/lit/ - Literature

Fuck happened to the last thread? Didn't even hit the bump limit.

>>20420710
looks like a janny pruned it
not surprising since the main dedicated shitposter does it for free

>>20420710
Whenever the bakkerspammer starts spamming, there's a chance the Janny will just prune the thread since he posts about 50 to 100 posts, that's why you got to report the bakkerspammer when he starts posting his low-effort posts/spam.

What was the science fiction book with the guy getting stuck on an alien planet with erotic humanoid cheetahs?

>>20420723
It's an indirect result because the thread is deleted when too many reports come in, an umbrella solution to a smaller problem. Also remember only mods can ban. I know janitors can delete posts, probably threads too or I believe they can alert mods to delete them.

>>20420755
I don't remember the specific book but I think it was written by C J Cherryh

>>20420447
Delve is as number crunchy LitRPG as it gets, famous as hell for how hard it is in that regard. No other LitRPG comes close to Delve's autism.
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25225/delve

Tranny janny

>>20420521
Try anything by Jonathan Brooks. That faggot openly says that he tries to cram as much stats as possible in his books.
Stats fags need to an hero. They ruin the fucking litrpg genere.

No one is reading a book to see the fucking stats table.

>>20420838
I think stats CAN be done interestingly, but more often than not they're just "number go up". Skills and such are more interesting systems to experiment with, I find.

>>20420781
Was that for this post?
>>20420521
Delve is super crunchy, but the story's glacial pace makes people rage.

>>20420704
What are you reading, what are you planning to read?

Has it leeked anywhere yet? Comes out tomorrow anyway.

>>20420838
>No one is reading a book to see the fucking stats table.
Clearly some people are.

>>20420857
I am reading Seveneves (Stephenson) right now. After that I will probably read House of Suns (Reynolds), Use of Weapons (Banks), or Excession (Banks). The thing about Banks is that I really didn't like Consider Phlebas, and Player of Games was just OK. Wasn't really digging the whole Chess in Space thing. But then again I'm probably too much of a brainlet.

>>20420857
I'm reading Hunger of the Gods.
Going to read this next >>20420865
Then I don't know what to read after that, might take a break from sffg and read The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix, I enjoyed his previous book.

>>20420857
I just finished reading an historical fiction novel called "Rabshakeh", by Jill Francis Hudson. It's a novel about the life of King Saul of Israel about 900-1000 BC or thereabouts, featuring the direct communion of several characters with YHWH and His influence on events. It was quite poignant, and I'm strongly considering trying out some of her other Biblical fantasy novels.

I also ordered some used 1970s Gordon R. Dickson books from Amazon to see how I like him.

>>20420868
me in the verrrrry far back right

>>20420865
>A Reynolds
>2022
I have a bad feeling its going to be pozzed

Recommend some epic fantasy, duology at least, with no standart fantasy races
Would be nice if there is "hero slowly becomes villain" trope and somewhat nice romantic side line
Hard mode: no WoT, no Bakker, no Rotfuss or Martin garbage

>>20420987
>somewhat nice romantic side line
Why would you even want this?

>>20420987
>multipart epic fantasy with no conventional fantasy creatures, the hero turns into a villain, and has a romantic subplot
do all /lit/izens have such unrealistic demands?

>>20420857
I'm 45 chapters into Bleak Seasons and having a bit of a hard time getting through it. I really don't care about the flashbacks to the siege and wish it would spend that time focusing on Croaker or Lady instead. Once I finish that I'm excited to start on pic related, which arrived about 20 minutes ago. Thanks again to that Anon two weeks ago who posted the first line of Gideon the Ninth, I doubt I would have checked the series out otherwise.

jolenta booba rocking with the boat

>>20421033
I'm probably gonna pick up Gideon the Ninth after I finish off Mother of Learning. Seems like the sort of thing to follow-up with and try to 'reset' myself a bit. Also isn't Harrow the second book, aren't you meant to read Gideon first?

>>20421071
Yes, I read Gideon last week after getting it from b-ok. I bought Harrow because the mobi wasn't available and I currently don't have a working computer to convert a different file for my kindle. I also ordered a hardcover of Gideon because I liked it enough to reread some day, but it hasn't arrived yet.
What do you mean by "reset?" I've never read MoL, but from what I've seen about it I don't see the connection between the two. Personally I started Gideon when I was in the first few chapters of Black Company and wanted something a little lighter to break it up. It ended up going darker than expected, but in a good way.

>>20421124
Ah, I just mean I've been reading a lot of denser-feeling, logical stories and I've heard Gideon the Ninth is a little abstract and silly in some ways? A palate cleanser might be the better idea. Just trying to broaden the type of fantasy I read because I've been going down a bit of a rabbit hole.

>protagonist gets [class]
>general purpose damage skill, general purpose defense skill, general purpose movement skill, ranged skill, timed super form, costly super attack

>>20421033
yikes

>>20421158
>Protagonist gets Class
>Only one skill: Smash

>>20421135
That makes sense, that's similar to the feeling I had going into it too. It does get silly at times, mostly with Gideon making dumb jokes and the narration also taking on some of her irreverence occasionally. The magic itself doesn't get expanded on in hard detail, but it does clearly follow rules that we just aren't entirely privy to. That's about all I can think of for a reason it would be called abstract though. Structurally it's a mystery story with something killing off the cast while they try to figure out the secrets of the palace they're stuck in. I definitely recommend it, but it might not fill the role you think it does.
>>20421169
Gideon is a fun lesbro who just wants to stare at cute butts and hit stuff with her sword.

>>20421169
Yes, that is what an award winning successful female author looks like.

>>20421202
J H Christ make the ww3 global nuclear war happen so that this gay earth can drown in radioactive ashes and fire asap

>>20421197
Eh, either way, something a bit goofier in tone, even if only somewhat, would be a nice change. Also why is it that only female protagonists seem to be the ones to make innuendo jokes now.

>>20421213
Kys chud

>>20421218
Stupid chad

>>20420704
Luminous - Greg Egan (1998)

Chaff (1993)
The newest front of the drug war is a drug that alters the user's neurological function to where arbitrary stimulus can create any effect on sensory experience. A DEA agent who believes that consciousness is irrelevant and instinctual drives control everything is tasked with retrieving a biochemist, a traitor, from a massive bioengineered rain forest in the Amazon Lowlands.
Enjoyable

Mitochondrial Eve (1995)
A man in love with a woman reluctantly visited the local establishment of The Children of Eve, a genealogy obsessed ancestor worship cult of Mitochondrial Eve. Eventually he's tasked with scientifically proving that all humans descended from a single woman. I was rather amused by the politics of the story.
Enjoyable

Luminous (1995)
I'd describe this as a metaphysical mathematics conspiracy thriller. I have no doubt though that I would've enjoyed it more if I had more of a background in mathematics, but even so I enjoyed anyway, mostly in an abstract way. The infodump is the narrative - there's no meaningful difference between the two. The basic idea of the story is that all mathematical theorems must be tested by a physical system to be proven true or false. Mathematical Platonism is ridiculed. By doing so they realize that truth is locally defined and there are competing systems of mathematical logic that are in conflict. Then it gets weirder.
Enjoyable

Mister Volition (1995)
An impoverished man robs a wealthy man of a neural prosthetic, which he discovers is called PANDEMONIUM. Despite the ominous name and his need to sell it for money to pay for rent, he decides to use it for himself. It lives up to its name. Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus are explicitly mentioned and the narrative is based on their ideas, though the idea being explored is inspired by Minsky and Dennett.
Ok

Cocoon (1994)
A corporation develops a cocoon for fetuses with the stated purpose that harmful actions by the mother or environmental hazards don't affect their development. Their R&D laboratory is bombed and an investigator, seemingly all government services have been privatized, is hired to find the culprit. The primary idea here is the convergence of sexual politics and corporate greed.
Enjoyable

Transition Dreams (1993)
It's unclear how much, if any, of this is unreliable narration. Usually I'm at least indifferent to that, but in this case I didn't like it. If everything is accepted as presented in the story then this is about the dreams a consciousness has while being transferred from a biological body to an artificial body. Strangely, nothing interested me about it.
Meh

>>20421251
Silver Fire (1995)
This story has a lot of problems. Ostensibly it's about an epidemiologist tracking down how a new disease, Silver Fire, is spreading. Considering the effect that COVID has had globally with its infectious though relativity low death rate, the response to a global pandemic disease that kills 90% of those it infects within is rather muted. I don't know that I can suspend my disbelief as well with these sort of stories now. There's various other questionable parts, but the disease isn't what it's really about. Moral panic is common, though this isn't that. Instead, I'd call this scientific panic. The problem is that I don't think it was done well.
Meh

Reasons to be Cheerful (1997)
A story of emotional extremes and choices, both arbitrary and pragmatic. This was difficult and painful for me to read due to its subject matter and for personal reasons. I found it to be very meaningful, which may be why I was so emotionally affected. It's the kind of work that I would never recommend reading, but also wouldn't discourage. How applicable is any of the above to anyone else? I don't know. Based on the responses I saw from various people on multiple websites it seems to entirely depend on your personal experiences and outlook on life.
Unrated

Our Lady of Chernobyl (1994)
An investigator searches for a stolen religious icon. The courier had been murdered. His employer was irrationally desperate to have it retrieved. No one has any idea why the icon mattered and the employer refused to explain. It's a fine investigation story, though nothing about it was notable to me. The ending is somewhat melodramatic about religion.
Ok

The Planck Dive (1998)
A group of posthumans create copies of themselves to enter a black hole to examine the properties of spacetime at planck scale. It doesn't matter that the copies will die without being able to retrieve any information. All that matters is to have known. Also, Prospero and Cordelia, posthumans as well, arrive from Athens to ignore all the science and compose an epic. Most of the story is infodump discussion.
Ok

>>20421251
>>20421257
On a different note, whenever I've looked at his name, I felt like there was something I wasn't quite getting, and then a few minutes ago it finally came to me and it was so obvious that I don't know it took me so long to see it. That's just how it is sometimes though. Maybe I knew before but I forgot, it's a mystery.

The first two letters and last two of his first and last name spell his name again.
GR-- EG--
--EG --AN

I wonder if there's a word for that. I don't know if there would be many other choices either for a similar sort of name that uses existing names.

>>20421289
There's PROBABLY a term for that, English has a lot of weird terminology for odd things with words. Like I'm sure there's a word for "words with all their letters in alphabetical order".

>>20421158
>>protagonist gets [class]
>>general purpose damage skill, general purpose defense skill, general purpose movement skill, ranged skill, timed super form, costly super attack
Another reason why TWI is superior, each class gets [Skill] per level, two or even sometimes per three, and while some skills are more common that other, its dependent on achievments, actions and randomness. A [Warrior] is likely to get [Lesser Strength], [Fast Cut] or [Lesser Endurance], it is dependant on their actions, so at level 10 they might get [Fast Dodge] while another person might get [Sudden Charge]. Not one person has the same exact Skills. And the higher you go, the more unusual Skills get, up to strange poem combination Skills.

It might sound mundane, but it's everything but. Even a high level [Rower] can get Skills alowing them to sail through air. Not to mention class being able to combine, like [Mage] combining with [Rower] to some weird [Arcane Rower] who would cast spells thorugh their oars.

And the best part? Everything can be class, as long as the person genuinely sees it as something they are. It's best about non-combat classes, [Beggar] can get something like [Noticable Presence] to make people notice him when he begs on the street or [Lesser Cold Resistance] to survive in the winter, [Baker] can get [Crisp Bread]. I wish more LitRPGs attempted to use social/non-combat classes, most simply ignore society, focusing autisticaly only on combat.

>>20421359
I think those slice of life LitRPGs do that (I've considered looking at that Reincarnated As A Farmer one for just that reason) but they tend to get too bogged down by city-building bullshit instead of fun non-combat stuff.

>>20421289
Well, I came up with 10+ names using that method in a few minutes, so there's probably more than I thought.

>>20421311
Yeah, probably. That is how English is.

