/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

[Anonymous No.13278088]

MYTHOLOGY EDITION
>What are you currently reading?
>What are your favorite retellings?

Monthly Reading for June: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Monthly Reading books: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15ZwgDZVXB-nLqjbgcqgntZDyTddd0eqP

Fantasy:
https://imgoat.com/uploads/0935e4cd59/105363.jpg
https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21328.jpg
Flowchart:
https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21327.jpg

Science Fiction:
https://imgoat.com/uploads/def184ad8f/124507.jpg
https://imgoat.com/uploads/b44928ae11/114401.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

SF&F author listing with ratings and summaries:
http://greatsfandf.com/authors-full-list.php


Previously:
>>13265641
>>13250604
>>13236170
>>13218759
>>13207401

[Anonymous No.13278167]

I asked this near the end of the other thread but maybe too late.

Is there any other sci-fi as simultaneously grimy, sex-drugs-rock-and-roll, depraved and violent, and simultaneously heartfelt as Vurt?

Or fantasy, for that matter. The Black Company gets close but it's not as frenetic or as surreal.

[Anonymous No.13278169]

>>13278088

[Anonymous No.13278179]

/sffg/ im getting tired of saying "I wish I had the willpower to write." I just need to do it and vomit words onto a page as if im trying to turn in an essay. no regard for quality, no angsting, no rereading, just fucking go time

[Anonymous No.13278189]

>>13278167
For fantasy, try The Darkness that Comes Before.

[Anonymous No.13278190]

>>13278179
Then, go and do so? What's the problem?

[Anonymous No.13278222]

>>13278179
Set a goal for yourself to write a certain amount every day and do it no matter how terrible it ends up. Just write anything.

[Anonymous No.13278245]

>>13278222
that's the plan. I can write 500 words a day easily, and will likely write 1000 most days. I just need to be clinically detatched enough to write without caring if its good enough

[Anonymous No.13278272]

>>13278245
If you're writing 500 to 1000 words a day, I say that's pretty good already. Now would be the best time to start confronting the reader, and not shy away from criticism.

[Anonymous No.13278282]

>>13278245
You can also do what Asimov did and intentionally cultivate a very straightforward, unembellished writing style, so that if you have your plot laid out, you can just write and know your first draft will be almost ready.

[Anonymous No.13278295]

>>13278169
Just read Mort as my first discworld book. I see people on here (including the charts) recommending Carpe Jugulum a lot, is it possible to go straight into it? or should i read the story line books leading up to it like your chart suggests?

[Anonymous No.13278307]

[Anonymous No.13278341]

[Anonymous No.13278362]

>>13278307
>June
We don't pay you to be this lazy monthly anon.

[Anonymous No.13278379]

>>13278362
I won't have access to the .psd file until tomorrow night. You people simply post to much.

[Anonymous No.13278390]

>>13278088
>>What are you currently reading?
War Factory (Transformation #2) by Neal Asher
I knew there would be graphic depictions of body horror and other stuff, based on reading the first book. But this depiction of rape-y alien crustacean sex, sex life and sexual psychology is starting to get a little gratuitous. Other than that, pretty fun.

>>13278295
I would suggest starting with Wyrd Sisters. I don't really get why Carpe Jugulum would be suggested above the previous four.

[Anonymous No.13278412]

>>13278179
This isn't your blog writefag. Write your book and post the name here, or fuck off.

[Anonymous No.13278432]

>>13278295
You'll be missing the background and character development from the earlier books, but nothing critical. There's continuity, but the stories are self-contained.

[Anonymous No.13278447]

What's the best "first book in a series" to come out so far this year?

[Anonymous No.13278521]

>>13278088
Recently I finished Edge of Eons, a self-published diamond dozen Western wuxia-type deal. It had well writing in some parts, other parts were trope-y (one character always has a grin, etc.) but the main character is written well enough. The story involves a police officer getting killed and isekai'd to Eon, a world of cultivation due to a dragon god calling in people from "other realms" to fight for him. The story is definitely average, and gets better as it goes along but plateaus. The finale isn't too bad and the epilogue is nice (very short PoV from the town MC & Friends are traveling to of another police officer MC knew who randomly disappeared years previously). One thing that aggravated me was the lack of consistency regarding pronouns, i.e., sometimes uppercase and sometimes lowercase.

>https://www.amazon.com/Edge-Eons-Cultivation-Novel-Archives-ebook/dp/B07R5JK32T

A few days back, I finished Towers of Heaven. It was definitely litRPG to the max but the stat screens weren't too obtrusive. Involves MC going back in time to try and save the world, isn't deus ex machina'ing everything yet--just seems to know where to train and how to train effeciently, which is nice. However the underlying plot is fucking boring so far and it's overall a mediocre read. Shame to see the concept squandered so.

>https://www.amazon.com/Towers-Heaven-Book-Cameron-Milan-ebook/dp/B07QH93BMR/

[Anonymous No.13278533]

>>13278390
>Transformation #2) by Neal Asher
A fellow Neal Asher fag I see.
I like Jane technology the best. Building almost anything, and ripping substances from the universe to do it is the best.

[Anonymous No.13278579]

>>13278088
How do you say "Sanderfag a hack" in your mother tongue anons?

[Anonymous No.13278647]

>>13278390
is this becauseequal rites bad or is it just unnecessary?

also (as a general question) how is the colour of magic? is it worth while? quite interrested in reading it since its the very first one and i liked mort quite a lot.

[Anonymous No.13278705]

>What are you currently reading?
Pic related, I mentioned it in the last thread but I want to shill it because it is good. I would recommend it to anyone who isn't put off by a somewhat in-your-face Catholicism which isn't entirely out of place given its occult urban fantasy setting.

>Favorite retellings?
The Once and Future King

[Anonymous No.13278738]

>>13278533
It's only the second book I've read of him. But I'll definitely finish the Transformation trilogy at least.

>>13278647
It is because Equal Rites, Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic are the first 3 books published in the series, just before Mort. And so the worldbuilding and feel of the series wasn't quite there yet. They are good but aren't representative of what the series grew into. In the case of Equal Rites only one of the 3 Witches is extensively featured.
BUT if you liked Mort you can always read the first books and go from there. I just suggested Wyrd Witches because you seemed intent on reading Carpe Jugulum.

[Anonymous No.13278855]

>>13278282
Asimov got away with that because of the way he wrote his plots. Almost every Asimov story reads like a mystery, even the ones that aren't explicitly mysteries. The resolutions usually depend on the unveiling of some piece of information that resolves the conflict, with the plot points and twists mostly depending on the progressive reveal of details that bring the protagonists closer to the truth. So the bare, efficient prose works because it's appropriate for a style of storytelling where the drama depends on ideas being explained clearly and unambiguously.

While I like Asimov, I wouldn't ape his style of writing unless you also wanted to ape his plots. You couldn't easily write something epic, or action-oriented, or character driven in Asimov's style.

[Anonymous No.13278867]

>>13278088
>What are you currently reading?
Pattern by KJ Parker (book #2 in The Scavenger trilogy)

>>13278705
I looked up the author and pic related is the first thing i saw, so you'll have to find someone else to shill this book to.

[Anonymous No.13278887]

[Anonymous No.13278909]

Anyone got anything like John C. Wright's Count to Infinity? Holy moley what a ride

[Anonymous No.13278932]

>>13278867
Wright is incredible, and this is someone who stopped reading genre fiction at like 16

[Anonymous No.13278963]

>>13278932
If you don't read genre fiction why should anyone take your genre fiction recommendation seriously?

[Anonymous No.13278972]

Is Greg Egan good?

Is he posting here?
Yes.

[Anonymous No.13278987]

>>13278909
Baxter's Xeelee Sequence is probably the closest, you can read a condensed version of it in Vacuum Diagrams and see if you're interested.

