've covered a fair amount of Wolfe and I stand by my point. He's a phenomenal writer but he doesn't really cover themes unique to sci-fi does he? I forswear pugnaciousness I'm genuinely curious to hear your opinion.

Any books that go into great detail about people getting coiled up by serpent creatures?

>>15356287
>>15356124
The real answer is Sam Delany.

>>15356487
le gay nigger new wave hippy? miss me with that tranny discord taste.

Hey /sffg/ I'm trying to work on my prose. Who are some of the best fantasy writers with great prose?

>>15356529
Chuck Tingle is the greatest author of our time.

>>15356529
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake

>>15356529
Wells

>>15356529
Brandon Sanderson

>>15357111
ree reddit get out

>>15355341
It wouldn't really matter if I did because I'm not going to make them 40 posts before the bump limit. It also all depends where the posters go. Looks like a different thread was made but it didn't get any posts and was archived.

>>15356529
Tanith Lee

>>15356529
Just read non genre authors and learn from them like Wolfe did

>>15357621
id argue that he most certainly didnt. how could one read proust and be satisfied with wolfes bland and disconnected style?

I now realize why all the wolfe posting increased lately. It's the christcucks invaders that occupy outer lit, they found out wolfe was Catholic and rammed as much religion as he could into his books.

>>15357690
no wolfe is just the end point of science fiction. just like tolkien really is for fantasy. coincidence these two writers were both catholic?

>>15357713
>t. Catholic LARPer

Not as big into scifi as I am fantasy, but James Corey is basically Patrick Rothfuss tier right? These books have been garbage so far

what's on your list of comfy fantasy?
And by that I mean, not necessarily great fantasy with edge twists and turns but stuff that you can curl up and enjoy.
for me it's:
>Gormenghast
>Memory, Sorrow, Thorn
>The Once and Future King
>Wheel of Time

Is the Coronameron fantasy entry really what most fantasy books are like?

>>15357926
Yes. Maybe not as terrible as Rothfuss, but definitely mediocre. Like Rothfuss, the main writer of the Corey pseudonym has gayface.

A few days ago I came up with a character concept for an epic fantasy and wrote a sort of 'prologue' detailing that character's motivation. It is 1.5k and I wrote it in about an hour and haven't seen it since, so it probably has some mistakes. I won't be working in this project for some time since I haven't developed it much, and I already have another novel in the works. Still, I want some crit since English is not my native language, and if the concept is good enough to catch people's attention.

Here's the link:
https://docdro.id/Ibw5EYN

Gonna start GoBaP today, wish me luck faggots.

>>15358211
Damn I thought this was the crit thread

Please rec me a good Cyberpunk, I've never read a single cyberpunk book but I was told Snowcrash was good, should I give that a shot? I mostly want to read it for the aesthetic and transhumanism themes

I realized it's going to take over a year to complete my reading list. I told myself I would start writing as soon as I got through it, but I only have time to read one book a week.

>>15358313
Read Neuromancer first, then Snow Crash. If you want more, try Altered Carbon. Skip anything you don't like.

>>15355969

Wolfe writes better English prose than Lem's translators, although the Polish is supposedly extremely well written but I can't experience that as a reader. Saying he "covers everything Lem does" is ridiculous though. Lem's version of science fiction performs science. His books are themselves a scientific inquiry, for example Solaris paired with His Master's Voice is an inquiry into the specific question of whether it is even possible to communicate with or understand an alien intelligence. Wolfe doesn't do this. He investigates the human condition but not scientific questions. He meanders with no particular theory or argument whereas Lem's books have a thesis and an argument which the plot is driven by. That's not necessarily bad but for Wolfe the science fiction is a setting, not the process.

>>15356299
Chasm City by Alistair Reynolds involves the main character getting coiled up and ingested by a snakelike tree creature iirc. This is of course a small part of an otherwise stellar book, but I thought you might like to know.

Makers of the new discord, should the reddit discord link be included in the OP or not?

>>15357969
There's something deeply comfy about reading an L.E. Modesitt novel. Once you've read The Magic of Recluce you've read most of them, but sitting down with a new one and just rereading the same story told differently with a new name for the protagonist is kinda kino.

Also I like going back to the stuff my mom introduced me to

>Nine Princes In Amber by Zelazny
>The Riftwar Saga by Feist
>Wheel of Time by Jordan
>Lord of the Isles by Drake
>R.A. Salvatore's stuff, especially Cleric Quintet
>Necroscope by Lumley
>Dragonriders of Pern by McAffrey

With the exception of Zelazny who is unironically based af, most of it is pretty schlocky, but the fact it doesn't merit extra effort makes it relaxing. I always default to a close reading of anything well written, and that makes them mentally taxing, even if im usually rewarded in the end.

>>15355820
>>15355917
>>15355857
>>15355933
>>15356124

>comparing 2 authors who don't write in the same language
brainlets

>>15359111
thanks for this list
I remember trying to read L.E. Modesitt way back in elementary school, the covers looked comfy as shit as well as the map
there's something comforting about generic fantasy with a nice map and a simple story
only Zelazny i've read is Lord of Light which is one of my favorite books ever and got me into buddhism and hinduism

I'm reading Dune finally and I was expecting it to get weird eventually, I just didn't think Paul would suddenly start seeing infinite futures suddenly not even half way through the book. It was a pretty jarring segment for something that was a bit more grounded up to there.

>>15355917
Lem is great, but you’re memeing claiming he has more quality per book.
>Peace
>TFHoC
>TBotNS
>Latro
>Short Sun
>Long Sun
>Dozens of near perfect short stories and novellas
Every one of these is a masterpiece

>>15359325
The first time leto has the waking dream is basically what smoking the really nasty spice felt like

Are there any good sci-fi stories that will make me cry?

>>15359348
Yeah pretty much what it felt like. The brief mention of the spice-diet during the scene was really only thing that kept from scratching my head at why it was happening so suddenly. I guess I wasn't really expecting the quick pace of the book compared to a lot of slow-burn scifi I've read. I feel like if it was being written these days over half the book would be focusing on the mechanics of the spice and it leading to him have prescient dreams.

I am loving it so far though.

>>15358695
>Wolfe doesn't do this. He investigates the human condition but not scientific questions. He meanders with no particular theory or argument whereas Lem's books have a thesis and an argument which the plot is driven by.
This is categorically false. Wolfe’s themes and motifs are mostly concerned with theological, spiritual, and psychological explorations, with the central idea that memory and identity are predicated on stories, mythology, and eschatology. He isn’t ‘Hard’ SF but that doesn’t mean his stories “meander with no particular theory”. In fact I’d argue that the fact Wolfe juggles so many theories and arguments in many of his works is what is seeing his relevance continues to rise whereas Lem’s is fading. I can return to a Wolfe work time and time again and still get something new out of it every time. I can’t say the same about Lem.

And his plots are necessarily tied into his themes. I don’t know how you can miss this. One of the central themes of TBotNS is the necessity of mythology to sustain, not only individuals, but human cultures and humanity itself. It is a form of cultural memory, and while the memory may be corrupted, altered, or otherwise incomplete, the main ideas and traditions are fundamentally retained. It’s mythopoeia functioning as an explanation for eschatology and divine providence.

>>15359372
Pick up any of the new EU Star Wars books, they'll either make you laugh or cry at how abysmal they are.

>>15359383
Now seriously anon, I need something that will take me on an adventure and let me really connect with the characters so that when bad shit happens it resonates.

>>15359325
the fucking movie has me wanting to reread it and also pick up the first few sequels. should I do it /lit/?