>>20421169
She was great in Predator

>Zac has 5000 total stats BEFORE his absolutely retarded efficiency multipliers at F rank
>story pretends anyone below D rank is even capable of fighting him
Ogras has less than 1k stats at level 75 and he's considered a pretty good F ranker. Even if he got 100 stats every single level up to 150 he'd have 8.5k total stats, which would actually be less than Zac's stats once adjusted for efficiency. His END is absolutely retarded yet everything hurts him anyway, his DEX should be considered top tier yet everyone keeps up with his speed and never misses him with attacks. Everyone pumps damage stats instead of durability yet he can't splatter his squishy enemies with a 2200 STR dao-enhanced shout. He's probably one of the only people that bothers to have a high WIS (purely on accident) and a mind defense skill on top of an abnormally strong soul due to the Splinter, yet his soul still gets casually instagibbed by an F ranked mentalist. Stats do literally nothing. Do all the litRPG authors do this shit?

Is "the magister trilogy" by C.S. Friedman similar to "cold fire trilogy"?

>>20421574
Stats are a mistake in 9 out 10 cases. I think only Delve actually approached the subject with genuine attempt to make them serious, and succeed. Can't recall any other litrpg where stats seriously mattered.

>>20420173
Short story anthologies by a single author have become my favorite fantasy books to read. I really have no idea how some anons can only read epic fantasy for years and years and nothing else.

bros I wonder what Greg Egan looks like

>>20420447
>>20420455
Based

>a few chapters later from the perspective of angus
>His tongue hurt as acutely as his zone implants allowed: it should have hurt much worse. He had shit and sweat ground into his blisters. Every inhalation stank; his whole mouth tasted like ash and excrement
Stay classy, Donaldson.

>>20420857
I fell for the meme and must say I'm actually enjoying it so far.

>>20422016
BOOBA

>>20421033
> not liking Murgen’s book of yellow fever

>>20421033
>>20421071
Gideon is book 1, Harrow is book 2.

Book one is a fun space necromancy locked room mystery. Book two’s framing device is try-hard bullshit but God, Mercy, and Augustine are fun. The author used to write Homestuck fanfic and it shows.

Bakker is King.

simple as.

>>20422173
Supreme

>>20420054
Truth be told, I had a weekend of boring shift work lined up so it was no harm to queue up something I could tune out to. And also I had just recently read a series worth reading where the earliest book that was ass. So writers can get better. Couple that with the quote attributed to every pulp writer ever that every writer has a million bad words in them and shrug why not.

Any good books you can all recommend me? I'm not much of a reader in the sense I don't read much; but when I find series/books I enjoy I can finish them very fast. I read all of the Three Body Problem books in just a few days. They were very good! I've also been reading Children Of Time which is good but hasn't fully griped me. I also read all of the Wheel Of Time last year.

Any good recs are good for me. I read them during my boring work hours when there's nothing going on.

>>20422248
The Gor series by John Norman. Make sure your female co-workers see you reading it.

>>20420857
I've been dragging my feet since finishing the Star Wars Darth Bane trilogy. However, I have been slowly reading through Phasma. I'm not a super fan of the writing style, but it is kind of fascinating so far. Phasma felt like the coolest character in the new Star Wars movies. It was a shame they tossed her in the trash compactor.

>>20422248
If you liked the hard sf aspect of TBP then Greg Egan's Quarantine. It's hard quantum sf done right.

>>20420987

>>20422285
What's the third book called? Master Bator? lol

>>20422307
That was a good one anon, keep it up.

>>20422120
That's fine. The problem is when it becomes Murgen's book of retelling things from the last book.

>>20422210
>every writer has a million bad words in them
fuck. shit. cunt. I have to come up with a million of these? Umm... balls.

>>20422350
No not those bad words.
>After I got out of the service, I really worked, for the first time in my life. Really. Eighty-hour weeks. I turned out 800,000 unsalable words in four months.
And everything after that was gold. If you think you're a shit writer, read John D MacDonald now to see what a writer who cures himself of sucking can become.

>>20420857
Citadel of the Autarch and will move on to Urth of the New Sun.

I desire more loli stories.

>>20422307
release in 2023

>>20420704
I just finished Conan's Queen of the Black Coast and found it quite good. It was a much better experience than Tower of the Elephant which I felt was a little to boring in its setting. There was a good mixture of action, adventure, and character even with it being a short story. I especially liked the last confrontation which got me really pumped up, definitely a worthwhile read that only took about an hour for me.

>>20422798
Is that the one ending with a battle with monkey monsters on top of a pyramid in the jungle? That one is great.

>>20422798
my favorite conans are the ones where he's already king desu like black colossus

Wtf mance is still alive and it was all a glamour?
The fuck is this fantasy bullshit

is there any good adult fantasy for me to read
something like lord of the rings with war and politics and different races of people intermingling, but preferably with more gore and sex and racism and gratuitous detail about burning down towns

scifi is ok too

>>20420704
bloodborne isnt a book, its a videogame you illiterate manchild

>>20422979
Hey theres no need to be mean

>>20420704
Just finished pic related and really loved it. How do y'all feel about Blake Crouch? Dark Matter was pretty good but fell apart near the middle but this book kept the pace and kept the reader guessing

>trans Toren chapter
Based
But I hope it doesn't end up like that catgirl arc in Everyone Loves Large Chests

I need to stop clicking on random posts for the quick reply window

Have you guys ever read fantasy or sci fi that deals with religion on its own terms rather than deriding it or outright making apology for it? I'd be very interested to read it.

Bakker is Greg Sadler approved

>>20423273
The Chalion series by Bujold. The Penric novellas, set in the same universe also deal heavily with it.

>>20422937
>dude cries and screams like a bitch and denies being Mance as hes getting burned alive
>thinking that's remotely in character for Mance
No shit he's alive anon

>>20423359
I read it as him denying he was a king and going mad
Idk i think it was a bit more ambiguous than as you say

Tear this apart

>>20423342
Can I read the Penric novellas without reading the Chalion books? I want to read all of it but I found nice editions of the Penric collections for cheapish.

>>20423415
it isn't worth slogging thru just to tear it apart

>>20423427
Yeah the Penric novellas are set in a different region, and a different time period to the primary trilogy. They supplemwnt the trilogy but aren't dorectly connected.

Just read lord of light

>>20423466
I started rereading his short stories chronologically

A little over halfway through this book. The good so far:
>Tharok's chapters
The bad so far:
>Tharok's chapters and everything else.
Tharok is a badass orc warrior guy, last of his clan, getting revenge on people who killed his family, promising to become the new orc warlord who will unite the clans and fuck the world. Unfortunately every other POV is in a completely different place and every time the story shifts to Tharok it feels like a different book. For that matter, you have one POV chapter then another in the same scene/location with the other characters and I honestly see no reason why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4E6MLbZvoI
GOD I JUST WANT A NERDY FANTASY READER GIRL WHO POSTS REVIEWS IN FRONT OF A SHELF OF GAUDY SCHLOCK AHHHHHH

>>20423588
you should talk to her

>>20423595
dont be gay, men dont talk

>>20423588
Why are people with speech impediments so drawn to posting on youtube?

>>20423597
you should dm her your dick with a drawing of legolas on it

>>20423595
I'm an ugly fat schizo who hasn't had sex in over a year.
>>20423609
Some people just get tongue tied, especially when you've been recording for over 30+ minutes (which I'm sure she did if it was a longish video). Lots of reader I've met aren't good speakers either.

>>20423621
if you don't do anything you'll never have a nerdy fantasy reader girl who posts reviews in front of a shelf of gaudy schlock.
do it anyway and then lose weight

>>20423588
I never thought I'd see my wife get posted to 4chan.

Did your dad ever get you into fantasy or science fiction? Mine got me to read Douglas Adams' and Iain M Banks' books, as well as watch Red Dwarf. I also began reading Eddings' Sparhawk books when I found one in my uncle's old room.
We ought to venerate the Greatest Gen/Silent Gen/Boomers/Gen X for carrying the fire.

>>20423676
my dad got me into Conan when i was younger, and after i read The Hobbit he showed me Lord of the Rings

When exactly does this take place?

There is ZERO discussion on the internet about time frame/years/dates which I find very curious given how old these books are, SOMEBODY should have asked this before now, and there isn't even a wiki for the series like there is with virtually all other sci fi book series which is also extremely curious because there is plenty of tech, locations and characters to autistically dissect.

Anyway it's written that the character Peter in the second book was in the Hitler Youth, so he must have been born in the late 1920s. We know humans don't live significantly longer despite Full Medical, so since Peter isn't more than 100 years old or so the series can't be taking place later than 2020 or so, Robinette probably started in the 2000s. But I don't know, it doesn't seem like your typical "in the year 1999 we will have flying cars and sentient machines" sci fi. Humans have intra-solar space cruisers, medical machines and MU/TH/UR-like ship AIs.

>>20407776
Alright. I finished Rhythm of War. And in those remaining 13 hours, nothing happened that I didn't expect to happen.
Kaladin's story ended exactly as it was heavily foreshadowed early on.
Shallan's story ended exactly as it was heavily foreshadowed early on.
Adolin's story ended exactly as it was heavily foreshadowed early on.
Navani's story ended exactly as it was heavily foreshadowed early on.
Venli's story remained boring.

What a let down. And I thought the series was going somewhere good. I'd grade the first book a C. The second a C+. The third a B. But Rhythm of War? D. Like always, Sanderson writes a logically and thematically coherent story. So I can't give him an F. But he SUCKS all joy from the story by overexplaining everything. Blah, blah, blahdity blah blah. The man can't help himself. Bloviating cuck.

Welp... that's it, Sandersonfags. I've tried the best he has. Or at least, the best you claimed he has. And in the end, I'm left disappointed. I am now firmly in the anti-Sanderson camp. You will never convince me to read anything from him again. And for anyone who wants to say "I told you so". No you didn't. You told me book 2 is worse than 1, and 3 is worse than 2. But you were wrong. The got progressively better, only to take a nose dive in book 4.

I calculated how much time this series stolenfrom me. The time YOU anons stolen from me. In all, it adds up to 8 days, 14 hours, 19 minutes, 28 seconds. I share in the blame however. Because I always make the mistake of affording others the benefit of the doubt. I always try to see the best in others. But I should know by now that some people simply have shit-ass tastes. Sanderson's books are for people who are so dull, that you need to BLUDGEON them over the head with exposition to make sure they follow. I can't believe I allowed myself to give him so many chances.

>>20423618
my dick is probably closer to Gimli

>>20423850
I liked one and two, I think, but he kind of lost me at going to the other side lake/sea/river/(body of water) plot. It was pointless tedious and refused to actually go anywhere or explain anything, just to set up future novels, it felt like, never ended up picking third book.

Is mistborn worth reading? I actually symphatise with sanderson's take on magic and his world building isn't exactly awful, I just find the story/plot lacking and characters forgettable, as in I practically forgot most every character in the novels and those few I remember are barely memorable because of a few events relevant to the plot.

>>20423888
I didn't get far into mistborn, because the first few chapters were laughably cheesy.

>>20423850
Stormlight gets progressively worse and worse, and that's impressive considering the first book was Abercrombie-tier edgy teen shit.
It's still decent because he at least tries into lore and coherent magic system which you rarely see in western media.

>>20423481
Based Zelazny enjoyer

>>20423850
>The time YOU anons stolen from me.
WTF are you talking about? Anons constantly shit on Sanderson. Not only that, people repeatedly told you the series gets worse and worse as it went on.

>>20424014
Not that anon but a lot of the Sanderson hate on this board comes off as the "popular thing cringe/reddit/soi" brand of contrarianism, which makes it very easy to dismiss.
Personally I love Sanderson but it's understandable why his books aren't for everyone.

>>20423933
The whole trial with the honorspren could have been dealt with before the second half of the book. The idea that dead spren can recover is huge. And besides, it was already shown during the previous book. So we didn't need to draw that idea out any longer. We knew Maya was recovering. We knew she was going to be key to winning the trial. It wasn't a matter of what was going to happen, but how we got there. Well, how we got there was too damn slow. He should have done the trial in the first half, so that in the second half, we can actually see the process of recovery on their return trip to the physical world. They would have weeks of travel in Shadesmar. In those weeks, we could be learning more about Maya. Having her speak more, revealing secrets. We could have Shallan confront the deadeye cryptic spren over time. Coming to slowly realize who it is through prolonged exposure. Keeping in theme with Kaladin becoming involved in men's rehabilitation. Adolin facilitates spren rehabilitation.

