/lit/ - Literature

What am I in for?

Finished leviathan wakes. I thought it was okay but I started to lose interest more and more as time went on and I found the last 20% or so fairly boring. Does the rest of the series pick up? If it follows Holden I probably won't bother since I didn't really like him

>>22770850
I've read this and I couldn't tell you. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it enough to continue reading the series.

can someone recommend me some fantasy thats also funny? I want some laughs

Finished it. A Song of Ice and Fire? More like a Song of Eddard Stark Taking Ls for 700 pages.

>>22770860
>Does the rest of the series pick up?

No.

>If it follows Holden I probably won't bother since I didn't really like him

Holden Sue pretty much the whole way, with minor detours to predictable character development arcs for the crew. It is really just awful.

>>22770897
Pretty much exactly what I expected then, thanks

>>22770912
Nah that guy is full of shit, yeah it does follow holden but every book after has 3-4 more POVs that cover various places in the universe related to which ever novel it is. Stick with it or don't it's up to you in the end.

>>22770883
We only read SERIOUS fantasy here.

>>22770919
>How many bored readers will it take? Only name the number, and I will provide them

>>22770850
misery and cuckoldry

>>22770850
Sort of fucked pacing and a general need for editing. A main character who is a convincing portrayal of a rich overeducated teenage boy, and is therefore insufferable. What appears to be the setup for some of the most tired cliches in genre fiction (muh humanity intolerant and bad! muh vaguely-Catholoc church BAD! etc.)

All of this is improved massively in the second book. The protagonist grows up. The book is more tightly paced. The cliches were only being set up to get knocked down along with the protagonist's worldview. The borrowings from Dune reveal a worthwhile purpose rather than just "I like dune so I will lift stuff from it" (purpose being "No, Frank, Great Men can be a pretty good thing actually"). If you absolutely hate book 1, just stop. If you don't hate it but have misgivings, try book 2 then stop unless you like it.

>>22770850
Given that it is a fairly new book/series, how pozzed is it?

>>22770979
He has a crush on a pilot woman who is part of his mother's lesbian harem. The only good person he knows is a magic negro. The other passengers on his ship is introduced as a gay couple. He works for a gay baron. I stopped reading the page when he knocks on the door of the POC scientist lady he has a crush on and she answers it while cucking him.

Any sci-fi/fantasy recommends for power armor kino? It can be magical or science based idgaf

>>22770919
I might give the rest a try one day but I just found Holden more and more grating over time, and the writing and story itself weren't really grabbing me much in any case though I did finish it

>>22770989
Red rising, only book 2 onwards do you get to see the type of shit you can do with pulse armor

>>22770996
Yeah Holden is very paladin esque and i think hes based off a table top character the authors played, I find he's more tolerable as each book goes on and his character develops, though you might find his preachy morality frustrating in book 4 depending on how you feel about a certain character.

>>22770883
Discworld, I suppose. Though the formula gets stale after a while, imo

>>22770953
I wouldn't really call it cuckoldry. Teenage protag has a crush on a servant and realizes she's terrified of him and can't say no. Later has a crush on a much older academic, but she's just not into some kid. Once he reaches adulthood and gets into an actual relationship no cuckoldry occurs. I didn't like the protagonist at all in book 1 so I was ok with his romantic aspirations being thwarted there.
>>22770979
In book one there's a homo portrayed somewhat positively, though he is a self-interested schemer. Not a very important character in the series though. There's a homo femboy gladiator too but he's not portrayed very positively and isn't a very important character by the end. Women are on the battlefield. That stuff's basically a requirement to get published in current year. If anything the real surprise for me was how nakedly reactionary the series gets, and how frontloaded all the poz was in book 1 (part of a scheme to get it published, perhaps). Novella after book 1 has the most positive portrayal of Catholicism I've seen in any genre fiction written this decade. Protagonist realizes he was wrong to hate his neofeudal technophobic Rome-LARPing empire as a boy, and every more progressive polity is worse.

Bakker is KING.

>>22771021
Damn...

>>22771027
Oh the guy who writes children's books?

>>22770883
Lyonesse by Vance

>>22770998
ahh damn i never knew.
>I never made it through all of book 1 to get to book 2
mfw

>>22771036
I would've been in the same boat if I hadn't been listening to the audiobook and doing a cross country drive.

>>22770998
It's been a while since I read that trilogy but I only remember one cool power armor scene, the spaceship one.

>>22771040
I'd throw in any Iron rain in the series since star shells are giant atmosphere entry rated armor suits. And in the sequel series in particular there's way more long term battles with characters using pulse armor throughout book 5 especially.

>>22771047
Haven't gotten around to the sequel series yet. Heard it's good, the negative reviews mostly seem to be the YA portion of the fanbase seething that a revolution isn't some clean thing that ushers in a kumbaya golden age.

Is there a market in the RR/self-published scifi crowd for a Kamen Rider story?

>>22771036
Definitely give it another shot, it really comes into itself as the series goes on especially once you hit books 4 onwards and it incorporates multiple POVs.
>>22771038
The audiobooks are really good (barring the narrators for lyria and lysander in Iron Gold) if it weren't for audible making 1 2 and 5 free to listen I might have kept pushing this series off for who knows how long

I wanna read some Lovecraft, where should I start?

>>22771067
Going multi-narrator for book 4 was utterly retarded. No character has a consistent voice, because whenever the chapter PoV changes, every character has a new one. It's like some hideous halfway point between audiobook and audio drama. That's without even getting into how 4x the narrators means 4x the likelihood that one will be unbearably shit — or at least a disappointment given where Gerard-Reynolds set the bar. At least the newest one seems to have returned to solo narration, perhaps they've learned their lesson.

>>22771075
I thought the same way too initially, though I grew to enjoy Ephraim's narrator pretty quickly in IG. I'd actually say they nailed the narrator choices in Dark Age so I was actually sort of disappointed in a way losing them but TGR is excellent so I got over it eventually. My biggest issue with the audiobook for 6 is that TGRs mic quality is noticeably shit in the early chapters.

>>22770841
Does anyone have a recommendation for an elegant political war epic with lots of depictions of badass violence and gore. Can't seem to really find one that has both.

Anyone ever tried reading "Flight of the Eagle" on Royal Road? It's fucking massive so I gave it a go a while back, and while it's decently written and the setting, while generic, is serviceable, I wasn't able to make it very far. It seemed to me that the characters all had a sort of sameness to them, despite being described as having different thoughts and agenda.

>>22771068
Dagon is the story I started with. Short and introduces the mythos enough to get you started.

>>22771104
The Prince of Nothing.

>>22771068
I love the cats of ulthar, it's really short.

Maybe I'll read Red Rising
>>22771272

>>22771273
so what's up with that cat? is this one of those situations where the weird cat face is funny but in reality it's a horribly painful disease for the cat?

>>22771279
I don't know it's just a cute cat.

I'm halfway through mistborn and I'm surprised at how much I am enjoying it.

>>22771118
>Flight of the Eagle
Did you mean 'The Eagles Flight' ?
If so the multiple lead characters tag with the lack of magic tag is a hard NO from me.