>>15357690

>>15359338
>Peace first

It is probably one of the best horror novels ever written but the surrealism hides that very well

>>15357690
You're not being subtle. The man who saved that pic is likely a huge Gene fan.

>>15355130
>Japan turning Sev into an anime protagonist

Someone tell me there's a an anime pic of all the characters somewhere. Not the Adventure Time one.

>>15359376

I recently read it and I think that's a theme you're extracting, not a theme he's articulating. That's the thing with speaking in symbology, the reader can make of it whatever they want. You're getting something new out of it because you're creating the subtext yourself, not Wolfe. Which may be part of the resurgence - that's the perfect text for a literary paper. I stand by "meandering" and I don't see why you think that's a bad thing. It's just a different thing. Urth of the New Sun is terrible precisely because for the first half he doesn't meander and abandons that technique. Instead of slowly exploring the world and its people, he writes a hyperactive John Carter of Mars book. With Lem's books by contrast he is the source of the themes and arguments. They are explicit, he is thinking about a subject, and the plot and characters are there specifically for the science he is performing. The shifting shapes in the planet's surface are not there to be pretty, they're there to be alien and to demonstrate part of the argument (that you can't even begin to understand a living ocean's thought process). Lem is better at performing thought, while Wolfe is arguably better at prompting thought.

>general is still being ruined by an attention seeking retard

>>15359400
Only if you go balls-to-ths-wall and read all of the Brian and KJA books too.

>>15359128
I speak Polish, retard

>>15355130
Just finished Dhalgren last week. It’s a bit too long for it’s own good, but I liked it a good amount. The mental breakdown sequences are very vivid as are Kid’s mental tics.

>>15359099
I don't give a shit. I just wanted to make one free of leddit and forced diversity shit and so far it's going well. We actually discuss books. So it's whatever man. You all do what you like. I'm still gonna make trannies seethe when they get assblasted about it.

>>15359338
Am I just a brainlet, or was "From the Cradle" lackluster? Kinda felt phoned in, but maybe I missed something.

>>15359459
Turns out it was you the whole time, anon.

>>15359376
This is a fantastic point and evidence of Wolfe's talent as a writer but this type of thematic content is set apart from science fiction. If anything, especially the mythology point you mention, Wolfe's themes are unique to fantasy. I'm not claiming Lem does this, but technology, science or scientific opinion should be paramount in the themes of more pure science fiction. I don't just mean "gene sequencing bad huh duh" which is a very obvious scientific theme. Blindsight's deconstruction the necessity of consciousness is an example of what I'm talking about.

>>15359128
I made this point a few threads ago but I think the ultimate sign of something being good sci-fi, that is it contains fantastic novel tangible ideas and concepts, is when a book survives translation. See Blindsight, 3BP trilogy, Lem

where my /BabelBros/ at

>>15360130
Waiting for book 4, patiently.

>>15360130
>finish the first book - love it
>that night I have a dream it was adapted as some shitty tv movie with garbage special effects, terrible acting and two thirds of the story cut
I hate my brain.

who is the European Gene Wolfe?

>>15360413
Jean Loupe

>>15355130
Anyone here read this? Is it good?
"Monarchies of God"

>>15360413
>Remembering Wolfe is an Americ*n
feels fucking awful lads can't lie

>“She’s not my girlfriend,” said Will.
>“Lover, whatever you want to call her, it doesn’t matter. So, when—”
>“She wasn’t my lover,” he interjected, his face turning red.
>“Fuck-friend?”
>“What’s wrong with you?” Will exclaimed. “No! She’s a princess and I’m—no one.”
>“You’re the last goddamn true wizard in the world,” corrected the ring. “As much as I hate to admit that, you’re pretty fucking important. I’d say you’re worth at least three or four useless sorcerer princesses. Didn’t you save her life?”
>“We saved each other a few times,” said Will indignantly.
>“And you didn’t even get laid? Tell me the truth, Will. I don’t have eyes, so answer my next question honestly.”
>He was beginning to regret starting the entire conversation, but he played along. “What’s the question?”
>“Are you ugly? I don’t mean regular ugly—I mean horse’s ass ugly. Like the kind of ugly only a mother would love but she still wouldn’t take you out in public.”
>Will ground his teeth together but remained silent.
>“You can be truthful. It doesn’t matter to me, since I can’t see or smell you. Do people run screaming in the other direction when they see you on the street?”

>the entire everything with the trolls

>It wasn’t long before he felt another presence, and a small shadow stepped into his path—the goddamn cat.

idk i'm having a good time
it has some padding issue for sure but the lulz

>>15359325
Oh boy, not really a spoiler, but further in the book he'll really start seeing infinite futures, and it'll be even more jarring. He'll just straight up start spitting enemy plans out of nowhere with no intel.

>>15359428
I made the pic faggot, among many others. Gene Wolfe was a huge meme years ago. I made all the wolfe memes for sffg, newfag faggot.

>>15359325
>It was a pretty jarring segment for something that was a bit more grounded up to there.
You're in the wrong hood nigga. What exactly about precognition (among many other Pol's talents) vexes you so?

>>15359630
Congrats. You're a literal faggot now for liking that shit.

>>15360540
>the goddamn cat.
Oh. It's that book. Cosmerefag, are you giving up Sanderson for good? I see you dropped your map/symbols.

>>15361031
I see the Dhalgren-seether is back, I missed you.

>>15361052
Based and correct, only cosmerefags read "humorous and lightweight YA".

>>15361106
You're not cosmerefag, stop pretending to be him.

>I see the Dhalgren-seether is back, I missed you
If you liked a scifi book with no scifi elements about a Mc literally taking dick up the ass, then you are a faggot.
>I'm seething because I didn't like a book that is literally a homoerotic smut novel

>>15361178
I see the dyslexianon is back, I missed you.

>If you liked a scifi book with no scifi elements
Absolutely SEETHING

>>15361178
>Mc
kek main character or Mac (gaelic)
its funny bc delanys a nigger whos ancestors were adopted by irish, but he just had to fail them all by being a faggot.

>>15361178
>>15361205
Maybe the real treasure was all the seething we did along the way?

>>15360432
It's very good but pretty slow paced (Hawkwood doesn't even go on his voyage until 50% of the way through the book)

Whether you're buying or pirating it's best to get the collected version so "Hawkwood and Kings" for the first two books

>>15361365
No, it was the whores we fucked along the way

>>15361009
What's bottom-right, A Devil in the Forest? Never heard of that

>>15361391
Fuck yeah. Finally some optimism in this general.

>>15361406
Check the archives. It was talked about a few years ago. You know newfag memers when they only talk about botns, when wolfe had so many other books.

>>15361818
Are you perchance the faggot who memed birdboi out?

>>15361818
I'm 22 and only started reading sci-fi a few years ago. I was on /lit/ then but ignored Wolfe as I thought he was more fantasy and I liked sci-fi at the time. I'll dig back though, thanks

>>15361818
I think everyone can agree it's either his best or one of the best book of his, but also most people that dig deeper find the one that is their fav is something else.

For me it's either Urth or Peace

>>15359716
The new one isn't any better. Owner of the old just has execrable taste in books.

>>15362048
Are you asking if I made nazi flamingos? Then yes.

>currently applying for PhDs

anyone else a fan of sci-fi and just normal, non-fictitious sci(ence)?

>>15362592
>anyone else a fan of sci-fi and just normal, non-fictitious sci(ence)?
There are few of those weirdos in the fucking Science fucking Fiction and Fantasy general.
But they all talk like fags and their shit's all retarded.

>>15355254

are you fooking anakin?

so, one day stranger came to me and asked for a go to, the best, the most epic high fantasy series.

i recommended him Stormlight Archive.

