/lit/ - Literature

>>18063837
Mother of Based.

Quick reminder for all /sffg/ newcomers that the Ultimate Colossal Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection torrent is up and running.

>>>/t/1023504

Just got Tolkien’s Gawain translations. Anything else that I should pick up of his?

What are the best looking hardcovers to own lads?

>>18063998
Serious answer: Everyman’s.
https://youtu.be/v3JuqUC4tmg

Joke answer: Folio Society

I DM her all the time on Instagram but she won't respond lol. Think I'm going to get blocked any day now. Oh well I can always make another account. Just because you're married for now it doesn't give you a right to ignore your subscribers. Marriages fall apart all the time ffs.

>>18064069
Based

>>18063837
red pill me on goodreads

Are there any fantasy/sci-fi novels with absolutely ruthless rulers? I mean the kind of rulers likely to open fire on their own people(family or subjects) with a cannon to enforce order.

>book does a title drop

Latest example of this is Revelation Space, which I'm currently reading.

>Then, with no forewarning, he had turned to Sylveste and said, with complete clarity: ‘The Jugglers offer the key, Doctor.’
>Sylveste was too shocked to interrupt.
>‘It was explained to me,’ Lascaille continued blithely. ‘While I was in Revelation Space.’

>>18064162
He drops all three of them, the cheeky chink.

>>18064162
>There's a second foundation
Really?!
Jesus Christ!

>>18064139
Ursian Chronicles has King Verkain, a complete sociopath who regularly kills his own people, destroys whatever he wants, keeps slaves chained; underground to fuel his magicks, etc. He regularly kills his own subjects on-screen, for minor shit like reporting bad news; the kind of person to kill a messenger.
IIRC, you mainly interact with and see him during the first Darkbow trilogy but he shows up in the Sword of Bayne story as well as two or three or the Lerebus Shieldbreaker short stories.
While I'm talking about this world, threadly reminder that Demon Chains is the only grimdark I've read that features strictly males being raped of all things.

>>18063837
I FUCK SRANC

>>18064162
>the planet Dune
Dropped
>the planet Hyperion
Dropped
>we are going to rendezvous with Rama
Dropped
>truly, Gurgeh, you are the Player of Games
Dropped
>the wheel of time keeps on turning
Dropped
>blindsight is a phenomenon where...
Dropped

>>18064139
romance of the three chinkdoms

>>18064241
In Soviet Ëarwa, Sranc fuck you!

>>18064253
who cares anyway

>>18063837
>snekguy started a new book in his pinwheel series a few days ago
>it’s supposed to be the largest one yet
My body is ready.

I've read Stranger, Moon, and Starship Troopers.
Are any of his other books worth the read? These are the the only three you ever really hear about.
Should I move on to a different author?

>>18064394
read his other works and see for yourself?

>>18064406
O-Okay, which?
I'm asking for advice, anon.

>>18064425
Have Spacesuit, Will Travel is kind of a (YA) classic and must read. Other than that I dont recall anything of his really worth reading.

>>18064394
All You Zombies.

Anything with space clowns or evil jesters in sci fi settings?

>>18064139
>Dune
>Some Card's short stories are pretty brutal
>WH 40K, obviously

>>18064723
Foundation

>>18064772
Always been meaning to read Asimov. Which ones should I look out for, or do they all have clowns?

>>18064253
>neuro from the nerves, the silver paths. Romancer. Necromancer. I call up the dead
D R O P P E D
R
O
P
P
E
D

>>18064791
Start with positronic robot stories to get a feeling of the Asimov's Universe.

Next you could read Lucky Starr for some action sci-fi, it's basically a prologue to his Foundation series. Not required and there's some retconning in later novels. (no more aliens)

Now's time for some meat: Elijah Baley and R. Daneel Olivaw. Probably the best detectives I ever read and I read a lot of my grandma's Chase and A. Christie flicks.

I got bored half through Trantorian empire series, so can't really say anything about it.

Foundation is pretty cool, the fall of Rome in future, though I didn't like the ending. Maybe if Azimov didn't die, he could've slavage it, oh well. The clown action is in the second book of the main Foundation trilogy.

>>18064916
Thanks anon. Are those stories collected somewhere or do I have to shop around? Sorry if I’m too lazy to look it up but I’m kinda tired.

>>18064253
>>18064909
>He spat blood. "A prince of nothing," he said.
Dropped

>>18064791
Fondation is the one with the clowns.
Don't read anything after the first trilogy, it's SHIT

>>18064772
what the fuck was his problem?

>>18065073
Did he get too old or something?

>>18065017
>https://fantlab.ru/work7078

>>18065158
He came back to this series 30 years after its conclusion solely because his publisher gave him a juicy deal, tried to tie all of his works in a single universe, made virtually everything that happened in the original trilogy worthless.
Just read Foundation, Foundation & Empire and Second Foundation, and be done with it.

>>18064253
>>18064909
>>18065068
“I don't freeze up because it isn't my battle. I'm helping. I'm watching. But I'm free. Because it's Ender's game.”
D R O P P E D (from the orbit)

>>18065210
That’s a shame the publisher tried to milk it for consoomerism... I haven’t read much sci fi since highschool, which was mainly Douglas adams and iain banks. Never actually had the intergalactic empire stuff much before... would Asimov be a good cherry popping for me?

>>18065262
>artificial wombs
>ai cults
>sexbots

>>18064909
>>18064253
>>18065068
>not appreciating the clever zingers that are titular lines
dropped

>Maithanet
What a useless character. Basically a background propr around which a lot of insubstantial and ultimately meaningless intrigues swirl. His death seemed particularly useless and served no purpose. Why does Bakker suck at resolving his characters’ arcs?

Other useless characters: Kayutas, Inrilitas.

I can’t believe it wool two threads of no anime pic to make /sffg/ shit again.

>>18064909
>we truly are The Unholy Consult by R. Scott Bakker
Put the book down there.