What is the most brutal and violent series? I'm talking no holds barred everyone is at risk and characters die constantly?

Thoughts on Expedition by Wayne Barlowe?

>>22771021
>Protagonist realizes he was wrong to hate his neofeudal technophobic Rome-LARPing empire as a boy
really? you better not be baiting me
this was my main complaint with the book (1) because he had no reason to be a self-hating mopey fuck

god damn the book was way too long though, and it appears the whole series is like that

Has anybody read Valente's Orphan's Tales? Good/bad?

I got asked for a recommendation by a three-dimensional biological female who has never tried sci-fi before.
Would The Disposessed be a good option? Nothing too weird happens IIRC, I was going to go with Hyperion but then remembered the Shrike sex scene

>>22771636
is it specifically the sex stuff that would put her off? try suggesting le guin, at least that way any weirdness can't be dismissed as male gaze or whatever. also le guin is good.

>>22771636
Women love that shit anyway. The protagonist of that story is a guy though, so eh.

I love femdom

Okay, I am 260 pages into out of 560 for 'A Deepness In the Sky' by Vernor Vinge.

It has been a bit darker than both the other books in the series just like an anon here pointed out but I am really liking the story over all.

Qiwi Lisolet being brain scrubbed over and over as Tomas continually let's her find the video of him raping and cuting up her mother for his own amusement is kinda fucked.

The story has evolved a lot since I posted about it at 120 pages. Now we are dealing with capitalism, slavery, natural language computation (large language models Ala chatgpt), required performance enhancing drug use, collective intelligences, the natural cycle of civilizations, and that's all just for the space side of the story, there is also the other side where they are dealing with religion, tradition, technological developments, weapons of mass destruction.

the 'focused' people remind me so much of LLM's like chatgpt except they are human powered, he literally describes them as natural language programing layers for computers, that's EXACTLY what chatgpt is. Also the Emergents tiered society with managers and podmasters running people who are drug induced 'focused' slaves who can only do their job honestly reminds me of today with people taking Adderall and nootropics to perform their job better or because the teachers in school said they have 'adhd'.

This book is fucking thick by the way, it's like a 56 hour audio book and my edition (Picrel) is 560 pages but Amazon has a paper back that is like 780. My version is dense as fuck, I thought it'd be a quick read but nooo this is a lot.

It's always so interesting to see Vernor Vinge deal with similar ideas across his books like collective intelligence and see how many different ways he can depict it or discuss it.

As for Pham, I missed this fucker a lot. I read the other two books in the series before this one so I had an entire novel without him. He's a great character and I wish there were more books of just his adventures with the Qeng Ho although I do want more books in the middle transcend.

>>22771421
I assume you mean besides aSoIaF

>>22771691
This shit was a bit interesting, then the main girl appeared.

>>22771414
Yeah that's the one. And multiple POV also was the dealbreaker for me, especially since it felt characterization was weak.

>>22771883
yeah, that's the inspiration for the question because I know asoiaf still gets complaints about plot armor or contrived reasons characters survive despite it being less predictable in the first three books.
I'd like to see a series that could never be accused of plot armor.

>>22771453
Yeah, after getting btfo by reality, he comes around to thinking "alright the Empire isn't perfect, but it's worth fighting for and better than everyone else". The Emperor is portrayed as an intelligent man who the protagonist respects, and who gives a shit about his people. The protagonist is still at odds with the state religion, but the novella about his brother (and the later books) makes it obvious that it isn't the author seething about religion in general. The academic woman's progressive homeland is revealed to be a soulless shithole which runs on VR-copium and undermines the institution of family (this is presented as bad). The space commie nation tried to make perfect genderless nu-men for the sake of equality and this is something he views as abominable.

He still mopes a bit more than I like, but it's night and day vs. book 1. Book 2 is the one in which the evolution occurs and it's complete by book 3. I wasn't going to continue the series until I gave the novella about his brother a chance and it made it obvious that the author wasn't going quite where I feared. The books are still too long, but don't spin their wheels to anything near the extent book 1 did.

>>22771783

If you want more zones of thought style reading, Brin's first Uplift trilogy will scratch the same itch. Quite similar in form and content.

>>22772144
It'd probably be a bad series. If a large number of character arcs get cut off prematurely and amount to nothing, that's just bad writing and a waste of the reader's time, really. A select few to create the feel of nobody being safe and make the reader less confident who the safe ones are, sure. But genuinely having nobody be safe? That way lies dumb shit like rolling dice to decide who survives a battle. Best left to tabletop RPGs.

>>22772203
this. even asoiaf suffers from this because grrm has killed off too many interesting characters already and we're left with out of field PoV characters that are so irrelevant they didn't even make it to the show

>>22772207
I haven't read aSoIaF since Dance came out but from my recollection, most of the major character deaths were relatively impactful events in the narrative, rather than major characters being arbitrarily offed at the expense of a meaningful arc.
GoT definitely did this when the writers didn't know what to do with all of these characters and plot threads and turned the show into a parody of itself.

>>22772203
I'm glad you brought this up because that's why I am asking. If all those people that have complaints about plot armor or unrealistic characters had the series they want, what would it be like? I'm surprised there hasn't been at least one series that attempted this considering the sea change ASOIAF brought about in fantasy.

>>22772220
>most of the major character deaths were relatively impactful events in the narrative, rather than major characters being arbitrarily offed at the expense of a meaningful arc
that's true but there's still nobody to pick up what they left. he killed off the interesting characters and introduced less interesting fillers to take the story from there and it's just not been very interesting in the last two books, basically since tywin got offed

>>22770988
>>22771021
Ok I skip it, thanks

>>22772223
Because it's extremely tricky to do without hindering your own narrative. Killing off characters is impactful only if you're invested in them and getting readers invested in them takes time, so if you're constantly grinding through characters, it's less likely the reader is going to care as much about the characters who replace them and are in turn killed off. The constant killing becomes less of a shock and more of a gimmick that would more likely than not cause the reader to disengage. You would need an extremely, and I mean OUTSTANDINGLY compelling narrative to keep the reader invested. And you'd have to do this without your narrative hinging on character investment.

>>22770883
>can someone recommend me some fantasy thats also funny? I want some laughs
Thraxas

>>22772254
You're echoing a lot of my thoughts haha. I thought about this when I read criticisms of ASOIAF, asking myself 'well how SHOULD Martin have written it?', 'how would the story finish if Jon died here?' and I just don't know how it would work. But I guess that's answered my question. Is ASOIAF the closest we have got to this?

>>22772270
Quite possibly. I did encounter a series where the majority of the main supporting cast was wiped out on one fell swoop ~2/3 of the way through, but that's a different sort of thing.

>>22770989
Read Armour. I forgot its author's name

>>22771421
>>22772144
In Worm (bad webserial, don't bother) there are scenes where crowds of people fight against a giant monster. The author has claimed that he rolled dice to see who'd survive and who wouldn't.

>>22772627
Interesting. Did it work? You say it's bad but was this a high point because of the unpredictability?

