/lit/ - Literature

>>22139374
WOWIEEEE I LOOOOVEEEEE FANTASY. OH YES, I LIVE IN MY MOM'S BASEMENT, HOW COULD YOU TELL?

>>22139383
From the way you type.

>>22139383
By looking at the address bar.

Dear God, smite down writers who write out the stutter of a character instead of using dialogue tags.

I'm finally reading Dreadgod. Someone remind me what the relationship between Monarchs and Dreadgods is.

If you read this swill then kill yourself

>>22139513
People really read stuff like this and still genuinely believe they're getting an authentic reading of a book in translation?

>>22139374
y does dargon have stinky breaf?

>>22139533
yes

>>22139576
What do you think the gas used to generate fire comes from?

>>22139374
What the hell happened with Red Rising? I loved the first three books so much, I finished all three of them within a week and it’s definitely one of my top favorite series. Of course I immediately started reading Iron Gold after that but it appears to be complete junk. It’s been several weeks and I still haven’t even read through the first third. What happened? Will it get better or is the rest of the series shit?

>>22139513
What don't you like about it? Let's do something like a literary analysis in this discussion thread instead of just posting an image and telling people to off themselves. Chinese Wuxia is piss swill and the translation efforts are abysmal but the same can be said of Lord of the Mysteries, yet that's treated with a general respect here.

>>22139633
What don't you like about it?

>Knowing a wizard's true name makes him vulnerable because... it just does!

Dropped

>>22139821
What don't you like about it?

>>22139847
Makes no sense. Another thing I don't like is Wizard Wireless which makes it possible to instantly communicate across huge distances.

>>22139856
It makes perfect sense. How are you going to curse a man when you don't even know his name?

>>22139872
So if someone told you someone's name and you had no idea who he was you would be able to curse him? Do they all have unique names no one else has?

>>22139513
Bakker did it better

>>22139884
Yes it's like a Wizard SSN. Wizard name fraud is also a huge issue in the setting

>>22139884
True name is an ancient concept.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_name

>>22139899
I notice it's also missing a step that actually gives you power. Is true name some sort of killphrase? For example Cook's wizards were human, so they got their names from their mommies and daddies. It seems like their killphrase could be any sort of imprint, then.

Same goes if you choose your own name later on.

>>22139909
I don't know why you find it unbelievable. How does any magic work? It's just some metaphysical thing you can't explain scientifically.

/SFFG/ Recommendations:

Read Reverend Insanity, Lord of The Mysteries, Neuromancer, Hyperion, The Prince of Nothing

Also read The Wandering Inn, Between Two Fires, Mother of Learning, Cradle, I Shall Seal the Heavens, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Poppy

>>22139935
It's much easier to understand that you can direct certain energies through a cadence or a pattern at a certain someone than just go "oh by the way I know his real name so he's extra vulnerable now".

Like imagine Gandalf shooting fireballs at Orcs and one of them just goes "Mithrandir" and the croaks on the spot

/SFFG/ Recommendations: LITRPG Edition

Read Azarinth Healer, Primal Hunter, He Who Fight with Monsters, Dungeon Crawler Carl

Also read System Universe, Dissonance, Defiance of the Fall, Iron Prince.

>>22139972
But they use language in spells? How is just speaking words causing magic? It's the same thing.

>>22139471
Monarchs are basically 'too powerful' to exist on Cradle, and that produces hunger madra which in turn gives rise to the Dreadgods.

Man the Dunk and Egg novellas are excellent, can't believe I put off reading these for so long. Little over halfway through The Sworn Sword currently and I love how focused and lower stakes these stories are.

>>22139972
We're on a site where everybody is insistent on being anonymous and are hyper paranoid about businesses misusing the personal information which they collect from their customers, and yet you can't see why "true names" are a concept? They even endure to this day, just instead of being afraid of a witch getting a hold of our true name, we're afraid of our personal information being leaked and sold or used against us in some way or another. If anything, "true names" are more relevant now in the age of the internet than ever before.

>>22139856
>Makes no sense
It's magic dipshit. It doesn't have to make sense.

>>22140035
no one cares about your true name retard, and powers that be already know everything you're doing
your file is being built as we speak

Give me your favorite novels that present an interesting and unique view of the next century or so besides "glorious utopia" or "horrific dystopia."

>>22140252
Lord of The Mysteries

>>22140220
You have the reading comprehension of a toddler.

>>22140271
>Victorian steampunk
>Next century

>>22140252
The Left Hand of Darkness

>>22140476
you will understand if you read the book

>>22139645
he got triggered by the bear, or by Fang Yuan refining bone flesh unity gu.

>>22139821
I don't even remember that being in the book.

>>22139633
Iron Gold understandably starts off very slowly, it's the beginning of a new era etc. etc, I think the second half of the book should be fine, but overall the book just sets the stage for the "new" series. Dark Age is much better than Iron Gold, craziest book in the entire series, in a good way.

Anyone find fantasy easier to write than science fiction?

>>22139972
>and one of them just goes "Mithrandir"
Not even his name faggot

Which Culture books beyond the first three are worth reading? Which ones feature the Minds the most?

Are there any good post-apoc books that are in the vein of Road Warrior or Hokuto no Ken where it's all crazy bandit gangs and warlords and lone warriors etc?

>>22139513
>it's okay when bakker does it

I want a fantasy story with a cautious protag that isn't hot headed or stupid, but there's nothing to read. tf?

>>22141158
Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious

>>22141158
Primal Hunter
Cradle
Lord of The Mysteries

>>22141158
paranoid mage but (big surprise) the MC does some stupid shit for the sake of plot

>>22140897
Radix.

>>22141317
paranoid mage really fell off hard

it was ok at first but it kinda devolved into a "make the protagonist look smart by just making everyone else helpless and retarded"

somebody keeps shilling this series in these threads, can that guy give me a quick rundown of what it's about and why I should read it? be forewarned, I don't like grey gritty grimdark shit, so if the first words in your post are "it's like game of thrones but..." then kindly stop shilling it and kill yourself instantly

>>22141142
actually, it isn't
it's never ok

>>22141722
forgot my picture
>Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone
>an X of Y and Z
the overuse of this titling arrangement also causes a great degree of butthurt to me, but I can hardly blame these books for starting the trend, can I

>>22141726
looks like one of the mystic knights of tir na nog on the third book cover

>>22140797
They are all worth reading though most are set in the Culture rather than being about the Culture. Excession is maybe the best Culture book, that and The Hydrogen Sonata most frequently feature the Minds.

>>22140739
>craziest book in the entire series
Alright, I’m sold. I’ll give it another shot.

>>22139383
Fantasy emboldens the soul and fills it with filial piety.

