/SFFG/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10080195]

Meta Edition

BEHOLD! The Charts:
FANTASY
Selected:
>https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21329.jpg
General:
>https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21328.jpg
Flowchart:
>https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21327.jpg

SCIENCE FICTION
Selected:
>https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21326.jpg
>https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21331.jpg
General:
>https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21332.jpg
>https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21330.jpg

NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books:
>https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21333.jpg

Previously on /SFFG/:
>>10069724

[Anonymous No.10080274]

We should have J.K Rowling killed so we can get a Harry Potter anime in 70 years :^)

[Anonymous No.10080378]

the final demon cycle book will be out in a few days.
i still hope that leesha dies. or atleast behave less like a cunt.
but i bet that she will end as a queen, while arlen, renna and jardir will die.

[Anonymous No.10080395]

>>10080274
As long as I get her corpse for a few years. Asking for a friend.

[Anonymous No.10080424]

>still no xeno love chart

savages

[Anonymous No.10080706]

>>10080274
it's 70 years after authors death? didn't know that

[Anonymous No.10080728]

Chances Bakker actually publishes The No God in the next 6 years?

[Anonymous No.10080749]

>>10080728
100%

[Anonymous No.10080760]

>>10080728
I think it won't come very soon, since he's now making things up as he goes along (supposedly his original vision extended only to the end of TUC), but I'm optimistic it won't be another WLW -> TGO wait...

[Anonymous No.10080780]

This was excellent. Highly recommended for fans of the dinosaurs.

[Anonymous No.10080872]

>>10080780
The author looks like a member of a black metal band.
That's very promising.

[Anonymous No.10080890]

>>10080872
He very obviously worships at the altar of REH, Vance and Moorcock, but it never feels like he's copying them. The stories read like they came right out of those same eras. Wonderful prose as well.

[Anonymous No.10080982]

>>10080274
Little Witch Academia
Also, considering how quick she's been to financially milk the franchise, wouldn't be surprised if she licensed one on her own before that.
>>10080706
It is, but every time it's about to expire it gets extended thanks to the lobbying efforts of Disney.

[Anonymous No.10081027]

Things that make you skip over a book:
>female author
>female protagonist
>first person narration
>TITLE: A (character name) Story
>TITLE: Book 1 in (series).
>TITLE: A (series) Story.
>urban fantasy with a person on the cover

[Anonymous No.10081035]

>>10081027
>first person narration
Your loss anon.

[Anonymous No.10081037]

>>10081027
also
>GRRM's endorsement on the cover

[Anonymous No.10081046]

>>10081035
It's not that they can't be good, it's that the ratio of good to shit makes looking for them an untenable proposition.

If someone recommends me a first person book I'll look at it, but if I click that sample button and get some smarmy wisecrackin' impossibly witty wanker drawling sarcastically at me in the first three lines I'm clicking right back out of it.

[Anonymous No.10081096]

>>10081027
>the virgin recommendation

usually its:
> author is the next XY. (usually tolkien)
>endorsement from other author that i dislike
>ongoing series with no end in sight

i made quite a few mistakes with shit covers.

[Anonymous No.10081105]

>>10081027
>female author
>first person narration
>TITLE: A (character name) Story
>TITLE: Book 1 in (series).
>TITLE: A (series) Story.
>urban fantasy with a person on the cover
YES
>female protagonist
No.

[Anonymous No.10081188]

>>10081105
When the fuck is The Monster Baru Cormorant coming out? I need my goddamn financial fantasy fix and I need it now.

[Anonymous No.10081200]

>tfw you realize warlock of the magus world being finished will probably ruin your life

[Anonymous No.10081206]

>>10080195
Very nice Herr Donkles. Thank you.

[Anonymous No.10081207]

>>10081105
This, female protagonist/male author is the GOAT combo

[Anonymous No.10081213]

>>10080195
>tfw photoshop is better at spoofing book covers than gimp
>tfw donkey puts all my gimping to shame with his crisp texts and floating point manipulation
I give up. Donkey is now the meme master for sffg. He will make all the memes people request.

[Anonymous No.10081227]

>>10080378
This pic looks like ET was bullied when he went back home, so he logged onto /fit/ from his homeworld and got HUGE.

[Anonymous No.10081228]

>>10081027
>written in the recent years, nominated for hugo or nebula

[Anonymous No.10081229]

>>10081027
>post-millennial
>cover is photograph of a person
>conversational prose
>unfinished series

[Anonymous No.10081244]

>>10081213
I doubt he has your stamina senpai desu.

[Anonymous No.10081250]

>>10081037
Gud! Cause grrm endorsed book of the new sun and we all know that book is shit.

[Anonymous No.10081256]

>tfw no Shalukhe the Swimmer gf

[Anonymous No.10081262]

>>10081250
WTF, devious fatass,
he endorsed a good series finished in 80s on purpose to confound the readers
I underestimated him.

[Anonymous No.10081280]

>>10080195
>>10081213
Does Photoshop have a feature that allows you to analyze text and reproduce it? His (the OP) matches the original from the last thread.

[Anonymous No.10081301]

>tfw permanently an aspiring author
>3 years
>300k words written
>still can't design a narrative, into dialogue or finish a short story

I have so much more respect for every sffg author, even terry goodkind can be seen in a new light once you've walked in his shoes.

[Anonymous No.10081330]

>>10080195
That's a very accurate board xover

[Anonymous No.10081348]

>>10081301
Start planning.

Writing is fun, but without a plan it's worthless, wasted effort.

[Anonymous No.10081425]

>>10081301
I got the feels for you phamalam

[Anonymous No.10081439]

>>10081348
Ita not wasted effort since you learn shit, but yea seriously take the time to learn story structure since it'll fix your shit immensely. I reccomend Invisible Ink.

[Anonymous No.10081625]

>>10080195
Is this good? I'm looking for space operas with a lot of action.

[Anonymous No.10081626]

...wow

[Anonymous No.10081644]

>>10081625
It's honestly kinda not great. It's like the ASOIAF of scifi.

[Anonymous No.10081651]

>>10081625
Unfortunately it's not wh40k fleet battles in space like your pic implies.

[Anonymous No.10081678]

>>10081626
Are the shills coming back?

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10081705]

>>10081206
My pleasure, von Anon. I hope you don't mind the wider aspect but as soon as I saw the scowling dude ducking through the entryway, I knew what I had to do.

>>10081213
>>10081280
I used paint.net, of all things.
Not sure what you meant about the text, though; the fonts are all different from the original cover. Heck, the most time-consuming bit was finding new fonts to use that looked at least tangentially appropriate.

>>10080780
Just picked this up off Amazon on your recommendation.

>>10081256
>only knowing her friend-name
>friendzoned
>laughinggirls.jpg
This cover is okay up until you notice that Rhialto looks like he just moonwalked out of the Thriller video.

[Anonymous No.10081909]

>>10081678
If by shill you mean somebody who wants to express their love for the best scifi book in recent history then yes

[Anonymous No.10082299]

Explain to me why the immigrants (orks) pouring into europe (middle earth) aren't instruments of the jews (the enemy) for their plans of destruction and domination? Eroding away the culture and tradition (sub-creation) the people here have fostered for centuries

[Anonymous No.10082415]

In what order should Tolkien be read? Thinking of suggesting the following to a friend of mine who asked for my input on the matter.
The Hobbit
Lord of the Rings
Children of Hurin
Silmarillion
Unfinished Tales
(History of Middle-Earth if you want to go full autism)

What do you guys think?

[Anonymous No.10082425]

>>10081651
Is there even such a book?

[Anonymous No.10082431]

>>10082415
If he saw the movies, which I assume he did, there is no reason to read Tolkien.

[Anonymous No.10082443]

>>10082415
Don't listen to posters saying read LotR before the Silmarillion
Tolkien originally wanted the Silmarillion to be published before LotR

[Anonymous No.10082463]

>>10081027
>urban fantasy with a woman wearing a spaghetti strap top on the cover

[Anonymous No.10082467]

>>10082415
Don't listen to this poster >>10082443

[Anonymous No.10082478]

>>10082467

[Anonymous No.10082732]

>>10082415
>actually reading Silmarillion
Tell your friend to read Hobbit and LotR, only recommend the rest if asked for more.

