/lit/ - Literature

Alright. Today I am feeling productive and think its time I allow people to suggest changes to the chart. I have also thought that because the chart only allows, at the moment, only six book covers per tile, I'll have an additional picture (a list) for books that did not make it to the chart but will be listed there with the accompanying classification (e.g. The Emperor's Soul - B2).
Please, if you suggest a book to be added to the chart, please suggest also which book to be removed from the said tile (to make space if the tile is full) or which book to be moved to another tile. I shall weigh opinions based on the reasoning given.
As I look at the chart now, I see there are some changes I would myself do and those are the following:
>Move "The Worm Ouroboros" from A2 to A5 based on its archaic language.
>Move Lord of the Rings from A3 to A2.
>Swap "A Song of Ice and Fire" with Frankenstein (A2, and A3)
>Swap Piranesi (C1) with Narnia (B1), or even take Narnia out of the chart and move it to the appendix list.

This war arc really sucks.

>>20810431
also move based parker out of 1D which is a ridiculous position made by someone who got filtered

>>20810444
Move out from D1, so remove from the chart? Okay. (You didn't propose an alternative)

>>20810446
better than leaving it in. i'd probably replace it with one of his more popular works, like the engineer trilogy (first book is called devices & desires). i position it in A2 or B2 but those look full.

Why is Prince of Nothing and Malazan above stuff like Dying Earth and Dhalgren?

>>20810549
the whole list is memes

>>20810431
I would move The Silmarillion right a spot (based on reading people's opinions of it online, a lot of people who have read LOTR seem to find it "too difficult" so it should be to the right of it somewhere)
Some suggestions to fill in blocks with empty spaces:
1S: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
1S: 1984 by George Orwell
1A: The Princess Bride
2A: The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
5S: The Iliad and The Odyssey
5A: Jerusalem by Alan Moore
5B: Last Dragon by J. M. McDermott
5B: Vellum by Hal Duncan

>>20810549
It's because The Dying Earth and Dhalgren aren't very good.

>>20810431
>he actually moved Lyonesse
I kneel.

>>20810431
Dying Earth needs to go up to at least A.

>>20810549
Shitposting aside, Prince of Nothing is a solid series. Better than Dying Earth at least. Haven't read the other two.

Is it good? Is it comfy?

>>20809902
>>20809875
>>20809859
>>20809788
Are you joking? Christianity is already xiaxia, just avoid the shitty boring modern interpretations and look into the gnostics and other "heresies". There's boatloads of "man becomes god" and even "man is superior to god" stuff in various sects. Hell, even catholics have summoning demons and angels and immortal saints with magical powers. Plus all those people trying to hunt down the spear of destiny, Jesus' fingerbones, the holy grail, etc...
You've got loads of magical artefects, powerful drugs, cultivation systems, quests for immortality, monsters, magic, etc...
Like do you not know all the Alchemists where christians?

>>20810759
That's all heretical, not Christian

>>20810768
Christianity itself is a heresy, there's no non-heretical sect in existence.

>>20810759
Magical items are/have been considered to be part of the main Christian/Catholic wordview in ancient and medieval times. The bones of saints, the spear of destiny, and of course the holy grail.

It's understood that magic is possible by learning the names of devils, writing down things to summon them, etc. the standard evil warlock stuff. You bargain with a demon and it grants you magic as part of the deal. Somehow God was okay with this when King Solomon did it but for everyone else it's banned.

You can also pray to God, to Jesus, to saints, or angels. But this is not you actually invoking magic of any kind, instead this is just sending out a letter and hoping one of those entities intercedes on your behalf.

>There's boatloads of "man becomes god" and even "man is superior to god" stuff in various sects
Things like these have always been strictly heretical however in every branch of Christianity that can be considered biblical/mainstream.

Wherever whores go...

I really liked the first book in the Frontlines series.
I want to know, do the following books give it a nice overarching story or is it all completely episodic and kind of disposable?

>>20810847
Personally I think the series turns to shit. Right-wing types tried to use Terms of Enlistment as some sort of rallying cry and because the author wanted to continue being a published author he denounced it all and made a quick left turn.

Nevermind the outside politics though, the series turns into a war against ayys where first the incompetent bumbling politicians in power who want to save themselves have to be put in their place and then he needs to team up with a gay russian to save the little guy (because he's actually NOT a sociopath like the text has led you to believe for several books. All he cares about is the common civillian he was massacring without a second glance in the first book and thinks about how if everyone on earth died he wouldn't care in the second).

>>20810864
His girlfriend doesn't even get a first name until like the 3rd or 4th book (which the author lampshades by her saying she doesn't like it).

>>20810864
Do you have a recommendation for a superior milscif series about fighting ayys? Maybe something that is being overlooked?

>>20810899
Steel World obviously! I only read a few chapters

Just finished The Way of Kings.
Why all the hate? It's fucking great.
Bridge 4 storyline is an absolute kino.

For hands of gold are always cold, but a woman's hands are warm

Safehand handjob. Think about it, bros.

>>20810921
Problem is not the first book but the rest of the series.

>>20810981
No it's not.
All the books have their low points but they are still all pretty good.

The NPC-like hate of Sanderson is just as bad as the fake praise of bakker being something amazing

They are both good authors

>>20811019
shut up tranny

>>20810921
>I've read 1/4 of all material in <series>
>ummmm why do people hate it??????

>>20811030
Sorry, less than 1/4th* considering he hasn't touched the novellas

>>20811024
Nice NPC response kike

>>20811037
>>20811024
false dichotomy

>>20810921
First two books are really enjoyable. Last two have some boring stuff and it's almost always related to >w*men

Women are filth.

>>20810921
>Just finished The Way of Kings.
>Why all the hate? It's fucking great.
>Bridge 4 storyline is an absolute kino.
The first two books are decent Fantasy, but the series is this age's 'normie's first fantasy' so it's been run into the ground by retards drooling over how 'amazing' it is. Even Redditors are annoyed by now. The series is good only for the first two books anyway, then it goes to shit, by which I mean: quality plummets, characters are repeating themselves and acting weird, no more good action, it becomes a snoorfest drama full of unintelligent people. Enjoy the second book, then stop reading at that if you want good memories.

It's not suprising only the first two books are good, Brando Sando spent 10+ years polishing them, rewriting them a few times. But he never had the opportunity to do that with the newer ones.

>>20811106
>It's not suprising only the first two books are good, Brando Sando spent 10+ years polishing them, rewriting them a few times
That was only tWoK.

>>20811113
I still find it funny how Vasher/Zahel as a character got made for Way of Kings first (he was gonna be a pretty big part of it initially), being an otherworldly guy, and then Sanderson was like "You know what, I wanna write this guy's book" and made Warbreaker. You can't fault the guy's work ethic at least. His quality is all over the place (I don't think it's necessarily his recent stuff is bad as much as Stormlight is suffering from overplanning and overdoing).

>>20811113
>That was only tWoK.
As if he wouldn't do some work on the second one, whether in writing or the outline. The second one obviously benefited. But the further it goes the worse it becomes as seen by the reception of the fourth book.

>>20811125
No I can't fault his work ethic but I will never not be upset about Nightblood (the sequel) being postponed for around FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS now, along with the two Elantris sequels.
The Cosmere will never be completed.
>>20811130
I agree. I'm sure he brainstormed the hell out of the direct sequel and it occupied quite an amount of time in his head.
On a related note, has anybody ITT read tWoK alpha?

Fuck Bakker and fuck Sanderson!

>>20810411
Do you ever read letters of SF/F authors? I'm starting to want to understand the inner workings better.

I didn't get an answer last thread because people got hung up over pedantic distinctions between "furry" and "anthro", but I'd like to know if anybody is aware of books with cynocephaloi in them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynocephaly

Ideally, this would exclude conventional werewolf stories or any fiction that is explicitly sexual in nature. To broaden the possible selection, I'd be open to it being other animals than just dog-headed people, but I'd prefer to have regular humans around as well, at least in an ancillary capacity, and for the story not to be scifi, because scifi stories with anthropomorphic animals tend to excuse it away by making them aliens or mutants.

>>20811277
>>>>/wsr/

>>20811310
I'm not looking for pictures you idiot I'm asking for fantasy book recommendations in the thread specifically dedicated to fantasy book recommendations

>>20811316
Worksafe Requests covers novels and literature, you numpty. Do you use 4chan often?

>>20810431
I think this is difficult to categorise on an absolute basis because it depends what level you are approaching it. For example the Hobbit and LOTR are very easy to understand... unless you are reading Beowulf and are cross-referencing every time Tolkien has plagiarised some Anglo Saxon phrases or poems from it.

Bakker is sort of deep unless you have actually read the Epic Of Gilgamesh Nilnamesh lol, huge amounts of classical literature, Zhuangzi, Islamic Literature, and all those other philosophers he cites like Adorno or aphorisms from Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Then you realise, he is just sort of rearranging their words though in fairly clever ways. Gormenghast is long but quite easy to understand, except Titus Alone (have not read it).

Also, I strongly believe Beowulf should be on this list (can use just the Seamus Heaney translation). Beowulf underpins a lot of the works here for instance... Flay Swelter battle in Gormenghast echoes it etc. Beowulf is literally where Tolkien probably took the word Orc from etc. It does not make sense to have Morte d'Arthur (have not read this, but I know Memory Sorrow and Thorn by Tad Williams inspired by it) if you do not have Beowulf which literally invents the dragon and monster boss battle, the word orc, and is the linguistic inspiration for Tolkien.

>>20811321
>Do you use 4chan often?
Often enough to remember back when thread nannies didn't try sending on-topic posts to other boards because they'd rather fight and whine over irrelevant bullshit

>>20810431
Swap Sanderson with Jordan.

>>20811277
There a lot of stories with non-human, antrophomorphic species. Mostly they are called 'Demihumans' or 'Beastkin.' The Wandering Inn mentioned a lot here, I remember it had a lot of species like that. Other than that - just try normal fantasy that isn't going by the cliches like elfs or dwarfs, many authors use humanoid animals, I.e Redwall series.

>>20811146
Bakker fucks, sandi sucks

Simple as.

>>20811019
No, not really. Oathbringer is just bad. Rhythm of war was trash.

>>20810921
Of course you like it. You're an anime fag with shit taste. I bet you read litrpgs too.

>>20811420
both belong in the bottom tier

>>20811420
This to be quite honest. Jordan is trash, even worse than Sando.

>>20810431
Would probably move sanderson to the right. Way of kings is a terribly boring book to get through with chapters of characters picking flowers.

