/lit/ - Literature

First for Patrick Rothfuss being a misunderstood genius

>hero finally finds the legendary blade
>it turns out to be serrated

has this ever happened /sffg/?

‘I tend to concentrate on courage, loyalty, love and redemption,’ David Gemmell once said. ‘I believe in these things. I refuse to be cynical about the world, and I won’t join the sneerers or the defeatists.’

Based Gemmell telling grimdark faggots to fuck off while still writing fantasy that was pretty brutal and violent.

>>9365151
Kill yourself.

What /sffg/ related shit are you writing, faggots?

>>9365157
Get fucked, grimfag nerd.

>>9365161
What the fuck did you just say to me, you little bitch?

>>9365157
>What /sffg/ related shit are you writing, faggots?
Two freelance rogues, skeleton and drow, steal an item for a client. When they start getting hunted down by not only the regular town guards but also other thieves, bounty hunters, and foreign assassins, they have to find out what they stole and who they stole it for, and try to make everything right.

So, what're you writing?

>>9365157
Why are you doing this?

>>9365151
What has he written that you liked and why did you like it?

>>9365095
Never seen it myself. Seems like something even a lot of boneheaded writers would avoid.

Any sf books like the original Halo trilogy? Looking for the awe, mystery philosophy, feeling of desperation, feeling of brotherhood, cosmic horror, etc. Something hopefully well-written as well.

Inb4 vidya games are stupid and so forth. That's why I'm asking for a book.

>>9365337
Well, aesthetically, Ringworld comes to mind. Probably doesn't fit your other criteria though.

>>9365157
Nothing, I'm just gathering ideas. I've found an extremely cool of way doing the whole "awakening" ala Paul drinks the water of death thing though.

Why is modern fantasy so incredibly one note? I've been an avid reader of Fantasy since my prepubescent years, but I haven't revisited the Genre since ADWD. Why are Fantasy Writers so intent on locking themselves into a handful of settings? I feel like I can find endlessly unique(Albiet low quality) SciFi novels, but every modern fantasy book I see is a direct copy of something I've already read.

>>9365471
Because the old guard of Fantasy writers have either settled into retirement or are trying new things.

The New Fantasy writers are all from the "I wanna be a billionaire, so fricken' bad" generation and just want to be popular across a broad base and make a living out of it. Very little interesting ideas or love of genre. It comes with the mainstreaming of a subculture.

>>9365301
>What has he written that you liked
Everything.

>and why did you like it?
Gemmell was amazingly consistent. He also never felt the need to bloat any of his books or series, unlike a lot of fantasy authors. His Drenai series is his longest series at 11 books, but each novel is pretty much a stand-alone and not a single one goes beyond 500 pages.

He's also the king of heroic fantasy.

>>9365485

AND

>>9365500

>>9365157
Oh look. It's the "take on god eating his children to gain their powers" anon. I thought we got rid of your wannabe writer ass...

Getting into fantasy after reading tolkein and asoiaf.
>Get recommended name of the wind. >Starts off pretty good.
>Gets incredibly slow.
>Approaching the end of the book.
>Most anticlimatic ending ever.

How bad did I get memed /lit/?

>Man, remember when we were kids?
>When we didn't like a book we just read another one if we wanted.

>>9365529
Last thread had a few posts about all the things wrong with the series yeah.

>>9365407
Tried ringworld, wasn't really my thing.

>>9365529
>every fucking thread it's the same autist that wants us to discuss the only book he read
>name of the wind
>posting like he just joined the thread and is "curious" about what we think of it.

Can we pick something else to discuss than fucking Rothfuss? This is the fourth thread that this reddit fuck is trying to turn the discussion to name of the wind. Getting pissed about this. There are literally millions of sff books. Let's discuss something different this thread, something that isn't botns or name of the wind.

I miss the bakker countdown autist. At least he was different every thread.
Dino-as-measurements anon, you here? What you reading?
Absolute aram, how is your jack off to wolfe coming?
Catfag what you reading?
Tripfag what you reading?
Original dinosaur what old books you reading?

>>9365471
have you looked at /sffg/? Most fantasy is recycled garbage because 90% of the readers like to have the same trash given to them over and over again. They're terrified of new ideas and shit over anything different as "muh leddit"

>>9365157
nothing at the moment, I'm planning on coming back to that story about the fortune teller's daughter who wants to be an astrophysicist instead of an astrologer but winds up caught up in the schemes of a narcissistic wizard and a bashful thunder bird

>>9365571
You want modern pulp?
With every new installation being some more whacky planet than the last?
With you following a grunt in a space marine corps doing battle with aliens to earn money so earth doesn't get tripled bio-nuked?
Then the undying mercenaries is the series for you.

You will enjoy characters odst-ing to worlds.
Strange lifeforms and cultures.
The use of alien weaponry on civilians, commanding officers and aliens.
Act now and you will get a free addiction to space marines.

>>9365582
Havent been around but now is a good time to break the silence. Working on a latro in the mist writeup that will finish my second volume on Wolfe - this is my best work on Wolfe's best work, so the terrible beauty of the intellectual effort between two of the greatest minds of our time should reach sublime heights. They can take their awards and shite ideas and stick them up their ass - nothing better can ever be written on Wolfe, unless some Pierre Menard comes along and recopies the book and refines one or two small details.

>>9365501

Okay anon you seem to be the person to ask this. I'm getting fatigued with GRI and grimdark fantasy and want some simpler, heroic shit so I'm looking at picking up a Gemmell book to try. Can you recommend any book in particular that would be a good starting point or example of his writing? I'm hesitant to jump straight into his long 11 book series without knowing if I'll enjoy it, so a shorter series or a standalone book would be preferable.

>>9365582
>Catfag what you reading?
You think you can just summon me an I'll respond? Throw around some epithet like it's inscribed on my collar and expect it to yank me from my well-earned meditative repohhhhh yeah... um, so...
>>9356939
Reading this.
You'll be pleased to know that it starts fairly early with a bit of reverserapecest. Lots of death. Some maiming. Not terribly comfy.

>>9365702
>so a shorter series or a standalone book would be preferable.
Like I said; The Drenai series is less a series and more of a collection of stories that take place in the same universe. You can pretty much read any Drenai book by itself as its own story. But I'd suggest any of his actual stand-alone novels for starters. Give Morningstar a shot. If you dig it then check out his other stand-alone books and take it from there. But his Drenai stuff is arguably his best works as far as heroic fantasy goes. His Rigante series is also great but has maybe more "drama" in it than his Drenai stuff.

Word of warning though: His books do feature plenty of violence and rape BUT not for grimdark reasons. Gemmell was a christian (not the preachy kind so don't worry) and the themes I quoted from him in my post right here >>9365151 are prevalent throughout all of his work. It's not about having violence and rape to shock his readers like your typical grimdark writers, but about his characters trying to overcome such horribleness.

>>9365529
>Name of the Wind
Whoever recommended this to you is not your friend. Read Gene Wolfe.

Had this idea of someone coming across a big floating sphere in the forest. When they go up and touch it, their handprint stays behind and a bunch of strange markings slowly fade in, which the person soon realizes are also "hand"prints.

I don't know how to phrase this next part, but then they walk 360 degrees around the sphere back to where they started and see that their handprint is missing. They keep walking and see that all of the handprints have changed, and walking back around changes them back. So the person keeps walking around and around and the surface never stops changing for as long as they walk.

Thought about ending it there but also thought it might be cool if the person touches one of the handprints and the sphere's surface turns a murky green. They think they've broken it but after a few seconds there's a dark smudge on it that turns into the reflection of a weird octopus looking thing swimming up and leaving the handprint that the person touched. Then the sphere turns back to normal. Then they'd go back and touch their handprint and watch themselves walking up to the sphere and leaving it.

