/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

[Anonymous No.22897750]

2024 Edition

>Recommended reading charts (Look here before asking for vague recs)
https://mega.nz/folder/kj5hWI6J#0cyw0-ZdvZKOJW3fPI6RfQ/folder/guIyhAzS
>Archive
>>/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=sffg
>Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1029811-sffg

Previous: >>22888465

[Anonymous No.22897759]

>>22897750
Didn't know the election came so soon, I vote this thread.

[Anonymous No.22897763]

Read Dune.

[Anonymous No.22897780]

question to the Bakker fans
1) i'm currently on book 2 of Aspect-Emperor and something crossed my mind recently that hadn't before: why does Kellhus do what he does? if he is indeed a self-moving soul, what are his reasons for doing anything? say we write off the events of the first series as him being curious about his father and wanting to reach him, but then why does he wage his Great Ordeal against the Consult? does he wish to save the world because he himself is part of it and he doesn't want to perish?
2) this is not SA-specific, but i'm interested in series that do magic similarly to Bakker. i really like his concept (magic as philosophy, importance of meanings), but he spends very little time on the actual mechanics of it and the actual capabilities of sorcery. do any fantasy series do magic in a similar, but more detailed way?
>>22897759
seeing as this thread got the first reply, i nobly self-eliminated (even though my OP pic was better)

[Anonymous No.22897782]

Any serious dark fantasy like Bakker? Maybe with horror elements? Iconoclasts trilogy by Mike Shel?

[Anonymous No.22897785]

wtf Tolkien
>The much later dwindling of hobbits must be due to a change in their state and way of life; they became a fugitive and secret people, driven as Men, the Big Folk, became more and more numerous, usurping the more fertile and habitable lands, to refuge in forest or wilderness: a wandering and poor folk, forgetful of their arts and living a precarious life absorbed in the search for food and fearful of being seen; for cruel men would shoot them for sport as if they were animals. In fact they relapsed into the state of “pygmies”.

[Anonymous No.22897795]

>>22897749
>Do you like his short stories better than his novels? Any themes he focuses on?
yes, cause the ringworld and fleet of worlds series have a lot of faults but his short story collections are mostly fun one off stories
> Any themes he focuses on?
neutron star and crashlander are mostly space exploration and adventure; the long arm of gil hamilton takes place in a near future earth where organ transplantation is perfect and some people are now stealing body parts to sell in the black market and deals with some of the consequences of this; tales of known space has both space exploration and some social themes like people medicating madness (mostly the former, though)

if you want a light read with some nice world building i'd definitely recommend them

[Anonymous No.22897806]

>>22897780
>why does Kellhus do what he does?
We don't really know. This is debated among fans heavily.

[Anonymous No.22897808]

>>22897763
>>22897780
>>22897782
>>22897785
>>22897806
Great post anons, very original but just started three body problem and i'm wondering when does it gets good? are the witcher books any good? Only played Witcher 3 and the netflix's series. Just started Eye of the World when does WoT gets good?? Any books like dark souls/berserk/Bloodborne??? Any books like FF/Dragon Quest/Tales of..??!! Any books with N'Wahs?Kvothe is a cuck, will slob Martin ever finish winds of winter??? Abercrombie is Reddit-tier?? Are the dune sequels worth it or should i stop with god emperor of dunc? Should i read the Hyperion sequel???? Did severian fucked his grandma? Is severian a clone? Any books with chinks? Any books like fallout/metro? Any books where the mc gets cucked? Any books where the mc Doesn't get cucked?? Stormlight book 5 when? Will kaladin fuck the fairy?? is the Eisenhorn trilogy a good place to start with W40k??? Or should i watch 4hours YouTube vid about le EPIC lore??? Any books with young petite women? Any books with old thick women? Any books with MANLY men like David Gemmell? Soulcatcher or Lady who is the better waifu? When does malazan gets good?? I didn't finish highschool so i can´t understand Malazan?!?! Any books with chinks??!! When does ASOIAF gets good??!? When does Farseer gets good?? When does lightbringer gets good?? When does codex alera gets good??? When does Lord of The Isles gets good?? Dunsany is king or bakker?? Any books with incest?

[Anonymous No.22897850]

>Norton started Witch World when she was 75
very funny to be that old and decide that fuck it you're gonna make a massive fantasy setting and then get 20 books out of it before you die

[Anonymous No.22897875]

>>22897782
just go to they gay smut section on amazon if you want gayrape

[Anonymous No.22897882]

Thoughts about sff I read last year.
>Viriconium - M John Harrison
First two stories were great, "In Viriconium" was very different and I couldn't get into it.
>Dragon Wing - Weiss and Hickman
I think liked the setting and backstory more than the main plot, looking forward to seeing the Labyrinth.
>Alice in Wonderland - Carrol
Enjoyable, surreal, though it feels like it would have been better in it's own time, all the contemparary culture references go over my head.
I can see why there's various edgy interperations of this (Alice on drugs, Alice dead, etc).
>Peace - Wolfe
Appears to be a period drama at first.
I think it was about a third of the way through when I clued into what it was about, need to re-read this one.
>Sorcerer's House - Wolfe
This one went over my head, don't quite know what was going on with the evil twin and the sorcerer who's house it was, still enjoyed the atmosphere and exploring the house.
>Children of Hurin - Tolkien
I should have waited a year or so to read this after the Silmarillion, instead of going straight into it.
>Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke
Strange and unique, I remember liking the opening, sealab section, and the museum. I didn't enjoy it overall, especially the socialite characters.
>Black Company (Books of the North + Silver Spike)
My favourite part was the Prologue, first book was the best. Juniper was a slog.
Darling is best girl and it's not even close.
>Icewind Dale - the Crystal Shard - Salvatore
I was rooting for the underdog villain instead of Drizzt and co, not going to continue this one.
>Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga - Vance
Every new location feels unique, you never know what you'll encounter next.
Cugel himself is very predictable, I went from laughing at his fuckups to wanting to see him succeed.
>Rhialto the Marvellous - Vance
This one was pretty funny, godlike immortal wizards have taken over the world, and use their power mostly for trivial things.

[Anonymous No.22897886]

>>22897882
>The Witcher 1 and 2 - Sapkowski
Subversions of various fairytales.
I dropped it halfway through book 3, I preferred the short stories.
Might pick it back up when I've nothing else to read.
>Songs of the Dying Earth - Various
Read it gradually over the year
Great, faithful to the original, much longer than I thought it'd be.
>Interview With the Vampire - Anne Rice
I hadn't seen the movie for a very long time, and mentally switched Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt's characters.
Liked the atmosphere, and learning about how vampires work in the setting.
Gets very gay in parts, especially towards the end.
>Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Dick
Easily my favourite Dick novel so far.
Dreamlike, like the rest, I'm not sure if I've pieced together the setting correctly.
I think the future humans are vat grown and born without empathy. They have to have it trained back into them and those that fail are deemed "Androids" and are used as slave labour.
>A Scanner Darkly - Dick
Anti-Drug polemic, not something I'd normally care to read about, was a bit different.
It feels like he was trying to say that detectives posing as drug dealers, are in fact just drug dealers like any other.
>Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
It really didn't feel like a 200 year old book.
I think I get why he's called a "mad scientist", Dr Frankenstein is a very dramatic and obsessive man.
>The Night Land - Hodgson
This did feel like a 200 year old book, but it's only 100 years old.
I didn't go in expecting a romance novel and was dissapointed, it's a really cool setting though.
>Zothique - C.A. Smith
Lots of fun stories here, I liked how they referenced each other and made it feel like a coherent setting.
Fleshgarden one sticks with me, as well as the one about a necromancer taking elaborate revenge on a king who's horse ran him over.
I think I'll go back to CAS in the start of the next year.
>King of Elflands Daughter - Dunsany
It was nice to read something lightharted for a change, pleasant end to the year.
Thanks for reading my blog

[Jötunheimr !.bPpf1STBA No.22897981]

Top sffg novels according to google and how interesting their premise sounds.
I'll pick 24 titles from here and start today if possible.
Star maker - Stapleton
Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Narnia Chronicles - Lewis
Gormenghast - Peake
The Magus - Fowles
Our Lady of Darkness - Leiber
The Dying Earth - Vance
Fourth mansions - Lafferty
Peace - Wolfe
The Shinning - King
Hyperion - Dan Simmons
The Witches of Eastwick - Updike
Clockwork Orange - Burgess
The Hungry moon - Campbell
Brave New World - Huxley
Dying Inside - Silverberg
The Glamour - Priest
I am legend - Matheson
Naked Lunch - Burroughs
Crash - Ballard
Dandelion wine - Bradbury
1984 - Orwell
The Solitudes - Crowley
Grimus - Rushdie
Dune - Herbert
Consider Phlebas - Banks
A Canticle for Leibowitz - Miller
The Green Man - Amis
Watership Down - Adams
The Land of Laughs - Carroll

I also thought about not eating mayo anymore but that idea was discarded. I may reconsider it later though.