[Anonymous No.13279210]

>>13278867
I'm honestly surprised KJ Parker doesn't get mentioned more here. Scavenger and his other trilogies are great.

[Anonymous No.13279219]

>>13278330
me too anon, that other anon has shit taste.

[Anonymous No.13279263]

>>13278189
Not the other anon, but I tried to get into it and felt that it was shallow in that characteristically pulpy seventies way. Not that that's necessarily bad, but a friend set up my expectations for something god-tier and the experience was just underwhelming.
>>13278795
Why do you guys hate Wolfe so much?
>>13278579
Why do you guys hate Sanderson so much? Would you still have hated him if he wasn't one of the most read SFF writers?

[Anonymous No.13279302]

Let's do a spin on the "what are you reading" meme and give hints and see if others can guess what you're reading. I'll start.
>Smug asshole villain kills protagonist's pop, marries his stepmom, and exiles the protagonist.
>Lovecraftian final bosses.
>Lovecraftian labyrinthine locales on par with the Plateau of Leng.
>Protagonist waits for his girl to give it up, gets cucked, and viciously loses his virginty to the side ho.
>Animism, shamanism, and beast magic.
>Norse overtones.

[Anonymous No.13279328]

>>13279302
Malazan

[Anonymous No.13279353]

>>13278088
>guy joins colonization group with his dog
>befriends veteran
>joins fight against encroaching barbarians
>sacrifices himself to save civilians

[Anonymous No.13279359]

>>13279353
Meant for >>13279302

[Anonymous No.13279404]

pls recommend something comfy

[Anonymous No.13279423]

>>13278579
Sanderfag a hack
>tfw only speak one language

[Anonymous No.13279450]

>>13278169
I read the first chapter of Equal Rites and it didn't give a single chuckle. Is it one of the bad ones or does it get better later?

[Anonymous No.13279454]

>>13279302
>giant phallus
>in space
>exploration
>obsession with the number 3
>military wankery
>first in a "series", almost universally disliked sequels

[Anonymous No.13279459]

>>13279404
Do this.
>Pick up Dawn of Wonder.
>Rip out the last twenty pages.
>Get some hot chocolate and get reading.
I also found The Lies of Locke Lamora very comfy but I guess everyone of us has read it. The characters are all such bros, and it's the sort of thing that's increasingly hard to find in these onions poisoned times.

[Anonymous No.13279461]

>>13279263
>Why do you guys hate Wolfe so much?
Don't know. pringles man is edgy but that is his flavor.
>Sanderson
I dislike his big anime swords, I dislike his cunty characters, I dislike his povs that only come together near the end. warbreaker is the only book I liked

[Anonymous No.13279464]

If you want Omniscience you're going to have to beg for it like a little bitch.

[Anonymous No.13279477]

>>13279263
>Why do you guys hate Wolfe so much?
I don't, in fact he's one of my all time favourite authors and anyone who thinks BotNS isn't a masterpiece is simply wrong. People like to shit on Wolfe to be contrarian.

[Anonymous No.13279503]

>>13279461
Warbreaker was nice. I generally enjoy Sanderson because I'm autism and thus enjoy well-structured magic systems.
>>13279302
>>13279328
Nope. It is the Endlords series by J. V. Jones. She's one of the few female authors who can write complex, compelling characters and arcs that make you feel rather than feel that you're being made to feel. The series isn't finished, but what books are out are all pretty good. Raif, the protagonist, is pretty based, and his arc reminds me of what Bran Stark's arc might have been if it wasn't written by an inept hack.
>>13279454
Three Body Problem?

[Anonymous No.13279513]

>>13279503
Book 5 never. Did J.V. Jones die?

[Anonymous No.13279527]

>>13279503
>I'm autism
Weird flex but ok

[Anonymous No.13279530]

Give me a novel or series that is not straight up smut with a lots of monster rape!

[Anonymous No.13279536]

>>13279513
She's alive, and recently started raising funds so that she doesn't have to focus on life related issues and can start focusing on the books. She's started a Patreon where she regularly posts stuff, including open access to one of the chapters. It's pretty unpolished and unedited stuff, but you can see it here if you like: https://www.patreon.com/posts/endlords-chapter-21772146

[Anonymous No.13279539]

>>13279530
Bakker

[Anonymous No.13279546]

>>13279503
>>13279513
>J.V. Jones
>mfw there are people complaining on her goodreads page because they started reading her series during their middle age and are now about to die from old age

[Anonymous No.13279562]

>>13279546
I legitimately thought she died? How long as it been since book four? 8 years? 10?

[Anonymous No.13279567]

>>13279503
>I'm autism and thus enjoy well-structured magic systems.
is it that rare? also I recall the archive stories having lots of asspull, same with Elantris. Elantris felt very terry goodkind

[Anonymous No.13279568]

>>13279562
Isn't that less time than it's been since GRRM released a book?

[Anonymous No.13279570]

>>13279503
>Three Body Problem?
Nah. The 3BP sequels are great and from what I remember there is no massive cock.

[Anonymous No.13279582]

>>13279546
They have no one but themselves to blame, said I while checking on doors of stone

[Anonymous No.13279585]

>>13279568
Watcher of the dead came out in 2010
ADWD came out in 2011

[Anonymous No.13279590]

>>13279585
>2011
Why can't I stop dying

[Anonymous No.13279594]

>>13279263
>Wolfe
He's very popular here, but I don't care much for him. I somewhat enjoyed New Sun eventually, but the others I've tried have left me pretty cold. His characters don't really click with me so I don't feel invested in his stories.
>Sanderson
Is just mediocre and people are mad about him being popular. At least he's actually productive.

[Anonymous No.13279599]

>>13279590
Don’t worry anon, you’ll outlive gurm.

[Anonymous No.13279606]

>>13279567
I think somewhere between Elantris and SA, he retroactively came up with the notion of the Cosmere and the Shards of Adonalsium. The retcons were pretty nice though, and for the most part his writing is improving. Wax and Wayne is pretty good, and the latest SA wasn't ninety percent slog and big battle scenes in just the last ten percent.
It isn't complex literature with real characters and drama that teaches inside your gullet and grabs your heart, but it sure passes the time.

[Anonymous No.13279608]

I don't find Sanderon's books very appealing - they're the definition of mediocre, but holy christ the guy is a writing machine. For that he will always have my respect.

[Anonymous No.13279618]

>only interested in kaladin and sort of maybe dalinar
>85% of the book so far is nothing to do with them
does the way of kings (and the rest of the stormlight archive) improve after the first 450 pages?

[Anonymous No.13279620]

>>13279567
Structured magic systems are a virtue in games, especially video games. I don't get why it would be desirable in a novel.

[Anonymous No.13279623]

>>13279599
I want to outlive earth itself, are there any books about this feel? not many protagonists seeking immortality

[Anonymous No.13279631]

>>13279606
>but it sure passes the time.
well for me it passes time with me thinking violent things about the characters and being upset when they are not punished. I will admit I sometimes have a hard time with "morally complex" protagonists, Im fine with good and evil but can't stand people who piss on others and call it rain while being self righteous about it

[Anonymous No.13279635]

>>13279620
>I don't get why it would be desirable in a novel.
because you then know what is and is not possible. developments seem less crazy and you can come up with your own possible developments while you are waiting for the next book. What I hate is when they set up a system only so that MC can be the only one who can bypass it

[Anonymous No.13279639]

>https://twitter.com/scottlynch78/status/959277334447755264
What did he mean by this?

[Anonymous No.13279644]

I started reading SA, but half way through the first chapter he just straight up starts telling the reader about his magic system and the tiers and fucking Lashings (First Lashing, Other Lashing and Gay Lashing) and Stormbinding and Surgebenders and Honorshards and Plateshit blah blah blah blah blah.