At this point they'd be running around the sphere giddy and euphoric, reflecting on the awesomness of the universe and wondering about God or some shit and then they'd come across what was unmistakably a human handprint. They'd reflect on this briefly before proceeding to touch it whereupon the sphere would turn pitch black. It'd stay that way for a little, with the person watching the spot intently.

Then what looks like a human arm flashes out of the darkness and strikes the sphere with a loud bang, the first sound the sphere has made.

The person doesn't move and the sphere folds in on itself and disappears.

>>9365881
So Gantz?

>>9365890
Da shapes are da same so it's da same!

No.

>>9365830

>Morningstar

That looks perfect

>It's not about having violence and rape to shock his readers like your typical grimdark writers, but about his characters trying to overcome such horribleness

That sounds fine, in fact focusing on heroic stuff which includes overcoming horrible shit is pretty much exactly what I'm looking for

>>9365471
Because fantasy has always been heavily flavored with nostalgia. It goes straight back to Tolkien. LotR and the Hobbit are loaded with nostalgia, it's a powerful, pervasive feeling that has probably just been conflated with the general appeal of fantasy over the years so that they are now inseparable. When you write fantasy you instinctively try to go for that nostalgic feeling.

>>9366123
>That sounds fine, in fact focusing on heroic stuff which includes overcoming horrible shit is pretty much exactly what I'm looking for
Well you're in luck because that's Gemmell's style to a T. Be prepared to shed manly tears though.

>>9365881
don't tell us the idea just write it

>>9364891
Ay yo I'm still here

>Would a book with a more fanciful tone (like pulp) still bother you in the same way? Does the realistic presentation of the story lead you to expect modern sensibilities where other presentations would not? Or is it all one in the same?
I think most people apart from the most hardcore feminists can forgive pulp, and the more male-dominated Golden Age scifi. They're products of their time, and can hardly be blamed. As long as modern readers can laugh at it for its older mindset while still able to enjoys concepts, I see no problem.

>Can aliens be sexist? There is a popular space opera where the main alien race doesn't allow one gender into space because they consider them mentally unstable and thus unfit for such precise important work.
Which space opera? And aliens can be anything, including sexist, but it'll just be a metaphor or parody for real world views. The concept you just described has nothing wrong with it literally, but it's obviously an attempted reference to sexist views towards women on Earth. What the writer does with that is their own business:
>If they're liberal minded: the mentally unstable race are secretly smart and overcome their problems and join the hardy space crew
>If they're more conservative: nothing changes in the plot and it's shown the unstable race are just that, unstable

It's actually the second option which interests me more, as one of the biggest problems with our interpretations of aliens (and animals really) is our attempts to humanise them. if the scenario described in your space opera was actually more of a caste system thing, and despite us humans trying to introduce equality to that "horribly awful sexist world!", we were actually being cruel because of how differently evolved the other races genders were. That would be a cool idea, and I always love books which play with the authors expectations. Even this good idea would ultimately draw criticism however, because the author would be seen as trying to imply woman ARE second rate or whatever.

In todays political climate, especially regards to gender and especially in the genre of sff, gender issues are massively overblown, making matters harder for more moderate liberal cunts like me.

About to start reading some Dragonlance novels as I hear they are comfy and not as edgy as forgotten realms.

>>9365529
>reading books written by Marxist feminist neckbeards...

>>9366782
>judging a book by the authors opinions

>>9366796
>implying an author's personal ideas don't influence their work

>give well thought out recommendations to anons
>they collect the book and don't respond
>every single time
>they wonder why people don't respond to him when they ask for help

>>9366839
>implying implications

>>9366694
Am I the only one that thinks these threads would be a lot more interesting if people shared and discussed their concept art?

>>9366916
not on /lit/
concept art should embellish your writing

>>9366923
I don't think embellish is the right word. Anyway a lot of people are into concept art for it's own sake, I'll accept that it's not /lit/ though.

>>9366916
>>>/ic/
>>>/aco/

>>9367022
>>>>/aco/
Why?

>>9367129
after the big western art purge on /d/ I find myself looking content on /aco/ too. I wish the mods had just left /d/ how it was, literally nothing wrong with the old system. :^(

to keep it /lit/, any idea when too like the lightning will be on the kindle store?

>>9365027
>What's your favorite non-edgy fantasy (or SF) work?

Blindsight is pretty edgy, but not in the traditional sense
>muh consciousnesses is wasteful
ok maybe not

>>9365471
Medium creep. New writers who want to write Fantasy stories don't want to write books, they want to write Planescape Torment, Tyranny or Dark Souls. Fantasy as a medium has been heavily influenced by tabletop RPG's, which means that the story structures and systems within adapt exceptionally well to video games. Brandon Sanderson is a prime example - one of the most common criticisms about his books is that they feel like novelized video games.

>>9366728
>As long as modern readers can laugh at it for its older mindset while still able to enjoys concepts, I see no problem.
Then it isn't the style, but the cultural context in which it was written. What about a novel published today, done expressly to ape the pulp tradition? Does it get judged by the culture it imitates, or the one in which it is produced?
>Which space opera?
Well, the Chanur Saga. The author appears to be mimicking the social behavior of lions. Landowning males are titular lords over a large group of female relatives (wives, sisters, and daughters) who work and make most decisions. Males are expected to enter a berserker rage on encountering other males, so male children are worthless and get thrown out to die in the wilderness whenever the lord gets tired of them. Survivors challenge lords and take their land (usually supported by sisters). Human sensibilities don't really affect the situation due to communication difficulties, but the main character is fairly progressive for her race. The gender issues are used for political fodder to drive parts of the story and aren't really given the scifi treatment.
In Chanur's Legacy this stuff is more prominent, one of the main characters is an unwanted male crewmember. Analysis is difficult because it's most valuable as self-insert for space catgirl harem :3

>>9367281
In Ringworld, there's a race of cat people too, and it's taken more to the extreme. Females of their species are literally non-sentient, and they breed selectively to keep it that way since as a species they're extremely warlike.

>>9365582
>Dino-as-measurements anon, you here? What you reading?

For the past couple of days I've been non SF&F material, early Anton Chekhov stories about impoverished clerks, jaded deacons, salty peasants and daft constables. Here's some inspiration for you writers: write a Chekhov-like slice of life short story set in a provincial town of your fantasy setting as a world building exercise.

As for my dino pile, it's still here, my volumes of shorts by C.L. Moore, Howard, Vance, Lovecraft, and sundry anthologies of old SF. I have something a little newer (1988) in the mail, one of Robert Silverberg's lesser known novels, At Winter's End. Its premise, of a primordial tribe emerging from the underground after a 700,000 year ice age, was too intriguing to pass up.

>>9367300
Yeah, I need to start reading through the kzin wars at some point so that I can find out exactly where they're going with that.

>>9367281
Do humans get catpussy? Your answer will decide if I read or not.

>>9365080
More like a misunderstood retard.

>tfw this still hasn't been re-uploaded on mobilism despite the original uploader saying he would

>>9367426
There's only one human.
No, but a sexually frustrated hani female fantasizes about it (not in a very lewd way).
This is the book you want IIRC. Might be misremembering cuddles though.

>>9367489
>people must instantly gratify my wants
>this person doesn't understand that he need to upload this instantly when asked by me
>how dare he believe he has a life other than subservience to me

Look what we have here boys. People shit talking us:
>>9366929
>>9365227

>>9367526
You're a girl aren't you?