[Anonymous No.10082794]

Hi /sffg/, I come with a humble request. I've very recently become interested in poetry and I don't know where to start. I ask here because I dislike poetry that is set in real world places. I read Lord Byron's Darkness and loved it, and it didn't take me out of its world by mentioning real places. Any collections of more narrative based fantasy poetry, preferably exploring romantic themes of heroism, love, fear, evil, redemption, and/or beauty? I want the best poetry that takes me somewhere new and makes me feel feelings. Any help would be most appreciated.

[Anonymous No.10082801]

>>10081705
>Just picked this up off Amazon on your recommendation.
Good, namefag.

[Anonymous No.10082807]

>>10082794
http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/

[Anonymous No.10082832]

>>10080760
>everything up to now was planed out
>we can expect a dropoff in quality from here on out
>we'll remember TUC as the last GOOD part
DEAR GOD! What unholy masterpiece awaits us? TUC was LITERALLY ONE HUNDRED PERCENT GRI!

[Anonymous No.10082838]

>>10082807
I already visit there a lot but I was hoping for a collection I could bring with me when I go out to school or wherever. Thanks though, it's a great resource for reading at home.

[Anonymous No.10082867]

>>10081625

Overrated due to one of the authors being a buddy of GRRM

[Anonymous No.10082899]

>>10082794
Dunsany probably has something like that.

[Anonymous No.10082949]

>>10082832
He's said that's he had plans for two books, to cover what happens after TUC, but that he thought just finishing the series would be unlikely, so they're not as fleshed out.

[Anonymous No.10082958]

What you guys read so far?

[Anonymous No.10083017]

>>10082958
probably 70 /brit/ threads this month

[Anonymous No.10083068]

>"I did it in The Name of the Wind"

Is this hack fucking serious? I'm about to drop this shit.

[Anonymous No.10083110]

>>10081105
Baru is a great character.

[Anonymous No.10083123]

>>10082949
>two books
Get ready for a new quadrilogy.

[Anonymous No.10083157]

>>10082958
Look at my cancerous shit taste for 2017.
Currently reading The Martian Chronicles by Bradbury, they're a great collection of short stories.

[Anonymous No.10083160]

>tfw no t'sain gf

[Anonymous No.10083165]

>>10083160
dykes leave

[Anonymous No.10083168]

>>10083165
Rude.

[Anonymous No.10083181]

I make a living selling pantsu, ama

[Anonymous No.10083230]

>>10083157
>it's the Dick anon
I didn't know you read echos of things to come, we might have similar shit tastes (except for the Star wars, my shit tastes doesn't go that deep).

I see you are the Carol Berg shill too.
Were you looking for Vampire books with those Hambly novels?

[Anonymous No.10083248]

>>10083160
>CBS logo
>>>/tv/
Wtf does this have to do with /lit/, much less SFFG?

[Anonymous No.10083257]

>>10083248
come on now she was even in the very first book

[Anonymous No.10083276]

>>10083230
I'm one of the Dick anons. There's that guy who basically read everything by Dick, but I try not to read more than one book from one author and am clearly failing.

No. I only read those Hambly books because CS Friedman's basically copied and pasted the MC from that book into theirs but the originals are really fucking weird and not fantastic. By weird, I mean these vampire novels weirdly /pol/ (and by weirdly /pol/ I mean vampires actually saying that they aren't really preying on humanity as much as the jews, random eugenics nazi vampires, muh harem muslim vampires who have become infertile and each novel has different genres).

I'm not the Carol Berg shill if there is one, my main complaint is that they are too shounen.

[Anonymous No.10083277]

>>10083276
*are

[Anonymous No.10083312]

>>10083276
>I'm not the Carol Berg shill
Someone shilled her last thread I think, thought it was you.

>I'm one of the Dick anons
No. You are the dick anon I was thinking of. You were crying a few threads back that you were failing to stay away from Dick.

>pol vampires
I think I read shit like that before (not the same author). They fed on the jews in germany in ww2 because no one would believe them, etc etc.

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10083317]

Welp, I learned some Photoshop.

[Anonymous No.10083321]

And I have hold of her. Her hands are tangled in my hair, pulling me close. Her mouth eager. Her tongue shy and darting. Her breath in my mouth, filling my head. The hot tips of her breasts brush my chest. The smell of her like clover, like musk, like ripe apples fallen to the ground …
And there is no hesitation. No doubt. I know exactly what to do. My hands are on the back of her neck. Brushing her face. Tangled in her hair. Sliding along the smooth length of her thigh. Grabbing her hard by the flank. Circling her narrow waist. Lifting her. Laying her down …
And she writhes beneath me, lithe and languorous. Slow and sighing. Her legs around me. Her back arches. Her hot hands clutch my shoulders, my arms, pressing the small of my back …
And she is astride me. Her movements wild. Her long hair trails across my skin. She tosses her head, trembling and shaking, crying out in a language I do not know. Her sharp nails digging into the flat muscles of my chest …
And there is music to it. The wordless cries she makes, rising and falling. Her sigh. My racing heart. Her motion slows. I clutch her hips in frantic counterpoint. Our rhythm is like a silent song. Like sudden thunder. Like the half-heard thrumming of a distant drum …>>10083068

[Anonymous No.10083329]

only started reading again recently. fnished words of radiance (way of kings pt2), what to read now? pls help.

[Anonymous No.10083356]

>>10082958
I really should use goodreads so I can remember what the fuck I read and when

[Anonymous No.10083365]

>>10083329
malazan

[Anonymous No.10083368]

>>10083365
Not the guy who asked but I should probably give malazan another chance. Although it did seem like the author just flat out couldn't write on my first attempt

[Anonymous No.10083369]

>>10083368
huh. plenty of things to dislike about malazan, but when it comes down to sheer writing and prose, Erikson is definitely better than Sanderson

[Anonymous No.10083370]

>>10083329
Arts of Dark and Light

[Anonymous No.10083373]

>>10083369
Nah Sanderson is bad but he's broadly functional

[Anonymous No.10083376]

>>10083370
Go back to whining about Jack Kirby on twitter vox

[Anonymous No.10083380]

>>10083329
Black Sun Rising is good and fun

[Anonymous No.10083387]

>>10083373
Sanderson can write to serve his plot, barely. Sometimes it suffers from underwhelming writing. But he is very good at other elements, like worldbuilding, plots, and he's prolific.
Erikson might fall short in other places, and he's not an amazing writer, but he can at least elevate his scenes with his writing once in a while and overall has better style. He's not amazing by any means but he's just a better craftsman than Brandon full-stop. Brandons writing is really bad sometimes, especially dialogue.

[Anonymous No.10083404]

>>10083387
sounds good. i'll give it a go

[Anonymous No.10083411]

>>10083356
You should. Don't bother with the autistic luddite dinosaurs who want you to write it down on a piece of paper.

[Anonymous No.10083425]

>>10083411
Who's gonna be the one laughing when the soviets invade and use Goodreads lists to round up wrongthinkers? Oh, wait, it isn't the soviets you gotta worry about now is it?

[Anonymous No.10083440]

>>10081207

I have never read a book with a female protag that I liked.

[Anonymous No.10083453]

>>10083425
>soviets
?

[Anonymous No.10083455]

>>10083157
>reading Star Wars books
>accusing anyone else of shit taste

[Anonymous No.10083467]

>>10083453
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?

[Anonymous No.10083488]

>>10083376
Please leave, good reads.

[Anonymous No.10083544]

>>10081348
>>10081439
I still can't quite grasp planning, tried using the snowflake method but it hasn't worked out for me.

[Anonymous No.10083553]

Erikson fluctuates in quality more than Sanderson though.

Sanderson has fairly consistently invisible prose design to draw you into the better parts of his books, like worldbuilding and plotting.