The other dame the same stranger came to me, said thank you and asked for the most epic, darkest and the most badass epic fantasy, basically, Bible of all dark epic fantasies.

i recommended him Malazan.

that stranger thanked me for opening the fantasy genre for him and now its his favorite genre.


btw, who is better protagonist - Kaladin or Karsa?

>>15362759
Where THE FUCK is Harry Potter?

I pity the fools that haven't read Rowling's writing.

It's about time we add it to high-school curriculum!!!!

>>15361380
Thank you!

>>15362759
This sounds lile a /sffg/ groundhog day episode.

>>15362759
Based

>>15359372
Crying is subjective.

I think I teared up reading Gateway

>>15359817
a book can survive translation, but it still not fair to compare it though. i know it's pedantic, but my point was that something, bigger or smaller, is always lost in translation or any other kind of editing, whatever the intention and skill of the translator. the original piece of art is lost, what you get is something better or worse, but different

reposting because nobody gave me attention the last time:

just finished this, tad williams really has a weak point for happy endings, it was too cheesy. the part i liked most about this book is the beginning, up until the MC meets the fairy and actually starts the adventure. i guess it's because i somewhat identify with him,i was just captivated watching how everything breaks apart around him. also i noticed lots of parallels between this and Memory, Thorn and Sorrow, in particular i think the MC is basically the same person in both

>>15363113
>The War of the Flowers
What kind of faggot ass name is that? For a fantasy series no less?
Why don't you read something dark - like the The Blood Chronicles of the Black Company of Assassins, you limp wristed fag.

>>15359383
star wars isnt scifi

>>15357690
You’re the tranny faggot who calls people dinosaurs aren’t you?

>>15363169
This picture is giving me fucking cancer

>>15363425
Oh yeah?

>>15363403
yeah thats him, ignore the faggot

note hes made multiple attempts at making sffg threads, but everyone ditched him for wolfe-based threads.

>>15363349

>imagine being so delusional that you truly believe that the only books worth reading are ones written years ago
Lets face, you only recommend these books because they are all you know. You are so retarded that you only recommend the same old books because you see everyone else doing it and you think that you have to do it to look coo.

INB4 I get called a tranny as part of your defensive cope mechanism. Try saying something original other than your reddit buzzword to try and invalidate anyone who disagrees with you because you have no actual argument.

>>15361052
I just don't post images all the time anymore.
Sanderson doesn't even write Cosmere regularly so it's not like there's much to discuss more than once every 1-2 years now MAYBE.
I've been reading more sci-fi too.

>>15363653
Please be quiet.
Adults are talking.

Even though the tranny autist is a faggot, that did lead me to a particular thought, what are some of the better science fiction and fantasy to come out in the last 20 years? First Law needed and editor but it was fine. Chalion was fine. Half of Three Body trilogy was good. The Expanse is mediocre but fine. Even some of S*nderson was fine.

>>15363694
Please don't be such a passive aggressive faggot. Channel your scorn and social ineptitude to that reddit tranny faggot you dislike so much.
Duke it out with him here >>15363653.
Entertain us.

>>15363653
I like old books

>>15363717
If you wanna be a monkey and fight him, you go on right ahead, nigger.

>>15363694
right now only The Quantum Thief comes to mind

i don't really know when most of the books i read were published though. i know peter watts is still writing

>>15363725
So you won't stand up for what you believe in?
Disappointing but not unexpected.

>>15363756
I haven't looked into that but I already heard good things about it from good people, so thanks for the reminder.

>>15363758
Wolfe fans won, nigger. Move on.

>>15363921
Why so spineless?

>>15363061
Yeah man, same. That ending

>>15363100
You make a good point and I agree.

>>15363694
Blindopraxia, Terra Ignota, The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts

>>15363756
Fuck knows how he intends to wrap up the "firefall triology". vampires then zombeies, what's next ghost?? Kind of want him to suffer a nervous breakdown like PKD and write 10 years of incredible insanity

>>15364202
"I played with a similar idea on this very ‘crawl back in 2016, when I expressed modest and wistful hopes for the impact of the Zika virus—a bug that never killed anyone, barely even inconveniences adults, but whose deformation of fetuses was proving enough to scare even dyed-in-the-blood-of-Christ Catholics out of reproducing. In that post I lamented my own failure of imagination: I’d imagined Zika would expand its range by switching from its original tropical-mosquito host to one with a more temperate distribution, spreading out of the impoverished Third World into the gluttonous First where a reduction in our numbers might actually make a difference. Instead, Zika had ditched the insect vector altogether and gone into sexual-transmission mode, a much more effective strategy that spread it throughout the lower states in a matter of months."

Good ol' Wattsy is going strong as ever. After hyper intelligent cancers we might get something along the lines of pandemics... of zombies.
After following his blog you kind of get the reason why an authority figure would be forced to push his shit in.

https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=9298#comments
"As an added and unexpected bonus, the stupider members of the population are altruistically gathering together in churches and public spaces, drinking bleach on presidential advice, and otherwise helping to weed themselves out of the equation. (Not to mention increasing the mean IQ of the species a bit.) It’s a vision that—how strange it feels to say this— gives me hope.”

This has been a silver lining for me since the start of the pandemic."

I am still surprised at how a Canadian who is reddit personified is such a good writer. Must be that contrarian streak of his.

>>15363435
Exponentially less cancer inducing

>>15363653
Tranny

>>15363694
John c Wright is underrated here. He went off the deep end in Catholicism and his newest stuff tries too hard to be theological

>>15363169
Is that a baby leg with shoe still attached he is eating?

I enjoyed the first book, is the series worth the read?

this book was hyped up so I bought it because I need a cyberpunk kick but with actual good writing, anyone have thoughts on it?

>>15364519
The renaissance fair brings out the weirdos, don’t look too much into it

>>15363591
He isn't baiting you absolute readlet faggot.

>>15364542
Yes, it only gets comfier

>>15364545
First time I hear of it.
Is it any good?

>>15364552
>weirdos
There are some how weirdos.

>>15364331
>>15364268
He basically has the progressive and lefty Reddit views but with none of the reddit tone of voice or cringey humour. He’s more British-Canadian than USA-Canadian if you know what I mean, all that self-deprecation

>>15363441
>note hes made multiple attempts at making sffg threads, but everyone ditched him for wolfe-based threads.
I haven't made a thread in years. I was the thread slave years ago, I'm not going back to maintaining the general.
I used to try and make OC for each new thread, and have it match the theme of the thread.

>>15363403
I also call people dinosaurs, but I'm not the only one. I'm also not a tranny.

>>15364613
>I'm also not a tranny.
Maybe it's time to stop acting line one.
You know man the fuck up.

>>15364623
Maybe it's time you actually read books instead of shitting up the general more than usual?

wow, he just write how the world will become years ago, but we don't have salvation...

>>15364602
>He basically has the progressive and lefty Reddit views
I think he actually holds those views cranked up to eleven both in scope and self destructiveness. Just how extreme his actual views are we might never know.
The impression I get from his blog (and the comments there) is of anger at the stupidity of the rest of the world (whether real or imagined) while completely oblivious to just how extreme and improbable his views are. For somebody so against religion he's gripped in some sort of quasi religious intellectual flagellation where he (and incidentally the rest of the Western and probably developed world) is trying to atone for every little thing he thinks is wrong in the world.

>>15364717
Maybe you need to stop being a little bitch.

>>15364760
You need to stop being q fagget.

>>15364852
So you a tranny.
Figures.

>>15364613
>I’m not the only tranny faggot who calls everyone in these threads dinosaurs
There’s only one of you faggots, simmer down tranny

>come to talk about science fiction and fantasy
>tranny here, poltard there
>the last post about some science fiction was 57 minutes ago
this is sad...