Just got back from a cabin retreat to work on my fantasy story. Dopamine detox is no joke, I was in the zone for two weeks.

>>22772680
this sounds comfy, did you get a lot done?
change of location is always good too

>>22772689
Yeah, no internet, shitty cell service, nothing to do but write. If I felt too brain dead to write, I'd go on a walk and get the motor running again.

>>22770883
Bridge of Birds

>>22772696
good shit man, I gotta rent myself a cheap cabin

>>22772671
Nah it amounted to nothing because he stacked the deck full of total nobodies, and only nobodies ended up dying.

>>22770989
Brandoom Sanderstorm

Well the schlock train has come to an end (for now). Finished the latest book in this schlock kino series last night and I must say I'm quite enjoying it. It has gotten a lot better as it went along. Still skimming, but the 'action' has become more varied in the latter half and the overarching plot is getting better and better. And even though I'm not a lorefag I do enjoy the lore for this series; as simple as it is.

I'm about to start pic rel, what am I in for frens

Fantasy books for this feel?
https://files.catbox.moe/di3u6k.jpg

Where do we go after we've finished BOTNS/Long Sun/Short Sun etc?
Already done Malazan. Not really sure what comes next.

>>22773158
Writing. Sorry bro, if it was that good you have to do your own thing differently.

>>22773165
I'm too tired of life.

I finished ship of magic, i liked it enough but not enough to keep reading the series

>>22773186
cute

>>22773175
Cut out that hour or two in the morning Wolfe did and maybe some more time wherever and see what you come up with. It's painful at first but quickly becomes more masochistic in a good way once the spice starts flowing and you have to learn to manage it. I have hope for you, you read something good and internalized it and even if you don't know shit about shit about writing, you know what good shit smells like. Getting back into writing has cured some of that ailment for me. Make some shit until it amuses you and go from there.

>>22770850
Disappointment. There were some kino moments here and there in the later books that I remember, but slogging through the hundreds of pages of filler slop to get there was not worth it.

>>22770989
Warhammer 40k books that follow Astartes and Custodes

>>22773158
you could always try his other work, definitely read fifth head of cerberus if you haven't, and the soldier series if you want more

>>22772671
Worm isn't an "anybody can die anytime" series. The post they're talking about is fairly early on and the author had a few planned directions for the story to go if the main character rolled a death.
It's also pretty good, not terrible at all.

Is there any book similar to the way of kings? Mistborn is quite not like it.

>>22773393
>slop
>kino
great review bub

>>22773411
Barely any of those actually put substantial focus on the armor, though! The main dude in Watchers of the Throne could've been fighting naked and the book would barely change, except I guess Aleya's repressed lust for him would get the better of her and we'd find out if Custodes shoot blanks.

>>22773506
Disappointment. There were some cool moments here and there in the later books that I remember, but slogging through the hundreds of pages of filler drudgery to get there was not worth it.

Happy now chief?

Any more books that will give me a boner? Got one recently from South Of The Border West Of The Sun by Murakami and Lolita when he busts a nut grinding on her ass cheek

>>22773660
does mecha power armour count? Because the First Farsight book has it if you're interested.

my girlfriend just tried to get me to read Sarah J Maas, any scifi or fantasy about how to hide a dead body?

Has anyone here read this, or anything else by Whitbourn? Read an interview he did and it seems interesting.

>>22773491
In what way?

>>22773491
If you mean is there another book exactly like Way of Kings but with the serial numbers filed off and a few arbitrary changes to the setting to make it "different", then no, I'm happy to report the western fantasy genre, unlike web novels, have not been reduced to shamelessly copying each other and publishing essentially the exact same story over and over again.

>>22773158
Latro

>>22770887
>A Sneed of Feed and Seed

>>22770989
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northworld
This trilogy has body mecha.
>>22771783
>first spoiler
Reminds me how Alastair Reynolds has a torture scene in nearly all of his books. What the fuck is with absurdly grotesque incidents in scifi? Lurking sociopathy.

>>22771783
I found a Fire Upon the Deep amazing, written in 1992 it invented(?) the technological doomsday intelligence/singularity trope
Those chapters about the scientists on Straumli Realm awakening an ancient evil, top notch stuff
Everything about language and actual alien modes of thought, so good.

Also it had an hilarious, but almost prophetic, take on what the internet would come to be like. A few years before it would become a real thing.
What does the book call it? I can't recall
I got the impression that it lacked some structure we've come to expect in the real world, and everyone was kinda just shouting into the fictional internet

>attempt to defeat a far stronger enemy by trapping them in your magic minigame
Any books with this trope/scene?
Fucking love it, ever since Jojo.

>>22771436
Blamp I'm reading it now and I can tell you it's painful to read both on my phone and on my laptop

>>22774517
>>22773732
>>22773411
>>22772527
>>22770998
Thank you brothers.
>Take this chrismasu tesseract for your troubles.

Would it really be that bad if Dunyain training/abilities were taught to the rest of the world?

>>22773158
>>22773464
>>22774471

These are great suggestions but in addition I recommend The Knight and The Wizard.

Bakkerbros: I'm about halfway through The Great Ordeal. Why does Kellhus reveal to Proyas that he is a fraud and that the God cares not for the affairs of humans/they are essentially damned regardless of their actions? If this is explained later on, no need to explain it but I'm confused about his motives presently.

>>22774754
Yeah, most of Vernor Vinge's books are different ways for him to explore the 'singularity', he even has an essay or two written addressing it in a scientific manor.

If you want more prophetic work by him relating to the internet, read 'True Names', it basically invents virtual reality ala vr chat and explores cyber crime, hackers, doxing, and artifical intelligence. (it's only 100 pages)

Vernor Vinge more than other writers so far really reminds me of the PKD short story where the people in the future believe all science fiction writers were actually a psychic cult that was seeing the future because everything they wrote came true.

And yes it lacked some structure, maybe we will have a decentralized social network like that in the future. (mastodon, etc).

>>22770850
Boring and unoriginal, honestly.

>>22775482
Read until the end of the unholy consult and it'll make sense, somehow. Buckle up.

Should I continue reading The Aspect-Emperor if I already know that the Great Ordeal fails?

>>22775953
For me? It was totally worth the read.
But, I'm a person who enjoys trainwrecks. It's about the journey, not the destination.

>>22775994
>I'm a person who enjoys trainwrecks. It's about the journey, not the destination.
See i never got suffering core meme. Like I only stuck with The Sword of Truth universe for the swords, tiddies and magic not necessarily in that order , and everything else was just an irritant.

>>22770998
I NEED an alternate version of red riding where it’s literally just Darrow conquering the solar system for his own glory. Any books with an ambitious, conquering protag?

I know this isn't /r/ but I've looked everywhere I know including Mobilism and my usual torrent sites and can only find the audiobook. Does anyone know where I can get an epub of Red Mars? Can't find my physical copy anywhere

>>22776097
https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Red+mars

>>22776104
awesome thank you so much anon i didn't know about this place

/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 War.