Erikson isn't aware of his own flaws as a writer and so his quality of prose, characterisation, plotting, and dialogue can vary wildly from page to page. He can elevate some scenes with brilliant prose, but also ruins otherwise impactful ones with clunky writing and inconsistent characterisatio. His characters will randomly do senseless things because the plot demands it. Barely any characters have a consistent voice, so you'll get one scene with a soldier speaking like all the other ones do, and then the same soldier is suddenly speaking formally like one of the gods. He generally improves around book 5, but it remains an issue throughout the series.

[Anonymous No.10083559]

>>10083553
And as his writing improves the plot increasingly goes to shit (for unrelated reasons)

[Anonymous No.10083560]

>>10083553
Meant for >>10083387

[Anonymous No.10083571]

>>10083553
>Erikson isn't aware of his own flaws as a writer
Pretty sure he at least admitted he could have cut down on the bloat in the main series. But I have no idea if he remedied that or not in his other series.

[Anonymous No.10083583]

>>10083553
I agree, sanderson is more stable. But that's the thing, he's a writing machine, it's definitely a part of the craft of storytelling he just doesn't give a shit about. so to read sanderson and then in turn drop erikson for his writing seems silly

[Anonymous No.10083593]

Nighty night /sffg/. Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite.

[Anonymous No.10083601]

I started reading BotNS recently, and I think it's amazing. However, the way I've seen it discussed on/lit/ is that you have to get all the Catholic references to enjoy it.

I don't know shit about Catholicism. Can I still enjoy the books or will nothing make sense after a while? Pls help

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10083602]

>>10083593
Gnite.

[Anonymous No.10083638]

>>10083601
I have a vague understanding of the religion, pretty much picked up on none of the references, but enjoyed the book anyway. The series is much more than a string of references to catholicism.

Nothing will make sense anyway. Just accept that.

[Anonymous No.10083655]

>>10083638
Thank you anon. You have put my fears to rest. I wish you the best of luck in all of your future endeavors.

[Anonymous No.10083684]

>>10081037
"x as it ought to be written." George R. R. Martin

[Anonymous No.10083742]

>>10083455
The word "my" is a possessive pronoun which indicates that the following phrase belongs to me. I only read shit that I want to.

It's likely that this year I will read about 120 books, 1/3-1/4 classics about 3/4 pleb, 2 are already scheduled to drop before the end of the year (Oathbringer and Will to Battle).

Next year, it will be harder again to find good books and I will probably resort to reading an even greater amount of shit books (2015 and 2016 burned most of the good authors on the rec charts like Abraham, Simmons and GGK).

>>10083312
I never shill Berg. I always rec books that are in my top 5%. 90% of the books I actually read are average. I drop any book that I would rate sub 3 stars.

I always go through several flavour of the month books. Each month or two I'll find a great book and shill it incessantly and then immediately forget about the old one when I find another good book. Some of those books were Palmer Eldritch, Ubik, Too like the Memes, Foundation, Hyperion Cantos, Blindsight and the rest of them are pulled out of a very specific subset of recommendations tailored to what someone is asking for.

[Anonymous No.10083772]

>>10083742
Just want to say you're doing God's work anon. I will never have the time to read that many books, intelligent recommendations from slush readers are always welcome.

[Anonymous No.10083786]

Read K. J. Parker
Skip the trilogies and go for the standalones (The Folding Knife) and then, if you like it, try the trilogies.

[Anonymous No.10083797]

Can you redpill me on the Malazan book if the Fallen series? One guy at work swears that it is the good shit, while another says it's mediocre and gets rather silly at times.

/lit/s thoughts?

[Anonymous No.10083840]

>>10083797
1. Read books
2. Read books
3. ???
4. Profit

[Anonymous No.10083844]

>Felisin chapter

[Anonymous No.10083849]

>>10083844
I should name a cat Felisin.

[Anonymous No.10083865]

>>10083797
It depends on your tastes. I didn't care for him, and here's why:

1. He picks up and throws away characters faster than any author I've ever read. If you like a character, chances are they'll be dead either in that book or the one after (or will never be mentioned again except only in passing). Many are actually killed off-screen just to add insult to injury.
2. Some characters are just fucking shitty and awful, and you have to slog through their parts just to get to the fun stuff. Felisin and Silverfox are just two examples. There are some fun characters like the old asshole warrior king to make up for this though.
3. The worldbuilding is there just for the sake of being there, so you'll get a lot of info that never really amounts to anything other than ~*~flavor~*~. The author is anthropologist by profession (I think), so this is probably just a fun way for him to sperg out. I actually think the setting started off as his custom setting for a pen-and-paper campaign he ran for his friends.
4. With so many POV characters, most are not very well characterized. A lot of them either have no personality or start to sound like one another.
5. The humor can be cheesy at times.

>>10083849
That's animal abuse.

[Anonymous No.10083873]

>>10083797
The best chapters are the ones where Erikson copies the Black Company. But there's tremendous amount of bloat in between.
Read the Black Company instead.

[Anonymous No.10083889]

>>10082415
LOTR
Silmarillion
Unfinished Tales
Hobbit

[Anonymous No.10083895]

>>10083786
Already have fagget now what?

>>10083797
I agree with the second guy. It has some really good moments but they are buried under a shitpile of mediocrity. First four books were enough for me.

[Anonymous No.10083934]

What are some books that are shameless religious propaganda? I'm not talking gene wolfe where there are undertones of catholicist aestheticism, or brandon where the content is neutered because of the tenets of his religion. I'm talking about barely disguised proselytizing.

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10083962]

>>10083934

C. S. Lewis apparently did a scifi trilogy. I read "Out of the Silent Planet"; I don't remember much about it, to be honest.

There's Orson Scott Card, but I don't think "Ender's Game" is overt evangelism in any way. I haven't read any of John C. Wright...really, I'm just naming known monotheists at this point. I would bet on Lewis, though. I probably just didn't note it because I'm sympathetic.

[Anonymous No.10083971]

>>10083797
It peaks with the fourth book then goes down hill from there, but still remains mostly entertaining because the world-building is so wide and deep. But it is bloated as fuck and can be a slog to get through.

[Anonymous No.10083985]

What is some sffg that tries to answer the question What Doth Life?

[Anonymous No.10084029]

>>10083772
In general /sffg/ has a fairly high % of good recs, though. Almost all the good books that I enjoyed were recommended or mentioned by other anons.

[Anonymous No.10084110]

>>10083317
But I actually read ....

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10084137]

>>10084110
I wanted to mention the 'pls rate my chart' guys but it seemed a little too sharp-tongued. Also space was at a premium.

[Anonymous No.10084179]

>>10084137
There are less than five posters in this general that charts.

[Anonymous No.10084183]

what are your thoughts on this one? pic related.
saw it on my local bookstore, is it good?

[Anonymous No.10084212]

>reading Once and Future King
>Really fun intro, lots of silly fun stuff
>Jousting begins
>Knights are so heavy their horses can barely move
>knights are so cumbersome their sword blows are like slow motion
>knights are so heavy to walk and run they have to lean forwards.
>if they lean too much forward or backward they will fall over
Literally REEEEEEEEEEE why can't this dumbest of all tropes fucking die? If there's one trope I want to erase from history it's this one. You just need to think for 2 seconds: "would you wear something to battle that makes it near impossible to move and might even leave you unable to get up should you lose your footing?" No? WELL THEN ARMOUR PROBABLY FUCKING WASN'T LIKE THAT.

[Anonymous No.10084220]

Any good horror audiobooks?

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10084255]

>>10084212
Michael Crichton echoes your criticism in "Timeline". I don't recall there being any definitive evidence presented but his primary argument was that knights would have been physical freaks. Much like NFL defensive ends now, I would imagine.

How far back in time do you think you'd have to go to ascertain one way or the other? I would guess before the introduction of the English longbow archers, so at least to the Hundred Years War. After archers, I would think the nobility would have been less predicated on physical prowess and more on the financial acumen that we're familiar with in the upper classes.