>>20810431
I know art is subjective and all that. But there are some opinions that are so batshit insane, that it completely invalidates one's credibility. And that's putting Lyonesse in S tier.

Can you give me any series that's as autistic about wands and staffs in its magic?

A new Halo book just came out. Why do i keep torturing myself by continuing to read this series which has gone to shit.

>>20811563
Explain how they have gone to shit. Also, aren't you a bit old to play them video games?

>>20811586
It whent to shit after ''Ghosts of onyx'' and microsoft started picking up new shit authors to write it instead. Also i played the games when i was like 10-12 years old. I dont really play the new games, just read the lore.

>>20811555
straight phallic shapes < curved phallic shapes

simple as.

>>20811546
Where else would you put it? I’ve been thinking about maybe reading it.

>>20811586
Congrats on being the same as outerlit. You've now graduated from this thread.

>>20811421
I heard Redwall suggested last thread, but isn't that series exclusively anthropomorphic animals? Like Disney's Robin Hood, or Ducktales? I'm talking about stories where humans exist alongside anthro animals

>Just why Mr. Frodo was selling his beautiful hole was even more debatable than the price
tolkiensisters what did he mean by this

>>20811586
it went to shit 15 years ago when they killed off Johnson and Miranda

>>20811748
Nothing wrong with selling your hole.

>>20810431
Assassin's Apprentice for 1S

Not having ASoIaF in S is just contrarianism.

>>20811748
Then Aragorn took the stone and pinned the brooch upon his breast, and those who saw him wondered;

***

`I have often wondered what you and Bilbo were doing, so close in his little room,' said Merry. 'Bless the old hobbit! I love him more than ever. I hope we get a chance of telling him about it! '

There was a dark and blackened bruise on Frodo's right side and breast.

***
Last of all Merry and Pippin said good-bye to the old Ent, and he grew gayer as he looked at them.

>>20811748
Is it true that the Took genealogy comes from Tolkien's own investigation into his name (Tolk- etc?)

>>20810431
Sanderson should be moved 1 up

>>20811897
no it's an entirely different etymology, the names "Frodo Baggins", "Samwise Gamgee", "Meriadoc Brandybuck", and "Peregrin Took" are in fact attempts at translating or transliterating Tolkien's own fictional languages back into English.
Frodo's real name is Maura Labingi
Sam's real name is Banazîr Galpsi
Merry's real name is Kalimac Brandagamba
Pippin's real name is Razanur Tûk
That is what they called themselves, but Tolkien in the literary conceit of "translator" of the Red Book rendered those names he conceived into a more relatable idiom.

>>20811826
I think it's great but I don't think it belongs in 1, especially the first book is hard to get into. 2 or 3 imo.

>>20811955
>>20810431
Chart maker supreme should move it 1 down

It feels like playing a game of chess with an invisible opponent moving invisible pieces. IT should be interesting but it's not as you don't ever really know if you stopped moving because you won or because your opponen has you in checknate.
While asking important questions is what i like about science fiction at least you must be able to give an answer to them. I can forgive if you don't. What i can not forgive is regurgitating the same questions and plot elements of the last 50 pages of the last book (foundation's edge) without moving the understanding of the characters forward. If the plot won't develop i would like to get some resolution for the characters at least.

>>20811955
You wish sandyfag

>TWI 7.03
>Bird in pallas:
>“I see. But if I am in trouble, that is okay. Because I know how to get out of trouble. Ksmvr taught me. He said it always works in his experience.”
scariest line i've read in my life lmao. how cheeky.

>>20811277
The War With No Name series by Robert Repino. Ive only read the novella of the series Culdesac but it was quite good.
Also Beasts by John Crowley.

Both are scifi but best I can do.

>>20812206
wait i take it back, not cheeky at all, he actually sait it.

>>20811981
2 makes sense. I think the writing is very simple, would almost be YA tier if it wasn't so beautiful, but it does get pretty esoteric and does build kind of slow, so I can see it not really being a 1.

>>20811964
wow, I am awestruck by your Tolkien lore, truly impressed. Did not know this at all. Is this more advanced than say taking Gilgamesh and calling it, Nilnamesh, or Carathay or Axum / Zeum

>>20812257
In fact anons, just answer this question:
What is the best fantasy name?
Best ever.
(It must be the best.)

>>20812264
Eragon. A lot of philological effort and etymological investigation went into it

Can you name a more original idea than having catstronauts fight cosmic psychokinetic dragons to protect humans during their criogenic space travel?

>>20811654
For me personally, it was unreadable.

Incidentally, I'm looking for something else to read. If anyone here has a recommendation. I already searched the word "recommend" in the last 8 archived threads, and didn't find anything. It feels like the /sffg/ well is dried up. Is there anything more for me here?

Like before: No sailing or pirate books. And some half decent characters, as I tend to lose focus during action scenes.
My entire reading history so far https://pastebin.com/PmrhN48u

>>20810431
>Move "The Worm Ouroboros" from A2 to A5 based on its archaic language.
People have been saying that since the beginning. Good for you for finally reading it.

Mentioning litrpgs and sanderson should be a bannable offense.

>>20811826
>Assassin's Apprentice for 1S
Literally a 5 for all the autists and psychopaths in this thread.

>>20812019
I read this one a long time ago. If I remember correctly it had a lot more action (do they shoot some aliens or radioactive dogs or something?) but it is inferior to Foundation's Edge. The best Asimov Foundation stories are the intellectual ones where the protagonist fights with ingenuity or clever stratagems. I think the Mule and Ebling Mis story is actually one of the best

>>20812019
also Asimov groped a lot of women. Maybe it was the 60s. You can sort of see it from the character descriptions if you read Foundation's Edge carefully

>>20812404
Excellent post.

>>20812404
The ways of sandi are long gone and those who identify with his ways should be terminated.

Best(s) novels on Royalroad?
I read Mother of Learning and Paranoid Mage and I liked them.

>>20812206
I'd comment on that, but there's some further stuff that strongly colors my opinion on Bird.
Do tell me when you finish the barrage of interlude chapters that you will soon reach.

>>20812519
- A Journey of Black and Read
- Dungeon Crawler Carl
- The Perfect Run
- Vainqueur The Dragon
- Never Die Twice
- Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends
- Beware Of Chicken
- Worth the Candle
- This Used To Be About Dungeons

(The Wandering Inn also used to be on RR, but the author removed it over a year ago to have more control over the story)

>>20812592
A small correction, Infinite Realm and Beware of Chicken are mostly removed from RR and sold on Amazon these days.

>>20812629
Same for DCC.

>>20812519
ave xia rem y. it's probably the best western xianxia.

azarinth healer and beneath the dragoneye moons, but those are definitely guilty pleasure litrpgs.

>>20812645
azarinth healer
I couldn't get past the 1st chapter. I don't like how the guy wrote the dynamic between dad and daughter and while it could get better I don't want to suffer through it.

>>20812645
Negative recommendation for Ave Xia Rem Y, or at least an important information for you - the story managed to avoid some of the common xianxia pitfalls and tired cliches in the first part of the story, but it seems the author didn't know what to do later on and it all fizzled out into a typical xianxia story (although better than average). I'm not caught up at the moment, but last I read it became pretty boring.

As for Azarinth Healer, it is reaaaaaally trashy. AH is a platonic ideal of a guilty pleasure LitRPG. It's kinda dumb, horribly written most of the time (in terms of technical writing) and most characters are cardboard. It's a Skyrim of literature; shallow popcorn read that nonetheless remains incredibly entertaining.

Beneath The Dragoneye Moons...is popular, yet many people (including myself) couldn't get into it. Childish story, annoying MC and morals, it's one of those 'not for everyone' novels.

>>20812696
>I couldn't get past the 1st chapter. I don't like how the guy wrote the dynamic between dad and daughter and while it could get better I don't want to suffer through it.
I think you mistake Azarinth Healer with Ar'Kendrithyst, Anon. Not recommending Ar'kend btw, it's pretty boring.

>>20812705
I did mistake it... I'll look into it but first I'll check all the entries from the other anon and see if anything strikes my fancy

Why does /sffg/ neglect classic scifi?

>>20812725
Because we are living in the world they predicted. Why read fiction when it's just real life? Same reason you don't read new scifi, because it's just current society on a space ship or some political intrigue shit.

>>20812725
non-supreme

Why is Bakker the best living fantasy author?

>>20812812
Because the other good ones are already dead.

Is the Bridge trilogy as good as the Sprawl trilogy?
Neuromancer is one of my favourite books.

>>20812812
Because his genetics were meant for this, he is descended from a line of medieval bakers who baked for the nobility and mingled with them, they heard their epic stories of adventure and they inherited their noble seed and golden hair, all this led to him being the best of the best.

>>20812890
Have standards please

Read cradle.

>introduce characters
>introduce plot details and conflict
>and then they set out on an adventure
Any way to avoid this meme?

>>20813024
non-adventure books

>>20813024
sure
>set out on an adventure
>introduce plot details and conflict
>introduce characters
for example

>>20813024
Yes, write books for a few years, be over 25, think a lot about the world. Then you are ready to write something that isn't shallow or derivative.

I'm on an edgy phase, nihilistic thoughts fill my mind. Anons, give me your Edgy and Grimdark recommendations. Only the best stuff. I'd especially appreciate writers over 30 years old, ones that have achieved more complexity in their thoughts than me.

>>20813024
Nope. As humans we only think about three things: 1, meeting people. 2, going somewhere. 3, building some shit.(craftwork and cultivation fall under the "building shit" umbrella)

You can arrange these elements in a pleasing way, but you can't avoid them.

>>20813062
Think blue, count short story is pretty edgy to me

>>20813062
Assuming you aren’t baiting, the answer is Bakker.

>>20813062
The Second Apocalypse.

>>20813062
i like demon chains
it's the second in a trilogy but you don't necessarily need to read the first to understand
tl;dr not!batman + friends chase down dude going around raping other dudes and boys with the help of his demon thrall

>>20812592
Remember when Everybody Loves Large Chests could have been included in that list?
How the mighty have fallen

>>20813070
You Bakker fans need to contact the guy, and tell him to contact his publisher, and tell THEM to re-record the audiobook for The Darkness That Comes Before. It's very important they hire someone actually competent.

I know Travis Baldree's people keep an eye on our thread. Someone has to be proactive about this. Get it done.

>>20813090
How did it fall off the list? Because the author isn't pumping out empty word salads like Wandering Inn? The zoom zoom readers attention span can't wait?

>>20810910
Sounds based, gonna download it right away!

>>20813126
The story became noticeably aimless and the litRPG elements became a joke (plus the ginormous power creep issues)
I never really finished it, completely lost interest past a certain bullshit point that I don't recall and just dropped it, but I guess I'm glad it got some closure?