/SFFG/ Recommendations: LITRPG Edition

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

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

>>22776150
>Azarinth Healer = Starts good but fizzles hard midway. Author clearly has no idea what to do with characters love life so makes her a casual lesbian.
>Primal Hunter = MC+background is so impossibly nonsensical that he's not even cannon in his own setting.
>He Who Fights with Monsters = every character that isnt the MC is just there to be amazed at how smart Jason is while he tells them shit they already know before reminding them (incorrectly i might add) that 'Oh you have no idea".
>Dungeon Crawler Carl = The MC's sidekick (A cat named 'Princess Donut') is so much smarter than Carl (the MC) that every scene the two are in is eye-gougingly painful. This would not be so much of a problem if such scenes did not constitute the majority of the series.
>System Universe = After the initial premise is established it turns into how to pander to followers at a snails pace AKA; 'Filler McFiller Face - The Excessively Extended Sleep Inducing Saga'.
>Dissonance = MC gets god fucked more then once as he goes about becoming a man/bear/goat/pig/axolotl hybrid who also has many super sekret identities.
>Defiance of the Fall = Brain dead MC with very-much-just-barely opposed kingdom building with a wafer thin cultivation system
>Iron Prince = edgy school setting with even edgier MC who has lightning powers and no discernible challenges what so ever.

>>22771068
1. Dagon
2. Call of Cthulu
3. Dunwich Horror
4. Shadow over Innsmouth
5. Mountains of Madness
6. Stop

on my god the start of deadhouse gates is so boring aaaah i cant take it ahhhh im going insane

>>22776530
great post anon

>>22773914
Did you enjoy it?

>>22773117
Curse of Chalion

>>22776530
the first ~80% of deadhouse gates is boring as fuck but the last chunk is incredible

>>22775994
Me? I'd avoid taking a journey on a train, heading towards the mountainside.

>Finish On Blue's Waters
>"Oh boy, I can't wait to read about Horn's spooky thrilling adventures on Green!"
>one chapter into In Green's Jungles
>let's have a story competition that goes on for like 60 pages
I've been Wolfe'd again.

>>22776073
I would also like to know this.
>asking for a friend

>>22776907
>picture related
>its my fren

Finished King's Justice and don't think I'll be continuing on. The character of Helena is such a horrible call that I've convinced myself it must be the fault of an editor pitching a "helpful" suggestion to try and sell the book to the audience he thinks reads fantasy.

>>22775482
HOW LONG HAVE YOU SERVED GOLGOTTERATH

>>22773158
Bakker

>>22774915
Game Players of Titan is all I'm coming up with

>>22776898
ho ho ho ho he he he he

>>22773929
>BBC bookshelf

>>22770841
I'm reading the books in the mom protagonist ssf book list by that autistic coomer anon and they are not that bad. better than chink/jewweb slop

>>22776910
Had the same reaction myself. If it were just Konrad, or hell, if Helena weren't the narrator and were a side character, I'd have continued in a heartbeat, but I found the story almost intolerable with her in control of it.

>>22773929
yes. don't waste your time.

>>22776910
>The character of Helena is such a horrible call that I've convinced myself it must be the fault of an editor pitching a "helpful" suggestion to try and sell the book to the audience he thinks reads fantasy
For real.
>supposed to be an orphan who owes her education and status entirely to the benevolence of Konrad
>acts like a spoiled brat
>in the midst of several conspiracies which threaten their lives and the stability of the Empire
>OMG this boy I just met is sooooo much more important!
What an absolute strumpet, I can't believe the author shackled us to this bimbo.

I've read through Bakker. I couldn't get past the all-seeing all-knowing protag/antag that is Kellhus, flawed or not. It made all the plotting kinda nonsensical, even though the world was carefully constructed and I enjoyed the description of sorcery schools and battles and the environment, even if the finale is Prometheus meets Twister. I also liked the Slog.

Again, the plotting's only strength lies in the character flaws that are like killswitches for the narrative, Bakker builds so much inhuman concentration in his characters that their missteps look almost deliberate. I liked the nuke, too. I don't think I can reread it because the prose is so overbearing, I feel like I've read five regurgitated novels about insane barbarian fucking the Thing and it's not as fun as it sounds.

I guess I should go back to Malazan or something, or maybe you have a suggestion?

Damn this was good

>>22776898
I still think biggest Wolfe-moment, was him skipping over Silk's speech to the people at the end of Long Sun, I was so stoked for that speech...
Then the narrator just goes like: "It was awesome, I promise. In fact I can't do it justice, so I'm not gonna write it down."

>>22777510
read cradle

>>22777591
My favorite Stephenson by far, but mainly because I paid $53,000 to get a bachelor's degree in philosophy

>>22771036
The book gets really good at part 4 of book 1 (Pure testosterone fuel) and from then on its pretty much non stop kino for the rest of the first trilogy IMO

>>22777510
>I guess I should go back

Yes. Yes you should.

Anyone here read Wolfe's 'An Evil Guest'?
Can recommend. Really liked the "mysterious" parts of it, the whacky plot kept changing and dragging me in

Seems like a REALLY fun book for a reading circle/discussion group. Not too long, and plenty of stuff to talk about

>>22777950
i thought she was naked... lame

>>22776239
You're right, got any good recs instead?

I'm 75 pages in, when am I supposed to like it or be entertained?

Why am I even reading it at this point? All that's happened is info dumps and a pizza delivery.

Is this shit for fucking real?

>>22778157
Reddit read Neuromancer once, then tried to remake it to fit his sensibilities. I have no clue what anyone sees in Snow Crash, at least Hitchhiker's Guide is funny and doesn't outstay its welcome (unless you get caught up in reading all of it).

>>22778179
So far and I'm not kidding, I'd rather have read 100 pages of Larry Niven blue ball me about landing on the ring world.

Does it speed up? Or get a motive?

I like Hitchhiker's Guide, but Neal Redditson is killing me rn. I'm almost upset you put them next to each other.

>>22778195
Sorry, I just made a schizo connection between Reddit books and didn't explain it.
To answer your question, no, the book following a character called Hiro Protagonist goes nowhere. It exists to be ironic. You should have picked up on that before you even started reading it. I did.

>>22778203
Is the book just supposed to be making fun of cyberpunk? I know it's supposed to be ironic, satire or parody but that doesn't mean it has to suck ass right?

>>22778214
It sounds to me like reading science fiction just isn't for you. Maybe you should just go watch Tik Tok videos instead. Back in my day we read our books and talked about them when we were finished reading them. I doubt you could even finish one book.

>>22778234
I've finished 20 books in the last 3 months.

>>22778256
Ok then just keep reading. It isn't a long book and it is hard to explain why it is good until you have read the entire book. It is a classic of postcyberpunk. And yes it is poking fun at cyberpunk conventions.

>>22778214
It doesn't exist to parody cyberpunk, that had already been done, and done better. Try Headcrash. Snow Crash exists to be up its own ass, and so that its audience can feel good when they recite the thing about the narwhals baconing at midnight. Snow Crash leads directly to Ready Player One.
>>22778234
You'll live a much happier life once you realise that not only can you drop books and still talk about them, you can judge most books by their cover.