>>9367281
>Does it get judged by the culture it imitates, or the one in which it is produced?
I guess as long as it's clearly imitation, then doesn't need judging at all.

And while I'm doubtful Chanur is on my hitlist, does raise an interesting point I tried to make too. The idea of gender equality is almost exclusively human in nature. If only we put the genders side by side, of all the species on Earth, that could mean its highly unlikely that aliens do. Or even we have an advantage on aliens, seeing we would have double the working population if the two were identical.

About to start reading the Wheel of Time and I was wondering.

When you lads read series, do you read other books in between or just power through and read every book in the series consecutively?

Reading the Demon Cycle.

The percentage of the story that's directly plagiarized from The Wheel of Time is actually hilarious.

It's not that bad, very readable - but honestly.

Who thinks to themselves "Hey, I really liked that series. I'm going to rewrite it verbatim except I'll change the magic system."

>>9368087
Always read something else in between each book

>>9368087
Go hard, dont stop

>>9368104
>>9368098

>>9368096
Apparently that's what The Sword of Shannara did with LOTR

>>9368087

I went absolutely ham.

I skipped some of the more boring Nynaeve parts, though.

>>9368096
Come on man, no one would just do a really shitty job blatantly copying WoT

>>9368118

I didn't really feel like that series copied Wheel of Time that much.

It was also so fucking awful that I barely even made it through the first book, though, so maybe I missed those bits.

This is at least better than that one was.

>>9368030
Hmm, that makes me wonder how realistic it would be to posit that such egalitarian ideals persist in the distant future given the relative briefness of their ascendancy.
It would be interesting to a read a book where two estranged human spacefaring populations meet, one with differentiated gender roles taken to the extreme, and one with undifferentiated gender roles taken to the extreme. Assuming such could be done without massive intentional political baiting.

>>9368087
Favourite WoT cover art series?

>>9368208
Not a bad idea, if a little "look at my metaphor of modern culture!"
I think a future where we've left earth for some reason, only to see such bizarre gender-role animals like ants or lions take over the planet and have utterly alien culture to us we hate them would be cool

>>9368314
E-Book Weeaboo ones easily

>>9368360

>>9368352
>"look at my metaphor of modern culture!"
Why does so much sci-fi devolve into this? It's really annoying.

>>9368388
Because most writers are dumb and can't write well. Alternatively, most readers are dumb and see what they expect in fictions not designed that way. Also some authors are just really political, or mad (see Heinlein)

The only type of science fiction than can really isolate itself fully from politics is the really original or weird stuff. Something like Blindsight can be read ten times and drip no less political stance than a biochemistry textbook.

I think politics doesn't need to be omitted from scifi though. The last two Three Body Trilogy books, Dark Forest and Death's End, have an underlying theme of western democracy VS modern Chinese autocracy politics, especially in the context of great hardships, namely world threats and space travel. However, none of the books really waste time having characters argue over it, instead leaving a lot of the thinking up to the reader. Which is just how it should be, enough politics to provoke a discussion, but not so much it begins to detracts from the scifi.

>>9368208

>Assuming such could be done without massive intentional political baiting.

Even unintentionally with the political climate the way it is I imagine it would cause a shitstorm. Which is a shame because it's an idea that I think deserves treatment, especially if the pro's and cons of each society are made explicit yet dealt with in an evenhanded fashion.

>>9368481
Oh, I agree. I just didn't want the author writing it with the intent to point and laugh at one of the caricatures. Basically what you said.

Post the worst Fantasy novel you guys have ever read. I shouldn't have been surprised from a guy who copied Terry Goodkind

>>9368515
The Slow Regard of Silent Things. If you thought The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear were bad just wait until you read this. Rothfuss even had the gall to say that if you didn't like it you just didn't understand his story

>>9368515
>Fantasy
Thomas Covenant the unbeliever

>scifi
Dhalgren

>>9368526
>The Slow Regard of Silent Things
I dislike poems. Poems belong in the past with theaters and Shake-a-spears.

>>9368087
If I'm interested in a series then I keep reading it. If I lose interest then I take a break or just drop it completely. I see no reason to take breaks on something unless I'm not enjoying it that much.

>>9368515
Awful scifi books I've read:

Children of Time, Adrian Tychwanksky
The Sirens of Titan, Vonegut
The Shape of Things to Come, Wells
Children of Dune, Herb

meh

>>9368515
The Eye of Argon was bad but I felt sorry for the author

>>9368515
This is probably the worst one I actually finished. Since gaining actual taste I tend not to finish terrible books.

Do you know any good science fiction novel about of past human civilization?

>>9368556
I still can't believe someone published that

>kinda got tired of warhammer some five years ago
>get interested in it again since a new dawn od war game is coming out
>look up how many new horus heresy novels have been released since the last one i read (angel exterminatus)
>twenty, plus a bunch of shorter stories, and a new primarch focused series
nice
time to get reading again
see you nerds in may

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPwPwSQE9bs

>>9368569
What I find ironic is, Paolini is held up as some kind of example of innate talent yet his case is actually an example of the triumph of hard work to overcome mediocrity. His book was shamelessly derivative and his writing stuffed with purple prose, yet he soldiered on and spent over a year promoting himself all over the country until he finally met somebody important. People resent Paolini for being published despite his writing being so bad, but the truth is he put in a lot of effort to get published. Just not in writing his book.

>>9368208
The thought experiment itself might reveal the feasibility of the persistence of either sort of society.

>>9368481
Anything that involves something so fundamental to our current structure of society is inevitably going to end up being baiting. I don't think the reaction in the current political climate would differ in any other. Thomas Moore's 'Utopia' and Huxley's 'Brave New World' play with fundamental ideas and both are baiting. Perhaps the novelty might make such a work more baiting?

In any case, pros and cons are culturally relativistic. It would be very difficult to be evenhanded. Maybe that makes the whole endeavour unfeasible, though I would like to see a good attempt at taking such ideas to their logical conclusions.

>>9368580
I thought he was published because of his parents

Paolini is writing a scifi novel right now.

>>9368611
It was "published" by his parents who owned a very small-time vanity press. Then he went around to libraries and schools and wherever else he could get a venue and promoted his book until he ran into somebody who was personal friends with Alfred Knopf. He had to rewrite the book to get it published under the Knopf label for legal reasons.

>>9368613
>>9368580
>>9368569
>>9368556
>girlfriend fucking LOVES Eragon
>quite literally forced me to read it

It was hard. Harder than reading her garbage YA novel, even.
Yet she's not read a single wikihow about how to give blowies ;_;

>>9368564
You mean post apocalyptic?
Or BotNS Tier past?

>>9368556
Hard to believe, but the movie was even worse.

>>9368087
Take a breather between books. Especially for unfinished series, or series that experience a significant decrease in quality. I'm reading the Expanse right now and I'm rereading Snow Crash before book 2.
What does /sffg/ think of the Expanse btw? I know its popsci, so skip that bit of drivel you were about to post.

>>9368840
Expanse is GoT in space
It's fun, enjoyable characters and easy reading. Nothing profound though.

I know for a fact that chemical elementals exist in fiction, but has anyone done an approach where humans are carbon elementals?

>>9368968
Atoms as flavours anon. Is that you?

>>9368976
I don't think I ever talked about atoms as flavors.

>>9368531
>hating dhalgren

>>9368968
>has anyone done an approach where humans are carbon elementals?
I hope not, because that's really stupid. Carbon elementals should be something like sapient diamonds.

>>9368620
>her garbage YA novel
I'd like to know more about this.