>>20813067
>>20813070
>>20813077
I read this general all the time, don't recommend me Bakker who I see shilled 24/7. Give me something that I haven't heard of.

>>20813081
Thanks for the recommendation, but I don't want something violent, I want edginess in thought, ideas and concepts, not explicit violence (although that's not a problem if it comes with other content)

>>20813126
>How did it fall off the list? Because the author isn't pumping out empty word salads like Wandering Inn? The zoom zoom readers attention span can't wait?
Because ELLC is an utter shit, it relies on edginess and constant rapes for plot. Literally the worst popular story to ever grace Royalroad. No wonder the story was quickly forgotten once it end, and the author has struggled ever since to write anything with even a tenth of popularity ELLC had.

>>20810431
Piranesi should definitely be higher. Some dumb incel probably just got filtered by fEmAlE AuThOr

>>20811964
Yeah Tolkien was a little weird and insane in that way. Their names are all 'appropriate localisations' so to speak. Like Kalimac sort of means joyful or something, hence Merry.

>>20812592
Is DCC even on Royal Road anymore? It's just a published series now. Some are partially on RR still as they're being sold on Amazon, but DCC isn't even continuing as a webnovel unlike those.

>>20813062
Gap series.

>>20813210
Yeah, it's the second story after TWI to basically ditch Royalroad. Not surprising, what can the site offer them? DCC is already spreading by mouth word everywhere, shilled on every site people read. Royalroad could have be so much more, cut out patreon and offer chapters behind a paywall. Gigantic financial potential. But they just don't. I don't get it. Such a waste.

>>20813171
>it relies on edginess and constant rapes for plot
How do I know you are a female (or feminine man) without you stating that you area female?

How the fuck did this meme even start that Sanderson is good at wordlbuilding? Like 80% of his stories' settings are just magic systems, 10% is dnd style backstory for characters, and the remainder is always some hackneyed mystery box style devastation or disaster that conveniently left no records or anything and somehow everyone forgot everything. It's some of the most shallow worldbuilding ever. There's like no real history, culture or political dimensions to any of it. There's more well thought out worldbuilding in a random Discworld book than there are in several of his lengthy "epics", like SLA. Was it just the mormon propaganda machine spooling up into overdrive?

>>20813234
Well, haven't Defiance of the Fall and He Who Fights With Monsters also ditched Royal Road? DCC is just the only one I know of that made the switchover from serial webnovel to book-based.

>>20813241
Saying Discworld's worldbuilding is good like it's surprising or minimal is kind of not exactly setting a low bar. Discworld was sort of a consistently growing world and every book builds on every prior book in some way.

>>20813112
“Bakker fans”
lmao it’s one guy memeing who gets banned every 3 days, he has no real fans outside of family members

>>20813252
I doubt nobody likes him but he's hardly as popular as the spammers make it seem. I wonder why get this attached to him of all authors.

>>20813231
First concrete recommendation, thanks.

>>20813246
>Well, haven't Defiance of the Fall and He Who Fights With Monsters also ditched Royal Road?
No. Neither of them stoped posting on RR, only removed the earlier parts of the story due to Amazon's rules for posting self-published stuff. They are both going strong as webnovels.

>>20813287
I thought one of them wasn't on RR and had moved to its own website, maybe I was mistaken. I don't keep up too much with either, they both lost my interest.

>>20812385
Well, you guys leave me no choice. I will have to venture off to google, and invariably reddit in order to get recommendations. Eh, I'll try goodreads first.

>>20813294
You love Wheel of Time and got filtered by Lyonesse. What can anyone say to you?

>>20813298
You can say "I'm a dumb edgelord who thinks I'm reading high art, because "le dark fairytales are dark'"

>>20813024
>>introduce characters
>>introduce plot details and conflict
>>and then the main character alone sets out on an adventure

>>20813302
>le

>>20813306
Yes, I said it. I normally don't like to play the reddit card. But lauding fairy tales for being dark is right up there with jerking off over biblically accurate angels. You like the *idea* of Lyonesse for not pulling its punches. But the actual content is trash.

>>20813315
People don't laud Lyonesse for being dark they laud it for its language and clever storytelling.

>>20813320
>and clever storytelling
BWAHAHAHAHA. Info dumps to fill in the gaps of it's sparse narrative. And entirely too quickly paced plot. Jumping from event to event. Nobody can genuinely say they're in it for the story telling.

>>20813327
Yes, it's qualities are lost on you. Weren't you headed over to Goodreads?

>>20813334
I can multitask, old man. I imagine you're in your late 40s or 50s. Because Only someone who is old enough to be nostalgic for Lyoneese would consider it good. Let's see, the release date is 1983. Yep. I can imagine some 12 year old reading that back in the day and really thinking it's magical, because they don't yet have better books to read.

>>20813345
Like the Wheel of Time?

>>20813154
I dont know who Baker is

>>20813359
Look, I'm not going to pretend like Wheel of Time is without faults. It has some major ones. Everyone agrees pacing is a huge issue in the middle. And that the beginning is very derivative, and blah-blah. We heard it all before. But the faults WoT has are counterbalanced by much more fleshed out characters than Lyonesse. By a much more fleshed out world than Lyonesse. And by a narrative that is actually robust. Lyonesse is like a video game still in alpha. It's missing many components. It's the sketch of the story it's trying to be.

Finally got through this and I understand why people don't like Zach, because he's not fucking doing anything. I understand not cutting to him that often, but Zach just doesn't really do a damn thing in this book, which means you've got a two-protagonist thing where one protagonist is functionallity irrelevant (and basically disappears in the last quarter of this book, I'm pretty sure almost every chapter from, like, 90-onwards is all Ryun, Anrosh or Reyla). Even in the chapters he had it just sort of felt like he was existing. It makes me more mad at the author for just not having a seemingly important character actually do much besides meet a couple people.

>>20813775
>Asian setting
>Character is named Joe
I hate this

>>20813775
He's like Jinbe from One Piece in that he is so honest and written so straightforward that he is boring to read. Dude made a nigga knight boring to read. He becomes fun in 3 more volumes!

>>20813781
Should've taken the Meng Hao pill

>>20813776
It's not an Asian setting, it's a conglomerate of multiverse of people.

>>20813781
I wouldn't mind that if he actually did things. I like lawful good characters who're just lawful good, they can be refreshing in a way, especially after Ryun's constant brooding, but we just kinda get Ryun and then more Ryun.

>>20810431
Malazan should be 5C since it's so pretentiously written and the dialogue is laughably bad.

>>20813853
If it helps, each book is meant to focus on one of the MCs more so than the other, so book 2 has more Zach chapters, then back to Ryun with book 3.

>>20813857
That's sort of what I figured, but damn it felt like Zach's entire purpose in the book was to set up Reyla and then just kinda be an exposition target. Also Ryun's backstory reveal was a bit... Funny to me because of how obvious it was. They weren't really hiding what happened to him that well.

>>20813860
Oh yeah the stuff with the Hunter and the missing memory was around the end of book 1, right?

>>20813865
Yeah. Also, were the Reaper/Scythe thing just... Like... Meant to so blatantly just be Kindred from League of Legends? Because there's no way they weren't inspired by that.

>>20813875
I don't play LoL but that does seem near identical. Idk where he draws inspiration from but his meta series has some generic races (orcs and elves but spelled differently) and a lot of the writing can feel quite YA/amateurish at times. Some cool concepts. I just pirate them whenever.

>>20810431
I started reading fantasy a few months ago and so far I only read The Hobbit and a few Sanderson books (The Hobbit is considered the "first" new fantasy book, so it was a great start and Sanderson is the biggest "fantasy" writer in regards to kickstarter money, so I started with him because of how hyped he is)

So far:
>The Hobbit
I would put it in C or maybe even D tier. It's amazing if it's your first fantasy book, but the moment you read anything modern, especially with modern fantasy media like games, The Hobbit is literally just trash in a comparative sense. It has a very boring story, the main character is just a dwarf with a copyright protected name, and those few "events" that happen are at best "meh". Even the grand finale was a joke and worse than a sloppy side even in modern fantasy books. It is an important book to read to start your fantasy journey, but it is literally just because of the Tolkien meme.
>Sanderson books
First of all, they are ALL THE SAME in regards to how they feel. I read already like 7 of his books and there is no meaningful difference in regards to how they work.
Now here is the problem with Sanderson. He is SHIT AND ABSOLUTE TRASH IN WRITING RELIGION AND POLITICS. HE SUCKS IN THOSE TWO THINGS. And the fucking problem is that over 50 % of all of his books are filled with his religious and political system trash (it is so out of place of the story and is delivered in such a cheap anime filler way, that you could cut 100 % OF ALL RELIGION AND POLITICS from his books and you would have ZERO IMPACT on the story).
Also he has nearly ZERO fantasy in his books and they are just fiction in some rather awkward medieval meets Harry Potter sense, without the school setting.
BUT, and that's why I simply can't judge his books, he delivers a lot of amazing things. It's impossible to say more without spoiling anything, but he is sometimes an S+, but the moment he even dares to mention "god" or "political systems", I'm always so close to demand my money back. He sucks at religion and politics and it feels that his missionary work as a mormon forces him to always mention religion. Every fucking time I read "god" or "religion" in his books, I already know the next few pages are a waste of time.
So yeah, Sanderson is like an amazing cake in a pile of shit. The cake is perfect, but the shit is not. I will read all of his books because he has a lot of interesting ideas, but it's really sad to see him write about something he has zero clue how to make it more than a copy paste wiki article if it's about religion or politics. Also, why is he even in fantasy? He is at best in a magical fictional world (with 50 % completely unrelated political and religion waste of filler space).

I'm so fucking close to drop Sanderson and read the Meme of the New Sun. I hope Sanderson is the only writer who tries to force topics into his books without realizing that everything is literally written in the most trash and filler way.

>>20813315
>there are posters ITT that don't like Lyonesse
How far this general has fallen. It used to be a thread classic.

>>20814086
What's an S+ thing from Sanderson, then? You can just spoiler tag if really necessary. Because I'm not as much of a Sanderson-basher as many others here but even I'd never really say he's astounding.

>>20813327
I tend to agree with you there. I absolutely love Lyonesse but the plot of the trilogy itself is the weakest aspect. I love the prose, atmosphere and the way it genuinely subverts fantasy tropes - Vance is a master of fantasy despite being predominantly a science-fiction writer. The Dying Earth novels (after the first) are the same - an weird-adventure story that links the MC various exploits together with a thin, overaching plot. Lyonesse has an overarching plot (the political battle and overall war for the Elder Isles), but that's really just there to service Vance's dozens upon dozens of miniature adventure fables/stories for the characters to partake in. I could read Glyneth's spiriting away through the portal with that creepy nobleman who works for the king of Lyonesse, and the golem-creature Kul over and over again.