Adolin GAVE strength to a spren. We could have learned more about that dynamic. This seemingly inverse relationship where man imbues spren. But no, Sanderson tucked that away. He doesn't want to write about that yet. So he holds it off until the next book. When it would have made THIS book more interesting.

And what about the honorspren civil conflict? Adolin and Shallan upset their whole society, and you'd think they're on the brink of fighting honorspren against honorspren. But no. Nothing happens. They don't break down into factions. They don't have a civil war. They just forget that a deadeye upset a belief they held for millennia. Sanderson ignores this. Perhaps saving it for next book.

>>20424014
I took the recommendation direction from /sffg/. Multiple anons told me "no, Way of Kings is the GOOD Sanderson novel"

>>20424059
And more would have said Sanderson is shit. You have no one to blame but yourself. Especially since most say Stormlight gets worse as it goes on and you seemingly didn't even like WoK.

>>20424055
>but a lot of the Sanderson hate on this board comes off as the "popular thing cringe/reddit/soi" brand of contrarianism
it really doesn't. if you don't understand the criticism you're literally a dimwit who is excited about marvel movies. except in this case they're massive doorstoppers instead of 2h movies

I liked Mistborn era 1 with a lot of caveats. I couldn't even get started reading Way of Kings.

>>20424069
>it really doesn't.
Not him. It does. People who haven't read a book can only rely on comparing reviews to judge, and 4chan being 4chan it's easy to assume someone is shitting on the book just to be contrarian, to troll or cause they are a shitter. Honestly it's not Sanderson problem, or even fault of any one anon it's a 4chan problem. And the only thing that can save you is relying on yourself and sources outside of 4chan to know when to quit, or not even start.

>>20424073
How so? I've been thinking about picking Mistborn up, as I said in >>20423888 I'm worried about quality of characters and plot in sanderson's works, is it any better than stormlight in that regard?

>>20424065
If I didn't read everything that a handful of anons told me were bad, then I wouldn't read most things. Just about every book on here has fans and critics alike. The only book in this thread that doesn't have critics is ________. Fill that blank for me.

Stormlight doesn't get worse. The book you fags said was the worst, book 3, was the best of the lot.
I graded WoK a C. Why do you interpret that as me not liking it? Was I *ecstatic* about it? No. But I found it interesting enough to finish it and give the second book a chance.

>>20424088
>is it any better than stormlight in that regard?
It's worse.

>>20424088
>and 4chan being 4chan it's easy to assume someone is shitting on the book just to be contrarian, to troll or cause they are a shitter
what the fuck does this even mean? the books are not good. there's almost nothing good to say about them. why do you think that equates to every criticism of it being invalid? fucking retard

>>20424073
I read the first Mistborn book and I enjoyed it

>>20424090
Sanderson is shat on far more than anyone else in these threads. It's not comparable to any other author.
Considering you wrote up a whole rant bitching about how bad Sanderson is and that you wasted your time, it seems obvious that you disliked the books.
Also, don't blame other anons for your garbage taste. Saying OB is better than WoK or WoR is laughable. And look at that, because of your poor taste you were tricked into reading RoW.

>>20424116
Sanderson and his consequences have been a disaster for the fantasy genre

>>20424116
Nooo.... Sanderson is *talked* about more than anyone in these threads. You're confusing scale with proportion.

>Saying OB is better than WoK or WoR is laughable
It takes a Sandersonfag's mentality to shift blame on me for daring to try and dislike his work. All the while stating that his worse material is his best material.

>>20424132
I'm saying it's ridiculous to blame anons for you trying to read his work when anons had repeatedly told you it's bad.

>>20424145
Yes, I heard you make that retarded statement the first time. Maybe if you repeat it, then it will begin to make sense.

>>20424161
And yet I have to repeat it because you seem to be unable to grasp the very simple statement and instead you argue against strawmen.

>>20420857
The Godfather, then I'll read Long Sun, The Elder Scrolls novels and some sci-fi named Armor..

>>20424169
You don't have to repeat anything. If you were smarter, then you'd understand that 1/10 is equal to 10/100.

>>20423850
If i stole your time how come i don't have more time? Hmm? Mind explaining that to me?

>>20424181
Well it certainly seems you need me to do so. And no, you "scale and proportion" argument is faulty. Sure, Sanderson is talked about fairly often. But it's almost all talking about how bad it is. So even proportionally, he's shat on far more than others.

>>20424193
>But it's almost all talking about how bad it is
No it's not. You're simply wrong there. Many people here claim to be fans and enjoy is work.

>>20424193
Oh and btw, even if you could somehow back me into a corner and force me to agree that Sanderson gets proportionately greater criticism than others, I still wouldn't accept blame. Because I don't care much about majority opinions in the first place. I can't imagine what my life would be like if I just went along with whatever the group majority stated. That's some real NPC shit.

>responds twice to the same post
>"I won't accept blame!"
Typical 2016+ newfag.

My polite drive-by on Sanderson: He can sweep you up in a sense of pace quite well, but I can't enjoy his RPG splatbook exposition and magic systems and his execrable dialogue. His dialogue is the worst, it's so stilted and unnatural -- clearly affected and informed by his Mormon sensibilities. His are the kind of works where if someone is stabbed or shot they're more like to say fiddle dee dee than fuck.

>>20424323
>Indirectly replies passive aggressively.
That's that 2020 newfaggotry. You're one step away from being a soijack poster

Just finished Warrior-Prophet, gentlemen. Thinking of reading some Tad Williams as an anon a few threads ago was saying Dragonbone Chair was good - how's the whole trilogy. Never read Williams before - QRD on his style?

>>20423888
mistborn era 2 is better than era 1, in era 1, there are sections that are basically teen romance in character interaction and most importantly in the writing style.

>>20424059
>Well, how we got there was too damn slow
There's no such thing as "too slow" when it comes to writing.

>>20424116
>Sanderson is shat on far more than anyone else in these threads

What do you think are the consequences of Humanism (usually of an atheist variety) being bound up with science fiction for a long time, especially in its Golden Age? I wouldn't say it is inherently atheistic but it is usually an important component of some sci fi authors' worldviews.

>>20424498
I think Atheists rule supreme, and christians rage and scream, rage so hard they blow steam, cause they can't compete even in a dream.

Someone give me ideas for novels to change and rewrite halfway through. I'm good at and have fun mimicking people's styles but the only two authors I've done this with are ones I'm very familiar with. Give me some books and give me a plot point or motivation to change part-way through them. I'll post them here, and also upload them to piracy sites as the original for fun.

>>20424073
I really enjoyed the Mistborn trilogy in high school when I hadn't read a book in five years, it got me back into reading. I had a nice image of Sanderson in my head so I picked up Way of Kings and it was very poorly done, dropped it three times until I finally just gave up. Tried to read Mistborn again and now that I'm older, I realize it's written specifically for the edgy high schooler who doesn't read crowd. It's like Dune, but it doesn't retain enough depth of concept and finesse of prose to keep an older audience reading.

>>20424088
I'd say try it. The characters in Mistborn at least have likable traits, unlike Stormlight. I read almost half (500 pages) of Way of Kings and none of the characters were anything more than bundles of insufferability. That said, do temper your expectations knowing that it's definitely aimed at a juvenile market, if you're not into that.

>>20424415
people dont hate rothfuss for his writing though, they hate him cus he's a libtard

>>20424632
>they hate him cus he's a libtard
and his writing sucks

>>20424632
>people dont hate rothfuss for his writing though
I_have_known_her_longer.jpg

>>20424088
Mistborn Era 1 starts strong and gets worse, Era 2 starts strong and stays about the same. I'd say of his Cosmere series, Era 2 is at least his most consistent. His actual best story is Emperor's Soul, anyway.

>>20424632
his writing is also trash though

>>20424632

>>20424705
Wtf is this shit? This has nothing to do with fantasy

>>20424712
what do you mean, that's an acclaimed bestseller fantasy book

>>20424712
it's cuckfuss' cuckolding fantasy

I'm gonna "work from home" and just read sci-fi all day.

>>20424705
Rothfuss really is a supreme-tier Reddit gold gentleman. Shame cause I still enjoy the series

>>20425020
He is so reddit he became based

DotF has a system that's cool on premise but on practice it's like a bunch of empty promises because the whole thing is story-driven. There's no adventure to capitalize on the multiverse and the system is just used to deliver unga axe faggotry. It's a bunch of smoke and mirrors and blueballing disguised as progression litRPG.

Is there progression litRPG where the system is actually done well, the abilities are complex in execution, and both are interesting enough to be the main point instead of a plot? Or is the genre just too new to have much of a standard?

>>20425038
9/10 litrpgs and xianxias give the protag some manner of "cheat" for the system

>>20425038
I struggle to think of a truly standout example because my favourite LitRPG is almost deliberately not very innovative because it's not 'real' (Dungeon Crawler Carl I'm talking here), and the abilities are more just set-dressing.

What was the deal with that ending? It seemed like everything was fairly tied up until that afterword part, which made the whole series seem like riding the subway loop the whole way around but less terrifying. Also did it ever elaborate on what happened to the people on Auk's lander aside from that one scene with Chenille that kinda implies theyre all killed by vampires and amazons

>>20425038
Lord of the mysteries has a very unique system.

>>20425066
Sadly anything more than that is extremely difficult. Like it or not, the vast majority of new fiction is built pretty much entirely from old ideas with some innovations. Something that completely replaces old archetypes while still being substantial would take years of work.

>>20421364
>>20421359
>>20421158
in RPGs mechanics like stats were only supposed to convey the rising power and abilities of the playable characters, LitRPG has this shit backward and instead of telling a good story they make a game of the book.

>>20422905
The translation might have only been edgy to try to attract more readers, but it really is an accurate descriptor of this mad minister and the values he preaches. Calling it Daoist Gu would have flown over the heads of western readers.

>>20425151
I didn't mean to say that it was a bad thing, my own webnovel does the exact same thing (insofar as the system being mostly superficial and narrative-driven), but I at least have the excuse of any "system" just being a result of people trying to understand and codify the deeper esoteric mechanics of the world.

>>20425166
That mindset has been obsolete for decades. Builds and stats ARE the draw of RPGs. Modern RPGs are murderhobo engineering games, and litRPG has the exact opposite problem. There is no building or engineering, it just replaces finding the holy sword that vanquishes the big bad with finding a +5 steel sword and an EXP potion. Exact same shit, different coat of paint.

>>20425180
I've seen a couple LitRPGs like that, where it's not really an innate system of the world, it's more just magic bullshit people spread around to classify some of the more esoteric nonsense of the magic of their world. It's an interesting approach, but it is kind of a distinction without a difference. I think the most interesting kind for me is one where only one character has it, and it's basically just an interfacing tool for a whole-ass magic system.

>>20425038
>>20425066
>>20425151
Been thinking about this lately, personally I think MC being unique, or even special, is not that big an issue. The biggest issue is when the "gold finger" is not made part of the world but rather stands aside from it and feels tacked on. Novel I'm reading is pretty entertaining and well written enough for CN Cultivation (My Wife Is A General Who Killed Tens Of Thousands On The Battlefield) but out of the 80 or so chapters so far the biggest waste was focused on his special ability. Still it's relatively harmless in terms of story impact and just allows more comedic tone rather than standard cultivation routine.

This being said I actually prefer when novels make special abilities or unique characteristics of the MC part of the world, I think they are far more interesting and less offensive that way. To give you a few examples: Against the gods have obscenely OP MC, tho he faces many things that put him to near death he is non the less absurd in terms of power compared to his level. But this is explained as he has the most unique inheritance in the entire novel. The work got other problems but it got that one right. Another interesting example is another CN WN I recently dropped because I couldn't tolerate it's pace and habit of treading paddling water, but his abilities are explored and most of them are related to the origin and the on that's considered most outstanding initially isn't even unique. On more Litrpg side I've shilled scorched (RR WN) before and I'll do so again because that one makes actual sense of the "System" MC special abilities, role in it, etc. Sure as with any story power, abilities etc are gonna be used for the story, but the question I think is more what, if anything, it contributes to the story, is it a crutch? pointless filler? worldbuilding? " "hard" rules for power? Ultimately I think that's more important than whether mc is on the level with others.