[Anonymous No.10084322]

>>10084255
>knights would have been physical freaks. Much like NFL defensive ends now
Just nah. Strong? Probably. The trick is A: the weight of a full armour is pretty evenly distributed around the body and thus making it easier to wear, (Like you can imagine, wearing a 10lb shirt is easier than lifting a 10lb dumbbell, specially if you can even take some weight away with a belt for instance)
and B: they were very agile and extremely flexible.
here's someone running in 50 pounds of armour: https://youtu.be/NqC_squo6X4?t=2113
the whole video is worth watching in general, at the 40min mark they're showing how flexible for instace the "boots" of an armour were, (spoiler: more flexible than your average modern shoe) I'm not sure if it's in that video or somewhere else, there are people straight up doing backflips in armour.

It's a dumb myth coming from movies and books, like the "yarrrrrr" pirate speech.

[Anonymous No.10084438]

Have you ever had a conversation where you say something so awkwardly that your mind kind of tries to retcon your memory so that you expressed yourself more eloquently?

Although I enjoyed Elantris, I got this feeling multiple times while reading the dialogue, where I would think "Oh, that was really awkward, it should have been expressed this way instead," and I would continue reading, imagining that my rewrite was how the dialogue was actually written.

Anyway, all this is to say that I found the dialogue and prose in Elantris to be below subpar, and I'm wondering if those are areas Sanderson has improved since.

Also, does anyone else get the feeling described above, or am I just crazy?

[Anonymous No.10084478]

>>10083321
That reminds me that Hardwired would be so much better if not for the awkward sex scenes.
I'm thankful Gibson realized he was no good at it and didn't write any more after Neuromancer.

[Anonymous No.10084480]

>>10084438
I've read enough shitty fanfiction that I've developed that ability. It feels kinda like real time translation, like I work at the UN or some shit.

On particular one was so godawful I think my brain fissioned into two layers. I'm talking mixed-tense, nonexistent grammar, insane spelling errors, hilariously bad descriptions, stilted cringy dialogue, and so much more. But after a while I started reading on multiple levels, essentially rewriting the story in my mind as I went, including imagining entire alternate scenes that somehow made the frequent 180 tone and character shifts make sense. Eventually the strain of essentially writing a book while reading it got too heavy and I stopped, but I got a good ~300K into it before then. Why I did it I'll never know, but that story just had something going for it deep underneath the shit, like it was a genuinely good idea just extremely poorly executed. Or maybe I was just fucking desperate for something to read.

Funnily enough ever since then I've had occasional moments where I can think multiple thoughts at the same time. I may have developed some sort of superpower from reading bad fanfiction written by a 10 year old filipino kid.

[Anonymous No.10084491]

>>10084480
>it was a genuinely good idea just extremely poorly executed
The tragedy of fanfiction.

[Anonymous No.10084535]

>>10084480
Well, that actually sounds like it could be a useful writing exer--
>~300k
LOCK HIM UP

[Anonymous No.10084573]

>>10082949
> but that he thought just finishing the series would be unlikely
Is this another wheel of time of our time? How many books there will be in the end? 15? 20?

[Anonymous No.10084605]

There's a con happening in my city tomorrow where Vernor Vinge will be answering questions by videochat. Is there anything I should ask him? never read any of his works btw, just know he's well-regarded

[Anonymous No.10084611]

>>10084605
Tell him to write more Queng Ho novels.
The tines suck.

[Anonymous No.10084617]

>>10084535
It's also a great example of the fanfic paradox. Where the more practice they get and the more time and effort they put in the worse their writing is.

The painful thing is, I can't feel superior to these shit hacs, because at least they've got a decent work ethic to pump out thousands of words a day every day for years, even if it is shit

[Anonymous No.10084621]

Good bread, particularly this>>10081027

[Anonymous No.10084634]

>>10083797
I won't sell you on it because you may not like it, but it's worth trying. See the comments above about his inconsistency as a writer.

In both tone and storytelling style, it's basically a hybrid of Black Company style military fantasy and ancient mythic epics like the Illiad.

He's for people that want a rewarding read with lots of amazing moments, and are willing to wade through lots of shit to get there.

Pros
Worldbuilding is massive and very unique despite roots as a table top RPG
The sheer scale of the plot
Consistency of theming
One of the more emotional fantasy series around, even though many of them are wooden, you will get attached to certain characters
Great prose later on in the series
It has lots of random cool shit that screams fantasy:
Floating cities, alternate dimensions, gods constantly interfering with mortals.
There's a fucking race of neanderthal humans who made themselves immortal through a crazy ritual just so they could wage eternal war against their enemy.
A sword that you can't let go of once you grip it, and revives you every time you die.
Undead raptors with swords for arms

Cons
Those same cool fantasy things can be really stupid sometimes
Worldbuilding may be large, but it's fairly shallow compared to other large series like WoT, GoT, LotR
Deus ex machina
Inconsistent characterisation and dialogue (some characters will make decisions for no reason, others will change suddenly in the space between a chapter because the plot demands it, some idiots will talk like educated scholars when Erikson needs a philosophical mouthpiece, etc)
Tendency to undercut some powerful moments with clunky overwrought writing and characterisation
Contrived plotting
Terrible pacing

[Anonymous No.10084666]

>>10084480
>>10084535
>>10084617
I've read some fanfiction written better than actual books.

[Anonymous No.10084691]

>>10083440
I have bad news for you, Anon.

[Anonymous No.10084714]

>>10083440
Gay.

[Anonymous No.10084861]

>>10083068
What does he claim he did?pls share ur wisdom mister

[Anonymous No.10084872]

>>10083317
>Escaping the bra, one swing at a time

[Anonymous No.10084875]

>>10083317
>no eugenio loboe on the cover
YOU HAD ONE FUCKING JOB

[Anonymous No.10084923]

>>10084322
I'm impressed by the engineering of the joints, especially the boots.

>>10084255
>>10084212
Some time ago on /fit/ someone posted a youtube video of a guy who showed the training program of a medieval knight, as described in his own words. It was almost exclusively mobility and explosivity work, to be able to be fast and have stamina while wearing their armor. These guys weren't slowpokes at all.

[Anonymous No.10084933]

>>10084480
>including imagining entire alternate scenes
I do this all the time in virtually every book I read. Dramatic or epic scenes that could have been added. it makes the reading much more enjoyable.
Although I realize that actually writing those things would result in an autistic YA level book.

[Anonymous No.10084946]

Great thread Redditors!

[Anonymous No.10084965]

>>10084183
Joe fumbled the ball for his work. The first law trilogy had A LOT of flaws, but it was his first novels so you gave him a lot of slack. I never liked those spin off bookx.

[Anonymous No.10084984]

>>10084605
Ask him why there were no puppy sluts getting pumped, and teenage space girls taking the knot in fire upon the deep.

[Anonymous No.10084998]

>>10083317
>tfw some autist is going to print that and make it into a real dust jacket

>>10084875
>no eugenio loboe on the cover
Why should he listen to your forced meme?

[Anonymous No.10085005]

>>10084946
Why you trying to fit in? You know we spot you guys from miles away.

[Anonymous No.10085018]

>>10084998
>gene wolfe
>forced meme
shame on you

[Anonymous No.10085025]

>>10084438
He's much better than he used to be. With the exception of the Wax and Wayne Mistborn books, every Sanderson novel has some awkward dialogue.

[Anonymous No.10085083]

>>10085018
The way you say it is a forced meme. If you said no gene wolfe it would be fine, but for the past few months you were trying to force eugenio loboe

[Anonymous No.10085096]

>>10085083
>for the past few months you were trying to force eugenio loboe
this was the first time I ever used it dickhead
you do understand that more than 2 people communicate on this thread don't you?

[Anonymous No.10085102]

>>10085096
You... you still haven't figured it out, my friend?

[Anonymous No.10085445]

Does /sffg/ like the RCN series?

[Anonymous No.10085495]

where do I go after book of the new sun and should I read the fifth book? I hear he wrote it for the retards who couldn't keep up

[Anonymous No.10085618]

>>10085495
How many times have you read it?