>>9369143
It was truly awful, each character was the same: her but with twice as many crushes and 'badass' traits
all adults were evil
they lived in a DOME and that was the plot twist
literally furryshit (she's into it but ironically for a 4chan user I'm really not so we're both stumped)

man I get her to read my Blindsight fanfiction and she gets confused and tells me she can't handle it

FUCK I want to dump her but nobody else gives me the time of day so here I am

>>9369200
Just move on if that's how you feel.

>>9369143
It's got a basis. Every book I've read with Jinnis in it talks about them being simultaneously fire elementals and humanity's close cousins, often saying they are to fire what humans are to any of the other elements

Given that we consider ourselves first and foremost carbon-based life making us carbon elementals seems natural

>>9369243
>Given that we consider ourselves first and foremost carbon-based life making us carbon elementals seems natural
Of course we do you idiot. What the fuck else are we going to point to for carbon-based life? The bugs? The trees? Fucking obviously we're going to point to ourselves.

>>9368589

>I don't think the reaction in the current political climate would differ in any other

Going to have to disagree with you. We live in the age of social media, where opinions can spread like wildfire and a 'political' stance towards a work can be communicated, set up and entrenched within the space of days, if not hours. There's an almost hysterical element to the way things are reacted to that ties into this platform. Sure, Huxley dealt with political responses to his book (and surely that was the point in any case), but nowadays 1. Everything is seen through a political lens, even stuff that isn't meant to and 2. Any political backlash would not have come as quick as it can in this day and age.

>pros and cons are culturally relativistic

Sure, though that wouldn't stop a good author from giving a good treatment. It's only unfeasible if the author is limited in their approach. And even then, if what you say is true then there are work arounds to even out the treatment. Like making it comedy satirizing both cultures or something.

>>9369264
we consider them carbon-based life too genius.

I meant we consider ourselves carbon based life rather than hydrogen-based (whice I'm fairly certain we have more of than carbon), or water-based life

>>9369277
That's because all known life is based on carbon. It's not based on water or hydrogen, but carbon. Literally everywhere you look for carbon that isn't CO2, it's part of something living or something that was living at one point. But I still don't think this makes us carbon elementals. When I think elemental, I think of a personification of the purest form of something. Which is why I thought of sapient diamonds, since diamonds are 100% carbon.

>>9369277
what the literal fuck are you taking about
Only carbon, maybe nitrogen or maybe maybesillion, can form the basic for complex biological molecules. You can say "yeah but-" YEAH BUT NO. It's proved science that only these molecules can form enough valence bonds to support the wide array of molecules needed for life. Unless we find some incredibly wacky outliers in the future, it's incredibly safe to assume all life is like this.

And hydrogen based? water based? wtf are you even on about, my god I wasted my time typing all this

although arguably carbon-based is a fairly stupid term seeing as almost all the comments of earth life are essential, carbon is no more essential than phosphorus, but we're still carbon based.
Maybe in the future we'll discover aliens which utilise Boron a lot more, or other underused elements on earth. They would be /that element/ based rather than whatever weird thing we do compared to the rest of the universes life.

I did a module and a tutorial piece about astrobiology back in college, funky stuff

>>9369325
maybe silicon* new laptop, small keyboard

>>9368840
>Take a breather between books

I'm not the anon you were corresponding with, but I think it is worth emphasizing this idea for the edification of the wider anons: take breathers between reading books in one series. Even if it's tempting to leap into the next book in an omnibus volume. Read something else. This is due to fatigue, but I also believe that a book's content needs time to ferment in order to be appreciated more fully. When I see people reading all of Wheel Of Time, Malazan, Dune, ASOIAF etc consecutively my eyebrow is raised in disbelief. These books weren't written with this kind of reading in mind.

Can someone tell what Rothfuss has against poetry?

>>9369306
>Literally everywhere you look for carbon that isn't CO2
graphite, diamond, methane, white dwarves

>>9369325
silicon is pretty clearly not happening considering it doesn't dissolve in water, which is equally necessary for all life on earth and also makes up the majority of our body despite containing no carbon.

Meanwhile. carbon makes up a mere 18%. Granted, the part we consider to be alive is made of carbon, but it isn't considered alive on its own otherwise viruses and prions would be considered alive as well

Given that the only confirmed alternate biochemistry is life that replaces phosphorus with arsenic, and that replacing carbon is seen as deeply unlikely by most scientists, shouldn't we call ourselves phosphorus-based life instead?

Or going back to water, how about the fact that life that substitutes water for methane is still on the table. If we find life that uses methane as its primary fluid component, shouldn't we call ourselves water-based life to make a distinction?

You're splitting hairs for arbitrary reasons and then calling me a retard when you don't even bother to do your research? How dare you?

>>9369393
Silicon I threw in for Dan Dares sake. The 4 bonds is there but nowhere near strong enough plus doesn't dissolve in water as you say.

Phosphorus-based life I like
Water based, eh... Methane could work but then that writes off a lot of ions and other structures that rely on water. Certainly feasible but would create some interesting information molecules. Ammonia could do the job better as it's polar, and an abundance of N in the liquid medium could create RNA analogues, but you'll never get the range you do with carbon.

I guess once we find other life we'll just define Earth life as whatever differs it from the aliens. It just saying that I think a lot of it will be pretty similar to Earth. Sorry for being condescending I misinterpreted what you were saying for some a lot stupider.

The really interesting question is life's ability to propagate in the cold depths of space.

>>9369351
This is my philosophy regarding binging any form of media. Don't know why our society promotes something like that.

>>9369453
Personally, I want to save phosphorus-based life for the jinn. Either that or sulfur, but given that they're explicitly non-demonic it doesn't feel right giving them brimstone. of course, that leaves the question of salamanders. Maybe one of them could be antimony?

actually, is antimony-based life even possible? I know the other two could presumably work in low-energy, low-oxygen environments, but antimony is right below arsenic

>>9365523
That kind of sounds like the story I'm writing, but not entirely. Was there another dude posting that painting ITT?

Here's MY edgy cannibalism fic
>seven reigning gods fell to the world, immense, rotting corpses blighting the land
>their flesh begets divine power, but also an immense hunger
>the hunger can only be sated by more of the flesh
>the protagonist is tricked into partaking of the flesh by a godless priestess
>thus begins his "holy" pilgrimage to cannibalize the remaining flesh and become The One True Godhead

>>9369200
>writes fanfiction
>looks down on others
You belong together.

>>9369622
mine only involves soul cannibalism, but it's pretty similar

>there was once one godhead but an opposing force caused it to decompose into smaller, less symmetric aspects
>These asymmetric aspects resulted in a material world where human life could come to exist
>The god-aspects want to reassemble, but with individual identities they have come to fear ego-death and each desires to consume the others
>because they cannot kill each other, they wrap pieces of their power in human shells. except for one who uses a cat instead
>the humans they guide don't realize that gods care nothing for them; that they were not created intentionally and will die without replacement if the broken symmetries that divide the gods are repaired

>>9369622
Seven is a cliched number. And Gods sounds hacky, make them demons instead.

Sounds like the basis for a travelogue book though. Remember to at least one deceitful/avaricious innkeeper, duplicitous town elder, and batshit delusional town in the Jack Vance tradition.

>>9368118
Having read bits of both series, neither are that good but they aren't they similar.

Wheel of Time was probably worse imo. Also goodkind might look super edgy but his writing is pretty tame.

>>9368455
I'm pretty sure that the Trisolaran society in the Three Body Problem is a criticism of Chinese Legalism.