[Anonymous No.22898007]

Last week I did a year end binge on LitRPG on RR. There was actually some enjoyable stuff.

A Soldier's Life by Alwaysrollsaone
Bro is getting iskeaid into knockoff roman empire world and drafted into military service. Lucky for him he has some inventory magic, which he abuses to the max. The world and mechanics are quite run of the mill for an isekai story, but what stands out is that there are actually good character interactions and the whole thing is very reminiscent of Glen Cook's The Black Company.

City of Desire
Bro starts out as a reasonably wealthy manager of a medieval whorehouse. The twist here is that he starts by white knighting his whores and turns them into modern e-thots. Then the author also starts self inserting as a swordfighter and lawyer of all things. It is a convoluted mess and especially the combat segments are extremely drawn out and amount to little more than "then he whacked that dude with his sword". Despite all this it is in many places quite enjoyable to read due to the "cute" progression of his whorehouse the same way people watch anime for that reason. Coomers beware: despite the premise, this is probably not for you, there are almost no explicit sex scenes and the ones that do exist are abysmal.

[Anonymous No.22898011]

has anyone read the faithful and the fallen series?

[Anonymous No.22898025]

>>22897850
isn't witch world an isekai basically?
I tried reading it but the writing felt dull and uninspired

[Anonymous No.22898030]

>>22898007
Both sound like trash. Maybe Soldier life can be considered as a comedy but that other webnovel about sluts is pure trash, the premise itself is degeneration.

[Anonymous No.22898044]

>>22898011
too many characters get introduced at the start and the plot wasn't very engaging and dry

[Anonymous No.22898045]

Here's my favorite Bathory Album

[Anonymous No.22898047]

>>22898011
Had the classic multiple pov experience where I wanted to just stick with one of them and then lost interest when it stayed away for a while

[Anonymous No.22898064]

Anybody else ready these as a kid? I’m thinking about hopping back into them. They don’t look like much on the surface, but there’s a million books and some actually detailed lore.

[Anonymous No.22898067]

>>22897882
>I can see why there's various edgy interperations of this (Alice on drugs, Alice dead, etc).
have you heard of the mathematical one? that claims actually holds some water, since Carrol was a die-hard old-school mathematician
https://www.npr.org/2010/03/13/124632317/the-mad-hatters-secret-ingredient-math
>>22897886
>Subversions of various fairytales.
i love the beauty and the beast one (with the vampire chick)

[Anonymous No.22898078]

>>22898011
It also reuses the "female character gets kidnapped" subplot too often

[Anonymous No.22898098]

>>22898064
I always heard people reading them as a kid and always caught my interest but I never read them, this one is another one like that

[Anonymous No.22898105]

>>22898078
Does the hero die saving the roastie?

[Anonymous No.22898115]

>>22898064
I still have my hardcover Firestar's Quest around here somewhere. It's been so many years I hardly remember a thing about the series as a whole.

[Anonymous No.22898145]

>>22898067
I had read that he was a maths teacher. But I didn't know that he was satirizing other mathmeticians.

[Anonymous No.22898162]

>>22898145
he was more than just some "maths teacher", he was an Oxford don. as to whether this is a valid interpretation, i don't think it's definitive, it's just a possibility that's been brought up over the years

[Anonymous No.22898192]

Recommend me some Northern fantasy with strong landscape descriptions.

[Anonymous No.22898197]

>>22898192
i have no idea how it describes the landscapes because i haven't read past the first chapter, but Gwynne's Shadow of the Gods is Northern-flavoured

[Anonymous No.22898210]

>>22898197
>Shadow of the Gods
I know about it, but I thought that Gwynne is someone like Abercrombie: with character-driven story and with weak descriptive prose.

I like Martin's description of the Wall and beyond, for example.

[Anonymous No.22898237]

>>22898192
Reverend Insanity

[Anonymous No.22898249]

>>22898210

Three days ride from Winterfell, however, the farmland gave way to dense wood, and the kingsroad grew lonely. The flint hills rose higher and wilder with each passing mile, until by the fifth day they had turned into mountains, cold blue-grey giants with jagged promontories and snow on their shoulders. When the wind blew from the north, long plumes of ice crystals flew from the high peaks like banners.
With the mountains a wall to the west, the road veered north by northeast through the wood, a forest of oak and evergreen and black brier that seemed older and darker than any Tyrion had ever seen. “The wolfswood,” Benjen Stark called it, and indeed their nights came alive with the howls of distant packs, and some not so distant.

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.22898272]

>>22897750
Morning Star, Red Rising #3 - Pierce Brown (2016)

This wasn't as enjoyable as the second, but I liked it more than the first. Darrow was relatively better this time, though that was mostly through the lessening of everyone else. The highlights for me were the space battle for being fun and neat, and the ending, which was absurd and ridiculous. The ending makes it clear that you can stop reading here as it provides suitable resolution. I understand why many would think this concludes everything that needs to have been written.

https://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/993.Pierce_Brown
https://scifibulletin.wordpress.com/books/science-fiction/interview-pierce-brown/

After I read this book I read two interviews, one that came out the month before the second book was released and another around a year later. I found them to be very revealing of Brown's thoughts on the series. He talks about his inspirations, one of which was The Count of Monte Cristo, and that's quite evident for this book. Once again what happens through the story has changed a lot and I liked it less if only for that. There's a heist, some special operations, and a space battle. Mostly though it's going from place to place recruiting allies to their cause. That's an odd choice of narrative pace to me for what was originally intended to only be three books.

As Brown says in the acknowledgements of this book, this one was far harder than the previous two to write. Considering that he says in the interview that he wrote Red Rising in less than two months without any outlines or structure, that's entirely understandable. It shows his growth as a writer and how he's transitioning styles, as discussed in the latter interview. A few years and a few books can really make a difference. The unfortunate truth though is changing as an author may make the author less popular even if they've become more proficient, or perhaps because they have. It may just be aging as well.

When Brown talks about greek plays, Plato, Dune, Book of the New Sun, and literary classics as what he sees as comparisons rather than YA, I have to wonder what he thinks he's writing. It's also telling when he says "Young Adult is simply a book that is interesting in every chapter." In the latter interview Brown pushes back even more on the YA label. When he said that Darrow is an unreliable narrator like Severian I was baffled. It showed that he had quite the different perspective on Darrow. He also emphasizes plot over everything else because as he says he's not trying to write a literary novel.

It makes me wonder what his current thoughts are, but that'll have to wait until I read more into the series, which probably won't be until considerably later in the year. Overall this trilogy can be a worthwhile read if you don't mind that it's all about entertainment and little else. If this is where it had ended I wouldn't believe it to be a notable series aside from its popularity.

Rating: 3.5/5 (3)

[Anonymous No.22898459]

>>22898197
Gwynne lost me with the first book of his I tried (Malice) because it felt like he gave away the entire plot in the first couple chapters and then I had no interest in continuing it.

[Anonymous No.22898460]

I will be reading The Wheel of Time and the Foundation series now. What do I think of them?

[Anonymous No.22898490]

>>22898272
Tad bit surprised you found the ending plan a highlight bc for me it was one of the weaker moments for how much it heavily relied on so many outside factors and random variables going their way that it kind of pulled me out of the story. Still a better read than RR #1 however.

[Anonymous No.22898491]

>>22898045
based black metal / viking metal fan

[Anonymous No.22898493]

>>22898098
Looks like dragon my little pony
Warrior cats got real
https://youtu.be/jpZnAP7DNg4?si=XE62_Tl7pccO-4iN

[Anonymous No.22898548]

>>22897882
>>22897886
It seems like you enjoy the dying earth subgenre. May I interest you in these others if you or anyone else is not aware of them yet?

The Nightland
Awake in the Nightland
The Dying Earth
The Eyes of the Overworld
Cugel’s Saga
Rhialto the Marvellous
Songs of the Dying Earth
A Quest for Simbilis
Nifft the Lean
Gullible’s Travels (Fools Errant/Fool Me Twice)
Dark is the Sun
Zothique
The Last Continent: New tales of Zothique
The Pastel City
A Storm of Wings
In Viriconium
Viriconium Nights
An Alien Heat
The Hollow Lands
The End of all Songs
The Shattered Goddess
Book of the New Sun 1-4
Urth of the New Sun
The Book of the Long Sun 1-4
The Book of the Short Sun 1-3

[Anonymous No.22898569]

>>22898548
good pics. YOU'RE AN INANIMATE FUCKING OBJECT

[Anonymous No.22898594]

>>22898490
I laughed a lot at the ending plan rather than thinking it was dumb. If I had been taking it seriously I wouldn't have it liked as much. The biggest bonus is just being able to go along with how it is regardless of how nonsensical it is or how out of character it seemed. I couldn't be pulled out of the story because I was never in it. Just accepting things can be a big bonus, but I don't usually do that.

