/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18544085]

What do I read after this?
I don't think I'll ever read anything in fantasy that will beat this.

I'm really struggling to leave genre fiction behind and embrace new types of books.

[Anonymous No.18544680]

>>18544085
Is it better than Gene Wolfe?

[Anonymous No.18544742]

The story continues in the Aspect-Emperor series. They're worth the time, even though they might not be as good as the Prince of Nothing.

If you're looking for something else in the fantasy genre I recommend The Malazan Books of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. Very extensive world, loads of interesting characters, similar motives as Bakker. It can be hard work the get into the series, but worth the effort.

[Anonymous No.18544757]

>>18544742
>even though they might not be as good

[Anonymous No.18544820]

lel

[Anonymous No.18544832]

>>18544742
Read all of those already.

I just can't make myself to try non genre fiction and it's driving me insane.

[Anonymous No.18544835]

>>18544757
That's unironically good prose.

[Anonymous No.18545291]

>>18544680
I thought so. But it's a very different work, not as literary. Very detailed world but the author is also a philosophy PhD and plays with a lot of interesting threads. It's a highly enjoyable mix of grim dark fantasy with a style reminiscent of historical fiction, while also looking at the nature of free will, and sin and salvation.

There are four more books is the Aspect Emperor series. It takes place 20 years later. It isn't as good though. It needed an editor. The pacing is just kind of slow. Book 4 is the hardest to get through. 5 actually has a bunch of cool parts.

The good parts are still really good. You find out more about the non-men and Inchori. Parts on the Dunyain and the Absolute are really cool. But he is doing this thing with making his characters suffer and he does so in a way that is plodding and repetitive.

His first book Neuropath isn't written that well but is a much more straight forward philosophical thriller, a pretty unique type of work.

For Grim Dark philosophy with a bit less going on under the hood there is The Prince of Thorns (cool settings and twists) or the Black Company (unfortunate major decline in quality after book 3).

If you like the more literary aspects, Hyperion, a retelling of the Canterbury Tales in a sci-fi setting, is quite good.

If you like Khellus chapters and the uncanny parts, Alistair Reynolds has a bunch of hard sci-fi with similar vibes. The problem is the main series, Revelation Space, isn't as good as some of the stand alones. Chasm City is the best one, and then The Prefect. Pushing Ice sucks. The heavily modified hyper intelligent humans of the far future are a bit like Khellus, and it's a dark universe of alien life and empty void.

[Anonymous No.18546506]

Why is Khellus such a retard? Why doesn't he use his God-like intellect to have his armies build some canons and then just shell the consult with high explosive.

[Anonymous No.18546771]

>>18544085
>What do I read after this?
The second half of the series, obviously.
'White Luck Warrior' drags a little, but 'The Great Ordeal' and 'The Unholy Consult' are Bakker at his darkest, most gripping, and most kino.

[Anonymous No.18546794]

>>18544085
Read BoTNS. I tried getting into Prince of Nothing after starting with Wolfe and honestly it was well below my expectations. It seems Wolfe snapped me out of genre fiction for good

[Anonymous No.18546879]

>>18544085
yeah based

[Anonymous No.18547240]

>>18546794
I had kind of the opposite experience. Wolfe seemed really underwhelming after getting talked up so much. It's good stylistically, but it ain't exactly fine art.

[Anonymous No.18547263]

>>18546879
This seems off. Khellus is definitely on the far left for damnation. Dude is a total fucking psychopath, and the Believer Kings all go meat crazy and are damned too.

I have like 400 pages to go in the series and I'm rooting for the mother goddess to win, or the consult, and for the psycho Anasarimbur to get fucking genocided as abominations.

[Anonymous No.18547431]

>>18544832
Maybe ease into it. Read the predecessors of genre fiction, or try magical realism?

[Anonymous No.18547439]

>>18547240
Myself as well. Anyone who says Wolfe is high literature clearly hasn't read high lit.

[Anonymous No.18547705]

>>18544832
Try Borges. He only wrote short stories. They tend to be surrealist takes on time and memory, and the idea of the infinite. He's a top tier author but easily digestible.

I'd also recommend Victor Pelevin. Probably one of the most respected young authors out there. He also does surreal stuff, so it skirts on the edge of genre fiction, but the caliber makes him read in literary circles too.

I recommend the Helmet of Horror as a starter. Since it is written as a chat log, it is very easy to get into and super fast as a read. Generation P is great too. Honestly didn't like the werewolf one as much. It is super Russian though.

Honestly though, if you like fantasy like Game of Thrones, you could just jump into War and Peace. It's a sprawling character and narrative based work. The writing style is fairly straight forward. It's historical fiction covering the Napoleonic Wars, and it's fantastic. However, it also approaches a lot of topics at a deeper level that genre fiction does and has a great author to carry it off.

[Anonymous No.18548153]

>>18544085
>By the waters of Siöl…