>>22778273
Postcyberpunk just means all sci-fi written since the 80s because the aesthetic, for want of a better term, switched from Barbarella to Blade Runner. It's not a real thing.

>>22778289
fuck off.

>>22771436
Very interesting! I'm a big fan of his art but the actual story / fake biology content was a treat too.

>>22770883
Rackety Tam Brian Jacques
>>22771068
I started with Kadeth, most people will tell you not to start with that but I really enjoyed it.
>>22771783
Hot take here but I LOVED Children of the Sky. I haven't read Deepness yet but I can't recommend Children enough
Just started Brian Aldiss "Non-stop" and am halfway through my great Animorphs read

>>22778107
>Eight - its about a guy isekaied into a litrpg world and he hunter, gathers and animal bonds his way to power. The author is a bit mexican grandma obsessed, but apart from that its good.

>Beyond The Ice - About a junkie who gets bamboozled into a lit-rpg expansionist organization. MC is pretty derp but the world and system is interesting and solid enough to balance it.

>Book of The Dead - Slow burn lit-rpg which focuses on character building and struggle more then power ups (Not that there arnt any, just takes a looooooooooooooong while to get to them). Its only other downside is the world feels like it wouldn't have a reason for existing without the MC despite the interesting world lore.

The Warlord - Think Shadow of Mordor mashed with the legend of King Arthur. Admittedly the MC gets way too many powers by the end of book 1, giving the story ridiculous powercreep and he is a bit of a simp when it comes to the stacy of the piece, but the fight scenes are solid and the system and its powers are interesting enough to cancel those shortcomings out.

I have more but if you do not like those four then you will not like my other recs.

>>22778289
>he doesn't write post-technology-pre-post-cyberpunk
why even bother

>>22771068
Would you like to know more about our lord and savior Ghatanothoa anon?

Give some "deadly game" novels. Preferably not like Hunger Games, and more like The Running Man

>>22779365
dungeon crawler carl

What's the book with incest the past few threads?

A little theory on House Dayne's sword Dawn. I think it works like Thor's hammer and that is how it selects who is worthy enough to become Sword of the Morning. Even if Darkstar tries to steal it he won't even so much as be able to lift it because the blade won't consider him a candidate. How was Eddard able to retrieve it and give it back to Starfall? I think the blade just decided he was a noble enough candidate since he intended to take it back home and was an honorable person, Howland more than likely couldn't lift Dawn because he probably used some sneaky Cranogman technique to kill Artur and if we ever meet him we will get an account from his perspective hoe he couldn't move it when he tried to pick it up.

>>22770841
this image flash in my brain the epic history of the game Myth: The Fallen Lords

worth a google for those who dont know the game and its history

>>22776898
Reading blue and green felt like waking up from some extremely profound dream that I can't remember anything about. Actually everything after BotNS felt like that.

>>22777779
Xianxia, but without anything that makes xianxia good.

>>22779170
that is dusgisutng

>>22779861
NTA but I like Craddle, it's decent for a webnovel type thing. Its one debilitating flaw is the introduction of the overworld multiverse space battles being dogshit. Not only is it boring as hell to read about some randos having super saiyan moments IN SPESS, it completely fucks up with the power levels and the MC goes from a rising star to a weak bitch in the grand scheme of things. Which would be fine for a normal setting, but not when the end goal seems to be boring multiverse spess battles.

>>22779615
It'd be fun but I don't think it'd fit the universe. Like 90% of the magic we see is illusion of one kind or another, having one sword with an enchantment that bends the laws of physics just seems way too far.
Besides George has said Dawn is inspired by the Ebon Blade from marvel comics, not mjolnir.

>>22777765
I feel like Wolfe went a little too hard with his "gloss over big moments" schtick in Long Sun, especially in the last volume.

>>22780074
>The fuck you say to me atheist scum?

Finished Memories of Ice last night, great book though a bit long at times. I won't go super into detail because character limits are a bitch tho.

Pretty decent spread of new characters and only one I wasn't a big fan of after a time, which was the Mhybe. I get what Erikson was doing her and I felt pity for her throughout the book but one can only read so much "woe is me" and vague dream sequences before getting a bit annoyed with it. Gruntle, Picker, Envy and Korlat were some of my favorites among the new POVs, Itkovian reminded me of Mappo in the sense that I think the character is just fine but they didn't catch me in the way the others did. Toc was a frustrating case because he was a character I liked in GotM so I was excited to see him back and for the first half of the book I enjoyed the dynamic with him and Envy's traveling party.and especially his budding brotherhood with Tool, but then his dumbass runs away and gets captured. Now I fully understand that this was all intentional and had K'rul's interference all over it for the sake of restoring Togg to the Beast Throne but I wasn't happy they turned my boy into a torture puppet for half the book. Fortunately he's getting a second shot in the body of Anaster as a Mortal sword which is pretty exciting for future books.

Now for the elephant in the room the death of Whiskeyjack , so this one was weird for me, I could tell something was going to go wrong for him based on how Erikson would end some of his scenes with very ominous aka obvious death flags sounding sentences, and when it finally happened I didn't actually feel a thing. It wasn't until Korlat started to walk away from Brood and reflect on what happened that like her I started to actually feel the impact of what happened, the real gut punch however was the scene with Mallet seeing him and what actually caused him to die that really made it sink in emotionally. Moon's spawn being the final place of internment for him and two marines was a really nice touch, and I cannot wait to find out what was the result of that glowing after QB and Paran left following his blessing.

I'm at somewhat of an impasse now, do I take a break from Malazan for a bit so I don't burn myself out and read something else next, or do I soldier onwards to finish House of Chains then stop there since I've heard there is a timeskip after that book. Plus that's the one that continued Felisin's story from DG and she was a personal favorite from that book.

>>22778157
when you put it down and start reading The Diamond Age

Need a massive space opera, with big fuck off interplanetary warfare, and planet breaking weapons, and power armour and massive naval space ship battles.
>apart from warhammer ofc

>>22781328
Red Rising.

>>22777279
That's a pity. Was it boring? Poorly written? A thinly veiled way for the author to work out his personal issues?

>>22781328
the Forerunner trilogy by Greg Bear

>>22781083
I would not recommend stopping. Midnight Tides is a lot like Deadhouse Gates in that it takes place elsewhere and introduces new characters that will be important later, and you'll probably end up liking Trull. Bonehunters picks up just a few months after House of Chains so it's not much of a time skip.

But yeah, shit is really about to hit the fan so I would so go on. Midnight Tides is really good so I doubt you'll burn out. Toll the Hounds is where a lot of people run out of steam, but it's all worth it in the end.

>when Cnaiur gets Inrithi fanboys who mark themselves with swazond
cute desu

>>22770989
Starship Troopers
All You Need Is Kill

Finished The Windup Girl. It ended up being a really solid book. Kind of meandered in the middle some, but the last 1/3 was fantastic. I definitely recommend.

