/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

[Anonymous No.20173212]

The Cleanrot march to Caelid Edition

Previous Thread:>>20166267

>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.20173213]

What are you guys currently or planning on reading?

Been reading a bit more game of thrones and Sansa second chapter was great. The hand’s tourney was something i found myself enjoying, really captured the Middle Ages tournaments. Sansa’s denial about Joffrey is something that surprises me, yet her blaming Cersei and her sister is in-character of her. Ned’s second half of the tourney is just as great, with the intrigue and the such. Really loving Ned ignoring all the red flags he’s provoking with his investigation. Tyrion’s fourth chapter was also superb and shows the naivety of Catelyn in just trusting littlefinger blindly with nothing but his words, also the battle with the mountain clan was well done.

[Anonymous No.20173221]

>>20173212
Is robot sci-fi dead? Are we destined to meandre in the wake of Blade Runner forever?

[Anonymous No.20173231]

>>20173213
My current reading order is:
Three Hearts and Three Lions
The Broken Sword
Bastion

[Anonymous No.20173311]

King of sffg

Simple as.

[Anonymous No.20173327]

The darkness that comes before?
More like the garbage that makes you snore.

[Anonymous No.20173352]

>>20173327
fucking gottem

[Anonymous No.20173358]

Patrician subgenre.

[Anonymous No.20173364]

>>20172701
Cradle. Lindon is compulsively polite while also a borderline kleptomaniac.

[Anonymous No.20173377]

>>20173212
Why the fuck do those cleanrots look like midgets?
T. fan-artist

[Anonymous No.20173380]

What is the best lit-rpg of this millennium?

[Anonymous No.20173382]

>>20173377
She's like 12 feet tall. Her half brother is like 30 feet tall.

[Anonymous No.20173395]

>mfw I realise the narrative poetry of Cnaiur adopting Kellhus'strategy of employing myth and prophet personal to unify the People into his own version of Great Ordeal

[Anonymous No.20173466]

>>20173212
Radahn and Malenia do have some interesting dynamic

[Anonymous No.20173679]

>>20173364
Based Cradle poster. We will dab on the Bakkerspammer and continue to make him seethe.

Eithan > Kelhus

[Anonymous No.20173715]

Jannytranny having another meltdown? Stop fucking removing my posts you womanish eunich

[Anonymous No.20173722]

>>20173466
GRRM didn't write any of the characters though. He said in an interview that he just provided the setting for the story, e.g the Lands Between.

[Anonymous No.20173724]

>>20173380
Probably Disco Elysium desu.

[Anonymous No.20173750]

Just finished Frankenstein. I unironically think it's more Gothic than Science Fiction, definitely unworthy of being called the first Science Fiction work. Really good book though.
>>20173722
I prefer the Castlevania levels feel of the older games. Open world ruined it. They can't go bakc either, that's how videogames work. Once you get OPENED you can't close again. Just look at Need for Speed. Aside from the whack tire physics which you can fix in the .ini files it's better than most track racers released since and nobody cares because it wasn't le open world street racing. How are you going to get these retarded normalfags to give a fuck about future FromSoft games if they can't go on "le adventure"? I really liked Dark Souls, man.

[Anonymous No.20173753]

>>20173750
They did a good job with the open world though, most games don't.

[Anonymous No.20173774]

>>20173364
He's actually got a fairly unique set of traits for a protagonist. The underdog and determination stuff is pretty standard, but you don't often have protagonists whose defining traits include ambition and greed on quite absurd scales. They're typically villainous qualities, and Lindon exemplifies them with a heroic bent.

[Anonymous No.20173777]

I dunno if this is the right place to post it but if you guys are worldbuilding or anything, what does the end of the world of your world look like?

[Anonymous No.20173778]

>>20173777
>worldbuilding
Why not just tell a story nigger?