Fuck me I hate when authors riddle their world with capitalised neologisms, and even more so when it's done in the laziest way. There's no context or dialogue to explain it all, he might as well have just paused the narrative and said "hey guys, this is Brandon, let me just write a couple of pages about the magic this character is using and then I'll get back to the story".

[Anonymous No.13279659]

>>13279635
>because you then know what is and is not possible
That seems very un-magical to me. More like medieval super heroes than wizards.
Having a system just to exempt the MC is total bullshit though.

[Anonymous No.13279662]

>>13279620
>>13279644
even in games "I aint got time for that" anytime its more complex than basic X element is stronger than Y. I have a job to get to and don't have time for spreadsheets

[Anonymous No.13279670]

>>13279639
It roughly translates to
>"I like to watch as my wife has sex with a large, black man in front of me; I openly express my desire to see her get pregnant from these frequent sex sessions and I will raise the other man's child happily."

[Anonymous No.13279671]

>>13279639
He means it’s 2019 so everything needs to have graphic gay sex

[Anonymous No.13279676]

>>13279662
Spreadsheets are the best games though.

[Anonymous No.13279686]

>>13279659
>un-magical
perhaps. maybe I never liked magic or maybe I have developed hatred for magic because writers always use it to get away with lazy writing or to hand-wave asspulls, making me feel like fool for being invested. even worse when "magic" is a stand in for faith in god/nature spirits

[Anonymous No.13279692]

>>13279676
only the porn version

[Anonymous No.13279697]

>>13279620
>Structured magic systems are a virtue in games, especially video games. I don't get why it would be desirable in a novel.

In a story with powerful magic here is always a temptation to use magic to asspull characters out of situations that otherwise seem inescapable. Having a structured system which tells what magic can and can't do can help against that.

[Anonymous No.13279712]

>>13279639
He is trying to drum up interest in his book by making lgbt people invested. They will shill for free and hush up any criticism if he can win them over or at least string them along until the book comes out.
>Here I am writing about a human experience I don't share, cannot share, except as a thought exercise
so was the rest of his writing his dairy desu?

[Anonymous No.13279715]

>>13279659
>That seems very un-magical to me.

That's because you're defining magic in a way that no people who seriously believed in magic ever defined it.

[Anonymous No.13279717]

>>13279662
I used to be the absolute worst RPG player because I would always run from the random battles to advance the story as quickly as possible. The most annoying this is that I could usually get through most of the game that way, but once I got to the final dungeon or even the final boss, it was just impossible at my level.

[Anonymous No.13279725]

>>13279623
Just get into xianxia. Immorality is very common there. At the end of one novel the mc has lived so long the universe got destroyed and recreated like a million times.

[Anonymous No.13279731]

>>13279715
like writer defines nano technology?
>>13279717
When I did that I found that in the end I did not give a fuck about the boss or the story. a lot of RPGs trick you into thinking they are good by having you invest time

[Anonymous No.13279735]

>>13279686
>>13279697
I'm dubious that having structured magic does anything to prevent asspulls. Even if they don't just ignore the structure where convenient (Chosen One or whatever), most systems are flexible enough that a little creativity can let you force pretty much anything to fit.

[Anonymous No.13279745]

>>13279725
I know. cultivation is interesting but I would like to see other paths as well. cycle of arawn was the first one where I was surprised to see the hero activity go for immorality, in the end he passed on it but was still interesting. Im interested in the journey to it, not the burned out husk heros we have years later,etc..

[Anonymous No.13279753]

>>13279731
>like writer defines nano technology?

You mean like a miracle tech that does whatever the writer wants?

[Anonymous No.13279766]

>>13278167
I would the "The red knight"

[Anonymous No.13279767]

>>13279753
yes. some are even immune to emps and can make more of themselves from stone

[Anonymous No.13279779]

>>13279725
>Just get into xianxia.

Any recommendations? I've tried some apparently popular examples, but while they were full of entertaining insanity, from eyebrows turning into combat tentacles to a literal anal detonation weapon, their writing was utterly terrible and often below fanfic-tier, whether because of unprofessional translations or because authors are hacks who must write at lightspeed to keep their audience.

[Anonymous No.13279791]

>>13279779
how are you with gay stuff? I would say watch grand master of demonic cultivation

[Anonymous No.13279801]

>>13279779
Try cradle. It’s xianxia written by a westerner, so it doesn’t have alien bugmen morality and it isn’t a translated low quality mess.

[Anonymous No.13279838]

>>13279454
Rendezvous with Rama

[Anonymous No.13279888]

>>13279838
Correct!

[Anonymous No.13279966]

>>13279353
Beyond the Black River

[Anonymous No.13279977]

>>13279620
Magic systems and world building have sucked the life out of the fantasy genre.

[Anonymous No.13280096]

Is Traitor Son worth reading?

[Anonymous No.13280168]

>>13280096
I enjoyed it. It acts like it’s grimdark, but’s it’s not really. Just a lot of knights charging monsters, which is my fetish.

[Anonymous No.13280384]

>>13279779
>Just get into xianxia.
don't

[Anonymous No.13280434]

Aside from Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock, what SFF writers have emphasized the whole Law vs. Chaos dynamic in their work?

[Anonymous No.13280623]

>>13279779
>tfw about to finish Book 4 of Coiling Dragon (in volume 13 right now)
>no idea when the actual fuck I'll seriously begin Desolate Era
>nobody else has read Feng Shen Ji

[Anonymous No.13280770]

Been out a a while now, anyone read it?

[Anonymous No.13280777]

Idle thought, are there any fantasy books that portray historical periods as truly alien? One of my complaints about current books is that they take place in pseudo medieval times, but if you see someone acting racist or sexist you know they're the baddies. It would be interesting to read about a society where they truly believe the historical ideals, and the results are flat out bizarre from a modern perspective.

[Anonymous No.13280912]

Blackpill me on Guy Gavriel Kay.

[Anonymous No.13280990]

>>13280912
A pseud who uses his flowery purple prose to mask his lackluster plots

[Anonymous No.13281007]

>>13280990
Sounds based.

[Anonymous No.13281176]

>>13280777
Wuxia has truly alien morals and social/cultural systems

[Anonymous No.13281183]

>>13280623
Just read more

[Anonymous No.13281184]

>>13279404
Goblin Emperor.

[Anonymous No.13281204]

>>13280770
It's typical out-of-era gay rights pandering stuff. It's biggest asset is the beautiful cover art.

[Anonymous No.13281211]

>>13281204
This

[Anonymous No.13281287]

>>13280912
I've read almost all (haven't read A Brightness Long Ago yet) of his books in publication order, for the most part he's IMO surprisingly consistent in quality. The Last Light of the Sun, Ysabel and Children of Earth and Sky were a few letdowns for me, besides that I've enjoyed him thoroughly. If you are interested here's a general outline of his bibliography (of his books I liked):

>The Fionavar Tapestry, a portal fantasy in which five travel from our Earth to "the first of all worlds"
>Tigana, taking place in a setting based on renaissance Italy
>A Song for Arbonne, inspired by the Albigensian Crusade in medieval Provence
>The Lions of Al-Rassan, set in an analogue of medieval Spain
>The Sarantine Mosaic, inspired by the Byzantium of Justinian I
>Under Heaven, inspired by the 8th century Tang Dynasty and the events leading up to the An Shi Rebellion
>River of Stars, taking place in the same setting as Under Heaven, based on the 12th century Song Dynasty and the events around the Jin-Song Wars and the transition from Northern Song to Southern Song

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Gavriel_Kay#Bibliography

[Anonymous No.13281377]

Been reading Shadow Campaigns, first book is was good, second was ok, then in third, somehow female unit 'Girls Own' (what a stupid name) which was just formed becomes best best unit in the fucking professional army (books are happening in era equivalent of our 18/19 century), out of 15 prominent characters 10 are strong women (men with boobs). Is it worth continuing reading fourth book or does it become more of a trainwreck that it already is?