Other examples of decent system use in Litrpgs - Edge Cases, Book of the Dead (might also be case wit Chrysalys, author's other work, haven't read myself), Soul of the Warrior, Runesmith, Again from scratch, could suggest more but this should at least get you some options.

>>20425217
What's good about those other ones, out of curiosity? I don't think I've even heard of any of them.

>>20425187
LitRPG leans more toward tabletop probably because the tabletop community is much more involved with fantasy reading than video game players are. Also emulating video game progression is simply too hard for an author, player, or a DM to do, which is why wargames have never truly evolved in the way that strategy and action RPGs have, and why single-player tabletop pretty much doesn't exist. I don't think a book that can emulate the same kind of experience diablo/MMO style power climb does is actually very feasible.

>>20425187
>Modern RPGs are murderhobo engineering games
Not really true, if anything 3.5 DnD and old Pathfinder go way more int engineering of murder hobos than most modern TT. If we are talking cRPGs I can hardly agree - most recent examples actually go out of the way to justify use of character sheets in dialogue/story telling. This is only really true about ARPGs, which always were that to begin with, so nothing changed. You could argue that there are more ARPGs but that really changes nothing because character build elements are now part and parcel of practically every game and in no way unique to RPGs or ARPGs. I guess you could call open world games RPGs? But really they are OW games, it's practically it's own genre with it's own conventions with something like Skyrim being a bridge between the two. IIRC skyrim still had some conversation skills tho paid little attention to them.

The mindset however is very much alive, otherwise we wouldn't be having this argument, it's just that ARPGs and OWG have greater mass appeal than cRPGs and TT.

I thought litrpg was a meme. someone pls explain its a meme this thread must be trolling or something no one actually read this garbage

Would you read it?

>>20425242
Have you actually read any or did you just dismiss the entire concept out of hand?

>>20425250
out of hand, the same way I dismissed anime, manga, webnovels, gamelit, litrpg, xianxia, cradle and everything else which is basically just pure shit

>>20425242
it's real and popular

>>20425242
It depends on what you look for in books. If you don't care at all about prose quality and are only in it for silly fun, you'll probably enjoy them. If you have a higher quality filter for things, you'll hate them.

>>20425260
>If you have a higher quality filter for things, you'll hate them
This

>>20425247
it'd be like reading a collection of post it notes and thinking what a wonderful novel it was
would be a schizophrenic experience but might be enjoyable

>>20425267
So the Silmarillion?

>>20425247
probably
the in-game storyline is so loose that writing an actual decent novel about one particular Tarnished
(or "playthrough") would be like throwing a hotdog down a hallway

>>20425256
Also included in the list are progressiveness, liberalism, sjw, tranny, gay, sex, porn, romance and women

Google: "traditionally published litrpg in west"
>0 results
I wonder why

>>20425274
not really, from soft games have their story cobbled together from item descriptions, environment details, enemy encounters, and minimal npc dialogue; much less established than Tolkein's notes

>>20425286
because western tradpub isn't a mainstream, it's a stagnant pool full of rotting corpses and incestuous hooknosed bottomfeeders

>>20425286
I mean that's just wrong. Dakota Krout's an author who runs Mountaindale Press, which is a publishing outlet for LitRPGs, among other things.

>>20425241
The mass appeal is kind of the point. ARPGs dominate the idea of an RPG now. Fromsoft games, Blizzard games, and Bethesda games are probably bigger than the entire cRPG genre individually. Hell, Underrail and Divinity: Original Sin are two of the most successful cRPGs recently and they're highly combat-centric. Sure they have a story, even bing bing wahoo has a story, but they're not the point like it is in litRPG.

>>20425234
Edge cases is about abusing the system bugs.

BotD has relatively minimalist system but it plays a great role, be it plot, antagonists, such as they are, and forces supporting MC all have practically direct ties to MC's situation in terms of system, tho system itself is widespread, MC's encounter(s) with it sets up the entire plot. Additionally author goes out of his way to make functional and obey it's own rules.

Soul of the warrior has a fun take on it, nothing special just decently well integrated with the world and MC's expiriences.

Runesmith is amusing because lot's of it is blatantly favouring MC, and sometimes cheesy, but it's intelligent and puts a lot of effort into making the system part of the world.

Again from Scratch is actually mostly about magic, not the system, which makes is interesting because system is a way of accessing the magic, and MC explores them both and how they interact.

On a side note, anon in >>20425194 said that he likes systems that only cover one guy, I'm practically exact opposite tho there are a couple novels like that I enjoy it's often despite their Litrpg elements. I say that because most of the above are example of universal systems, tho there's usually a bit of a difference in how they relate to regular people, special people, and MC. Edge cases is somewhat special because it's about people who are considered unusual to begin with in terms of their classes/abilities, tho they have the same system everyone does they are representatives of outliers within it.

>>20425286
A broken clock is right once a day, or something like that.

>>20425298
>indie publisher
>only publishes litrpg, cultivation, gamelit
just because they say they are a publisher doesnt mean they are a credible traditional publisher
I'd like to see their selling numbers

>>20425312
Fair point, I suppose. It's still not self-publishing.

>>20425312
Not him, but you'll need to start by defining what you consider a "credible traditional publisher" so that you aren't allowed to move more goal posts going forward.

>>20424357
It's about as generic a fantasy as you can imagine and the protag is such a fat annoying cunt you'll grow to hate him more and more as the book goes on. The writing is passable.

>>20425286
(((traditionally published)))
>>20425312
(((credible publisher)))

Unbased. Fuck nepotistic jew cartels.

>>20425323
this
only actual retards or those with contacts on the inside still cling onto tradpub

>>20424357
you just finished warrior-prophet and you are not automatically going for the thousandfold thought?

>>20425308
Considering I'm both of those replies I'm not TOO sure I'd be into those. I'm pretty tolerable of most LitRPGs, I'm generally into plot and character moreso, and if the system stuff can be used to further the characters or plot I'm down. I don't necessarily PREFER the one-guy-has-it approach, I just wanna see it done more, specifically where it's not a powerset in and of itself, it's just how the protagonist interfaces with the local magic.

>>20425330
Hey,
Basically I'm just not gonna read anything that's not on paper. I know.... UGH I know ..... I'm sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's just that I'm not gonna read it is allHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

>>20425330
I'll start reading self-published works once they decide to pay real, trained editors to polish their work.

>>20425342
...You know literally anyone can get their shit printed through Amazon yea?

>>20425323
Let me know when you see a litrpg book in your closest bookstore

>>20425348
No.

>>20425308
Ideally the system should apply to the whole world but it becomes a logistical nightmare, I suspect that it just ends up getting watered down into flavor for a traditional fantasy setting as a consequence. Protag-only system (or protag-centric system) lets you actually get exotic with the functions while letting the world just play by its own rules.

>>20425342
imagine not reading from a paperback book

>>20425352
>bookstore
Get a load of this boomer.

>>20425307
>ARPGs dominate the idea of an RPG now.
Not really, I understand there are people who don't consider them RPGs, I'm not really one of them, but to say they dominate the idea is not correct simply because most of them market themselves with their own terms, like open world, or ARPG. I can't speak to public consciousness, but there's a clear understanding on what RPG represents in the mind of most PC and TT hobbyists and while ostraciziation happens both ways I think most people here would agree that TT and cRPG are more close to the ideas of Role Pplaying than ARPGs and OW. Not to say there aren't those who disagree, but by that margin you can say it's always have been the case, lots of people play TTRPGs as TT games first RPGs distant second, so there's no change really in that regard, I think

>they're not the point like it is in litRPG.
This is a dubious argument, as by same logic one can say that TT games aren't about the story, after all most of the rules cover combat and not story telling. Similarly with old cRPGs like BG, you spend much, probably most, of your time fighting. Underrail's about world building afaik more so than anything, but has plenty story and dialogue. DOS1 has a threadbare story it's mostly a multiplayer game that verges on being ARPG, but even there it's more so by necessity and they went out of the way to make story the focus in DOS2.

>>20425347
I know right? In all the web novels I've read, I haven't seen a single black or gay person. Very unsettling that there's nobody pointing out their subconscious bigotry so they can correct it.

fuck I miss the days when all this litrpg and other shit was fringe, now every normal person went the fuck away and all we have left is something that can't be considered literature, worse than fanfic

>>20425373
We drove away our lord and savior. We must repent.

>>20425247
Yes, mainly because I don't play video games and am curious about what the big deal is with it.

>>20425373
Should have embraced cultivation. LitRPG is just cultivation but worse after all.

>>20425382
Truth shines.

>>20425384
Elden Ring doesn't really have storytelling. It's basically "all the plot has already happened and you're some random fuck here to clean up loose ends after the world broke".

>>20425372
Enjoy having misused words, misspelled words, run-on sentences, useless paragraphs and everything else that an unpolished work has which bloats it. And enjoy pretending that editors are the ones forcing authors to include shitty diversity in their works. Must be nice eating literal shit and knowingly lying to yourself.

>>20425402
I write a book myself, and being close to having the unedited draft 1 completed, I can really feel this. If I open up any scene I've written and have it checked by a professional proof reader the things gonna be more red than black.

Any Gnostic sci fi or fantasy? If not, I’m thinking of writing my own.

>>20425414
The Darkness That Comes Before

>>20425414
iron dragon's daughter
there is a faggot who will swear to infinity that it is not despite literal Not!Sophia at the end when Jane + dragon try to unmake everything

>>20425370
Genre terminology in games is tainted by marketing so they're almost meaningless. See also: "MOBA", and "Roguelike". The reason I say numbers over story is the case in video games is because, as you pointed out: All RPGs have some semblance of a story. If all of them have a story then story is unlikely to be the reason ARPGs and OW are extremely popular. It has to be something they have that tabletop does not, or does not do as well, such as: creatively systematized killing machines, or complete freedom of action at all times. You could technically argue they're more popular because they have better story than cRPG/tabletop, but I think even most devs and fans of those genres themselves would take issue with such a claim.

>>20425402
Little editing mistakes cannot even be compared to tranny and antiwhite shit that authors with an agenda include in their works

>>20425409
That's fine, I'm published and the important part is you actually send it out and get it improved instead of just assuming it's "good enough" and self-publishing it. Don't underestimate the importance of having a quality editor look things over. But also don't send it out until you've done constructive editing yourself, to make sure there aren't plotholes or inconsistencies. Developmental/constructive editors, unless freely provided in your contract, are a waste of money. Line editors and copy editors are the important ones.

>>20425336
>I'm generally into plot and character moreso
You'll be fine with most of them, I think. Runesmith is a bit simple in terms of story but it isn't bad, similarly the rest aren't literary masterpieces but I assure you as someone who didn't understand the appeal of Isekai/litrpgs to begin with and is still leery of the genre I wouldn't be reading those if they weren't at least decent in regards to actual storytelling. Furthermore most of those use it for storytelling, but as I said I'm kind of infatuated with scorched lately, so I reccomend you start there, despite the fact that I am not too fond of the MC, he is interesting and the novel itself is a breath of fresh air in terms of litRPG utiliation.

>how the protagonist interfaces with the local magic.
As I don't really understand the appeal of this I can't really recommend much to you other than novels I enjoy despite this being the case. All three that come to mind are CN WN with varying degrees of harem and of comedy. My Wife Is A General Who Killed Tens Of Thousands On The Battlefield, which I'm currently reading, Keyboard Immortal, which is ongoing and is similar in spirit, tho not execution to the first, and Little Tyrant Doesn’t Want to Meet with a Bad End, tho I warn you the latter's system is somewhat auxiliary and since it's been a while since I touched it I don't remember how involved it is with the world.

>>20425357
I, obviously, disagree. As I said examples above are a decent sample size of how it can apply to the world without it becoming a problem. Key thing to remember is that you don't actually have to write full char sheet of every being in the story to actually tell a good story, similar to how TT DMs often just throw together simplified versions for mooks and don't bother going into too much detail anywhere where it's not necessary. All you need is MC and maybe their closest companion(s) and even there you can minimise it. For example in scorched only (isekaied) heroes and local nobles get to even view a third of the local sytem screen as it's largely to do with destiny/divine/spirit. While other two thirds focus on mind and body and it's rude to even discuss your mind part with others not close to you. And so you end up with interesting set up where even if you go into detail on a character more often than not you only have to bother with 1/3 of the sheet and a few key plot relevant points in the other 2/3

>>20425402
Editing won't fix trash. I'll read unpolished gems by creative self-publishers over polished turds from low IQ industry zombies any day of the week.