>>20814086
Sanderson is terrible. The Hobbit is literally a bedtime story Tolkien wrote for his kids.

>>20814086
"Why is he even in fantasy? He is at best in a magical fictional world."
Congratulations, you just found out what fantasy is.
Also, like, there are plenty of other writers out there that poorly shoehorn their cause du jour into their novels. If anything Sanderson is one of the few who actually puts any effort into making it palatable for the reader. Though tbf I've only read Way of Kings and about a quarter of Oathbreaker. However, I don't think that should be reason to drop the genre as a whole.

>>20811555
None, they're all focused on swords and gay shit like that.
Harry Potter truly is the peak of fantasy literature and people are afraid of admitting it

I'm reading the traitor son cycle and loving it, but I wish there were some art of the wild creatures, I'm having trouble picturing a few of them;

>Boglins
Kind of like cockroaches, with the stronger varieties becoming more mantis like
>Irks
Almost humanoid elves with barklike skin, way too many teeth when they are in peace mode. In war mode their faces become more monsterous
>Adversarious/daemon
Big saurian komodo dragon type things with beaks with can hold weapons and such
>Wyverns
Typical wyvrens though not huge, bigger than a horse tho
>Rukhs
Giants/cyclopses
>Golden bears
Big bears
>Trolls
Big rock trolls
>The mammothlike things with tusks and tentacles instead of a about

The sea creatures I'm really not sure about, I'm on the forth book now
Like there's the jellyfish octopuses which I think are the eeegue, then there's the sea serpents but also silkies are referenced, but then also they see the whale like things that have tentacles and beaks so idk if they are different from the eeegues or not

The answer is always Bakker.

>>20813062
Reverend Insanity it's all through the lens of someone extremely old and jaded with a solid, if highly abnormal, philosophy. People are put off by the edge in the first arc, but what none of them realize is that all the shit Fang Yuan does then is so utterly insignificant compared to the absolute genocidal madness that happens later it retroactively becomes obvious why he treats it so casually and how anyone in that world would be a naive fool to be shocked by mere live human sacrifice.

>>20814406
Lol. Thanks, but no thanks.

>>20814408
You're missing out. Though then again it's sort of the opposite of nihilistic so not exactly a fitting rec.

>>20813062
Wildbow's Worm and Pact

>>20813261
Because he's based and filters shitters.

>>20814432
Sometimes when an author iself inserts and spams his own work with his fetishes, I can stand it if the fetishes are something I am into. But with the second apocalypse the cuckoldry and the male rape was just too much. I finished it, but honestly I don't have memories of it being that great. I think it was alright.

>>20814443
Another shitter filtered.

>>20814475
>Filtered by finishing the series

Lol

Is there any decent way to find good short story anthologies? Besides just looking for short story collections by authors you already like. I just want to read short stories.

>>20814518
just read any novel and stop after a few chapters; leave it unfinished and unresolved. Truncate the narrative into your own short story

>>20814443
1/ The Head On A Stick is the Hope goddess Onkis, who is related to the Nonman House Siol Copper Tree

2/ Seswatha's Heart is a daimotic device, it is his way of becoming immortal

3/ The second decapitant is Kellhus own severed head. This is sort of just stated in the glossary. However this explains convincingly why he teleports away randomly to Momemn to avoid responsibility for the atrocity and comes back again, breaking his own interdiction on communication. A backup at Zeum if he dies?

4/ The Sarcophagus of the No-God requires a twin. There is some connection with the Two-heart barbarian / Conan homage featured in the short story Knife Of Many Hands. It seems to suggest that people who are divided or torn in two parts can be used as tools (This is literally what is stated as the meaning of the title Knife Of Many Hands)

5/ There are a string of demonic sacrifices hidden in the list of unexplained murdered characters in the Glossary, who all seem to die within a specific interval of years. The comedy ghost story The Carathayan perhaps hints that Kellhus has ordered these murders

6/ Kellhus is some sort of proto-AI, as mentioned that the Dunyain head sect is named Pragma (literally a programming compiler directive) and the Tekne and Ark is some sort of symbiant biomorph computer crossing the Void (programming functions beginning void etc). There is also a sense that the world is on some programming loop of repeated cause and effect

7/ The Qirri intoxicant is some sort of allegory for democracy enslaving and speeding towards the Apocalypse (it is made from dead Nonmen - democracy comes from ancient greece dead civilisations etc) The imagery around the stained finger ritual seems very carefully chosen (like the middle east election voting inked finger etc) and there is strange use of language around Portions and Apportioning which sounds like the failed corrupt system of Muhasasa in post Saddam Hussein Iraq (literally: sectarian apportionment). When Moenghus breaks under torture he blurts out something like Show them my Father's Portion (he is referring to Kellhus, not Cnaiur). Similarly Cnaiur last words involve howling: I shall have my Portion etc. Interestingly the glossary says that Apportioning/democracy is slavery, the division of slaves.

8/ Kellhus / Cnaiur are divided souls deceit / war. The Glossary describes Golgotterath the Canted and Upright horns as being a Half-Crown, so the reunion of the two horns Kellhus / Cnaiur at the Twin Horns Ark creates the Four Horned God and unleashes The Prince Of Hate. Also the glossary tells us Earwa has Four Tribes of Man (actually five, the fifth Xiuhianni vaguely Chinese? non democratic did not settle in the lands) Kellhus cuts one horn with the laser gun / Sun spear, perhaps suggesting only a partial success?

>>20814576
also the Inverse Fire is entropy, thermodynamics. Inevitable disorder and decay

>>20810444
Adding Devices and Desires to the list
>>20810583
Some of these will be added to the chart.
>>20810703
Your opinion is noted, but yet no changes will be done.
>>20811334
Quality effort post. Lets see if we can have Beowulf somewhere.
>>20812385
Your pastebin is hideous.
>>20811826
I'll try to take this into account.
>>20811981
Noted.
>>20812406
Kek'd.
>>20813194
You really like Piranesi don't you?
>>20813241
No one is saying he is good at it, he says himself in a lecture video that he ever only does so much worldbuilding that is necessary for the books. AKA "hollow iceberg"
>>20813855
I guess I need to take this into account for the series is hard for the simple minded. Would not drop it to C though.
>>20814086
>Been reading fantasy a few months
>Reading experience so far is The Hobbit and some Cosmere
Opinion discarded.
>>20814110
Noted.
>>20814131
One should happily read The Emperor's Soul and The Way of Kings and then never return to his books.

>>20811277
I rememer Lives of the Monster Dogs being pretty good

>>20814585
thank you for your noble work Chartmaker, your kind efforts and exertions are appreciated

>>20814576
I am still of mixed opinions about Bakker. He is amazingly well read, he draws on far more influences than Tolkien.

But then he also writes stuff like this

Better blind in Hell than speechless in Heaven.—ZARATHINIUS, A Defence of the Arcane Arts

Er... Better reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven? I think the original Milton Paradise Lost is better.

Nearly all of his aphorisms are just rearrangements or possibly worse embellishments of ancient writers of far antiquity or other philosophers. Perhaps some of them are clever... unless you know and have read the original.

I think the apocalyptic ending of The Unholy Consult is brave as it poses a question. The idea is tragedy and downfall, it is memorable because of the question it poses. It is not really that different to Coriolanus etc (sides with enemy/wavering allegiance, he gets randomly stabbed, The End).

>>20814626
Despite the Bakker spam have any anons even read it

>>20814626
>He is amazingly well read, he draws on far more influences than Tolkien.
How many languages does Bakker know? Must be a lot.

anyone here like Christopher Rowley?

Man, Sanderson sure loves interrupting his stories with short stories from the perspective of unknown characters for the le epic foreshadowing.

>>20814640
I have a feeling Bakker constructed an abugida. If you look at his names, they have a similar feel to for example Meitei (in Manipur, the Indian sounding names) mixed with some Akkadian or Babylonian/Sumerian stuff or Egyptian.

Then there are some obvious names like Nilnamesh / Gilgamesh, Carathay, Zeum / Africa from historical Axum etc. I think the Nonmen are maybe mesoamerican inspired names (also, the Heron Spear reminded me of Aztlan / Aztec White Heron myth)

Another thing Bakker does is take a latin or greek etymology and permutate it with the abugida of an Indian-sounding or Egyptian or Sumerian etc ending phoneme. So for instance

Ciphrang - latin ciphra, chiffre / cypher / zero

In the novels Ciphrang are demons. Kellhus Prince Of Nothing is accused of being one. The Dunyain philosophy keeps emphasising the circle of cause and effect, zero etc. If you think the Dunyain are AI and the Apocalypse is a computer program (literally described in the novel glossary as System Initiation) then the Ciphrang initialising the variables at zero, with a pragma (real life programming compiler directives, but it also comes from greek philosophy) makes a lot of sense

>>20814678
So just English?

can't you all see that this autistic meme chart and loathsome tripfaggot are tearing this once proud general apart?!

>>20814685
kek, probably. But I have a feeling he might know Greek too. Doesn't Kianene mean something in an ancient Greek dialect? (I actually do not know greek or latin, maybe classical anons can help) Scylvendi barbarians evoke Sceafa Scylding, sheaf-people of Beowulf.

Sepulchrave bros..... he is literally me.

>>20814086
>I've been reading fantasy a few months
>has the audacity to call BotNS a meme

>>20814700
There are actual places called Kian, and it is a given name meaning "king" or "realm" in Persian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kian_(disambiguation)

>>20814406
I read RI up to the acquiring of immortal realm legacy. Felt like I wasted my time. The author has some interesting things to say, but most of them are said in the first 20% of the story, then the usual china xianxia shit goes on.

>>20814430
Guys, I am supposed to be the main webnovel shill in this general, why people are recommending webnovels to ME. Seriously though, I've already read Worm, Pact was on my list to read, but knowing Wildbow the story won't be edgy but just sad/tragic.

In addition, I don't think webnovels explore concepts, ideas and philosophy as well as books. It's not a surprise considering a webnovel keeps being written and the author rarely has time to present things with weigh they deserve, while books are worked on for years, rewritten and polshed all the time (the good ones, at least). If there is one real flaw of webnovels, it would be this. However, there are some webnovels that avoid that pitfalls, but mostly due to the talent of the writers and less-active publishing schedule, i.e Worth the Candle.