[Anonymous No.22898632]

>>22898548
only big one I have left to try here is Morecock
and the The Pastel City felt kind of "off" to me, but I might give the viriconium sequels a try

[Anonymous No.22898678]

Can anyone recommend me science fiction short stories?

[Anonymous No.22898681]

>>22898678
You'll have to be more specific than that. If you want to be simple you can read the free online SF stories at sites such as TOR, Clarkesworld, or Daily Science Fiction, among other sites. I'm assuming you literally mean stories of 7,500 words or less. Otherwise most recs require getting magazines, collections, or anthologies. There's the various golden age SF magazines that are on archive sites that in the public domain.

[Anonymous No.22898683]

I really liked the Black Company, Abercombie's First Law series and Mark Lawrences Prince of Thorns and Red Queen trilogies. Can anyone give me a rec in a similar vein to those I've just stated?

[Anonymous No.22898697]

>>22898681
>>22898678
Though if you insist I can list out some of my favorites but that will be arbitrary and it may end up being a waste of time. It'd be a mystery.

[Anonymous No.22898701]

>>22898683
The War For The Rose Throne

[Anonymous No.22898704]

>>22898701
sounds like an ai generated name combining the 4 most popular slope fantasy books

[Anonymous No.22898705]

>>22898681
>>22898697
I know this site but there are thousands of short stories and maybe some are good and some are bad, that's why I'm asking for recommendations instead of just selecting randomly. I have read some short stories which The Twilight Zone episodes were based on.
http://www.luminist.org/archives/SF/

[Anonymous No.22898708]

>>22898705
read traveler's rest
>some short stories which The Twilight Zone episodes were based on
provide more details

[Anonymous No.22898717]

Is it, should i say... based?

[Anonymous No.22898718]

>>22898708
>provide more details
Do you want to know which ones I read or what do you mean? I looked for episodes in this list which were based on short stories, then saw if I could find the short story and the episode online, watched the episode, then read the short story. I think I read Shatterday, To See the Invisible Man, Nightcrawlers and maybe some more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Twilight_Zone_(1985_TV_series)_episodes

[Anonymous No.22898725]

>>22898701
Huh that was just the one I was thinking looked the most promising. Guess that that settles it. Thanks babe.

[Jötunheimr !.bPpf1STBA No.22898734]

Day 1 almost over
Read 30 pages in a ittle over 4 hours (don't ask what book). That was the easy part. Now there are still 3 km to run and the inevitable meal after that (4 in total today).

[Anonymous No.22898737]

>>22898734
This isn't the place for your daily diary entry.

[Anonymous No.22898749]

>>22898192
Broken Sword

[Anonymous No.22898752]

>>22898718
>Do you want to know which ones I read
Yeah I had been wondering which eps were based off stories although I supposed I could have trawled through the wiki myself.

[Anonymous No.22898783]

Some thoughts on the sff I read last year

>The Science of Discworld 1-4
Very fun and approachable science. The narrative sections written by Pratchett are among his loosest and most self-indulgent work, barring #1 which is relatively focused.

>The King in Yellow
The first story is pretty good, got bored halfway through with the alt-history german-american war

>The Man Who Was Thursday
My first Chesterton, a joy to read and very memorable. The exchange between the anarchist and the policeman in the anarchist's hideout stands out as some of the wittiest dialogue I've ever read.

>Dichronauts
I don't know what possessed me to read this as I've not liked any of Egan's other works, but I'm glad I did. The world is incredibly unique and there's passable plot and characters too. The body horror, journey into the unknown and strange rules of the setting reminds me strongly of Made In Abyss.

>A Quest for Simbilis
Pretty good as far as unauthorised sequels go. Shea understands and simulates Dying Earth well. It also works as the final sendoff to Dying Earth, even though that turned out to be unnecessary as Vance wrote Cugel's Saga the following year.

>The Five Gold Bands, Moon Moth, Miracle Workers, Slaves of the Klau, Sjambak
All pretty standard early Vance stuff. Sjambak is pretty weird in that it feels like it's missing an entire third act.

>Alastor Cluster
Again fairly standard Vance stuff. #2 is fairly unique in that it has an element of political criticism absence from most of his writing.

>Durdane
Easily my favourite of Vance's lesser known works. Vance has a tendency towards providing only brief snapshots of the societies he contrives, so sticking with one through a period of social change makes Durdane stand out.

[Anonymous No.22898785]

>>22898717
Doesn't get more based than conan
https://youtu.be/m4rqgHbGeOo?si=Eg00ALXEc6pBVF39

[Anonymous No.22898952]

>>22898192
That one section in blood meridian where he treks through a snowy mountain

[Anonymous No.22898960]

New Years haul. Book 7 is coming at the end on the month

[Anonymous No.22898972]

>>22898192

[Anonymous No.22898978]

>>22898960
How is this series anyway?

[Anonymous No.22898990]

>>22898978
Not bad. Bit rough in the beginning but the pay-offs, magic and story conclusion is very satisfying

[Anonymous No.22899008]

>>22898192
The Forgetting Moon by Brian Lee Durfee has what you are looking for. continue with the series if you enjoy it.

[Anonymous No.22899042]

>>22898978
It's garbage. I have no idea how i got through the entire thing without dropping it. The author constantly starts a characters arc, then the book ends, and it has an entirely new cast of characters in the next book, and several books later the original character shows up except now theyre a TOTAL BADDASS!! And they do something cool and aren't ever relevant again.
The cast is enormously bloated, because like i said, every book skips to an entirely new cast who are relevant for a single book then basically only show up as a cameo later.
It's honestly written like some Marvel cinematic universe bullshit, each book could almost be self contained, except It's undermined by constant crossovers with the other books.
Also the universe runs entirely on what the author considers cool, except the author is a boomer shitlib from Canada so what he considers cool is extremely cringe.

[Anonymous No.22899147]

>>22898990
>>22899042
Huh, very conflicting opinions, I guess the only way to find out is to read them

[Anonymous No.22899167]

Recently bought the complete Arthur C. Clarke short stories, I know nothing about his other work but I'm making my way through 2001 series at the moment and have already read the blueprint for it The Sentinel. Any you would suggest I must read straight away?

[Jötunheimr !.bPpf1STBA No.22899493]

Not even 30 hours in and i've already failed. Now i have to do 6km in the next 18 hours.

[Anonymous No.22899551]

Hi. I'm newfag here. I'm currently looking for this book (and other books in the trilogy). Can someone suggest where to download/torrent one? I have looked on libgen but it isn't available. Thanks

[Anonymous No.22899604]

>>22899551
It's on libgen. Search stackpole warrior

[Anonymous No.22899611]

>>22899551
try TG batteltech general mega

[Anonymous No.22899619]

>>22899604
Found it. Didn't know I had to search in the fiction section. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.22899621]

>>22898678
A Ticket to Trainter by Robert Sheckley
the collection Tales of Pirx the Pilot by Lem

[Anonymous No.22899926]

>Stormlight 5 this year
>Have to wait possibly a decade for Stormlight 6
It hurts just a bit

[Anonymous No.22899949]

>>22898960
>uniform covers

[Anonymous No.22899951]

>>22899551
speaking of which there's a metric ton of battletech and shadowrun novels. are they any good?

[Anonymous No.22899978]

>>22899926
such is the life of a sanderslop enjoyer

[Anonymous No.22900015]

>>22899493
>Sets goals that are way too ambitious
>Fails
>Tries again for a bit
>Ends up just giving up completely rather than reevaluating their goals to be more realistic
You are on step 2. Reevaluate your goals they aren't realistic for a sudden lifestyle change. Maybe do timed activities rather than a page and distance goal. Maybe cut one unhealthy thing out of your life, like soda, instead of changing your entire diet.

[Anonymous No.22900046]

What is it with this guy's books and a very large number of strong (and a large part of downright cruel) women? (Yennefer, honestly most sorceresses, Ciri has a few scenes where she's with a guy and the guy's portrayed as a bumbling fool)
Author's femdom fetish, or just quirks of the setting?

[Anonymous No.22900050]

>>22900046
the image fell off, but I'm talking about Sapkowski

[Anonymous No.22900106]

>>22900046
Stories require conflict. Difficult women bring conflict.

[Anonymous No.22900123]

>>22900046
At least the women usually have magical powers, so there's a good reason they'd be strong. In a lot of modern fantasy and sci-fi, the author just writes a strong man and calls him a woman.