>>15364202
I love my philosophy but was so disappointed by The Thing Itself. I guess I didn't like Roberts writing, who knows.

>>15364852
Consider a rope, tranny. There was over a 40% chance you were going to anyway.

>>15364202
he's already gone off the deep end, he's a convicted felon: https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=1186

Should I do it? Should I take a massive dump on Frank's memory? They can't be that bad can they?

I am probably going to read Hunters and Sandworms regardless. I finished Chapterhouse Dune last month and the whole ride was nuts, but the end is bugging me and I need some closure.

>>15364857
>fucking boipucci makes you a tranny

>>15365557
Watts was always an insufferable cunt but his asspain about being a convict is delicious

Anyone planning on reading this when it comes out?

>>15365701

The entire thesis of Blindsight is stupid too. The space vampires are fun but everyone hypes the book it like it is some mindblowing theory about consciousness. It's just dumb. His characters give angry Watts blog post speeches about how there could be no possible reason for consciousness to evolve and don't you DARE say there is, especially not that it could make people more effective at learning skills. Don't you DARE suggest that one or Watts's characters will yell at you without explanation. And presumably also don't dare suggest that consciousness could provide evolutionary advantages because it allows you to simulate future events and plan for them, or simulate past events and learn from them.

What's wrong with vampires... in space!?

>>15365931
you don't need consciousness learn from the past to simulate the future, that's his thesis, consciousness isn't necessary for intelligent action. AI can now beat humans at games with hidden information, eg fog of war, because they can simulate future events, they can predict where in the fog you are.

>>15366021
>AI can now beat humans at games with hidden information, eg fog of war, because they can simulate future events, they can predict where in the fog you are.
>tfw the movie war games might become a reality in your lifetime

>>15366021

AI can simulate something that follows very strict rules like chess. It can't play outside that box because it isn't conscious. It can't sit around and think "well, that snake bit Oog's toe and he died, and what if a snake gets in our cave? What if it hides in that hole by baby Grog? Maybe Grog should plug the hole, or build a better smash stick." If / when AI gets to that complexity it will have to be conscious.

>>15366048
>at the same time they don't manage to program even the most rudimentary videogame AI
I think we're good for at least another 20 years.

The real question is not whether it can be done but how fast it is or how much computing power it takes.
>a computer can fully simulate 1 second of human experience
>in 2 weeks
Too slow.

>the most powerful computer in the world
>can now beat a dude at Starcraft
wowzers

>>15366158
Except AI can beat pro players and pro teams in RTS and FPS almost all the time.

>>15366083
> It can't sit around and think "well, that snake bit Oog's toe and he died, and what if a snake gets in our cave? What if it hides in that hole by baby Grog? Maybe Grog should plug the hole, or build a better smash stick." If / when AI gets to that complexity it will have to be conscious.

https://openai.com/projects/five/

> At OpenAI, we’ve used the multiplayer video game Dota 2 as a research platform for general-purpose AI systems. Our Dota 2 AI, called OpenAI Five, learned by playing over 10,000 years of games against itself. It demonstrated the ability to achieve expert-level performance, learn human–AI cooperation, and operate at internet scale.

> April 13, 2019

> OpenAI Five wins back-to-back games versus Dota 2 world champions OG at Finals, becoming the first AI to beat the world champions in an esports game.

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

> The company uses Dota 2 as an experiment for general-purpose applied machine learning to capture the unpredictability and continuous nature of the real world. The team stated that the complex nature of the game and its strong reliance on having to work together as a team to win was a major reason it was specifically chosen.

>>15366083
>>15366301
> It can't sit around and think
AI can literally sit around and think for thousands of simulated years,

>>15365684
Oh so you are "just" a faggot.

>>15366301

That's proving my point, not rebutting it. You're citing a game with strict rules that an AI can be programmed to deal with. The units can only do certain things. Dots is not a world where tigers can randomly jump around corners and attack you. You don't experience new things you've never seen or heard of. Everything follows a path, and it stays in its path, even if it's a complicated one. If you tell your unit to do something it does it. It doesn't say "Oog a free caveman, he not gather minerals, he a poet now." The AI doesn't have to deal with the kinds of problems that a living being would. If there is a battle, all the units follow the rules. They don't invent new weapons or run the fuck away or tame war elephants or bribe your units to turn on you. It's just a complicated version of chess. Consciousness evolved because the world throws random shit at you that doesn't follow any rules you can be programmed from birth to deal with.

>>15366334

If it can think it's conscious. Other anon's argument is that it can do things better than us without consciously thinking and thus we didn't need to evolve consciousness.

>>15366248
>FPS
An aimbot is not an AI, and there are circumstances where it will not work very well.
Furthermore, an AI that relies on information not apparent to a human player does not play on a level field, just like a human with h4x beats most humans without them.
>RTS
Generally the AI wins purely based on improved reaction times and precision (at least 10 times better than a human) and executing moves that humans cannot (like micromanaging every unit in the game in near real-time) - in other words not due to its intelligence but inputs per second and methods that amount to cheating from a human perspective.
Even if you play much more intelligently it will beat you through sheer speed and reading the RAM.

tl;dr cheat AIs don't count

For a true AI to be compareable it would need to rely purely on the audio and video output of the game running normally, as well as conventional input routes.
In other words playing like a human.

Otherwise it amounts to speed chees with 50ns per move.

>>15366419
who was talking about consciousness or similarity to humans retard? of course that doesnt count as consciousness.

i was talking about AI beating humans, not aimbots. there are fps and rts ai's that do just that. the rts ai was cited above.

>>15366455

The discussion started because of Watts's theory in Blindsight that humans didn't need to be conscious and that it's an evolutionary dead end with no real advantage or purpose. The AI/RTS argument was that because AI can win in an FPS or RTS without being conscious, it proves that we don't have to be conscious per Watts. So the question is whether this development in AI is proof that consciousness is akin to a vestigial organ like the appendix.

>>15366021
His “attempt” at philosophy is fucking laughable
>>15365931
I wouldn’t hate watts as much as I do for his book if he didn’t jerk off about how he’s 2deep4u every time they interview him. He thinks he’s come up with something truly groundbreaking

>>15366455
I don't think you are getting what that anon is saying.
There is no intelligence in those RTS/FPS AI's. Probably a lot of smart algorithms, graphs and whatnot but definitely no intelligence. What you have is, relatively speaking, a limited data set and the ability to go through it faster than the other party.
We are still as far away from understanding consciousness as we were fifty years ago, despite all of the advances in cognitive sciences.

>>15366507
>The AI/RTS argument was that because AI can win in an FPS or RTS without being conscious
There is no intelligence. It's all reflexes there, if you want to use biological terms.

>>15366532
Are we all talking about the same person?

>>15364852
Tranny.

>>15365885
WHY THE FUCK IS THE SHADES OF GREY SEQUEL STILL NOT OUT?

>>15366544
>Are we all talking about the same person?
I’m personally talking about the writer. He’s an annoying twat and isn’t even allowed in the United States anymore because he’s a retard

>>15366544
ye i rushed into the thread without scrolling up, was my bad.

i hate watts for his blind arrogance and self assuredness, hes an embarassment to canadians in general.

>>15366568

So we all agree that we hate Watts for being obnoxious and the only question is if he is as smart as a Dota AI?

