/sffg/ - Science fiction and Fantasy general

[Anonymous No.18779981]

Cyberpunk Skyline Edition

Previous Thread:>>18767242

>Recommended reading charts (Look here before asking for vague recs)
https://mega.nz/folder/kj5hWI6J#0cyw0-ZdvZKOJW3fPI6RfQ

>Archive
>>/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=sffg

>Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1029811-sffg

>A link to the ultimate colossal science fiction and fantasy collection torrent
>>>/t/1023504

>Discord
Never going to be created.

[Anonymous No.18780002]

[Anonymous No.18780038]

>> 18779911
Bakker said that Dunyain are strong in intellect but weak in spirit.

[Anonymous No.18780051]

Not my problem.

[Anonymous No.18780108]

>>18779981
Are there any authors who actually embraced digital formats and sharing their books that way? It seems like many are still doing the old "physical release by an established publisher or bust".

[Anonymous No.18780233]

>>18780108
> It seems like many are still doing the old "physical release by an established publisher or bust".
I'm not sure where you got that idea from. Apart from hardbacks there's almost no money to be made in physical copies. The margins are far higher for ebooks for authors.

[Anonymous No.18780255]

>>18780233
pretty much every author releases physical books + also sells ebooks

[Anonymous No.18780288]

>>18780108
peter watts, even if it did start out as publisher shenanigans. he then realized people actually like free ebooks so he hosts his own works now.

[Anonymous No.18780393]

Fun sky pirates Skies of Arcadia book recommendations?
I don't care that I'm not 15 and haven't been for about that long.

[Anonymous No.18780492]

>>18780108
many established but not hugely successful authors would be much better off using crowdfunding and self-publishing. don't know why they don't.

[Anonymous No.18780520]

>>18780393
Cinder Spires by Jim Butcher maybe? Haven't read it myself but his urban fantasy series gets surprisingly great.

[Anonymous No.18780642]

I am so sick and tired of books where the author simps for their own female characters.

[Anonymous No.18780659]

>>18780642
Give examples anon or your point is invalid.

[Anonymous No.18780663]

>>18780659

[Anonymous No.18780672]

>>18780659
Basically everything written by Mark Lawrence, Sanderson, or Django Wexler just to start. But realistically speaking it's easier to list modern stories where they author doesn't simp for their female characters because it's so much rarer.

[Anonymous No.18780713]

>>18780663
>>18780672
> simp

[Anonymous No.18780718]

>>18780713
Get with the times, boomer.

[Anonymous No.18781241]

>>18780002
>Go! Kellhus! Go out and zap to the extreme!
>I will! Thank you, Father!

[Anonymous No.18781249]

>>18780663
What an awful excuse for a fantasy novel. To think this drivel is one of the bestsellers of the genre this century.

[Anonymous No.18781316]

>>18781241
kek

>>18779911
>>18780038
and yet they were able to easily take over both the three seas and the consult with ease. Not bad for a bunch of autistic Mentats stuck in a feedback loop for generations.

[Anonymous No.18781323]

>>18781316
forgot pic

[Anonymous No.18781324]

do you guys just read bakker and nothing else? i mean the guy is a fine writer but you fuckers barely talk about anything else. I'm starting to believe the meme that nobody here actually reads.

[Anonymous No.18781345]

>>18781324
I frequently effortpost about Tolkien as well, as well as other classic fantasy writers and my own work; but those posts tend to get less (You)s.

[Anonymous No.18781374]

>>18781324
Did you miss the last thread where people were talking about other series? Just because a few anons try to force a discussion by repeating the same shit with bakker doesn't mean we don't read.

[Anonymous No.18781399]

>>18781324
the bigger problem is the absolute sperglords such as (You)rself who REEEEEEE anytime bakker is even mentioned.

yes some of us want to discuss bakker in peace. others want to discuss other books and bakkerfags aren’t stopping them from doing so. no make every thread a flame war… it’s all so tiresome.

[Anonymous No.18781441]

just finished The Quantumm Thief triology. honestly, overall is kinda meh. the first book is by far the best one, it was fresh and the plot was interesting and i cared about the characters. but after that everything is so big and yet so simple and convenient, and the villains and twists are silly idk. and in the second book i didn't care about the earth city and the girl's arc at all

one thing i didn't understand, how exactly did Jean beat the All Defector in the end? and if he only did it in the Chen Guberniya, why did it even matter? I thought the All-D had already eaten all of them, not just the Chen. but then turns out pellegrini wasn't eaten at all

[Anonymous No.18781491]

>>18781324
50/50 Bakkerfagging and /jp/ crossposting.

[Anonymous No.18781502]

>>18781491
People don't post about /jp/ things that much. It just seems like it because someone always spergs out and starts an argument.

[Anonymous No.18781509]

I haven't been in this general for a while. Where did all the litrpg posts go?

[Anonymous No.18781557]

>>18781509
As always, the autists spamming them got tired and moved on.

[Anonymous No.18781566]

>>18781557
Thank fuck for that.

[Anonymous No.18781576]

>>18781324
>I'm starting to believe the meme that nobody here actually reads.
You've got it backwards, people here actually read the problem is everybody has read different things so no discussion on individual books can be had; this has always been the problem of book clubs and alike.

And the few books everybody has read has been discussed to death already.

[Anonymous No.18781578]

>>18781509
Still here. Been reading Truth Seeker: A LitRPG Timeloop which I recommend.

[Anonymous No.18781593]

>>18781566
I wouldn't celebrate yet.
Remember, this is 4chin. There's always some autist lying in wait, ready to annoy us.

[Anonymous No.18781600]

>>18781576
nailed it.

[Anonymous No.18781633]

>A race with a hundred names for the vagaries of ejaculation

[Anonymous No.18781645]

>>18781578
I’m deciding whether to read litrpg or western Xianxia. Someone in the last thread recommended
Virtuous Sons: A Greco Roman Xianxia, but I’ve also read people recommending Beware of Chicken and Cradle. Don’t know which one to start reading. Then there’s reverend Insanity which kinda got my interest. Overall kinda swamped at the moment. But is Truth Seeker any good? I haven’t read much litrpg, other than Cannon Fodder and Trader Jim.

[Anonymous No.18781652]

>>18781578

I’m deciding whether to read litrpg or western Xianxia. Someone in the last thread recommended Virtuous Sons: A Greco Roman Xianxia, but I’ve also read people recommending Beware of Chicken and Cradle. Don’t know which one to start reading. Then there’s reverend Insanity which kinda got my interest. Overall kinda swamped at the moment. But is Truth Seeker any good? I haven’t read much litrpg, other than Cannon Fodder and Trader Jim.

[Anonymous No.18781659]

>>18779981
>/wg/ is kill
What happened bros

[Anonymous No.18781661]

>>18781659
Pseuds killed it.

[Anonymous No.18781663]

>>18781645
>I’m deciding whether to read litrpg or western Xianxia.
Why do you hate yourself so much you poor soul?

[Anonymous No.18781665]

>>18781645
>reverend Insanity
This isn't western but is translated from Chinese.

[Anonymous No.18781672]

>>18781652
read Cradle. at least the author can string more than two words together into readable prose.

> is Truth Seeker any good?
1st book is derivative as fuck, the author had literally read 1 fantasy book before writing it and simply copied it, but its fairly enjoyable as things go.
2nd book takes a noticeable dip but worse books exists
shortly after that it falls off a cliff and becomes an abomination. not so bad its good, but truly terrible.

[Anonymous No.18781697]

[Anonymous No.18781709]

>>18781663
I like reading and I want to support self-publishing writers.

>>18781665
Yeah, kinda fucked that up, but I still want to read it.

>>18781672
Thanks for the heads up about cradle what about Beware chickens?