[Anonymous No.22900138]

>>22900046
It's been awhile since I've read it but aren't tons of people in the setting just assholes? The only characters I remember being distinctly benevolent are Dandelion and Geralt's vampire friend

[Anonymous No.22900258]

>>22897750

looking for /sffg/ books with that "human male shags non-human creature" dynamic

I recall this short story with this cat lady from an invading alien species that conquered earth but I cannot remember the author

[Anonymous No.22900300]

>>22897782
I liked "Between Two Fires." It's low fantasy set in France during the Black Death involving Satan's attempts to destroy humanity and conquer heaven.

[Anonymous No.22900319]

>>22897780
Bakker's problem with Kellhus is that he is a Nietzschean but also smart enough to realize that Nietzsche very easily collapses into petty egoism and being ruled over by disordered desire. This is why he has to make his Overmen, Kellhus and Niel, have saint-like self-discipline and introspection, a very Platonic/Patristics ideal.

And he realizes this sort of person very easily acts like a monster. That's why he needs the rape monsters and actual hell, because that at least makes some sort of utilitarian case for Kellhus (Neuropath works because it is a straight up horror story).

This is true for other Nietzchean fiction. In Berserk, Guts needs to fight a Platonic "idea of evil," rather than sheep who are oppressing him out of ressentiment to make the narrative work. And he wars with his desires. Rand also needs to make her Overman like ancient ideal models of "slave morality," models of self control and unity, not actually very Dionysian.

So why does he do what he does? Get to the end and you'll see there might be a higher vision of it. But this is because Kellhus (and Bakker) seem to evolve into Hegelians, which, is pretty funny if you think about it and aren't a fan of Nietzsche.

Moengus lays down some pretty Hegelian shit in his big monologue too, so it's there in the first series, but less pronounced.

[Anonymous No.22900332]

>>22897780
>>22900319

Basically, it comes down to the problem that Overmen have no real reason to do anything except overcoming.

So I think Bakker doesn't really know, and this becomes more problematic as Kellhus gains the gnosis and becomes more ascendent. So he just stops giving you many peaks into his mind.

Platonists and Hegelians have reasons for acting a certain way. Love is superior to indifference or resentment because resentment entails that external forces determine you, while indifference still means that you are defined by what you are not. Only love, the identification of the self with the other, resolves the problem of being determined by that which lies outside. This is why the Patristics and Neoplatonists are panentheists instead of classical theists or pantheists

But that doesn't work with the tone and is hard to write, so we just get less and less.

[Anonymous No.22900415]

[Anonymous No.22900489]

>>22898011
Yes. It's good. Read the first book, Malice, then decide if you want to proceed with the series.

[Anonymous No.22900497]

>>22900319
I will never get over the sheer cosmic irony of the Idea of Evil being a heart and Miura dying to his heart exploding.

[Anonymous No.22900563]

>>22899951
>battletech
Yes, up until 1999 or so it's a great space opera, the franchise goes down a cliff in Dark Age and it turns into early 00s Not!Dune.
Shadowrun i've only read The Secrets of power trilogy, it was nice pulpy fun

[Anonymous No.22900700]

>>22900319
>>22900332
The simple truth is that Kellhus is insane. He went insane on the circumfix as Moenghus. By insane I mean the Dunyain definition of insane (and maybe actual insane too). And this is further shown when he displays genuine love towards Esmenent.

[Anonymous No.22900721]

>>22900700
No wonder bakkerfag sucks his cock so much

[Anonymous No.22900725]

>>22899493
If you don't post your stravada log and a detailed summary of what you read everyday, just stop fucking posting.

[Anonymous No.22900727]

>>22900721
What does that even mean retard?

[Anonymous No.22900988]

>>22898785
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHvCM1nonBU

[Anonymous No.22901391]

>>22899926
>Will release December 2024
>This year

Yes but also no.

I hope 5 is not a does not end in a cliffhanger anyway.

[Anonymous No.22901411]

>>22901391
It will end like an avengers movie with the real villain sayin "fine, i'll do it myself"

[Anonymous No.22901476]

>>22901411
We're past that.

[Anonymous No.22901533]

>>22901391
It's gonna be pozzed so who cares anywayhmyxr

[Anonymous No.22901540]

>>22897886
>as well as the one about a necromancer taking elaborate revenge on a king who's horse ran him over.
One of the coolest thing about The Dark Eidolon is how clear Namirrha's obsession is only from the use of supernatural horses to haunt the city and eventually to trample it completely.

[Anonymous No.22901547]

>>22901391
I'm going to be an old man or dead before this series finishes up

[Anonymous No.22901591]

>>22897780
>if he is indeed a self-moving soul
how about you read the books to the end first before asking stupid questions he literally admits that he is not a self moving soul, and that the idea of a self moving soul is mindbreakingly impossible, before dying(?) due to not being a self-moving soul

[Anonymous No.22901621]

>>22898783
>The Science of Discworld 1-4
>including 4
Literally the only Pratchett book I actually didn't finish because it was so bad. Pretty sure it was ghost-written because his other alzheimer:d work isn't anywhere near as amateurish and retarded.

[Anonymous No.22901622]

>>22898978
Very, very rough. Switches perspective all the time and a ton of the characters aren't interesting to follow which means multiple books of it feel like a waste of time.
>>22899042
Yeah pretty much this.

[Anonymous No.22901630]

Anyone read any DMR books yet that they can rec?
I've heard people shill them as the only good western fantasy that still exists outside of self-publishing and webstuff but I haven't gotten off my ass to read any of it yet.

[Anonymous No.22901655]

Any King Arthur enjoyers in here can give me a qrd on this book, I was almost gonna buy it instantly because Howe illustrated, but then I dug a little deeper and noticed some suspicious current year shit like emphasis being put on Sir Morien dealing with medieval racism, some girl 'knight' who was raised as a man, and Sir Pallomedes being drawn like a literal afro jive nigger.

[Anonymous No.22901675]

>>22901655
lmao if you still read it after all those overt red flags it's on you.

[Anonymous No.22901687]

>>22901655
king arthur was Indian btw

[Anonymous No.22901693]

>>22901655
why does Merlin look like some pre-human hominid

[Anonymous No.22901696]

>>22901655
>forward by Kneel Gayman
Has he done an introduction for literally every book ever now?

[Anonymous No.22901702]

>>22901655
anything beyond Le Morte D'Arthur, the lost years of merlin, and a few old stories are not worth reading
king arthur is absolutely everything they hate

[Anonymous No.22901709]

>>22901693
dis nigga zesty

[Anonymous No.22901728]

>>22901687
Fight scene is ok (for a bollywood movie)

[Anonymous No.22901742]

>>22901391
>not giving up the author and the series after book 3

[Anonymous No.22901776]

>>22901696
Probably and they're never any good.
I actually got an older version of my Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser books just because I don't like having his hack shit all over my fantasy.
Guy's never written a single good book in his life and i've read most of his corpus. (young me was dumb and thought co-writing with Pratchett meant he was worth reading)

[Anonymous No.22901921]

>>22898678
The last question and Nightfall by asimov are the best SF short stories.

[Anonymous No.22901923]

The covenant of steel series any good?

[Anonymous No.22901966]

/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.

[Anonymous No.22901974]

>MC investigates a bizarre powerful dungeon in chapter 500 that he can't figure out only to come back in chapter 3000 and stomp all over it.
My favorite xianxia trope.

[Anonymous No.22901985]

>>22901974
Been a decent amount of time since I read a classic Xianxia novel.
I only clearly recall ISSTH doing that, any others?

[Anonymous No.22901987]

>>22901985
Martial World.

[Anonymous No.22901990]

>>22901987
I don't recall that but then it was a long time ago I read MW.
At first I liked TMW more but MW just got stronger as it went and TMW got significantly weaker as it went.

[Anonymous No.22901995]

/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.

[Anonymous No.22901997]

>>22901990
Abyss. More specifically the Abyss that is the hollowed out core of the starting planet and not the later Abyss where the Abyssals and big bad is from.

[Anonymous No.22901998]

>>22901974
There are no dungeons in xanxia, dungeons is a litrpg trope.

[Anonymous No.22902041]

>>22901998
Eh secret realms are basically dungeons half the time.

[Anonymous No.22902053]

>>22899926
I understood there would be a decent sized break between the halves of Stormlight, but Sanderson's new year by year schedule kind of baffles me. He's not even planning to do the third gen Mistborn novels until 2028, which is fucking years from now and that was supposed to be what was between them.

I get the impression that he wasted too much time with the middle of the road Skyward series, but even so he had time for all of these kickstarter novels. Only releasing a Stormlight novella one year also feels weird. Annoyingly the only highlight seemed to be that he's finally willing to do Elantris 2, which is pretty overdue.

[Anonymous No.22902064]

>>22902053
>Elantris 2
Elantris is the only book of his I read and while it did setup further stories i'm not sure it's worth doing.
The first book was like 10 pages of good ideas followed a by a whole book of shit intrigue ending in an anime battle.