>another new anon enjoying TWI
Wanderingcels stay winning

>>22140795
>ignores the sentiment to fling insults
Another quality post by a tolkiendrone

Finished Waybound, but I only picked up Cradle a couple of weeks ago and by the time I reached the final novel it had only been out for a few days, so the whole series is fresh to me. One of the only progression fictions I've read besides Mother of Learning and Virtuous Sons (the best of the three by far).
I'd call it plain potato chips reading, comfy and easy to consume but largely bland. It felt like the series lost steam steadily out of the gate. Sacred Valley had its identity established well, but no other location was really fleshed out culturally. Lindon's progression peaked at Iron, with everything past Underlord having no impact. Lindon's fights as a weakling with his traps and schemes were far more interesting than anything near the end.
In fact I'd say the quality of fights had a direct negative correlation with the rising power level. The end of the tournament was the end of decent fights. Eventually it's just throwing shit at each other, spending most of the fight at 1% with madra channels tearing apart and winning via backup arriving at the last possible moment or Dross ex machina.
The scale got wonky at some point. Blackflame and Seishen are smaller territories but they have around a dozen Underlords apiece and are ruled by a singular Overlord. Then we smash cut to Lindon in some random city on the tree Monarch's continent, not even the capital, and it's got three Archlords as dedicated city guard and there's hundreds of Underlords scurrying underfoot at every engagement.
Abidan conflicts always sucked. A judge waves their arm and a hundred Silverlords and a thousand warships and ten thousand stars disappear. Jobber Silverlords with the power to individually tear apart the whole Iteration in one move with a dozen giant fists and a million biting mouths and six gorillion angry ghosts, then a judge sniffs at them and they pop. Utterly dull and evoked the exact opposite of awe at le epic scale.
What character arcs there were all dragged their feet. Most of Mercy's conflict was a chore to get through. Ghostwater was an absolute low in characterization since it had the most Dross and his cancerousness was at full power, like an unholy hybrid of Portal writing and Marvel quips. He seemed to get toned down somewhat after the book he was introduced, it made me wonder if the author was responding to reader backlash. The series leaned on Eithan hard and it's a good thing it did.
1/2

2/2
I noticed fairly common gaps in logic in the plot and strange jumps in reasoning. The whole progression system felt cheapened in the last couple of books when everyone needed to go from impressive for a youngun to matching centuries-old tyrants in a matter of months, and did so. By how the last book played out there should be more Archlords hitting Sage and Herald than not.
Stakes rarely felt real. What semi-sympathetic relevant characters even died in the whole series? Jai Long? What semi-sympathetic relevant characters even suffered loss of any kind? I can only think of Mercy putting down her mother. I don't need mandatory grimdark and drama porn but most writing for kiddies has more tragedy than this.
Rules and restrictions were established early on that ended up being surpassed by insight, power or lolDross later, but nothing took their place. Madra incompatibilities, differences in technique types, most limitations, any kind of non-fatal injury became trivial. I stopped trying to figure out what could be done in a given situation because it felt like anything could be asspulled by anyone past a certain point.
This is a personal preference but I really don't enjoy the "there is nothing truly mystical, supernatural or divine, it's all magiscience totally comprehendible by the human mind!" aspect of the setting, as common as it is. The few people who have any kind of non-magiscience backed beliefs are highlighted as ignorant retards. Busting out the buzzwards, it's soulless and a greater Reddit crime in my eyes than anything Dross spouted.
So besides all this that I moaned about I liked it well enough as a time-waster. I left vaguely unfulfilled but my expectations for genre fantasy are rock bottom to begin with. Cradle is above average.

>>22139374
I just read (the comic book adaptation of) Wyrms by Orson Scott Card. And it was good. It wasn't a great adaptation though.

Humanity is on a distant planet and has been set back a long ways technologically. And ethically, I guess. This state of affairs has endured partially because there's a lovecraftian monster that psychically commands wise people to come to it, and then kills them.

This call is sometimes represented in the protagonist's mind by the poem:
All roads go here
All rivers flow here
All time bends here
All life ends here

So it's one of those sci-fi fantasy hybrid books.

>>22139374
I am currently reading the Dying Earth series and am enjoying it, but what other books are there that are what I consider to be like He-Man world (post apocalyptic technologically advanced Earth that turned into sword and sorcery)

i finished this, am i religious now?

picrel is downloading rn, what am i in for?

>>22142313
Gondwane by Lin Carter is exactly what you're asking for.

>>22142488
I also just finished it. I don't know about making me religious but it definitely made me want to read more religious fantasy books

>>22142533
it was a refreshing change of pace from the typical fantasy book that's for sure. and i agree, made me want to read a fantasy crusade story or something

>>22141722

Basically there's a kingdom with court politics shit going on and the current king's brother wants to usurp him.
Meanwhile evil magical beasts are returning to the woods and nobody knows why.
The Pope is also up to no good.

It has a few major storylines.
>Teen princess who has to win back the throne and is the inheritor of crazy magical powers that slowly corrupt their user. She is helped by her handmaiden and a young roguish duelist.
>Young knight who just wants to protect the queen but things get complicated.
>Middle aged woodsman wants to save the forest from the evil magical creatures who is joined by the hot barmaid who's secretly been in love with him her whole life.
>Young priest who likes learning about language and ancient history but discovers stuff about the secret big bad and makes enemies of the Pope.
>Starting in book 2 there's a music composer who basically just wants to make music but the situation with the church makes this problematic.

The first book is unironically pretty reminiscent of Game of Thrones, but it's not as dark, and certainly isn't grimdark. The rest of the books are their own thing.

>>22139513
I read this in the voice of a Chinese convenience store owner yelling at a black kid he suspects of shoplifting.

Is there a method to make a wolf beast-race without making them furries? I find this to be a problem in a lot of beast races in the genre.

>>22142935
There are wolf people in Codex Alera that didn't strike me as furrybait HOWEVER furries are so degenerate that I doubt there is a way to make any beast race 100% furryproof

>>22142935
keep them quadrupedal
the minute they start standing on two legs like a person, they're fuckable
as long as they still look like animals and not like people with animal traits, only the most disgusting social outcast zoophiles will consider them sex objects

>>22142935
>Is there a method to make a wolf beast-race without making them furries
No
Furries ruined beast races. They ruined werewolves

binge read shadow slave this week, it was pretty good. a cut below lord of the mysteries or reverend insanity, but in the same ball park

>>22142503
Good Clarke hard scifi

>>22139821
Have you read Earthsea?

>>22142634
Would you say it's similar to Zelazny's Amber series?

>>22143192
Don't know, but from what I know about Amber probably not. I can get back to you about that in a few days because Amber is the next book I plan to read.

>>22143039
its not that good

>>22142234
>>22142244
Thank you for providing your personal feelings and emotional reactions, though it is rather spoiler filled. I've already read it though so that's not an issue for me. I agree with many of your complaints, though I think they ought to have been expected. There seems to be a mismatch between what you thought you were reading and what it is.

Recommend be books with magic politics

>>22143477
Wandering Inn

>>22143481
do people seriously enjoy reading this swill?
There's 30,000 pages of this reprehensible garbage

>>22143497
blame sanderfag for popularizing "workmanlike prose"

>>22143505
For 30,000 pages you could read the entire bibliographies of lord dunsany, r e howard, jack vance and hp lovecraft and not even be a third of the way through
you have to be mentally ill to read this fucking trash

has anyone ever read the Dungeon series, sort of made by one guy initially but he collabed with a bunch of other authors to make the books and each one is written by someone different. i inherited the fifth book from a collection of my uncle's but he didn't have any of the others and i could never find them but now i have an e-reader so i was curious if anyone read and enjoyed them.

>>22143477
Modesitt's fantasy novels

>>22143515
Yup. Welcome to this gay ass chink ai litrpg harem faggotry hell we live in

>>22143497
This would definitely read a lot better just by cutting a third of the sentence out. Jesus.

>>22143497
Actually, it's 44,500 pages, 12.2 milions of words. If an author can make someone read so much, one should ask how do they do it. Could an averge author manage that? I don't think so. Which means something must be done right to keep people hooked. But I guess people reading only the samek book over and over would not understand what it means to reads somethign actually enjoyable.

>>22143627

>>22143640
>If an author can make someone read so much, one should ask how do they do it.
Why do you guys always say good shit like this advocating for your favorite series, then go on and say absolutely retarded shit like this?
>But I guess people reading only the samek book over and over would not understand what it means to reads somethign actually enjoyable.
Are you trying to dissuade people from reading it? Are you falseflagging. I don't even know anymore with this shit general.