[Anonymous No.10085665]

So are there any Clarkesworld stories worth reading? Because so far it's juts a bunch of insecure cunts working through their sexual problems.

[Anonymous No.10085711]

What is the Metroid of /sff//lit/?

I want a lone protagonist against nature.

[Anonymous No.10085732]

>>10080195
Finally got around to reading this. Holy fuck its so good, are the other Cantos worth reading? (Just reached the Scholars Tale)

[Anonymous No.10085733]

>>10080378
>already out in UK
>some have already finished the book
>everyone else has to wait until 03.10
>no e-book version online to bridge the time

fuck the uk, its not fair :(
they could have at least upload they kindle versions.

[Anonymous No.10085743]

Name your most underrated and overrated authors.

Underrated: R.A. Lafferty.
Has a great ear for dialogue, and is one of the few SFF authors besides Gene Wolfe, Cordwainer Smith, and and John C. Wright who actually understands religion.

Overrated: CLifford Simak.
Had one great book (City), and a bunch of sentimentalist, agrarian pap with a naive "back-to-nature" message. And all of his fantasy novels were hot garbage.

[Anonymous No.10085748]

>>10085732
Read Fall of Hyperion at least, since SPOILER the first book ends on a cliffhanger.

[Anonymous No.10085770]

>The Dark Ability series

Jesus christ the writing in this shit, fuck.
If I wasn't so interested in the world and the magic and what happens I'd have dropped itin the first book

[Anonymous No.10085802]

>>10085743
I think Gene Wolfe is a little ovberrated. I can see why he impresses other people, but other than that, nothing I've read by him has been all that memorable.

[Anonymous No.10085806]

>>10085748
I think Amazon are making an adaptation of Hyperion now.

[Anonymous No.10085815]

>>10085802
Yeah, there's a reason nobody talks about his books besides the New Sun series.

[Anonymous No.10085822]

>>10085665
Clarkesworld is just a dumping ground for Creative Writing faggots.

[Anonymous No.10085840]

>>10081227
Actually, he got help from some friend sin another planet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0AOEj_JKOQ

[Anonymous No.10085848]

>>10085806
Are they? Could work if theres individual episodes for each characters and their interactions with the Shrike

[Anonymous No.10085875]

>>10084611
A Deepness in the Sky dragged like fuck. Could and should have been shortened by a third.

[Anonymous No.10085891]

>>10085732
I liked them and found them entertaining, although the constant references to John Keats really began to get on my fucking nerves.

[Anonymous No.10085895]

Are there any good scifi/fantasy books with cbt in them administered by a cute girl? Closest I've gotten was reading the murthe where rhithalio and his pal behave like immature schoolboys while all their wizard friends get slowly turned into girls, but that was mainly comedy and there was no cbt just their manhood being taken away

[Anonymous No.10085954]

>>10085895
Literotica.com

[Anonymous No.10085977]

>>10085954
no it has to be in a book from a renowned scifi/fantasy author
I don't want it to be the sole focus of the writing

[Anonymous No.10086026]

>>10085977
In BotNS it's mentioned that the female torturers were crueler than the males.

[Anonymous No.10086042]

Anyone have a link to the "Analsybarite Killhousr" PoN review?

[Anonymous No.10086050]

>>10086026
you mean the witches guild? I'm pretty sure the guild of the torturers didn't allow females to be members after a certain period in their history
forgive me if I'm wrong but its been a while since I read it

[Anonymous No.10086061]

>>10086050
In the early days they had female torturers but later they got shifted over to the witches.

I actually forgot what the witches were, was it just some weird BDSM club?

[Anonymous No.10086062]

>>10085770
>reading shitty DK Holmberg books

Anon NO!

[Anonymous No.10086086]

>>10086061
It's all that I could think about for >>10085895
I'm fairly sure they're not a BDSM club, although it is still possible.

[Anonymous No.10086144]

>>10083797
>>10083797
It's one of the better recent fantasy epics. Many good moments, much mediocrity, but that's expected from a series so absurdly long. If you like darker fantasy, and have read a decent bit of fantasy in general, you'll probably appreciate his long commentaries on fantasy tropes and how he tries to subvert them in his story. It can be a bit hard to read though, because Erikson expects you to read between the lines and figure out what is going on, he hates exposition with a passion. Lots of people get confused and drop it in Gardens (which is admittedly, the weakest book in the series) and I can't blame them, but the mystery of the setting is imo one the funnest parts of reading it, and carries it through his questionable prose.

[Anonymous No.10086183]

>>10086062
I'm already on the 2nd one and I can't stop
I need to find out how the series ends
Help me

[Anonymous No.10086191]

>>10081207
Any examples of it besides this >>10081105 shit?

[Anonymous No.10086204]

>>10086191
Snow Crash

[Anonymous No.10086242]

>>10085840
>>10081227
>>10080378

[Anonymous No.10086347]

Had there been any fantasy novel in a modern made up world with its continents, countries, technology and ideologies? I'm not talking about sci fi, I'm talking about someone creating a full blown universe similar to the one we're living in right now with its current level of technological advancement.

[Anonymous No.10086363]

Just bought this, what am I in for?

[Anonymous No.10086365]

>>10086347
I'm writing one set in a world with modern technology but where feudalism still exists.

It's less grimdark than it sounds.

[Anonymous No.10086379]

>>10086365
Tell me more

[Anonymous No.10086380]

>>10080195
>no horror charts in sight
>still claims that horror is a subset of sff
mhmm...

[Anonymous No.10086394]

>>10086380
That doesn't say much because this place doesn't have enough charts in general. There's not even a GRI chart, or this >>10080424

[Anonymous No.10086395]

>>10086380
Make one you ungrateful munchkin.

[Anonymous No.10086404]

>>10086363
An epic meme

[Anonymous No.10086421]

>>10086379
The country the story is set in is a monarchy but the monarchy is currently pretty weak. Centuries of give-and-take have made the provision of services that we take for granted (thanks to our centralised states) a Kafkaesque mindfuck of bureaucracy. For example, even something simple like roads is the joint responsibility of the king, the fiefs, and the commoners. Some roads are owned and maintained directly by the monarch - but not necessarily the big ones. An old road from 400 years ago that was once crucial for getting armies around when the borders were different and that is now little more than a dirt track in the middle of flyover country might be directly owned by the monarch, whereas a new modern highway put in between two cities might be owned by various aristocrats in bits and pieces who all had to pay to get it built, and whose various lands it runs through. Taxes are a nightmare - you don't just pay taxes to the state government and the federal government, for example. You have to pay taxes to your lord, but if you're a truck driver driving through other counties you might have to pay duties or you might not depending on the specific rules of each fief and what the monarch is letting them get away with. And so on.

Serfdom is still very much around, but serfs work office jobs instead of fields. A city fiefdom might be a few city blocks and the serfs who live there can't move outside of the block without the lord's permission, stuck in the same complex of 5 apartment buildings for their whole life.

I'm still not entirely sure where I'm going with it but I want to get across the message that feudal life wasn't terrible, just different to what we're used to - and a product of its time. I think setting it in a modern setting might help audiences understand that, and understand why we live differently in the modern world and why feudalism made sense when it was around (in most respects).

[Anonymous No.10086459]

>>10080728
this >>10080749
Bakker has a good rate, and regularly posts some cozy stuff on his blog. Even then, he can't ever Herbert or GURM us because the main series is finished.
>>10082832
>you will never be forced into a black carapace by The Mutilated
Why live?

[Anonymous No.10086460]

If I'm of below average intelligence, how do I fully appreciate and understand The Silmarillion and thoroughly realise what Tolkien is trying to do. Its all THE FALL MORTALITY SUB CREATION THE ENEMY THE MACHINE DOMINATION DESTRUCTION >tfw no traditional strictly english stories CHRISTIANITY PAGANISM etc
I can remember facts, the nomenclature of the naming system and the progression of a story but as for the deeper meaning of any of it I can't get my head around no matter how many times I read what he has wrote.
How do I fully understand and appreciate tolkiens works?