>CLANG
>CLANG
>CLANG
CONFESS

>>22782688
that fight is getting all the attention but i still say Pegasus Legion dunking on the gold vanguard was the best, really the whole moon battle was metal, kavax and red jager mech charge, mustang and her lion guard almost ending the minotaur (i love how much he sulked afterwards, he thought he trapped a lioness but got a face full of claw), valdear commando raid.

other than that i thought lyria pov when the obsidians attack heraklion was really great new pov, we always see the war from darrow or a gold and they are always a fighter but lyria was a civilian bystander and it was an epic viewpoint, ill never forget the moment when a squad of moon knights come out in full power armor flying like shooting stars and than the obsidians release a rocket volley and they become chunks. That is visceral writing.

>>22776239
Pretty accurate on all of them honestly. Iron Prince is easily the worst out of all of these.

>>22779861
Recommend me some Xianxia with a good translation that doesn't make me feel like I just had an aneurysm and lost the ability to read words coherently. Some of the ones I have tried have such good awful translations that I wanted to dig my eyes out with a spoon.

>>22782794
Reverend Insanity

Would any /sffg/ anons be interested in a monthly book club/read along focusing on classic fantasy? I'd love to be part of a book club but the goodreads books never really interest me.

>>22782815
I only put the Goodreads now as a monthly theme / vibe that will maybe encourage someone to read something or otherwise give an idea. It hasn't been reflective of a group read or book club for a couple years now, which was mostly in the discord server, and hasn't been in the thread for almost four years. Best of luck in finding anons, let alone having any sort of consistency.

Anyone got a spoonfeed link for /sffg/ recommended fantasy from the past 20 years? Got a new Kindle and I only have Prince of Thorns, Black Company, and Game of Thrones right now.

>>22782851
Fantasy recs:
>Dunsany
>MacDonald
>CA Smith
Sci-fi:
>Watts
>Herbert
>Gibson
Horror/weird:
>Ligotti
>Padgett
>Gavin
Spoonfed /sffg/core, should keep you busy for a few months at least.

>>22782910
>from the past 20 years
Sorry, anon. I'm retarded.

>>22782910
Thanks. I was checking out Neal Stephenson because of the thread. Mongoliad and The Baroque Cycle looked good, or at least interesting.
Also forgot I hadn't read Book of the New Sun yet.

>>22782914
I'll take anything good desu. I'm not really well-read in fantasy.

>>22782914
Any of these written intelligently?

Maybe I'll check out Bakker too

>>22781328

Legend of the Galactic Heroes

>>22782979

I enjoyed Night Watch but never finished thr serirs Day Watch was a lot of fun and I liked the mirror character hasn't the author been cancelled yet for supporting Russia?

>>22782991
>hasn't the author been cancelled yet for supporting Russia
Pretty much the only reason you should ever cancel someone.

>>22783006
As far as SF/F writers sins go, supporting his own home country even when I think it's not in the right is rather mild. I save my ire and cancellation for the likes of Marion Zimmer Bradley and Samuel Delany.

>>22782973
I've heard mostly positive things about Beyond Redemption, Priest of Bones, and Ember Blade. Orconomics is not about business orcs so it sucks and I hate it.

>>22783066
Thanks. I checked out The Traitor God too and it seemed really interesting.

>>22782851
the wizard knight.

>>22783006
How dare he not support the mutants in the state department, he should go sniff blinken's puckered anus and yap about Putin like a good little slave

he should support gay rights and the murder of little NICU babies by israel while he's at it

How is he not cancelled?!?!?!

Is any urban fantasy actually good?
Feel like it's a bit like cyberpunk where it's more effective as a setting in other mediums than novels.

>>22783683
Enjoying getting into Bobby Dollar right now.
>It's like Dresden in the earlier days when it was actually good.

>>22783683
I thought urban fantasy would be stuff like Guards! Guards! or just fantasy that takes place in a city setting, not fucking gay modern bullshit that has a vampire pretending to be a human playing detective. Extremely disappointed, once again.

>>22783006
Anon said Russia, not Israel.

So I finally finished this series after seeing it recommended here months back and to whoever it was who was shilling it I have to say FUCK YOU I HOPE YOU DIE
It has the nonsense-word laden prose of Dennis L. McKiernan, the plotting of R. A. Salvatore, the psychotic scatological sadism of George R.R. Martin, and the shaggy-dog nihilism of Tad Williams; by far one of the most comprehensively unsatisfying series I've ever read.

I really wish I didn't have the crippling autism that compels me to finish a book I start no matter what, I've only been able to break free from the traps of bad books a few times in my life and Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, regrettably, was not one of them

>>22783683
The first 9 Anita Blake books are good, but after that the series abruptly pivots into being a shittily written reverse harem series full of boring and repetitive relationship drama.
Those ones are fine for coomers who can put up with everything that happens between the many, many sex scenes.

Will there be a book that satisfies /sffg/?

>>22782917
>Mongoliad and The Baroque Cycle looked good, or at least interesting.

Mongoliad is a bit autistic but not awful.
The Baroque Cycle is perhaps my favorite work of fiction ever but it is likely to filter almost everyone before it really gets rolling. In particular The Confusion is an absolute ripper.

>>22783914

>>22783914
book of the new sun and urth satisfy everything a /sffg/ needs.

I enjoyed A Knight of Valora. Give me another book one of you faggots wrote.

>>22783914
Already exists (see pic related)

What am I in for and are Man-Kzin Wars books out of print? I can't seem to find book 4 of the Ringworld series either.

>>22782973
Cradle is fun and an easy read, but it has some things holding it back.

The Traitor God and its sequel are great, I like Traitor God a little more.

Orconomics was a pretty fun fantasy comedy

I only read a small chunk of Beyond Redemption, but it didn't impress me.

I haven't read the next four, but I've had a copy Faithless for a while and kind of want to try The Thief who Pulled on Trouble's Braids.

The Woven Ring was just okay, but noting to write home about

The Crimson Queen is the first and best of a solid indie attempt at classic style fantasy trilogy.

Scourge of the Betrayers is awful

Into the Labyrinth has good concepts magically, but it's not good. I also read the sequel which is more of the same in another location.

I've been wanting to read The Ember Blade but haven't yet. I wasn't super into his Ketty Jay books though.

The Heresy Within isn't one of Rob J. Hayes' books that I've tried, but by far his best work is his Mortal Techniques series. I've found his other stuff mediocre, but that series stands out.

I haven't heard of Winter's Reach

Priest of Bones and its sequels are a bit of ripoff of Peaky Blinders, but they're better than the show from what I've seen of it and are very good. Organized crime fantasy in general is very fun.

>The last memory I had before I woke up from here was the speeding truck.

Truly the only proper beginning of a web novel

>>22783882
You gotta admit, the symphony storyline was pretty kino.

Bleh

>>22770887
Did a small smile with sound.

<- Currently reading pic related. It's like urban fantasy, high fantasy and magical realism had a baby. I hope it stays interesting because I can actually see myself finishing this one. It's the first non-picture book (read: manga) I've gotten this year I think. I think I like indian led fantasy books.

>>22770989
Here's a terrible recommendation based on your words but an alright recommendation based on what I think your intent is (unless you hate litrpg): Azarinth Healer. Notice that those power runes, rather than being on armor, are on the skin, which is why I think it doesn't fit your words but might fit your intent.