>>22143640
More like a drug dealer than an author.

>>22143497
Good job, faggot. You summoned it.

>>22143135
First book yeah, I liked how mana was depicted.

>>22143655
You don't become a successful web serial by cutting out filler.

>>22143244
I would recommend NOT reading Amber, considering it's the absolute worst shit I have ever, EVER read. I would not subject any other person to the torment of reading Amber if I could at all avoid doing so, knowing what I know now after having read it. My question was meant to see if KOTAB was worth reading or should be immediately discarded upon resemblance to Chronicles of Amber.

>>22143640
>DUDE MCDONALDS IS GOOD FOOD BECAUSE MILLIONS OF PEOP EAT IT
kill yourself shitrpg scum

>>22143640
Is it really surprising that mindless insectoid drones with debilitating psychological conditions would be attracted to that kind of autistic wankery? Give a sperg a math textbook and he'll be content, give a functional human being a math textbook and they'll use it to club you to death.

>>22141158
Mists of Avalon

>>22142234
>>22142244
In Other News, Waybound was the #1 most downloaded fantasy book on Amazon and Audible for a day or so. It's dropped down from there but still sits as one of the best sellers on the platform.

>>22141507
It fell off when he got caught by the vagina. Vaginas make everything worse.

>muh Siöl
>muh blood of Tsonos
Nihrimsul was the true House Primordial and I’m tired of pretending it wasn’t.

>>22142634
Sounds like roastie+whiteknight fantasy

>>22144108
This.
The moment he went to save that cunt I knew its over.

I’m thinking of starting cradle, does it have cute girls lusting for MC-kun’s cock? This is very important

>>22144495
No but the mc is a betacuck who apologizes several thousand times. Read it, you will love it.

>>22139821
Tell us your real name right now if you don't understand this.

>>22139513
>>22143497

>>22143707
...does anyone actually claim Mcdonald isn't good food? It's tasty as fuck, but unhealthy. But people don't eat it because it's good for you. It's literally so tasty people can get addicted.

>>22144629
Jeff

Anyone know a sci fi book where humanity is almost extinct, and/or is outnumbered by alien species?

>>22144673
Too much of a good thing. If its so nice that people get addicted (as most modern garbage is) and is unhealthy, then its failing in its main purpose as food. Foods meant to give you energy in a reasonable way, not be stuffed to the hilt with slop designed to fuck you over.

Fast food should be quick and filling. The mounds of sugar and other nonsense are downsides to anything with above 90iq.

>>22144692
the US census bureau

>>22144692
You know you want it.

>>22143497
I know it's probably a matter of taste, but I'm actually fine with the superfluous prose. It kinda gives it a dramatic flair.

>>22144629
Ichigo

>>22144692
Alien Earth

>>22144673
McDonald's isn't tasty, it and Burger King are bottom of the barrel genuine slop. There are vastly better fast food burgers out there, and I'm not talking about bank-breaking wallet-molesters like Five Guys

>>22144869
you can only choose one!

>>22139374
Thoughts on the The Five Warrior Angels series thus far?

>>22144962
Left. You know why.

>>22144495
The protagonist has one love interest who is a tiny scarred-up swordswoman (who loses the scars (but is still tiny)). It's actually unclear if she's particularly short, or if it's more just Lindon is huge.

>>22143039
disagree, it just turned into sunny power wanking halfway through the first arc, with the occasional feat from nephis to remind us that she's supposed to be relevant too

>>22142935
explicitly mention that they don't have knotted dicks; that will immediately repel all furries

>>22145009
Lindon is a massive hulking ogre of a man with resting thug face, it's regularly relevant.

>>22143020
Regular furries are openly into fucking ordinary animals now.
t. sorted by most popular animations on the biggest furry porn booru... for educational purposes

>>22145076
Yeah, I'm aware, I'm just not sure if Yerin is specifically short, or if she's just short by comparison.

>>22144962
>Choose which gook scribble female to fawn over
I'm so fucking thankful that I grew out of this shit.

Iain Banks, of course.

>>22145220
Just in case real life liberal interventionists aren't smug enough for you.

>>22145076
>resting thug face
Like a nerdy Kiryu Kazuma. It basically does nothing but get him into fights.
>>22144495
The Author basically forgets Romance and Sex exists for most of the books. Technically, Lindon has 2.5 girls lusting after him but 1 never really pursues it and the other...is complicated.

hey I am depressed and overworked what should I read (none of that litrpg trash)

>>22145335
Belgariad

>>22145335
Litrpg trash cures my overworked depression by allowing me to imagine that things lead somewhere.

>>22145335
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass but only if you want to.

Has anyone read this series? Sequels to the movie Willow. I've heard the first book starts off rocky, but if you stick with it, it's actually a good series. Thoughts?

>>22145408
I heard that the very first thing the Willow novels did was kill off Madmartigan, Sorsha, and Willow himself, so if that doesn't immediately tell you everything you need to know about what kind of dogshit it is, you need an enema.

>>22143556
I read the whole series. So 4 different authors collaborated with Farmer on 6 books. The same author that wrote the first one, wrote the last one, Bruce Coville wrote #2. Another author wrote both #3 and #5, then another random author wrote #4. I thoroughly enjoyed the series up until the last book. The big problem is that the author of the last book completely ignored characters and continuity and wrote his own kind of fanfiction about how he wanted the series to end. My advice to you is just to read books #1-5 and skip the last one. I'm telling you it's complete garbage and not even worth your time. You should be able to find the first book pretty easily but the other books you may have to find off amazon or ebay.

>>22144962
What’s this from

>>22144768
The phrase gets thrown around a lot, but this is America's LOTR.

>>22145445
I wanted to argue, but in the way that America consumes culture and turns it into dog shit, it is America's LOTR.

>>22145309
>Lindon has 2.5 girls lusting after him
I guess Jai Long's sister MAY have something into him, but who's the .5? Mercy?

>>22145545
Jai Chen was his wife in the original timeline Suriel showed him, iirc. So Yerin, Mercy, and Chen. Harem baiting...

>>22145545
Not him, but Akura Grace tried to arrange marrying him of her own accord and Jai Long's sister was his wife in the original future Suriel showed him at the very start and always seems like she'd be totally receptive if he actually showed interest in her. He was shown to marry Mercy in the odd timeline but that was probably more politically-motivated. She cares more about peeping on him and Yerin than trying to get with him.

>>22145416
I'll wait for a response from someone who's actually read it, thanks.

I have a question that's been bugging me: what was the first sci-fi book or publication that had humans and aliens coexisting (ie Star Trek) or at least not on two stark, clear cut antagonistic lines?

>>22145598
I've been meaning to read these too. Claremont is an S tier writer so they can't be THAT bad.

>>22144692
The Killing Star

>>22139374
>so here's a (Dragon) for you
Delete this.

>>22146024
A True Story

>start reading Dungeon Crawler Carl
>the Seattlite MC's first human opponents are a pair of white ICE agents who gun-murdered a bunch of undocumented immigrants for some reason
I'd already seen there was going to be a talking cat with eye lasers and a velociraptor in the main cast and set my Reddit tolerance high, but this is a bit too much. Why are Americans like this?

i've just finished manifest delusions an it was great

>>22145408
>Shadow Moon

>>22145545
Ruby.

If orange man goes to prison, will Doors of Stone get released?

I'm surprised that all throughout Cradle, no girl ever out-anime'd Bliss.

>>22145408
>written by the X-Men guy
>had to kill off most of the cast from the movie because of copyright reasons
Not gonna lie doesn't seem too promising

>>22147046
Wouldn't getting licensed to write a novel followup to a movie give you permission to write about the copyrighted characters? I figured he killed them off so he could write his own story with a recognizable title

>>22147141
No, this was not his decision at all. You can look it up.