[Anonymous No.22902093]

>it's a "meng hao out all the floor tiles and roof shingles in an ancient dungeon people are fighting to death to get into" arc

[Anonymous No.22902102]

>>22901987
which dungeon u talking about? ive finished ISSTH and im at 1792 at Martial world

[Anonymous No.22902111]

>>22902093
I love how everyone is awakard when meng hao start scaring the ancients and then later everyone else is repeating the same phrase for him lmao

[Anonymous No.22902144]

xianxia/litrpg/cultivation should all be in their own thread. there's enough slop in fantasy without wading through that diarrhea

[Anonymous No.22902155]

>>22902144
And make the general into a hack-central full of Sanderson, Bakker and Rothfuss?
All the good authors mentioned ITT are either dead or doing the whole webnovel thing.

[Anonymous No.22902196]

>>22902144
Go sleep boomer
no one cares
you voice and opinon doesnt matter

[Anonymous No.22902277]

>>22901621
It wouldn't surprise me, I recall #4 being particularly bad

[Anonymous No.22902291]

Rate my 2023
I also finished Clariel and Visser yesterday so they kind of count for '23

[Anonymous No.22902306]

>>22901966
>Reverend Insanity = Literally about an a-moral bugman killing/consooming/cultivating
>Lord of The Mysteries = Hard to into asian steampunk with potion based class acquisition, achievement and crafting progression with un-lockable magical items and sekret tarot organizations because it wasn't already confusing enough.
>Neuromancer = Decent cyberspunk i'm putting together a team novel
>Hyperion = Interplanetary high tech trooning
>The Prince of Nothing = Bakker is for fags and fags are for Bakker. For imposter kings.
>The Wandering Inn = Stay at home moms power fantasy with a main character whos most prominent power is complaining while being a pacifist.
>Between Two Fires = Heaven Vs hell but in medievil FRANCE!
>Mother of Learning = Time loop and like all of the subgenre goes literally nowhere over and over again, has a decent magic system that some find mediocre and a main characters sister that is annoying as fuck.
>Cradle = Every second novel is a dud in the series with a birdbath of a main character. Only decent thing is the fights that get stale real quick because it does not take long to realize they are all ill conceived magical games of uno.
>I Shall Seal the Heavens = Proto xianxia at its worst, MC gets kidnapped into strong but lowly down on its luck sect. Queue haughty young masters, saving face and swilling ginseng infused tiger penis soup by the gallon.
>A Song of Ice and Fire = Fantastical medieval degeneracy where the caracters who should live die and the characters who should die live. Also author is too busy getting fat and old to finish the series.
>The Poppy War = Fem-C gets accepted to 20th century china-esque martial academy and gets looked down upon while struggling to overcome amidst pseudo researched equally vintage china political bullshit.

[Anonymous No.22902309]

>>22901995
>Azarinth Healer = Starts good but fizzles hard midway. Author also makes the main character a low key lesbian because they clearly have no idea hat to do with their love life.
>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.

[Anonymous No.22902316]

>>22902291
Animorphs is some fucked up shit.

[Anonymous No.22902330]

>>22902291
>Julian May
>J V Jones
>Aldiss
>Dancers at the end of time
WTF /sffg/ is based?!?!?! Chinkslop btfo

[Anonymous No.22902331]

An intriguing cover, but what's inside? Shall we find out?

[Anonymous No.22902337]

>>22902331

[Anonymous No.22902348]

>>22902337
>b-but you can't post an entire sci fi novel
Sorry I ruined one of your 1,000 worthless threads with some content for a change

[Anonymous No.22902352]

>>22902348

[Anonymous No.22902355]

>>22902352
>Beyond Apollo is a science fiction novel by American writer Barry N. Malzberg, first published in 1972 in a hardcover edition by Random House. Malzberg credits the inspiration for the novel to "I Have My Vigil", a 1969 short story by fellow science fiction writer Harry Harrison.

[Anonymous No.22902357]

>>22902355

[Anonymous No.22902359]

>>22902357

[Anonymous No.22902366]

>>22902359
That's all for today, but don't worry. I'll be back again soon!

[Anonymous No.22902367]

>>22902366
>>22902359
Forgot pic

[Anonymous No.22902373]

>>22902355
fascinating

[Anonymous No.22902392]

>>22900258
One of the Anne McCaffrey short-stories I read featured a cheeky romance between a human pilot and a warrior-catgirl-alien stealth-agent. I got the impression is was part of the larger universe of her writings, but I'm not sure.

[Anonymous No.22902447]

>>22902144
The chinkslop posters have been pretty chill lately. Maybe let them do their thing.

[Jötunheimr !.bPpf1STBA No.22902507]

Bad news. Stepped on a stick and injured my right foot. No running for today or tomorrow. Then we'll see.
Reading is fine. Eating is fine too. No sweet drinks, no beer (even though everyone else had some).
I actually tried to read in the morning but it my mind just wanders round at those hours and not much was done. It also killed my mood to read at night. But with no vidya available reading is all i have left to entertain myself.

[Anonymous No.22902521]

>>22902507
>Jötunheimr
Why this name?

[Anonymous No.22902568]

>>22902521
Filipino larping as tradbasedchadviking
Many such cases!

[Anonymous No.22902672]

>>22902507
You can run with one leg...? Just give up if you are going to make excuses.

[Anonymous No.22902690]

>>22902155
>or doing the whole webnovel thing
Could you name some? Not trying to be contrary, I legitimately want to know since I don't know anything about webnovels

[Anonymous No.22902708]

>>22902690
In retrospect it's mainly self-publishing like Will Wight that I had in mind.
There are webnovels on qidian and other sites dubbed "originals", as in not translations but written by westerners but the ones i've skimmed weren't all that interesting compared to the chinese ones. (stuff like Shadow Slave or Dark Magus Returns)

[Anonymous No.22902727]

>>22900258
if u want horny, sexy space babes and pinwheel both got that.

[Anonymous No.22903006]

>>22898064
For me it's Guardians of Ga'Hoole

[Anonymous No.22903052]

>>22898064
Created way too many furries

[Anonymous No.22903053]

>>22903006
The movie of this was cool as fuck

[Anonymous No.22903085]

>>22902291
>Island of the Blue Dolphins
Now that's a flash from the past. It was required reading in our elementary school.

[Anonymous No.22903094]

Are there any fantasy books with setttings which are "fantasy India", like an Indian counterpart to wuxia

[Anonymous No.22903107]

>>22903094
>Are there any fantasy books with setttings which are "fantasy India"
Of course there are. But I've never read any of them.

[Anonymous No.22903109]

>>22902144
Fine as long as all pozzed/coomer/lgbt/womens fantasy are also separated into their own thread

[Anonymous No.22903113]

>>22903094
The author Davis Ashura does a bunch of that stuff.

[Anonymous No.22903118]

>>22903107
how the fuck did he do that

[Anonymous No.22903119]

>>22903113
He seems to write more western fantasy with a dusting of india

[Anonymous No.22903126]

>>22903094
More middle eastern Arabian nights style but Liavek is great.
>Located on the southern shore of the Sea of Luck at the mouth of the Cat River, Liavek is a hot, busy trade city. Magic is present and based on a combination of 'birth luck' and the length of time one's mother was in labor. Everyone is privy to some luck, but using it to their advantage is no easy feat. On an annual basis, luck or magic must be invested in an object outside of oneself, and only then can it be used to power spells. Investment is difficult and dangerous, while not investing luck and magic will result in the magic draining away. This is more prevalent in magicians who will find their life drain away with the magic

[Anonymous No.22903128]

>>22903118
indian is a super power

[Anonymous No.22903187]

>>22903128
What mobile game is this advertising

[Anonymous No.22903282]

There is no good reason to include rape in your fantasy novel.
The only reason some authors (mainly women but some men as well) do it is because it's their fetish.

[Anonymous No.22903296]

>Constantly get told to read a proper book instead of isekai jap stuff
>Get recommended Robin Hobb's stuff.
>The mc gets abused, humiliated, ntred by his own adopted dad, and is absolutely retarded throughout the entire story
Yeah i think i'm gonna go back to reading isekai desu.

[Anonymous No.22903306]

>>22903296
Robin Hobb is one of those tumblr fanfiction girls who are obsessed with writing angst and whump only she's older.

[Anonymous No.22903316]

>>22903282
I like writing about girls who had been. That's about the only realistic way to write a depressive and alienated woman desu

[Anonymous No.22903326]

>>22903316
So you do admit it's your fetish?

[Anonymous No.22903341]

>>22900700
My headcannon used to be that he went insane right after leaving Ishual. He's overwhelmed by the complexity of outside world and spends literal days just watching a river flow by, until he eventually collapses from exhaustion.