[Anonymous No.13281439]

>>13281377
It’s about the same quality as the third book. At that point, you might as well finish the series.

[Anonymous No.13281491]

>>13281439
I'm already 100 pages in fourth, i will at least try to finish this one. Pity really, because i like almost everything about the books aside from hamfisted gender politics.

[Anonymous No.13281562]

>>13279618
Way of Kings is by far the best of the series. Words of Radiance is pretty bad and the first half is boring as hell. Oathbringer is fucking awful. That book could have easily been 300 pages and had been more effective. Shallan is one of the worst characters I have ever seen in a book.

[Anonymous No.13281577]

>>13280770
Don't bother with anything written by young women. They can't help but shoehorn in progressive crap into their books.

[Anonymous No.13281677]

>>13281287
I like the part in Tigana where the dude got a boner and coomed.

[Anonymous No.13281743]

Linley calmly laughed.

[Anonymous No.13281745]

>>13278179
I take this back. a single fucking job application fucking took over my night and ate up 5 goddamn hours

>>13280777
honestly, if you want that just dig up any fantasy story, myth or fairy tale more than 200 years old. Greek myth is rife with this.

[Anonymous No.13282184]

>start reading codex alera because I have a weakspot for pokemon
>six books in and still nothing remotely resembling a pokemon battle
>Also, now pokemon is over

This is what I get for holding onto my childhood nostalgia.

[Anonymous No.13282243]

>>13280434
Lousie Cooper's Time Master trilogy

[Anonymous No.13282399]

>read Fine
>there's some Jews just randomly in there
>read Hyperion
>a couple chapters in, there's a Jew just randomly in there
I'm new to scifi but what's with the jew meme? I'm not antisemitic and frankly I don't give a damn about the Jews but why there's some random names Jews in these olde scifi stories and not, say, an African or a Japanese or a slav or whatever?

[Anonymous No.13282404]

>>13282399
>read Dune
Auto correct went ape

[Anonymous No.13282420]

>>13282399
You must have picked a coincidental pair of books, the only sci-fi I've read that offhandedly mentions Jews is stuff by Philip K Dick

[Anonymous No.13282447]

/sffg/, I'm still trying to figure out the perfect rat king for my story. Is this good, or should I just simplify it

>The Wechuge in Beaver Indian mythology is similar to a wendigo: a human who becomes a ravenous cannibalistic giant made of ice after being possessed by an animal spirit.
>In my setting, The Wechuge isn't one animal spirit, but thousands of them. Thousands of ghostly rats dragging a skeleton around. Ordinarily the rat spirits are to weak to affect the world around them, a single one carries about as much weight as a chilly breeze, and as far as possessing people, the most they can do is give you a slight craving for cheddar. Thousands of them however layered on top of each other form a body as cold and solid as permafrost, and the air around them quakes with an aura of hunger

[Anonymous No.13282483]

>>13282447
Okay, how do you plan to introduce your monster concept? Do you have a character who's only partially possessed by fifty rats or something, and is still functional? Do you have an exorcist whose job it is to exorcise the rats in on-going sessions, like 200 rats at a time or something? Do the rats attract more rats, and so have to be regularly exercised?

Like many things, I think it's an okay concept by itself. It just needs a proper context for introduction and interaction.

[Anonymous No.13282535]

>>13282483
Parts of the story are still loose, but trying to foreshadow this gives me new events to build off of.

Here's how I see it
>prior to the start of the journey, there will be small references. People can't go into the tunnels because of the rat king, and maybe they find a book early on that describes the wechuge
>early in the journey they they have their first run in with the rats, and after killing some rodents of unusual size they're addressed by some of the small ghostly rats speaking in unison who threaten them (in this case, normal rats will have to be either zombies or just filthy to make the ghosts stand out). MC tries to step on one and it phases through his leg, chilling it and making the muscles twitch
>later on when they rest in the tunnels, the MC wakes up to the comic relief character sleepwalking and chewing on him. After shaking her awake, a dozen of the rats flee her body and escape into the tunnels. She wakes up cold and hungry
>It's not until the end of the second act that they actually run into the full wechuge, but when they do. hoo boy

[Anonymous No.13282551]

>>13282535
>and maybe they find a book early on that describes the wechuge
I would avoid this if I were you. It's too convenient and seems artificial.

Why are they in the tunnels to begin with?

[Anonymous No.13282566]

>>13282551
the book I'll probably leave out, that's the one I'd actually have to break shit to get in. I'll think of something

as for why? They're looking for what they think is the underworld, but is in fact a zombie-apocalypse city where the rats are in control

[Anonymous No.13282628]

>>13282566
I could ask an endless series of whys, and that would progressively reveal the motivations of the characters. But as far as I can tell, you seem to have a solid set of concepts already. It's just a matter of execution at this point, as you don't seem to have any trouble with your writing.

[Anonymous No.13282682]

Anyone read The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson? I'm a sucker for arabian fantasy and wanted to check that out, but the reviews don't look great

>>13282628
that's going to come down to me both finding free time and overcoming the initial revulsion of where I left off. The last four pages I wrote are really not great. I think I'm going to need to do the r/writingprompts thing again for a week to build up some momentum before I hit the book again. Hopefully I'll be able to start on friday since tomorrow and thursday I have after-hours job hunting and DnD

[Anonymous No.13282683]

>>13280777
>One of my complaints about current books is that they take place in pseudo medieval times, but if you see someone acting racist or sexist you know they're the baddies.

It is telling that you're only mentioning racism and sexism. If I had been asking when typical fantasy characters (except baddies) act most out of character for their supposed period-equivalent, I'd say it is overwhelming pacifism and materialism (even if a character is, say, a career mercenary, who meets supernatural shit every day of his life).

[Anonymous No.13282824]

>>13279745
Does cycle of arawn pick up? I think I got 4 or 5 chapters in but dropped it because I was bored. Just meandering around with his bodyguard buddy.

[Anonymous No.13282898]

>>13279302
>Prose is Raymond Chandler on an acid trip
>Missing person
>Hang gliding
>A unicorn
>Protagonist wants to fuck his sister

[Anonymous No.13282993]

>>13282399
In Hyperion, the author goes on to discuss theology and Abrahamic religions, therefore being Jewish is related to the plot. There's also a Roman Catholic in the book.

[Anonymous No.13283070]

>>13279966
Right.

[Anonymous No.13283073]

>>13282898
Flow my tears...? Inherent Vice?

[Anonymous No.13283131]

>>13278307
A month late but I just finished this today. I really enjoyed its theme and adaption of classical mythology, but my opinion is probably really biased from being a SEAnigger. I read that the author wrote a sequel but with Egyptian mythology, has anyone ever read that one?

[Anonymous No.13283274]

>>13282399
Read the golem and the meme next.

[Anonymous No.13283297]

>>13281577
>>13281204
Meh, guess i'll skip it then.

Shame, as i'm interested in a nice one shot of epic fantasy, so disinterested in 10 book sagas.

[Anonymous No.13283311]

>>13282683
You're supposed to see it's pol. He asked the same question a few threads ago, he just worded it differently this time. But he didn't realize that he still outed himself. He wants fantasy that apes reality and has slaves and buttgirls. If racism is prevalent enough you end up with a caste system, and the second class citizens being seen as slave or manual labour. Like India.

[Anonymous No.13283333]

>>13283311
Muh racism
Ain’t it great for some fucking over educated idiot to just dismiss history and civilizations and cultural systems formed over thousands of years as racisms

Meanwhile our modern liberal state of affairs won’t even last a century before destroying all western nations forever

[Anonymous No.13283363]

Anyone go to used book stores?