[Anonymous No.18781730]

>>18781645
Virtuous Sons is the freshest one, but it only just started.

[Anonymous No.18781749]

Possible unpopular opinion: I really don't like how Gene Wolf switches to mini-stories midway through books.

It worked sometimes in Book of the New Sun (Jonas story I enjoyed, but goddamn did the plays drag on), but it completely killed my interest and momentum in The Fifth Head of Cerberus. Anyone else feel this way?

[Anonymous No.18781761]

>>18781709
>I want to support self-publishing writers.
Fuck why do you also hate the rest of us?

[Anonymous No.18781772]

>>18781709
>Beware chickens
It's kind of a comedy. Not shitty slapstic / lolsorandumb / laughtrack kind, but as in the MC just disregards the cultivator 'dog eat dog' society and fucks off to the boonies. I would say it's just a genuinely interesting story even disregarding that it 'breaks the trope' or whatever some people fellate over. Be warned that it's more SoL than constant action, though there's a lot of that too.

[Anonymous No.18781797]

>>18774191
>thunes vision by schyuler hernstrom
Is this actually available anywhere? I can't find ebook or even used physical copies to purchase. I of course found a ebook to not-purchase, but I do like to support authors if possible.

[Anonymous No.18781895]

OK guys do I start to read the flashman or do I go for the lord of light?

[Anonymous No.18781935]

thoughts on this one / entire series?

[Anonymous No.18781989]

>>18781935
Snoozefest. Stopped reading halfway through the second book.

[Anonymous No.18782417]

>>18780672
I have no idea what you even mean by "simps own female characters" and I suspect you're just severely autistic

[Anonymous No.18782421]

>>18781324
There's a discord group that does nothing but shill his books and repost the same shit over and over here, you can filter out 90% of it.

[Anonymous No.18782478]

>>18781935
Liked the first and second books. Third and fourth were meh. My biggest beef is characters will do shit that doesn't pass the smell test. That is, their actions are unrealistic and exist only to produce conflict. For example, in the third book, Abaddon's Gate, a giant multinational fleet (Earth, Mars and the Belt) is stranded in the hub of a wormhole network. It's a pocket universe made with Clarke-tech, where the laws of physics can change on an alien AI's whim (e.g. the universal speed limit can drop to crawl if it thinks it's under attack). The reason is convoluted, but a preacher guy on one of the ships says the whole fleet needs to commit seppuku so the humans back home thinks the mission was lost. Otherwise, we'll send another fleet, which may trigger the the alien AI defense systems to destroy our sun (which they learn has been done to other systems--the now-extinct Clarke-Tech aliens lost a war against another godlike race).
The reasoning makes sense in a desperate madman sort of way, and I can certainly see an individual or group committing to this course. But after preacher man broadcasts his speech, virtually the entire fleet (thousands of people, many civilians) are suddenly 100% on board dying for the greater good. Except Holden and his friends, who of course have to save the day (whole everyone else tries to stop them). I may be off on some of the details (I read this when it first came out). Also, in Cibola Burn (the fourth book), a mercenary and his forces are willing to fight to the death to ensure the mining rights for his megacorp employer. Alien parasites are making everyone go blind, billion year old defense systems are waking, everyone on the planet is probably going to die . . . THIS PLANET IS PROPERTY OF THE RCE CORPORATION! *shoots at the heroes*. And the guys under him just go along with his crazy.
I never read the rest of the series. So far, I think this is one of those cases where the TV show is better than the books, as they wrote out much of the source material's silliness (plus they add some good stuff too).

[Anonymous No.18782512]

>>18781749
you'll love his stand alone books

[Anonymous No.18782807]

>>18781749
>The Fifth Head of Cerberus
There was a mini-story in it?

[Anonymous No.18783053]

>>18782512
I thought Fifth Head was a standalone, have I been bamboozled?

>>18782807
When it transitions to Sandfeet of the Oonga-Boonga Tribe who is later captured by the Bonga-Monga River Tribe.

[Anonymous No.18783060]

Bakkerbros, the books are waaay better in the first reread

[Anonymous No.18783204]

>>18779981
>Book Club
Seveneves, August 15
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22816087-seveneves

[Anonymous No.18783267]

did you like it?
I thought it was surprisingly miles better than the martian.

[Anonymous No.18783286]

>>18783060
I agree fully. There's so much you miss the first time. For instance Saubon's premonition of his own death at Dagliash in The Warrior Prophet. Masterstroke.

[Anonymous No.18783334]

>>18783267
is it me or are there 4-5 books or series that get mentioned almost every fucking thread?

[Anonymous No.18783344]

>"Oh hey daughter figure space jesus lets have creepy sex because space time shenanigans"

NOT OKAY RAUL
STOP SWIMMING WITH NAKED 12 YEAR OLDS

[Anonymous No.18783429]

>>18783334
There's only so many books/series that more than a few people here have read, and even less that people feel like talking about.

[Anonymous No.18783464]

>>18783334
I've tried bringing up other authors and series but nobody responds. This community is not big enough that you're guaranteed to find other people who read and enjoy the same niche books you do. It stands to reason the most famous and popular authors are the ones most able to generate discussion. That or the ones that have obsessive fans who endlessly spam them.

[Anonymous No.18783467]

>>18783334
Any books you'd recommend that you don't see talked about in these threads?

[Anonymous No.18783485]

>>18783464
>>18783334
I'm game to do a /lit/ reads book club, I'm on the last 20 pages of "Mine Were of Trouble" and could go for something fun/adventure

I remember a few anons ran one months ago

[Anonymous No.18783505]

>>18780713
>t. simp
Someone post that terrible passage from the book with the author's self-insert being all, "Yea you may be fucking her now, but she TOTALLY loves me and not you, bro."

[Anonymous No.18783509]

>>18783467
For example, recently read picrel. I thought the story was forgettable, but I thoroughly enjoyed all the dystopian advertising stuff. It's a very short book too so it can be read in an afternoon.

[Anonymous No.18783513]

>>18781324
We only read Bakker for the memes. No one takes his shit seriously; I mean he had a 6 year old boy raped by a man in the PROLOGUE of his very first book.

[Anonymous No.18783515]

>>18783485
I'm not really interested in reading things just for the sake of having conversations. That's too much like school, where I did the assigned readings to participate in group discussions and write papers. 4 years of that shit in college (english major) made me hate reading so much I did not pick up a novel for about 2 years after I graduated.

I'll just stick to mostly lurking until somebody posts about a book I've read.

[Anonymous No.18783523]

SPIDER
KEK
RAPE SCENE

[Anonymous No.18783538]

>>18781797
What the fuck you're right. I bought my ebook off Amazon, but it's not up for sale anymore. That's weird. You could always buy his other collection off Amazon which is just as good if you want to support him.

[Anonymous No.18783554]

Have you read Hoban? A lot of his stuff is hard to find and out of print

[Anonymous No.18783566]

>>18783429
i used to come here last year or the year before and i think it was a big more alive. even so mostly we talked about the same books but the difference is they were books i knew about and liked, nowadays i see a lot of modern shit

>>18783515
i think most of us are like that, that's why the thread is like it is

>>18783467
The Knight
Hospital station
Memory sorrow and thorn

>>18783485 these guys are reading this, i might join too i used to like neal>>18783204

[Anonymous No.18783610]

>>18783467
I was on a mil sci-fi binge recently, if you are interested, I can share what I read.

[Anonymous No.18783766]

Discord?