>>22139374
Lessons in Birdwatching - Honey Watson (2023)

Lessons in Birdwatching is a fascinating book that takes an unusual approach to its characters and narrative. It could become a standard response for those asking for a book in its specific niche. I haven't read much else like it.

The ostensible protagonist, Wilhelmina Ming, is evil. She's not an anti-hero. The usual arguments of "greater good", "good intentions", "misguided", "following orders", "indoctrinated" or anything else in an attempt to justify actions don't apply. All she wants is power and the freedom to do whatever she wants to whomever she wants. This is evident from the beginning. It's not some later twist or reveal. If this were Star Wars, she'd be a Sith apprentice, and by that analogy she finds her Sith Master. This isn't a bad thing. There are secondary viewpoint characters, but I found them to be far less salient and mostly only existing to show what was going on elsewhere.

I'm also conflicted and I hope what I've written reflects that, though it may come off as far more critical than intended. I like the book. It's more so that there are limiting factors to my enjoyment. If this is the first book of a series, then it could go in all sorts of ways and retroactively improve my rating. I'd read more. If it's standalone, then well, huh. The greatest limitation to my enjoyment is that when I finished it, it felt entirely incomplete, not in terms of its narrative, which has a fully contained story, but rather of meaning. It felt like a body without an animating force, or to use an in-universe term, the book itself was a tama. It frustrates me that I feel like I don't have any idea how far away I was from its intended perspective.

The description provided by the publisher was the primary draw for to me read this. It states that the book is a "...a darkly comic, politically charged novel set in a post-earth future, where beings—human and otherwise—careen towards annihilation in service of zealotry and nihilism alike." I thought that would be an exaggeration, but maybe its nihilism is the entire point. There's a scene where the book's title could be literally meant, probably as a morbid joke, though I don't agree with it being called darkly comic. If the title is metaphorical then I can only guess wildly. Another part reads "...ravaged by a time distorting illness" which is true, though the mind and body horror aspects of the illness are more of a focus. The time distortion does have a major role, but it's not that relevant to where the story's focus lies. I admit I was a bit disappointed when the "psychedelic antidepressant and group sex" turned out to be not much more than a k-hole cuddle puddle, at least by how the scene was briefly described. The erotic grotesque scene made much more of an impression, not in a bad way, though that's not really my thing.

Rating: 3/5

I received this DRC from Angry Robot through NetGalley.

>>22147046
>>22147141
>>22147159
Nah, this is what happened

https://goggler.my/everything-you-thought-you-knew-about-those-willow-spinoff-novels-was-a-lie/
>Well, I will tell you this. I’ll give you the straight dope, which is that I, like you went in and absorbed those novels and was felt that they were critical texts. And then I went into Lucasfilm when we were beginning the discussion of this project, and it was explained to me, by covert members of the Lucasfilm family, that indeed what had actually transpired in the mid-nineties is that Chris Claremont had written those books on spec, and had written them as fantasy novels of his own, and was in search of a publishing partner. Someone within George’s company found them. Someone had the brilliant idea that very minimal revisions would be needed to turn them into an extension of the Willow series. There was a brief conversation, those changes were made, George’s name was added to the front cover to increase sales, and the mythology of George and Chris sitting down and writing those books is sadly exactly that, a myth.
So they weren't even Willow sequels when they were first written. They just got edited into that.

>>22145594
I completely forgot about Grace because I'm pretty sure she died the book she was introduced in didn't she.
There's also Malice flirting with him but that seemed to just be Malice trying to fuck with him.

>>22147164
your """reviews""" are SHIT
FUCK OFF

>>22146040
His First Flight trilogy of novels is really good

>>22147165
Well, if a blog post by the esteemed Umapagan Ampikaipakan says so, it certainly must be true.

I liked this one even more than Radix and Last Legends of Earth.

>>22147464
Why didn't I know about this? Claremont has a whole other career as a novelist?

>>22147490
As far as I know, he only wrote the six novels, First Flight trilogy and Shadow War trilogy (although I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote other stuff under pen names.)
I found out about the First Flight series from ads in Xmen comics back in the day. Read them as a kid, then reread them a few years ago and they actually hold up pretty well.

>>22147487
That one had a fun plotline. I try to rec it too but with little luck.

>>22147476
>I'll wait for a response from someone who actually read it
>no, not THAT person who read it!
very cool, please die

>>22145408
I'd read the first one and it is fucking terrible.

Between Starship Troopers, The Forever War and Armor, what's the best "military vs bugs" novel?

>>22147937

>>22142234
Agreed with everything.

Any rec for something thematically similar to Starship's Mage (magitech in space but not autistic)? I made it to book 9 and although the writing improved from the earlier book, the whole thing has lost steam by now.

>>22148031
>The Female War
But enough about American politics

>>22147731
Ah too bad. Thanks.

>>22147619
lol what?

>>22139374
Any sff books where the protagonist's mom has sex/is raped/corrupted by the villain/s. Asking for a friend

Besides Howard, where should I look for decent S&S/heroic fantasy short stories?

>>22148471
From somebody reads nothing in fantasy apart from S&S
>Moorcock's elric, corum and hawkmoon
>Clark ashton smith's zothique, hyperborea and averoigne
>Fritz leiber's fafhrd and the grey mouser
>Karl edward wagner's kane stories (my personal favourite)
>Cl Moore's jirel of joirey

>>22142634
>Teen princess who has to win back the throne and is the inheritor of crazy magical powers that slowly corrupt their user. She is helped by her handmaiden and a young roguish duelist.
Slight cringe
>>22142634
>>Young knight who just wants to protect the queen but things get complicated.
>Middle aged woodsman wants to save the forest from the evil magical creatures
Kino, Trees are based
>who is joined by the hot barmaid who's secretly been in love with him her whole life.
>Tfw no bar wench gf

>>22148533
Aren't Smith's stories more weird fiction than S&S? Or have I been mislead?

>>22148558
It's a little bit of both.

Describe his writing career

>>22148647
>writing
>career

>>22148647
Jewish kvetching

>>22148697
Fucking KEK

>>22148697
>>22148706
I don't get it.

>>22148558
Some are set in a S&S type universe, they just weren't all stories about meatheads who stab all their problems away.

>>22148558
They're S&S
For some reason S&S has been flanderised to only be conan clones but in reality S&S always included sorcerers and magic users as protagonists

>>22148736
>>22148739
>>22148612
I'll look into his stuff then. Thanks for the rec.

>>22143497
This is as bloated as a modern youtube video.

Are any of the litrpgs good?

>>22149221
Do you have a background in gaming? Do you like reading about game mechanics? Tabletop, videogame, collectible card game, board game and whatever else. There's a lot who has been reviewing a lot and there's a few others who have written about them. They can be fun depending on the person, but whether they're good is a different matter. For you personally you'll have to decide by what others say and/or trying them yourself. I may be posting about a couple in the next couple threads.

>>22149265
Yes. Sometimes. Yes.
Someone recommended some web novel to me Mages Are Too OP but I can't stand the writing of it. It's very much tell and not show. There's more to it that's bad but that doesn't matter right now. Are all litrpgs like that? Where it feels like whole sections are missing because they barely show anything happening? "We went and did this." or some garbage like that isn't entertaining. Sorry for ranting, I read 234 pages of this trash because I'm insane.

>>22149221
Many are good "enough". Few are TRULY really good/great.