TL;DR Give me serious edgy/grimdark books, not webnovels.

>>20814744
This is probably correct, it makes sense for a sort of transposed "Babylonian Crusade" setting, he uses a lot of Persian and Aramaic Biblical names too. In the novel Kianene refers to I think a tribe / race, I have a vague memory that in one of the ancient Greek dialects there is some story about a people Kianene means something like where am I? or along those lines. It could be far too obscure though.

>>20814758
>spoiler
I have no idea what that is. Did you read an MTL version?

Any audiobookbros here?
I need something on Audible with a cute female narrator voice.

>>20814786
No, you will listen to Baldtree and you will like it

>>20814774
>I have no idea what that is. Did you read an MTL version?
I don't think that I did, the story would make little sense otherwise. Maybe I just described it wrong, I meant the story fragment where Fang Yuan goes to that big legacy place where he has to battle with other people by using monster swarms against them, then it ends by the that guy who turned into a chick betraying him and the protagonist turning into a motherfucking Gu refining rainbow and fucking off to another legacy by teleportation, where he just instantly wins by being the first on top of the climb(?) and wining the main prize: An immortal realm that can be used to become an immortal later one. Or something like that. I read it many months ago, so my memories might not be the best.

>>20814769
So basically, Bakker syncretism fantasy name technique:

Godfucius
Satanmokhet
Jesustinian
Aristotluddha

>>20814786
>Any audiobookbros here?
>I need something on Audible with a cute female narrator voice.
The Wandering Inn audbiooks have that one nice chick narrating them. She's also done a lot of different works, even erotica novels, so I guess people like her voice. Andrea Parsneau.

>>20814795
Her voice acting sounds good but the usual narration is kinda eh.
Thx anyway. I got some credits for her.

>>20814792
Oh that makes sense, I just assume you'd have called it Hu Immortal Blessed Land. But I guess since you stopped there you wouldn't have had the name pounded into your head yet. And the second arc, while pretty great in my opinion didn't have much if any philosophy stuff. There's assloads more of it later and it becomes the main focus of the story. Obviously I'd say keep reading, but I'm biased. The next arc has a lot of great stuff, especially the end, but the middle is a slog because it has to do a lot of worldbuilding that's been skipped for the sake of brevity so far.
I'll say that the third arc is when you finally see ACTUAL cultivation and not the cheap knockoff the plebs use, so if you're interested in exotic systems it's worth it to read at least the beginning where it's all explained.

>>20814137
Is the tale Liane the Wayfarer from Jack Vance Dying Earth a sort of distorted Odysseus and Cyclops retelling?

You have that witch woman wearing frogskins who waits and weaves a tapestry etc. like Odysseus wife Penelope.

The monstrous antagonist instead of one eye collects eyeballs...

***
Chun dropped out of the wall and advanced. Over his shiny black back he wore a robe of eyeballs threaded on silk.
(...)

She eased the door ajar, found the threads and closed the door. She ran to her golden tapestry and fitted the threads into the ravelled warp.

And she stared at the golden valley, sick with longing for Ariventa, and tears blurred out the peaceful river, the quiet golden forest. "The cloth slowly grows wider . . . One day it will be done, and I will come home...."

>>20814812
Hmm, you are the second person that tells me RI becomes better in after the moment I stoped at. RI has a lot of flaws that are hard to overlook, but I will tentatively add it back to the reading list.

>>20814576
Did you mean to reply to me?
I was replying to the anons post, not the pic that iv seen before .

Nice essay tho

>>20814651
It's called world building bro

>>20814870
I am sure you can do that in a more subtle and enjoyable way.

>>20814822
I think you're right, anon.

>>20814432
Is this a true quote?

>>20814863
apologies I missed the link because of wall of text longpost turboautismo lol. I meant to reply to the Second Apocalypse bakker anon
>>20814443
In relation to all that male ravishing catamite stuff, the cannibalism scenes where he licks a radioactive leper man ? lol if you consider the catamite stuff in the context of Ancient Greece it makes sense.

Bakker arguably does seem to relish his perverted magical realm but he has to overdo it to illustrate how the Ordealmen and the Sranc "Race Of Lovers" HR Giger biomorph rape aliens are becoming one and the same. Maybe he should have used some more subtlety though.

All the atrocity and torture incest rape cannibalism can also be viewed in the context of Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare retells Philomene, but decides to make it worse by cutting off her tongue, hands, and rape. Also baking the enemy son's heads in a pie like Herodotus and Harpagus myth / Istumegu).

The battle and rape scenes also reminded me of Salammbo, the Carthage novel Flaubert wrote as some sort of 4chan tier troll post directly after Madame Bovary. Seen in the context of the ancient world these atrocities are not actually that unusual.

I mean the books are literally called The Great Ordeal, The Second Apocalypse, The Prince Of Nothing (heh, No-God, see, foreshadowing).

There is this scene where Serwa addresses the Ordealmen after all their corpse fornicating and cannibalism lol

“What? Did you think Golgotterath—Golgotterath!—could be purchased with cuts and sore feet?”

If the male catamite stuff is too much, just remember this beautiful elegiac scene. And try to forget about the incest
***
“Sing to me!” he heard himself cry. “Sing that song to me once again, Little Sister!”
Serwa regarded him with her infamous pity.
(...)
“Tell me!” he roared. “Tell me what it means!”
For a heartbeat, it seemed she might almost stammer. “No good can come of it.”
“Good?” he heard himself cackle. “I fear the damage has been done. I look for no good from you, Little Sister, not anymore. I seek only truth … Or has that also fled you?”
She watched him with a pensive sorrow he knew no Anasûrimbor could suffer, not truly. “‘Your lips,’” she began, tears welling, her voice splinted with false regret. “‘Only your lips can balm my weal …’”
Her voice trailed into the ghostly roar emanating from the Mountain.

captcha 4X ASS X oh my god

Ok, I wasn’t expecting Bakker to be this deep. You guys have been trolling me all along.

>>20815028
You've been repeatedly told that Bakker is one of the greatest authors of the modern era and you didn't believe anonymous posters in 4chan?

>>20814576
>>20814626
>>20814678
>>20814793
>>20815011
>>20815028
>>20815039
How to describe R Scott Bakker

It is BDSM Tolkien with Sumerian Babylonian Nietzsche and those white alien men from Ridley Scott Prometheus and there is also Islam and the Crusades and Zoroastrian Confucius and Manichaeism juxtaposed with gnostic mysticism and Egyptian Hinduism but also laser guns and curved phallus did I mention curved phallus and death came swirling down also African voodoo shrunken heads the magic is like Greek geometry and parabolas but also rhetoric and Plato aporetic dialogue becomes technosorcerous antimagic artifacts that makes nihilism Jesus into salt because he is a trick like democracy but also Adorno? and aesthetics and syllogisms and chiasmus but sometimes it was just a dnd campaign he ran with his brother also every woman is a prostitute so the Maiden Mother Crone hierodulic theme just becomes Harlot, Harlot, Harlot and also there is the Pope and the caste system and slaves and also Vikings and Conan who is sometimes Mongolian and there are orcs or goblins but they are rapists and there is cannibalism and incest and Freudian oedipal children and also trauma psychology and neuroscience and programming and spaceships and people with faces that are hands but most of all eschatology and upside down fire which is entropy or decay or disorder maybe thermodynamics but damnation and DAMNATION and hellfire HELLFIRE BURN IN HELL which seems quite primitive given all the aforementioned influences but then it just ends -

>>20815047
I liked the bit where Bakker rewrote Mines Of Moria from the Fellowship Of The Ring

>Tad Williams is a hugely influential writer who helps usher in the era of large fantasy series like WoT, ASOIAF and Realm of the Elderlings
>two of them are finished and one is in limbo but Tad Williams is still writing some of the best fantasy out there
How does he fucking do it?

>>20815047
You missed out how it is Dune. Dune is possibly more of an influence than Tolkien, apart from the Mines Of Moria scenes.

>>20813252
Doesn’t look like it’s just one, or even two, to be honest.

>>20815058
I grew up with Memory Sorrow Thorn. Tad Williams seems very inspired by Shakespeare, he literally wrote Caliban's Hour retelling of the Tempest - I feel as a literary piece Caliban's Hour is his strongest and most focused work. Memory Sorrow And Thorn has beautiful lyrical scenes and dreaminess, but it can also meander. Caliban's Hour is very psychologically focused; he uses some clever insertions, for example there is a casual reference to a True Orphic Skull amongst Prospero's possessions (it evokes storytelling, the myth of how Orpheus died torn apart by maenads and drifted away upon the waters etc a bit like the Tempest).

Something I remember about Memory Sorrow Thorn is that the ending is very anticlimactic. There is really just one memorable battle, the defense of the new settlement at the Stone Of Farewell where you feel truly immersed in the struggle (mainly because that battle is the one where Simon the protagonist is truly fighting with life and death at stake etc) The ending is a bit abrupt with Pryates / Elias / Miriamele just wanders in and then Tad Williams goes into banal happy ending mode. What I would say is that Tad Williams names influences and nomenclature, etymology are all excellent, Arthurian themes and mythology is always compelling. There are a lot of dream sequences in the books where the plot seems to become involuted, but when Tad Williams refocuses back he conjures true narrative magic.

I sometimes wish there was a middle ground. Like if you could have Tad Williams happiness and his almost Redwall sense of cosiness but also with the R Scott Bakker apocalyptic horror grandiose ancient Conan like epic battles. Maybe authors as personalities cannot reconcile these disparate voices.

>>20815058
I tried reading the new Osten Ard series, I did not like it, it goes a bit young adult Hunger Games... the original is complete and perfect, with its Arthurian myths and Fisher King retelling, it feels like literature. Do not make Bladerunner 2049! This is why you must not let Bakker write a sequel to The Unholy Consult. Do not write Macbeth 2 with a happy ending! Look at Dan Abnett, Eisenhorn is perfect. Ravenor is good. Bequin is getting a bit... see what is happening...? Sometimes when a book ends, it is better to imagine, and not know.

The names are really important in Fantasy. Sometimes I wonder if GRR Martin realises, just how stupid naming a character Bolton sounds to any reader who resides, say, in the United Kingdom. In the next epic fantasy series the hero will be called YorkFrancisco Baghdad.

Tad Williams and R Scott Bakker both invent great names, situated in myth and history. The Norn Queen and Sithi have some pseudoJapanese influences or lol literally Amaterasu. GRRM comes up with names that sound like Bran or Exxon.

>>20814518
Bumping anon's request. I can't help as I tend to read solo-author stories as opposed to an author submitting one story in a multi-author anthology.