[Anonymous No.22903367]

>>22899951
I'd say early Battletech is good because they took their world building very seriously and novels expanded on it.

[Anonymous No.22903369]

>>22903296
How did you end up with Hobb of all authors?

[Anonymous No.22903396]

>>22903296
>reading a woman
You deserved it.

[Anonymous No.22903443]

>>22903296
I know almost all fantasy is dogshit, but wish fulfillment is only good for so long before it gets boring as shit. I read a lot of jap isekai, xianxia, litrpg etc, and I can't stomach them anymore. It will eventually catch up to you, just wait. Also, Robin Hobb is trash.

[Anonymous No.22903530]

>"Honor is dead"
>"You cannot have my pain"
Maybe Brando isn't that much of a fraud afterall......

[Anonymous No.22903537]

>>22903530
When the lurcher turned to the reader and said "I am ironman" I stood up and clapped 11/10

[Anonymous No.22903542]

>>22903443
>wish fulfillment
all fiction is this. it's all for the authors wish fulfillment.

[Anonymous No.22903591]

>>22903542
I think there's a difference between the MC facing actual hardship over him being the ultra giga chad who gets everything he wants without much challenge.

[Anonymous No.22903592]

>>22903296
Stick with Brandon Sanderson.
If you like jap stuff like kemonomimis calling you master then there's almost nothing like it on western fantasy.

[Anonymous No.22903596]

>>22903592
That is If you don't count litrpgs

[Anonymous No.22903598]

>>22903296
thanks for the rec, I love good misery porn

[Anonymous No.22903798]

Read Reverend Insanity.

[Anonymous No.22903799]

Bakker is the only reason why this general still exists.

[Anonymous No.22903815]

>>22903798
>>22903799
Both of you are cancer

[Anonymous No.22903819]

>>22903815
You sound resentful.

[Anonymous No.22903828]

>>22903326
If a love for lenthy monologues of a mopey misanthrope girls can be called a fetish then yes it is

[Anonymous No.22903846]

Any comfy series or novels like Redwall? I.E. with food descriptions, feasts, comfy fireplace scenes.

[Anonymous No.22903905]

Mao Ni > Bakker

[Anonymous No.22903912]

>>22903282
It adds realism. If a hunter is told to take Snow White into a forest and kill her, she's going to get raped.

[Anonymous No.22903925]

>>22902053
he will release white sand in prose form in 2025, he has a novel book of that already out, though it is not published but can be obtained from his site / 17th shard

in addition, he plans to release 2 books in cosmere by his old close collaborators by 2028

[Anonymous No.22903969]

>>22903094
Lord of light Roger zelazny

[Anonymous No.22903987]

>>22897780
>why does Kellhus do what he does? if he is indeed a self-moving soul, what are his reasons for doing anything?
Because he went insane during the second book of the first series and it's not really mentioned until the final two books in the second series. Also he's not a self moving soul, and that's exactly what gets him killed in the end. The entire point of the character is that he's a sham. He was always a sham, from the very begining. He used to not believe in his own hype, but then the second book of the first series happens and he goes insane and then starts to believe his own hype. It's not until the last like 10 pages of the final book that he realizes what he's done and why he's erred, and by then it's way to late.

[Anonymous No.22903988]

finished Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy
i will never look at the cosmos the same

[Anonymous No.22904018]

>>22903912
but I don't want le realism in my le fantasy escapism stories I want le wholesemorino adventure with le good things happening that make me feel le good like upvotes on reddit

[Anonymous No.22904021]

>>22897750
Continuing with Horus Heresy and thank FUCK we're finally moving from the same goddamn event as told from different POVs.

[Anonymous No.22904252]

Luckily Storygraph did all the work for me. It was going to be a nightmare putting my 2023 reads into a chart on my own.

Top reads:
>The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson
>The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Return to the Whorl, and The Knight by Gene Wolfe
>The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
>Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover
>'Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis
>The Green Mile by Stephen King

Weirdly I dnf'd White Gold Wielder even though book 1 was the best book I read last year. Couldn't pinpoint exactly why.

[Anonymous No.22904334]

>>22904252
>all those female authors
>all that Gene Wolfe
>all that Bakker
>World of Warcraft
I honestly hope you don't waste this year like you did the last anon

[Anonymous No.22904347]

>>22899926
3 was terrible and I heard that 4 was just as bad why would you care about 5?

[Anonymous No.22904355]

Would you read a novel where the main character is a sheep instead of a human?

[Anonymous No.22904368]

>>22904334
>Criticizes my list
>Doesn't post theirs
I'll just keep on enjoying the books I read. I doubt any year will be able to top this one.

[Anonymous No.22904394]

>>22904368
Why do you read roastie books?

[Anonymous No.22904445]

>>22904394
I don't know what that means. What books/authors specifically are you talking about.

[Anonymous No.22904462]

Ok, so I'm reading pic related since a close friend of mine gave me some random fantasy TOR boxed sets for Christmas like he usually does every year. I've heard the author goes off the rails on it, but so far everything seems decent, when do things go south? I'm on book 3 btw.

[Anonymous No.22904492]

>>22902337
isn't this just Catch-22?

[Anonymous No.22904506]

>>22903053
directed by Zack Snyder IIRC

[Anonymous No.22904514]

>>22904445
I am talking about roasties.

[Anonymous No.22904542]

>>22904462
It goes off the deep end at book 5-6, iirc.
Basically, from what I remember

Wizard's First Rule - Fairly decent, generic fantasy.
Stone of Tears - Same, but more interesting.
Blood of the Fold - Same.
Temple of the Winds - Meh.
Soul of the Fire - Getting kinda weird here.
Faith of the Fallen - What the fuck?
The Pillars of Creation - What the FUCK?
Naked Empire - WHAT THE FUCK.
Chainfire - WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Phantom - Why the fuck are you still reading this?
Confessor - Hoo-fucking-ray it's over.

[Anonymous No.22904561]

>>22904506
Man what a downgrade from recent years, capeshit ruins everything

[Anonymous No.22904742]

>>22898460
I read all of foundation and related books in chronological order aside from prelude and forward and it was amazing aside from the empire books which I thought dragged on too long, I just added wheel of time to my reading list myself

[Anonymous No.22904745]

>>22904742
wish i could upvote this hella epic post :)

[Anonymous No.22904751]

>>22904742
Figured it would behoove me to get the big massive series out of the way first, I've already read LOTR and Dune so it'll be interesting to compare. Also I'm upvoting this post to spite the faggot anon above.

[Anonymous No.22904797]

>>22904751
Something like 20 books/short stories of watching the evolution of humanity and its relationship to robots as seen by Asimov was very enjoyable (though as I said the 3 empire books felt too long to me, but still worth reading for pre-foundation context), very different feel from Dune which remains my favorite series (sadly forever unfinished, unlike foundation)
Also that retard must be new on 4chan if he thinks that kind of post has any effect on anyone here, it's just noise, might as well be a pop up ad

[Anonymous No.22904800]

>>22897981
>>22898460
>>22898717
>>22898960
>>22898978
>>22900415
>>22900319
>>22900332
>>22900700
>>22901966
>>22901995
>>22902306
>>22902309
>>22902507
>>22903296
>>22903987
>>22904462
>>22904742
>>22904751
see >>22897808

[Anonymous No.22904843]

>>22904021
>Horus Heresy
it's funny how you can skip most of the books and miss nothing. entire series became bloated as fuck from the original idea. and then it split off into further siege of terra novels and primarch novels. goddamn they're milking that ending.

[Anonymous No.22904849]

>>22897882
>>22897886
>>22897981
>>22898011
>>22898272
>>22898459
>>22898548
>>22898683
>>22899926
>>22900106
>>22900123
>>22900258
>>22900489
>>22901540
>>22901655
>>22902330
>>22902337
>>22902348
>>22902352
>>22902355
>>22902357
>>22902359
>>22902367
>>22902392
>>22902727
>>22903296
>>22903316
>>22903598
>>22903912
>>22903988
>>22904252
>>22904368
>>22904445
>>22904542
>>22904800
see >>22897808

[Anonymous No.22905081]

where are all the good westerns /sffg/?

[Anonymous No.22905111]

>>22905081
Jerusalem Man trilogy by David Gemmell.

[Anonymous No.22905112]

>>22903988
Yes, if you are like 12 and have never read scifi before

[Anonymous No.22905122]

should i read brandon sanderson

[Anonymous No.22905140]

>>22905122
Sure. Start with Mistborn.

[Anonymous No.22905146]

>>22905122
Only if you are a zoomer

[Anonymous No.22905180]

>>22905122
Sanderson is for kids and man children.