[Anonymous No.18783780]

Any other fans of this trilogy? My uncle introduced them to me and basically got me back into reading as an adult. The basic premise is an entire island home to a few thousand Americans gets inexplicably transported back in time to the Bronze Age and they have to learn to fend for themselves and deal with various cultures of the time. While most of the islanders are focusing on survival and maintaining peaceful relations, one power-hungry character decides to take a group of unscrupulous folks and go create their own empire using their contemporary knowledge as an advantage. They become the main antagonists of the series. There’s not really any sci-fi outside the initial “event” which never gets explained because it’s merely a setup for the premise of the series. It’s more of a historical adventure novel that uses a “what if” time-travel scenario to set up an entertaining ancient world survival story.

[Anonymous No.18783790]

>>18783766
it's non free and you should stop using it. some time ago someone mentioned bookwyrm, if there's interest i could set it up

[Anonymous No.18783793]

>>18783780
>time travel
Ehhhhhhhhh...

[Anonymous No.18783813]

>>18783780
never read it but it sounds good. I have read The High Crusade, where an alien spaceship lands in the middle ages and a local lord hast to deal with it, i strongly recommend it.

anyone know other books of this kind? i think someone mentioned one about a group of marines getting timetravelled too, maybe to ancient rome

[Anonymous No.18783840]

>>18783509
> dystopian advertising stuff
I'm pretty sure all that was real at the time the book was written. Except in reality the banking cartels control the advertising companies.

[Anonymous No.18783856]

>>18783813
I forget the names of the books but there's one where aliens have to use the planet's equivalent technology to conquer it due to space laws or something and they invade during Roman times, so the Romans slap their shit and take over a space ship.
Then there's one where some WW2 ships get transported to an alien planet with less technology.
Hope you know google-fu. Good luck.

[Anonymous No.18783866]

>>18783060
Yeah, on first reread you don't know who everyone is and what elements of the world are significant, so you miss so much detail. On reread you can appreciate the significance of minutiae and enjoy the work far more.

If you're interested in the God of Gods and wtf was going on with the survivor, I suggest you read up on Plotinus' concept of The One, and Henosis. Bakker seems to have lifted those wholesale for his world buildings. Reading articles on that helped me understand those parts of the books.

>His "One" concept encompassed thinker and object. Even the self-contemplating intelligence (the noesis of the nous) must contain duality. [...] Plotinus denies sentience, self-awareness or any other action (ergon) to the One (τὸ Ἕν, to hen; V.6.6). Rather, if we insist on describing it further, we must call the One a sheer potentiality (dynamis) without which nothing could exist. (III.8.10) As Plotinus explains in both places and elsewhere (e.g. V.6.3), it is impossible for the One to be Being or a self-aware Creator God.
>The One, being beyond all attributes including being and non-being, is the source of the world—but not through any act of creation, willful or otherwise, since activity cannot be ascribed to the unchangeable, immutable One. Plotinus argues instead that the multiple cannot exist without the simple. The "less perfect" must, of necessity, "emanate", or issue forth, from the "perfect" or "more perfect". Thus, all of "creation" emanates from the One in succeeding stages of lesser and lesser perfection. These stages are not temporally isolated, but occur throughout time as a constant process.
That sounds like a lot like the Outside, doesn't it?
>Henosis for Plotinus (204/5–270 CE) was defined in his works as a reversing of the ontological process of consciousness via meditation (in the Western mind to uncontemplate) toward no thought (nous or demiurge) and no division (dyad) within the individual (being). As is specified in the writings of Plotinus on Henology,[note 2] one can reach a tabula rasa, a blank state where the individual may grasp or merge with The One. This absolute simplicity means that the nous or the person is then dissolved, completely absorbed back into the Monad.
He then suicides at the moment he accomplished this.

[Anonymous No.18783910]

Reminder that Poul Anderson wrote a story where a literal kike subverts a planet's entire religion and social order for monetary gain and so he could leave and this is portrayed as a good thing.

[Anonymous No.18783912]

>>18783813
Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar series is a really interesting take on the “alien invasion” genre of the 40s and 50s. The aliens arrive right around the beginning of WW2 looking to add a new colony to their empire. They find that due to our incessant warfare, the human race has advanced much further than they expected. They anticipated an easy conquest since their last probe arrived on earth in the Middle Ages. The alien home planet has been United under the same empire for tens of thousands of years, so they don’t have much innovation from warfare anymore. They still have a slight technological advantage to humans (their technology is equal to that of 90s era fighter jets and tanks, but they don’t have any goofy OP tech like lasers or energy shields). So they decide to invade anyway and brutal warfare ensues. The first four books are about the initial invasion by the conquest fleet and the human nations attempt to stop it. The next trilogy takes place 20 years later when the alien colonization fleet arrives. Then there is a final novel which wraps up the series.
I’m not a big fan of long series because my ADD makes me get bored of them, but I finished this one.

[Anonymous No.18783928]

>>18783912
Sounds kinda retarded desu.

[Anonymous No.18783934]

>>18783912

[Anonymous No.18784011]

>>18783515
>we keep talking about the sane books,, why can't we talk about different books?
>"I'm looking for a new book, how about we start a new one together"
>I don't want to read anything so I can talk about it

Mystery solved I guess. But I can relate I really don't want to have artificial chapter limits or whatever on myself, also sometimes I get busy or just can't be assed to read.

Book clubs have similar logistical issues to playing multiplayer strategy games due to the nature of the medium - they are time intensive and people vary a lot in how fast they progress through them.

>>18783566
>these guys are reading this
Thanks but looks more hard sci-fi than I want now, I'm more in a light-hearted adventure mood after a stretch of nonfiction. I guess that's the other issue with book clubs - people can have such niche moods/tastes for books compared to a lot of other hobbies.

[Anonymous No.18784045]

>>18783793
Please leave.

[Anonymous No.18784193]

> The Galactics arrived with their battle fleet in 2052. Rather than being exterminated under a barrage of hell-burners, Earth joined their vast Empire. Swearing allegiance to our distant alien overlords wasn’t the only requirement for survival. We also had to have something of value to trade, something that neighboring planets would pay their hard-earned credits to buy. As most of the local worlds were too civilized to have a proper army, the only valuable service Earth could provide came in the form of soldiers…someone had to do their dirty work for them, their fighting and dying.

Has anyone read this series? It sounds cool.

[Anonymous No.18784255]

>>18784193
It's a fun pulpy series. It triggers the trannies something fierce since the protag is an Alpha White Male who bangs every hot bitch in the series.

[Anonymous No.18784293]

>>18784255
Based. Buying now.

[Anonymous No.18784332]

>>18784011
It's more that reading is something I do for fun now, it's not a job or something I do for school, so I'm not reading something unless I think I'll enjoy the experience. In a book club I have to go along with the consensus for book selection and for reading pace and that's just the antithesis of fun in my experience. I've read a lot of the books commonly discussed here, so it's not like I have nothing to talk about, I just wish the community were either larger so there would be more people of varying taste, or else that the few active posters here were as widely read as myself. As it stands I think I've read several times more books than most posters ITT.

[Anonymous No.18784339]

>>18784293
Based.

[Anonymous No.18784433]

>>18784332
Do you do anything synchronously with others?

[Anonymous No.18784448]

>>18783515
Passivity is a perfect recipe for failure here.

[Anonymous No.18784452]

Fuck E William Brown
Fuck Pay Walls
Fuck Pay Pigs
Fuck Lies
Fuck Broken Promises
Fuck YOU

[Anonymous No.18784464]

>>18783790
It won't work.

[Anonymous No.18784481]

>Saint Uldine attempted the baptism of a troll in the waters of Black Meira Tarn. She was indefatigable; he raped her four times during her efforts, until at last she despaired.
Based Vance has me coomin' already.

[Anonymous No.18784507]

>>18784481
The shit forced celibacy makes you read.

[Anonymous No.18784538]

[Anonymous No.18784543]

>>18784507
f-fuck you

[Anonymous No.18784637]

>>18784452
This, but female and black writers. We wuz trannies n shiet.