[Anonymous No.10086480]

>>10085743
Underrated Leigh Brackett, An author of golden age/pulp era adventure stories and planetary romances, tautly plotted, hard-boiled, violent and exotic. Michael Moorcock seems to be influenced by her style.

Overrated Frank Herbert. Plodding prose, clunky dialogue and bloated storytelling that sucks the life out of interesting ideas and worldbuilding.

[Anonymous No.10086496]

>>10086421
that actually seems pretty interesting anon. Personally, I was wondering if someone had ever done high fantasy in a modern setting; that is, instead of swords and war horses, you have guns and tanks. I'm asking whether this happened because if an author was to do that, he wouldn't have the advantage of giving the setting a limited history due to the limited knowledge of the people inhabiting it as is the case in your typical medieval fantasy series. He would have to come up with unambiguous, detailed histories of his countries and while writing he will have to account for ideology, communication technology, and the role of public opinion in shaping events, all factors that could complicate the plot beyond what is common in even the most complex of high fantasy novels.

Good luck anyway anon. Is there somewhere we can read an excerpt or something?

[Anonymous No.10086498]

>>10086459
>ywn be possessed by aurang and forced to have sex until you're mindbroken

[Anonymous No.10086505]

>>10086459
> the main series is finished.
Wut? TUC has huge cliffhanger.

[Anonymous No.10086513]

>>10086496
It's not ready to be shown yet, but maybe someday.

But yes, worldbuilding is my jam. I may not be very good at it but I enjoy doing it. The world isn't totally realistic (feudalism fell for a reason, obviously. A centralised state has massive advantages over a feudal one) but I'm hoping it's interesting enough to be worth looking at anyway.

Basically my explanation for why feudalism persists is just that every time someone's tried to pursue enlightenment ideals they've failed due to plain bad luck.

[Anonymous No.10086532]

>>10086513
>(feudalism fell for a reason, obviously. A centralised state has massive advantages over a feudal one)

The only real advantage is for the state itself, which has more power to leverage. The death of feudalism was driven by ideology, primarily.

>Basically my explanation for why feudalism persists is just that every time someone's tried to pursue enlightenment ideals they've failed due to plain bad luck.

Or because "enlightenment ideals" are themselves naive and faulty.

[Anonymous No.10086536]

>>10086505
Where were you when Akka literally, indisputably won TUC?

[Anonymous No.10086544]

>>10086532
>The death of feudalism was driven by ideology, primarily.
On the contrary. The death of feudalism was driven by its inefficiency. Central control lets you make bigger, better armies. States either centralised, or were conquered and incorporated into states that were centralised.

Feudalism is specific to a time and place. It's not an ideology, it's a system.

[Anonymous No.10086554]

>>10086544
>States either centralised, or were conquered and incorporated into states that were centralised.

...and were then broken apart by the inherint ethnic and cultural divisions and political resentment that comes from a contralized, absoulte state.

[Anonymous No.10086558]

>>10086554
Not really.

All of us today live in incredibly centralised states.

[Anonymous No.10086568]

>>10086460
Any of the following.

>Read the Bible and other Catholic lit
>Read biographical stuff on Tolkien
>Read On Translating Beowulf
>Read someone else who understands as in read some essays on LotR or the Simarillion

[Anonymous No.10086572]

>>10086554
Are you a time traveller?

[Anonymous No.10086584]

>>10086558
And all of those states are failing and breaking down into more regional governments, if they have not already broken off.

[Anonymous No.10086587]

>>10083068
this whole series is trash

[Anonymous No.10086590]

i feel dirty /lit/.
i know im a pleb yet i cant stop myself.
i listened to the builders sword 1 and super sales on super heroes as audiobooks and even though they werent greatly written i now have this inner urge for scifi or fantasy books where the protag gets his own harem because i enjoyed them very much. so much so that im waiting for the sequel to super heros and the audiobook version of builders sword 2.
recommend me some books preferably with audiobook versions that are exactly like them.

[Anonymous No.10086593]

>>10086584
>And all of those states are failing and breaking down into more regional governments, if they have not already broken off.
Okay.

[Anonymous No.10086597]

>>10086584
Could you cite any examples of this other than Yugoslavia?

[Anonymous No.10086598]

>>10086593
Nigga, look at the EU right now.

[Anonymous No.10086599]

>>10086597
America

[Anonymous No.10086626]

>>10086598
Even if scotland gets its independence, Spain is going to do everything to cockblock them from getting into the EU from fear of Catalonia seceding. The EU isn't a nation state in any sense, just a badly implemented dream of cosmopolitans, a trimming down would probably be healthy to it.

>>10086599
Regionalism has always been a very American thing. States disobeying federal laws is something remarkable, though.

[Anonymous No.10086632]

>>10086590
>i now have this inner urge for scifi or fantasy books where the protag gets his own harem because i enjoyed them very much
>wink wink nudge nudge

[Anonymous No.10086642]

Anyone here read these? What's the verdict?

[Anonymous No.10086647]

>>10081909
oh man someone else wants to talk about Anathem

[Anonymous No.10086676]

>>10086496
That's actually my thing too and I'm planning on starting a thread at NaNoWriMo for it. The Japs tend to write that stuff way more than we do, stuff like Pilot's Love Song, Wings of Honneamise, Kino's Journey, some Final Fantasy and Ace Combat games I guess. Anathem's a good recent example of a Westerner pulling it off.

You're exactly right about how complicated it is. I started off wanting to write a high fantasy and then let myself think about how cool it would be if there was heavy machinery and it's spiraled out of control since then, as our present world has so much going into it.

What would you even call this? I say secondary-world modern-tech when I want to describe it, technically I guess you could say urban fantasy but that makes you think of bad vampire noir.

[Anonymous No.10086689]

>>10086062
they're not too bad man

[Anonymous No.10086732]

>>10086676
Just call it what it is. Alternate history.

[Anonymous No.10086737]

redpill me on the Traitor Baru Cormorant

[Anonymous No.10086752]

>>10086732
But that's for what-ifs and Harry Turtledove.

[Anonymous No.10086763]

>>10086676
Yeah you would think someone must've thought about doing that.
Just think of the potential: a world with private military companies, Singapore-tier city states, industrial powers with apocalyptic theocrats as leaders, all vying for power in a geopolitical contest with some influential characters wielding magic to influence events and form their own isis-esque cults. There could even be magical equivalents to nuclear weapons.

But as I said, it would be incredibly hard to pull off. Epic fantasy is complex enough as it. Add to it modern technology and our complicated governmental structures and you could lose control of the plot pretty easily.

[Anonymous No.10086771]

Are there any good series similar to SMT in setting? Not necessarily cyberpunk.

[Anonymous No.10086783]

>>10086763
Can you believe one of the most popular shonen fightin manga has been doing that for years?

[Anonymous No.10086802]

>>10086783
Anime is trash though

[Anonymous No.10086804]

>>10086802
its manga

[Anonymous No.10086808]

>>10086802
Anime is trash, but manga is pretty good.

[Anonymous No.10086813]

>>10086808
Is that true? I've never watched anime but my brother keeps telling me that manga can be unironically complex and engaging

[Anonymous No.10086855]

>>10086813
Yes. Even some shounen (this is supposed to be kids stuff by the way.) can surprise you at times. I pity the people who won't read Berserk because they saw something like DBZ one time and thought it was lame, or think anime/manga is harem otaku shit which is like believing all lit is airport tier YA romance.

>Things they won't or can't air on television (if it does, lots of censorship)
>All sorts of genres.
>Great art that gets watered down on television; no animation budget to worry about. A lot less generic.
>Made by one person, so it's less likely to be a retarded jumble of continuity or a series of contradictory one shots like western comics.
>Some retarded exposition techniques and pacing in anime is an attempt to remain faithful to the manga's presentation, but it works in comic format.

Sturgeon's Law still applies though.

[Anonymous No.10086861]

Today's CAS excerpt is from the Isle Of The Torturers, a Zothique story beginning with a deadly malady.