>>15366591
Agree, we all hate watts and trannys. Long live the AI

>>15366568
>>15366570
I get it that he can be an annoying self hating, self destructive anti-natalist (and a Canadian to boot) but the reasons you mentioned are complete bullshit. I am not sure if you were interested in his work enough to go through his blog but it's pretty entertaining... and educational.
First off, I don't think Watts has a philosophy regarding consciousness. He's a completely different wanker compared to lets say Baker. All of his ideas regarding consciousness, one of them being the notion that on a galactic scale the consciousness (and self awareness) is an oddity (not some sort of evolutionary dead end as one anon stated), super intelligent cancers, the various ways in which you can affect the cognitive state of the mind (not that many bother reading Rifters) are just that - ideas. Clever little plots and twists based on the latest cognitive research. There is no philosophy that he ascribes to, at least as far as I know.
He does not even go into depth regarding the AI's in his novels. It is enough that they are unknowable and that we need freaks like Siri to understand them.
He took works like Thomas Metzinger's Being No One (among others) and went to the extreme with it - namely what if consciousness, or phenomenal self to go all philosophical, is just a pretty window dressing, ultimately a waste of processing power compared to an intelligence without conscience, without all the baggage and ballast and everything else not directly related to survival.
Heck, the idea is not even that original. Hannu Rajaniemi has the exact same thing called Dragons in the Fractal prince.

>hes an embarassment to canadians in general.
If you kill your enemies - they win.

>>15355130
I got around reading rune since a movie is coming out and greatly enjoyed it, what are some other good sff books?

>>15366848
Watch the documentary and witness the movie we were robbed of as children

>>15366886
Gib link and/or magnet, Anon, and recommend me some books if you will, I haven't read many sf books apart from the foundation.

>>15366791
>Baker
>Bakker

>>15366910
Here’s the trailer because I’m lazy and own it on dvd so I can’t provide the rip
https://youtube.com/watch?v=m0cJNR8HEw0

>>15366544
>There is no intelligence. It's all reflexes there, if you want to use biological terms.
Doesn't that kind of prove the point? We can build super smart creative minds that act purely on reflex, without intelligence. That's exactly what Watts is saying - superhuman minds don't need intelligence, they can build a galactic civilization and wipe out humanity, without thinking about it.

>>15356529
Rothfuss has great prose. You may not like it but it’s true

>¿Hola Houston? ¡Tenemos un problema aqui vatos!!
what the fuck I just read???
what kind of mind write this??
maybe, what kind of apocalyptic future the author is telling us???

>>15364331
>>15364753
>Must be that contrarian streak of his
Sounds like daddy issues. I bet $20 that his father was an alcoholic priest.

>>15355130
Snow Crash. Based or Cringe?

>>15355130
BotNS is a really weird series for me, I really like the detached narration of Severian and the episodic nature of the story of Sev kind of being this lone exile wandering through Urth, but I seriously cannot make heads or tails of the actual 'plot', it is way too esoteric and allegorical for me to actually wrap my head around what is actually happening behind the scenes or what the hell Wolfe is even trying to say.

My favorite part of the series if the beginning of Shadow of the Torturer up to the point of Thecla's death, I think it showcases some of Wolfe's best writing and has a really nice atmosphere to it.

>>15367704
>but I seriously cannot make heads or tails of the actual 'plot
Have you read it through at least four times already?

What is the most philosophical work of science fiction?

>>15367714
People keep saying this, but I really don't see how BotNS can be such an enlightening mind blowing experience on a reread. I feel like I remember a lot of what happened and I did reread specific passages that alluded or foreshadowed certain events, but it's not really any more clearer to me at all.

>>15367714
This could mean two things. Sci-fi which ruminates on philosophical themes, or sci-fi written by someone with a manic fascination with philosophy and won’t shut up about it. Which do you want?

>>15367720
His Master's Voice by Lem

>>15367744
I'm the guy you erroneously replied to, but I'm pretty sure the other guy either genuinely wants the former or is baiting.

Ok

Just finished reading this. Normally I dont even bother with fantasy but this was nice. Story and character development not without flaws but I still rate it 9/10. There is just the right amount of magic, action, humour. Highly recommended for those who want to get into fantasy

Also dont let the harry poter book covers fool you, these books are good.

>>15365931
He literally states the role of consciousness in the evolution of intelligence.
>The entire thesis of Blindsight is stupid
I think it would have been better to just state you claim instead of whining about the characters were rude to you.
>>15365974
That part made no sense, biologically speaking (and I'm a graduate student writing a thesis about selection pressures, so give me a little credit that I know my shit), but goddamn was I hard every time Sarasti was in the scene.

>>15364331
>How could this very intelligent person have views drastically different from mine
Based retard.

>>15367720
Star Maker by Stapledon

>>15368105
Didn't you post some excerpts from this earlier? The humour is more laughable than hilarious.

>>15368211
No, that wasnt me.
Humour is overall funny, maybe some of the insults were a bit cringy but thats a minor detail.

so it is agreed, peter watts is a retard

literally not seeing even marxist retards defending him

>>15355130
Has anyone read George MacDonald's Phantasties. Beautiful piece of writing.

>>15367027
Clever bit of coding does not constitute a "super smart creative mind". I am not sure of the computational complexity of whatever is being peddled as AI's these days but the fact remains that you cannot call something like an algorithm intelligent. I mean you can, but you should probably check with Donald Knuth first.
As for Watts, the central theme of Blindopraxia at least was that intelligence without conscience is far more efficient. Those nine legged aliens of his are not mindless, they are not self aware. Which is the opposite of what you said.

>>15368178
Very intelligent, nihilistic, with a wicked sense of humor?
Like yourself?

>>15368298
Peter Watts might be a weirdo but Blindsight and Echopraxia are great books. I think he's got some entertaining stuff on his blog too. He has a real skill for combining real (thought debatably fringe) science with his insane sci-fi ideas.

Today scientists are almost all liberal progressives, that's just how it is. I don't think you'll be able to get the accurate science in hard sci-fi without picking up some of those sentiments along the way. At least Watts doesn't hammer home his thoughts on gender or big government in a way so obvious to disrupt his writing.

>>15368440
> the fact remains that you cannot call something like an algorithm intelligent

> The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.

...

> Those nine legged aliens of his are not mindless, they are not self aware. Which is the opposite of what you said.

This is an uninteresting argument over definitions. If something is not self aware, it can be considered mindless. Or not. Go to outer lit to split hairs.

>>15368561
Don't be so obtuse.
You are completely misconstruing the themes of the book, the Scramblers are the exact opposite of how you describe them and now you are completely ignoring what I am saying.
While the definition of AI can be fuzzy, the definition of algorithm is definitely not.

Just read Jurassic Park

Is the sequel boring like the film sequel too? The first novel had the interesting premise that it all happened and went down in 1990 and was then swept under the rug. If he deviates enough from that in the second one for example if the escaped raptors are migrating and multiplying far then maybe it would be worth a read. But overall I don't find the thought of 400 pages of action (instead of speculation) heavy exploration of a dinosaur island for a second time that interesting.

>>15368722
The sequel book is SIGNIFICANTLY better than the movie. To the point it's completely different. Move is the second movie was actually scenes cut from the first book.
It's also less about exploring dinosaur island and much more about the social dynamics of an artificial ecosystem.

>>15368561
sffg threads have been so shit, yet youre attacking intellectualism. well reasoned discussion is what scifi is a starting point for numbnuts.