[Marshall No.18784643]

>>18783910
Name of the book?

[Anonymous No.18784788]

sometime ago, some anon talked about a fantasy novel that was set on a castle-like city, I believe the it was by a Scottish/Irish author.

The novel starts with a 'G' I think. Does anyone remember?

[Anonymous No.18784796]

>>18784788
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gormenghast_(series)

[Anonymous No.18784798]

>>18784788
Gormenghast series, starting with Titus Groan

[Anonymous No.18784812]

Would folks mind giving me feedback on a bit of scifi I'm writing, or should I fuck off to the hellhole that is /wg/? It's a subject matter that originally came from a /tg/ post I mentioned here in the past. Here's the abstract, but it's not the passages I'd like feedback on:

>Shizuka works as a "Space Sanitation Engineer". The novella/anthology is a collection of short stories depicting a series of jobs that prove that interstellar waste management isn't as dull as most people might think. Shizuka is a member of Zenko, an offshoot of humanity that escaped the poisoning of Earth.

[Anonymous No.18784834]

>>18784796
>>18784798
Thanks anons

[Anonymous No.18784846]

>>18784812
The Japanese names seem generic and boring. Why not appropriate names from less-cliche nations? Some of the smaller, younger European nations perhaps. Latvian or whatever seems interesting.
The Japanese makes it sound like weeb-wank, like the imaginatively piss-poor waste your character has to manage.

[Anonymous No.18784853]

>>18784812
So you're basically just ripping off Planetes?

[Anonymous No.18784930]

>>18784846
Because I'm not trying to score imaginary points on a Latvian Underwater Welding message board.

>>18784853
Inspired, maybe, but not a ripoff. Hell, even Planetes is inspired by another book on the subject that Yukimura read.

[Anonymous No.18784974]

>>18784930
This book was sooo bad.

[Anonymous No.18784979]

>>18784974
>>18784930
Sorry didn’t mean to reply

[Anonymous No.18784996]

>>18781749
I liked how William Gibson used 2-3 characters with their own chapters to tell stories from 2-3 perspectives. When there were 3 the third character's perspective would mostly provide context through world building. You could skip them and not miss out on the story and I did. I reread All Tomorrow's Parties because I skipped the sick nerd's chapters but later realized I really liked the setting of the bridge trilogy. As I get older and have less time to read I'm beginning to realize that knowing what to read and what to skip is one of the most useful reading skills to enjoy books. Same with vidya, knowing which mechanics to play with and which ones to ignore makes playing games much more enjoyable once you get over the OCD of trying to 100% or min/max.

[Anonymous No.18785180]

what are some books that feel like dungeon crawlers?

[Anonymous No.18785213]

>>18785180
boring

[Anonymous No.18785217]

>>18785213
sex with your mother? yes it is rather boring. now recommend me some books.

[Anonymous No.18785237]

>>18785217
She was long dead before you were born, son. Try the other one.

[Anonymous No.18785244]

>>18781935
The most vanilla SF ever. No wonder normies love it so much.

[Anonymous No.18785247]

>>18785237
yeah I know shes dead thats why the sex was boring.

[Anonymous No.18785259]

>>18785247
Sex is boring when you have a smol pp.

[Anonymous No.18785264]

>>18781441
Can't answer your question, been so long since I have read them. I do agree that the first book was the best with the most interesting ideas, kinda forgot what happened in the others. First book was really cool though, opening prison scene was a lot of fun. That and the first fight on Mars.

[Anonymous No.18785271]

>>18785180
Blindsight

[Anonymous No.18785291]

Is this thread meant for discussing our own ideas for scifi/fantasy? Because Im brewing a seriously fucking autistic one right now

[Anonymous No.18785292]

>>18781399
>shitting up every thread for the past year with repetitive shitposts
>w-we just wanna discuss in peace!
fuck off bakkertranny.

[Anonymous No.18785306]

>>18785291
Lay it on us broseph.

[Anonymous No.18785307]

>>18785180
Dungeon Samurai

[Anonymous No.18785319]

>>18785291
You would not be the first to post their ideas here and you will not be the last.

[Anonymous No.18785345]

>>18785180

quite captivating in combinging humanity's drive for the unknow and sacrifices to be made to achieve it.

can be read solo, but it becomes a lot more atmospheric if read as part of the Reynold's universe.

[Anonymous No.18785347]

>>18785306
Similar universe to ours except with platonic/aristotelian physics-- that is, the world is made up of the five elements mediated by the two fundamental forces described in Aristotle, love and strife. Also, there is a fundamental entropy-like orientation of all material objects to converge to an ever more accurate copy of a Platonic form: the so called "perfection principle", which is acting weakly all the time. There is a massive invisible hierarchy of daimonic realities stacked over top of the material one, with "vertical" encounters happening all the time. But-- and this is the part that makes it really autistic-- it is set up in such a way that a conscientious reader can actually calculate certain states of the universe ahead of time through a combination of astrology and discoverable mathematical relationships of the forces and elements, which the characters in the universe will not know about.

[Anonymous No.18785413]

>anon asks for specific recs
>give him some that match perfectly with what he wants
>anon never even replies back; not even a thank you
I don't want to feel this pain anymore.

[Anonymous No.18785417]

Just want to thank the /lit/izens who convinced me to retry Bakker 6 months ago. Finally got around to it and now I'm halfway through The Warrior Prophet. I have a few minor grips and questions, but I'll save those for when I'm done the trilogy to avoid any spoilers / see if they're elaborated on.
Thanks again, /lit/!

[Anonymous No.18785423]

>>18785417
np

[Anonymous No.18785424]

>>18781399
if you want to discuss bakker go fuck off over to the 3 seas forums. far more sophisticated discussions of the lore and particularly confusing/ambiguous parts of the series.

spamming bakker here is incredibly stupid because all it's done is create an edgelord version of rothfuss, complete with tribal identification with what are probably fairly mentally unwell humans.

reddit has harry potter, 4chan has kilhouse, both communities are as pleasant as anal fissures.

[Anonymous No.18785428]

>"Dukes of Hazzard meets Lovecraft in the year 10 million AD!"
SOLD

[Anonymous No.18785429]

>>18785413
lol sorry I guess I >>18785417
was a few second too late

[Anonymous No.18785431]

>>18785417
You're welcome Anon. Truth Shines.
To the Bakker-haters, maybe give it another shot. It took me like 3 tries to get into his writing. Then I got completely hooked. It's quite mesmerizing, despite its flaws.

[Anonymous No.18785449]

>>18783513
he also quite clearly struggles to control his tumescent phallus while writing, especially once he starts detailing the erect member or the black alien seed it squirts out.

i normally try to start from a "death of the author" perspective, but it's really hard to square the constant rape and sordid sexual impulses without thinking that bakker was probably raped in some way himself. he's not a good enough writer to have invented all of this from whole cloth.

[Anonymous No.18785460]

Damn bro I really thought him and Thecla were gonna Have dirty anal sex nah but seriously that sucks

[Anonymous No.18785468]

>>18785449
He probably was, or witnessed it; but that makes his writing all the more meaningful. Real artists create from their own pain and that is what makes their work so unforgettable.

[Anonymous No.18785474]

>>18785468
>Bakker
>meaningful
ehhhhhhhh
He is seriously mediocre and leans far, far too hard on historical references

[Anonymous No.18785484]

>>18783813
Harry Turtledove's Videsso's series is the timetraveling marines. been on my list for some time, seems like pretty comfy reading

[Anonymous No.18785521]

>>18785468
you'd like to think that if someone is given all the tools and opportunities to excise whatever scars they carry with them that there would be some inherent beauty as the misery and ugliness is transformed into self-actualization and achieving growth.

instead it's all essentially masturbatory sessions for bakker. he bangs out another scene with something sexual, then it's done for a bit, then there's another, largely meaningless sexual act. rinse/repeat.

i'm not a psychiatrist, but it seems an odd strategy to think that writing the 502nd gay rape cannibal holocaust scene is what will finally get you past that personal trauma, rather than it just being time to jack off for a bit and then let your body recharge so you can repeat it all over again. i guess there's something ironic about that, given his "philosophy" but i doubt that that was what he intended when he wrote the books.