---

Between the sun's departure and return, the Silver Death had fallen upon Yoros. Its advent, however, had been foretold in many prophecies, both immemorial and recent. Astrologers had said that this mysterious malady, heretofore unknown on earth, would descend from the great star, Achernar, which presided balefully over all the lands of the southern continent of Zothique; and having sealed the flesh of a myriad men with its bright, metallic pallor, the plague would still go onward in time and space, borne by the dim currents of ether to other worlds.

Dire was the Silver Death; and none knew the secret of its contagion or the cure. Swift as the desert wind, it came into Yoros from the devastated realm of Tasuun, overtaking the very messengers who ran by night to give warning of its nearness. Those who were smitten felt an icy, freezing cold, an instant rigor, as if the outermost gulf had breathed upon them. Their faces and bodies whitened strangely, gleaming with a wan luster, and became stiff as long-dead corpses, all in an interim of minutes.

In the streets of Silpon and Siloar, and in Faraad, the capital of Yoros, the plague passed like an eery, glittering light from countenance to countenance under the golden lamps; and the victims fell where they were stricken; and the deathly brightness remained upon them.

The loud, tumultuous public carnivals were stifled by its passing, and the merry-makers were frozen in frolic attitudes. In proud mansions, the wine-flushed revelers grew pale amid their garish feasts, and reclined in their opulent chairs, still holding the half-emptied cups with rigid fingers. Merchants lay in their counting-houses on the heaped coins they had begun to reckon; and thieves, entering later, were unable to depart with their booty. Diggers died in the half completed graves they had dug for others; but no one came to dispute their possession.

There was no time to flee from the strange, inevitable scourge. Dreadfully and quickly, beneath the clear stars, it breathed upon Yoros; and few were they who awakened from slumber at dawn. Fulbra, the young king of Yoros, who had but newly suceeeded to the throne, was virtually a ruler without a people.

[Anonymous No.10086864]

>>10086642
I liked them when I was fifteen.

I only remember the plots for the second book and the book with the furries though.

[Anonymous No.10086878]

>>10086380
>hull zero three
>let the right one in
>The Strain Trilogy
Those are on my chart and they are horror.

[Anonymous No.10086882]

>>10086242
Somebody post this in fit.

[Anonymous No.10086897]

>>10086763
All the more glory for whoever does pull it off though.

Needs a name.

[Anonymous No.10086902]

>>10086380
I have no clue how to make a chart, but I'll try to make one for you desu.

I've read more horror than is good for a sane person, so you can ask me for recs.

[Anonymous No.10086948]

>>10086626
>Spain is going to do everything to cockblock them from getting into the EU from fear of Catalonia seceding

The fact that the Catalonia succession is even a threat proves my point.

[Anonymous No.10086957]

>>10086808
>>10086813

Hey faggots, "anime" and "manga" are broad and encompass any number of individual works, just like "film" and "literature" do.

[Anonymous No.10086983]

>>10086957
anime is extremely homogenous desu

[Anonymous No.10086996]

>>10086983
Where do you think you are?

[Anonymous No.10086997]

>>10086957
manga is an extremely niche sub genre of literature

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10087014]

>>10086460
What would constitute 'fully appreciating' Tolkien's work? Divining every last shred of his personal code from analysis of his fiction, assuming it actually is a metaphor? Even if you could, what then? You can't engage him on it and he definitely disowned it as such.
If you're after philosophy, why not read philosophy?
>write a children's story
>well received
>write a trilogy set in the same world but with adult themes
>quite popular
>add backstory and expand fictional universe to fill demand
>time runs out
To me, creating some complex web of deciphered metaphors to share and compete with other fanatics is just mental wankery, unless you're doing it in the context of writing your own fiction. If that constitutes evidence of above-average intelligence then pleb4lyfe.

>>10086380
>>10086394
>>10080424
1. GRI/xeno is just a fetish subgenre. Charts, as used here, denote a degree of quality above the general noisefloor. If you want the subset of speculative fiction that includes abnormal sexual intercourse, then use a search engine.
2. Horror has a decent argument. Make a chart. Prepare to duel CASbro with pistols at dawn if Lovecraft isn't on it.
>I hope he wins because I like the excerpts

[Anonymous No.10087023]

Can we make Donkey go back? What would we need to do? Can he take wordart with him?

[Anonymous No.10087029]

>>10086997
It's a medium you retard. And still less niche than genre fiction.

[Anonymous No.10087035]

>>10086997
How can a subgenre contain multiple genres?
It's got everything from little girls eating cakes, to scifi retellings of all's quiet on the western front, to post cybergoth crypto-punk gamersynth. there are even shows cramed with so many quotes and references to literature that they might as well be audiobooks.

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10087060]

>>10086861
Hmm, curiouser and curiouser. Vance and GRRM both used this 'plague star' concept: Vance more abstractly within "The Dragon Masters" and GRRM more literally within "Tuf Voyaging".
>Diggers died in the half complete graves they had dug for others; but not one came to dispute their possession.
Memorable. I might offer this change:
>. . . others; none came to dispute their possession.

[Anonymous No.10087101]

>>10086997
Extremely niche but outsells any other "genre" of literature, if you count it as one. Makes u think

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10087107]

>>10086421
>mfw a modern tollroad is probably the same thing as its feudal counterpart but with an 'administrative' corporation obscuring the aristocrats siphoning off the bloodstream of commerce

[Anonymous No.10087112]

>>10087060
Dragon Masters is on my unread pile. The plague star idea is a good one, and the basic idea turns up a lot in CAS, not necessarily as central ideas but as background detail - diseases from falling stars, as well as demons (I like this idea even more.) Remember also Lovecraft's Colour Out Of Space with its weird comet that transforms a farmstead; unusually big and rotten crops, gyrating trees, livestock crumbling to dust. I think it was just a common weird fiction trope, but Lovecraft is the earliest instance I know of the idea.

[Anonymous No.10087115]

Just give me some escapism with a hero that goes from incompetent/weak to strong/competent, with a fixed pov.

[Anonymous No.10087127]

>>10086421
>Centuries of give-and-take have made the provision of services that we take for granted (thanks to our centralised states)
Most of which were provided at a state or municipal level before they became federalized.

[Anonymous No.10087128]

>>10087115
Red Rising.

[Anonymous No.10087133]

>>10087128
>Darrow
>Ever incompetent/weak

Faggot went from being a super smart low class slave miner to a super smart and strong gold faggot.

[Anonymous No.10087138]

>>10087133
He's always competent but not always strong. I figured it's good for escapism not to spend too long in the weak phase.

[Anonymous No.10087143]

>>10084605
Tell him to write more and faster.

[Anonymous No.10087144]

>>10087128
Would prefer something with elements of mysticism at the very least. Preferably fantasy.
>>10087138
No has to be a useless person at the beginning. Child is fine too

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10087155]

>>10087112
>. . . as well as demons (I like this idea even more.)
Yes, that does give one a shiver. I can't say I've read Hubbard but isn't that concept sort of what Scientology is rooted in? The concept of space souls taking possession or something. Anyhoo, quite creepifying.

[Anonymous No.10087169]

>>10087014
>add backstory and expand fictional universe to fill demand

Most of that was written before The Hobbit and LOTR as a personal hobby.

[Anonymous No.10087179]

Why is tolkiens lore considered deep? It's pretty cohesive and well thought out, but depth of lore refers to quantity and detail, not quality

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10087186]

>>10087169
Sort of like any fiction writer who starts with short stories. Still, he was cleaning it up and presenting it to the market because 'zomg elves!' were demanding it. You can point up any popular author and see that phenomenon: the avaricious go rooting through their effects to publish whatever they put down on paper.