>>15364268
>>15364331
Imagine hating the west and civilization while being a sci-fi writer

>read for 2 hours yesterday
>read 1 (one) chapter today
>now watching youtube, wasting my time
feels like shit, hate myself, but I'm too lazy

>>15367219
sorry what is this? I can't find the book without coming across spanish wikipedia for the original quote

>>15368779
Just read for an hour and it will look like an impressive streak

>>15368779
just develop chronic insomnia and that will look like nothing

>>15368819
I remember this one anon talking about his /lit/ lifestyle. He would sleep from 12 am to 4 am and then use multiple alarms to force himself out of bed. he'd then drink coffee and take caffeine pills with it (and drink more coffee all throughout the day). just so he could optimize his time for reading. he was also an english PhD student. fucking insane. he's probably read many times the amount of content I have in my life

>>15367704
I don't really like Gene Wolfe either, so you're not alone. His stories seem to me like they're puzzles first and stories second. I haven't read BotNS, though. I tried some of his shorter stuff first and quit there.

>>15368835
christ that sounds insane

>>15368835
I can't read for shit if I don't get enough sleep.

didn't read anything yesterday for the first day in months
now I know what it feels like to be one of the big posters here

>>15368835

Reading for straight 12 hours or more is not good. I have done it and felt like crap afterwards. Fatigue, eye strain, upset stomach all of that and more come with not moving for long period of time.

>read many times the amount of content
Most books are trash

What is some political sci fi?

>>15368835
This is so unnecessary. Why not sleep until 7/8am? The amount of different that makes for your health would be incredible. He's only gaining an extra 3/4 hours a day, is that really that much? You can generate that time from other sources by just having a smart commute, bulk-cooking, reducing timewasting etc. What a poser moron

>>15368945
this thread's opinion on Peter Watts apprently
also Too Like the Lightning

>>15368835
and I thought I was silly for getting up an hour earlier than necessary just to read a little more

Is there any fantasy book with literary merit?

>>15368852
>>15368942
>>15368951
I remember this all because he liked Henry Darger, who had comparable levels of turbo autism

>>15368989

>>15368989
See >>15369035
Mervyn Peake
Lord Dunsany
Some of late Wolfe
M. John Harrison
Hodgson, if you consider him fantasy
Some George MacDonald
E R Eddison

Not to mention that the historical classics are also largely fantasy by every definition of the word: Homer, Ovid, Goethe, etc.

>>15369035
This one isnt really fantasy though.

>>15369086
How is it not fantasy?

>>15369061
Why is Mervyn Peake considered fantasy?

>>15369086
>haha it's good so I will call it magical realism by definition haha doesn't matter that it incorporates fantastic elements haha.
Magical realism is NOT a thing. It's a retarded marketing term to get hypocritical anti-fantasy literary fiction purists into fantasy.

>>15369114
Because it subverts the real world, painting it in different atmospheres compared to reality.

>>15369163
What would the purpose be of putting it in the same genre as LotR? They are nothing alike.

>>15368956
>Too Like the Lightning
>part of a quartet
Thanks but nah, I want a single work

>>15368989
If a fantasy work is deemed "worthy" of being canonised the literary nerds all start to pretend it's not fantasy.

>>15368945
>>15369325
Most of PKD's works have political themes.

>>15368945
Like 80% of scifi is political anon, read The Dispossessed tho

>>15369109
because it's boring

I just finished the Book of the New Sun and about to read Urth. Before that can someone explain what's with the first Severian that apparently lived almost the same life as the protagonist and died in the crypt? I have literally no idea what's going on or if it's explained later

>>15369651
Reread the book five or six times and you'll maybe you'll figure it out!

>>15369651
Urth is the explanation to that and many other things.

Just finished Fall of Hyperion. I kind of regret reading it. It's so bad compared to Hyperion, really doubling down on all the cliches, making the least-compelling character in the first one a telekinetic space-Mary, stretching out its length to overexplain things that could have been left mysterious - I guess all the hints were there in Hyperion that it was being written by a hack, but most of it was so well done that I could look past that. Fall of Hyperion made it too obvious that it was all just setting up for a wet fart of a space opera where everyone behaved like a fucking idiot, the science didn't make sense, and all the obvious things happened with no twists that didn't make me roll my eyes. I don't think I can even recommend Hyperion anymore because it's so hard to pretend that it's a standalone.

>>15369732
All four books are rated about the same on Goodreads though.

>>15369228
This is like saying heavy metal is not rock music because Black Sabbath is nothing like Queen.

>>15359451
If you don't think Wolfe's central motivation was showing that storytelling is a fundamental and necessary reflection of the human spirit (and through that, God) you weren't reading closely. Peace is an exercise in defining a character through a blend of primarily American and Irish mythos. In Wizard Knight the protagonist literally goes to "the land where stories are told" and is transformed directly into the chivalrous protagonist of one of those stories. BotNS is an exploration of a fantasy future done through corruptions and mutations of various real myths and stories, the chief one obviously being the canon of the Catholic church. Storytelling is the science (or at least the important science) in his scifi.

>>15369870
I don't get it.

>>15369753
Is this bait? Goodreads is full of the same popcorn-munching cows that rate Infinity War and Endgame as their favorite movies of all time.

>>15369887
Not him, and I'm not sure if I got it right, but the circularity, the meta textual stuff (the brown book an Talos' play), memory, etc are far more important devices and aspects to the plot and it's "philosophy" rather than say, an artificial intelligence or some killer robot or genetically modified humans. Those are just plot elements but they're hardly used to explore the human mind.
Perhaps the more predominant pure science-y aspect would be the cacogens and the Stellar period of humanity, and how it changed and shaped future (and past) events. But I don't think this central element prompts as much of a critical discussion (like so many golden age SF writers) on humanity. "Are we doing things right by the universe?", "How far away are we from our human way", because there's God, always God and that's as human a concept as possible.

>>15368945
>What is some political sci fi?
Transmetropolitan if you don't mind comics.

>>15370045
That's not a book

>>15370057
>comic book
>book

>>15370057
It has about as much text as a book and its excellent.

>>15370075
I've always been disappointed by comic books/graphic novels because they're harder to read and say less.

>>15369969
Pretty much. In the way that Tolkien was a linguist, and that was a large part of the "science" that bound the history of his world together, Wolfe's worlds are bound together by the stories people tell within them, and by how they tell those stories.

I had this discussion on here before, but the Ascian's story goes like this. A man is abused by his roommates, and after repeatedly going to the government for help, the abuse continues because they don't heed the government's warnings. Eventually, after much suffering, the government finally acts and delivers justice to those roommates. That's not that interesting. But it's my opinion that the way the story's told, purely through quotes of the society's book of laws, shows us that Ascian society has sold its soul. Wolfe believed that the free use of language to tell stories is crucial to the wellbeing of the human spirit. From a "purely scifi" standpoint, Ascians are just members of a society that's been enslaved by some incomprehensible alien entity. What Wolfe thinks is interesting enough about this to show you is that, having given up their souls to this alien in exchange for protection (from an inevitable and neceszary apocalypse,) the human spirit has become so weak that it's lost a fundamental part of itself, its language and its ability to tell stories critical of its superiors. Extrapolating a bit, you get to the idea that Wolfe thinks that a thoughtful critique of what God is and why and how man should be obedient to it - also talked about when the "ghost dream" convinces Sev of the circular nature of the levels of obedience - is necessary, if humanity is not to become the shambling suicidal horde that is the Ascian army.

It's all "speculative fiction." It's just that his speculations come from tweaking the nature of storytelling and seeing what worlds evolve from that. The consequences of FTL travel are less interesting to Wolfe than the consequences of a society that's forgotten its stories. That's not as interesting to everyone, but it's not that he's "performing less thought" or whatever that retard said earlier.

>write novel
>re-read it years later
>it's basically BotNS but with elves
In hindsight there are worse criticism but I feel like I'm way too influenced by Gene Wolfe and every time I write something, I see a little of BotNS in it. Is this thing common among writers? I often heard about "my biggest influence was X, Y, Z" and I never quite figured out what they meant until now. I feel like I don't have a voice. Every dialogue sounds like Severian talking in my head.