Just finished Titus Groan. It felt oddly uneven, as if parts of it were written at very different times and then compiled. Weird stylistic changes – temporary shift to the present tense for several chapters, a single stream-of-consciousness chapter. The story of the wet nurse seemed to be invented separately and then retroactively joined to the story of the inhabitants of the castle. For a part of the book Peake temporarily becomes obsessed with the word 'momently,' where he isn't anywhere else. One chapter is written as if the characters are being introduced for the first time again, their characteristics being redundantly described.

So a piecemeal book, but each piece is incredible. I couldn't believe how well some of the juxtapositions of the comical and grotesque worked. I was worried it wasn't drawing to any sort of close, but the ending blew me away.

>Anomander Rake seems like the most over the top edgy anime character when introduced
>somehow don't hate him
>now he's one of my favorite characters
How did this happen? There was no way I should have liked somebody as ridiculous as this.

>>9369359
Considering he wrote a whole book of poems for his fantasy series I would assume nothing.

>>9370091
Token black uncle tom.

>>9367426
Read all roads lead to winter

>>9370091
Tiste Andii were so boring though.

>>9370194
>erotic science fiction novella
Mark, wai u do dis?

>>9370304

you wanted cat pussy, there you have it

it might be the only good piece of furshit erotica in existence

>>9369760
>Claiming Sword of Truth is anything but the worst fantasy series ever written
HOW
FAR
HAVE
WE
FALLEN

>>9370267
Except for Rake. For the most part yeah, they're just depressing.

I've been wondering about this for a while now. Vorkosigan saga enjoys a mild popularity among SF&F fans in my country, you can find people discussing it on our forums and all of them are translated to our language. But I've never seen anyone discuss it on English speaking internet. Is this a case of "Germans Love David Hasselhoff" or did I just miss it all?

>>9370267
>>9370449
All the immortals other than Bugg were awful.

I mean Tool was okay but god damn I just wanted to get off Tool and Tocs wild ride.

>>9365471
I sympathize. I search through my Kindle fantasy genre and try and find the most unique looking stories to read. I have found more luck with quality fantasy in the short story department since then they're not bound to fulfilling some epic long character arc. I read a good short story called Tumbling Alice recently that I'd recommend. It's so hard to find well-written stuff. This book was flanked by two fantasy porno books so I almost didn't click into it lol. Kindle self-publishing is a double edged sword in terms of quality. For every one good read there is a thousand shitty romance novels.

>>9370603
I thought Hood was pretty great, though we didn't get a whole lot of him outside the last book. But yeah it's hard to compete with Bugg, but then he and Tehol are probably the funniest duo in a series littered with fun and memorable duos.

>>9369200
>fanfiction

>>9370587

I'm a fan of the series myself, but I'm not on /sffg/ enough to know whether it gets discussed on here or not.

>be in early twenties
>discover PKD
>read all of his stuff over the course of a few years
>feelscomfyasfuck.desu
Why haven't you done this?

>>9368759

No.
The story of "Foundation and Earth" is settled 20.000 years in the future respect the novels of Robot Series.
In this book the main protagonists are in search of the ancient planet Earth and on their journey they discover uninhabited worlds previously colonized by humans.
In this history they do to ancient human civilizations references, languages and cultures that they changed, forgotten historical figures, etc.
Do you understand, now, what I mean?

bump

>>9369351
>When I see people reading all of Wheel Of Time, Malazan, Dune, ASOIAF etc consecutively my eyebrow is raised in disbelief. These books weren't written with this kind of reading in mind.
Would just forget everything if I didn't read it all at once tbH.
>>9370267
They weren't, tho.

>>9369518
Antimony seems limited use in nature observed thus far, and it's a little big to be an oxygen stand-in.

Personally I think that microbrial life will exist well into the crust, so if we go deeper and deeper I'm sure we'll see a lot more mineral ion-dependent microbes living interesting biochemical lives

does /sffg/ like audiobooks?

Been listening to American Gods, and so far Im not really feeling it, a shame really, given that I loved his work in the sandman back in the day.

Guess Gaiman should stick to comic books.

>>9371299
>They weren't, tho.
But they were.

>>9371313
>?
Yes.

>>9370862
Because I had enough of his drug fueled paranoia. Valis was the last straw. A book about him writing a bible about himself...
Don't want to catch the crazy and start calling people Russian spies.

>>9371074
Yea. I read about those somewhere.. can't remember what though.

>>9371313
What is with sffg's obsession with American Gods these past few threads?
>google american gods
>new tv series coming out soon
Oh I see. More green tinged authors whining that gaiman got another book to go on millions of screens. Got it.

Just finished these three. Entertaining enough but jesus they were a whole hell of a lot wordier than they needed to be, it took me 3 days to read the trilogy when I can usually power through these kinds of books in a few hours each.
Not even going to bother with the other 25 books in the series, I haven't got that much time, and these 3 were kinda unremarkable.

I've read Solaris and The Futurological Congress, liked them both very much. What other Lem is good?

What sffg are their about a ww3 fought in our current era and technology capabilities?
I read Lucifer's Hammer and it's meteorite fallout is kind of like a nuclear post attack.
I want slice of life accounts of people surviving and what they did to survive.

>>9371682
Those covers are making the book llok better than it actually is....

On a scale from Brent Weeks' Night Angel Trilogy and Lev Grossman's Magician Trilogy. How is that book?
Does it have gri? Is it edgy? What are they about?

Good modern sci-fi pulp?

>>9371861
I haven't read either of those.

>Does it have gri? Is it edgy? What are they about?
No GRI, not much edge. It's a pretty standard 80's Fantasy fare about a boy who becomes a Wizard, a scullion who becomes a Warrior, a Thief who becomes a Duke and a Prince while fighting an ancient evil. It actually has some Sci-fi in it funnily enough since it places a lot of emphasis on space travel using magic, and several species using technological means to do the same thing are briefly touched on.

This only really applies to those 3 books though, there's literally 24 other books I haven't touched.

6/10, not bad, just a bit above average. Most of the characters are kinda hollow.

>>9371861
Sorry bro, your expectations are colored by those terrible modern covers.

>>9371902
Okay, that was mean. They aren't actually that bad for newer covers. Still like the old ones better.

>>9371925
Maybe I'm just not a fan of the dark pallete. The new Silverthorn cover is actually a pretty great rendition of the book's opening scene.

>>9371682
I'd recommend you read the Daughter of the Empire trilogy that Feist cowrote with Janny Wurts at least. It's easily the best thing he wrote in that setting. The rest is pretty skippable though. I still have like 19 books in the series cause I was way into it in high school.

>>9371879
>there's literally 24 other books I haven't touched.
Later books have insane power creep and fighting evil snake people.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/brandon-sanderson-book-bundle

Sanderson bundle on Humble Bundle.
>almost all of the books in $1 tier say "Offer not available in your region"
Yeah, fuck you too.

Anyone ever read "The Ea cycle" by David Zindell? Awesome series, they're quite lyrical and harkens back to the classics.

>Also it has what has to be the ugliest cover in history. I think this has something to with bad us sales, in europe the covers are pretty rad.

Any good books about colonizing planets, specifically about finding ways to transform the planet to make it habitable? Or ways humans deal with existing cultures there?

I'm starting to research colonialism and the age of exploration/colonialism to get ideas, but I'd like to read some stuff about it.

I was playing Mass Effect Andromeda and I hate it. And I hate that I hate it, because Mass Effect is awesome.

So I want a story of hope and hardship out in the great beyond.

I also havent read in a long time and would like to read stuff again

>>9372753
This one is breddy gud.

>>9372778
eyy, heared that was pretty good.

There's two more in that series, if I'm not mistaken? Are those good too?