[Anonymous No.18785558]

>>18785347
Do it, seems fucking good to me

[Anonymous No.18785632]

Some book by John Gwynne became available to me recently. Anyone know if he is any good? I'm kind of weary of starting any books written in this decade for obvious reasons.

[Anonymous No.18785642]

>>18785632
Probably generic grimderp.

[Anonymous No.18785822]

>>18783866
Yeah I didnt really understand what was going on there. The survivor takes some Qirri and seems to overwhelmed by the experience and seems to think to have achieved the Absolute (which is probably not true) and commits an hero.

[Anonymous No.18785850]

>>18785822
sidestepping out of the causal chain and gazing upon the place where it is neither day nor night will do that to you
an heroing was fucking stupid, he had just become doomer at that point

btw, is there somewhere that a Bakker discussion is happening where we arent just shitting up this 4chan thread?

[Anonymous No.18785857]

>>18781672
Cradle has an insufferable outcast honor conflict which is totally unreadable. Can I skip a book?

[Anonymous No.18785862]

>>18785850
This is the only place.

[Anonymous No.18785869]

>>18785850
The discord, where you guys come from.

[Anonymous No.18785879]

>>18785869
I literally dont know what discord you are talking about

[Anonymous No.18785905]

>>18782478
This planet and alien tech was worth gazillions. And that mercenary had right to 10% of it or something. I'd kill infant for that.

[Anonymous No.18785970]

>>18785850
>>18785869
I would rather talk about Bakker and other /sffg/ books here and hope others talk about their favorite series here. How else would I hear recommendations of other series? How else could others learn of Bakker. I say No to any echo chamber discord server.

[Anonymous No.18786003]

>>18785970
The problem with that is that I already finished the Second Apocalypse, so all I have is spoiler talk and theories

[Anonymous No.18786037]

How can I better train my attention span? It always takes me a month to go through the first 100 or so pages of a book and then I can burn through the rest in a day or two once the plot starts moving and gets me hooked.

[Anonymous No.18786041]

>>18786037
refuse assent to unwelcome thoughts. Thats always the first step

[Anonymous No.18786102]

>>18785857
That doesn't even last for all of the first book.

[Anonymous No.18786106]

>>18786102
Still, can I safely skip it? I could literally feel my life draining away as I read it

[Anonymous No.18786115]

>>18786106
Book 1 is only 300 pages. Just how strong is your ADHD?

[Anonymous No.18786135]

Read 2 pages of neuromancer and decided I need to be more alert and sharp when I go to read it next because it's going to take effort. I just wanted to have a chill reading experience but I don't believe there is a such thing so I'll pick it back up tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.18786159]

>>18786037
Stop watching anime.

[Anonymous No.18786170]

>>18781633
what book?

[Anonymous No.18786201]

Anyone completed the Black Company series? is it better to read port of shadows second or leave it last? also is it worth it to jump in?

[Anonymous No.18786224]

>>18785521
Did you finish the books til the end of TUC? The “masturbatory” shit makes a lot of sense given the overall thesis.

I’m not here to say Bakker is flawless or something; he certainly isn’t. His writing has many imperfections. But given the Gnostic/Wittgensteinian thrust of the entire series, the depravity and ultraviolence make sense in the big picture. Not to everyone’s taste, of course, but I enjoyed it, and it made me think. More than any other fantasy I’ve ever read, excluding Tolkien’s work.

[Anonymous No.18786433]

Would you guys read a novel released on block chain?

[Anonymous No.18786447]

>>18786037
glass of wine perhaps

[Anonymous No.18786478]

>>18785180
The Slog of Slogs chapters from Aspect-Emperor.

[Anonymous No.18786480]

>>18786433
Not on the novelty alone, but it seems like an easy enough way to self-publish. The royalty systems on some of those are pretty smart.

[Anonymous No.18786532]

>>18781324
The cycle is:
>be bored
>check the thread
>nobody here reads except sanderson and bakker
>post a bit in it about other series to make it better
>get some actually good book recommendations
>go read
>thread goes to shit again
>return and see everyone bakker and sanderson posting

/gfg/ can't come soon enough

[Anonymous No.18786593]

I've been reading backwards through supernatural horror, I'm slowly starting to realize how little modern authors have read outside of Lovecraft, their substance and style near identical.

It's amazing how these modern authors were influenced by Aickman or Dick.

[Anonymous No.18786600]

>>18786593
I've been reading backwards through supernatural horror, I'm slowly starting to realize how little modern authors have read outside of Lovecraft, their substance and style near identical.

It's amazing how little these modern authors were influenced by Aickman or Dick.

[Anonymous No.18786624]

>>18786532
When was the last time you saw Sanderson posting? Sandersoys were beaten in a glorious battle and now Bakkerbros are fighting against litrpgs, isekais and Chinese webnovels.

[Anonymous No.18786695]

>>18786170
prince of nothing

[Anonymous No.18786735]

>>18786170
The quote is specifically from book three of The Prince of Nothing.

[Anonymous No.18786746]

>>18783509
I love that novel.

>more people? more people to sell shit to.
>dumber people? easier to sell shit to them.

[Anonymous No.18786756]

>>18786037
Allocate a set period of time you want to dedicate to reading EVERY day. It doesn't have to be much, but stick to it. Form a habit.

[Anonymous No.18786761]

>>18786170
>A soul that had snaked across all the world’s ages, taking lover after lover, exulting in degradation, spilling seed across innumerable dead. The Nonmen of Ishoriol. The Norsirai of Trysë and Sauglish. Warring, endlessly warring, to forestall damnation …
>A race with a hundred names for the vagaries of ejaculation, who had silenced all compassion, all pity, to better savour the reckless chorus of their lusts. Stalking, endlessly stalking, the world they would make their shrieking harem …

[Anonymous No.18786777]

>>18786695
>>18786735
>>18786761
thanks, I may read the prince of cooming

[Anonymous No.18786783]

is the horror book "Seed" good?

[Anonymous No.18786817]

>“Do you think,” a voice crackled across every possibility of hearing, “the God would be anything other than remote?”
>“Or do I lie, in that, since I am all souls, I choose the one that will turn the most hearts?”
>“Or should it speak of treachery that my purposes move beyond yours? Encompass yours?”

[Anonymous No.18786878]

>>18781578
>>18781652
I've been reading Beyond Average for a little while. It's a LitRPG but the author claims that he uses dice to form the story and what happens inside it. It's okay though the prose is all over the place sometimes.

[Anonymous No.18786915]

>>18786783
sneed

[Anonymous No.18786921]

>>18786915
I understand now, its a masterpiece

[Anonymous No.18786922]

whats the best site to read chink shit on?

[Anonymous No.18786999]

>>18781576
You're doing book clubs wrong then, idiot. The whole point of book clubs is to have an agreed upon book to cover so exactly that type problem is avoided. Or have you actually just gathered people that happen to read books together and expected to have some shared discussion about one or two books in specific?

[Anonymous No.18787052]

>>18786115
Cradle isn't anything noteworthy, if he doesn't like it he should just drop it.

[Anonymous No.18787054]

>>18787052
True but it doesn't really start until the 2nd book.

[Anonymous No.18787059]

Anyone ever bought those Folio Society editions of Book of the New Sun? Are they worth the money?