>>15370140
That's a pretty good answer of how the emphasis on the "craft" in not just the means to an end.

>>15370308
Ever listened to an interview or some literary essay that says "it feels like X was reading too much Y at the time of writing"? Well, that's what happens. It's not just some influence in the sense "they shaped my views and tastes when I read them 20 years ago".
A lot of writers, read stuff while writing, and these readings inevitably seep into the writing, either in the language, the dialogue or the plot. If you're going to spend a few hours a day inside the brain of some other dude, you're not going to come out unscathed.
Some people are more susceptible to it than others, or hold that influence for longer I guess, which is why some writers try to not read anything to prevent a "cross-contamination".

>>15360462
legit it feels bad. I always assumed he is some foreigner who learned english really well, before I learned he's american. His mind and spirit definitely isn't american.

>>15368850
>they're puzzles first and stories second
Yeah, that's exactly how I feel about BotNS, and I've heard the same expressed for Wolfe's other books as well. There are some details that I don't really know why Wolfe added other than to be a GOTCHA moment, like the twist that Dorcas was Sev's grandmother

>>15370369
What are you talking about? He's a very conservative Christian American who fucking loves America. Read Peace.

>>15370308
BotNS had elves. Just space elves. Post novel

>>15370387
>What are you talking about?
didn't wanna go there, but basically he's too articulate and intelligent to be american :)

>>15370387
>He's a very conservative
that's an incorrect reading of him, if anything it's more a reading of his modern fanbase than the author himself

>>15355130
Is Asimov the Tolkien of Sci-fi that I have been looking for?

>>15370606
>is (generic scifi writer) the (generic fantasy writer) of scifi?
Yes.
Brainlets need not seethe.

>>15370406
O B S E S S E D

>>15370606
Skip asimov. There are no women in his books that aren't cardboard.

Alright, here we go, I think it might be time for a new thread since this one has so many posts. I'll go ahead and do that real quick

>>15370715
If they're not essential to the story in any way other than what they were written as, why would I care?

>>15355922
Was it really cause I read through the thread and it was just discord, by definition and topic.

>>15370308
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptomnesia

>>15370463
You're unfamiliar with his work. He learned to hide it. Check out Operation Ares sometime.

>>15359325
I thought this series was gonna be a lot more grounded and have a lot more to do with alien desert life. It got super whacky real quick. I'm enjoying it but at the same time I wonder how it got so popular. God Emperor has to be part comedy, I swear.
Love the series so far and I have Heretics coming in the mail tomorrow. I recommend you continue reading.

>>15369870

>You weren't reading Book of the New Sun that closely
>Because in two totally different Wolfe books he says what I think he is saying

How am I supposed to magically intuit things from two books I didn't read that we weren't even talking about? Even with those books you still make it sound like this is an interpretation you're creating yourself and not something Wolfe actually says. If you have to go through his whole oeuvre to come up with your theme then maybe it's not as explicit in Book of the New Sun as you think.

>>15370140

Your entire post is just an affirmation of what I said. You're just tacking on a bunch of your own analysis to the book and declaring it Wolfe's. It's like staring at clouds and then freaking out and screaming at somebody else that they're stupid because that cloud is clearly a dog. How smart can you be if you can't even recognize that the reader creates some (and often most) of their own interpretation of a book? This is basic literary theory and we're on a /lit/ board.

>>15370973
>>15371001
Just because you're too retarded to interpret what he was doing when he took a Greek myth, made the protagonist a "dream man," and slapped it in the middle of his stories as something that nobody but the ancient robot recognized doesn't mean it's not painfully clear to the rest of us. It's clear enough in BotNS itself; the consistency of it cropping up in the rest of his work only supports it. The nature of storytelling itself is the science he cared most about. If you don't think that's a fair assessment, I don't know what to tell you other than to read it again.

>>15371001
I didn't reply to them to be rude but it's the exact type of analysis that would get an undergrad bollocked lol

>>15369163
>magical realism isn’t a thing
Ok faggot. Maybe go read some real literature like Marquez and stop reading books intended for children

>>15355130
is pic related good ?

>>15359372
flowers for algernon is pretty sad but in a depressing way

>>15364542
>told this series is gritty
>ever single mercenary talks like saturday morning cartoon characters, complete aversion to swearing
>even when they're watching a young girl get gang raped

>>15371185

Yeah, you did reply to be rude. You start tossing around ad homs in a literary discussion in response to what were frankly pretty polite disagreements with you. You couldn't and can't respond to the substance, so all you've got is "you can't read retard or you'd agree with my senior thesis on Wolfe." I literally just read this book and what you're saying about the Ascian's story is almost 100% your own analysis. No one can possibly intuit things that are sprouting out of your own head. By the way that's the core of literary analysis and if you were actually smart, you'd know that and wouldn't take offense at somebody else interpreting a text differently than you. It's not the bible, it's a science fantasy book. You're some pseud who picked a 2000 page book to declare himself the interpreter of, hoping people have forgotten enough of what's in it that they can't argue with you.

>>15371360
tl;dr lol

Reverend insanity is the ultimate Webnovel.

>>15371403
>webnovel
>>>/out/

>>15371403
I'm sorry but nothing beats A Will Eternal. I think it's most enjoyable after you've read a bunch of Xianxia because it plays around your expectations.

>>15371457
Renegade Immortal is Ergen's masterpiece

Has anyone read through Voyage to Arcturus?

A lot of epic fantasy authors jerked off over it and I can see why. It's engaging metaphysical fantasy with some neat (and unintentional, although this makes the actual fantastic components feel more genuine) allusion to Gnosticism.

I'm not much of a sci-fi/fantasy guy beyond the Strugatsky brothers and Conan, but I'm enjoying this book quite a bit.

>>15371457
I've read a ton of xianxia and I think A Will Eternal isn't very good. Parodies or comedic xianxia will always be worse than the real deal.
Reverend Insanity is objectively better, and I agree with >>15371493 that Renegade Immortal is Ergen's best web novel.
AWE is too repetitive in its story structure. I shall seal the heavens was good in the first half but the second half was shit.

You have to be a true peasant among peasants that are xianxia readers to think AWE is good.
Even this yaoi web novel is better.

>>15371538
pic related. Sorry.

>>15371360
You replied to the wrong person. I'm the person you meant to reply to. The only thing rude I said was that someone was a retard for thinking Wolfe didn't put thought into his work, which I stand by.

>>15369163
>magical realism is not a thing.
It is though, even on a basic genre-definition level.
Fantasy depicts an alien setting, but with draws to familiar concepts.
Fantastic Realism depicts a realistic setting with splashes of fantastic externalizations.
Native American lit is a good example of the latter.

>>15371564

Ok, then there's two of you acting like assholes. I'm the someone and I didn't say he "didn't put thought into his work," I said he was creating symbols and leaving the reader to create much of the thought themselves, while Lem was expressly constructing the thoughts he wanted a reader to think. If you guys want to accuse other people of not bothering to read things, then at least manage a one-paragraph 4chan post.

>>15371543
Have you read A Warlock in the Magus world? If you liked Reverend Insanity and Renegade Immortal I think you will like it as well. The MC gets transferred to a another world, and has a hax computer chip that follow with him, which puts some people off. But the world-building and especially the plot is very strong, and the MC is the best wuxia anti-hero I've seen written yet.

What book do I read to get a better grasp on what modern scifi/fantasy is all about.
I keep going to back to somewhat older novels (Ubik and Vurt for example).
What is a good example of modern scifi/fantasy that was published recently ?