[Anonymous No.10087187]

>>10087115
Silver on the Road
The Lion of Senet
Like 80% of Lackey novels
Cradle or House of Blade by Will Wight
Drenai if you read in chronological order
Deathstalker kinda (he's trained but he's been neglecting himself for years)
Anything by B.V. Larson
Dragonbone Chair
The Lives of Tao (ultimate pathetic protag)
Magician
Dark Magician's Trilogy
Thomas Covenant kinda
Godspeaker
Blood Song
Lies of Locke Lamora (but it's non-linear and each sequel is worse than the last)
Codex Alera (but it sucks)
Brent Weeks (but he sucks)

Supposedly Bloodsounder's arc but I got bored in book 1
The Long Ships for historical fiction

[Anonymous No.10087188]

>men can't read

bravo sanderson

[Anonymous No.10087193]

>>10087187
That's a lot of books. Can you recommend one or two? Are any of these not YA?

[Anonymous No.10087195]

>>10087188
This is also true irl. Only women read recreationally at least

[Anonymous No.10087200]

>>10087195
But we're not girls.

[Anonymous No.10087202]

>>10087200
I am. And honestly I seriously doubt you aren't.

[Anonymous No.10087203]

>>10087155
I don't know about Hubbard, except from hearsay and second hand erudition. I'd like to hear from somebody who has read his science fiction. Not long ago I passed up a big table full of second hand paperbacks from him. Given that Ron was born in 1911, he would be just the right age to be absorbing Weird Tales in its late 20s/early prime, including demons, madness and diseases from comets/stars - as well as Lovecraft's space-borne Great Old Ones. I've no idea if he even read Lovecraft, but it seems likely.

The hearsay I heard was that Theodore Sturgeon was in the room when Hubbard decided to create a religion, when he was complaining about being hard up and not making enough money on fiction.

[Anonymous No.10087207]

>>10087193
None are explicitly YA but a couple lean towards it. Blood Song is a really good power fantasy but the sequels are kinda ehh, it's the best fit for the specific request you made.

Dragonbone chair is super good but super slow and LoLL is a very fun read.

I forgot to list Dawn of Wonder which is another lesser entry in that list.

[Anonymous No.10087238]

>>10087115
Keys to the Kingdom

[Anonymous No.10087239]

>>10087207
I picked up blood song. Thanksanon

[Anonymous No.10087248]

>>10084220
Books of Blood

[Anonymous No.10087249]

>>10087195
Does several hundred thousand, maybe millions, of words of smutty greentext fanfics count?

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10087255]

>>10087203
>The hearsay I heard was that Theodore Sturgeon was in the room when Hubbard decided to create a religion, when he was complaining about being hard up and not making enough money on fiction.

I too have read that somewhere, although without recalling if it was Sturgeon. I vaguely recall it having something to do with Harlan Ellison.

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10087317]

>>10087203
>>10087255
Yeah, here is Ellison telling Robin Williams about it:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9AGVARpqdk

Not that I'd take Ellison as gospel, mind you; He's too much the showman to trust implicitly. Entertaining as hell to listen to, though.

[Anonymous No.10087321]

>>10087255
It is interesting how Hubbard threw space opera stuff into a religion

>Xenu, also called Xemu, was, according to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who 75 million years ago brought billions of his people to Earth (then known as "Teegeeack") in DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes, and killed them with hydrogen bombs. Official Scientology scriptures hold that the thetans (immortal spirits) of these aliens adhere to humans, causing spiritual harm.

>Xenu was about to be deposed from power, so he devised a plot to eliminate the excess population from his dominions. With the assistance of psychiatrists, he gathered billions of his citizens under the pretense of income tax inspections, then paralyzed them and froze them in a mixture of alcohol and glycol to capture their souls. The kidnapped populace was loaded into spacecraft for transport to the site of extermination, the planet of Teegeeack (Earth).

[Anonymous No.10087340]

>>10087014
I'm working on the chart. It probably won't be ready until the next thread though. I'm learning paint.net as I go along.

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10087347]

>>10087321
Aha, not so much 'plague star space demons' so much as prison colony.

One wonders why Xenu didn't save himself some transport and bomb costs and simply sling some stacked corpses into a star or event horizon.

[Donkey !HOTAY/zB0Y No.10087359]

>>10087340
I'd recommend PS; I had a cracked CS5 laying about so I installed it--might as well learn the industry standard even for silly stuff. PDN is a lot of kludgy plugins and the community forums reads like the gentooier parts of /g/.

[Anonymous No.10087416]

>>10081625
It’s an enjoyable and there’s a fair amount of action, but next to no space battles that I can recall. It’s mostly meatbag vs meatbag if that’s what you’re into.

[Anonymous No.10087461]

>>10084183
Is that will smiths son on the front cover?

[Anonymous No.10087544]

>>10087347
Will do.

Does anyone have suggestions for the chart? I've got most of the dinosaurs covered plus a couple King books and The Haunting of Hill House.

[Anonymous No.10087613]

>tfw no qt insecure morgan gf that would love me

[Anonymous No.10087687]

>>10087014
>Charts, as used here, denote a degree of quality above the general noisefloor.
Murrhurrhurr

[Anonymous No.10088078]

So I'm reasonably sure about this but I haven't been able to find verification online: The apparent first-person narration in The Death of Dr. Island is actually a first-person narration by the other half of Nick's brain, right?

>>10087202
I find the idea that 4chan is made up almost exclusively of girls RPing as guys unreasonably hilarious.

[Anonymous No.10088172]

I've finished Dune and it was good. Are the sequels better, worse, or the same?

[Anonymous No.10088182]

>>10088172

[Anonymous No.10088189]

>>10088172
just finished messiah. it's pretty good but it's a lot slower paced. it was kind of difficult to get through the first 75% or so. but after having finished it, i definitely think it's worth the read.

i probably won't be going any further than that though.

[Anonymous No.10088201]

>>10088182
I think I'll just wiki the summaries of messiah, children and god emperor

[Anonymous No.10088202]

>>10087248
Thank you

[Anonymous No.10088232]

AUDIOBOOKBAY IS DOWN WTF

[Anonymous No.10088277]

>>10085732
Once you start this place there is no good place to stop. They gradually get worse, so once you're not enjoying it, feel free to stop.

The first book literally stops without an ending.
The second book has an ending so absolutely retarded that I prefer the non-ending of the first book.
The third doesn't stand alone well enough and retcons things from the first two.
The fourth is shit, but has an interesting ending. It still doesn't make much sense or close the series well, as it retcons even more from earlier books.

[Anonymous No.10088280]

>>10082415
Swap Silmarillon and Children of Hurin.
Ideally, it's Hobbit-LOTR-Silmarillion- and once again through LOTR to pick up on all the little things that suddenly make so much more sense now that you know.

[Anonymous No.10088285]

How's Faithful and the Fallen?

I've been hearing a lot of good about it. I've also been burned too many times by recent hyped series like Blood Song or Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, basically being YA with flat Mary Sue protagonists.

[Anonymous No.10088290]

>>10088232
>>10088232
alternatives?

[Anonymous No.10088294]

>>10088232
>>10088290
WAT DO
I don't really want to be "interviewed" by some neet to get into myanonamouse, but I can't find any other place to torrent audiobooks. Maybe a mirror will crop up in a day or two.

[Anonymous No.10088304]

>>10088290
>>10088294
how am i supposed to listen to the dying earth books now
i dont want to pay $100 for the privilege

[Anonymous No.10088305]

>>10088294
I don't HAVE a day or two, are there no alternatives? How come I can't just download the damn site? It's just a bunch of hashes and titles

[Anonymous No.10088308]

>>10088305
you need the site to download the site

[Anonymous No.10088336]

>>10088201
i wish i did the same.
>>10088182
suffered all the way through god emperor and it was getting dumber with every page.

[Anonymous No.10088375]

>>10088304
i can think of 5 different ways but i'm not going to bother to tell you

[Anonymous No.10088378]

>>10088375
ok, thanks for letting me know

[Anonymous No.10088384]

>>10088378
Your welcomb.

[Anonymous No.10088439]

>>10086737
It's good.

[Anonymous No.10088443]

>>10088308
It can be done?

[Anonymous No.10088516]

Use this when you guys ready.
>>10088515
>>10088515
>>10088515