[Anonymous No.18787060]

>>18787054
I've always found book 2 to be the worst in the series. The last quarter or so when the plot actually starts moving is decent enough, but before that it kind of feels like it's just treading water. Blackflame really picks up the pace once Lindon can actually exist without dying to a stiff breeze though.

[Anonymous No.18787080]

>>18787060
> I've always found book 2 to be the worst in the series.
Well it sets the tone and style for what comes afterwards. The first book is essentially a very long prologue.

[Anonymous No.18787093]

>>18786624
5 threads ago or so?
The cycle torments me for a long time

[Anonymous No.18787096]

>>18787080
I just think the main cast really suffers without Eithan. As much as his antics can go a bit too far at times, he really rounds out the cast. He really gives the series its internal context and gets shit moving, and I think the author does a pretty reasonable job at preventing him from becoming a mary sue which is noteworthy considering his character.

[Anonymous No.18787155]

>>18784996
>knowing what to read and what to skip is one of the most useful reading skills to enjoy books
I envy your ability to do that. Once I skip a chapter something breaks in my brain and simply can't go back and keep reading, my interest in a book just fades as I keep debating what to skip next. I remember this happening to me with wheel of time book 6 and a few times after, I either keep going or drop the book :-(

[Anonymous No.18787194]

>>18787059
Don't buy anything Folio Society if you actually intend to read it, the paper they use now is barely any better than your average paperback.

[Anonymous No.18787197]

>>18787194
Really? That's a shame. Thanks for the warning, I'll stay away then.

[Anonymous No.18787209]

>>18785180
Lovecrafts short stories.
The beast in the cave, Dagon, etc.

[Anonymous No.18787230]

Wtf was the point of dr meninx? What even was he.

[Anonymous No.18787261]

[Anonymous No.18787333]

>Because I am my father's son.

Where were you when he said this line?

[Anonymous No.18787416]

>>18787333
not reading edgy star wars fanfic.

[Anonymous No.18787475]

>>18787416
All of fiction aside from Tolkien and Warhammer is written for women.

[Anonymous No.18787509]

>>18787475
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.com/amp/en/article/9358ke/the-warhammer-40k-community-is-trying-to-weed-out-its-far-right-faction

[Anonymous No.18787535]

>>18787475
And that makes it good. Warhammer is, on the other hand, written for manchildren to sell them little plastic dolls. I even read some, when very young: they were laughably simplistic.

[Anonymous No.18787625]

>>18787509
is there anything interesting in the story apart from a few anecdotes and blanket statements without any evidence

[Anonymous No.18787670]

>>18787475
>Tolkien and warhammer

[Anonymous No.18787719]

>>18787230
a walrus

[Anonymous No.18787845]

>>18785417
congratulations on grasping the absolute

[Anonymous No.18787957]

>>18787625
no. but apparently there one group of fans in london who made this
>Last month, No More Damsels’ co-founder, Sarah Pipkin, helped to write an open letter addressed to Games Workshop, calling out bigotry in Warhammer.
also don't use amp ffs https://web.archive.org/web/20210805152824/https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/9358ke/the-warhammer-40k-community-is-trying-to-weed-out-its-far-right-faction

[Anonymous No.18788056]

>when you finally give up trying to read shit that's "deep" and realize you just want books to entertain you
going to try to get into sword and sorcery I think.

[Anonymous No.18788096]

>>18784433
In my 20s I had a group of people I met up with to play cards or board games with a few times a month on a regular schedule, even did a few D&D campaigns with them. Anymore no, don't really have a schedule for my social life. I got one friend who enjoys reading SF and Fantasy and recommend books to him, and we chat about them whenever he gets around to reading them. I don't hound him about them though, he's got his own life and I've got mine.

[Anonymous No.18788111]

>>18788056
>when you just want to be entertained but the story is so banal and the characters so plain that you lose interest
time to revisit Wolfe i guess

[Anonymous No.18788120]

>>18787333
Checked and cringe. Warhammer is so gay and stupid looking. No matter how grimderp they try to make the aesthetics, it's still just oversized cartoon football soldiers designed for oversized manchildren.

[Anonymous No.18788124]

>>18788111
That is an issue as well. If something is written poorly it can't be entertaining.

[Anonymous No.18788130]

>>18786817
That's my favorite chapter from TGO. When Kellhus brings down the hammer on Proyas, metaphorically and literally.
That's why I made the meme.

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.18788234]

>>18779981
Priest of Lies, War for the Rose Throne #2 - Peter McLean (2019)
Whether you should read this series, based on these two books so far, may largely depend on the type of emotional involvement you have with fictional characters and what you expect from them. As with this and various other books and maybe more so because this is grimdark, this may well be a case of "characters do terrible things to show you how terrible the people who do these things are". That's how it came across to me.
Overall it continued to be a lot of fun, though it was marred by its resolution. How much this marring ought to matter has been what I've thought about the most of anything about the book. That is to say, how much one small part should affect the overall rating. This disappointment is because I may have misunderstood and because it may have been for melodramatic, possibly even satirical, effect. A character even says at the end that too much is happening too quickly and I would agree. I may have a bias against pacing where too much is happening too quickly at the end to provide a resolution. My first thought would be that it allows to author to do whatever else for the bulk of the book. This is common in TV series where most, if not all, of the plot progression is the season finale. That isn't quite the case with this.
Some readers may be irritated by how there are paragraphs that are almost, if not entirely, verbatim from the first book. This happens enough for it to be notable. It would've been less noticeable if they had been rewritten at least. There are various other oft-repeated phrases as well. Repetition is not uncommon in general.
I remain highly interested in what will happen and I'll almost certainly read the remaining two books, however this book's ending had me realize that I had become overexcited and developed unrealistic expectations from reading the first book, despite the limitations I noted. Aside from the ending this was as enjoyable as the first book, so for those who don't mind the ending, the rating ought to be higher.
Rating: 3.5/5

[Anonymous No.18788278]

>>18786037
Stop reading boring, meandering books.

[Anonymous No.18788353]

>>18781249
Everyone raves about the prose, but other than a few flowery passages its really boilerplate

[Anonymous No.18788452]

[Anonymous No.18788585]

>>18788452
Is it fair that tolkien is taking publicity from these up and coming writers? It's not like people dont know who Tolkien is and where to find his books if they want to.

[Anonymous No.18788621]

>>18788585
>fair
He sells better so he's put in a more prominent place. Fairness has nothing to do with that.

[Anonymous No.18788648]

>>18786201
Yeah, was pretty entertaining but if I were you I wouldn't expect a literature masterpiece or anything. Prose is pretty bare, important events happening in few sentences, not much worldbuilding etc, which takes a little getting used to. Second book's narrating is a big improvement over the first one. You should read the first 3 chronologically released books atleast, they're really fast reads. I haven't read port of shadows or silver spike yet.

[Anonymous No.18788666]

>>18779981
anyone have any reccs to start with Moorcock? Im interested in his influence on alan moore--was considering picking up the cornelius quartet or gloriana?

[Anonymous No.18788724]

>>18788452
It's only funny if you assume breeding age women have agency.

[Anonymous No.18788740]

>>18784452
August 2021 Subscribestar reward
>Author notes "at this point the whole book will be up here before its published"

You ain't getting shit.

[Anonymous No.18788968]

Why do I feel like a child reading this?

[Anonymous No.18788997]

>look for xianxia on royalroastie
>path of ascension
>14-year-olds being raised to avoid meaningful relationships and told to drink and be promiscuous for the first couple hundred years of their life
>even after the "waifu" is introduced, they just fuck random people to "blow off steam"
Yeah, no, thank you, I am out of here.

[Anonymous No.18789041]

>>18788968
Because its target audience is 12 year old boys, then later girls and trannies.