>>20425414
Retribution Engine's magic/cultivation system are vaguely based on gnosticism and medieval alchemy, but it's still a swords-and-sorcery type affair. Yes I'm self-shilling, take it or leave it.

>>20425442
Yes, that is the way I'm going to do this.
>First, get the story through. I'm going to make a shit ton of mistakes and problems to the narrative that's fine, I'm going to fix them all later
>Second, edit narrative and character progression so its all fixed
>Third, probably some more editing
>Lastly, (probably not fourth yet), line editing
In the past 6 months my prose and voice has improved a lot so I'm going to have to rewrite most of the scenes
Thanks for the advise though. Looking to post a nearly finished book forward, of course professional editors will still have a field day with it

>>20425423
Ordered. Thank you! It looks interesting regardless… this general is probably the best on /lit/

>>20425450
Sounds interesting. Is it all novels, stories, etc? I’ll have a look because I’m interested in contemporary literature and fiction.

>>20425468
It's a WN
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/42627/retribution-engine-complete-see-synopsis-for-sequel
Finished, sequel began public serialization just last week.

>>20425462
It was an interesting book. Very /x/.

>>20425469
It seems odd to me to make a sequel to a serial novel that is posted under a different name. Doesn't it hurt discoverability and whatnot?

>>20422389
Urth of the New Sun will make your head explode.

Any litrpg or litrpg parodies where the points mean nothing and are clearly just arbitrarily pasted on top of a regular fantasy story because it's popular?

>>20425474
Potential new readers can get scared off by a huge backlog, and the first major arc slogged in a way that I'm very unhappy with (but don't have the time or willpower to go back and fix) so I decided to do something I'd wanted to do anyway: Write a story where the protagonist is already established, they're already a major threat to the established power structure. I've created an obvious reader proxy character in the form of an escapist young man who feels disenfranchised by the world and has fantasies about acting out, and I'll have him basically become a mini-Chad student for the Gigachadette MC.

>>20425430
>You could technically argue they're more popular because they have better story than cRPG/tabletop
I'm not sure anyone would argue that, most of their story is crap and emergent gameplay/story while interesting isn't exactly plot kind of story. Mostly people play them because they are easy on the brain and it's fun to see numbers go up once your brain is conditioned to that kind of stimulae.

The issue I take with your statements are two fold - you say that idea of RPGs changed to "not story but numbers" which I take an issue with because it's not really true - as mentioned before other ideas propped up, some more popular than traditional RPG formats like TT or cRPGs, but where I disagree is whit the change to "idea" itself because usually those games do not call themselves RPGs.

Second issue is the "change" thing. Murder hobos are a TT term after all, you could argue that murder hobo games are more popular than role playing, but honestly they always were their own thing, it's just that usually as a social thing TT forced the two to interact, nowdays they split of in their own camps and don't talk much to each other. See things like quests, litrpgs, TTRPGs, cRPGs, event OW and ARPGs are probably different demographics. It's more a fracturing of what it means to play games that have stats, you could say it's fracturing of RPG idea I suppose, but I think it's more a development of a new subset that uses RPG progression for it's own sake rather than story's and it often does under it's own banners for it's own purposes, rather than appealing to Role Playing fans. Besides TT is as popular as tits and it's still largely a social story telling affair, so those people can't be discounted.

"RPG elements" being used to refer to progression is the only area where it really overlaps and is recent, but I'm unconvinced that it changes meaning of RPG for most people, as its explicitly only referring to it's elements.

>>20420857
Finished
>A Game of Thrones (ASOIF book 1)
Reading
>A Clash of Kings (ASOIF book 2)
>Titus Alone (Gormenghast book 3)

>>20425491
many

>>20425498
Recommendations? The most obvious the writer's contempt for litrpg the better.

>>20425492
I suppose that makes sense. I've actually had a similar, though distinct idea in mind for some things I'm slowly working on writing (first story would be something of a formative historical moment for the setting and second story would be some hundred years later, with protagonists of first story being legendary figures who are still around in some way because reasons, effectively making them separate stories linked by a world and having a mentor character have a prequel story).

>>20425491
>>20425498
I actually can't think of any, even those that have it tacked on to appeal to popular ideas usually use it in story, so you can't really say it means nothing. CN WN comedies I mentioned earlier are somewhat like that. The first two actually use emotion and anger(troll) points instead of experience, and the latter pretty much forgets about it every now and then.

>>20425509
Almost none of the parodic ones are done out of contempt for the concept, as far as I can tell. They're mostly done just because the concept is a little inherently silly so you have to be kinda goofy to tell a story about it.

>>20425498
any parodies that are parodies for the sake of parody, parody in a way that its clear to everyone else that it is a parody but seems completely normal to those whose brains have already been fried by reading too much litrpg

>>20425520
Can't think of any, but here's a xianxia one
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/15193/ave-xia-rem-y

>>20425247
If George actually wrote the thing himself I would consider it. Let's not kid ourselves, he barely had anything to do with the story in the game. George has proved he can write top tier novels in isolation. His problem is that he can't finish his most popular series.

>>20425442
Can I ask where you are published or can you give some pointers about what kind of a publishing house it is? Did you make good money with the book deal?

>>20425451
Sounds like a good plan.
Me personally, my pattern is to hustle through the first draft. I change ideas and put in red herrings that never get capitalized upon and sometimes I forget a character needs closure, etc. But once it's done, it's very easy to go through and see things as one cohesive thing and work on it. First drafts can be anywhere between 30k-60k words.
Then second draft is essentially reading it from the start and fixing everything that's wrong with it. Whether it's removing things that I never ended up following through upon, removing characters that didn't actually need to be there, adding in chapters that I feel are necessary to keep the pacing, it all gets brought into something readable.
Then third draft is constructive editing, where I go through and make sure that characters are internally consistent and have a worthy ending, that the story rises and falls properly, that the prose is paced in a way which is conducive to the plot's progression speed.
Then beyond that is all quibble edits. Line editing, rewriting paragraphs I never liked, tweaking sentences throughout to increase flow, etc.

Also, advice for the far future, if you're anything like me or others I know and you end up having a storehouse of older works which have poor prose quality but an okay story; lock them away and don't let yourself work on them or look at them. They will hold you down and you'll dream about one day rewriting them into what you originally imagined, but never get around to it. You'll get inspiration for ideas and then mentally channel them into those works where they'll be wasted and never utilized properly. Only pull them out if you have strong inspiration and a solid framework of how you'll rewrite it. There's nothing worse than having several partially rewritten drafts of an old story and feeling you need to work on them instead of creating new works.

>>20425526
That's not even really a parody, that's just playing it straight and doing it right.

honestly doing Patreon shit is a more viable path to making real money off your work than trying to get pubbed

>>20425526
dont know what the difference is but thanks
>A Very Cliche Xianxia Harem Story!
>In a world where power is everything, Liu Jin only desires to become a great doctor like his father. However, destiny has no end of troubles stored for our hero. Powerful cultivators have their eyes on him. A nasty doctor is spreading rumors about his father. A burning man crosses his path, and his father's past may not be as simple as he suspected.
>The tale of the strongest doctor begins now!
I'm in tears

>>20425533
I mean, shit, how much is Shirtaloon making again?

>>20425526
AXR doesn't have contempt for cultivation, despite it's tongue in cheek name it's a genuine attempt at the genre, it's much closer to a love letter than it is to satire, even tho I find some of it's characters highly dubious including, and especially, MC and his father.

Jesus Christ, when I went to sleep, this thread was barely over 100 posts, why the fuck has it reached over 250 posts overnight.

>>20425533
My trad publishing experience had been iffy but it’s not about money. Also, places like Clarkesworld and Beneath Ceaseless Skies pay a lot per word in my opinion. You just have to be good at pumping out short stories to their taste.

>>20424123
The only problem I have with Sanderson is quality control. His books simply aren't consistent. There are some things he does better than any other fantasy writer, but then you have to read through a whole section that looks like no editor ever touched it.

>>20425541
dubious in what way?

>>20425526
this isn't a parody. but there are parodies for the genre on RR.

>>20425531
Personally, I don't know yet if I am an outliner or a pantser. This book I'm working on now is heavily outlined and I plan the book to be around 120k long. The first draft is going to be around 140k so there are lots of fluff I'm going to have to delete.
I have no older works, at least yet, anywhere but I have a couple of new book ideas but Im not even going to write one world of them until this first project is complete. Might try pantsering my next book.

>>20425548
>things he does better than any other fantasy writer
Like what? I'm not too hard on Sanderson, I think he's generally a pretty competent writer, even if I have my issues with him (pacing, generally) but I can't really think of anything he does better than any other writer. Maybe the magic system stuff but that just seems like a superficial thing so often.

>>20420865
Anyone reading it? Came out today.

>>20425552
Arguably Beware of Chicken is a parody, right? It's about a guy who sees all the xianxia nonsense going on and goes "Nope fuck that".

>>20425443
Maybe you've found exceptions but almost every universal system I've seen just ends up abstracting stuff you'd already expect to be the case in a regular fantasy anyway. Take for example a Bandit in a System: his class is [Bandit], he has a split skillset that includes better combat prowess than say a [Farmer], some roguery skills related to stealth/ambushing/thievery, and maybe some thing like [Intimidation] or [Danger Sense], but he's ultimately weaker than a pure combat class like [Knight]. Note that all the shit the bandit gets is actually just stuff a bandit would probably have anyway. This is because the author didn't think of "what would happen if a Bandit gained the abilities of a System" they thought "How do I represent a Bandit in the System". The latter turns the system into nothing but an abstraction of existing ideas, and so limits originality and complexity severely. The former however is INSANELY difficult to actually do in practice. Even a minor addition to the average base capabilities of every human being can have extremely massive implications if you actually thought about it, and becomes extremely complicated to integrate to the world believably, let alone an entire System that completely changes the mechanics of human progress. It's to the point that I can't help but call bullshit if the world in a system isn't extremely unusual in its functionality, something that cultivation attempts to achieve but still unfortunately falls short. It's simply too big of a task and I see no real workaround.

>>20425546
>why the fuck has it reached over 250 posts overnight.
People have no lives, so they just spend their time here.

>>20425469
I like your style and the first chapter felt very evocative and immersive. I’m not sure if I know a lot about Cultivation stuff though, so maybe I’m missing out on tropes or whatever. I was trying to get into the OG stuff from the 20th century but barely any of it is translated in English. Do you also read Asian fantasy generally? I dropped $160 on Journey to the West (Yu, revised) recently, which was indulgent but I have loved the books since I was a kid.

>>20425546
that's all me sorry

>>20425560
yes.
>Arrogant Young Master Template A Variation 4
this is another one i think, but i haven't read it.

>>20425546
Litrpg fags

>>20425178
The translation of the title*

>>20425572
Cultivation is at its core just "get stronger by gathering ambient power into yourself", but there's loads of variations on that and almost every story explains what you actually need to know about it.

>>20423676
Only indirectly. My father had my uncles old Conan novels stored away. I used to stare at the covers and imagine what was in the books. I eventually started reading them before I could fully understand them. That was it for me. I read tons of fantasy after that.

>>20425572
The first arc is very light on cultivation stuff up until the later parts, and even in the second arc it doesn't 100% revolve around it the way a "proper" xianxia would, even though the MC literally revives the main city-state's defunct sect. I have an entire side arc that's about one of the characters from the first arc (picrel) and Not!SnakePlissken in a mech suit liberating an occupied city, and it barely deals with anything cultivation.

I don't tend to read a great deal of asian fantasy, and I intentionally decided to do a western spin on cultivation with my own crackhead ideas.