>>20815107
A lot of Tad Williams names and places sound very Swedish. The trolls are like Canadian natives. Like Tolkien, he draws a lot from the real world.
GRRM doesn't just draw from the real world, he just takes real names and spells them wonky to make them exotic. Robert Jordan also did this shit.

>>20815047
Bakker is clearly influenced by ancient historians like Thucydides and Herodotus etc, a very powerful fantasy technique is to describe extensively the customs and habits and social conventions of people just like it was recorded in far antiquity, to give an illusion of vast depth and millenia passing. Here are some areas where you can tell Bakker is weak though:
- anything to do with economics.
- music. This is pretty important in the ancient world. Given pythagoras and geometry influences his description of the magic, pythagoras was also pretty involved with intervals etc. I was expecting some discussion of Dorian Lydian Phrygian Mixolydian etc modes given all the pseudogreek musings
- actual mathematics. I feel like he possesses only very superficial knowledge of game theory beyond oohhh Kellhus goes into spooky fantasy magic meditative probability trance. It would be interesting if this was described with Greg Egan hard sci-fi autismo detail
- actual Asian or even just non Western philosophy. Despite all the paraphrased quotes from Confucius or the analects and the evocative names from Hinduism and reincarnation etc, the entire novels are really just about burning in Catholic hellfire and damnation. I think there could have been an even better novel if Bakker toned down the atrocity cannibalism sodomy, and maybe made it a bit ambiguous (did it even happen, was it all a hallucination etc etc) and then also ended the novel with the characters perhaps not seeing a literal whirlwind apocalypse sarcophagus lol but being unsure of what they saw (like say make it into just a black storm in the distance etc) Of course Bakker wanted his CGI special effects "Conan the Barbarian walks into the whirlwind moment" but to me actually a more underplayed ending, like... the battle ends, it seems victorious, but a black storm is lurking in the distance etc... something along those lines would be much more subtle. And just do not make the hellfire damnation stuff so obvious, leave it indeterminate as to which characters are good and evil, and what they deserve in the end. Isn't that the point of the entire 7 novel series after all?

>>20815133
Yes I think that was the great strength of Memory Sorrow Thorn, you could map all those lands in your mind, sort of fantasy Ireland, fantasy Norse people, fantasy Venice (Perdruin I have a knife? etc) and interwoven with the Arthurian myth it felt amazing. I remember the burning butterflies scene, the Baba Yaga inspired house on stilts scenes, Tad Williams can create a sense of loss or grief without excessive atrocity violence. Bakker arguably also has a lot of subtle psychological scenes (Achamian being spurned as a teacher etc by his pupils) but they are always rooted in some repressed modern psychological trauma. Tad Williams possesses a gift for writing really sympathetic and likeable characters, the dream-like lyrical tone, it is the basic bildungsroman template but executed exceptionally well.

>>20814131
Way of Kings, Bridge 4 arc is great. I dont know if its S+ as im limited in fantasy knowledge, but I do remember its a very immersive and emotionally investing sequence of events - which I rarely feel in any media.
The Kaladin+Elhokar dynamic in book 2 is also top tier IMO.
Lastly he encapsulates and intertwines really well the character arc climaxes with the magic system - so the heights reached during the "Words" are some of the most exhilarating experiences one can have.

There are multiple high highs in Sandy books, but you cannot bite down and appreciate the girth of the prose, characters and setting (very apparent on a reread) because there isnt much to chew on. I get the opinion that the highs may feel cheap, but imo overall they are definitely "earned", and such highs are something a "merely decent" author would not be able to produce. The books may seem schlocky and watered down esp for veteran fantasy readers BUT they are still worthwhile reads imo.

t. read all Cosmere books but not that well read in sf/f

>>20811964
yes but did Tolkien add these translations after the fact, so it's perfectly reasonable to think that Took did indeed come from Tolkien.

>>20815191
>The books may seem schlocky and watered down esp for veteran fantasy readers BUT they are still worthwhile reads imo.
That has been my opinion ever since I've read the first two books and it proves true to this day - the main reason Sanderson is held in such high regard steems from Stormlight Archive being the entry books for people who don't read fantasy, so they experience some good literary fantasy for the first time and suddenly fall in love. A usual fantasy reader just notes that it's a decent epic fantasy and moves on.

The treatment for Brando Sando Derrangement Syndrom is simple, cheap and fulfilling: READ ANOTHER BOOK.

>>20815191
>so the heights reached during the "Words" are some of the most exhilarating experiences one can have
It's just a quantitative increase in power level, or realm advancement to put it in xianxia terms.

>>20815146
It seems like basically all the REAL philosophical challenges happen Outside, and all the events of the series save for the brief moments it interacts with the ciphrang are ultimately meaningles. But those moments are so few and far between that we learn almost nothing about them save for their existence and vague insinuations of their thought processes.

>>20815246
I am rereading BotNS now, and the gap between Wolfe and Sandy is very clear esp in departments w/c "book-first" (ie main hobby/entertainment is reading) or "high-brow" readers would appreciate.
In the cheaper thrills Sandy easily trumps Wolfe though, so that further supports your "babby's first fantasy" thinking.

I dont want to speak too ill for those who are trying out fantasy and stops at Sandy - IMO he is doing amazing work in letting the newer generation know of the joys of fiction, and more specifically fantasy.

>>20814518
Clarkesworld have heaps of anthologies.

>>20815047
>>20815146
>>20815283
>ciphrang
>those moments are so few and far between that we learn almost nothing

I agree with this, but you see here is the great flaw of R Scott Bakker's novels.

Look, the entire sequence is about what if Jesus is No-God Nietzsche? It is all a trick, there is no morality Tolkien rape goblin Evil, crusade warrior Good? And Sumerian crusade AI Jesus actually is nothing, he just deceives and tricks stupid medieval humanity based on his ancient monastic dead civilisation democracy enlightenment enslavement theocracy.

But the problem with this is: by the last few books, you literally have a character Mimara walking around pregnant with an Absolute GOD EYE of Judgement saying BEHOLD! THIS IS EVIL THIS IS GOOD lol.

What I find unbelievably hilarious is she uses her God Judgement power on the rape cannibalism, thinks really hard... oh, it is probably evil.

All the atrocities come from sorcery and convoluted technomagic tricks to escape this judgement and damnation and hellfire. But... no modern philosophy cares about the eschatology of damnation and hellfire. In fact I am pretty sure a greater part of the civilisations and worldbuilding that Bakker is using also do not share, care or feature Christian Judgement and damnation and hellfire.

So R Scott Bakker is saying... there is no Good or Evil... except there is... except there is not...

I am philosophical so I can entertain paradoxes, I can contemplate two irreconciliable perspectives struggling for dominance in my mind.

But what I am unsure about is if all this anachronistic moral architecture (it is all a bit pretentious) was engineered deliberately by Bakker, or if he actually had no idea of what he was doing at all.

After all, there is a reason why Nietzsche did not appear in Ancient Egypt lol.

>>20815246
The absolute state of /sffg/ that something has to be put into chinkshit terms for people to understand it

I do not care for bakker

I do not care about your posts

>>20815133
Tad Williams using a lot of pseudoAnglo Saxon and medieval names, like

Eahlferend, Guthwulf, Maefwaru, Wiclaf, Sangfugol

Then there is the Gaelic and pseudoWelsh Hernystiri names
Brynioch, Cadrach, Craobhan, Eolair, Lluth, Feurgha, Rhynn

The Sithi are Native American / Japanese
Amerasu, Kendhraja'ro, Jenjiyana,

The Norns are Aztec Egyptian
Akhenabi, Mezhumeyru

Nabbanai is Rome/Greek/Byzantium
Metessis, Nessalanta, Leobardis, Gavanaxes

Rimmersmen most obviously Norsemen Vikings
Dror, Isorn, Jarnauga, Isgrimnur, Skali

Qanuc are sort of Inuit
Binabik, Kikkasut

Wrannamen are probably African or some Creole, not sure which specific linguistic family though.

Thrithings is a bit Hungarian to me. Vorzheva, etc. I imagine Perdruinese as Venetian, vaguely Italian, Callistro etc.

Miriamele is a pretty name, probably from Hebrew.

>>20810752
Yes and yes

Also read his classical history stuff

>>20810411
god i wish that were me

I have never been loved by a woman

>>20815028
The memes do not lie.

Truth Shines!

>>20815107
>just how stupid naming a character Bolton sounds to any reader who resides, say, in the United Kingdom.
It's not stupid. Bolton is a surname here.
t. English

>>20815763
Bolton is the name of a good artist who did some comic stuff with Chris Claremont

>>20814517
Yes. Though I highly doubt you actually finished it.

>>20814651
Well his main characters are either brooding in a prison or buying books, so he has to show the world somehow.

>>20814870
Is it? I call it Bad Writing.

>>20815881
Why? Just because I didn't like it that much?

>>20814443
finally the truth shines.

>>20810411
I'm bored of cookie cutter European/Eastern fantasy. We need trve Paleo-Inuit fantasy.

>>20815081
>happy ending mode
Fixed in The Heart of What Was Lost though, where he shows the tax policy and BTFO's Tolkien GRRM style.

>>20815937
You didn't understand it and likely you didn't even read it.

What's an SFF novel series that's kind of like Adventure Time? Psychedelic fantasy.

>>20815982
For adults preferrably. I know Bas-Lag and the Dark Tower is kind of like what I want to read.

>>20815763
>>20815948
You get the amazing Paleo-Inuit fantasy of GRRMartin. The narrative is everything you wanted, storyline and epic vision.

The hero protagonist name is John Bolton, and his mate is Barry Lincoln, and also Kevin Boston from Skegness. (To be fair Skegness does deceptively sound like a cool fantasy village). They fight against Bran and Exxon.

>>20815973
There is nothing incorrect in my comment, you are just an assblasted bakkerfag. Only someone who has read the series would know how prevalent cucking and buggery is

Lo! Come I anon before the xoanon
Shrine of old, that Elden Thing
To tell of what Byzantion doth bring:
The auctor, Georgius Arse-Arsenius Martinus,
And Jay Of Hokkien, the ring scribe larcenous.

***
This Georgius R R Martinus and Jay Of Hokkien are the same person. The R.R. is probably derived from the latin Rex Regina, maybe some of you have seen a "Regina", nowadays even some men possess them.

Many have questioned the provenance of this R.R. Martinus, of what lands he comes from, if he knew anything of history.

The Historia Regum Britanniae describes King Leir and his three daughters Cordelia, Gonorrhea and Reagan, so R.R. Martinus is probably an heir of Ronald Reagan.