>go to my favorite store
>usually ask for fantasy recommendations
>ask for sci-fi this time
>get Forever War
>ask if it's like Starship Troopers
>store owner chimps out and goes on about how Heinlein is a fascist
>tell him I've never read the book but I love the movie
>chimps out even more, goes on an endless tirade and somehow this changes to him hating on George RR Martin for not supporting authors of color (?????)

Forever War was good though

[Anonymous No.13283379]

>>13283333
Fuck off, /pol/.

>Ain’t it great for some fucking over educated idiot to just dismiss history and civilizations and cultural systems formed over thousands of years as racisms

If you are just a nationalist, then the entirety of your worldview was made up in mid-to-late XVIII century by radical leftists, if you are a full-blown stormfag, then what you mistakenly call your philosophy is a century younger still.

[Anonymous No.13283413]

>>13280777
Shogun did this quite nicely.

[Anonymous No.13283417]

>>13283363
thats stupid on so many levels.
heinlein was a weird mix of liberal and conservative. sure he loved guns but he was very liberal in his personal views. his conservative views were pretty much all about traditions and historical rights.
how people can call him a fascist is fucking beyond me.

[Anonymous No.13283426]

>>13283363
Please tell me you're never going to that store again.

[Anonymous No.13283456]

>>13279735
Never have I seen this argument with examples.

[Anonymous No.13283475]

>>13283456
Magic is, in and of itself, an "asspull." Doesn't matter if it's systemic magic or un-systemic magic. If a character does something using magic that they wouldn't have been able to do otherwise then that is an "asspull."

[Anonymous No.13283505]

>>13283475
Magic is an abillity character has. Structured magic defines limits of those abillities, what character can and cannot do. I hate it when characters don't get tired & can spam spells all they want because high-tier deadly magic takes same amount of energy as bottom-tier magic. In non-systematic magic, someone can be inch away from death, beaten and tired and still cast anything he/she wants.

[Anonymous No.13283540]

>>13283505
>someone can be inch away from death, beaten and tired and still cast anything he/she wants
Absolutely nothing stops an author from doing this within a structure, and nothing forces them to do it without one. Your complaint is about bad writing, not unstructured magic.

[Anonymous No.13283548]

>>13283540
>still no examples
Unstructured magic is bad writting. Anything goes there.

[Anonymous No.13283553]

>>13283540
Not him, but I think that "magic is only usable when characters can focus" is a very basic system.

[Anonymous No.13283563]

>>13283548
>Unstructured magic is bad writting
Why?

[Anonymous No.13283564]

>>13283505
Structured magic robs magic of what makes it magical to begin with and turns it into a skill like a video game. I don't need "structured" magic anymore than I need a swordsman character to explain to me in highly structured detail why he's able to beat half a dozen men in a fight but not 20,000 men. I know there are stories that treat magic how you explained, but that's usually in service to the story and characters themselves and not because they're using magic as a Get Out of Jail Free Card. But I know this is an apples and oranges thing and magic systems have become almost the norm in modern fantasy literature. I just wish more modern writers preferred writing magic in the traditional sense of it being this mysterious and supernatural force that only crazy people would use.

[Anonymous No.13283573]

>>13283548
>every single piece of fantasy literature (aside from Vance's Dying Earth) written before D&D is "bad writing"
Jesus Christ....

[Anonymous No.13283577]

>>13283548
Examples of what?
Fiction in general is already "anything goes". The reader can either accept it or not.

[Anonymous No.13283583]

>>13283363
Last time I went into a used book store the guy at the counter was wearing a PKK badge on his tweed vest.
Thrift stores are where it's at, they tend to be cheaper and have more obscure shit too.
I also go to the Brisbane bookfest every year. It's on again in a few days. I'll go there on 2 separate days, buy as much as I can carry and I'm good for the year. It's amazing.

[Anonymous No.13283590]

>>13283505
>someone can be inch away from death, beaten and tired and still cast anything he/she wants
They can, but that does not mean that it have to happen. A systematic magic system can have stupid mechanics, that does not mean that all systematic magic systems are inherently bad.
They are bad from a story telling point of view however. Stormlight Archives, for example, is just a series of wordbased MacGuffins allowing Kaladin to conveniently level up just as the bad guy is having the upper hand.

[Anonymous No.13283599]

>>13283548
>Unstructured magic is bad writting. Anything goes there.

Not necessarily. A.D. Foster, for example, wrote some mightily fun adventures which whole premise where magic had no structure and in at least one case was explicitly used as a source of infinite plot devices tailored to situations in which the party found themselves.

Unstructured magic is only bad when it is a fake unstructured magic, i.e. characters can rely on certain rules to get completely predictable results, but readers are not informed about these rules, and even then only if the book uses this discrepancy in character and reader knowlede to drum up tension.

[Anonymous No.13283614]

>>13283564
>I just wish more modern writers preferred writing magic in the traditional sense of it being this mysterious and supernatural force that only crazy people would use.
Let's ask a question here: Why is it that only crazy people use magic? Does it do something harmful that only mad people would continue using it? If the answer is "Yes" to this one question, then you are already having some structure in your magic system.

>>13283577
>Examples of what?
Examples of authors having structured magic and still using asspulls.
>Fiction in general is already "anything goes". The reader can either accept it or not.
No laws in magic system = anything can happen.
Everything magic does defines it. It becomes structured. If magic starts contradicting itself, then there was no structure or the structure was a lie all along.

>>13283590
MacGuffins are horrendous if it's used exclusively by protagonists and never by villains. If it's part of the setting and there are other non-MC characters using it, it can work. I'd like to mention that stories follow protagonists for a reason, they are often special individuals.

[Anonymous No.13283630]

>>13283564
>I just wish more modern writers preferred writing magic in the traditional sense of it being this mysterious and supernatural force that only crazy people would use.

There is nothing traditional about this point of view. Don't even mind reality, where we owe much of our math to people's attempts to do magic; in Howard's stories or weird tales written by Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith magic is literally one and the same with science.

What you want, I believe, is miracles from God without actually having God in your setting. But things cannot work like that, not for long, and room for miracles disappears as fantasy authors take their worldbuilding to its logical conclusions.

[Anonymous No.13283634]

>>13283614
>Does it do something harmful that only mad people would continue using it?
No; it's because it's this mysterious and supernatural force that normal people would understandably be wary of and would generally not want anything to do with. And there's a difference between having unexplained limits on magic in a story and a highly structured and detailed magic system.

[Anonymous No.13283638]

Can anyone recommend a completed fantasy series to me?I just want a fun unpredictable story with good characters. I don't need eloquent prose, just a fun read that doesn't have faggy Sanderson-esque dialogue.

[Anonymous No.13283646]

>>13283630
You are putting words in my mouth. See my post here >>13283634 specifically the line about unexplained limits. I don't NEED a wizard to need a magic system to explain what he can and can't do; that can be told through the story itself like in Howard's stories. The wizards in Howard's stories didn't use magical systems. There were limitations to what they could do, but they didn't explain those limitations away.

[Anonymous No.13283647]

>>13283638
Bakker

[Anonymous No.13283651]

>>13283553
>>13283614
If that sort of vague principle is all you require for "structure" then I don't know anything with unstructured magic.

[Anonymous No.13283657]

>>13281204
okay, but what's the story like?

[Anonymous No.13283659]

I completed my masterpiece some time ago, but the thought that the publisher lucky enough to receive it may publish it as an audiobook... that some faggot might actually listen to my book rather than read it... I can't stand the though, so I've withheld it from publication.

[Anonymous No.13283679]

>>13282184
LeDiz has a couple good pokemon fanfics.
One is a 100,000+ word sun and moon post-episode philosophy hour a lá Professor Kukui.