>>18065314
>the title of the book is not dropped at all in the book
dropped

>>18064253
>She served in the forever war
Put the book away after that paragraph

>>18065336
>I can’t believe it only two threads of no anime pic to make /sffg/ great again.
fify

>>18064069
incel

>>18064069
i almost put a bullet in this whore in high school
she fought my sister

>In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
Dropped

>>18064069
Who is this brown bitch? She looks breedable.

>>18063837
Recommend me the best kaiju novels there has to be some good ones

>>18065405
There’s nothing great about this thread.

>>18065290
Yeah it's a good one
The novels are short, don't stray into technobabble and are a god damned classic
Can't go wrong with them

Anything like this but not written by a philosophically illiterate, woke coomer identity politician?

Why is it so easy to find sales numbers for manga and so impossible for western fiction?

Say what you will about GRRM's work but I've been enjoying his Thousand World stories lately. Last night read The Way of Cross and Dragon.

>>18065607
He's known to have a fart fetish. Make of that what you will.

>>18065564
Get out animetranny.

>>18065513
Try "The Buzzwords Faggot, or How to Fill my Brainlet Posts with Nothing, by 18065513"

>>18065513
>the JUST city

>>18065564
If they released the numbers people might accidentally find out nobody wants to read about Indigiqueers.

>>18065607
>Thousand World stories lately. Last night read The Way of Cross and Dragon.
That son of a bitch should be planting his fat ass in a chair and finally finish Winds of WInter.

>>18065607
did that fat fuck ever finish a song of fire and ice?

>>18065726
What is your problem? Show on the doll where Apollo raped you.

>Love after the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction by Joshua Whitehead

reminder that this is real, these books and these authors exist and live among us

>>18065766
>Joshua Whitehead
>Whitehead

>>18065766

>>18064253
>huh i guess in the end we really have become The Chronicles of Amber: The Guns Of Avalon by Roger Zelazny
dropped the book here. Will not be reading a book again.

>>18065332
remember for the backstory of inrilatas they said he managed to kill someone with a rag he had cummed on and left to dry multiple times? Is this one of the traits the Dunyain were bred for?

>>18066155
Wait really? And bakkerfags defend this?

>>18066155
>he had cummed on and left to dry multiple times? I
explain

>>18066172
Better than any gookshit or animetrash, you animetranny.

>>18065332
>>18066155
Maithanet's death was used to further show the power of the WLW and make him a credible threat to Kellhus.
Similarly Inrilitas is really only used to show how utterly monstrous Kellhus's kids are and to trigger the schism between Esmenet and Maithanet.

>>18066155
A Dunyain would never waste a drop of semen. If there's someone cumming, there's the mouth of a man to catch it, so it is decreed.

>>18065446
Mage Errant has a lot but they take a while to show up.

I teared up at the end of Dune Messiah

>>18066570
It wasn't that emotional

>>18066655
You animetrannies don’t know what’s emotional anymore.

>>18066570
Same bro, i think Messiah is the better book than God Emperor

>>18066659
>>18066233
>no one mentions anime anywhere
>suddenly bakkerfags
Why do they keep living rent free in your head anon? Where did they touch you?

>>18066690
No one mentioned bakker either.

>>18066690
I just think need to be two separate /sffg/ threads for Eurocentric and gookshit. There's very little overlap between the two and the animetrannies are ruining our threads with their anime shit. .

>>18066759
this. they should take their shit back to /a/ where it belongs anyway. animefaggotry is not literature.

>>18066759
Fuck off. You're constant bitching about anime is ruining these threads.

>>18066772
Fuck you, animetranny, /sffg/ was once a place to discuss Science fiction and Fantasy novels, before your kind ruined it. Now look what you turned it into.

>>18066785

>>18066785
You're the fag whose ruined these past few threads. There is little to no discussion about anime other than you bitching about it. Fuck off.

>>18058150
SSS-Class Suicide Hunter
Ignore the stupid title.

>>18066806
Seethe animefag. We will never have to see your anime pics ever again.

>>18066812
Why does all gookshit involve the MC knowing the future and using this knowledge to become ridiculously OP?

>>18066819
>we
Who's we?

>>18066655
I don't know man, imagining Paul walking towards his death, free at last really got me.

>>18063920
Thanks but I think I'm done with torrents in general. I download this, I download that, and my backlog of movies and games and all media gets so large I don't get around to ingesting all this shit I'm downloading. It's fine. I'm just a dweeb.. I'll give folks my money now, it just makes it more worth it. Thanks for reading my blog, and right now I'm reading S Craig Zahler's newest book

Any indigiqueer recs?

>>18066839
I assume the anons who shitpost or just post bakker pasta.

>>18066945
your biography

>>18066812
Alas, I'm already reading it, but you're right, it's the best I've encountered so far

>Dresden files is still the best noir fantasy
How is this possible?

>>18064358
I love snekguy's work but I'd pay him $50 to never use the word sudor again.

>>18067105
the laundry by stross could've bested it but it's clear that the fat commie doesn't see it as anything but a make-work project.

>>18066830
Life has taught them that the only way to get ahead is by cheating and nepotism.

>>18065420
Please tell the whole story

>>18065442
She is White but yes she is indeed very Breedable.

Name a better fantasy writer than Glen Cook

>>18067672
Any Japanese, Korean, and Chinese fantasy author.

>>18065766
The entire point of queer culture is slashfiction aka shipping aka This Character Really Likes to Get Fucked in the Ass

>>18066830
Regressor stories are the next isekai

>>18065068
>>18064909
>>18064253
>when u were born
Dropped

>>18063837
True love right here

>>18066945
Rebecca Moanhorse

>>18067779
that they are and it's just as shit.
I hate when a somewhat novel idea gets run into the ground when it gets any amount of popularity.

>>18066662
I can see why bro.
I myself liked god emperor more, its less thrilling but more intriguing. i liked letos monologues especially. something about being a single entity with clear memories of his ancestors since the begining of time compelled me. it has honest thruths about society's 'war - peace - stagnation - war' cycle

Any genuine romance in sci fi you liked? My favourite so far might have been Brave New World.

>>18068606
1984. Truest NTR.

>>18068464
LNs and webnovels are YA tier. You're silly for expecting anything more than entertainment value out of them.

>>18068464
I dunno, it's basically just how media trends go. I don't hate western film for making way, way too many westerns. I'm sure I would have been sick of them by the end of their era, but being able to go back and access the best of the genre now is a delight. In fifty years I'm sure I'll look back fondly on isekai and happily force my non-existent grandchildren to watch the cream of the crop with me

>>18068606
Consul's strory from Hyperion
The Legion of Time
The End of Eternity

>>18064139
Bakker's The Second Apocalypse.

>>18064139
The hidden tower series. While not super well written, it’s exactly what you ask for.

>>18068267
What the fuck is this. This is some of the worst prose I've ever seen.

>>18068998
given that it's likely an amateur translation of an amateur chinese writer, I would expect the prose to be terrible

>>18068267
>>18068998
>>18069047
I have to wonder if there's a market for a "localization editor." Like, I don't know the language, so I wouldn't be able to start from the original material, but I could rewrite that kind of bullshit to be way more digestible for westerners while still probably maintaining the original intent. Seems like a nice way to keep myself writing without having to think too hard about it. Anyone who reads that stuff regularly know of any series that could use a rewriter?

>>18069158
That's just a regular editor.

>>18065766
I get that I'm supposed to be mad or something but that seems like a fun read.

>>18068606
Replay

Why are the search functions on sites that list book releases so FUCKING SHIT? None of them even seem to have a rudimentary tag system beyond broad genre, let alone a proper indexing method. The best most of them can do is just list books of a genre by publication date, so if I'm looking for SFFG all I get is pages upon pages of retarded literotica for middle aged women.
No wonder the publishing industry is fucking dying, everything worht reading gets buried under mountains of shit and no publisher seems to be competent enough to create a proper search engine. Even amateur weebs do better with their manga aggregators.

>>18069572
>https://fantlab.ru/en

>>18069629
>Incredibly basic search and tags system
>Doesn't even let you filter by target demographic or
>Not even usable because it's all in Russian anyway

Meanwhile this is the search and tag system for a random manga aggregator run out of the basement of some amateur code monkey's basement.

>>18064253
>my knowledge of the clinical condition blindsight allowed me to seduce a spicy physiatrist in the smoking area of some club in 2016
thanks Peter

I'm at 1/2 of Consider Phlebas. Without getting into details, it's boring. Can I just skip it? I heard that Culture novels reading order is whatever reader like.

>>18069660
Fuck off animetranny.

bros I just cannot for the life of me find a free ebook of book 13 of the Undying Mercenaries, Glass World
got the rec from /sffg/ so I was hoping one of you guys would have it, or at least some more book search engines I could go through

>>18069727
What do you mean you can't find it? It's right here
https://www.amazon.com.au/Glass-World-Undying-Mercenaries-Book-ebook/dp/B0842H6G6F/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1618908243&sr=8-1

>>18069734
>free ebook
that ain't free though

>>18069753
Yes it is. Are you actually trying to pirate shit that is literally given away for free?

>>18069761
?
who even uses kindle unlimited

>>18069727
nevermind fellas, found it on IRC highway
>>18069734
thanks anyway kindle shill

>>18069702
You can read them in any order really. While there is a chronology of sorts, the events of each book rarely effects each other past some aside mentions or what have you. And Consider Phelbas does start out pretty slow, but it does pick up the pace in the 2nd half and leads to a decent conclusion.

>>18063837
Card is finishing his Ender's game saga this year. Any thoughts and hopes? Will we finally see descoladers?

>>18069158
Yeah, all of them.

>>18069702
The culture series is shit unless you completely agree ideologically with the author. I Mostly Agree with him and I found him insufferable on how over the top and constant he is in his reminder of how much better everything would be if the listened to him..

>>18067105
Because you got filtered by the first Garrett book.

30% into Anathem and absolutely enraged to discover it's secretly been YA fiction the entire time

it's fucking HOGWARTS

I got filtered by Echopraxia. Would Iain M. Banks be more brainlet friendly?

>>18072061
yeah compared to Echo it's a breeze

The reason Echo > Blindsight for complexity is that the editors gave Watts a lot more free reign with the prequel. I love em both but it does make me appreciate the relative simplicity of BS's prose, which I do think Echo sorely needs

>>18072569
sequel* chronic brain fuck guy right here

>>18069702
it's just a boring series anon

>>18063837
Fuck!
E William Brown

>>18072569
Thanks, I might give it another try when he finishes the third book. I just wish modern space opera didn't lack romanticism of its predecessor.

This was embarrassingly bad. To start, her dialogue is so stilted I can barely believe a human could imagine people conversing that way. Every conversation is built out of tired cliche's, half-formed bon mots, and cryptic allusions to events the reader has no reason to care about. Perhaps the author knows her dialogue is terrible, and that's why she feels the need to interrupt all of them with absurd set pieces, like when the alligators attacked, or when the giant robot centipede attacked, or when the werewolves attacked, etc. Even beyond those lazy conflicts, the plot is absolute nonsense, highlighted best by the contradiction of how competent we are told all the characters ought to be and how grossly stupid they are in fact. That the archvillain, a man who has eluded the secret organization for five centuries, could spend several days in the company of the macguffin and fail to notice simply because he didn't have the curiosity to open a book shaped package is retarded. But worse, assuredly, is the scene where the main character's fellow agent literally poisons her with a potentially lethal paralytic in the middle of their mission for no reason other than to satisfy her petty dislike. The main character's junior agent is equally poorly written, if differently. His character seems to change from chapter to chapter, with little to tie his personality together. The author has the gall to intimate that this might be on purpose, that his shifting is the natural personality of a talented spy, but for that to work from a narrative perspective we must be shown the core individual that he is playing against, something she fails to give us. In every way this book feels like it was written by an amateur and edited not at all.
3/10 would not recommend.