>>22149276
Some LitRPGs tend to do "grinding via demonstrating a thing, and then just saying it's repeated", but that's not super engaging. A lot of them tend to just have leveling be relatively incidental. Dungeon Crawler Carl is often recommended as the best one, because it uses the LitRPG elements as a sort of deliberate farce to contrast with the grim reality of the situation.

>>22149276
I haven't read many at all myself. I've tried, but I ran into the same problem as you. As with anything, Sturgeon's law may apply that at least 90% are trash. I assumed you were asking because of the book listed for this month from the Goodreads group in the OP of this thread.

>>22149276
>it feels like whole sections are missing because they barely show anything happening? "We went and did this." or some garbage like that isn't entertaining.
Boy, you would hate Gene Wolfe.

>>22139374
>was given Pratchetts Interesting Times as a gift
What am I in for?

>>22149366
Interesting Times.

>>22149278
Ah.
>>22149291
It sucks that you ran into the same problem. Nope, I randomly ran across that web novel by coincidence and after reading some of it, made my post.
>>22149283
Maybe I'll try reading it but maybe not this week.
>>22149327
I read two of Gene Wolfe's books in a row when i got suggested to read the first one uh, shadow of the councilor or whatever the book was called. I actually got recommended it years ago by this thread. I love you anons. Anyway, I made the mistake of binge reading both in a row and got ultra burnt out on reading for a while. I don't like that the protaganist was even joking about what I complained about haha... fuck.
Thanks anons, I appreciate you!
>>22149366
I loved the discworld series as a kid.

>>22149276
Out of all genres of webnovels litrpg tend to have worst, least talented authors with no skills in writing. Maybe in 10 years time we will have some better litrpg novels but at this time litrpg is all garbage.

>>22149557
Oh, that makes sense. Thanks anon! Maybe one day I'll learn to stop reading trashy novels.

>>22149366
In ancient chinese culture, it was considered a curse of the gravest magnitude to say "May you live in interesting times."

Any good horror novels about alien abduction?

I'm liking this.

Mark of the Fool by JM Clarke

[Plot]

Every century a dark being called the Ravener revives itself to threaten the continent of Thameland. In response the Gods have elected five Heroes that are given a mark on their 18th birthdays that grants them abilities in line with their title: The Champion, The Mage, The Fighter, The Cleric and The Fool... History has looked poorly on The Fool however, calling it a cursed mark that lead most who bear it to an early death. Thinking that he managed to skate by this supernatural selection test, Alex Roth has quit his job and withdrawn his family's inheritance with plans to use the money to pay his way through Generasi Wizard School and care of his little sister.

Unfortunately Alex was born some few minutes before midnight... and finds the Mark of the Fool emblazoned on his skin in the 11th hour. Dreading being a pawn of fate destined to fail by design, Alex gathers his sister and his childhood friend Theresa and flees to Wizard School.

[Characters]

Alex Roth has diligently studied the same magical spell so many times that he can cast it in his sleep. Because of such he's been invited to attend the most prestigious wizarding school in the world. With the trip just days away he's caught by surprised when the gods choose HIM to bear the mark of the fool. The instant its burned onto his skin, it fills his every attempt to spellcraft with memories of past mistakes. Despite this, he's able to analyze those failures and improve.

This empowers his spellcraft as having to work around the box has given him mana control close to that of a graduate. All of this hard work in service of making a better life for his sister Selina after the two of them lost their parents in a fire during childhood. Initially viewing his avoidance of the clerics and other heroes as cowardice, he soon thinks of it as an opportunity to master his mark and have something more to offer. After all Thameland and the other heroes don't need him quite yet.

Theresa is his companion for this quest, a childhood friend with the bloodline of a Qigong Master Hunter with some proficiency herself. After learning of Alex's mark and his plan she decides to help get him and Selina out of the city. She's assisted by her Cerberus companion Brutus, a 3-headed dog. She views Selina like a little sister and a burgeoning romance with Alex coaxes her to abandon her family and joining them in Generasi.

[Progression Mechanics]

A mixture of litRPG and Cultivation downplayed significantly for the narrative's sake. Every spell has a level and as you master that spell and increase your mana pool and control, you move to the next tier. This is essentially your rank, with characters identifying as a Wizard of the First, Second, etc. Order. I mention Qigong above and while cultivation and expelling impurities is present, its not heavily dived into. It is implied that cultivating is on the same level as spell casting if you take it far enough.

>>22149745
[Progression Mechanics Cont.]

There are also the Marks, which have different effects depending on what's granted. The Fool Mark floods the user with failures whenever they attempt ANYTHING offensively orientated. This forces Alex down the path of learning utility spells, as the mark doesn't interfere with them. He also learns a complex spear battle rotation because its culturally called a dance vs. a kata. We never quite learn what the other marks are capable of.

[Final Thoughts]

I was disappointed at first that the story wasn't going to be straightforward and have Alex immediately join the other heroes. There aren't enough ensemble casts and that feels like a missed opportunity. Speaking of missed opportunities, this book has a very engaging world but it seems like an afterthought to the academy. For example, Alex learns that Thameland's Ravener is a known quantity that other continents allow the church to treat as a holy quest. Threats to one country are nothing compared to the entirety of the world and each continent appears to be visited by a regular catastrophe. This would melt my mind to learn but Alex goes 'oh... neat, that kind of trivializes my struggle huh? haha'

While these LitRPGs seem to be copying from a template, the characters and the circumvention of the system is interesting. Don't go into this expecting a definitive beginning, middle, and end - its web serial format from start to finish. My only... definitive half-score as these few gripes keeps it from being something truly great.

6.5/10

>Lord of the Mysteries by Cuttlefish – 9/10
>Dungeon Crawler Carl Series by Matt Dinniman - 9/10
>Cradle Series by Will Wight - 8/10
>Worth the Candle by Alex Wales - 8/10
>Mother of Learning Series - 8/10
>Ave Xia Rem Y by Mat Haz - 8/10
>All The Skills by Honour Rae - 7/10
>Iron Prince by Bryce O'Connor and Luke Chmilenko - 7/10
>Chrysalis by RinoZ - 7/10
>Forge of Destiny by Yrsillar - 7/10
>A Thousand Li by Tao Wong - 7/10
>Mark of the Fool by JM Clarke - 6.5/10
>Retribution Engine by Akaso - 6/10
>Beware of Chicken by Casualfarmer – 6/10
>Wandering Inn by Pirateaba - 6/10
>Virtuous Sons by Ya Boy - 6/10
>Bastion by Phil Tucker - 6/10
>The Primal Hunter by Zogarth - 6/10
>Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe - 6/10
>Heaven's Laws by Apollos Thorne - 6/10
>Battle Mage Farmer by Seth Ring - 5/10
>I Shall Seal The Heavens by Er Gen - 5/10
>Reverend Insanity by Gu Zhen Ren - 5/10
>Soulhome by Sarah Lin - 5/10
>Soulship by Nathan Thompson - 4/10
>Azarinth Healer by Rhaegar - 3/10
>Reincarnation: Threads by Michael Head - 3/10
>Paladin of the Sword by Marvin Knight - 2/10
>Portal to Nova Roma by JR Mathews - Dropped
>He Who Fights Monsters by Shirtaloon - Dropped
>Coiling Dragon by Wo Chi Xi Hong Shi - Dropped
>The Elevation Chronicles by Captain Capslock - Dropped
>Last Ship in Suzhou by Lungs - Dropped
>Defiance of the Fall by J.F. Brink - Dropped

>Currently Reading
Wayward

>Currently Listening
Infinite Realm

>>22149745
>>22149748
Ah shit, forgot my name. Doesn't much matter. Wayward is pretty good so far, marked improvement from the last book which seemed to just be tying up loose ends to steamroll this plot forward. Infinite Realm is... OKAY but it had a Fang Yuan setup and I don't care very much for the narrative structure of Past and Present.