There was a great contention between the powers of Angleterre and the Frankish lands over J.R.R. Hokkien, in Angleterre this J is pronounced as Jay, in the Frankish land it is pronounced akin to Guis, so to avert a great slaughter, it was decided to compromise and call him Gay.

>>20815982
>What's an SFF novel series that's kind of like Adventure Time? Psychedelic fantasy.
have you read The Magicians by Lev Grossman? It's a really weird book/series, but good at that.

>>20816028
You're just a meemer who heard about it in the thread.

>>20816052
Thank you! I'll check it out!

>>20811019
The Stormlight Archive is the only series of books I've outright dropped after loving the first two books. Never happened to me before in 30+ years of reading. I read the entire WoT including the prologue even though half of it was a terrible slog and I didn't drop that. Think about that.The quality drop in Stormlight Archive is so shockingly apparent that I no longer trust any book recommendation attached to Sanderson's name.

Look, Bakker is really about sophisticated theological debates, ancient Greece, and moral philosophy

>>20816095
There's nothing philosophical about Bakker's works other than a few concepts and premisses that he uses to spice his novels up. Either that or him paraphrasing philosophers in his chapter's epigraphs. That has nothing to do with philosophy directly.

So what are you on about?

>>20815982
Addendum: A story like Chainsaw Man or Hellboy. An alternate history urban fantasy where the world is all fucked up due to some inexplicable event and yet somehow humanity is still at the top of the food chain. I'm trying to write one and I want something to go off of.

>>20816108
Though Tolkien got there first,
>>20811748
>>20811886
Bakker's version is probably more powerful
>>20816095

>>20815133
>he just takes real names and spells them wonky to make them exotic
Kind of a brainlet take there. He spells them wonky because he's mimicing pre-codified written language.

>>20816108
not true he made me click on the wikipedia entry for Potato; Potato taught me what aporetics means and also anadiplosis

>>20816173
your mimicking has sent me panicking, anon

>>20816173
Why though? How does this make sense in-universe?

>>20816173
I think Edmund Spenser does spelling better. Here is him playing dungeons and dragons (1590 edition)

But full of fire and greedy hardiment,
The youthfull knight could not for ought be staide,
But forth vnto the darksome hole he went,
And looked in: his glistring armor made
A litle glooming light, much like a shade,
By which he saw the vgly monster plaine,
Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide,
But th’other halfe did womans shape retaine,
Most lothsom, filthie, foule, and full of vile disdaine.

For some reason Westeros NEEDS to be united in defeating The Others for good. Rhaegar read a book a book called "A Song of Ice and Fire", where he got the idea from, which mentions House Targaryen was responsible for defending the realm from The Others and why they were gifted dragons but over time they forgot and just had pointless power struggles, and waged wars instead. Rhaegar discovered this one day in the library which made him change, so decided to name his sons "Aegon", because he believed Aegon would be the one to unite Westeros in order to defeat The Others. Once The Others are defeated The Iron Throne will be destroyed as a symbol of that, and some kingdoms will declare independence, like the North, The Vale, etc.

I feel like Ice and Fire is going to end up like this.

>>20816319

I also left out that THREE people are the ones who will be uniting Westeros who will turn out to be the Three Heads of the Dragon Rhaegar mentioned while Daenerys visited saw him in the House of the Undying.

>>20816322
When did Dany see rhaegr?

>>20816343
in a drug induced hallucination during A Clash of Kings

>>20816319
>I feel like Ice and Fire is going to end

Any good grimdark recommendations

Did Stannis bust a fat nut inside Melisandre?

>>20816403
Grim Dark is a non-word.

>>20816409
Then nihilistic Dark Fantasy, you snob

>>20816435
If you’re a nihilist after 18 it means you never grew up.

>>20816449
Nuh-uh

Currently reading xanxia Otherworldly Evil Monarch
by Fengling Tianxia

Its about reincarnator who gets sent to another medieval (chinese) world, the plot is sort similar to most other xanxia with variations here and there, there cultivation stuff however its not excessive, I am 300 chapters in and most of the story and action is based in the main city of the kingdom, so while there are fights there are also plenty of interactions between characters. Mc is no Fang Yuan but he was a hitman in his previous life and he is highly opinionated and can be very arrogant, not evil but not righteous either. Most importantly mc is not dumb. For a xanxia, writing and translation is pretty good.

>>20816673
why do you guys waste your time reading this garbage? it's all the same shit, read one you've already read them all.

>>20816673
>the plot is sort similar to most other xanxia
Then it's shit.

>>20816681
they're extreme ESL retards who don't realize they're reading MTL

>>20816681
As I said while it is similar is some way it is not exactly the same. It has enough originality to make it worth reading. Another reason is that lack of good western fantasy.

>>20811563
Name?

>>20816752
Are you a chink or something? There are lots of great self published western fantasy.
Neck yourself.

>>20816673
>>20816681
>xianxia
Zhuangzi is fantasy, I recommend reading it. Beyond banal anecdotes of butterflies and dreams, Zhuangzi features the first mecha, a man who can transform with a rooster for one arm, a crossbow for another, and chariot wheels on his buttocks.

Then there is also this passage below, which really explains his philosophy. Zhuangzi posted this 2400 years ago on 4chan

https://ctext.org/zhuangzi?searchu=%E5%B1%8E

東郭子問於莊子曰:「所謂道,惡乎在?」莊子曰:「無所不在。」東郭子曰:「期而後可。」莊子曰:「在螻蟻。」曰:「何其下邪?」曰:「在稊稗。」曰:「何其愈下邪?」曰:「在瓦甓。」曰:「何其愈甚邪?」曰:「在屎溺。」東郭子不應。

Dong-guo Zi asked Zhuangzi, saying, 'Where is what you call the Dao to be found?' Zhuangzi replied, 'Everywhere.' The other said, 'Specify an instance of it, that will be more satisfactory.' ' It is here in this ant.' 'Give a lower instance.' 'It is in this grass.' 'Give me a still lower instance.' 'It is in this earthenware tile.' 'Surely that is the lowest instance?' 'It is in the piss and shit.' To this Dong-guo Zi gave no reply.

>>20816681
>waste your time reading this garbage?
>it's all the same
>read one you've already read them all.
>>20816780
>>20816790

POLONIUS.
(...)
He is far gone, far gone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET.
Words, words, words.

>>20816095
Shouldn't that sentence in the first section below the divider here read:
- The Place bade (NOT bid) the man...

the past tense, instead of bid?

Look further down:
- The Place (drew) its robe...

>Bakker does not know basic English grammar

>>20816352
>>20816343

Rhaegar decided to pick Lyanna because he SOMEHOW learned about the Starks ability to green dream, and the wolf dreams and figured he could somehow use this ability and take advantage when conceiving Aegon, in WHY exactly the prophecy of Ice and Fire had been lost over time and to rediscover it

>>20816780
Can you post some?

are there any fantasy/sci-fi stories that have a message of not only genocide being good, but all those who are against genocide must be wiped out?

>>20816980
>are there any fantasy/sci-fi stories that have a message of not only genocide being good, but all those who are against genocide must be wiped out?
Chinese xianxia has a lot of racism, presenting japan people as genocide monsters etc.
Japan does the same in reverse iirc
Just read stuff from authors who don't live in 'proggresive' countries, they are a bit schizo

>>20816937
Wait, are you seriously telling me, GRR Martin wrote a book with a character named Aegon? AEGON?

Like not even the Greek, Aegaeon? Just AEGON???

So when I made up that troll post
>>20815107
>>20816000
about him naming fantasy characters like Bran and Exxon, it is actually true?

AGN NA
Aegon N.V. is a Dutch multinational life insurance, pensions and asset management company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands. As of July 21, 2020, the company had 26,000 employees.[1] Aegon is listed on the Euronext Amsterdam and is a constituent of the AEX index.

I thought of a story where: the protagonist from 2022 wakes up in 2028, and the world is advanced due to an alien invasion, of which the earth of now a colony of said invaders.
Are there any science fiction stories like this?

>>20816980
No, such book/author or a story would be cancelled immediately

>>20817008
Uhh, the thing about someone from today waking up in the future sounds like an extremely rare trope, but if you prefer the latter part of near future where humanity is a colony of aliens then there is stuff like that. For instance: Sexy Space Babes (Yes, this is the name)

>>20817008
I think there are at least two different films of this already both starring Tom Cruise

>>20817008
I once read a book about how spaceship from earth discovered some hostile alien species, so they immediately set course back to earth and it took them like 100 years to get back, aliens on the other hand had very fast drives and got to earth way before them, destroyed half of it, colonised it and even genetically changed the humans

>>20817008
The Walking Dead

Any more books like "Lest Darkness Fall"?

no

>>20817030
>Uhh, the thing about someone from today waking up in the future sounds like an extremely rare trope
I sense sarcasm but I didn't mean it like it's an original idea of mine

>>20817038
Name?

>>20817159
Not sarcasm, this particular combination even I haven't seen yet. But a person waking up in the future? I can name a few examples. None with alien subjugation, though

>>20817289
ohh my bad, could you provide a few examples?

>>20817187
I am not sure I think it was Ascention wars by Jasper T Scott.

>>20814585
>Your pastebin is hideous
I'm a direct product of /sffg/'s influence. My pastebin reflects the books that active /sffg/ users recommend to me. To hate my pastebin, is to hate /sffg/'s tastes. Where do you get your stats, Mr ChartMaker?

>>20814786
Terciel and Elinor. It's the 6th book in a whole series. But it has a cute female voice for once. It's funny, because all of the books have young female leads. All around 19 years old. But the first 3 books are read by Tim Curry, in his very theatrical style. Then the 4th is by Graeme Malcolm. Who sounds like a subdued version of Tim Curry. The 5th was the first book to be done by a woman, Heather Wilds. She has a strong heroic voice. Which works well because the book is carried by 4 strong women.

Only book 6 finally gets a cute girls voice. Fitting for the main character who is much less of a hero type. Voiced by Billie Fulford-Brown. I'm not familiar with her work. But maybe if you search by her name, you'll find some books to your liking.

>>20817412
That's actually a prequel to the first book, right? In such a way that it doesn't really spoil much of anything else.

>>20817423
Yep. Though, like with most prequels, knowing the world makes reading it that much richer.
There isn't much to spoil in the series though. There's no grand mysteries. No whodunits. It's just "Oh no! Bad guys! Let's try not to die!"

>>20817439
I've only read Sariel myself. I keep meaning to pick up the other books.