>>20425552
>dubious in what way?
First and foremost I'd like to note that the problems with MC don't really have too much negative impact so far, and to an extent they do it's very tolerable and somewhat human. I'd recommend the novel to people interested in cultivation who might not want to read CN stuff, tho I think there others that do it better, at least in certain respects. (Savage divinity has a MC that constantly whines, "deals" with depression, and runs a zoo but it's great in other respects like world building and character interaction, assuming you can enjoy/tolerate it's MC. Heven's Laws: Prodigies is a more concise story with less meandering than either option.) To say anything specific is spoilers. I'll try to stay light in case anyone actually reads it, but here it is: Father is a self indulgent imbecile, who repeatedly makes bad decisions. Kid is better off in terms of his decision making in story, but in terms of his goals he seems
to be retarded and not understand the logic of the world he is describing and seems to have no solid understanding or even idea of how and why it works the way it wokrs and is simply wants it to be better, proving in the process that he learned all the wrong lessons from his biggest mistake.

I should note that I consider this more of an author problem, trying to stretch his own morals over an actually well described and designed cultivation world and failing at it. But he isn't actually bad with characters - the Master MC accepts later on is very well written and I like him, I even shed a few tears when he died.

>>20425538
Oh god its harem. Into the trash it goes.

>>20425630
Despite the name it's not actually harem (yet). Honestly the title seems just flat-out wrong. It's xianxia and that's about it.

>>20425528
I don't want to give the name, but it's a mid-size publisher in Colorado I'm located in PA and it publishes YASFF as well as more traditional SFF which is what I write, although my first was YA, because I figured it had a much better chance of being published.
Finished it by the method here >>20425531 and then googled "how to write a query letter" and spent a few days trying to write it and perfect it and then ended up paying someone online $30 to do it for me. Then I went to https://www.agentquery.com/ and found agents who seemed like they might be interested in the book. Then tweaked each of the query letters to suit each of them and sent out 20+ queries. Some of them require a synopsis or the first ten pages, so have both of those things ready. Also, have your entire novel in manuscript format before this. Either google it or use Scrivener, which has a compile feature which does it automatically.
No one wanted it, but I got plenty of responses which gave positive personalized advice and made me think it wasn't actually bad. Then I sent it to a bunch more and one requested the full manuscript. Then they said they were interested and wanted to talk to me on Skype to give me more details about the contract. Very awkward conversation because I'm NEET and there was a significant delay, but she gave the basics of it and sent me a pdf hardcopy.
It's apparently a good first contract, not great but not bad. I got around 6k for the advance and the initial sales were higher than they expected so my editor one day asked when I was going to write another book and I realized I now had an in.
Like I said, I'm a NEET so that's probably not good money, definitely not livable, but for a first book it's okay. If you have a question about anything specifically, feel free to ask.

>>20425637
Pretty sure it's technically Xuanhuan, kek. Tho that's largely a technicality and only relevant to those that care about distinguishing the sub types of cultivation novels. Xiaxia has fairly strict limits/rules and is more uptight in terms of stepping away from them, like specific set of cultivation levels, focus on sects, etc. I just call them cultivation novels but it's a distinction that becomes relevant if you ever go to look for CN works.

Debating whether I should start Wheel of Time or Malazan this summer

>>20425554
>Personally, I don't know yet if I am an outliner or a pantser.
You can be between, there's no hard rule. I'm a pantser, though once a story is done I do outline things to make sure it's cohesive.
>I'm not even going to write one word of them until this first project is complete
Smart and based. Try to focus on one thing until it's complete. Don't let projects build up and you'll be grateful down the line.

>>20425648
grats dude that's cool, helpful info too

>>20425648
You pretty much explained how I thought the querying process will go (having to prepare different types of materials for different agents). I'm not a NEET and I handle meetings quite well without any preparations. I use Scrivener for writing, its a very handy program to keep everything together and in order.
>No one wanted it, but I got plenty of responses which gave positive personalized advice and made me think it wasn't actually bad.
So they said they book isn't bad but it wasn't "their type"?

Are the Earthsea stories good? I couldn’t get into the anime movie but I heard it’s because that was a huge clusterfuck of the animator not giving a shit. And Ursula said it wasn’t anything like her books.

>>20425661
You could always try reading something that isn't memed by /sffg/.

>>20425661

>>20425694
No matter how many times you shill this piece of shit of a chart, it’s still terrible.

>>20425677
>So they said they book isn't bad but it wasn't "their type"?
Yeah, the verbage they always use is "not for me" but a couple said personalized things which sorta surprised me, like "Will is such a moving character, it's awesome how quickly you established his persona in just those two chapters" and things like that which gave me a surge of motivation. No one was named Will, that's a placeholder name for my main character.

>>20425697
This

>>20425681
I've been slowly reading more and more fantasy over the years, and finally want to tackle the big boys. Past two years its been First Law (meh), ASOIAF (damn good), Bas Lag (great).

>>20425648
You got only 6k for an entire book? No royalties or anything?

>>20425700
I always get those ones but there’s usually only one line of positive remark and then more about why it’s bad. I’ve been told it’s vivid in description, has good conceit, or admirable prose, but then there’s more lines about the fact it lacks character arc or personal emotions, as well as being too expository. But you sound like a very capable writer compared to my attempts if you get feedback like that! Well done. I hope you write long and prosper.

>>20425555
The "Sanderlanche" is commonly accepted as one of his strong points. His magic systems can be a little hit or miss, but I would argue that he's doing interesting things other writers aren't with his creative use of magic systems. His plotting is another commonly accepted strength. The connectivity between his books through a shared universe is not entirely unique, but few authors have achieved it on this kind of scale. I would add world building as a strength, but that's not a unique strength in this genre. I'm never going to argue that he's a better writer than "x" because I honestly believe his writing can sink to fan-fiction tier at times. His WoT books are an example of this. I'm not his number one fan, so I can't really argue with any degree of passion about him as a writer. I still haven't read his most recent Stormlight Archive book because the last one really disappointed me. Honestly I'm kind of hoping somebody can give me good reasons to read Rhythm of War.

>>20425678
The anime has barely any elements from the books beyond names. Just read the first one. It's not long.

>>20425711
You are given an advance and then you are given a number of sales you need to reach before you earn royalties on a book. My debut sold well, and over the past two years it has been steadily selling so I'm almost there, then I'll earn 9% of every copy of that book sold thereafter.

>>20425722
I've never gotten outright negative remarks, but we may be probing different agents in different markets. Same to you, friend, may your contracts be large and your passion for writing never die.

>>20425562
I think I understand what you are getting at now. I personally don't dislike when the system is just used to codify existing concepts without offering a major change to them, but it is indeed not terribly interesting or unique way to do it.

>I can't help but call bullshit if the world in a system isn't extremely unusual in its functionality, something that cultivation attempts to achieve but still unfortunately falls short
This is ultimately down to your willingness to suspend disbelief and author's ability to think through the implications and work out enough of it that you'd want to. It may well be that you will dislike every story of the sort because your requirements are so high but honestly it's not that different than challenges faced by good sci-fi, or even something pedestrian like standard magic - after all if there were indeed a class of people who are mages and are head and shoulder's above everyone in power the three most likely outcomes for them are enslavement, isolation and domination, and isolation is just an intermediary step between the other two. I've shilled scorched enough in this discussion, but another interesting thing it does is try to develop a culture, one and a half cultures actually, as one of them is mostly from backstory/flashbacks, around the system. Things like people with too little stats being left to die because environment is too harsh to care for them, traditions to make kids raise their stats even if it might result in injury or even death, people who aren't useless but can't contribute fully becoming slaves/servants/indentured labour to those that do, etc.

>>20425661
Wheel of Time is peak comfy, but the middle books can be a giant slog, so be prepared for that. You can really get lost in that world like no other though. It's peak comfy. I haven't completed Malazan yet. I'm on The Bonehunters. The first book is rough. Not going to lie. That said, Malazan is currently my fave fantasy series. The quality of the writing jumps dramatically after that first book and it's always surprising me. The characters are incredible. Also, raptors with swords for arms...

>sci fi magazine editor follows me on Twitter during the time I await my submission to be read
>It gets rejected for being too long
What did he mean by this?

>>20425784
You don't virtue signal enough

>>20425784
He meant that the story was too long.

>>20425728
I feel like the 'Sanderlanche' is a bad thing. It just means he puts off all actual resolutions until the end of a book.

>>20425818
Why’d he follow me though? I don’t want to be his friend.

>>20425826
Competent authors can have a proper climax without sacrificing everything from pacing to characterisation. Sando isn't one, however, but fortunately for the Mormon church, his audience wouldn't be considered literate in a developed country.

>>20425826
I really enjoy the last third of his books like no other books I've read. I don't think you're wrong about him putting off resolutions until the end. I have a high tolerance for this kind of thing, but his books do push my patience a little.

>>20420704
>>Discord
>Never going to be created.
Good. There's hope for this place after all.
Maybe.
Discord is a shitty, unintuitive platform whose only reason for existence is getting people to stay online longer. Same as Instagram. (With more to follow, no doubt). For people who just want to get online, get information, and get offline...these platforms are not your friends!

https://www.westeros.org/News/Entry/Fantasy_Recommendation_All_The_Seas_of_the_World

>In All the Seas of the World, Kay returns once more to his most frequently revisited alternate history setting, where the stories often touch upon the tensions between the followers of the three major religions: the Asharites (Muslims), the Jaddites (Christians) and the Kindath (Jews). I have not consciously reflected on this before, but when reading this book, I started thinking more about the choice of having these three religions be celestial, worshipping the stars, the sun and the two moons respectively. To me, it heightens the tragedy and futility inherent in religious conflicts that their objects of worship are essentially the same things, seen in the same sky, which is an obvious parallel to the Judeo-Christian deity shared by all three of our equivalent religions.

>While the shared universe connects this novel to several of Kay’s earlier works, it is with the two most recent books—Children of Earth and Sky and A Brightness Long Ago—that it is most closely entwined, especially the latter, as it recounts the complicated, often-bloody history of conflict in something like the late 15th century as the growing power of the Asharites threatens (and eventually overwhelms) the great city of Sarantium and changes the entire balance of power around the Middle Sea. Note: this does not mean this is the last novel in a trilogy in the sense that you need to read the books in order, or even read all of them, as they tell standalone narratives ... but it is something of a thematic trilogy, revisiting the same milieu and some of the same characters and examining them in different ways.

[...]

>That said, the craft with which this tapestry is woven is exquisite on all levels, both when it comes to the current story and the threads picked up from previous novels. When Kay chooses to show a few short glimpses of what happens to a minor character, those glimpses are enough for you to care about their fate.

>>20425728
>Sanderlanche
Think his pacing, character and story are detrimental to his writing. Given that they are directly related to this concept I struggle to see why would anyone call them strength? Excitement from the climax/finale perhaps, as other anon said, but that's hardly worth damaging or outright ruining 2/3 of your book, or even your series as a whole. This putting off of answers and resolutions is why I dropped it at two books out of four.

>His magic systems can be a little hit or miss
Only touched Stromlight and it was mostly fine, I symphatise with his take on magic but it's not be all end all and explaining too much can come off as treating your readers as imbeciles.

>multiverse
This is even worse. Multiverses makes sense if you are a brilliant writer writing a magnum opus. Sanderson's not that bad, but to anyone who isn't a fan of his work this is just a waste of paper and more putting off/pushing out answers to questions people get when reading.

All in all I don't get why those two aspects are the ones you focus on as strengths. I think sanderson's appeal comes down to world building, especially how it interlaces the world's mechanisms and story, it's a pity that plots are weak and, for me, cosmere actively makes it worse as it's only good for those who intend to commit to him rather than being enjoy a world or a series on it's own merit.

>>20425861
The problem is when it feels like the hand of the author putting off the resolution. Like when a Stormlight Book's Part 3 ends on a cliffhanger for one POV, and then Part 4 has that POV completely absent and it's only resolved near the end of Part 5. It just means you practically forget about the urgency and what's revealed isn't even that clever most of the time.

>>20425866
discord is just an elaborate chatroom

>>20425970
I know for a fact that /lit/ chuds use Discord. It’s ogre for this board.