>>22149265
Different anon, but do you have any recs for litrpg based around collectible card games?

>>22149757
Waybound, you mean? And, yeah, Infinite Realm takes a while to get going. The past stuff honestly doesn't have as much bearing as you'd think, and it's dropped after the... I can't remember if it's dropped after the first or second book, but it doesn't last TOO long.

>>22149759
All The Skills is the biggest one for that right now. It's not SUPER unique about it, but it's neat in its own way.

>>22149757
It does take a while to ramp up. Ryun lightens up on his autism a tiny bit it is still pervasive and Zach takes four books to become an interesting character. There's also a shitload of indecision of what the author wants to do with the story, both shortterm and longterm, early on in the first few books.

>>22149768
I'll check it out. Thanks brotha

>>22149759
I'm reading vol 2 of All the Skills right now and it's good. Character, setting and game elements harmonize pretty well.

Djinn Tamer is a card game where people capture magical creatures and embed them in cards to fight in arena battles. But translated into "real' life it kind of comes across like cock fighting. Still, kind of liked it and would read another if it fell in my lap.

Goblin Summoner is straightforward card stuff but the supporting elements just didn't come together for me. There's a team dynamic that I notice but don't really feel.

All the Skills is the most engaging by a long shot.

>>22149748
>Virtuous Sons by Ya Boy - 6/10
I'm curious, how far did you get into this?

>>22143505
Sanderfag is a master pf prose compared to that shit.

>>22149745
>>22149748
>>22149757
your """reviews""" are SHIT
FUCK OFF

>>22147041
Lol he said he'd finish it if Trump was out of office.

His word means nothing. I'm not accusing him of anything except mental illness. That being said, if you have the type of mental illness he does then you are still responsible for your actions.

>anxiety
>depression
>narcissism (?)

These traits don't relieve you of responsibility, they just make your life harder. Blaming shit on politics is weak. He quite literally went on a stream in 2016 and said

>If you want DoS finished help me get Trump out of office.

He's a weak man that writes well. I respect him as an author, but you can't really believe anything he says. I hate it for him, truly. But the only way to get better is to plod through the bullshit and work through your problems. He will release it eventually and I will happily read it, but to get to that point he has to fix his life. I hope he does, for DoS and his own sanity.

>>22150105
I think it's fair to be mean to writers about mental illness.
When people talk about dead authors, this author and that author had a depression era where they wrote these kinds of books or those kinds of books. For some people, these will be the only works of theirs that matter, for others those are the books that don't represent the real author. Know what I mean?
So he should get on with it and write. You'll have your dark depression or edgy era and some people will like it and others won't.
Something something art and suffering.

>>22149699
Seconded.
I wanna read an extended mental breakdown because someone experiences all the paranoia of being followed by aliens. Like that one scene in communion where you see one peak around the door. If I saw that in real life, I wouldn't stop screaming until it was daylight and I was in the middle of a tower in New York City where I knew they couldn't stand on the ground outside my window and look in, but also it would make it really fucking hard for them to fly their UFO down and get to me.

What book has the most suffering in it?

>>22144984
Good cover art, except the anime looking face and hair in the middle.
Haven't read them.

>>22144692
Children of Time.

>>22150619
>Letting authors emotionally blackmail you by cutting half of a woman's head off at the mouth in front of her lover who almost rescued her or something.

>>22150640
Wut

>>22150659
I just thought of a cheap violent way to make the reader feel bad through some character suffering.
It's one thing to get stabbed and go, "Ooohhh, Cloud, oooh nooo, rember meee...ee..." It's another to have the top half of your head obliterated in detail.

>final book
It was doomer kino

>>22149699
the Mothman Prophecies

>>22150670
Forced suffering is easy and hackery, yes. I assume he wasn't asking for the book with the most random gruesome agonizing deaths of sympathetic characters.

>>22150710
the ending was. the rest was women are stupid and weak: the book

>>22150737
>the rest was women are stupid and weak: the book
but that also sounds like doomer kino (if women are in positions of power)

>>22149745
>and care of his little sister.
>Alex gathers his sister and his childhood friend Theresa and flees
from the description it already sounds like some strong women and a a whiteknight story.

>>22150780
actually you're right. it has a lot of parallels with all the social movements we're experiencing now

I'm looking for a book that I forgot the name of. It was an 80's post nuclear apocalypse setting, the cover was a skull with some kind of red flower growing inside or or superimposed behind it. There were some kind of plague making people crazy I think, and there were fantastical elements such as mutant whales living in the desert and zombies that were controlled by flowers growing in them. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

>>22151105
>mutant whales living in the desert
I am now also interested in this

never got into S&S gonna read pic related see if it's any good

>>22151338
That book is absolute garbage. Please read something better if you're trying to get into S&S.

>>22151117
Found it: Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back by Joe Lansdale (1992)

>>22151383
Interesting name

>>22151348
like what? i just picked one from the flowcharts in the general, for someone who has never read anything in the genre

Can anyone rec a book that feels like an expedition into an unknown? I just finished Hyperion, and read Annihilation before that. I love the feeling of a group of travelers entering some strange, otherworldly place. Any more reccs in this vein?

>>22151443
Rendezvous with Rama
House of Leaves
Roadside Picnic for the original that Annihilation took its ideas from

>>22151465
Thanks, I forgot about Roadside Picnic.

>>22151419
Start with Conan the Barbarian (Black Colossus, Queen of the Black Coast, The Tower of the Elephant) or Elric of Melniboné. Howard and Moorcock aren't masters of prose, but they might as well be when compared with Moore. Just reading Moore for a couple of pages is enough to make your eyes glaze over.

>>22149846
not really, it's quite the same. just putting the first thought to paper

>>22144692

12 miles below, robots instead of aliens.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/42367/12-miles-below

>>22150619
The Last Legends of Earth is about space spiders that eat human pain hormones.

>>22151754
Based Radix reader

Its funny reading the first parts of The Wheel of Time and thinking that Aes Sedai are treated unfairly and given undue hate because of prejudice, and then reading on and realizing that the hate is 100% justified and doesn't even go far enough.

>>22149763
>>22149769
Waybound, that's right. As for Infinite Realm I'm sticking with it and it seems to finally be stretching its legs after about 20 chapters. Difficult to connect with Ryun or Zac as characters though, but I remain cautiously optimistic. Interesting enough system if nothing else but I still struggle with its delivery. The nature of the overpowered 7th Iteration Humans is annoying me though - I am sick to DEATH of overpowered protagonists in these stories, 'limited' or otherwise.

>>22149812
I was caught up to Royal Road release, but this was likely a year ago now and before book 1 and 2 were Kindle published. Truth be told after experiencing a lot of the cultivation genre, its system and character writing is a mark above... I'm inclined to give it a re-read as I did Beware of Chicken and re-assess it.

>>22149862
Thanks man. Your """discourse"" remains the same. Kill yourself.

>>22150805
Theresa and Selina are fine characters by themselves but do have strong empowerments that distinguish them maybe too much. Selina could be toned down as she's far more capable than even experienced hunters, but its not the worst representation I've seen. Female characters are put on a pedestal of sorts though.

>>22140782
It's because in fantasy there are no rules. In scifi, you're constantly trying to rationalize every piece of machinery, every technological advancement. There's tradeoffs to both, but I find fantasy to be the more enduring version of adult fiction.

Bros, are there any sci-fi works that feature people fighting in mechs like in titanfall? I recently got back in the game and I’ve realized that I’ve never seen a sci-fi work with mechs that weren’t gundams

>>22152058
>In hard scifi, you're constantly trying to rationalize every [...]
Yes.