Pokemon fanfics are awful anyway. If they're not pokéfucking, then they're Harem stories, then they're self inserts.

just read the manga

[Anonymous No.13283691]

>>13282447
I like it. Sounds fun. Simple yet satisfying. I'd read it.

And if it needs something more, than just say it's an ancient one that has been around so long, it's become more like a minor deity.

"It's really old" is a solid fall back.

Hahaha, or make it a prehistoric rat one. Like giant ice-age rats on a cave bear skeleton or something.

[Anonymous No.13283695]

>>13283583
Oh my god.

[Anonymous No.13283702]

>>13283651
The problem lies in the words. Barely any magic system lacks structure. In some works you are told more about limits of magic, in others you aren't. They both have structure, but I would rather use "highly structured magic" for instead of usual "structured magic". My point is that when you accept some structure you'd be hypocrite to hate on hardcore structure and not understand how anyone can like it because to someone else your preferred amount of structure would be too strict.

It all depends of what individual reader wants from magic. I like structured magic because it's bunch of made-up stuff that acts consistently, cool stuff our world doesn't have.

[Anonymous No.13283729]

>>13283634
>it's this mysterious and supernatural force
Even irl made up magic has things incantations that are required to do shit. Mystery and supernatural are replaced with understanding and science once you learn enough about it. If it's part of the world and the setting, it can be learned about.

[Anonymous No.13283754]

>>13283702
>you'd be hypocrite to hate on hardcore structure
For one thing I don't think anyone was doing that. I wrote >>13279620 and that's certainly not what I meant.
For another that isn't hypocrisy, it's just liking something in moderation but not in excess.
>but I would rather use "highly structured magic" for instead of usual "structured magic"
What for? We've just established there's no real reason to distinguish between your idea of "lightly structured" and "unstructured", because no one actually uses the latter.

[Anonymous No.13283786]

Who writes weird pulp with good action these days, and is any of it good?

In other words, what modern fantasy would you recommend for someone who loves Leiber and Moorcock?

[Anonymous No.13283845]

>>13283651
Thinking about it, you might actually be right. I'll still try to give some border examples, however.

What about in epic literature? Is there structure in the things that gods can or can't do? Zeus impregnating a woman by turning into golden rain seems pretty random to me.

What about in fairy tales? Do fairy godmothers, such as in Sleeping Beauty, operate under unstructured magic? Are genies considered unstructured, given that wishes can be anything, but that a person is only limited to three?

At any rate, I'm not the anon who dislikes unstructured or un-systematic magic. I just wrote >>13283553

[Anonymous No.13284076]

>>13282399
Americans love Jews.

[Anonymous No.13284093]

>>13283786
Read the Moth and Cobweb books if you aren't allergic to Christianity.

[Anonymous No.13284106]

>>13278295
Read guards guards. Or reaper man.

[Anonymous No.13284137]

>>13278521
Today, I finished Crota, book 1 of 2. It is a litRPG where a guy dies while trying to save a random woman from a mugging. Both of them die but while dying, it turns out the woman was being summoned as the champion of a God in another world (here comes the isekai)

[Anonymous No.13284142]

>>13283638
Try the Spellsinger series. Oh, and in case you haven't figured it out, this
>>13283647
is a troll recommendation.

[Anonymous No.13284153]

>>13278088
I am reading Nascent, book 1 of Stork Tower.

>>13278521
I got too excited.

Today, I finished Crota, book 1 of 2. It is a litRPG where a guy dies while trying to save a random woman from a mugging. Both of them die but while dying, it turns out the woman was being summoned as the champion of a God in another world (here comes the isekai) and the male MC is the first random to appear in the place (Myelad) the Gods are in X centuries, as he got snagged along for the ride. It is rife with stat screens and the story wants to go in a tolerable direction but the pacing is slow and nothing interesting enough occurred in book 1 to incentivize me to continue with book 2.

[Anonymous No.13284234]

>>13284153
https://www.amazon.com/Crota-Gods-Game-LitRPG-novel-ebook/dp/B07KPJ7CMW
Forgot my link.

[Anonymous No.13284258]

>>13283379
My sides. Get a load of this guy.

[Anonymous No.13284719]

Didn't even realize this was out.

[Anonymous No.13284874]

>>13284093
I'm not allergic to it unless the author is trying to convert me.

[Anonymous No.13285075]

Blue Mage Raised by Dragons book 3 is out. Oh fug.
Why didn't anyone tell me?

[Anonymous No.13285126]

>>13284719
>>13285075
>>13284234
>>13278521
>self published trash
Read real books by publishing houses.

[Anonymous No.13285148]

>>13285126
Publish something good then Tor. Or overlook. Or whoever else you’re interning for.

[Anonymous No.13285160]

>>13284719
>>13284153
how the fuck do you people read this shit

[Anonymous No.13285350]

>>13285160
By enjoying fun.
Sorry you can't have fun anon. It happens with some people.

[Anonymous No.13285363]

>>13283786
Erevis Cale Series (Forgotten Realms) by Paul S Kemp
Most Warhammer Fantasy novels are like this,specially the ones like Malus Darkblade and Gotrex an Felix

[Anonymous No.13285364]

How are demolition D's books?

[Anonymous No.13285427]

There is literally nothing wrong with ancient evils awakening.

[Anonymous No.13285449]

>>13285427
Germano-Protestant genetic Ragnarok obsession ruins yet another promising young mind. Many such cases. Sad!

[Anonymous No.13285485]

"Yes, sir. Just jam the funnel down my gullet and pour the Mormonism right there on the top. Yep, that's it. Keep going, put it all right in the cone Mr. Card."

[Anonymous No.13285594]

>>13285427
>ancient evils awakening
Based
>Ancient goodness awakening
Unbased

[Anonymous No.13285602]

>>13285427
Ara ara~ is your ancient evil awakening for an old heroine like me?

[Anonymous No.13285662]

>>13283363

Forever war was really disapointing and lame, please dont say it was "good" youll just end up disapointing more anons with that hippie garbage.

[Anonymous No.13285887]

I want Good vs. Evil, not grimdark, with the good guys winning by the power of friendship and happy ending for everyone.

[Anonymous No.13285926]

>>13282898
A Double Shadow

[Anonymous No.13286018]

>>13283073
>>13285926
Nope
Bonus hint:
>a deck of cards
>Amnesia

[Anonymous No.13286020]

My boy GRRM is releasing a Dark Souls game. Very based of him.

[Anonymous No.13286022]

I just finished reading Children of Time.
Is Children of Ruin good too?

[Anonymous No.13286024]

>>13285662
The cyborg James Franco on the cover is pretty kino tho

[Anonymous No.13286030]

>>13286018
Chronicles of Amber?

[Anonymous No.13286031]

>>13285594
Maybe someone should try this. The bad guys have already won, and an ancient goodness is reawakening, threatening to end their rule.

[Anonymous No.13286038]

>>13286020
It intrigues me..

[Anonymous No.13286061]

>>13286031
>The bad guys have already won, and an ancient goodness is reawakening, threatening to end their rule.

Glen Cook's Black Company (the first three books, and particularly the first, before he decided to make Croaker's fanfic into reality after all).

John C. Wright's Superluminary (once you figure out the grand picture).

[Anonymous No.13286181]

>>13285887
>with the good guys winning by the power of friendship and happy ending for everyone.
So you want generic trash.

[Anonymous No.13286182]

>>13282184
The only good part of Alera was the barbarian girl romance subplot. The second book was so bad I just ctrl+f'd my way through the rest of the series.

[Anonymous No.13286217]

>>13279263
I haven't read Sanderson bc my mom warned me that he's shit. Apparently she tried to give Way of Kings a chance for a few hundred pages but just couldn't keep going and regrets going past the no-refund date.