>>9372753
Tau Zero but it all goes wrong
nice sort of 70s/80s feel to it, a bit of cheese but still good

>>9372778
[thumbs:up]

>>9372791
Yeah, I meant the series as a whole.

Done with Lost Fleet, was fun.

Any more similar books? Not looking for anything deep, just action packed and decently written.

Want more space battles, aliens and rogue AIs.

Also the last battle was predictable as fuck.

>>9366775

That trilogy specifically is 10/10 comfy without being as mealy as Shannara.

>>9371868
>I can't read
>spoonfeed my ass
I told you Bv Larson.

>>9371925
>>9371902
I actually thought they were good because of the new Covers. From this old cover I can see it's trash and I will never touch it.

>>9372377
>not getting the proxy extention

>>9373122
Don't they ultimately determine the contents of your bundle based not on your IP, but rather on the payment information?

>>9373116
Good.

>>9373176
I know. Thanks for warning me they were shit. I was warned about Feist's Magician books.

>>9373214
Knowing that you will nevar experience them can only bring joy to my soul :3

>>9365617

Not that anon. But I just started the first book and its pretty damn entertaining and fast to read.

Is Stephen King sff?

>>9373299
>:3
"Canada" what are you doing trolling people? Aren't you suppose to be reading about cats?

>>9373364
>writes about shit that never happened or isn't real or possible
What do you think fagget?

>>9373362
Glad someone took my shilling. Maybe I will have to shill my books in that way from now on. write it like some cliche carnival ad.. (you fucking autists can't just search for shit on your own).
>One dollar has been deposited into your account

>>9373398

Then how come I never ever see him mentioned here?

Haven't been here in a while. Any cool new book discoveries as of late?

>>9373398

Dude I pirated the book.

If you shill here I doubt you will make a buck

>>9373490
>what is a joke
Your reddite/newfagness is showing...

>>9373448
>Then how come I never ever see him mentioned here?
Because everyone and their grandmother knows of King. He's been around for decades and is one of the few authors who actually live off their books
>Carrie, Kujo, Green Mile, Under the Dome, Pet Cemetery.
Why would be talk about (and shill) novels that left the book realm and flew into the normie tv realm?
Plus he is mostly horror. I like a wide variety of shit(so-called according to /lit/) when I do my genre consumption. Why read only about killer dogs and vampires, when I could read about killer vampire space dogs who use magic to realm hop?

Read Starfish and Maelstrom from the Rifters triology by Peter Watts.

Liked the first one but i felt the second one suffered from covering too many characters in different parts of the world and made me lose interest by the end of the book.

How is Behemoth? I'm afraid that it will suffer from the same issues as Maelstrom and most people seem to think it's the worst in the series.

>nigga on the train going OH SHIT every once in a while

>>9373739
Dark Forest is incredibly OH SHIT. Trend continues with Death's End (Which I would recommend reading as soon as you polish off DF).
Post when you finish them both, had some great chats about them a few threads ago

>>9373690
Starfish is great but if Mael didn't blow your socks off I can't promise you'll fare any better with Behemoth, which suffers from a lot of the same problems. As Petey describes in one of his AMAs, he wanted to show more of the wider world in the second two rifters books, but feels he did a poor job.

However if you're a Watts junkie like me, his short stories and Sunflower Cycle stuff are great

>>9373776
>dat pic
SHIT MY SIDES

>>9373776
>However if you're a Watts junkie like me, his short stories and Sunflower Cycle stuff are great

I'm definitely a fan, Blindsight and Echopraxia are some of my favourite sci-fi that i've read recently, looking forward to his next work.

I'll check out his short stories, any in particular that you recommend?

>>9373932
Yeah Omniscience or whatever medical condition he'll end up calling the Echo sequel after better be amazing.

As I said, Sunflow Cycle is all great.
The entirety of Beyond the Rift is really good too, on the level of Chiang at least.
Malak and The Colonel are good too.
Plus it's all available free here: http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

Cyteen has been incredibly weird insofar with the lolicon/shotacon implications.

>like a 130 something year old woman rapes a 17 year old boy clone giving him PTSD
>130 year old woman gets killed by the clone's father
>the lab she's working for decides they need to clone her and ensure that she's as epigenetically similar to the original
>loli clone meets the now old male clone and now it seems that he's going pedo for the clone of the woman who raped him

ted chiang is anti-literature, literally.

any good new writer, fantasy or sci-fi shown up in the last coupla years?

>>9372753
>Mass Effect is awesome.
you serious senpai ? even with the convenient 'there's 1g gravity everywhere' and shittons of lazy scifi and all but 1 alien race being humanoid as fuck and all capable of human-range-voice and evolving to live in the same gravity\radiation\atmosphere conditions (well xept quarians). the moment you get to use the ship and space all around you looks like a telescope image of a nebula i got triggered.

anyways the expanse has mars in the process of terraforming , stations in the asteroid belt and on jovian\saturnian moons and book 4 deals with a new colony.

>>9371724
>Lem
I've read both Cyberiad and His Master's Voice. Both great, although HMV is pretty abstract.

>>9373970
I kept telling pedo-kun to read it.

>>9374019
what are you looking for?

>>9374070
good writing

Just read pic related. A little on-the-nose, and felt like it would have been ideal either cut down to a short story or expanded into a longer novel, but more enjoyable than I expected based on reviews. Did not expect it to be R-rated.

Wright's apparently deliberate refusal to write more than one female character type is increasingly grating, but to his credit he actually manages to varies it here a bit.

>>9373379
Sorry, I'm a lot meaner when workposting.

Say one redeeming quality about this book.

>>9374166
It's not boring. I like the way magic works in it. It's short and has quick pacing so it's easy to read. It can be funny sometimes too, though Red Queen's War was a lot more humorous since Jorg is too busy being a bastard to have a real sense of humor a lot of the time.

>>9374166
I can't. Mark Lawrence couldn't write a good ending to a book or series if his life depended on it.

>>9374166
It's the new voice fantasy has been crying out for.

GOD I WANT TO GET DOMINATED BY SOULCATCHER SO FUCKING BADLY

>>9374026
It may not be hard scifi, but it does have eternal logic, and it plays with that logic from time to time.

I like it because of the narrative and the future it invites you to imagine.

It's also a wealth of cool ideas. This just may be young me talking, but Mass Effect was the first scifi that truly engrossed me, since I was in highschool when I played it. It's pretty much influenced my taste in scifi and entertainment in general desu.

Also,

>Implying the convergent evolution isnt very likely

Also, there are plenty of races that arent just blue skinned people. Elcor, Hanar, Volus(Who are ammonia based), and the dextro-amino aliens(Turians and Quarians) have fascinating biologies(Turians literally have metal-like keratin covering their bodies to protect it them from the harsh rays of their sun.

>>9373104
Don't talk ugly to me, asshole.

>>9374277
You're committing the first and perennial fallacy of all passionate people: defending the thing that exposed you to your passion beyond what is reasonable.

Mass Effect 1 had an interesting fluff-y codex written by interesting people who liked interesting scifi. The game itself was Bioware slicing off all the inconvenient and unique edges of that fluff so that it'd lazily fit into yet another engine clone of the Baldur's Gate/KOTOR/Jade Empire formula, even more streamlined, but with more practiced Hollywood polish. It's a bad game.

#2 is even worse, just a cynical cash-grab that ruins even more of the setting's fluff by anthropomorphising and degrading the Lovecraftian villains and classic cosmic horror sense of of "wow, we're fucked" incomprehensible scale (one of the actual fun things about the original), written during Bioware's incredibly cynical retooling into a shit company that can churn out blockbuster Hollywood-polished RPGs with minimal effort, by nepotistically hiring 50,000 incompetent female staffers. #3 and Andromeda were just the logical outcome of this.

You love the fluff and you love the fact that it shone through in the original and is still identifiable in #2. That's not bad. The fluff was good. But don't defend shitdick Bioware because of that.

I love KOTOR, but let's face it, KOTOR was deliberately low-ambition case of "what if we just remade Baldur's Gate, streamline development by giving the player less freedom, and slap a famous IP on it?"

I love Baldur's Gate but it's a borderline ARPG far from the ambition or passion of an Avellone making Planescape or Kirkbride making Morrowind. And Bethesda (The Other Bioware, whose Fallout 3 was a deliberately cynical spiritual sibling cash-grab to Mass Effect) has proved they can just re-hire Kirkbride to slap some Actual Passion & Effort paint on a big cynical cash-grab piece of shit (Skyrim).

So much of enjoying fantasy and scifi is learning how to detect the good and the bad in any given IP and product, and discern the intentions of content creators who may be using carefully harnessed scraps of good to trick you into thinking they don't ultimately want to sell you as much feces filler as possible.

>>9374318
So basically, the Witcher is the only good fantasy game series of modern times.

finished Holly Hollander a while ago. A deceptively straightforward mystery. I thought it was pretty good. I found it especially comfy because I drive through the setting every day during my commute

Finished Children of the Dragon.
>>9356939
Theme was the cyclical nature of history. Always a depressing one. MC instigates a popular rebellion. Succeeds, and establishes the beginnings of enlightened rule.
Millions die. Despotism is the only answer. Empire is wiped out by barbarians in the end anyway.
Even with my dislike of depressing stories it easily rates 3/5 dinosaurs.

>>9374166
It's not made out of live electrical wires and broken glass?

>>9374166
They recruit radioactive mutant kids and talk to an AI and blow up a castle using a nuke so that's pretty cool.

Semi related. I just downloaded Terry Pratchett's Discworld series on audiobooks. Holy fuck this is so good, the voice acting is a perfect 10/10 and the books themselves are great. This guy has taken 'lolsorandom' and made it actually interesting and fun to read with in-universe consistency.

*SPOILERS*

The Setting:
Sultry felines from another dimension conquer earth, remove all pointy objects for our own good, and sterilize icky humans to prevent further ecological damage.
The Story:
Our hero, the last Canadian holdout, has a philosophical discussion with a smoldering extra-dimensional catwoman. Not that he disagrees with the results of their conquest (being Canadian), just with the lack of human agency. Sensing defeat, the silken furred minx counters with the irrefutable power of yiff. Our hero disgraces himself on the sexual battlefield, but remains unconvinced in the end.
The Verdict:
2/5 lewd spacekats
Canada, not even for the puss puss.

Started C. S. Friedman's Magister series. It was so badly written that I dropped it 3/10ths through book 1.

I've been seeing Connie Willis's name everywhere lately, so I decided to try out her dog book. It's much better, though I'm only a few chapters in.

>>9374166
Its cover is edgy enough that I didn't read it

Druss smiled grimly. "You are a blunt speaker, boy. But your brains are in your breeches. I have handled an axe for twice your lifetime. My enemies are all dead, or wished they were." His eyes blazed and he stepped closer towards the younger man. "When your life has been spent in one war after another for forty-five years, you have to be pretty handy to survive. Now you, laddie - your lips scarce dry from your mother's milk - are just a beardless boy to me. Your sword looks pretty there at your side. But if I chose, I could kill you without breaking sweat."

>>9372920
>Lost Fleet
Neal Asher and his Polity series. You could try Dark Intelligence (Transformation #1) from it. Or whatever.

>>9374166
You can warm your house if you stick it in a fireplace.

>>9374729
That's why I said COLDFIRE ONLY

>>9374670
Look who's late to the party. There's even some movies and two old animated movies made of some of the books you can check out after you've read the corresponding books.
There's even stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Was4vsxLEng - amateur theater bursting with cleavage.

I'm almost done with the Crippled God and man, after seeing how incredible Ganoes and Tavore are it really shows what a black sheep Felisin Paran was. They're both amazing leaders and she was just some shitty whore who got fucked up on drugs. There's one in every family I guess.

>>9375141
Felisin's entire story arc could be cut and it would make the series better honestly.

>>9375159
It really didn't amount to much. Just like Felisin. It suits her arc to be as ultimately irrelevant as she herself was.

>>9375141
You caught up to me goddammit. I'm at ~850 pages.

Sometimes it's hard to think that Tavore doesn't know she cut down her sister.

>>9375270
She seems to be aware of damn near everything else somehow, not sure how that might escape her.

>>9375270
That's actually about how far in I am as well. Everything is coming to a head finally, like 1500 pages of walking across deserts and wastelands all leading up to this.

>>9375295
I guess it could be seen together with the compassion theme recurrent in one of the books in TCG.
>>9375296
Somehow it's not too tedious either.

What sci-fi/fiction books have the most literary merit? I am interested in seeing what you guys like but I like real literature.

>>9375307
Book of the New Sun.

>>9375307
The Book of the New Sun

>>9375330
>>9375335
Hardy darr guys.

>>9375404
They're not wrong.

>>9374082
>R-rated
G... GRI?

>>9374266
Does that mean you read red sister?
I dropped red queen at book one because it was a rehash.
Does red sister take place in Jorge's world too?

>>9374447
I made the pic for you dino-measurements anon, use it.

Is a series of controversial essays written by someone from a fantasy world interesting?

>>9375404
Book of the new sun is literary scifi.
There is also Dhalgren, Gilgamesh, Buried Giant.
They are all shit except Book of the new sun

>>9375545
Interesting to who? Who is your target audience?
Controversial how? What is your decided topic?

Is it going to be a poorly hidden spewing of political beliefs about exterminating "lesser" magical creatures? Is it going to be about how "elves" always stealing and raping women?
How "dwarves" (a cousin to the elves who live in shanty towns) always steal shit from "hard working citizens"?

Which burly man's(topic) penis are you trying tuck, then dressing them up in make up and feminine clothing to convince (poorly) that it isn't a man (topic that you think it is).

So got in to high fantasy lately am I the only one needing a break mentally between books never had this before regardless of size but maybe when you have another 4 800 books to read its a bit intimidating

>>9375595
it might be because you seem to live in a universe without punctuation i can imagine an 800 page run on sentence would be pretty hard to get though what series is it by the way

>>9375599
>oh boy looks like i have been getting pretty good at French lately read some books too but looking for something less of a chore let's try some fantasy
>reads some ya level sit gets easier to read through
>maybe something bigger
> gets Sanderson (mist born,way of kings),hobb trilogies(assassin, tawny liveship) that I never had read
>reading for the last two months constantly
>JUST

>>9374420
>A deceptively straightforward mystery
I agree with this, even though I don't know if we interpret the mystery in the same way.

>>9375545
No, If not purely for the fact people don't like reading essays.

>>9373970
Everything I've read of Cherryh reads like she just came off a Oscar Wilde binge; almost like she wants to be in the cool kid's anarchist club but didn't quite absorb enough cultural Marxist in college.

>>9375307
Aniara, since it won Martinson the Nobel. BotNS is up there too.

Has there ever been a well done romance in either science fiction or fantasy? I honestly can't remember one.

>>9375655
Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro.

>>9375590
This was the answer I needed!

>>9374670
I may do this, too. Where did you download the audiobooks from, my man?

>>9375740
The internet.
>fbi thinks they are slick phishing for download sites so they can add them to the watch list

>>9375655
The latter two books in the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons had a pretty strong romance. I remember it making me feel things.