>>22151988
>Difficult to connect with Ryun or Zac as characters though, but I remain cautiously optimistic
I find Ryun an interesting character to read about, but I personally don't really like him, because I feel like he gets away with a lot just because the author thinks he's cool. He also has a lot more 'specialness' to him. Zach, meanwhile, feels like the author just kind of doesn't know what to do with him for a while. I can respect a straightforward lawful good dude, and that's exactly what Zach is compared to Ryun's more murky morality, but because of the way the books are (each one focuses more on Ryun or Zach, book 1 is more Ryun, 2 is more Zach, etc.) it takes a while for Zach to actually do anything or have any interesting character dynamics. It's better in book 2, but as people have said it takes until book 4 before it feels like the author actually figured out how to go forward with Zach.
>I am sick to DEATH of overpowered protagonists in these stories, 'limited' or otherwise.
That's not really something that ever changes, they're always really big deal characters. At least the intermission chapters give a clear balancing point to show off just how high others can go, I think.

>>22145429
Zoomer, I...
>>22144985
uoh

>>22152074
Iron Widow

>>22152185
>YA
>female protagonist
>c*nadian

>>22152197
The poster wanted trash so trash was delivered.

I used to read a lot of fantasy and am looking to pick it up again. I was looking through some of the recommendation charts and the one prominent fantasy author that they seem to be missing is Terry Goodkind. I'm not saying he's great, but he was popular/successful. What do anons think of him? Some of you must like him since his books have tons of coomerbait.

Just googled him and he died in 2020, RIP

>>22152205
Dude's a joke and kids will gobble up literally any garbage that has magical swords in them, the more books in the series the better.

>>22152205
These days he is seen as a joke and an all-around shitty human being. His books, especially the later ones, are regarded as badly written with even worse plotlines.

>>22152205
I couldn't even finish Wizard's First Rule and have no desire to try again. Goodkind did not impress me much. Maybe if I'd read him as a teenager I'd have become engrossed, as I did with other mediocre authors at the time. God knows I picked up worse than him and managed to get several books in. I just don't have the patience or determination to suffer through something I'm not enjoying anymore.

>>22151948
It's masterful how Jordan did it. The progression of every WoT reader:
>Aes Sedai are great and perfect
>Aes Sedai aren't perfect but they're still mostly good
>Aes Sedai have good and bad elements in their ranks
>Aes Sedai try to be good, but internal fighting ruins their own plans
>Aes Sedai are mostly incompetent wherever they aren't malicious, with only a couple standout exceptions
>Aes Sedai are puppets of the Shadow, controlled by a Black Ajah they refuse to acknowledge
>Children of the Light have some valid points
>the Seanchean were right

>>22142488
more like this, friends

I had a fun time reading Borne.
I'm not gonna bother with the side-story, or the sequel.

The ending was definitive enough for me.

>>22148647
My mother in law tried to shill him to me recently.
>>22149699
Slaughterhouse 5

>>22151988
>I was caught up to Royal Road release, but this was likely a year ago now and before book 1 and 2 were Kindle published. Truth be told after experiencing a lot of the cultivation genre, its system and character writing is a mark above... I'm inclined to give it a re-read as I did Beware of Chicken and re-assess it.
Do it, it's a great place to catch up. Books one and two are basically setups for nonstop payoffs in book three, the last half of it is nonstop climax.
If one of your problems was Griffon seeming like a Gary Stu, it's also the point at which he starts to pay for all his bullshit and we discover some very age-appropriate reasons why he acts the way he does.

Any good books/novels that has characters that are mysterious and god-like in their abilities like G-Man from half life?

>>22148647
Here's the career of Patrick Rothfuss, summarized:
>miraculously hit it big with your first novel and become an overnight sensation
>hyped up as the next big thing in fantasy, living large off the preposterous advance you were paid
>spend years working on second novel while milking your popularity to ingratiate yourself in the celebrity author circuit
>everybody is eagerly awaiting it
>smugly publish it
>it got mixed reviews
>people think it meanders too much and doesn't advance the main plot enough, and have issues with the romance in it
>you take this very hard because you'd only been showered with adoring praise up to this point and don't know how to deal with frank criticism
>stop writing completely, but keep living it up as a celebrity author by attending cons and running your mouth on social media
>people ask when the next book is coming out every year
>dig an old manuscript out of a hard drive and publish a book of poems to convince people you haven't burned out
>continue acting like a bigshot author while not publishing anything for 10 years
>come up with increasingly contrived reasons not to publish anything, like as a political protest or whatever
>become totally irrelevant by 2020

>>22152506
Isn't he actively defrauding his own charities in 2022? Wild story.

>>22152543
I honestly have no idea cause I stopped really paying any attention to him a few years ago. I just got so many other things I'd rather do than follow an author that doesn't publish anything. Like pick my nose. Way better use of my time.

I'm accepting all sci-fi recommendations after reading C.S.Lewis Space trilogy.

>>22151338
>>22151348
>>22151419
>>22151657
I've read Jirel of Joiry, I'd consider it better than the REH Conan stories if not for the fact that there's only 5 legitimate Jirel of Joiry stories and about 40 Conan ones, so you have a much larger resource of quality writing from Howard in that specific genre, and that's ignoring Conan's post-Howard successes, whereas Jirel of Joiry was forgotten pretty much as soon as CL Moore quit publishing them in the 1930s

also Michael Moorcock is fucking gay

What the hell was Robert Jordan thinking when he wrote Egwene
Jesus fucking christ she is the worst

>>22152205
Terry Goodkind is a reddit atheist who happens to be rightwing instead of leftwing like most reddit atheists, but that just results in hoity-toity holier-than-thou objectivist screeds rather than hoity-toity holier-than-thou communist screeds in his books. The only difference between him and Ayn Rand is the amount of blood and gore (there's much, MUCH more in Goodkind's works)


>>22152579
Dream Thief by Stephen R. Lawhead
Project Pope by Clifford D. Simak
Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Declare by Tim Powers

>>22149748
are you still reading The Human Emperor or did you drop it?

>>22152743
He wanted to show how not all well written characters are likeable

>>22152205
I tried to read it because somebody here said it was about an army of blonde bdsm bimbos, but I couldn't take the writing style for long, it spent way too much time inside character's heads for not very interesting thoughts.

>>22152579
“The Notion Club Papers” by J.R.R. Tolkien, from Sauron Defeated
The Lost Road and Other Writings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Dark Tower and Other Stories by C.S. Lewis
On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature by C.S. Lewis
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells
The Country of the Blind and Other Stories by H.G. Wells
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Last and First Men/Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
Land Under England by Joseph O’Neill
The Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions by William Hope Hodgson
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
The Death of Grass by John Christopher
Hothouse by Brian Aldiss
A Case of Conscience by James Blish
Tales Before Narnia: The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Douglas Anderson

>>22152743
>Jesus fucking christ she is the worst
She's absolutely fine. Wait until you reach book 11 to see real worst character.
>>22150737
I think the last revelation was so good and interesting it would worth writing 4th book about negative speed of light and death lines instead of wrapping everything fast.

>>22152379
Borne is a real book, not the typical drivel the mutts in these threads read. You won’t get any responses to it here.

>>22152743
People say that if you met his wife (slash editor), all his female character suddenly make sense.

>>22152205
>coomerbait
any quotes?

>>22148031
In Space, there's nowhere left to hide.

But it is space, so isn't there a lot of places to hide? Like infinite places to hide?

>>22152579
Read my books.

Magellan: The Adventures of a Star Seeker
Magellan: On the Trail
Magellan: Nomads

I'm pretty happy with this latest cover art, too.