Which is pretty damning honestly, bc while the stuff she seriously likes is pretty based by /lit/ sffg standards, she's normally pretty merciful in assessing less great stuff as 'fun for what it is' (Mark Lawrence etc.) She's not the type to call something trash as hyperbole.

[Anonymous No.13286243]

>>13286022
No.

[Anonymous No.13286245]

>>13286217
What does your mom like

[Anonymous No.13286295]

>>13279302
>main character is fuckin PISSED!
>humans have figured out how to teleport
>Tiger! Tiger!
>at least one rape scene

Easy one fellas

[Anonymous No.13286325]

>>13285594
Ancient evil awakens.... and is the protagonist!

[Anonymous No.13286571]

>>13286245
Dick. She always loses to cock.

[Anonymous No.13286576]

>>13286061
Superluminary kinda sucked tho

[Anonymous No.13286601]

>>13278088
Just finished the Andrometa Strain. What did I think of it /lit/?

[Anonymous No.13286630]

>>13278579
Sanderbög en sopa

[Anonymous No.13286645]

>>13286181
Sorry, edgy teenager; not all of us want to read nihilistic garbage.

[Anonymous No.13286653]

>>13285887
I can't guarantee you happy endings for everyone, but David Gemmell wrote plenty of books about bros vanquishing evil together.

[Anonymous No.13286669]

>>13284874
Wright is a super Catholic, but he has specifically said he doesn't like books that try to convert people either to religion or politics.

[Anonymous No.13286765]

>>13286245
When my sister and I were very young we'd sit at the foot of her bed and she read all of the Lord of the Rings books out loud to us. Really put effort into the voices and sang all the songs, comfy af.

When I was a slightly older kid she gave me the first 3 Earthsea books, and then later on her old 80s copies of the Book of the New Sun series and Hyperion. Got me to read Zelazny and Vance too, tho it was dad who sold me on Dune.

[Anonymous No.13286819]

Does the Penguin edition of Lems "The Star Diaries" contain all of his stories about Ijon Tichy?

I can't seem to find any info on how many stories it contains. I don't want to buy "Memoirs of a Space Traveller" as well if the Diaries has them.

[Anonymous No.13286851]

>>13286295
The Stars My Destination

[Anonymous No.13286886]

I just finished Urth of the New Sun. What exactly were the undines? I remember the story of the seeds thrown into the sea, so they were aliens? Why did they want to stop the New Sun? Did the hierodiules or whatever know about them? Was Baldanders an alien? Do the Long Sun/Short Sun expand on the lore of the universe/Urth?

[Anonymous No.13286931]

>>13286851
ding ding ding

[Anonymous No.13286935]

>>13278088
desd

[Anonymous No.13286976]

>>13286243
why?

[Anonymous No.13287007]

>>13286325
Question: How often have you seen "typical high fantasy story" but from the villainous perspective? I've had an idea for a fantasy novel that's basically following around one of the Dark Lord's ex-Black Knights as he gets out of retirement for one last chance to do some good in the world before he finally snuffs it.

[Anonymous No.13287054]

>>13287007
I liked the dark lords handbook

[Anonymous No.13287102]

>>13287054
Never heard of it.

[Anonymous No.13287105]

>>13278579
Learning Spanish.
Sanderson es Mariposa.

[Anonymous No.13287111]

>>13287102
That’s why it’s a recommendation u friggin idiot

[Anonymous No.13287123]

Hey /sffg/, Do you like Final Fantasy? If so, which one is your favorite? Mine is FFIX

[Anonymous No.13287126]

>>13287111
Sorry, meant to ask for a summary or something.

Meanie.

[Anonymous No.13287157]

>>13287126
Look on god books

[Anonymous No.13287207]

>>13286976
Pretty boring stuff, not enough uplift development like the first one.

[Anonymous No.13287227]

>>13285887
Try the Longsword Chronicles

[Anonymous No.13287231]

>>13287105
>Sanderson es Mariposa.
wrong, mariposa means butterfly.
It's Sanderson es un mediocre

[Anonymous No.13287349]

I picked up A Wizard of Earthsea from the public library today. The university down the street from mine had a copy but I don't know their campus or where their library is. I've recently started playing DnD with a friend group and I'm interested in fantasy again. All I've really read fantasy wise is Narnia and Harry Potter. I'm not good at reading but from what I understand kids can read Earthsea. So I'm hoping I'll understand it easily enough. I have memory problems and can't remember names and places and such well but I can understand concepts and how things click together. So hopefully I will be able to grasp the jist of the story.
The copy from the library is a nice old one and has a comfy feeling.

[Anonymous No.13287362]

>>13287349
>Narnia
Why was this so popular? It sucks.

[Anonymous No.13287373]

>>13287362
Well I'm not totally sure. My mom and I read them when I was a kid because muh Christian morals. I liked them as a kid. I don't know if they would like them if I read them today.

[Anonymous No.13287452]

As someone who doesn’t read the /sffg/ thread, I was wondering if you guys browse the rest of the board or do you post solely here?

[Anonymous No.13287465]

>>13287452
Why wouldn't we?

[Anonymous No.13287538]

>>13287452
Only here

[Anonymous No.13287841]

>>13287452
pretty much only here. Part of that is that I really only visit generals, but part of that is outer /lit/ is the most painfully psuedo-intellectual place on earth. Don't get me wrong, /sffg/ is filled to the brim with elitist contrarian pseuds, but at the very least the people here read because they enjoy reading and form their pretensions around it.

people on /sffg/ develop a superiority complex to justify their reading

people on outer /lit/ read to justify their superiority complex

[Anonymous No.13287880]

>>13286669
The Moth and Cobweb books straightforwardly portray Catholicism as being Good and True e.g. prayer or the Eucharist have various effects on the workings of otherworldly powers according to their exact nature. It must be said that Wright has generally thought pretty carefully about what this means based on theology and folklore. But if you're the kind of person who thinks of XTIANITY as something you might catch from a pulp author it might make you mad. Personally I think Wright's unapologetic faith allowed him at the very least to create an unusually well-drawn paladin character, and from wallowing in grimdark bullshit.

[Anonymous No.13287985]

>>13283583
I've tried going to my local thrift store, but they don't organize their books feelsbadman

[Anonymous No.13288054]

>>13287123
Mah nigga. What's your favorite location? I loved hanging out in Lindblum. It achieves ultimate levels of coziness/liveliness, especially the Industrial District (rip).

[Anonymous No.13288091]

>>13287985
It takes time but it can be worth it. There's a lot of good stuff that will never be printed or even put into an ebook format to be found in them.

[Anonymous No.13288093]

>>13287841
>people on /sffg/ develop a superiority complex to justify their reading
>people on outer /lit/ read to justify their superiority complex
A valid reason

>the most painfully psuedo-intellectual place on earth.
This is true for all of 4chan but especially /lit/. Very few posts are actually worth reading which is why I browse through as quickly as possible. But it’s worth it for those rare moments where you find something truly unique.

[Anonymous No.13288105]

>>13287985
>>13288091
Wrong image.

[Anonymous No.13288107]

/v/ here, please recommend me some kino cyberpunk works to get hyped for 2077

[Anonymous No.13288174]

/sffg/, even though it's not really writing do you consider partially-planning-partially-improvising a cinematically satisfying conclusion to a first dnd game to be a form of storytelling?

>>13288107
snow crash is the classic example, though be warned, it's extremely heavy on ironic storytelling

robopocalypse is a good book with a bad name. Think World War Z but with robots instead of zombies

[Anonymous No.13288197]

>>13287465
Because some generals, like the classical and kpop ones on mu, stay mostly in their generals

[Anonymous No.13288210]

>>13288107
When Gravity Fails by George Finger
The Eclipse Trilogy by John Shirley
Hardwired by Walter Jon WIlliams
Ambient by Jack Womack
and basically everything written by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson

[Anonymous No.13288217]

>>13286645
But I do.