[Anonymous No.22905203]

>>22905180
Like bakker

[Anonymous No.22905347]

Give me 15 reasons Malazan is better than Way of Choices

[Anonymous No.22905349]

>>22904252
>Never heard of or read Rob J Hayes
>Ishouldexpandmyhorizons.pdf
>Look at Ties That Bind synopsis
>Its a female MC who starts off with no power in a literal prison having to socially manipulate her way through the world to survive.
>Nope.bat
>Maybe his other works will be bretter?
>The Mortal Techniques universe is just some western xianxia kncok-off
>Uninstall.exe

[Anonymous No.22905383]

>>22905347
Ass
Booty
PAWGS
Thick thighs
BBWs
Onion Butts
Pear shaped Women
Venus women
FEMDOM
Reverse rape
Women with some squishy bellies
Muscular Black Queens
Black Queens with big butts
Milfs
Kruppe

[Anonymous No.22905398]

>>22905349
I've only read War Eternal, which funnily also starts with that exact girl stuck in prison premise. It was basically just fun edgy schlock. I think I read them in less than two days each.

[Anonymous No.22905420]

>>22905349
I wish I could write my celtic xianxia story or my renaissance xianxia story but I'm just bad at writing and fail every time.

[Anonymous No.22905426]

>>22905122
I wouldn't but then i'm averse to token heroines and gays being infused everywhere and want my fantasy to actually be fantastic.

[Anonymous No.22905510]

>>22897782
Dwarves/Alfar series by Markus something

[Anonymous No.22905521]

>>22898683
The Dread Empire

[Anonymous No.22905529]

>>22905398
My derp that's the one I meant.
>>22905420
It cannot be worse then most of the other stuffanything in the genre already.
>2024 could be your year

[Anonymous No.22905973]

>>22905349
>Its a female MC who starts off with no power in a literal prison having to socially manipulate her way through the world to survive.
I didn't finish this, can't remember why might've been a holiday read, but she pretty must just fights out of the prison from what I remember

[Anonymous No.22906042]

>>22905973
No, she loses every fight and gets the shit kicked out of her a lot. She's not good at fighting without magic. Her and her group Shawshank it.

[Anonymous No.22906044]

Just read some short stories from R. A. Lafferty. I think they are good, but definitely fall short of greatness. My biggest criticism is the extreme lack of subtlety in the stories. I politically agree with the themes of "Slow Tuesday", but it beats me over the head with it so much that I just feel like I am being lectured about something. The thin characterization and plot, while probably the point, do nothing to elevate this story. Narrow Valley felt more fleshed out, and I liked the "Tall Tale" aspect of this, but I also felt like I was being hit in the head here about feeling bad for the native americans. These could just be bad story choices, and I heard that Gaiman owns the publishing rights to half of this stuff, which would explain the selection, but I am definitely somewhat disappointed. Are Lafferty's novels any different from his short stories? Ironically, I feel that while I do quibble with some of Gene Wolfe's novels, he is a much superior short story writer to Lafferty so far.

[Anonymous No.22906189]

Warhammer Co-Creator Bryan Ansell Dies at 68

[Jötunheimr !.bPpf1STBA No.22906351]

So far so good. The small injury may have been a blessing in disguise. Read more than day 1 and did not let my brain sleep through it like the last time. Which i attribute to a good daytime nap.

[Anonymous No.22906722]

>>22905122
I would only recommend reading The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance.

[Anonymous No.22906757]

the structure of this novel really engaged me. multiple travelers, each telling their own story (and each tale itself changes settings and genres) which all contributes to the overarching story. i also found the sci-fi elements pretty easy to understand.

[Anonymous No.22906804]

>>22905973
>female mc
Stopped reading there

[Anonymous No.22906838]

>Martin stated in October 2022 that he had completed approximately three quarters of the novel,[1][2] estimating that he had written approximately 1,100 to 1,200 pages, and had roughly 400 to 500 pages left.[3] He gave a similar estimate in November 2023, saying that he was "struggling" with the manuscript.[4][5]
It's so Joever. Sanderson will finish A Song of Ice and Fire...

[Anonymous No.22906842]

>>22905122
>>22905347
>>22906351
>>22906757
>>22906838
see
>>22897808

[Anonymous No.22906850]

>>22906838
GRRM will surprise the entire world and have Will Wight finish it

[Anonymous No.22907006]

>>22897750
Need more existential dread dream kino like pic rel guys.

[Anonymous No.22907137]

>>22906757
Hyperion was an interesting read for sure. I felt like a teenager again thinking the Shrike was cool only to be presented with how fucked up it actually is later on.

[Anonymous No.22907324]

Not sure how people here feel about GRRM but I'm rereading ASOS and noticed and have read elsewhere that it seems like (spoilers) the red wedding was being planned for far in advance. Maybe the Westerling marriage couldn't have been planned that far ahead but everything else seems to have been, since the Freys will just change to whatever side is going to win anyway (probably the Lannisters after the Highgarden alliance) and there's all this background stuff about Tywin planning 'something' well before the Westerling marriage, so it basically comes down to him & Frey being evil/winning at all costs
Is this reasonable to assume?

[Anonymous No.22907506]

>>22907006
YIIK

[Anonymous No.22907507]

>>22907324

Pretty much TyWinning was playing 4d chess with everyone but Tyrion wound up being the pawn that defeated him in such a humiliating maneuver. I still feel like Tyrion should've been rewarded and acknolwedged for his efforts at Blackwater I get Tywin was using him as a patsy or fall guy in case the slightest thing went wrong and he could immediately shift the blame onto Tyrion but he definitely should've been knighted or something

[Anonymous No.22907509]

What are the REAL Conan books? I hear every piece of media from the film, to the comic, to games, has completely ruined the character and portrayed him as a gorilla with a sword and it's completely dumb, yet I hear the books are actually genius.

[Anonymous No.22907529]

>>22907509
The Howard short stories, everything else is bad. Conan in the originals is, in video game terminology, much closer to a Rogue than a Warrior. He's more likely to shank a mark than fight them and a significant number of the stories are instigated by Conan trying to plunder some booty (whether than be valuables or "booty").
The short stories aren't really genius, but they're well executed. Conan himself is basically a mortal ubermensch, and he's not threatened by most men physically. A lot of authors would end up writing a character like this as being essentially invincible, yet Howard was a good enough writer to avoid that pitfall. Conan isn't worried about men with swords, he's worried about venomous snakes, venomous spiders, wizards, magic, evil gods and evil spirits. Things that his physical superiority cannot save him from. Conan ends up being the underdog a lot of the time because he's simply pitted against things that make his physical might irrelevant, so he has to win with his head.

All that being said, I get annoyed by reading anything written by Howard, because he was obsessed with NIGGERS. It's not as bad in Conan because having blacks in it makes sense, but his other series always detour to Africa so he can describe hulking, muscular, sweaty black brutes writhing against other hulking, sweaty, muscular men because he totally didn't have some sort of fixation on it.

[Anonymous No.22907533]

>>22907529
nigga that's gay

[Anonymous No.22907536]

>>22907533
Yeah I'm like 65% sure Howard was too.

[Anonymous No.22907594]

>>22905122
>>22905122
Sanderson's prose is ChatGPT-tier and his plots have more in common with LitRPGs than traditional fantasy. His characters just power up gradually by collecting corny aphorisms rather than experience points.

But they're pretty long and usually fun, so they're best for putting on audio during a slow work day.

[Anonymous No.22907738]

>>22901985
Nameless Sovereign on royalroad he hasn't returned to the caves yet though

[Anonymous No.22907739]

any recs for books with vivid hell/underworld imagery?

[Anonymous No.22907742]

>>22907739
I mean you know, obviously, do I even need to say it?

[Anonymous No.22907744]

>>22907742
besides that one

[Anonymous No.22907748]

>>22897808
>>22904800
How do filters work and how can I get rid of this retard?

[Jötunheimr !.bPpf1STBA No.22907818]

Good morning everyone

[Anonymous No.22907827]

>>22907748
If you're using X or a fork
>/Great post anons, very original/i;boards:lit

[Anonymous No.22907867]

>>22902291
>J.V. Jones
Is she ever gonna release the 5th book, holy fuck. I feel like i keep starting all these series by retards who never finish them

[Anonymous No.22907871]

Pern any good?

[Anonymous No.22907894]

>>22907748
>>22907818
Good morning, /r/sff! I'm excited for another day of Vance/Wolfe/Martin/Rothfuss/Simmons/Howard discussion!!

[Anonymous No.22907954]

>>22907748
put this in the filter
/(?:>>\d(?:(?!>>\d)[^])*){15}/
number at the end determines how many replies before they're filtered

[Anonymous No.22907966]

>>22907894
>general is repetitive

[Anonymous No.22907990]

>>22907966
Was your epic Nicholas Cage reaction image supposed to be a haha gotcha? Begone, normalfag filth and take your ilk with you.