>>20425748
The thing with suspending belief is it's a means to an end, like a tacit agreement that the details are secondary to the narrative, which therefore necessitates you caring about the narrative. I simply don't care about some dude's self-actualization or saving the world anymore, I just want to see something exotic, and there's nothing exotic about seeing old archetypes, archaic narrative formulas, and historical social orders reflavored. It is indeed something very hard to execute to perfection though, suppose adult men simply had 50% more arm strength, it might completely change the way hunter-gatherers developed due to being able to kill a new type of small-medium game by throwing rocks harder or some shit, causing a massive butterfly effect on social development. That said it's not that authors should be expected to conceptualize the 'correct' social outcomes of every change, but they should respect the fact that things would definitely change, the world would be different, and the world wouldn't just be LotR with menus or whatever. At that point I'd be willing to suspend disbelief, because I'd be able to recognize and enjoy the attempt at novelty being made.

>>20425038
RI and LotM are both pretty much ENTIRELY about the system. The whole plot and all the character motivations tie into it, and every mystery or reveal is in some way connected to the functioning of the system.
And neither of them cheat either. There's powerful abilities that are unfair, but they're entirely coherent and have great narrative significance.
While neither is a litrpg, they're pretty much the ideal progression fantasy structure, and could easily be translated. Hell, some people complained about Fang Yuan constantly minmaxing his exact numeric amount of mana and funds throughout the first arc.
If you're interested in reading, or writing, litrpg, please read and steal the systems from those two books. Even staunch detractors agree the mechanics themselves are very well designed.

>>20425985
I already read RI and that's part of why I'm suffering. It's a genuinely revolutionary work.

>>20425985
I wish I could be so brazen as to steal them, but I'd want to put a twist on it precisely because those systems are so tied together with the story being told that nothing else would work.

>>20425761
Thanks for your honest answer anon. WoT it is then, I'm never comfy in the summer (hot weather isn't my deal) and maybe something lighter is need to escape the grimness of reality

>>20426048
Then in that case, create a unique system as the core of your story and build from there.

>>20425546
>Jesus Christ, when I went to sleep, this thread was barely over 100 posts, why the fuck has it reached over 250 posts overnight.
People don't sleep or they don't have any lives, there's no in-between.

>>20426048
They are very strongly tuned, but both could be adapted with enough alterations.
I think the main value is in stealing that concept itself, that the setting, plot, characters, and system are one inseparable whole. You can look at the basic functions of the system and see how it would inevitably lead to the setting, but realize that the authors probably did it the other way around. They came up with a rough idea for a setting and a system, and then ground the two of them against each other, using one to shape the other. Want a certain type of organization or conflict to be common? Alter the system to make it so. Want the system to have a certain specific function or feel? Alter the setting to make it natural.

It's a good lesson that we can actually talk about RI and LotM as if they have very similar systems, even though on the surface they're almost diametrically opposed in every way. It shows the flexibility you have when writing. For example, try to swap one setting's system for the other and note the glaring points of tension that prevent it from working. Then attempt to alter and remove those points so the story could still work as written. Then alter the story to more naturally flow from the altered system. Repeat that enough times and you've got a highly polished end result.
Now just do that, but with your own original ideas.

Does prose matter?

>thread is dead as fuck when it reaches the bump limit.
Shame it couldn’t be dead at night.

>>20425985
RI is magic system done right. Such tight integration with story, plot, worldbuilding, characters. And whats more, its basically a pokemon system, and when done right even pokemon system can be expanded, made complex and interesting

>>20426140
Barely

>>20426140
According to some people.

>>20426140
Nice prose is what really elevates a book.

>>20425481
in a good or bad way?

>>20426140
To me, it's the only thing that matters. I read books to read quality sentences and paragraphs. My barrier isn't too high fortunately, but I can't read most genre authors because their writing is so bad. There would be nothing lost in a film transition for most of them, so I'll just wait for their movies to inevitably come out. SFF usually has good prose, or did before the popularity of self-publishing seemingly destroyed standards.

>>20426140
>Does prose matter?
Not really, unless you're a pseud.

>>20426185
Do you really believe the quality of an author's finesse with a medium doesn't reflect upon the quality of that author's work?

>>20426140
Prose is mostly artificial quality.

>>20426201
No, because I'm reading genre fiction, so I already know I'm reading the bottom of the barrel.

>>20426201
It does, but above the basic minimum it adds very little.
To use a cooking metaphor, I'd rather eat a meal prepared with high quality ingredients by an average short order cook than eat literal garbage prepared by Gordon Ramsay.

In other words, it's multiplicative, not additive, so the most optimal usage of time and effort is to match the quality of the prose to the content.
If you're some sort of literary genius who has no difficulty writing excellent prose, then you'd wouldn't even ask this question as there's be no reason to even NOT have excellent prose.

>>20426237
>To use a cooking metaphor
Stopped reading here, and discarded your opinion entirely.

Reminder that shitRPG fags will downplay prose because prose in cultivation "books" is clearly bad.
Its a combination of so many things but anyone who has read a lot of books will recognize good and bad prose.
Good prose is simply well written text that accomplishes its task. Most bad prose comes from people not knowing how to use language to a desired outcome (not to just put words on the paper)
https://shutupheathcliff.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/what-makes-prose-good-or-bad/
https://www.aliventures.com/fix-bad-writing/

>>20426280
I've read a lot and I still have no idea what the fuck makes prose good or bad.

>>20426294
Stop replying to shitty bait you retard.

>>20426216
Fair, if I could, I'd ignore it too. My autism doesn't let me for most of it.

>>20426237
I mostly agree, but that's a poor metaphor because Ramsay is only notable as a food critic, not as an amazing chef. Like an editor, he knows about what makes a good dish, but that doesn't mean he can do it himself.

Example of bad prose:
>Any, ANY, page of a litRPG book
Example of good prose:
>Any, ANY, page of Prince of Nothing series

>>20426312
>My autism doesn't let me for most of it.
Then work on that since you're reading genre fiction

>>20426201
Not him, but I mostly agree. Good prose is like good line art. People appreciate clean lines, but they're more than happy with only the sketch. Spending time getting the perfect line weight on every curve is masturbatory. Artists appreciate it, but the viewer can't really tell the difference at best. At worst, you actually lose energy from what you're drawing in the clean but sterile lines. And besides, if you paint a good picture, then the lines aren't that important, as they get covered up by something more interesting and dynamic.

>>20426321
I often wonder if good prose is just not really noticeable or if I just don't care that much, because I find I care more about what's being written than how it's being written.

>>20426327
Sounds like you have autism. Take some meds.

If a book has atrocious prose I won't be able to read it, my head will start hurting. If I open any page of RI I know that anything I read has zero literary merit and continuing would be purely ironical.

>>20426327
I"m sorry to say you have autism

>>20426327
Actually autistic.

>>20426321
>Artists appreciate it
That's the difference. It's like how Sanderson has openly said that he stopped caring about how inspired his chapters were because the average reader can't tell it apart anyway. Other writers and editors can usually tell uninspired prose vs inspired prose apart from one another. He's smart as a business person by making that choice, but as someone who CAN tell when something is sentences cobbled together versus written in a frenzy of passion, I just can't read his stuff.

>>20426361
You’re not an artist, how can you even tell the difference. At this point, it just sounds like you want to elevate yourself due to some autistic artificial line.

>>20426369
>At this point, it just sounds like you want to elevate yourself due to some autistic artificial line.
Welcome to /lit/.

>I don't know what good prose is but your definition is probably wrong because I would know right?¨
The state of shitRPG fags

>>20426369
>>20426376
You don't necessarily need to be an artist in order to have discerning tastes. The thing that makes an artist and artist, is that they care enough to learn their craft. Anyone can become more knowledgeable on a subject, even if they don't practice it themselves.

A lot of people here shiting on DotF, but for a cultivation story it's bafflingly good and thought out, especially for a webnovel. It's not great when compared to stories as a whole, but in comaprison to chinese stuff? Literally the difference between Heaven and Earth. It's perfect one-chapter-every-5 P.M-everyday story. It doesn't have to be perfect, it has to be entertaining enough to have its 3k+ people pay 10$ a month on Patreon.

If you want to LARP in an rpg go play vidya.

>>20426419
>A lot of people here shiting on DotF
It's just one guy who repeats the shame shit about the bland MC over and over again.

>>20426369
I mean, I have several works published as mentioned a ways above and have been reading and writing for nearly thirty years. Your definition of artist is a bit off if you don't consider an author an artist. And I'm not elevating myself, it's a separate stance, not a superior one. Much like how Ramsay mentioned above will say something is garbage that most people would enjoy, he's actively attempting to find something wrong with it by being critical, whereas someone buying food at a restaurant is trying to directly consume/enjoy the food.
The food he dislikes is not actually garbage, it's just garbage if you've cooked thousands of burgers and eaten thousands more and have thought long and hard about burgers for decades to the point that it's not even about the burger itself, it's about the shadow on the wall of the burger which a burger should be aspiring towards.
Most readers don't actively see prose, they are being told a story and don't understand all of the methods the author is using. Much like me when I see a movie, I'm not thinking about how they're using special effects or the timing of scenes or anything like that, because I'm not a filmmaker. It's an entirely different set of expectations and interacting with a work.

>>20425661
Your should read wot never. Srsly.

>>20422281
Yeah. That's what one of my biggest annoyances with the Mickey Mouse Trilogy. They have a bunch of characters that look good on paper (Not Rei) and they do jack shit with them, at best only tell you they are supposed to be really badass, but you really see nothing of it on screen.

Finn for example. Starts as a side character who yells "Rei" and that's where his arc ends too. How does anything he do tell you he was an ex-stormtrooper? Tactics fighting? Nope. Prefers to use a rifle-style weapon? Nope. Sub-plot of him getting some other ex-stormtroopers to his side that he leads? AHHHAHHAHHAH! Yeah fucking right

>>20426426
>It's just one guy who repeats the shame shit about the bland MC over and over again.
Unironically suprises me, because compared to cardboard characters cultivation novels usually get Zac is pretty good, actually. He's just an average american guy who has to live in a cultivation multiverse, and fight day by day, everyday. He's not smart, but has talent for fighting and humility. He's nto some hero, but the author clearly doesn't want him to go murderhobo route, despite the character being known for being slaughter machine, a real monster for his power level.

As for the motivation, Zac has ALWAYS had one goal - family, his sister in particular, even if at some point he started caring for power itself (the story's self awarness of the genre is always a pleasant surprise, but the MC's internal monologue about long-living cultivators having to discover some serious motivation that makes them continue to cultivate through untold milions of years was particularly nice). Zac's motivation isn't GREAT, it's not some marvel of storytelling and honestly never seemed to aspire to be one, but it's SERVICABLE. For a story that pumps out six chapter a week it's enough, great even. The strength of DotF is its consistency, self-awarness, not taking itself too serious and damn good and broad cultivation world.

I previously said that I cannot frankly decide which is better, Cradle or Defiance of the Fall, and I still stand by that opinion. As far as Cultivation stories go, DotF mogs the opposition. It's on its 900 chapter right now and the recent arcs were more entertaining than ever, while other Cultivation stories like Ave Xia Rem Y do one good arc and then fall apart, not to even consider Chinese shitty novels that repeat the same arc over and over again with different names.

>>20426534
Look, anon, I haven't read DotF, all I know there's an anon who goes on a 20 to 30 post rants about Zac and how he isn't a character and how he's bland. I'll probably read it soon, but that's all I know.

>>20426426
>It's just one guy who repeats the shame shit about the bland MC over and over again.
wouldn’t have an issue with it if he didn’t do this every thread.

>>20426426
>>20426534
>>20426564
Hi, I'm the guy who calls Zac bland. I've generally acknowledged the series' strong points (worldbuilding, the cultivation insight stuff is neat and spiritualism, while not super my thing is at least a fun aspect to delve into), I've simply found it hard to continue to enjoy DotF due to being centered around a bland and also stagnant protagonist. Zac doesn't really change much as a person after defeating the demon incursion, and it feels like he should. There's flat characters that're good, and Zac just doesn't feel right at the point he's at, yet there's no sign of that ever really changing. Zac is an everyman, and that's fine to begin with, but the point of everyman characters getting dropped into the absurd is to see how they change when they're forced to change, in my opinion, whether it's something as simple as growing a hardened morality and becoming hyper-paranoid, or desperately clinging onto what makes you human, etc. Zac also stands out as lacking personality because the cast as a whole don't. He feels like a pure white-bread protagonist, nothing actually compelling to him as a character. And I'm sure he's better than carbon copy cultivation characters, but that doesn't really make him good. He's just bland in a different way. I might grab book 5 now it's come out (I don't really care to read the webnovel version I find), just to see how this tower shit ends, but I find myself hard-pressed to keep going. It's not so bad I wanna just drop it, for example, but it's also not so great I wanna keep going.