>>22784204
On the one hand, it brought to mind Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, as I imagined Leovigild Ackenzal as Michael Crawford.
On the other, 1600 pages of torture porn I can do without.

How many hours, days, or both does it take you guys to read a 350-page book?

>>22784365
5 months

>>22784365
6 months

>>22784365
depends on how Im feeling it
If I'm on a literary bender and the story is compelling, 350 pages will be gone in about 3-6 hours
if I'm really not feeling it and the prose is a drag and I'm only doing it for like 30-60 minutes right before I go to sleep, it could take me as much as 7-12 days

>>22784422
How do you read 350 pages in 3-6 hours? Are you a speed reader or are you reading the the vibes and just reading like paragraph by paragraph? Should I do that? Read paragraph by paragraph and just go off the vibes?

I originally asked the question because I saw a woman who read 10 books (fantasy) last month so I checked out a fantasy book to read yesterday but it's already the next day and I'm only on page 44 as of typing this.

>>22784365
Few hours spread out, so about a day.

>>22784365
4-5 hours

>>22784365
Really depends on my mood. If I'm feeling anxious, it'll take me about 5 or 6 days. If I'm relaxed I can knock it out in a day.

>>22784430
it really depends on the writing quality and the amount of text on the page
for example, reading Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by HP Lovecraft took me several days because the prose is atrocious and the text is extremely dense across the approximately 90-100 pages it takes in the huge Barnes and Noble leatherbound
on the other hand, Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park is 400 pages of mass-market paperback that flows so smoothly and the plot moves so effortlessly that you could easily finish the novel in the time it takes to travel by plane from Los Angeles to New York

>>22784422
>>22784433
>>22784439
I've decided to speedread to knock this book out in a day or two. I'm noticing that half of novels are fluff when you aren't trying to mine them for life lessons and facts about the world.

>>22773158
The Black Company/ Dread Empire

>>22781328
The New Jedi Order has all of those save power armor.

If you're reading for quantity then you're doing it wrong. There's no reason to read anything if you aren't taking the time to comprehend what you're reading.

>>22784574
>he's never heard of extensive reading

My favourite series in order are

1) Pale Lights
2) Dungeon Crawler Carl
3) One Piece
4) The Wandering Inn
5) Practical Guide To Evil

What should I read next?

>>22784605
a beginner's guide to writing a suicide note

>>22784605
mushoku tensei i think the last light novel is coming out soon

>>22784614
tried it about 5 years ago. It was terrible

>>22784430
Now here, an hour later, after taking the advice of anons, I'm on page 108, 64 pages in as many minutes. Thanks anon.

>>22784672
now summarize everything you read if you cannot you must read the again

>>22784692
I can, I just did it in my head (also I did it while reading it to make sure I was actually tracking the plot and not zoning out with a book in my hands). I don't do it here because, assuming you were replying in good faith, you just wanted to make sure I could, which I can. Thanks anon.

>>22784365
It depends on the size of the actual book, font size and actual content, but on average uninterrupted around 2-4 days. If I only read during lunch and after work then a week.
>>22784574
It is freeing to read a book however one likes or atleast being willing to do so. For instance if you think a page is half fluff, speed read it.
Also some books can literally be read by skipping every other page and are better for it. Sort of like how some movies or TV shows nowadays are produced to be watched in the background as you doomscroll tiktok or watch Instagram reels.

>>22784713
that's a no then

>>22784757
>If they won't perform for me, then they cannot perform at all

>somewhat of a well-behaved character starts acting like schizoid asshole if somebody asks the wrong question
you love to see it

>>22784630
>tried it about 5 years ago. It was terrible
Oh, sorry, we thought you liked terrible novels based on your top 5 list.

>>22784781
better than yours

>>22784757
>>22784761

how bad is it?

>>22784837
>nyt bestselling serries
>quote by Robin Hobb
It's bad.

>>22784721
What a horrible worldview.

>>22784982
GOTTEM /b/ro!

>>22784365
It depends on 3 factors:

1) how much I enjoy reading it
2) other stuff I need to do cutting into reading time
3) how dense/complicated the content is

Assuming for optimal conditions (I find it engrossing, I have nothing else to do that day, and it's an easy read) I can easily finish a 350 page book in a few hours of reading. If any of those conditions are not optimal it can take me several days. If I don't find it interesting at all, I probably won't even bother finishing it unless I have a good reason to persevere with it.

>>22784902
hobb is based, nigger

>>22784542
>I'm noticing that half of novels are fluff when you aren't trying to mine them for life lessons and facts about the world.
I would ask why you even bother with this while reading genre fiction, unless you think authors of genre fiction are somehow wiser and more insightful than other people.

>>22785032
>Hmm what should I name the antagonist of my story?
>Ah I know, I shall call him Lord Evol Badman, yes Hobb you've done it again

>>22782851
Do you like those books? If so I'd recommend Instrumentalities of the Night by Glen Cook.

>>22784571
NJO was some of the only star wars shit that did anything interesting, so of course
most star wars fans hate it. Not perfect obviously - it's basically the proto-Horus Heresy in terms of being an extremely long multi-author series of novels and short stories in a licensed universe, with all that entails, but overall not bad at all.

>>22781083
>or do I soldier onwards to finish House of Chains then stop there since I've heard there is a timeskip after that book
Book 5 isn't a direct continuation of any book before it, but that is not because it's a time skip. It's yet another new area with new characters, and it is so disconnected from everything else you'll wonder if it's even really the same story until things start to fall into place. Eventually stuff in book 5 becomes super relevant to the other characters and their plots, but the jarring shift in Midnight Tides is severe enough that for some people it is what made them quit reading the series.

>next audiobook in a series has a new narrator going forward

>>22785102
It was very off-putting when I first started, but it ended up being one of my favorites in the series.

>>22785102
>>22781914
Well then House of Chains it is, seems like it's a decent chunk shorter than MoI so maybe it won't take me two weeks to get through. Still gonna need to decide on what I want to read as a palate cleanser afterwards, but that's something I got a whole book to consider over.

Midnight Tides is incredible (might actually be the best book in the series), but I had to take a long break psyching myself up to start it.

Has anyone here tried reading the Lodoss novels? I attempted Vampire Hunter D recently but the official translation that they sell is absolutely awful, don't want to get burned again buying a book I'll never finish.

>>22785387
oh well, scratch all that, looks like there's only a fan translation anyway. Should've looked before I posted, I just assumed that the novels released in English at some point.

Is it worth getting into this series?

>>22785475
I read The Wheel of the Infinite, and she definitely has a compelling and creative knack of storytelling, it was a solid 7/10, maybe an 8 at best
haven't read her scifi though

>>22785035
>I would ask why you even bother with this while reading genre fiction, unless you think authors of genre fiction are somehow wiser and more insightful than other people.
I'm a child of a gaslighting narcissist with one brother who is 10 years older than me and another who isn't very wise. It became a habit to fill my life, I think, with as much cues for "This is appropriate. This is inappropriate. This is true. This is false. This is common sense." etc as possible. I'm realizing now, in my 30's, like a man who has made it a habit of guarding his food growing up because he was poor with siblings who would steal from him, that they was I read fiction books (exhaustively, diligently, word-for-word) isn't serving anything anymore. I've read the self help books. I've read the non-fiction books. I've formed a stable and informed worldview. I can just coast and read with leisure now.