[Anonymous No.18789107]

>>18788968
Cause it's a fantasy epic written for the audience of a typical Hollywood PG-13 blockbuster.

[Anonymous No.18789114]

>>18789041
>>18789107
What should I read instead?

[Anonymous No.18789126]

>>18788585
You and her seem to have confused a book store for a book fair. It's not the job of a book store to bring lesser known authors to the attention of the masses. Book stores are about selling books, so no shit they emphasize big names and popular series, those are more likely to sell products. Especially the expensive hard back and collector editions which are where they make their biggest margins.

[Anonymous No.18789130]

>>18789114
How should I know what you like? I'm not a mind reader.

[Anonymous No.18789145]

>>18788452
>1.5 for Jordan
What the fuck why?

[Anonymous No.18789146]

>>18789126
>Fonda Lee is the World Fantasy Award-winning author of the epic Green Bone Saga, beginning with Jade City and continuing in Jade War and Jade Legacy. She is also the author of the acclaimed science fiction novels Zeroboxer, Exo and Cross Fire.
>Fonda is a former corporate strategist and black belt martial artist who loves action movies and Eggs Benedict. Born and raised in Canada, she currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

Let's not fuck around. If you were to put her books among TV guides, the TV guides would garner more interest.

[Anonymous No.18789147]

>>18788234
But what is it about?

[Anonymous No.18789159]

>>18789145
The WoT books are long and there are a lot of them. Could easily take up a shelf or more if you had multiple copies.

[Anonymous No.18789165]

>>18789146
>she currently resides in Portland, Oregon.
My hometown of all places. And yeah I've never heard of those books, but they sound like titles my eyes would just slide over on the shelf at my local B&N. There's been a glut of East Asian fantasy in the past decade but most of it seems like shallow historical parallelism and I lost interest after trying three different ones (Priory of the Orange Tree, Poppy War, Grace of Kings + Wall of Storms) and having more or less the same tired experience.

[Anonymous No.18789174]

>>18789165
>Portland, Oregon
Whoa nigga. Ever been to Eugene?

[Anonymous No.18789175]

>>18789145
14 books in the main series, plus a prequel and a huge door stopper "companion" compendium which is essentially a wiki in book form. In addition to selling hardcover versions of a lot of these they also sell box sets which include 3 novels apiece. Really 1.5 shelves is kind of sparse, I expect it to increase if Amazon's TV series for it ever comes out cause they'll have to flood the shelves with all the new TV show editions.

[Anonymous No.18789180]

>go into used bookstore with a massive fantasy section
>most of it is dated schlock
Fantasybros, it's so hard to find a legitimately enjoyable read.

[Anonymous No.18789184]

>>18789174
No, never that far south. I drive down to the Salem/Kaizer area occasionally since my brother lives there with his wife, I've also been out east and to the coast, but generally avoid the south. There's not much down there besides a couple college towns, farms, and meth heads.

[Anonymous No.18789189]

>>18789180
>sff section is 2 shelves
>entire rest of the store is YOU ARE A FUCKING BADASS, Why I'm Not Talking To White People About Race, and Lee Child.

[Anonymous No.18789194]

>>18789114
The Darkness That Comes Before, of course.

[Anonymous No.18789196]

>>18789114
How should we know what you like? Are you that much of an indecisive faggot that you can't just pick what you like?

[Anonymous No.18789199]

White on black racism bad. 1 star. Black on white racism good. Me ratey 5 out of 5.

[Anonymous No.18789202]

>>18789180
I don't really understand people who make this complaint. Do you just have zero introspection and don't know your own preferences and taste? If you do know what you like, why do you waste time complaining instead of just searching for that stuff specifically?

[Anonymous No.18789214]

>>18789184
Ahh to bad.
Good luck on finding some solid fantasy. I gave up long ago.

[Anonymous No.18789215]

>>18789202
I know my preferences and tastes, but I also know it's fun to tread into narratives I wouldn't otherwise be interested in. When you're running the gamut of literally who authors over the span of entire decades, there's a lot of trash to sift through.

[Anonymous No.18789217]

>>18789199
example?

[Anonymous No.18789223]

>>18789199
It's not racism if it's black on white because racism is prejudice + power.

[Anonymous No.18789224]

>>18789214
I'm actually taking a break and reading some nice pulpy military sci-fi I got recommended to me by an anon here a while back. Read 3 books in the series so far and have been enjoying it. I picked up another series in a similar vein, Legionnaire, mostly because of the negative Amazon reviews that called it jingoistic right wing garbage and that's a surefire way to find something fun (stupid, but fun). On the whole Legionnaire was a tad too dumb even for me, but I've been enjoying Terms of Enlistment and its sequels.

[Anonymous No.18789225]

And the general is derail with off-topic bullshit.

[Anonymous No.18789246]

>>18789225
>he thinks magumbo bipoc sff is off-topic
Bigot.

[Anonymous No.18789257]

>>18789225
Your post is just as off-topic as anything you might be complaining about. Well, I guess expecting any discussion on 4chins to stay on-topic is a kind of fantasy.

[Anonymous No.18789296]

>>18789224
Funnily enough I also just finished a mil sci-fi binge. You eventually get bored of the Marines in Spaceeee that so many people write about.
You might like the Drop Trooper series by Rick Partlow. The science is kinda thin, but you have a bunch of Marines yelling Orah and killing aliens. Plus he was commissioned as an infantry officer so his writing about the military aspects of the story are head and shoulders above the rest.

I've also tried Sentenced to War by J.N Chaney, which is the softest sort of mil sci-fi, with convoluted excuses why everyone is using 20th century tactics and technology far in the future.

There was some anon who kept recommending the Last Watch by J. S. Dewes but that was just badly written.

Oh and I dropped the Planetside by Michael Mammay, not on account of it's quality but because I got tiered of the tropes.

[Anonymous No.18789301]

Honestly how do you not let your mind get derailed while reading, especially some filler or the beginning of a book where you don't have much context? Mine just wants to think all the time. Meditation?
Also I have such a trouble imagining faces, I can visualize and imagine vast worlds, objects and abstract connections but when it comes to faces I just can't do it. Should I just use random actors?

[Anonymous No.18789415]

>>18789147
>>18712213

[Anonymous No.18789418]

>>18789296
>You eventually get bored of the Marines in Spaceeee that so many people write about.
Just from the two series I've tried I saw a ton of overlap in what I quickly realized are the standard cliches of the genre: insufferable career brass that backstab the honest grunts, inter-branch rivalry, the bad ass sarg who looks out for his own, etc. I know I'll grow tired of it eventually but for now it's still fresh and fun for me.

>You might like the Drop Trooper series by Rick Partlow. The science is kinda thin, but you have a bunch of Marines yelling Orah and killing aliens.
Part of what I like about Terms of Enlistment is it isn't actually about a space marine. He works with marines in his role, but isn't one himself, but he's still an enlisted grunt so you have a lot of the same tropes.

After I exhaust Kloos' books I'll probably go fishing for more though. I'm hardly biased against space marines, I've only got my feet wet in this sub genre, and the whole reason I started on military sci-fi is for some dumb simple fun. It's nice to read something that is unapologetic and masculine.

[Anonymous No.18789429]

What are some books that include the main character(s) exploring a foreign, alien environment? Doesn't have to take place in outer space. I have yet to read a book that conveyed a sense of wonder as great as pic related. I wish I could have a similar reading experience again.

Any other types of books where "sense of wonder" is a fitting descriptor are welcome as well btw, regardless of genre.