[Anonymous No.13288241]

>>13287373
I saw the first two movies as a kid. They were okay though they didn't make me want to read them. Years later, me and my friends were talking about movies that don't get a lot of attention and Narnia was brought up. I decided, why not read the books? I bought an omnibus edition and read the entirety of it. The only book unironically worth a damn is Prince Caspian. The rest is like you say "Muh christian morals"(Which isn't a bad thing, just look at J.R.R. Tolkien and I did like C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters) and a bunch of boring dialogue.

[Anonymous No.13288399]

>>13287452
I only post here
My literary interests are pretty much solely invested in sci-fi and for the non-sci-fi stuff I read, I don't really want to get ridiculed by this hipster-ass board

[Anonymous No.13288591]

>>13278088
Is The Magos as good as the other Eisenhorn books?

[Anonymous No.13288667]

>>13287231
Sandermaricon es un mediocre*

[Anonymous No.13288742]

>>13278088
Are you ready for this /sffg/?
https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/dune-series-bene-gesserit-warnermedia-streaming-service-1203238799/

[Anonymous No.13288756]

>>13286765
Really surprised me that Hyperion is so old.

[Anonymous No.13288766]

>>13286819
Buying is gay, especially since the guy is dead, but if you really have to be a faggot there are services that let you refund with a set period of time.

[Anonymous No.13288775]

>>13287452
Mostly here, not very often though, I spend more time on /diy/ or laughing at normalfaggots on /g/ - Shilling and Bideo Gayymes.

[Anonymous No.13288781]

>>13287452
I only post in 3 generals - this one being one of them. /lit/ is the most insufferable board.

[Anonymous No.13288793]

>>13287841
>>13288781
That’s interesting, I didn’t know some people only post in generals. Why?

[Anonymous No.13288885]

>>13288793
This place has always been an edgy contrarian shithole, but when stormfags took over it just became a neonazi echo chamber. Generals are small islands of non-nazi discussion.

[Anonymous No.13288894]

>>13288885
Poor little snowflake :(

[Anonymous No.13288926]

It's not sci fi but I didn't want to start a thread.

What's that dystopian future book where the city is circular?

[Anonymous No.13288943]

>>13288926
>where the city is circular
What do you mean by circular?

[Anonymous No.13288949]

>>13288943
That the whole city is made up of concentric circles of different classes.

[Anonymous No.13289063]

>>13288949
Book of the New Sun

[Anonymous No.13289256]

>>13288107
Altered Carbon trilogy - might be relevant with how one of the themes in 2077 is hinted to be immortality
And with the whole body modification thing you might want to read a shorter work called: Diamond Dogs - A Reynolds

>>13288926
I have a better dystopian future recommendation, a fun one: Shades of Grey - J Fforde

[Anonymous No.13289359]

I saw about half of The Dark Tower film, up to where the village is destroyed. I thought it was great, are the books worth reading?

[Anonymous No.13289632]

>>13288107
Neuromancer

[Anonymous No.13289885]

>>13288894
He's right, tho.

[Anonymous No.13289901]

>>13289885
Poor little snowflake :(

[Anonymous No.13289918]

>>13289901
Not an argument.

[Anonymous No.13289920]

>>13289918
It would have been even less of an argument had you not replied.

[Anonymous No.13289958]

>>13288742
>>>/tv/

[Anonymous No.13289994]

>>13288885
Hello newfriend

[Anonymous No.13290018]

Just out of curiosity, do you buy books? If so what? Anything you're interested in? Stuff you pirate and end up liking a lot?

[Anonymous No.13290113]

>>13288107
Mirrorshades is decent collection of short stories by multiple authors of the genre.

[Anonymous No.13290122]

This was alright. Some interesting ideas, but it's not something I'd recommend to someone run out and go read immediately. If it sounds like it's up your alley I say go for it.

[Anonymous No.13290126]

>>13290018
>do you buy books?
Yes.

>If so what?
Non-fiction, Classic literature and SFF picked out by author and price.

[Anonymous No.13290198]

>>13278169
>>Sourcery is pratchett's pick for where you should start.

Wow, That's actually what I started on, completely at random. I found it in a stack of books 20+ years ago at a library book sale.

[Anonymous No.13290220]

>>13290018
Yes, but it's dropped off simply because my backlog is so big.

>If so what?
I buy nice editions of books I care about or already read in a library mostly for shelf-appeal/support an author and to loan to friends.

>>13290018
>Stuff you pirate and end up liking a lot?
Books are one of the only things I don't particularly pirate. Not out of any moral stance or anything. I just like paper books, buying digital books is painless and I have the money to do so if I really want it, and if I don't want to pay there's always the library. I've also never felt I'm getting fucked over buying a book. 5-20$ is worth the time i spend reading it.

[Anonymous No.13290311]

>Just saw that Gene Wolfe died in April
Honestly pretty shook.

[Anonymous No.13290322]

>>13289994
You are the newfag. He is correct.
We got rid of them when lit was split into /his/, but they slowly seeped back in. You are the newfag if you think /lit/ has always been pol infested.
We even had a sticky saying you would be banned for bringing politics in. Mods either got lazy, or Hiro doesn't care much.

[Anonymous No.13290335]

>>13290311
Use the general more often. Stop having a life that isn't 4chan. We had up a sticky for a while.

[Anonymous No.13290344]

>>13290335
I am so sad I missed that. I check lit once a month or so.

[Anonymous No.13290437]

>>13290335
>We had up a sticky for a while.
It was one thread faggot, calm down.

[Anonymous No.13290449]

>>13290322
It's not even pol infested now, dunno what you're whining about. It's just the same two incels who like to post a lot.

[Anonymous No.13290505]

>>13290437
Do you not know what a sticky is?

[Anonymous No.13290535]

>>13290505
There was no sticky you dense cabbage. Stop saying that word.

[Anonymous No.13290546]

>>13290535
sticky sticky sticky

[Anonymous No.13290580]

>>13290535
Wolfe get the sticky uh
Autists gettin miffy uh

[Anonymous No.13290593]

>>13290535
There was a sticky

[Anonymous No.13290626]

>>13290535
Oh look, what have we here? Can you take a look and tell me what it is anon?

>>/lit/thread/S12939047

[Anonymous No.13290673]

>>13290593
>>13290626
Fine, that's my bad. I never pay any attention to outer lit, I completely missed it.

[Anonymous No.13290792]

>>13290122
Personally I loved it but I love stories about generation ships

[Anonymous No.13290964]

>>13288107
burning chrome is a really good collection, not all are cyberpunk but they are all quality

[Anonymous No.13290992]

Bless you anon who shilled this a while back. Finished book 1 and it's fantastic. Are all the others this good?

[Anonymous No.13290997]

Are these books any good? I'm looking for audiobooks to fill my time as I wageslave. Something around the level of Dresden Files, where I don't need to focus much to enjoy it.

[Anonymous No.13291026]

>>13287452
Mild lurker. I'll lurk in /vr/, /diy/ and here if it's a topic I'm familiar with.

[Anonymous No.13291069]

>>13288667
basado y rojoempastillado

[Anonymous No.13291077]

>>13285602
>Tfw no Dark Demon Queen Mommy gf

[Anonymous No.13291178]

>>13290997
>Are these books any good?
Yes,Vlad is based

[Anonymous No.13291204]

THIS ONE IS FOR THE CONAN AND KANE SHILLS

>>13291196
>>13291196
>>13291196
>>13291196
>>13291196

[Anonymous No.13291693]

>>13290449
>go back to being sheep
>we are not trying to take over your board
>it has always been about politics

[Anonymous No.13291733]

>>13286030
WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER