/lit/ - Literature

/sffg/
might become /gfg/

>>18745330
Such as?

>>18745335
Machine's Last Testament, Machine Mandate - Benjanun Sriduangkaew (2020)
This is the 4th work published in the Machine Mandate universe and the first chronologically. It's entirely fine to read it in whatever order. I believe this may be only her novel-length work, considering what she's said about the difficulty involved, which is fine by me. Above all else this was a character drama that focused on relationships. Where some books are a power fantasy, this was a relationship fantasy. By which I mean several characters wanted to start a relationship and have sex with the protagonist, mostly because she was the protagonist. That didn't preclude anyone from being sexually or romantically involved with others, as they were all polyamorous and intended to be polygamists.
The sex was relatively not explicit, one instance was BDSM, and was probably more there to have spiced things up rather than anything else. Unlike her prior works that I've read or looked at, this one wasn't exclusively cisgender lesbians, as there was also a nonbinary love interest with breasts and a penis. If you know anything about the author's work, it won't come as a surprise that that the few male characters are terrible people, though anyone cishet would be depicted as such.
The protagonist was an immigration official, refugees and the immigration process were a major theme, who sponsored a woman to help her become a citizen. Most of the first half of the book was about the protagonist teaching her potentiate how to be a become citizen, so it was very slice-of-life. The second half is a thriller where they wanted to bring about what they believed to be justice.
The author has been very open about her influences, which are primarily anime and videogames, and noted this this was "pitched as Iain M. Bank’s Culture novels meet Psycho-Pass". The Psycho-Pass influence was especially noticeable, as it was in the previous work set in this location. She noted elsewhere that she hadn't read any of Bank's books, but thought it would do well for her pitch.
The primary reason I've read her work, or looked at her social media a few times, is because she's quite outspoken, to say the least, and has an interesting and disagreeable worldview. She's a semi-reformed notorious troll/griefer with quite the online, and allegedly offline, history.
For most people what I've written would disqualify her from any consideration, though given her nominations for awards, some thought otherwise. However, it's also the case that a woman won a Hugo for writing about what a terrible person she was. I'll have to re-evaluate after each work and determine whether it's worthwhile to continue, for now it is, for many others, it's probably not worthwhile to begin.
Rating: 2.5/5

>>18745440
>She's a semi-reformed notorious troll/griefer with quite the online, and allegedly offline, history.
Quick rundown?

>>18745636
Just search her name, or RequiresHate.

I have yet to read a single good comedy book> Most parody fantasy or sci-fi are simply atrocious as works and while some comedic scenes can be entertaining to read in some non comedic books, butit seems that every time an author tires to be funny as the main goal of his work it falls flat.

Fuck, I miss Terry Pratchett like you guys wouldnt belive

>>18745814
Maybe you just don’t like comedy books.

>>18746068
Nah, anon is right, good comedy is *very* hard to do well, especially in writing since you can't rely as much in timing and delivery.

Is way of kings a good starting point or should I start with Mistborn?

>>18746329
>reading brendenson senderson

Is A Thousand Li good?

is Forever Peace anywhere near as good as the Forever War?

>>18744331
>One thing I struggle with is how to make a fight scene feel like it's actually high stakes.
Death isn’t the only loss condition your character can face. The bad guy gets away, time runs out, a supporting character or innocent bystander gets hurt or killed, the main character loses a possession, opportunity, or relationship that is important to him. I could go on, but you get the idea.

>>18746329
Way of Kings is fine, they are in the same universe but independant stories.

>>18746390
Nah, it's Boomerwank.

>tfw you genuinely love purple prose when it's done well and fits the story

>>18746385
It’s good but also a very slow burn.

Anyone think cyberpunk is kind of a really shallow subgenre? It's mostly preoccupied with the surfaces of the future. A concern with the aesthetics of technology is a legitimate way to approach sci-fi sure, but the downfall of the cyberpunks is they don't really know that much. The implications are superficial at best. I like Gibson and stuff, but I think people tend to attribute more than what's actually there.

>>18746816
>a very slow burn
don't mind that

Is the Shannara series any good?

Hi, I'm looking for a nice space opera/military sci-fi universe that is not the typical 100 000 planet empire but something much more constrained. For example in The Praxis, you can travel to a few selected systems connected by wormholes. Also it would be nice if each planet had multiple biomes and states, unlike Star Wars generic desert planet no. 5, where you need years to actually take control over the whole area.

>>18746329
I think you should start with Mistborn, just because it is shorter and can give you a taste on the prose and style of Brandon. Also the ending is well wrapped, so if you don’t like the series you could stop there.

>>18747061
Vorkosigan Saga is pretty good.

/sffg/, I have no idea how to make a one-sentence pitch for my novel it's got too much going on. The best I can manage is "Imagine if Digimon and John Dies at the End had a baby and abandoned it in the overgrown ruins of New York City"

>>18747024
On a scale from Trolls to LotR it is one step above Dragonlance.

>>18747121
Tell whoever you're pitching to that you're a non-white handicapped lesbian tranny. They won't even ask you what your novel is about; they'll sign you write then and there and probably give you a million dollars.

>>18747216
why not right? I'm already 2/4 of those and if the other half turned out to be true I wouldn't be shocked

>>18747235
>I'm already 2/4 of those and if the other half turned out to be true I wouldn't be shocked
Go on....

>>18747024
Very good at being generic and nonthreatening.

>>18747252
Just like my penis.

>>18747121
Well, that description sure has me interested, even if I don't know what the hell it means. I've had John Dies at the End sitting on my bookshelf unloved for years now and it's always been one of those "I'll get to it eventually" books for me

>>18746031
I just finished Guards!Guards! and Small Gods. I got the handy chart of how to follow the different series. Where should I go next? Mort or Colour of magic or should I continue down the watch books?
I feel like I've missed out on pure magic and if only I'd bothered to buy one of his book as a preteen I would have gobbled them all by now.

>>18747236
I think the only ones they could find out would be Lesbian and Handicapped, so I think we know what the 2/4 are.

>tfw you realize that all along, his power was just autism

>>18747507
>Scrutiny. Calculation.

>>18747334
It's a good series. They're the kind of books where you can get poignant discussions of sociology, chilling horror sequences and someone firing a dildo cannon just pages apart and it and it actually works

>>18745335
>pulp general

>>18747216
but have you tried this yourself? Be honest

>>18747061
undying mercenaries

>>18747507
>Father, the study is so deep…

Any vampire/occult shit, but not written for women?

>>18748398
If you ask instead for 'general horror shit, but not written for women' I'd have a recommendation or two.

>>18748398
fevre dream by the game of thrones fatty. You'll probably like it if you like martins writing in got.

>>18747507
I love how Kellhus constantly refers to other characters by their formal titles instead of their names.

By this time the other laboratory had produced a warm-blooded, snake-skinned
quadruped with an astonishingly rapid life cycle-a generation every eight days, a life
span of about fifteen. Like the echidna, it was oviparous and mammalian. Its period
of gestation was six hours; the eggs hatched in three; the young reached sexual
maturity in another four days. Each female laid four eggs and lived just long enough
to care for the young after they hatched. The male generally died two or three hours
after mating. The creatures were highly adaptable. They were small- not more than
three inches long, two inches to the shoul-der from the ground. Their forepaws had
three digits and a triple-jointed, opposed thumb. They were attuned to life in an
atmosphere, with a large ammonia content. Kidder bred four of the creatures and
put one group in each section of the sealed room.
Then he was ready. With his controlled atmospheres he varied temperatures,
oxygen content, humidity. He killed them off like flies with excesses of, for
instance, carbon dioxide, and the survivors bred their physical resistance into the
next generation. Periodically he would switch the eggs from one sealed section to
another to keep the strains varied. And rapidly, under these controlled conditions,
the creatures began to evolve.
This, then, was the answer to his problem. He couldn’t speed up mankind’s
intellectual advancement enough to have it teach him the things his incredible mind
yearned for. He couldn’t speed himself up. So he created a new race-a race which
would develop and evolve so fast that it would surpass the civilization of man; and
from them he would learn.
They were completely in Kidder’s power. Earth’s normal atmosphere would
poison them, as he took care to demonstrate to every fourth generation. They
would make no attempt to escape from him. They would live their lives and
progress and make their little trial-and-error experi-ments hundreds of times faster
than man did. They had the edge on man, for they had Kidder to guide them. It
took man six thousand years really to discover science, three hundred to put it to
work. It took Kidder’s creatures two hundred days to equal man’s mental
attainments.

>>18748588
He called them Neoterics, and he teased them into working for him. Kidder was
inventive in an ideological way; that is, he could dream up impossible propositions
providing he didn’t have to work them out. For example, he wanted the Neoterics
to figure out for themselves how to build shelters out of porous material. He
created the need for such shelters by subjecting one of the sections to a
high-pressure rainstorm which flattened the inhabitants. The Neoterics promptly
devised waterproof shelters out of the thin waterproof material he piled in one
corner.
Kidder immediately blew down the flimsy structures with a blast of cold air.
They built them up again so that they resisted both wind and rain. Kidder lowered
the tempera-ture so abruptly that they could not adjust their bodies to it. They
heated their shelters with tiny braziers. Kidder promptly turned up the beat until they
began to roast to death. After a few deaths, one of their bright boys fig-ured out
how to build a strong insulant house by using three-ply rubberoid, with the middle
layer perforated thou-sands of times to create tiny air pockets.
Using such tactics, Kidder forced them to develop a highly advanced little
culture. He caused a drought in one section and a liquid surplus in another, and
then opened the partition between them. Quite a spectacular war was fought, and
Kidder’s notebooks filled with information about military tactics and weapons.

https://1pezeshk.com/wp-content/pics/2013/01/microcosmicgodtheodoresturgeon-111104040008-phpapp02_2.pdf

I'm really surprised at the significant lack of Fantasy or Sci-Fi fiction that take place in an entirely underwater civilization.

>>18746872
its less a genre and more of an aesthetic with a few lazy tropes repeated, has to be one of the least varied genres

>>18748598
There's the comic Low, it's alright. It's a pretty good story as far as comics are concerned bt that bar is set far, far lower than any genre of novels.

>>18748398
the last werewolf by glen duncan

>it's yet another dream chapter
I'm growing increasingly impatient with this overused device

>>18749834
welcome to the suffering you will get sick of a lot of things in the next books.

>>18749834
Wait until you get to read hundreds of pages where literally nothing happens

>>18749834
I listened to the whole series while working at a grocery store because I could stop paying attention to what was being said without pausing for like an hour and miss nothing. Still not worth it. And goddamn was the ending rushed, half of the characters just disappear.

>>18750217
>goddamn was the ending rushed
It's almost like the author died from butt cancer before he was done and it was left to some other guy to half-assedly drag the story across the finishing line.

>>18750342
I am aware of Sanderson, the problem is he started writing new fanfic characters in a series with hundreds instead of wrapping up the series properly or asking for another book.

>>18750348
You have to understand, Branderson was a WoT fanboy and Jordan was too dead to veto anything. It's like being handed the keys to the chocalate factory to do whatever you please with no repercussions.

I only just started lurking here and I have a question. Why are almost all posts on this sub about philosophy?
I understand that writing is the main way of publishing philosophical ideas, and so the literature board would obviously be the main place to discuss it. But how is it that "genre fiction" is essentially relegated to one thread?

>>18750567
This board is full of pseuds, little Reddit tourist.

>>18750576
I can see that. Was it always this bad?Also I'm not some newfag I just havent been to this board before now.

>>18750567
>on this sub
Fuck off

>>18750567
Discussing, or rather, shitposting about philosophical ideas doesn't actually require you to read anything more than maybe a couple Wikipedia pages, if that. But in order to talk about genre fiction, you'd have had to read the books, and who on /lit/ would want to do that?

>>18750613
Oh I'm sorry I thought it was widely accepted that blue boards are reddit 2.0. My bad.

>>18750615
>in order to talk about genre fiction, you'd have had to read the books, and who on /lit/ would want to do that?
This actually makes the most sense. Anyway I dont want to derail the last bastion of genre discussion here so I will turn now to ask what others think about Philip K. Dick and more specifically why all his books have abrupt and often unsatisfying endings. Like he seems to intentionally avoid tying up loose ends.

What's your opinion on Ken Liu's fantasy series? Anyone read it?

Also I would be interested in good fantasy with an Eastern/Asian influence

>>18750567
Genre fiction is actually not supposed to be here either. /sffg/ is only for the discussion of R. Scott Bakker's work, preferably just the philosophy.

>>18750567
I mean, if you really want to have quality discussions about fiction, you can go to literally any other board.
I've had more meaningful discussions about Dune in /mu/ than here, and I fucking hate /mu/. Boards always suck in discussing their actual topic.

>>18750681
I enjoyed it a lot.

>>18750698
Unironically this.

>>18750805
There's a good reason for that. Since it isn't the primary topic, those who discuss there have a deep interest in it. Most people on most boards have only a shallow interest in the topic.

>>18749896
Tell me about Nyneave, why does she tug her braid?

>>18749834
It only gets worse.

>>18746390
Very far from it

Fuck E William Brown
Fuck Pay Pigs
Fuck Pay Walls
Fuck No Releases.

>>18750217
I listened to it as well for the same reason. At some point I started to skip half of the pov and felt like I wasn't missing anything. I stopped when he started doing 2 pov per chapter this shit was to boring to skip

What is the /sffg/ common core? The absolute minimum you need to have read to participate in these threads? Tolkien and Bakker of course, but what else?

>>18750665
>why all his books have abrupt and often unsatisfying endings
It's a common disease and probably has something to do with the fact that it is much, much easier to come up with a compelling premise than it is to stick the landing. I don't know whether Dick subscribed to that process personally, but many an author will just start to write and then go wherever the story happens to take him. Unsurprisingly many then often end up in a dead end.

>>18751591
Absolutely nothing.
> Tolkien and Bakker
When I started posting here I hadn't read Tolkien, and I still haven't read Bakker, nor do I wish to do so.

Any fantasy books akin to being in a Dalí or Magritte painting?

>>18751591
Dunsany, Howard, Vance. Tolkien is very popular, but his contribution to canon is basically grown-ass men speaking made up languages at cons and autists doing Dwarf Fortress tier world building on personal wikis.

>>18751591
>and Bakker
lol no. We only read Bakker for the memes.

>>18751591
Gene Wolfe.

>>18751591
Brando Sando. If not because his stuff is good, then to have authority when you eventually shitpost about hhim

So I'm done reading discworld and I feel empty inside: the humour was great, the characters all remarkable and lovely and the worldbuilding surprisingly solid. Terry's death was so unfortunate, he could've offered much more.
What should I read next?

>>18752785
I dont know about him but I've seen no one talking shit about mr pringles. I've seen anons talking shit about every mainstream author, but it's seem that you guys have nothing on wolfe

>>18752834
The books he wrote with baxter are any good?

>>18752874
I haven't read the long earth, science fiction is really not my genre.

>>18751760
>Any fantasy books akin to being in a Dalí or Magritte painting?
My Diary desu

WTF is this Unholy Consult climax. We're going full Hegelian now? What happened to everyone being bugmen?

>>18753337
They ate enough humans to get the sranc burgers out of their system.

>>18750636
4chan is not even close to being reddit 2.0. If anything, reddit is the bastard nephew of 4chan.

>>18750805
same thing applies to /tv/ and the wheel of time

>>18753659
Cope more

>>18753659
>4chan is not even close to being reddit 2.0.
Onions

Fuck I'm just 4 hours away from finishing the darkness that comes before
this has been painful

>>18751591
tolkien is boring and bakker has only been a meme for like a year. there are no requirements to participate but everyone in these threads has read the magician's nephew and probablly the name of the wind

>>18754105
There isn't a single book that a majority of posters in this thread have read.

Figured I could post this here. I picked up that sweet, sweet copy of Starship Troopers with the pic related cover art from a used book store. Got home, really started to thumb through it and there was a giant decomposing booger right in the middle.
Fucking used bookstores, man.

>>18747362
i think you should go in publication order
>>18748429
post em

>>18754577
Eat it.

>>18754888

>mfw women can't understand Malazan scenes with Itkovian

How come Warhammer's never mentioned here?

>>18755076
Is it true Malazan has over the top female characters that come off as feminist mouthpieces?

Is Revelation Space worth reading? I'd like to read a space opera with good worldbuilding and epic in scope

>>18754964
thanks i just grabbed it. looks great

tell me what deeper meaning am I missing if I think the valar usually act as soar c***s

>>18755238
The Val*r did nothing right.

>>18755121
There is literally a scene in the last book I believe where 3 of the major female characters, who lead their own armies, factions, groups, whatever, meet up and literally point out IN THE STORY that they are all female and that's awesome. It was so hilariously blatant that I thought it was going to be part of the story in some way; like why would the writer feel the need to point this out if it weren't important? Well it turns out it wasn't; he was literally just telling us, the readers, how awesome it is that these female characters are sooooo important and are meeting each other to highlight out how totes radical that is.

To be fair though the feminist shit in Malazan is nowhere near as bad as it is in today's fantasy. Malazan has A LOT of problems, but whatever amount of feminism it has is actually one of the least.

>>18755280
My brother is hooked on this series, but I'm not sold. Would you list some of the problems?

>>18752834
No one?

>>18755291
Not him but first and foremost, it jumps to a completely new cast of characters in basically every book, the fifth book even jumps to a completely new *setting* which is essentially completely unrelated to the previous books. None of the character arcs or plotlines are ever carried to completion, instead each book gives you the premise of a trilogy, then cuts away, and by the time the characters are reintroduced they've completed their character arc and morphed into someone completely different entirely off "screen".
Secondly, it's entirely too heavy on the OOO AH MUHREENS (except fantasy) and MUH IRAQ allegory and it's extremely cringe. Also huge portions of each book exist for not other reason than for the fact that they would look cool of the series got a movie adaptation, so it's kind of like a Michael Bay movie in that regard.
Then there's the full Sword of Verb'nouner naming conventions which are also cringe. K'chain'che'mal. Cringe. Also a lot of characters are EXTREMELY annoying, especially the female ones.

Basically Malazan is 10 books that has a decent trilogy hidden in it. I enjoyed parts of it, and I liked some of the ideas (I like the Imass for example, but I'm someone who thinks Paleo Fantasy is a genre that has a lot of potential) but taken as a whole it's garbage. Desperately needed a better editor.

>>18755368
>>18755280
How did this even get so popular...

>>18755439
The same way superhero movies and Sanderson did. Brainlets like anything with spectacle.

>>18755533
based

>>18750681
>>18750825
Can a kind anon pitch me on it? I'm intrigued

>>18751025
Kek, I remember snapping on book 6, completely Tug Broken. I don't know how anyone can make it beyond that point with all the dreams referencing dreams

>>18750613
I downvoted you

>>18753551
lol yeah. I meant the Dunyain seemed to subscribe to eliminative materialism, but are now searching for what really sounds like the Hegelian Absolute Knowing.

I just want Anasarimbür Serwa to be my GF...

How is she so perfect bros? Her mother is weak and trifling, her father is a fucking demon worse than actual demons, but she's the best person in the series....

>>18754198
I mean assuming most of the people in this thread are highschool graduates in a western school system, then most people here will have read Lord of the Flies and or To Kill a Mockingbird.

>>18755106
This is your first thread.

>>18755106
Because a few anons here will shit on those who do due to them being pseuds.

I got filtered by the opening paragraph of The Dankness That Comes Before.

>>18755882
Still doubtful, even if every poster were American and even if they were all assigned the same books, neither of which are the case.

Did the captcha update just straight up kill this website? Never seen this thread be so fucking slow.

>>18755899
why the fuck would you read so much warhammer lit?

>>18756053
>Did the captcha update just straight up kill this website?
Theses threads are a shadow of their former glory, all the dinosaurs who actually discussed shit left when Reddit flooded the thread insisting we talk about Jemisin and Rothfuss and then get really fucking upset when people called them shit.

>>18756053
That's because you're new or don't ever pay attention. It used to be that these threads would take 3 days minimum to reach the post limit. /lit/ in general is much faster than it used to be.

>>18756113 Nice revisionist history.

>>18756169
Just been gone since June, buddy. Maybe you were missing earlier this year when threads didn't spend 3 days with less than 150 posts.

It's not just this thread that seems less active now. It's virtually the entire website, and the new captcha no doubt has something to do with it. I had to try 3 different browers to even get the sliders to show up.

I am starting a song of ice and fire lads

>>18755899
Wait, The Black Library is just some neckbeards bedroom bookshelf?

>>18755368
>Not him but first and foremost, it jumps to a completely new cast of characters in basically every book, the fifth book even jumps to a completely new *setting* which is essentially completely unrelated to the previous books. None of the character arcs or plotlines are ever carried to completion, instead each book gives you the premise of a trilogy, then cuts away, and by the time the characters are reintroduced they've completed their character arc and morphed into someone completely different entirely off "screen".
See, I don't really consider these as negatives. It's not like everything has to build to ONE specific event. Also, having a fuck huge setting and so many books to work with lets you explore shit. On top of non-core series novels and spin-offs. I just have no problem with the way Malazan is structured while many people seem to do.

>>18756240
Have fun with Gurm's abandonware

>>18751591
Tolkien
Bakker
Wolfe
GRRM

>>18755291
what he didn't mention are the other problems
>editing
probably the biggest one. the books are 100s of pages longer than need to be with a lot of filler shite.
>muh grizzled vets
there are multiple grizzled vet archetype characters, many of them POVs. it gets old fast.
>power levels
sometimes it's like reading dragonball z.
>fake epicness
the worldbuilding is like a wide and shallow lake. lots of stuff, lots of places and races, everything is very old (there are beings 10s of thousands of years old) yet there's no depth, especially in terms of history.

Why is this trash regarded so highly? I wasted 4 hours reading this shit and want my time back.

What are some /sffg/ books with heavy hitting, goosebump-inducing and memorable prose that sticks with you for a while after you read it? Books that equal or surpass ones like pic related.

>>18756191
Yes, there was brief period where an entire thread would finish within a day, one even went to the bump limit within 12 hours. The posting statistics are easily verified if you care to check.

>>18756191
>It's virtually the entire website, and the new captcha no doubt has something to do with it
You're just imagining things, /lit/ right now is over 25% more active than any period over the last 2 months. It's just theses threads.

>>18756441
Regarded highly by whom? Certainly not by this thread or 4chan in general.

>>18756458
Thomas Ligotti has the most beautiful prose I've encountered. Pick a short story collection.

>>18756060
maybe he likes it. god forbid.

>>18756441
stop taking your reading suggestions from good reads

>>18756517
I wish Ligotti wasn't such a tryhard, his prose is wasted on 90's nihilistic shtick.

>>18756769
I like his later (I dislike using this term but I think it's appropriate) Kafkaesque stories, e.g. The Clown Puppet.

>>18748398
the best vampire book ever written is blindsight by peter watts.

>>18748398
Christopher Buehlman's books. Some of his books have been review bombed by trannies on gayreads for containing racism and sexism.

Is The Blacktongue Thief good or bad?

>>18745814
Try Charles Portis. Not sff, but the funniest writer I have ever read. Also my favorite writer

>>18756976
Haven't read it yet, but it's next on my list and I'm 85% done with my current book. Between Two Fires by the same author is one of my favorite dark fantasy novels. Can't imagine it'd be bad.

>>18748398
The Golden. Tagline is misleading as fuck and story is essentially a vampire whodunit in a spooky castle.

>>18757055
you never know, I liked crombies first few works but his latter missed the mark quite hard,

>>18755899
Imagine reading every one of those "books."
This is mental illness.

>>18758012
>"imagine reading... books, this is a mental illness."
>said on lit july 30 2021

>>18756458
Bakker is the obvious answer, though haters will seethe. His prose is overwrought, baroque, slightly psychedelic, and combines many elements of Tolkien and McCarthy.

>>18758022
They are only books in form, not in content.
I've paged through these warhammer "novels" in the bookstore. They're absolute schlock with zero literary value (outside of Abnett maybe). They're literal filler. The only "readers" are neckbeards who are so deep in the game they can't read anything else.

>>18756919
Peter Watts is definitely carrying the torch atm, but there hasn't been a great vampire book since Dracula. Hellsing and VtM Bloodlines unironically have more literary value than any proper vampire novel from the last 100 years.

4hin won't let me upload files.

>>18758112
Good

>>18755221
Based.

>>18748398
Well, there's the Anno Dracula series. You probably read that considering it started what, almost 30 years ago?

>>18756475
Woke redditors.

To the anon who recommended these books, I finally got around to Terms of Enlistment and it was good. Thank you for the recommendation, I'll be reading the rest of these too.

>>18756240
First three books will have you panting for more. Book 4 is a pleb filter but it one of the most enjoyable reads in the series. Book 5 is just frustrating to read because he crammed in too many characters most of which have their story arcs end in cliff hangers which have been left hanging for 10 years now.

>>18758112
Sound like your IP range has been blocked from uploading images.

>>18755368
>Not him but first and foremost, it jumps to a completely new cast of characters in basically every book, the fifth book even jumps to a completely new *setting* which is essentially completely unrelated to the previous books.
Filtered. This isn't a negative, this is one of the reasons I like this series.

>>18755291
The Bloat is the worst. Reading Malazan was the first time I started skimming through pages in a book. Page after page after page after page after page of pure NOTHING. You could easily skip a dozen pages at a time and still perfectly understand what was happening in the story. The Bloat was so bad that even the writer himself admitted after he finished the series that he should have reigned himself in.

>>18758528
>cliff hangers which have been left hanging for 10 years
The TV ending is the authoritative ending.

>>18758565
The TV show diverged hard from the books even before they ran out of book material, so even stuff as early as season 4 has no bearing on the books, let alone stuff in the last few seasons.

>>18758703
Unless GRRM puts forth his own version of the ending (he won't), it is 100% canon that Dany will go mad, Jon will kill her, Bran gets to sit the Iron Throne, Sansa terminates Littlefinger, Bron takes over Highgarden, and so on and so forth.

>>18758724
Nah, basically nothing post season 5 has any bearing on the books at all and is just fan fiction. They wrote so many characters of the story that they had to resort to lazily teleporting around the remaining cast to fill all the story beats. Something showfags like you always forget is the show has a fraction of the actual cast of characters.

>tfw no sansa gf

>>18758032

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPnx3zO3SDc
books with themes like this? bonus points if machine is completely in the right and eventually wins
>>18752874
They are absolutely terrible. It's Star Trek, but it's filled with last year brand of faggy humanism, moralistic sermons and boring and mostly pointless status quo from the reader's perspective climaxes. They are like Tom Sawyer novels written by the main character aunt.

>>18758032
Let anon read whatever he wants you pseud.

>>18758032
>"you should only read books with literary value!"
>posts in /sffg/

>>18749834
If you're pissed off about dream scenes and you're only at The Dragon Reborn you should seriously consider dropping the series.

This coming from somebody who thinks WOT is generally pretty enjoyable overall.

>>18758032
But Gotrek and Felix is good schlock.

>>18749834
You might as well stop reading if book 3 is making you upset. I consider the first 5 books of WoT to be great timeless reads. I enjoy them no matter how often I reread them. If you're already balking at book 3 you won't make it past books 7-10.

>>18753703
/tv/ has great threads for WoT and LotR too, I swear /lit/ chased most of the fantasy fans off this board

>>18748246
Fucking awful. Die

>>18748398
Vampire hunter D by some nip

>>18760468
>Fucking awful. Die

What are some books that have robot main characters that don't look human?

If you haven't read everything on this list GET THE FUCK OUT

>>18761009
DnD list is full of shitty books. Not surprised.

>>18755827
He's not a demon, but your average neuro-atypical, as mentioned earlier in the thread. Jokes aside, it's interesting to see all the different opinions that readers have of Kellhus. In my opinion, I think he's a badass, despite all the wack shit he's done. He's just too autistic to be judged like a regular person

>>18761073
It has a lot of good stuff though. Even Gene Wolfe.

>You think the autism is your ally. But you merely adopted the autism; I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see world-born men until I was already a man. By then they were nothing to me but children!

>>18761099
>Prince of Asperthau

>>18761073
most of it is actually pretty good with a couple of stinkers

>>18761099
>>18761111
Digits of scrutiny, calculation, autism

>>18761099
>>18761111
>>18761122

>>18761166
I foresaw these dubs in the probability trance...

>>18761099
>>18761166
checked and zaudunyanipilled

Does anyone have any recommendations for scifi or fantasy that doesn't have a focus on military shit? I just want a group of characters dicking around exploring or going on a quest or something

>>18755446
this is a good point, i think the obnoxious amount of woman characters, fag stuff, feminism and pandering and all that in modern entertainment is kind of a coincidence because of how the culture has been lately and so on. but all of these writers, if it wasn't this woke shit, they would be inserting whatever other shit they thought appropiate, my point is that their work would be basically of the same quality

>>18761378
ordered from best to worst, althought i enjoyed all of them:
night in the lonesome october
tau zero
there are doors
the war of the flowers
i haven't read anything where there are characters are just dicking around though

>>18761009
I'm always disappointed when I see these lists, D&D DM's could learn a lot of Christie and Chesterton.

Also no Brunner, the fuck?

>>18761378
Rogues of Merth: The Adventures of Dareon and Blue

>>18761073
>DnD list is full of shitty books. Not surprised.

>>18761801
>Defending a list containing Rothfuss and other woke shit

>>18761378
Have you read King's Dark Tower series?

>>18762087
Not really liked any of King's books that I have read, to be honest.

>>18761801
How did you get your hands on this portrait of me?

>>18756973
The Lesser Dead is great. It has a twist that makes a second read much different from the first. Also enjoyed Those Across the River. Fucking marching into werewolf territory with military equipment and chemical weapons to get revenge. Insane turn of events where the protagonist's military background wasn't just a backstory for the sake of it.

>>18758469
>dracula cha cha cha
Those books look like juvenile trash trying way too hard to be edgy, like Meddling Kids was.

>Open book
>start reading it
>enjoy the setting
>wonder about the prose
>look for who the author is
>"woman name"
> close book and walk out of the library
t

>>18763034
Does that make you feel powerful?

>>18763043
name me a single good book write by a woman.

I'm halfway through Gnomon and really enjoying it. Definitely sort of post-modern-Woahdude with many cultural references. Will review when I'm done.

Any book that deal with traders and trading as their main focus? i have read some that start with that but them devolve in the typical fantasy clichés of "find Magoffin, fights guys, save word" and the trading gets swept t the way side barely even registering in the story.

>>18763075
Name one that isn't filled with gender politics and wokeness.

>>18763527
That just adds to my point.

>>18763289
Spice and Wolf

>>18763832
>recommending LNs in any way shape or form
you faggot should all be shot.

>>18763840
There is no need to be upset

>>18751591

Jack Vance, Ursula K. Le Guin,Samuel R. Delany, Philip K. Dick, Gene Wolfe, Micheal Moorcock

>>18763873
Good to see that the VN/web novel/chinkshit shill is still a regular.

in HG Wells's The Time Machine, what is the tentacle creature in chapter 11? It's the last creature he encounters in the far future. Why does he include this detail?

>>18764005
Wells was a /d/tard.

>>18763832
Is it good? I have nothing against LNs (in fact I quite like em), but all I've heard about Spice and Wolf is about the Anime and how it's never getting a new season

>>18764168
always imagine the Eloi to look like anime characters tbqh

>>18762111
>>18761794

>>18761378
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep has no military content but does contain police. Many of Isaac Asimov's short stories also have no military themes. I highly recommend the collection Robot Dreams.

>>18763034

>>18764245
Yeah, it actually is good, assuming that travelling merchant adventures appeal to you. Holo and Lawrence have always had a nice chemistry and the series takes their relationship where it should go. Anime only's will forever miss out on that. But thanks to the success of the old anime, the entire series enjoys a proper English release.

Jesus fuck /sffg/, I need a new book to read. Everything I look at is edgy, cringey or just plain dull

>>18764512
Read Dragonball, its a classic on /sffg/

>>18745814
The Flying Sorcerers is a really good and funny scifi book.

>>18764397
Nice, I'll add it to my list then. Thanks!

>>18764262
Wells and le Fanu are moe as fuck. Probably 60% of anime is just Victorian pulp stories with kabuki / bunraku flavoring.

>>18761814
Wtf did I just read?

>>18764919
the thing that took the name of the wind out of my reading list.

>>18764970
I read about half of it. The story just went no where. He spends like 200 pages talking about being a hobo child and nothing actually happens. People praise his prose, but unless you are writing poetry prose cant carry a novel on its own.

>>18765036
>He spends like 200 pages talking about being a hobo child and nothing actually happens.
He gets raped.

Is the Chateau Cascade any good? saw it being shilled here and i though about starting it.

>>18765285
I've never heard of it so it couldn't possibly be good.

>>18763075
Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrel

>>18765410
it's the start of the leyline war series, and all booktuber i watch( i know fuck me too) have started talking about it for some reason.

Any good stories about pure data entities?

>>18765465
You are looking for litrpg.

>>18765465
Maybe Jane from 'Speaker for the Dead' onwards

>>18765529
I should say that the story isn't exactly about Jane, but she is increasingly important and fits reasonably well.

>>18746329
Mistborn 100%

>>18765465
True Names by Cory Doctorow

>>18765411
my nigga!

>>18761079
Khellus isn’t human, he cannot be judged as a human. It’s like morally judging a tiger.
People who miss that bother the shit out of me.

>>18763873
Kek. Keep posting the weeb shit bro. Don’t let no one stop you!

Other books with this theme?

Hi, sorry if I'm writing in the wrong place, but I'm trying to find a book I took out from my local library about ten years ago, give or take. I only remember two things
a) The basic premise is a "getting stuck in vr" type thing, and the virtual world is like a dragonlance type setting (I think)
b) One of the chapters (like, the fourth?) start with one of the main characters complaining (in his head) about the pain in his eyes from sweat (from the battle he's currently in)

I want to write sole cringe ass Xianxia lite novel shit. I want to upload the chapters online so an entire tens of people will read it. What's a good website to use?

just read the three-body problem triology, pls offer recs on something similar

what are some trans inclusive fantasy books?

>>18766453
Book of the New Sun sort of counts

>>18746031
i learned he was pro tranny so now i dont want to read his books anymore.

>>18766453
Anything written by a woman in the last 10 years.

>>18750698
this shitposting got old last year.

>>18750698
>R. Scott Bakker
Literally who?

>>18766753
Avast ye, newfag

>>18766753
Some cuckold author that 2 or 3 anons shills relentlessly.

>>18766763
Oh okay. Thanks for clarifying.

>>18766753
A really good and innovative fantasy author who created the Second Apocalypse series, so far the unsurpassed work of literary fantasy of the 21st century, that relentlessly and brutally filters normies.

Start with The Darkness That Comes Before.

>>18766839
No thanks.

>>18763878
Still setting at that?

>>18766763
Also forgot to mention that they also posts the same shit every thread to try and force a discussion but never happens.

>>18763832
>Spice and Wolf
They've been translated in english right? You got any idea if they're good? And are they still using that realistic covers or no?

>>18766918
The one where Holo is naked for whatever reason? Pretty sure they went back to the Original cover.

all fantasy literature is shit, no exceptions

>>18766926
Stop being a pseud.

>>18766926
You can say that about any literature.

>>18766926
Why are you here then?

>>18765285
>saw it being shilled here and i though about starting it.
When?

>>18767008
I only read philosophical fiction (Bakker)

>>18767037
Bakker isn’t philosophical.

>>18767040
He isn’t even a good writer.

>>18767040
>>18767049
t. Rothfuss fans

>>18767055
Stop trying to force Bakker.

>>18767058
Finish the book, Patrick.

>>18767061
Rent free.

>>18767055
>>18767061
So are all Bakker fans like this?

>>18767077
Yes, they’re even worse when you actually read the books and aren’t smitten by them.

>>18767077
I chalk it up as insecurity more than anything.

Thoughts on this image?

>>18767099
Literally who and why are you trying to bring this up for drama?

>>18767108
Exactly. Thought it would be a weird discussion prompt. Like, does anyone know this author either?

I do not know her at all. She just sounded whiny to me.

>>18767099
Don’t know who she is and you should stop posting this since all you’re trying to do is derail the thread.

>>18767112
It ain't a prompt for discussion, it's what this anon said >>18767116 trying to derail the thread with some inane bullshit.

>>18767112
No, nobody knows that author

Early 20th century recs besides regularvernewells? So far, I've read Voyage to Arcturus, several Hodges books, Simak, Triffids, Stapledons dilogy, tried several Clark Ashton Smith's stories, but while I enjoyed the prose I don't like the 'and then the protagonist got a BAD END' formula he's using in all of them, it's like boomer creepypasta.

>>18767099
My thought is that I do not read "books" written by w*men.

>>18767099
Don't care.

>>18767148
You don’t read.

>>18767182
But I do. I'm reading a book right now, a proper book written by a biological man. Disregard the "works" of w*men and you still retain a library larger than you could ever read in your lifetime, and one that has lost not one iota of its value.

>>18767189
Touch grass.

>>18767191
I can tell I'm speaking a member of the weaker sex as the only thing you can respond with are effeminate, passive aggressive insults such as this. This frailty of mind is why you will never be able to produce good literature.

>>18767196
Anon, stop being an incel.

>>18767199
W*men must appeal to sex in this way because even they know that it's the only value that they possess. It's sad, frankly.

>>18767189
>>18767196
>>18767202
Holy shit dude, I normally don't type this, but have sex.

>>18767205
>have sex.
Bend over.

>>18767202
Yep, you have to be baiting at this point.

>>18767205
go shave a tampon in it you rancid whore

>>18767216
Not even a woman, you need help.

>>18767217
Typical effeminate response.

>>18767228
You need help

>>18767228
Yeah, you need help.

>>18767232
>>18767233
yawn

>>18767236
Seek help.

How tiresome and stupid, this cursed and squalid general.

New thread
>>18767242

>>18767030
a few months back

>>18761009
Excellent

(((Misogyny)))

>>18767099
She's not wrong, she is in fact competing with dead guys. But if she can't create anything better than the dead guys, then she deserve to lose that competition. She is not entitled to readers' attention or money just for being currently alive.

Easterlings are so desperate that they are sending their women against Gandalf?

>>18767099
>>18768566

>>18767099
>We are competing with dead guys
Yes.