>>20426619
Look man, I lurk in these threads a lot and I post when stuff I know is being discussed.

>>20426661
I don’t mind if it’s just one posts, but when it’s five or ten post essentially repeating the same thing, it gets annoying.

>>20426658
>DotF due to being centered around a bland and also stagnant protagonist
Yes, we know, anon, since you keep repeating every chance you get.

>>20426669
Fair point. I don't think I repeated myself TOO often in a single thread (I admittedly don't have a whole lot to contribute to DotF discussion because it feels like there's surprisingly little to actually say about it, maybe it's just not as much my thing as it is >>20426534).

>>20426658
>I might grab book 5 now it's come out (I don't really care to read the webnovel version I find), just to see how this tower shit ends, but I find myself hard-pressed to keep going. It's not so bad I wanna just drop it, for example, but it's also not so great I wanna keep going.

Wait, you are a book reader? That might explain it, to me it feels Zac has changed somewhat thorought the story, albeit a bit subtly. He's no longer a reactive brute with an axe, but instead a calmer, careful person that plans and works towards his goal, while also not being a bad guy, but one that wouldn't balk at slaughtering arbitrary amount of not exactly bad people if he had to. Tower arcs ends what, around chapter 400? You are not even halfway through the story.

>>20426701
I mean it's a fair critique that my not reading the whole available story might lessen my opinion, but my opinion after reading the 4 books is largely what I've presented. And I suppose I should rectify, Zac HAS changed, he just hasn't changed after a point, that point being basically after establishing Port Atwood. It's admittedly not a high priority read for me right now, DotF, I'm currently reading through MoL (which feels like it took 2/3 of the story to do something that should've been done way, way earlier, but I do enjoy overall) and I'm probably gonna read something a bit less dense afterwards.

>>20426419
It's an okay cultivation (not a high bar) but a terrible litRPG. The characters are terrible but that's all cultivation, the powers are arbitrary but that's all cultivation, the story is railroaded and contrived as fuck but that's all cultivation. I've read better and worse cultivation stories than DotF, it's like the epitome of mediocre timesink fantasy.

>>20426534
Zac is superman but with his sister/earth instead of kryptonite. The dude's basically invincible so the author cynically invented an avenue of vulnerability in the form of sentimentality to leverage for tension. DotF uses the exact same formula as Against the Gods' Yun Che which is not considered a high standard within the genre at all. It's just soap opera in xianxia form. Hell both are muscle-head fighters and both innovate the system by forcing elements together so I have to wonder if the author just ripped off ATG intentionally.

Where's the Bakker chart?

>>20426768
Zac-disliker here, I do actually like how it's pointed out that nothing Zac is doing is REALLY unique, because how could it be, the multiverse is incomprehensibly vast. At best he's unique for being a progenitor doing it.

>>20426768
>characters are terrible but that's all cultivation,
this meme on 4chan boards really bothers me, I can't be arsed to explain myself but seriously people what kind of shit you are reading that you think that cultivation novels are on average any worse than webnovels on RR or genre fiction, or hell most other not critically acclaimed work, and much of that as well.

>>20426788
I assume it's the meme of terrible MTL xianxia cultivation novels that are borderline template-made stories about the exact same thing with slightly different names.

>>20426788
>what kind of shit you are reading that you think that cultivation novels are on average any worse than webnovels on RR or genre fiction
It's not necessarily worse on average. The problem is that Japan's the only country in the world anymore that knows how to write actually enjoyable characters.

>>20420723
I feel like the Bakkerspammer is Bakker himself. He's the kind of guy who'd do that

>>20426809
Unless you are talking about literature they don't translate or some books I don't cross paths with, japanese shit is just as shit as chinese or american one, just with different flavour. LN are not in fact better than cultivation stories and the fill more or less the same niche, similarly WN cover about the same range of quality, anime is more prone to making actually good ones stand out but that's about it, and even than they aren't guaranteed to keep quality. Personally as someone who enjoyed Re zero anime when it came out ark 5 is a downgrade and ark 7 is treading water. If you go to novel translate and check JP novels you will find that they are just as, if not more, formulaic as their american and Chinese counterparts. I suppose Japan stands out in that it has it's usual stereotypes, and another set of stereotypes, namely hentai, to go along with it, so it kind of stand out in that regard, but that's about it.

Maybe we are talking about different things, but I honestly don't get it, in terms of web fiction and other "light" formats it's more or less the same crap all over just censored in accordance with different standarts and procedures and following different sets of tropes and conventions.

>>20426783
Sure he's not the chosen one or anything, but his situation is pretty damn abnormal and he's insanely powerful mostly just dragged down from the fact that he happens to want to own a planet that happens to be a focal point for a ton of bullshit. It's distinctly the case that he could at pretty much any point just take a teleportation token away and enjoy a golden future wherever he goes, it's his self-assigned responsibilities that are binding him to the story.

>>20426823
It’s literally just one mentally ill guy who hates it whenever sffg has any sort of discussion. Be it from traditional publish books or web novels.

>>20426809
What are you talking about? When was the last time Japan actually produced literature. I hate xanxia but at least chinese are releasing regularly (even if most of it is garbage), Japan is not producing even garbage.

>>20426905
Hey, I liked Faraway Paladin, that had its latest book in uh... 2018. Ah shit.

>>20426905
>When was the last time Japan actually produced literature
Are you forgetting Mishima, Osamu Dazai, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa?

>>20426848
>LN are not in fact better than cultivation stories and the fill more or less the same niche
Very strange comparison. Cultivation is closer to DBZ than it is to most japanese fantasy. Even the 4 mainstream LNs that cameo in Isekai Quartet have a wider character spectrum than the vast majority of cultivation combined, and that's not getting into niche stories or manga-exclusive stuff like Dungeon Meshi, Ishuzoku Reviewers, and Isekai Oji-san. Japanese fantasy is insanely varied and if translating it wasn't such a pain in the ass there'd be little reason to read anything else.

>>20426905
I'm not sure if you're joking or not. Japan is constantly churning out LN garbage.

>>20426905
Just because you don't know any Japanese books doesn't mean they're not writing them. Just because novels aren't translated and marketed to an English market doesn't mean they don't exist.
There's even official light novel translation publishers popping up, which I've yet to see with Chinese works.
Web novel sites are filled to the brim with Japanese stuff, just not the Chinese ones that specialize in Chinese works, which I'm guessing is where you frequent.

>>20427060
>Web novel sites are filled to the brim with Japanese stuff, just not the Chinese ones that specialize in Chinese works, which I'm guessing is where you frequent.
what sites?

>>20427060
Webnovels are pretty popular in Korea, too, yeah? Only a few seem to have picked up any steam over here though (Solo Leveling for one, which... Is... Not good).

>>20425402
Westerner publishers would turn down the Tale of Genji as too problematic.

>>20427138
Is tales of genji fantasy?

>>20427167
It's literally the world's first novel ever written.

>>20427103
They are but they're almost as spiritually dead as western web novels.

>trying out Azarinth Healer
>protagonist gets her first 15 levels and 10 abilities by punching a wall in a cave
You fucking asshole low level fights are the best part.

>>20427179
I was double checking, it is not fantasy so it does not really apply to this duscussion.
There may be non fantasy non sci stuff released in Japan, I don't know but to scifi/fantasy readers those works don't count

>>20427228
>protagonist
>gets her
Stopped reading there.

>>20427242
I think the conversation went over your head.

>>20426162
Bad, initially, until you read an explanation. I love Gene Wolfe but holy hell. It's layered confusion. But once you understand what he did it will make you appreciate his genius even more.

>>20427249
She's supposed to be a fight maniac so I'll take what I can get.

>>20427274
You can ignore him, he does this shit every thread.

>>20427278
I'm cringing more at the fact that he's reading about characters levelling up like a video game rather than that butthurt fag who throws a fit every time he remembers women exist

>>20427278
He doesn't read, so he has to shit up the thread.

>>20427287
>I'm cringing
Okay reddit

>main character monologues constantly

>>20425741
Dude. You could make so much more money and reach so many more people just by posting your stuff free online. If you're competent enough to be published, you could do pretty well that route.

Write a book. Post a few chapters a week on Royal Road. Get fans/reviewers. Get 100% of patreon. Move it to amazon as a whole volume. get 70% of digital sales.

At this point, traditional publishing for genre fiction should be considered a scam.

>>20427292
There is nothing to read


Also make a new already

>>20427228
>Azarinth Healer
Is it good?

>>20425912
>Multiverses makes sense if you are a brilliant writer writing a magnum opus.
Multiverses are an artifact of comic book companies buying out their competitors and sloppily cramming together their IPs. They are shitty worldbuilding.

>>20427340
Not him, but from what I’ve read, it’s adequate for what it is. So there’s that.

>>20427318
I was thinking of doing this and then the reveal at the end or what the reader eventually figures out is that the story has been a play the whole time. It was going to be a prince and the pauper type plot which meant the main actor was going to have to play two roles, each disguised as the other, and it would end on the gag of everyone forgetting which character he's supposed to be and his lines and so on and the whole thing falling apart.

>>20427352
Sounds terrible and you should kill yourself for even thinking it was a good idea.

>>20427352
Would rather watch a play.

Psot 399

Make new thread now

>>20427346
What does adequate even mean?

>>20427352
Sounds like it could be a fun short story.

new thread
>>20427398

>>20427402
Page 10, right on time.

>>20427340
it's fun. i'd describe it as a guilty pleasure.

>>20427321
He said how important the editing process with line editors was... Maybe he doesn't care about money either and wants legitimacy.

>>20427228
>>20427340
>You fucking asshole low level fights are the best part.

Azarinth Healer starts when the MC goes to the caves near the city. Until then it's barely readable, and that's with a rewrite that the early chapters had gotten at some point. Then Illea, the main character, starts fighting for real and the story shows its claws.

By the way, Azarinth Healer may be the most fascinating webnovel ever written. It's bad. Like, writing is genuinely bad, and the world-building for the first few hundred chapters is not just uninspired, but not even original as the author shamelessly inserted things from popular games without restrain (straight up adding Dwemer's lost civilization from Elder Scrolls, with only the name changed, probably the most shameless thing I've ever seen).

And you know what? It's the most purely enjoyable webnovel I've read. Royalroad's darling, one of the most successful stories on Patreon, with 3.750 patrons at its peak, most paying 15$. The amount of raw, unpolished joy this power progression story gives is staggering. No other story has such a good balance of LitRPG numbers, actions and progress. This webnovel is the definition of 'Guilty Pleasure.' I drop webnovels left and right for any offense, but AH I've been reading for years. To make it funnier, the author hasn't improved a lot, the writing still reads kinda horrible.

But the story? It's pure adventure. Like a singleplayer Open World RPG game, but as a story. Any aspiring writer should study Azarinth Healer to discover how to write something that succeeds in spite of all its flaws solely due to how damn FUN it is.

By the way, the irony of the most juicy popcorn power fantasy LitRPG having a Female Main Character is hilarious beyond belief. I remember having mad amount of respect years ago for the author when he wrote the character having sex with a MAN. It might sound silly, but a lead female character having straight (well, Illea is bisexual, but whatever) sex is a big no-no, people literally can't bear it and drop webnovels over it, even curse the authors. That's why every lead is male or at most female lesbian.

>>20426055
>to escape the grimness of reality
That's what WoT was for me when I finally completed it. I have a sleep disorder and it was really fucking with me that year. Those books gave me something to do when every day and night felt like an eternity. Hope you're able to lose yourself in those books like I was.

>>20427042
Interspecies Reviewers has light novels that have been officially published into English.

>>20427688
>putting your fantasy race brothel tour series into a non-visual medium
Why though

>>20426131
That's true. One of the big themes in RI is tied in with its system, that being FY's pursuit of eternal life. That's a joke in the average cultivation system where you can sneeze and hit an immortal who's already several centuries old, but there, having 500 years of experience is considered a huge accomplishment that gives him all sorts of advantages.