[Anonymous No.22908102]

>>22906838
Been reading Iron Men and Saints by Harold Lamb since Bakker loves it so much and holy shit it's fantasy kino

[Anonymous No.22908181]

>>22907739
The Black Farm
The Night Eternal

[Anonymous No.22908185]

>>22907529
>All that being said, I get annoyed by reading anything written by Howard, because he was obsessed with NIGGERS. It's not as bad in Conan because having blacks in it makes sense, but his other series always detour to Africa so he can describe hulking, muscular, sweaty black brutes writhing against other hulking, sweaty, muscular men because he totally didn't have some sort of fixation on it.
Now THAT is some classic projection.

[Anonymous No.22908351]

>>22907748
Just Google a visual regex editor and play around with it. I did a vague match to his text he spams and it filters it everytime. Also can do what other anon did and limit how many people can be tagged.

Also report.

[Anonymous No.22908447]

LOL

[Anonymous No.22908477]

>>22908447
This year it'll be 13 years since the last book. He's never going to finish the series, I wonder if it's on purpose

[Anonymous No.22908480]

>>22908447
great fucking post

[Anonymous No.22908865]

>>22908477
It's simple; he has no idea how to finish the series in a LE SUBVERSION way that will also be a satisfying ending.

[Anonymous No.22908890]

>>22908447

[Anonymous No.22908893]

>>22907867
Unbelievably she makes regular updates and posts sample texts from Endlords frequently on her Patreon (tho most 'updates' are just her complaining about her roommate or dressing up her dogs), so unless she's stringing us along it's actively getting worked on right now. She apparantly went through health issues and mental trauma that inhibited her ability to write.

[Anonymous No.22908917]

>barely no discussion or fights after the boomers stopped harassing the chinkfags / litrpgcucks / ritualposters
>general in a better state than months ago
the ESL fag is right, obnoxius boomers were the problem

[Anonymous No.22908931]

>>22908917
>the ESL fag is right
Who are you quoting?

[Anonymous No.22908943]

>>22908917
why does the book read like it's some kinda bronze age setting but the gear looks like its the 18th century or something smdh

[Anonymous No.22908960]

>>22908943
sanderson discovered anime and went crazy before writing the book

[Anonymous No.22908969]

>>22907990
Wasn't a "gotcha", I just don't think whinging has ever had an effect.
Rec an author you'd rather post about and I'll read him, so long as it's a genuine rec and it's not Chinese or webshit.

[Anonymous No.22908973]

>>22908943
Sanderson played too much jrpgs in college.

[Anonymous No.22909050]

>>22908477
It is on purpose. The series ending was his planned ending, so given the reception it received i imagine he has no clue how to proceed

[Anonymous No.22909105]

Can someone explain why I should continue reading Gormenghast? I am not an impatient man, but it keeps going on and on and absolutely nothing of any relevance is happening. When does it get good unironically? There is no plot, just people doing the most mundane things while giving painstakingly accurate reports. Am I not autistic enough to understand?

[Anonymous No.22909153]

>>22908917
Scientifically speaking, how do fantasy worlds maintain racial diversity?

[Anonymous No.22909179]

>>22909105
Great post anon, very original but

In all seriousness, I think it gets better by the second book, I still like the first one though. Also people mainly like it for the atmosphere Peake creates.

[Anonymous No.22909202]

>>22909179
Does that mean I can just start with the second one?

[Anonymous No.22909302]

>>22909153
The same way real life does: vast majority of people don't travel very far from where they are born so they tend to marry within their own ethnicity as a result of that, resulting in distinct phenotypes being expressed in different populations. For example that image you replied shows characters from 3 different nations / ethnic groups in that story.

[Anonymous No.22909328]

>>22898683
This, my dude. Fucking great start of a series. Part 2 comes out in April.

[Anonymous No.22909382]

>hundreds of pages of Navani sitting in a room talking about in universe physics
Sanderson what the FUCK are you doing?

[Anonymous No.22909473]

>>22909382
We warned you about Rhythm of War, dude. I'm not gonna bother re-reading it when the next one comes out. I'm good on made up physics and Kaladin having another breakdown / epiphany.

[Anonymous No.22909482]

>>22906044
Was I foolish for expecting people to talk about/give some opinions on Lafferty?

[Anonymous No.22909499]

>>22909473
>>22909382
Fuck me I still have to read RoW and this isn't very encouraging especially when I already started getting annoyed with Oathbringer

[Anonymous No.22909511]

>>22909499
Oathbringer at least has a lot of Dalinar in it. I found Rhythm of War hard to continue at times. I don't know why he made Kaladin retread the same arc AGAIN.

[Anonymous No.22909517]

>>22909482
These threads don't have that many people in them, you can't expect there to be somebody who has read the exact same things as you, or even if they have, to share your enthusiasm. You can try to change this by urging other anons to read his works, recommending him whenever somebody is looking for new authors to read, and work on finding a good way to sell his books to people. I've done it with a couple authors over the last few years, and now I see other anons besides me talking about them.

[Anonymous No.22909543]

>>22909517
Well the thing is, I don't recommend him. I was trying to get more expert opinions on him to see if there is better stuff I should be trying. I for some reason thought he would be semi-popular on here based on his connections to other popular authors, but I guess I was wrong. Oh well.

[Anonymous No.22909567]

>>22909511
Dalinar hard carried that book for me, and you really hit the nail on the head for what annoyed me the most, the retreading of the exact same arcs for both Shallan and Kaladin. I also found the Kholinar section of the book to be very boring up until near the end where shit actually happens. Funnily enough I didn't mind the Shadesmar stuff, seems like a decent chunk of people found it be as boring as I felt Kholinar was.

[Anonymous No.22909594]

>>22909567
Shadesmar wound up being less interesting than it seemed, at first. Jasnah talking about how incredibly dangerous it was hyped the place up, and then it's just really empty and kinda boring with stuff being more similar than expected. It was a bit of a letdown considering how good Sanderson is at creating alien landscapes, he didn't do Shadesmar justice, I think.

[Anonymous No.22909632]

Where do people tend to start with Gemmell?

[Anonymous No.22909791]

>>22909473
I'm going through my own damn mental health crisis endlessly reading about sad Kaladin and schizo Shallan and muh epic crossovers which should have stayed in the background rather than taking centre stage

[Jötunheimr !.bPpf1STBA No.22909862]

I literally do not know what to read.

[Anonymous No.22909865]

>>22909632
Legend or Waylander

[Anonymous No.22909867]

Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.22910054]

Wasn't expecting Way of Choices to turn into Fate/Stay Night

[Anonymous No.22910056]

>>22909862
Tell us about you, where are you from, how old are you, where do you live, what do you do for work, how many family members do you have

[Anonymous No.22910235]

>>22907867
>I feel like i keep starting all these series by retards who never finish them
It's what made me lose interest in the fantasy genre. Kentaro Miura, Scott Lynch, J.V. Jones, GRRM, Patrick Rothfuss etc that plus the woke takeover killed it for me

[Anonymous No.22910257]

What's the deal with all of those LoTR editions? When people say they have errors, do they mean grammatical error or plot/wording errors?

[Anonymous No.22910354]

>>22909632
I started with his Rigante series.

[Anonymous No.22910501]

What's Neil Gayman's best book?

[Anonymous No.22910551]

>>22910501
The one about the gay man.

[Anonymous No.22910679]

>>22910551
damn he's me.

[Anonymous No.22910798]

Do you think the five regions are just the immortal aperture of a rank 10+ entity?

[Anonymous No.22910921]

>>22909543
Of the novel's, I've only read Past Master.
It does moralise.
I didn't feel "beaten over the head", though I think (based on your post) you might feel that way about it.

[Anonymous No.22910955]

>>22905203
You sound incredibly resentful.

[Anonymous No.22911196]

i got the audiobook for the travelling inn and it starts off cringe and bad. so i tried azarinth healer and it's the exact same thing
im filtered by litP(oo)PG

[Anonymous No.22911256]

>>22911196
if you're checking royal road remember to filter litRPG, gamelit, isekai and harem, probably romance as well

[Anonymous No.22911346]

I finally finished Martial World. The overall ending was lacking, much like this thread.

[Jötunheimr !.bPpf1STBA No.22911355]

Day 5
0 miles
85 pages read
I'll get it to a 100 then i'll reward myself with a 8 hour porn/vidya binge

[Anonymous No.22911371]

>>22911355
Based. What's your vidya of choice?

[Anonymous No.22911378]

copped

[Anonymous No.22911471]

Is WoT YA? I'm halfway through the first book and it's not clicking

[Anonymous No.22911476]

>>22911471
it's poo

[Anonymous No.22911487]

rec me an sffg book where the female protagonist is a total slut

[Anonymous No.22911528]

>>22911471
>That pic
That's AI right? Prompt?

[Anonymous No.22911560]

>>22911471
yes