>>9375665

Didn't read that one, so I'll take your word on it and give it a read.

>>9375819

I don't have fond memories of Hyperion's last two books. The whole "love will let you teleport all over the universe" angle was just... stupid.

>>9375595
>So got in to high fantasy
There's your problem. So much high fantasy relies on a ton of bloat that could easily be removed to make the stories ten times better (I'm looking at you, Erikson, you indulgent faggot).

I remember liking the Sandokan books when I was a wee lad, is there any /sffg/ material that has the same feel to it?

>>9375913
>(I'm looking at you, Erikson, you indulgent faggot).
How so?
He's nothing compared to GRRM's porridge walking.

>>9376054
>How so?
You kidding me, bro? Even Erikson himself acknowledged he bloated his books. I've read the entire Malazan series and I couldn't tell you how many pages I ended up skipping through that added absolutely nothing to the story or characters. And that isn't something I usually do. In fact I'm pretty sure it was the first time I started skimming.

Mistborn movie when

>>9376093
>I couldn't tell you how many pages I ended up skipping through
>that added absolutely nothing to the story
Opinion disregarded.
How the fuck would you know what was added if you fucking skipped the pages?
This is like those fucbois who look at a cover, skim through chapter one and pretend as if they are some authority on a book.
KYS.

>>9375655
Cute romance in the middle of Death's End

>>9375532
I believe so. They didnt have any recurring characters or locations that I caught but both had the whole they live in a post apocalyptic fantasy setting

>>9376166
So Lawrence is going to milk this series to the end of the earth?
Broken Empire series already fixed everything.
So the red queen and red sister series both have to travel back in time?

>>9376117
>HUDs in the corner showing a little graphic of the characters' stomachs and the metal dissolving in them like a mana bar

can't wait

>>9376093
What the fuck are you talking about? Erikson is the only author I DON'T skip boring passages for, because there are so many clues embedded in every line of the story.

>>9376209

Kek,
it would look like some fucking video game
Well the entire book is a video game in written word but still

>>9376142
Because I knew exactly what was going on before and after I skimmed those pages, you salty vagina.

>>9376210
No there isn't. Even Erikson admitted he bloated his novels.

>>9372791
Watch my review of the series, there is spoilers though so be warned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9JlCsajv3s

>>9376266
>we have our own booktuber?
kek let's peep

>>9376205
Well end of Red Queen had them shutting off the particle accelerator that was creating "magic" in the world

He did a blatant new trilogy hook over the entire series with a bunch of characters introduced whose entire purpose was to scream WE ARE GOING TO BE IN ANOTHER SERIES.

>>9376266
cute
cute
cute!

>>9376276
Nah, just that one review so far.

>>9375804
>9375804
well can you at least give me voice actors?

Why are the Mariner editions of Dick so bland?
>dude stock images lmao

>>9376285
>Well end of Red Queen had them shutting off the particle accelerator that was creating "magic" in the world
That is how Broken Empire Ended... What I want to know is if Red Sister is going to be about this too. I read Red Sister's blurb and it looked like I was going to get some GRI, but now you made it seem to be a cash grab with the timeline resetting just before shutting off the particle accelerator.

Broken Empire Trilogy ended like that.
You just confirmed that red Queen ended like that.
If Red Sister is in the same world and Timeline as the other two before shutting off the particle accelerator Then I will drop it before I even start.

>>9376245
Leave sffg and kys please.

>>9375655
Left Hand of Darkness by Le Guin.

>>9377234
>m-muh safe space!

>>9377379
>shit talk about books I haven't even read properly
>gets called out
>"shit they're onto me"
>you just want a m-muh safe space!

Sword of Truth by Terry

Is it any good? Worth reading?

>>9377782
Hahahaha

>>9377736
>ignores the part where I mentioned Erikson himself admitted he bloated his books
I'm tired of blowing you the fuck out. Get outta here, nerd.

>tfw In the Days of the Witch-Queens finally gets re-upped on mobilism

>>9377865
Nobody cares Theodore.

>>9375307
Solaris
Sirens of Titan (But I hated it)
Slaughterhouse 5 (Whose scifi elements sucked)
1984 (which is almost alt-history fiction rather than scifi now)
Brave New World (my personal favourite)

"literary merit" sounds dumb though
the problem is sff is so stuck in its own subgenre than readers of sff don't really judge the works on literary merit, rather than the works context in the genre
also makes it harder for sff work to escape into widestream literature

>>9377782
Literally and without exaggeration the worst series I have ever read.

>>9378064
I care

>>9377782
IIRC there's a part where the main character carves a statue of himself and his wife that's ~so beautiful~ anybody who sees it converts to libertarianism.

If you want fantasy I would recommend literally anything else, even Patrick Rothfuss. And if you want libertarianism, there's probably better stuff out there, just read The Fountainhead again or something.

>>9367466
Lol'd.

any opinions on canticle for leibowitz? i read the blurb about it and it seems quite interesting

>>9375740
audiobookbay.me

I pretty much ripped through Ender's Game today. It's an easy read but I like it a lot. What are the other books in the series like?

>>9378237
Worse and worse

>>9378202
It's fantastic. If you're intrigued by the premise, it delivers.

>>9378237
Hit and miss. The rest of the Ender series goes space opera, with diminishing returns. If you liked the setting, Ender's Shadow revisits it from a different perspective.

>>9378202
Agree with the other anon, Canticle is great.

>>9378202
Here is my opinion.

>>9378187
The sad thing is that book is probably the best in the series too

>>9378202
One of my favorites. I'd say give it a shot.

What's going on in this thread?

>>9378424
Hey Barnes, we jus' talking about books an things.

>>9372753
'The Fifth Head of Cerberus' is one of the greatest novels on colonialism ever written. If you enjoy Mass Effect its complexity will probably fry your brain though.

>>9375307
Wolfe, Lafferty, Beagle, Lem and Dick. This is the patrician /sffg/ quintet.

>>9378237
Card used up all his really interesting ideas in Ender's Game and the rest of the books are just him flailing about trying to make a point.

>>9378602
Ender's Game was a side idea that he only wrote to provide a foundation for Speaker For The Dead. Don't listen to this anon.

>>9365151
Gemmell was so fucking based. It's better when you know the story of Legend. Nobody wrote fantasy shlock like David Gemmell. God rest his soul.

>>9378187

>IIRC there's a part where the main character carves a statue of himself and his wife that's ~so beautiful~ anybody who sees it converts to libertarianism

That's - uhh, that's something alright.

Anyone read this? Thought this was cool but found the writing really dry.

Anyone read this?

>>9376093
>Even Erikson himself acknowledged he bloated his books
Where?

>>9375568
Pure patricianhood status achieved q

>>9375595
Page number isn't what's intimidating. 50 pages of Kant or Aquinas require more concentration than the entirety of just about any high fantasy series. Effort isn't linearly measured in page count. No need to be intimidated by trash authors.

what's /lit/'s opinion on concept albums such as this one? I personally love them, the following being my favourite concept album very reminiscent of book of the new sun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjKI_U9ENwU

NEW THREAD

>>9379514
>>9379514
>>9379514

>>9365151
That's all grimdark writers though.

>tfw you're trying to write romance for ez amazon bux
>it's NTR
>literally can't stop writing about heart break
>fuck it
>try to write !not anime isekai adult fiction for ez amazon bux
>mc loses most of his limbs, has to graft monster flesh to his body
>ends up an insane apex predator who returns home then eats his family

I don't even like grimdark settings, the fuck is this shit.