>>22785112
Attachment to what is truly impermanent is conducive to suffering.

>>22785475
I've listened to two or three of them. They're extremely mediocre. Not terrible, just uninteresting.

>>22782742
What I don't understand is how we get zero mention of any Golds fighting for Mars besides Thraxa, Screwface, Mustang, and Victra. There should be hundreds of thousands of Golds on Mars who grew up with the Republic as children and should be loyal. Not to mention family members of the Martian Golds lost on Mercury who should be out for blood. Not even a casual mention of the remaining Arcos widows who survived Dark Age and appeared at Mustang's speech. It was so bizarre.

>>22783914
has anyone ever moaned about chalion?
I'm sure some cunt has but ive never personally seen it

>>22784365
I've been reading 330 page light novels in 2 days so probably a weak for a real book

What would be a better story?
"The World's Most Powerful Mage Can't Find a Wife!"

or

"The Strongest Swordsman Is Unmarried and Desperate!"

Which one would be more autistic and fail at every attempt when trying to court women? I'm going to be browsing /r9k/ to see how all those losers fail.?

>>22785629
Look at /fit/ and see how buff hot guys still remain sexless losers

deadhouse gates is still boring!!!

>>22785629
"The World's Most Powerful Mage Can't Find a Wife!" is the answer, to me, for the first question and "The Strongest Swordsman Is Unmarried and Desperate!" is the answer, to me, for the second question.

>>22785629
"The World's Most Powerful Mage Can't Find a Wife!" will probably resonate a lot with all the STEM sperglords
t. khv STEM spaz

>The Survivor communing with The Judging Eye
Holy fucking kino, Bakkerchads.

>>22785475
Nah, if you're going to read Wells just read The Death of the Necromancer (p much a standalone, ignore it being labeled as part of a series, that's deceptive) or something instead of Cashgrabbot Diaries

>>22784365
10-12 hours, or the amount I read in a 12 hour shift and maybe part of another shift.
>>22785367
If for some reason a person could only read one Malazan book, I'd tell them to read that one.

>>22785726
YOU'RE BORING!!!!

>>22785629
Do the mage one, the swordsman one would be too painful for me. Was dumped more than once during HS+college bc my autistic dedication to my sport meant I was dogshit at relationships. Was internationally competitive but now I don't do it seriously anymore and still don't know how to do relationships well. Science fiction and fantasy novels.

>>22771636
The Night Land (original 1912 version)
If that doesn't filters her, she's a keeper

>>22784224
Why the fuck did you recommend that, she doesn't get runes until like 1000 chapters in, and its just a cosmetic power up, that makes number bigger. Hardly a major plot point.

How's the Home for Peculiar Children series?

>>22776239
What really get mes me about dissonance, is that I first started reading him on Kindleunlimited, and the 2nd book in the series was originally a spinoff showing what was happening to the side characters while he's in space. Completely fucks the pacing, because the reader doesn't care about any of these characters because they haven't interacted with the MC much at all until what is now Book 3.

>>22782794
Just finished the Way of choices (Ze Tian Ji), read it on novelbin, slooooow start, but it's fairly well written.
Kinda grounded in terms of it's magic nonsense though if you like high power levels it is not for you.

>>22785823
>do the one that would not resonate with real lived experiences
god

>>22785927
sounds like a CYOA

>>22785853
I've only read the first book. I only referenced what's in the first book.

>>22785629
>mage = Tech faggots
>swordsman = gym faggots
Both autistic and can't get laid losers, pick your poison

>>22785892
Read it for yourself and see! :) (Childlike, wonderful, convoluted imo)

>>22785944
I couldn't be bothered to finish the series, but I was only like 20 chapters away when I stopped giving a shit.
Let it be a spoiler, the runes never become a plot point.

>>22785629
Combine them both
"The World's Strongest Hero is Unmarried, Desperate, and Can't Find a Wife!"

>>22785629
>not just becoming you're own waifu
shit fantasy setting

>>22786025
I can't take any fantasy setting with magic seriously if the first thing wizards do isn't either turning into women, or turning into dragons in the event they're a woman in the first place

>>22785793
A cashgrab is something that uses the reputation of something else to get sales rather than the quality of its content. What you mean is that you believe the books to be overpriced for their length. Thinking like that is why media is bloated and filler. This is true for games, TV series, books, and whatever else.

>>22786054
Why would you want to be a women, when futas exist.
You keep the dick

>>22786073
futas are women retard

>>22786078
Futas aren't women, women don't have dicks

>>22786078
Futas are not women, you're just gay.

A futanari is basically a woman wearing a strap-on.

I feel like I stumbled into a /a/ thread

I don't like you guys.

>>22786132
I don't mind.

Hey guys I have been gone for a month and I come back and it looks like nothing has changed. Still talking about sub human ai chink webnovels, still talking about Bakker and Wolfe, still talking about being gay. What you should be talking about is The Mask of the Sorcerer by Darrell Schweitzer, John Crowley, RA Lafferty, and AA Attansio

>>22786132
I don't like you either. You're dull.

>>22786219
Start a discussion then faggot. Naming authors is not discussion.

any good long sci-fi and fantasy books to get from audible with free credits? I already know stormlight archive and GRRM are 30+ hours

>>22786583
nothing with baldtree

>>22786583
Complete Second Apocalypse.

>>22786583
Malazan, I've listened to the first 3 by Ralph Lister and only a few chapters in with the guy they got to replace him Michael page and he's pretty decent so far.

>>22786609
i hate that narrator. stick to reading for bakker

>>22786219
>Lafferty
I'm reading through his Best Of collection. There's only been a couple of stories that have really grabbed me. Is there something I'm missing here? Everything I've heard indicates these are mindblowing and large-in-scope, but I've been disappointed so far. Do I need to read Past Master? Or even another longer work to truly get into him?

>>22786219
The Mask of The Sorcerer is fantastic
The Deep is good
Past Master is ass

>>22785892
the children aren't that peculiar imo

>>22786063
You are autistic, also there is a vast difference between the kind of bigger=better thinking that plagues SF/F and not liking it when someone is shitting out novellas and charging full novel prices for them because the first one was well received.

Did anyone read this? Thinking of getting it

>>22787086
10/10 cover, 6/10 book.

>>22787086
Three main POVS, one male (a slave?) and two strong wymyn. Thanks but No Thanks.

>>22787091
>>22787108
Well thats a shame

Coomerbros, I need some coomer fantasy recommendations. Preferably something that has a focus on the women, not the guy being the bestest of them all

New
>>22787400
>>22787400
>>22787400

>>22787086
the other book he wrote about giants was boring cringe

>>22770860
Series gets much better. Abaddons gate is personally my favourite. Yet to read the last trilogy.