The quality of grammar matters less to me than the plot of a story.

>>22152743
I bet you're not even at the worst parts of Egwene's arc. She's merely a spoiled brat at the start of the books, she become so much worse later.

>>22153025
Agreed.

>read story with protag that starts off as a naive and idealistic hero type who basically never wants anyone else to die even his enemies
>he is slowly brought down by the horrors he witnesses and is about to spiral into becoming one of those edgy antiheroes
>he is saved by all those that he saved before and realizes that although everything is not as it was in his dreams that he can still be a hero and save as much as he can and that it is better to put down your enemies so they can't harm innocents
>by the end of the story he's still a hero but more of a realistic one
I really like this sort of development in a story. The only other place i can think of having seen this is in FSN UBW.

>>22143689
I started Amber and it's great so far, don't know what you're on about.
I can pretty much confirm that it shares no similarities though.

>>22152476
Good points, I'm going to pick up the audiobook for book 1 and give that a re-review at some point.

>>22152803
Still on it, just side-tracked for the moment with Waybound. I'm going to prioritize Human Emperor over Infinite Realm, try to make that my next review.

>>22153071
Your brain is broken

stop
watching
anime

What progression fantasy webserials would you guys recommend for me? I'm looking for inspo but that's between you and me

Lord of the Mysteries has smart characters written stupidly.

Lumian Lee from Circle of Inevitability is a smartly written smart character. When Lumian kills a hotel room full of three people he books the room next door so he can examine it, finding which walls he can stab and shoot through, where the openings are (e.g. doors, windows), whether there is enough space to break-dance, etc. This is a smart thing to do because Lumian is a smart person who is written by another smart person who understands how smart people think.

If Klein Moretti from Lord of the Mysteries were to kill a hotel room full of three people. He'd enter using a secret door in the hotel he found via divination. He'd throw a mystic item infected by True Creator ravings near one guy causing him to lose control, just like he planned. The second person would then immediately die just according to plan as well as Klein had earlier predicted that the woman would be torn to shreds by the first guy who turned into a mad monster. As for the third man, why Klein doesn't kill him at all. The third man removes his disguise to reveal he actually WAS Klein the entire time. But Klein just entered through the secret door and killed two people, how can there be two of him? The first Klein puts on a monocle to reveal "He" is actually Amon attempting to frame the Tarot Club. Klein, The Fool, however anticipated this, the two dead people stand up, they're fellow Tarot Club members Hanged Man Alger Wilson and Justice Audrey Hall, their deaths were just an illusion. "But Mr. Fool," Amon cries. "I am at a way higher beyonder sequence than you, so how could some random illusion fool me like that?" Because I am better at using the thing behind my Glabella, Klein inwardly Lampoons, the end.

This is retarded because Klein is a smart person written by a stupid person to whom smart people are indistinguishable from wizards.

>>22153071
I dunno, I still appreciate the incredibly optimistic hero who tries to save everybody. Or at least they'll give everybody a second chance, but no more than that. Granted, a lot of the time that level of heroism is only doable for somebody who can afford to be that merciful. Strong enough to be gentle and all that.

>>22152898
oh :{

>>22152958
https://archive.org/details/01wizardsfirstrule/page/n549/mode/2up?view=theater

There's like 80 pages of this BDSM in the first book, and the subsequent books only have more rape. 14-year-old me loved it

>>22153208
Thank you for reminding me to rewatch legend of the seeker. I shat on it when it was airing but in hindsight it's one of the best fantasy tv adaptions because every other one sucks ass

For the fags who are reading LoTM 2 does Klein or any of the Tarot Club have a major role in the story?

>>22143497
>>22143655

It's funny, when I first started writing, I thought a major challenge would be to fill the pages. Now it's the opposite. So much to describe without it dragging on. Brevity is the soul of wit.

>>22153194
I’m sorry. Vandermeer is too much for these midwits, all they crave is mediocre genre fiction by the same ten nerds. It truly was a fantastic novel though, I didn’t even know he wrote a sequel. Maybe try his Ambergris trilogy next.

>>22153267
>Vandermeer is too much for these midwits
what
He is a faggot retard lefty. His books suck. Is this bait?

I first read pic related 15 years ago and thought it was hilarious. Would it hold up on a re-read?

>>22139513
>muh prose

I refuse to read LOTM 2 since the mc isn't another transmigrator

Fugnsug

>>22153098
amber seems neat for the first 50-odd pages then you're stuck with another 1500 pages of trash

>>22153394
We'll see. I currently have no plans to read the second Chronicles since I do hear it's dogshit.

dcc 6 draft
https://kemono.party/patreon/user/5429305/post/84028460

/sffg/'s thoughts on The Pawn and the Puppet trilogy?

>>22153582
>The Emerald Lake Asylum is not a place most desire to go. Nineteen year old, Skylenna, however, made a promise that she must keep. Once hired, she only has one purpose--prove to the council that barbaric treatments, such as waterboarding, scalding baths, and beatings, are no longer the answer. But that all takes pause when she meets the source of terror in the asylum. A patient with a split personality--on one side, he’s the bloodthirsty genius, Dessin. On the other, a hidden persona that is buried deep in his subconscious. When Dessin is caught in an attempted cell break, he faces execution if Skylenna can't bring out his core personality and reveal his humanity. She has ninety days to save his life, and the only way to do that is to let him consume her into his world of moves, counter-moves, and master puppeteering. With each passing day, their bond deepens, a forbidden attraction forming against her best judgments. Little by little, Skylenna uncovers the sinister secrets of his past that turned him into the monster everyone else fears. And Dessin proves to have one weakness despite the terrifying, indestructible persona he presents to the world: her
I hate women

>>22153582
How horny is it? I'll try it if it's horny and
>>22153634
makes it sound horny.

>>22153634
Literally "i can fix him: the novel"

>>22153634
Look at this middle school-level writing and ultra-derivative concept. I know you can make bank pumping out smutslop for women, but at this point I think you could lightly edit novels written by a chat AI and do just as well.

>>22153634
>skylenna
stopped reading
that's worse than David Eddings' naming conventions in the Belgariad holy shit

>>22153428
the second half of chronicles of amber is not substantially worse than the first, outside of the fact that it almost completely forgets anything that happened in the first five books in favor of completely different characters going even further off the deep end than they were before, which was considerable, but ultimately it's still the same mindnumbingly boring and repetitive backstabbery and magic dimension-shifting gobbledygook

>>22153634
Sounds like turbo-exaggerated parody. I might read it for laughs, if I didn't have so much to read.

>>22153634
>>22153582
>Some themes contained in this book that are not mentioned in the warning include; rape of a minor, child prostitution, grooming of minors, transphobia, homophobia, incest with a minor, and racism
Apparently it's certified basedo.

>>22153267
I couldn't get too into his Ambergris trilogy, even though it sounded fun. I've got the first book.

My gf (who doesnt read all that much) asked me for a book rec with “Innocent” romance and a “quest”. I was thinking something by Robbin Hobb but she specified “sweet innocent” romance. Any one wanna rec something for me?

>>22153310
I first read it like two years ago and it was hilarious. The standalone novels were my favorites.

>>22154109
I bet it shows all that stuff as le bad, the trigger warning is just there because it being present at all is too much for twitter users.

I will always recommend

>>22139633
I was like you, I thought Iron Gold was the worst of the series after the first book. After finishing Dark Age, it shot up to top 2 or 3 in the series. There's a lot of build up that needs to be done after the 10+ year timeskip that ends up paying off well in Dark Age. Light Bringer kino soon

>>22144984
I tried reading this, it was not good, to say the least.