[Anonymous No.18789453]

>>18789429
>An expedition from Earth to Mars discovers a deserted city, the remains of an advanced civilization that died out 50,000 years before. The human scientists recover books and documents left behind, and are puzzled by their contents
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnilingual

[Anonymous No.18789476]

"Accursed be the whore, for she maketh a grave of her womb."
>Womb-Plague
>The Death of Birth
>Years of the Crib
W-what did Bakker mean by this?

[Anonymous No.18789483]

>>18789429
Ringworld
Piranesi
Diamond Dogs
Walking to Aldebaran

[Anonymous No.18789512]

>>18789418
Besides the tropes you listed, which do get annoying after a while, not to mention the breathless fascination with the Mexican Corps of the United States, is the fact that most of authors seem to think that military life is akin to a 9 to 5 corporate servitude even in the middle of an interstellar war with the aliens.
The only ones that do get it right are authors that have served themselves. Kloos for one (sergeant stationed in Germany), Rick Partlow (infantry officer) that i already mentioned, Joe Haldeman (combat engineer in Vietnam), the list goes on.
One of the finest mils ci-fi series that I read, The Subterrene War, was written by a former CIA spook - T. C. McCarthy.

Unfortunately, while Kloos is not writing about Marines in Spaceeee, he is writing about Air Force combat controllers in Spaceeee.

[Anonymous No.18789526]

>>18789429
Cage of Souls. It's set on a dying Earth in the distant future, but it's still one of the most alien worlds I've encountered in SFF. This excerpt about the sea is one of my favorite in the medium.

>North is the sea, which I have not mentioned before, and will not again. Expeditions cross into the desert, and the jungles house the Island and its inmates, but the sea is no place for human life, even for a moment. North from Shadrapar lies a barren, rock-strewn beach leading jaggedly down to the poisoned shore. It is not water, as we understand it, that makes up that sea. It is some chemical-laced potion fatal to life, and yet inimitable to death as well.

>The tiny micro-animals that are responsible for decay and renewal are as averse to the sea as we are. If you ventured down to the tide’s edge you would see a rolling expanse of black fluid out as far as the eye could see, and everywhere across it you would see the bodies: of fish and marine creatures, and the occasional luckless human being. The species of animal to be found floating on the tide are all extinct, and have been for millennia.

>There are bizarre and astonishing prodigies there that have no equal anywhere on Earth. Everything is preserved in its final attitude of twisted, envenomed death, and will no doubt still be there when the sun consumes the Earth and brings the whole sad show to an end. I looked upon the sea just once in my life, and that through a telescope, and never wished to do so again.

>Some who make the sea their study claim that there are things that make the waters move, and feed on those unnaturally maintained corpses. I believe none of it. The sea is death’s unchanging kingdom on Earth, and it has no part in this story. My story is, despite all that has happened, one of hope, and there is no hope for the oceans.

[Anonymous No.18789538]

>>18779981
I need a /sfffg/ related book where the main character apply the Stirner philosophy (egoism)

[Anonymous No.18789543]

>>18789526
>>18789483
>>18789453
Thanks guys, much appreciated

[Anonymous No.18789712]

Is she the best fantasy has to offer?

[Anonymous No.18789717]

>>18789712
>women author
no thanks

[Anonymous No.18789720]

>>18789712
She? That pronoun doesn't sound like it comes with a penis. You know, the thing you need to write compelling fiction.

[Anonymous No.18789849]

I picked up Old Man's War. Is Scalzi a hack? Everything's written so pedestrian.

[Anonymous No.18789939]

>>18789849
Are you the anon looking for military sci-fi I suggested it to the other day? It's a fun page turner but not high literature, so depends what you're in the mood for.

[Anonymous No.18789971]

>>18789939
No I just grabbed it at a sale for four bucks.

[Anonymous No.18789992]

>>18789194
Lmao like clockwork

[Anonymous No.18790001]

>>18789992
They also keep spamming the same shit.

[Anonymous No.18790185]

>>18788997
It got so boring I dropped it. He and the blood mage really fuck around? I'm sure glad I didn't keep reading.

[Anonymous No.18790192]

>>18788997
Oh and there's only one good xianxia story, Beware Of Chicken.

[Anonymous No.18790253]

>>18788740
Imagine paying 5 bux a month for one chapter.

[Anonymous No.18790278]

>>18789223
>racism
>the belief that some races are better than others, or the unfair treatment of someone because of his or her race
Nice bait, got me kinda angry.

[Anonymous No.18790283]

>>18788666
Elric in published/written order.
Corum trilogy.

[Anonymous No.18790626]

>>18790192
Nah, there’s others.

[Anonymous No.18790642]

>>18790626
>But I won't name them because you don't deserve that.
Yeah totally there are. Cool story, bro.

[Anonymous No.18790652]

>>18790642
From what I've read Virtuous Sons: A Greco Roman Xianxia seems alright.

[Anonymous No.18790662]

>>18790652
To be honest I forgot about it, it was quite short and on a hiatus when I last checked it out. But yeah if the quality keeps up and if it doesn't get axed it will be a solid recommendation.

[Anonymous No.18790673]

>>18781324
Virtually ever other author in the genre pales in comparison. It's neither his nor our fault.

[Anonymous No.18790698]

>>18790673
So, do you just come from your discord just to spam?

[Anonymous No.18790704]

>>18790698
Does it trouble you?

[Anonymous No.18790712]

>>18790698
Yeah, they do. He >>18790704 pretty much confirm it.

[Anonymous No.18790721]

>>18790712
You'll just have to cope. It's only natural that the single best writer in the genre is praised here. I don't even use discord, but that's ultimately irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.18790730]

>>18790712
Its the same bullshit every thread.

[Anonymous No.18790732]

>Rent free

[Anonymous No.18790739]

>>18790712
He only confirmed that you're outnumbered.

[Anonymous No.18790742]

>>18790721
>single best writer
Bakker is seriously mediocre

[Anonymous No.18790748]

>So, do you just come from your discord just to spam?

[Anonymous No.18790760]

>>18790742
Name a better contemporary writer than him in the genre.

I will wait.

[Anonymous No.18790764]

>>18790760
All of them. Bakker just parades meaningless vulgarity and violence while ripping off Tolkien.

[Anonymous No.18790772]

>>18790764
I accept your concession.

[Anonymous No.18790793]

>>18790764
Pretty sure anyone who isn’t sucking Bakker dick knows it.

[Anonymous No.18790796]

>>18790764
Don't bother, it's just a small group of anons.

[Anonymous No.18790801]

>Still can't name one.
>Still seething

[Anonymous No.18790813]

>>18790801
Guy Gavriel Kay

[Anonymous No.18790815]

>>18790801
You know it’s more than one anon, right?

[Anonymous No.18790818]

Everyone of my chink web novel writers

[Anonymous No.18790821]

>>18790801
Brandon Sanderson.

[Anonymous No.18790823]

>>18790801
Steven Erikson

[Anonymous No.18790831]

>>18790801
Ursula K. Le Guin

[Anonymous No.18790832]

>>18790764
Did you read Bakker, at all? Or does he simply, and unironically trigger you?

[Anonymous No.18790842]

>Don't bother, it's just a small group of anons

[Anonymous No.18790843]

>>18789712
she's the biggest new thing in fantasy

[Anonymous No.18790846]

>>18790843
Meh, I'm not into erotic literature. So I'll pass.

[Anonymous No.18790847]

New thread
>>18790844

[Anonymous No.18790858]

>>18790847
And already the thread is going to be derail by bakkerfags.

[Anonymous No.18790860]

>>18790858
They literally can’t help themselves.

[Anonymous No.18790868]

>>18790858
>>18790860
You can always leave, you know? I literally couldn't care less about Bakkerposting.

[Anonymous No.18790872]

>>18790868
Sure, Bakkerfag.

[Anonymous No.18790875]

>>18790872
Keep seething and bitching then. I don't mind about that either.