>>18073212
thanks, never heard of this author but I will be sure to avoid her like the plague

>>18069702
Only good for the concepts. One those series where a wiki is much better than the actual books.

>>18064069
That Brent Weeks book is utter trash.

I've read some Bob Howard, I've read some Lovecraft, and now I want to read Clark Ashton Smith. Where do I start?

>>18073591
the Penguin collection has a good sampling

>>18073212
I noticed something fishy in the GR reviews of this: several people were all saying "I want to be a Librarian." Are they quoting the book, or did Tor pay them off?

This has also made me start to consider why high levels of stratification (professions, magic-havers vs. magic-have-nots, secret societies, royalty and titles, etc.) seem to be so appealing to the people who read "low culture" stuff like that.

>>18073748
Yeah, I think the series almost certainly skates by entirely on the self insert fantasy.
>ooohh what would would your Library name be?
>I'd focus my research on romance novels
>wouldn't it be wonderful to have a job where all you have to do is collect books?

>>18073539
Every Brent Weeks book is utter trash.

>>18069572
The largest site is goodreads and it is horrible. You have a huge, essentially crowdfunded, tag system and it's underutilized. Users can tag it with anything but you have dozens of similar tags that aren't pruned so it's all very chaotic. I don't know if amazon is too lazy and just want to rely on their monopoly of the literary community without improving the function of the site.

I've tried using their API but last time I checked it was rated limited to 1 req/min.

I made a goodreads crawler using python/selenium that essentially spreads out in graph fashion from a given 'seed' book to look for similar books under some specified criteria and it works well (the pages are dynamically generated so you need a headless browser). It takes into account tags/shelves/genres/comments+keywords.

Can't make it public because I'm afraid of legal action. Even now it breaks every few months due to some UI change so I had to make it as flexible as possible using. My first iteration just used hard coded xpaths and that breaks way too easily.

>>18072061
>filtered by echopraxia
what the hell man
Watts' shooty style of writing is very peculiar, there's no problem with reading a sentence two or three times even if you're not an ESL.

>>18072061
I got filtered by bakker's slog. If you have the motivation to make it through that Watts is nothing

>>18064253
at least you were fortunate enough to drop wheel of time immediately instead of throwing quite a few hours of your life down the proverbial drain.

>>18068998
i believe this is a cultivation web novel thing. they are worse-than-fanfiction tier, and if anyone recommends one to you it's safe to just cut them out of your life entirely.

>>18069702
yeah it's safe to skip, it's the only culture book that doesn't read like any of the rest. it's more of a sci-fi thriller, the rest of the series is completely different, way better and with a great deal of subtlety. you should move on to player of games or use of weapons next, those are next chronologically (though you can read it all out of order, doesn't really matter) and they're also arguably the best in the series

>>18072061
i dropped echo 25% in because i was fucking bored. compared to blindsight it's complete trash, no idea why anyone recommends it. felt like it was a first draft he wrote about some unrelated shit 10 years before he wrote blindsight.

Worth a read?

>>18064069
its a tranny isnt it?

>>18074372
>web novel

Oh god please don't let this Asian shit take a foothold in the west

>>18074511
Why not? It's basically the way Dickens wrote with a different delivery medium

I don't regret reading some chinese cultivation novels. Good times.

>>18074555
It's the culture surrounding the east-asian web novel market that I'm worried about being imported here.

IE a market geared towards the demographic consisting mainly of children, teenagers, and manchildren with no literary education. The writers themselves can't write for shit and many 'hits' that become adaptations are written by people with a high school education and no literature/philosophy degree. But that doesn't matter because the main demographic as described above can't even distinguish good writing anyway, and they're more focused on plot and worldbuilding. So essentially you just get a bunch of low quality litrpg/isekai/power trip/escapist novels. And if that's where the money is that's where the talent will go.

If you want SFF to become a few magnitudes more low brow than even their harshest critics have ever imagined, then sure go with it.

>>18074641
Look at the Hugo awards this year and tell me again how degrees matter.

>>18074641
I don't disagree with you about the demo of most web novels, but I think the publishing industry already primarily targets those demos when it's not trying to win diversity points. Genuinely good writers are a rarity in all times and places, Sturgeons law and all that

>>18074487
The movies are kino, so it can't be that bad. I like the setting.

>>18066830
Sounds like Dune tbqh

>>18074785
d00n is more tragic, these novels are just masturbation.

Would you rather have escapist isekai trash or tranny socjus novels for the next decade of SFF, /sffg/? 'Tis your choice.

>>18074700
>>18074681

I don't buy that artistic relativism argument or the '99% of any medium is garbage' argument weebs use to defend their hobby. And I've consumed hundreds of anime/manga titles in my teens so I'm not arguing from ignorance. I don't know what it is. Maybe the fact that reading any text, even poorly written text, requires active deciphering and visualization and therefore is a higher barrier to entry and filters out more people. And this isn't a different matter because the web novel demographic has huge overlaps with the anime/manga one. Maybe the west won't have this problem. Who knows? I don't want to run this experiment.


But I doubt the Hugo nominees have stock characters that can be described in one or two words like 'tsundere loli'. When was the last time a Locus winner had an MC who has a little sister that lusted after him?

The absolute best we can hope for, and this would be a dismal future indeed, is if the top novels on this web market platform are as 'good' as Ready Player One or the Martian. Imagine a parallel universe where the average quality of the books /sffg/ discusses is on this level >>/lit/thread/S6896612

Well you don't have to imagine it. It's called Japan. And I seriously doubt it'll even be at that shitty level. Those writers had to at least take a risk. Due to the incremental nature of that publishing paradigm, popular opinion will shape the work continuously.

>>18074955
>isekai for the next decade
Are Japs really that autistic? Another 10 years of this shit?

>>18074955
I choose neither

>>18074955
The fact that they have Eurocentric in the OP means that they prefer socjus novels

>>18074964
I read Piranesi, which made it in to the Hugos, so I can tell you it did indeed include characters easily simplified to "spunky cop chick" and "gay cult leader" and yet it was a good book regardless. I don't think it's a strong argument that a medium has easily identified categories or tropes. Consider the genre of Westerns, Once Upon a Time in the West is not lessened for being built off well worn character archetypes and plot beats. And, in contrast, I've read web novels that aren't obviously derivative beyond their initial premise.
Also, I just want to remind you that you are posting in a thread dedicated to a genre who's largest hits in recent memories are Harry Potter, Twilight, and Ready Player One, books targeted towards children, teenagers, and man children. That hasn't stopped it from also putting out actually good books

Hello everyone,

I hope this post finds you well and happy.

Recently, I have had cause to reread Too Like the Lightning, the first book in Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series, as has been my wont once every year or so since it was first published a few years ago. It is a riveting read as always, and this time my husband took turns reading it aloud to each other each night, to pass the time before bed. It is quite a different experience when dramatically spoken out loud!

Before I ramble on any longer, let me get to the point of this post. It is truly a marvelous read, and the series is one of my favorites. The book is in turns engaging, enthralling, and at points enraging. Any advanced reader should give it a go.

I would sincerely love to see more discussion about it on here, as I have scarcely seen it mentioned.

Best regards,
anonymous

>>18075146
I thought it was too dull to finish. Her historian's impulse to stop the narrative every few paragraphs so she can explain this person's role in society and the events that led to society producing this as a role to be filled were incredibly boring and annoying

>Almost done with reading "The Blade Itself" by Joe Abercrombie
>currently at the part where Bayaz shows the house of the maker to Glokta, Jezal, and Logen
I just wanna be in the clear, bros. This book is, without a doubt, one of my favorites right now. But, I want to be in the clear because the series is like 9(?!) books: does it flop? As in fall flat or just becomes really dull and uninteresting like, say, Locke Lamora?

>>18075222
Joe goes full grrrl power in his later books after "learning how to write good female characters" as he puts it, if that troubles you.

>>18075254
>grrl power
Like Ferro Maljinn? Also, I have no problem with it at all.

>>18075288
Ferro is a classic case of internalized misogyny compared to the shit that follows.

>>18075146
LONDON

So what are you guys

A Buddhist, a Taoist, or a devil dao cultivator?
Or something exotic like raising gu?

>>18074372
It’s clearly renegade immortal ...

>>18075222
It doesn't flop but my enjoyment was uneven, and the second trilogy so far is a lot like the first.

>>18075396
The Chinese are literally the worst writers in the world, it is embarrassing to know the source. Every hellhole in africa produces better writers

>>18063837
zI love tdrw2 bros too

Are the Ciaphas Cain books really all that great?

>>18075179
that actually sounds refreshing. gonna check it out

>>18075464
Come speak to me when you reach the heaven stepping realm

Wait bros I thought the hugos were all pozzed trash? This was actually, aside from annoying reddit dialogue at times, good. The whole young people together for some crazy ass lethal test thing reminds of Red Rising in a good way. I'm genuinely surprised I actually enjoyed reading this to the point I feel bad for pirating it because i thought itd be trash

>>18075387
gu is such a unique and cool system compared to the other shit. Also I've never seen a novel other than RI do it so it feels much more original. If you mean the more traditional cultivation autism version of gu where you just throw poisonous bugs at people thats cringe and id have to go for Taoism since comprehending dao is cool

>>18064253
>This manuscript I shall send to Master Ultan; but while I am on the ship, when I cannot sleep and have tired of reading, I shall write it out again — I who forget nothing — every word, just as I have written it here. I shall call it Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, for that book, lost now for so many ages, is said to have predicted his coming.
Stopped reading shortly after this. Can't believe I was tricked into reading this garbage.

>>18075661
>Return to the Whorl (as we have titled it) has been issued by us, two brothers and their wives, residents of Lizard Island and citizens of New Viron.

>>18064791
The End Of Eternity. His best book, amazingly well written, except for the Godawful last line. The robot novels are pretty good too--Caves of Steel, etc.

>>18075588
Yeah, they're pretty spectacular.

Skipping.
Made it 42% through this one. But I can't take it anymore. The annoying parts were just too annoying. Was the first book like this? Mahit Dzmare is barely a character in her own book. All she does is walk around in fear of people she suspects of conspiring against her. But all of the characters plans are vague and implied and I fail to see the significance. Mahit often reaches this hysteric state, and then her memory implant talks to her and calms her emotions. Ever time this happens, I get so annoyed that I can feel my shoulders and the tips of my toes tingling. The final straw was a Mahit suddenly getting into an argument with Three Seagrass about something dumb. I'm sure the author thought she was laying the groundwork for this argument for some time. But it was still a dumb argument. And I just don't want to read about bisexuals women in space having mood swings. Sorry.

>>18075919
Can you elaborate on why? I've read a few Ghants Ghosts but what makes Cain so great?

>>18076014
I shouldn't single out women like that. The memory implant is a man, who is also bisexual and prone to mood swings. Sometimes his moods triggers Mahit's moods.

What would be the British version of wuxia/xinxia? It's been on my mind for the past few weeks and I can't stop thinking about something like it but set in medieval fantasy.

>>18076132
Animetranny get out.

>>18076118
>I shouldn't single out women
If you had, you wouldn't have started reading a novel with a female protagonist in the first place

>>18076133
I don't read wuxia/xinxia. I was just wondering if there was a British version of the genre because it seems like that would be fun. Knights, dames, etc.
Something with vibes like King Arthur.

>>18076152
That would pretty much be Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe. The prose would be transcribed by a dyslexic who's been hit on the head with a brick, though, to really be true to the xianxia genre.

>>18075588
For the most part I think they're just decent military scifi, worth reading if you like the genre and setting but not really exceptional aside from a few gags. I do like the chronologically first one, Death or Glory, though. It's the only one that really capitalizes on the whole "Harry Flashman in space" premise in a satisfying way. I'm a fan of humor revolving around normal people being pushed around by bizarre coincidences and the series doesn't do nearly enough with that.

>>18076151
Not you again, bitching about female protags. Get over it already.

>>18074602
the only thing I regret is how they always turn to shit in the end, so much wasted potential yknow

>>18076281
I don't know who you're confusing me for but if they're telling you to stop wasting your time learning the same lesson via dropped or disappointing books over and over again, maybe someday you'll listen

>>18076291
Right, you NEVER came on /sffg/ and talked about how disappointing books with female protagonists are. Not you. You're completely new anon # 5492, who just arrived to the thread days ago.

A bunch of books with female protagonists have been good to me. Bad books are typically just poorly written and have nothing to do with the sex of the protagonist.

>>18076132
knight-errant tales of the type Don Quixote is parodying. I always laugh when i think of DQ as a parody of modern sffg because thats exactly what it is. Imagine if someone wrote something as respected for chinkshit

>>18075146
It was one of the group book reads. Also, no one discusses here. Your best chance is to say whatever you want to say and hope someone responds, in this thread or some later one, but you may be just talking out into the void.

>>18075610
That seems to be a common conclusion for those who read it.

>>18074964
Fantasy and science fiction (except very hard science fiction) has been an ocean of absolute crap two decades. Ask anyone the most notable books works in the last two decades and it's always the usual suspects in 2006: Blightsight, PON (TTT), Lies of Locke Lamora.

>>18076014
Yeah, it was really silly.

Holy shit dudes, this was fucking sick as.

>>18076315
I honestly don't post about these things that much. Are you the person who posts bait every few threads about how men can't write? Should I discard your opinions entirely, since I think you are? Who really cares, in the end?

>>18076396
>I honestly don't post about these things that much
>That much
So you HAVE posted about it before. And now you're here posting it again. Even if it was only two incidents, I would still tell you to get over it. Because I don't want to hear that shit. And I've had to read it on /sffg/ more than twice. So it's more repetitious to me.

>Are you the person who posts bait every few threads about how men can't write?
No. How would you even come to that conclusion? I've said nothing in regards to male authors.

>>18076418
I've decided based on this post that you are definitely the person who says that only women can write genre fiction.

>>18076418
Please stop feeding the troll, it's just shitting up the thread.

>>18071439
There's pro culture propaganda in the books, but also objections and issues. You won't see Culture agents espousing them, but they're there, which means the author put them there, and the author also decided to present them as reasonable. It's also that it's hard for people in our world to see a post scarcity world as anything but an utopia.

>>18076382
congratulations on discovering gemmell. pretty much all of his stuff is excellent, here's the proper reading order:
http://www.gemmellawards.com/david-gemmell-chronological-order/
if you haven't read knights of dark renown yet, do so, that's 1, morningstar is 2, and knights is in a similar vein. the whole drenai saga is great, just skip hawk queen duology unless female protags are your thing.

Give me some great space opera. I want something with scope of Dune, variety of Hyperion and fun of The Commonwealth Saga.

>>18075222
It has high points and low points for sure. You should commit to reading the trilogy, and if you decide you liked it, just read them one at a time afterwards.

>>18074048
True. Brent Weeks is a reddit-tier author.

>>18075588
The presence of that Warhammer logo is a real turn off for me.

>>18076704
Try the Revelation Space series by Alistair Reynolds.

>>18076704
Foundation
Ender's game
A Fire Upon the Deep

>See people recommending the Ninth House online
>Check it out
>Some girl at Yale dealing with abuse
>Written by a woman
This can't actually be worth reading right?

>>18077009
Of course not. 99% of books written by women are trash.

>>18077030
If her name is not Le Guin, put that book back in the bin.

>>18076418
>So you HAVE posted about it before.
Lmao got him

>>18064024
Folio's Book of the New Sun is actually pretty excellent. Tasteful art and everything.

I've read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Seveneves. Which of his books should I read next?

>>18077126
Cryptonomicon

Dumb question but how does it feel to be part of the SF community?

I'm only remotely orbiting it, reading some old stuff, and some relatively new stuff. But what does it feel like to read the new things, to be aware of the current writers, to know the in-and-outs of the rumored next books, to follow the your favourite reviewers, etc?

I imagine it must feel comfy to be knowledgable about your hobby.

>>18077507
Current writers are mainly shit. Don't worry about being up to date. You won't ever read everything so don't worry about it.

>>18077507
To be fair, I'm not sure that SF is even alive outside of Asia. And I know neither chinese nor japanese to be a part of theirs.
It's possible that there's some scene for it in Russia, but I made barely any research.

>>18068606
Louis and Teela in Ringworld is the only real one I've seen so far and that barely counts, especially by the end. (Unless that changes after book 1)

>>18070382
Is this series meant for adults? Is it good? Any books worth skipping?

Recommend me books I won’t read, anons

>>18078190
>>Recommended reading charts (Look here before asking for vague recs)
>https://mega.nz/folder/kj5hWI6J#0cyw0-ZdvZKOJW3fPI6RfQ

>>18075610
You managed to convince me but to read it.

>>18076281
Cry us a river.

Up to book 4 in this series and damn, I am a little intimidated by the massive page count especially compared to the last 3. So far, I miss Rand.

>>18076418
>Even if it was only two incidents, I would still tell you to get over it. Because I don't want to hear that shit.
Tough luck, nobody cares that it hurts your feelings.

>>18076873
I think the majority of WH4K novels are pretty good military sci fi. They are pretty hit and miss between them though

>>18076260
>humor revolving around normal people being pushed around by bizarre coincidences

Sounds interesting. Any recommendations?

>>18077507
New things are mostly shit nowadays, sjw infilitrated everwhere.
Reading sci fi magazines helps discovering good old stuff and sometimes new stuff. Feels pretty great.

are these bettre than Tolkien's LOTR?

>>18077834
I read it first as a kid, but they still hold up today. Card fucking predicted a lot of stuff, including anonymous forum posting influencing political process (like the rise of Trump and Q) when internet was in its infancy.
Read in the order I suggest and then you could try other stuff from the series, if you want.

>>18077507
Bad place to ask. This place is not representative of sff because only about 5 to 10 active posters actually read.

>>18078563
I hear that the Shadow Saga stuff is a retelling of the main series from different characters' perspectives. If that's true, does it feel redundant at all?

(Also I love when people post Russian shit, it's good to practice reading)

“I’m fashioning generals to conquer haha nice try read the book… to overthrow wicked heights

>>18078268
You're heading into serious Mat kino, anon. Keep at it. In my opinion the series didn't really slow down until maybe 9 or 10, but even then there were good times to be had.

>>18076497
Post scarcity would be a utopia, but you still need technicians, and youd still need to incentivize those technicians.

>>18078341
>WH4K novels are “pretty good”
Go read some actual good sci fi, Jesus.

>>18071439
>>18078764
The Culture is constantly contrasted against other more "realistic" civilisations, and there's no shortage of characters that question whether the Culture is "right", even the Culture itself asks that question.
What it comes down to is would you give up all concept of "ownership" and relinquish most of the things we define humanity by in order to become a glorified pet living within the perfect world administered by ultra-intelligence AIs?
There's so much more to the Culture series than a surface-level socialist take.

I'm looking for 'normal boring person in a magical/fantasy setting'.
Something perhaps like 'The Hobbit', or 'The Lord of the Rings', where Joe Nobody is pushed into this world changing event despite having no actual strengths/powers.

Can anyone recommend anything?

>>18076560
Thanks for the link. I have Knights of Dark Renown but started with Morningstar since it was shorter and I didn't look them up beforehand.

>>18065130
No one on Gayer wanted to fuck him

>>18078884
Bone is a comic but it's the first thing that comes to mind.

do you know any speculative fiction books set in a Mad Max like universe? I only can think of Dune

>>18077030
who are the 1%?

>>18078341
Aside from Ciaphas Cain and the Shira Calpurnia novels, what's worth reaing?

>>18078636
No, Shadow saga is pretty great. It has a lot of worldbuilding and Ender's Shadow story is on par with the Game itself.
If Card didn't have enough Hugos and Nebulas to stuff the whole closet already, he would've gotten both for this book.
He зa чтo.

>>18078938
I wish I knew.

>>18076704

Legend of the Galactic Heroes

>>18078995
Horus Rising
Know No Fear
Legion, kinda
Titanicus was great
Eisenhorn has a good bit of action, Ravenor not so much
And I've heard the Gaunt's Ghosts series is really good but I haven't read it.

>>18078392
I can't think of many /sffg/ examples. It's a running gag in the Dirk Gently books (Dirk repeatedly tries to fake psychic powers and keeps accidentally being right), and Rincewind from Discworld also fits if you cock your head and squint (the literal gods of fate and luck are constantly screwing with him for their own amusement). Really it's a more common theme in domestic farce stories. P.G. Wodehouse loved his bizarre coincidences as the basis for and resolution of every plot.

>>18078995
I really like Dead Men Walking. Was pretty much the definition of grimdark

>>18078875
What would you recommend I start with then?

>>18078999
Awesome, cпacибo. I just moved it up on my priority list.

What's /sffg/'s consensus on this? I was just about ten chapters in but the humor seems okay, and usually I despise comic fantasy. Everything but the viagara scene seemed pretty understated and fit the characters rather than just being wacky and zany like Pratchett/Adams.

>>18079103
Not him, but I would recommend Use of Weapons by Iain Banks. Absolute masterpiece of sci fi and just storytelling in general.

I'm driving from Kentucky to northing Washington soon.

Any fantasy or sci-fi books that live up to The Darkness That Comes Before? These books, at least the first three, BTFO everything in the genre for me.

I've read Hyperion, Dune, Game of Thrones.

I don't mind something silly either as long as it has an exciting plot for the drive. Red Rising has a pretty ridiculous premise but had enough plot twists and action to get me to enjoy the books, so something like that would be good.

I did really like Alistair Reynolds, but his books and characters are all to samey and nothing lives up to Chasm City.

Grim dark fantasy is appreciated too. Already read the Black Company.

>>18079290
What about The First Law?

>>18078884
The Black Company. The protagonist isn't joe average for the setting as he's literate and somewhat educated

>>18079304
That's Abercrombie right? I have almost gotten that multiple times but then some reviews say it is very slow. That's my fear with it, apparently the narrator is good.

I've also looked at Malazan, but there reviews are mixed. Some people compare it to The Darkness That Comes Before, but others say it's disjointed with a million things going on.

The best part of TDTCB is Bakker introducing the concept of Blind Brain Theory and cognitive science into the fantasy. I don't know if the sprawling epic is exactly what I want. I didn't like the first two books of the Aspect Emperor series because they had too much sprawling epic fantasy and not enough psychological drama.

>>18079319
Seconding this. Croaker is just a doctor in a band that contains sorcerers and a bunch of cut throat mercenaries.

It seems a little trophy, but that's because it inspired so much future fantasy. It's a great book, so is the sequel, but then it really does downhill. Gets overly sentimental and puts the characters too far at the center of events. First two are top tier though.

>>18079512
It's not slow, the first book is just a setup that introduces the characters. It's well worth reading, at least the first trilogy.

>>18079253
Downloaded a sample and will read it when I can. But says its part 3 of series? Does it really matter if I skip the first ones?

>>18079595
the culture novels are all standalone, there's a few paragraphs total spread out over the entire 10 books that references previous events, you're not missing anything. use of weapons is very good, player of games is technically before it but you can read this stuff in any order and some people skip one or two books that don't appeal to them. i think look to windward was one that's just a medieval political intrigue book with 1% of it being specifically in the culture universe, it's still good but nothing like the rest.
tl;dr read em in any order.

>>18067672
I like Cook's writing style, but most people don't. They'll take flowery prose and elaborate descriptions over "we came, we fought, we won" approach the takes. For some reason I really like how he hand waves arguably an incredibly important battle and follow two characters who are sent off to ventilate some people with arrows instead.

>>18079026
>Legend of the Galactic Heroes
The novels are underrated as fuck with western SF fans. Probably because they assume translations never happened.

Looking for SFF with knights. Gimme your all.

>>18079782
i wanted to like this dudes books but his writing leaves a lot to be desired. i can see why some people like it, i imagine if he wrote like most modern authors and went through every battle by detail and had random paragraphs of characters second guessing their motives and all that mental hoop-jumping it'd be more generic and probably more popular, but not necessarily better. i just couldn't get into it, it felt like reading a report or a slim overview of some historical event. it's just too boring, not immersive, doesn't work well for escapism.

>>18079833
>it felt like reading a report or a slim overview of some historical event. it's just too boring, not immersive, doesn't work well for escapism.
Keep in mind the protagonist is Black Company's historian and is writing in their annals for posterity. It's not really written like a typical novel because it's not supposed to be.

>>18079798
>>18079026
Are the novels worth reading if you already watched the OVAs?

>>18079864
yeah, i get that, but something being intentionally stodgy and boring doesn't make it ok or satisfying to read. they're not shit like most books i've tried to read and ended up disliking, i can recognize something of merit in them, just not for me.

>>18075588
They're fine. Mainly interesting for the setting and the character of Cain being so contrary to most other people in the setting. Someone primarily focused on survival brings in some opportunities for humor.
I've only read the first 3, but there are some unfortunate things that you start to notice. The idea of "we went here to address this bad thing but had I known there would be even worse thing I wouldn't have gone" gets repeated a bit too much. Good light reading if you're into space kino. Other W40k book I read was a 30k book, Know no Fear. It was alright but it's kind of strange in that it's written in the present tense by an omniscient narrator (e.g. "the ship smashes into the station" vs. "the ship smashed into the station"). Not many other books do that.

>>18078764
>you still need technicians, and youd still need to incentivize those technicians
In the Culture series everything is run by godlike AIs and machines controlled by them, who do it for street cred among AIs and other nebulous reasons, which is the basis of the main criticisms leveled against the Culture by both outsiders and citizens. The AIs can at any point stop letting people participate in decision making and being generally benevolent, and there's nothing anyone would be able to do about it. It's arguable whether the citizens really have free will if they are conditioned from birth by the Culture itself to appreciate and perpetuate its values either.
That doesn't mean Culture citizens aren't extremely happy and live exciting, comfortable lives with more freedoms than any of us can imagine.

>>18078882
There's also the issue with Culture ships being individually powerful enough to dominate what in other universes would be considered major galactic powers, and being subject to noone but themselves.Combined with some of them running gayops on alien civilizations to align them more closely with Culture values, that makes outsiders somewhat uneasy about it.

I started reading Legend of the Galactic Heroes and on the first page a dictator has declared homosexuality a deadly sin. Is this a theme in the novel or just a throwaway line?

>>18079782
The only Cook novel I've ever read is Swordbearer. I read the whole thing cover to cover in like two or three sittings and I can remember absolutely none of it aside from a dwarf.

>>18078875
I like the series about the explorator fleet.

>>18080763
Forges of Mars?
Was rather meh imho

It arrived. I know sffg has had a Bakker obsession for the past couple months but where the the Wolfe bros at?

>>18080949
Here as always.

>>18080964
>folio

Call me a brainlet but I don't get it....

Why was Siri attacked by the vampire ? Why did the Theseus AI chose a vampire ? Siri was able to see the aliens...yet nobody in the crew believed him ? Even though he max level hax observation skills...

>>18080949
Has anyone tried to create a political compass meme for BotNS to match the Bakker one? I think the idea has potential, but I don't know if the main series has enough distinct characters to fill out all the squares and I haven't read the spinoffs yet.

>>18080976
I would have preferred Centipede, but Folio's the only one doing anything but the old limited-run signed stuff. I don't really care about the price, just the quality, and they're better than regular copies.

>>18080949
>>18080964
Going to read it now.

>>18081000
>signed stuff
???!

Also I will admit that, while Folio Society editions are very expensive, they are very visually striking

>>18081008
For me it's e-books.

NEW THREAD
>>18081022
>>18081022
>>18081022

>>18081013
I read it on Kindle before I bought the Folio edition, of course. I mostly just wanted something to display.

>>18078986
Le Guin is based

Basically this book is a sci-fi horror story that explains a paper the author published on "The Hard Problem of Conciousness," and the nature of conciousness. The guy was a neuroscience/philosophy PhD, and has a novel, if depressing take on conciousness and free will.

It basically takes all the most disconcerting findings of cognitive science and weaves it into a thriller.

It's a great idea and highly accessible despite the dense premise.

At the same time, the writing is meh. Good enough to carry the great premise, but nothing great. Which is weird because the guy is a really great writer. I guess he just hasn't figured everything out on his first book. 9/10.

>>18079782
>>18079833
Cook reminds me of Robert Louis Stevenson in a sense that he often - as Chesterton put it - has the right word as if upon a fork. Cook has a knack for using what seems like banalities and turning them into a patient, striking passages. He's nowhere near RLS level of prose, of course, but he can find the right word. Gene Wolfe also has this quality.

That being said, the only great book of Cook's is book 1 of Black Company. He varies too much in others.