>>20812890
I just want more Neuromancer. Nothing else feels as interesting, weird and exotic. I love the quirks of the 80s perspective of the future. Huge, chunky technology, tubes and wires, everything tactile and dense... instead we have a world of iPhones, rectangular minimalist architecture and this dull, smooth, angrogenous world of technology we now live in.

>>20817445
The other books are more of the same. There's no reason not to pick them up. It's a little weird that Lirael effectively becomes the main character of the series. But I suspect that happened because Sabriel was just too competent at everything. And the author needed someone with room to grow. There's a timeskip between book 1 and 2, and Sabriel is older and just doing her Abhorsen duties. Pushed to the back as a supporting character.

>>20817463
Well Sabriel was originally standalone, so her arc was basically just 'done' with book 1, makes sense to have a more inexperienced protagonist with a longer-form arc.

Tell me Proyas, does it trouble you that Bakker is King?

Has it been 3 days already?

>>20817469
You got to read the others for Mogget. He's the best part of every book. But also, you have to meet the Disreputable Dog. Another enigmatic animal creature.

>>20817513
Holy Based.

>>20817542
Probably ban evading.

>>20817542
No, more like 3 years since he hasn't payed rent in your head.

>>20817565

Make a new bread.

>>20817513
What is the point of Kayutas.

He does not do anything.

>>20817606
Page 10

>>20817609
Probably reserved for The No-God series if I could guess.

>>20817613
Why?

>>20817613
But I want to shitpost and show how everyone how pathetic I am.

>>20817616
>Why?
Why what? This thread is still useable for a few hours
>>20817617
That's really sad and pathetic.

>>20817616
Making new threads at page 10 as been a thing for a while. Which is great, don’t see why people want to make new one early. But then again, they’ll the ones who shit up /sffg/

>>20817623
Does the Janny delete the thread if this one isn't on page 10?

Now you make the new thread, arrogant prick

>>20817638
Not my problem.

>>20817631
>Which is great, don’t see why people want to make new one early
Newfags who believe a new general has to go up as soon as possible.

>>20817634
I don't know why you guys want a new thread. You can still use this one for literally hours. A new one is made the second this thread reaches page 10.

>>20817643
Way better than discussing anything with miserable losers like you.

>>20817641
>>20817641
FUCK YOU STUPID IDIOT

>>20814786
Are Audiobooks any good?

>>20817667
Audiobooks and speed reading is the same thing.

>>20817668
Being serious. I want to listen to something while I do some jogging and this give me an excuse to listen to audiobooks. So

>>20817457

>>20817677
Listen to Music or a Political Podcast. That's what I do. I cherish reading way too much. Unless you want to listen to trash books that require no attention span.

>>20817689
>Listen to Music or a Political Podcast.
No, I think podcast are a waste of time, and music has never been a thing for me.

>Unless you want to listen to trash books that require no attention span.
I’m already reading fantasy and science-fiction, so yeah, that doesn’t change much for me.

>>20817699
A waste of time too then.

>>20812890
If you like Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive than you probably will like the Bridge Trilogy.

>>20817709
What does that even mean?

>>20817719
That you're gay, I'm pretty sure.

>>20817667
I bought the audio book to Shadow of the Torturer, and it was great. You should really buy that one. Though it is a bit pricey.

>>20817756
I just downloaded it for free

>>20817308
>ohh my bad, could you provide a few examples?
Hard to from the of my head, but like that TV Show 'Futurama' or one book about few people from different centuries waking up from criostasis many, many centuries in the future to crew a colonization ship, can't remember the name though. Honestly, even 'Vampire Lestat' (the second book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles) could fit as Lestat wakes up long after he falls asleep.

>>20817742
stop already asshole

>>20817785
pozzed

>>20817795
you are trash, I bet nobody likes you

>>20817677
Try the expeditionary force series. It’s cheap, easy, and enjoyable, I listen to it whenever I have to walk my dogs to the park.

>>20817677
>I want to listen to something while I do some jogging and this give me an excuse to listen to audiobooks
Same anon as >>20817756 You should also get Arcadia by Iain Pears, I found it by chance, and I remember it having an inventive premise that could interest you.

>>20817785
>>20817797
cringe

>>20817861
fuck off

>>20816937
Or he simply picked Lyanna because he was searching for the knight of the laughing tree and found out that it was her.

>>20817667
While I want to say they’re bad, it’s honestly depends on how much quality the voice actors and the people producing it put in the audiobooks to begin with. And besdies, for some retarded reason, people here stigmatizes audiobooks for some weird reason.

Áudio books aren’t books and you aren’t reading a book if you listen to one.

>>20817565
Kek

>>20812890
no, but I don't regret reading it or anything.

and the 2nd half is way more interesting than the 1st half.
(literally halfway through the 2nd book (Idoru) + the 3rd book)

>>20817923
>Idoru
How can you deal with the cardboard characters?

>>20817930
Meme complaint.

>>20817933
Not really a complaint, I just want to know since I want to finish idoru myself.

>>20817923
Does Gibson improve on his scientific credentials? While I like Neuromancer, the tech was way off, is his other works more grounded?

>>20817930
the main characters of the 3rd book are the two from VL if you want to ride it out.
for me it was more that the plot significantly picks up pace and actually amounts to something. compared to VL at least

>>20817885

Nah it was wolfdreams because they could see into the past and Dragondreams only the future. Rhaegar wanted access to her wolfdreams and greenseeing ability hoping it would be an ability Aegon would have to confirm what the ancients knew about the Others was true or not in Ice and Fire....Which was written by a man named Aegon

>>20817967
I just have to say, is book worth it for book 3?

>>20817964
the main tech on display is VR, and it's more contemporary feeling than the matrix of Sprawl

>>20817974
if you're deep into Idoru and hating your time, then no it wouldn't be

>>20817973
What wolf’s dream? The stark have a chance to be seers or something but that’s it.

I'm tired of reading SFFG that isn't comfy. Tolkien knew what he was doing. Modern hacks don't.

>>20818009
Seems interesting, especially with that gaining steam. Anything about near-future technology

>>20818027
Tom Bombadil fat ass hoping around the meadow, peak comfy.

>>20818009
>the main tech on display is VR
Are talking about the same VR as in Neuromancer or something else entirely?

Should I just kill myself if i feel like i'm not smart enough to write a story that is actually good

>>20818027
Sounds like a personal problem. I've been reading loads of pleasant SFF.

>>20818049
Try asking /wg/ for writing advice.

>>20818065
thanks

>>20818030
Idoru is outdated. The VR in it sucks, all the worst ideas from the 90s of what cyberspace would be like. Instead of dragging the cursor across the screen you have to get up and walk to a virtual mailbox on the other side of your virtual room. Metaverse garbage. The only thing that would have to happen for Idoru to become real is for someone to plug Hatsune Miku into one of those chat AIs that can simulate being sentient.

>>20818073
I’m surprised he didn’t foresee virtual YouTubers, given that cyberpunk being Japanese dominant was his lasting impact to cyberpunk.

>>20818073
>The VR in it sucks, all the worst ideas from the 90s of what cyberspace would be like. Instead of dragging the cursor across the screen you have to get up and walk to a virtual mailbox on the other side of your virtual room. Metaverse garbage.
Now that's truly dystopian.

>>20818045
no, not like neuromancer. think avatars and virtual environments.
again, the trilogy overall is much more contemporary feeling than Neuromancer

see this anon's humorous description
>>20818073

>>20818049
become an engineer

>>20818128
So VR chat then. Or second life.

>>20818159
More like VR chat, or rather an interpretation from a boomer.

>>20812890
>Neuromancer is one of my favourite books.
Mine as well, and I think it's his only good book. Which is fine, because it's just that good.

>>20818200
I'll always laugh because Gibson had to rewrite the book after watching a movie.

>>20818218
Blame runner, you know, I actually want to know how his first draft of the story would have turned out.

>>20818218
I don't buy his story that he walked out of the movie over anxiety of influence. I mean, how could he? But Blade Runner is one of my favorite movies too, so it's a positive for me that he was caught in its orbit.

>>20818231
I do, but that’s because Gibson thinks he’s some sort of arbiter when it comes to cyberpunk.

>>20818242
But would he have when he was still writing it? I get that he could be like that after it blew up, but to be struck with this gorgeous vision of just the thing you're struggling to articulate as you write your first novel I don't know how even the most pompous man could turn away.

>>20818268
Honestly? Yeah. Some aspiring authors are like that, Gibson was just one of the few to be successful

>>20818242
Doesn't he waste his time checking out cyberpunk novels, games and movies and telling them they aren't true cyberpunks?

>>20818349
Yeah, I think it was Deus Ex games and a few tabletops. Don’t know about novels.

>>20818380
Figures. Gibson cyberpunk was always about retrofuturism

>>20818423
Nah, more like an old man who’s mad that his vision of the future didn’t pan out.

>>20818446
We live in a cyberpunk world, just not in the way he expected.

>>20818231
>I don't buy his story that he walked out of the movie over anxiety of influence.
Didn't he say so himself, seems stupid to tell if it didn't happen.

>>20817964
>is his other works more grounded?
You should read Pattern Recognition and if you don't like it, then don't bother reading his other works.

>>20818489
Yes he did say so himself, and I didn't believe him. He would have to address it because of the obvious similarity. He couldn't say he never saw it and he didn't want to say it influenced him. I think he saw it and it influenced him and I'm okay with that.

>>20818553
>Yes he did say so himself, and I didn't believe him. He would have to address it because of the obvious similarity.
All cyberpunks are similar, but when I think about it, yeah, you're right.

>>20818591
Yeah and I want to stress I don't think any less of the book because of that. I mean pffft Cormac McCarthy just read KJV and Moby Dick so fuck him right? Blade Runner was in theaters and who else released something as cool as Neuromancer for however many years? It's a great book, I love it, it has a strong tangent to Blade Runner and that's nothing to be ashamed of.

>>20818620
>Blade Runner was in theaters and who else released something as cool as Neuromancer for however many years?
Two years. The novel that Blade Runner is older, but yeah, I get your point.

>>20818642
Blade runner and it’s Philip novel aren’t even the same.

>>20818620
>Neuromancer
>1984
>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
>1968

>>20818689
Blade Runner was nothing like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Watch and read today if you don't believe me.

>>20818702
Still, it’s ironic that the movie is basis for what cyberpunk look likes while Neuromancer is everything they copy.

>>20818728
Authors are hacks and unimaginative, a tale as old as time.

WERE GUNNA SLID OFF THE BOARD!!!
EVERYBODY HOLD ON TO SOMETHING!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

New thread
>>20818761

>>20818766
Page 10, on time.

>>20818766
That bakkerspammer really has no life.

New thread
>>20818915

>>20812376
is this an actual book?