>>15371609
I will say that the daoist sections of Renegade Immortal cannot be topped, however.

>>15371609
I read everything that isn't harem garbage. Or at least tried reading it.

>>15371360
>just basic literary analysis bruh
>i'm allowed to disagree
Sure
>You're some pseud who picked a 2000 page book to declare himself the interpreter of, hoping people have forgotten enough of what's in it that they can't argue with you.
lmao at this reaction
Btw, his line of analysis about the Ascians is the standard interpretation for anyone with a brain (a hivemind under authoritarian rule), it's just that the guy followed the thread and asked himself why so much focus on their restricted language. Is it just a caricature of totalitarism or there's another layer or a different shade to the stories within stories motif so common in Wolfe and BotNS.
>ur a pseud
Again, laughably immature.

>>15371640
So you have read it, or tried? What did you think of it?

>>15367714
The actual “plot” is pretty straightforward. Severian gets kicked out of his guild, finds the claw, then sorta spends the rest of the time trying to return it back to the nuns. Hijinks and sidetracking ensues

>>15371301
>sad but in a depressing way
...is there another way to be sad?

>>15371666
My digits were wasted

>>15370308
If being too much like a famous author is the worst then that's still a solid novel.
Also space elves sound cool as fuck.

>>15371643

>lol retard
>you're laughably immature

Yeah, give me a fucking break. Neither of you have any response to anything other than "you're dumb and you didn't read the book well." "The guy followed the thread" - and did what? Exactly what I said. Did his own analysis, using the symbology Wolfe created, which was not something Wolfe did. The problem happens when some moron in his first year literature class thinks that because he did a basic literary analysis, it is now official canon and anyone else who didn't come to the same interpretation as he did isn't reading the book. Guess what? Nobody has the same reading experience and nobody can have the same reading experience, and that is amplified a hundred fold with a work heavy in symbolism. Get over yourselves.

>>15371646
It also declined in quality during the later parts with the dnd arc not being as interesting as his homeworld. But it was still pretty good.
The underground kingdom arc was probably the most boring but it had the best ending.

The author's next novel, Carefree Path of Dreams is shit though.

Warlock Apprentice is another fantasy xianxia with a similar premise and it has a better progression in terms of morality from someone who lived on Earth to him adapting to xianxia morals/amorality.
And the side characters are more relevant unlike in WotMW where they're all forgotten about as soon as MC outlevels them. But there are only 500 chapters out currently so it might all change later.

>>15371610
If you can accept tech sociological concepts over narrative, I'd recommend Gibson's post-cyberpunk work like Pattern Recognition.
However, it was released in '03, so it may not be recent enough.

>>15355130
How do you write a sci-fi short story without dumping expository text explaining all the technology you made up and not make it sound dumb?

>>15371726
>Did his own analysis, using the symbology Wolfe created,
>which was not something Wolfe did.
Hmm
>that because he did a basic literary analysis, it is now official canon and anyone else who didn't come to the same interpretation as he did isn't reading the book
You know what's worse? When you have to start every single line with "I THINK", "MY OPINION", etc. so faggots like you don't get offended.
In 1300 or so pages (not 2k) there are at least a dozen of stories inside the story elements. Told by all sorts of people, in all sorts of format. Shot stories, oral tradition. There's even a fucking play. He even mentions a Book of Gold, told by a reference to Borges, often called as a "wordsmith", who was very much into how metaphysics relate to text, and you think the guy's argument is just his headcanon because you took the whole story at facevalue and as some puzzle?

Yeah. Laughably immature.

>>15371733
I agree that it declined during the later parts, the end especially was pretty rushed. I enjoyed the underground kingdom part, however. Although it was comparatively eventless, I liked the bigger focus on character interactions, and as you said, the end was fantastic. It was my favorite arc, actually. Although I can't remember if I thought so while reading it, or if I just feel like that in retrospect.

I though the worst arc was the one on the fire planet, on the other hand.

Thank you for the suggestion. I'm not reading anything else at the moment so I will probably pick it up. How would you rate the translation?

>>15371771
If the technology makes sense you should not have to explain it.

>>15371771
Call it some portmanteau that invokes at least two figurative aspects of the technology and let the reader's brain fill in the blanks.

So apparently when Alan Moore wrote and published Jerusalem, he legitimately intended it to be a 10-year-long chaos magic ritual that would bring about a philosophical apocalypse.

It's like finding Gene Wolfe invented Pringles all over again

>>15371789
The translation's okay. It does have a very slow start and it's overall much less combat focused than WotMW, but it's still really good.

>>15371538
Yes. One of the best books I was recommended from here years ago.

>>15371840
how is jerusalem?

>>15371666
i should have said sad in a gradual entropy of life quality kind of way

>>15371992
boring crap, kind of disappointing considering some of the wordsmithing he was capable of in league and watchmen

>>15370715
>there are women in his books
Skipped

>>15371794
>MuH REaLiSM
Fuck off. There's a reason fiction writing doesn't require a science degree and why scientists use art as a creative outlet.
It doesn't make sense for science fiction to make sense. You can broaden the world, but when you boil it down it doesn't make sense; you are essentially exploring what-if scenarios and cool/interesting/horrible things.

>>15371807
My brains not working today. Good examples?

>>15372143
>>15371807
Wait no scratch that last part. You mean like "lightsaber" etc..

...but the problem is, my novel uses crazy shit like a layer of weird particle shit that allows you to "cast" "magic" in this weird sort of field and then the magic is learned in a dream that combines the dreams of many users into a sort of massively multiplayer VR dream world thing.

>>15372045
a shame. There's something fascinating about artistic geniuses with batshit personal lives, like how Salvador Dali was sexually attracted to hitler, had a pet anteater and may have been a serial killer

>>15372175
And there was this whole calamity that happened, so now only very few people have magitech whereas the rest either have no magitech, or in some cases they even have developed health syndromes from the calamity thing that happened and was caused directly by the technology while they were using it.
And then everyone had their own unique form of magic based on how they dream.

And... I guess it's also probably going to become a series of novels because FUCK

>>15372206
But of course, I don't have an actual story for all that other shit I thought up, so I have to awkwardly dump all this shit on the reader or else do long-ass potentially disorienting flashbacks that night serve nothing at least sometimes but to explain technology and history and satiate my autistic desires to build a fictional universe rather than make a story that's not boring and shitty.

>>15371782
I didn't even bother getting into the part where Wolfe was told by the publisher that he needed to make the book longer, and what he chose to add was a fucking storytelling competition. I didn't know that there were people who walked away from BotNS not realizing that it was largely "about" storytelling. The fact that people here are trying to argue that it's not something Wolfe thought about is amazing to me.

Any recommendations for someone who like the Malazan books a whole lot?

>>15372425
Bleach

>>15371543
A will eternal was the door that led me to xianxias. Pure, unfiltered fun.
I shall seal the heavens is garbage that goes nowhere
Reverend Insanity is good
Renegade Immortal's manhua is so mind blowing that I'm holding off the novel for now (It has gotten rather cheap in the latest chapters though, so once I'm done with Tales of the reincarnated lord, I may deal with it)

>>15372175
Utility fogs and uploaded minds/VR stuff are two of the most common ideas in the last 30 years of scifi. It can't be that hard to give your reader a feel for that without explaining every detail. Plus it's more interesting for characters not to know all the ins and outs of the technology they're using unless there is a very good for them to know it.

>>15372446
Bakker.

Also someone make a new thread before we die.

Is Soldier of Sidon a required read when I finish Latro in the Mist?

>>15373145
>>15373145
>>15373145