[Anonymous No.20173788]

>>20173774
And also his inclination to cheat like a bastard whenever the opportunity presents itself and steal everything that isn't nailed down. Actually, if you look a bit closer, basically every main cast member in the series is a villain archetype twisted into a non-villain protagonist role. Yerin even gets comments about the fact that she's technically on a Slaughter path several times. Eithan is basically a trickster villain, Mercy's entire family is all about death and shadows. The closest to non-villain would be Ziel, and funnily enough he's the only one who succeeds in the evacuation plot without everyone assuming he's trying to screw them.

[Anonymous No.20173797]

>>20173778
I have enough imagination to make up cool concepts in my head and make branching stories and so on but not enough patience (or time anymore) to write it down into something coherent. I'm basically doomed to write 20 pages, think what I wrote was shit and not try again for another 6 months.

[Anonymous No.20173805]

>>20173788
Mercy is probably the most straight-up heroic archetype (good person from a bad family). I also like how Ozriel/Eithan is basically a standard super-genius xianxia protagonist who got really bored and lonely after schooling everybody and everything.

[Anonymous No.20173830]

>>20173805
Honestly Eithan shouldn't even work as a character, in basically any other series he'd be an outright mary sue and completely insufferable. The fact that he actually fails at several points obviously helps, but his borderline fourth wall breaking antics shouldn't work, but they do.

I think Will Wight has a lot of talent specifically when he's writing character who are active. And by that, I mean character who are acting upon the plot, rather than reacting to the plot. I've tried several of his series and the trend had always been the same, the ones he writes with active protagonists are enjoyable, but his reactive protagonists are always awful.
This really was the perfect storm in Cradle because *everyone* is perpetually goal-oriented simply because that's what the genre is about.

[Anonymous No.20173843]

>>20173830
That's probably why I didn't like Traveler's Gate all that much. Simon is incredibly reactive after the first book, and he's just not a particularly well-characterised protagonist. Meanwihle if you look at the Elder Empire stuff, Calder is way more proactive than Shera and I generally liked him more, even if I think Shera's books overall had more enjoyable content.

[Anonymous No.20173853]

>>20173843
Those were my exact thoughts on those two series as well. Calder kept me wanting to read more, but Shera was a snorefest to read. I barely got past the introduction of Travelers Gate.
Which reminds me, the author said he wanted to put out a new Elder Empire book some time, I wonder how he's going on that.

[Anonymous No.20173857]

>>20173213
Currently doing Kane’s Night Winds on the week days and The Three of Swords Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser collection on weekends.

[Anonymous No.20173866]

>>20173853
Well, neither series really ended on a way that they'd get a sequel, so probably focused on a new character (maybe a jump into the future). He's also wanted to make new Traveler's Gate stuff eventually, and I can see how, there's a LOT of uncovered ground and even straight-up new questions by the ending of book 3. Maybe he can make Simon an actual character, or just relegate him to a side-character role because Simon is genuinely only really likeable in the specific instance of when he's fighting because Will Wight clearly enjoys writing absurdly high-power anime swordsman, there's one scene in... I believe it's early in book 3 that's just Simon and Leah vs some big deal thing and it's, like... You can tell when it would've been "Oh the cool part of the fight music kicks in now", if that makes sense. Will Wight writes fights right.

[Anonymous No.20173893]

>>20173830
I think Eithan largely works because he's just funny.

[Anonymous No.20174151]

HE'S ALIVE

[Anonymous No.20174162]

Help a poor anon out, is there any fiction involving hot angel girls?

[Anonymous No.20174193]

>>20174151
h a b b e n i n g

[Anonymous No.20174278]

>>20174162
The Club Dumas

[Anonymous No.20174305]

>>20174151
TRUTH SHINES

[Anonymous No.20174334]

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.20174338]

>>20173212
The End is Now, The Apocalypse Triptych #2 - John Joseph Adams & Hugh Howey, editors (2014)

After having been disappointed with the first volume overall, I considered not continuing because I didn't care about about the stories really. I had already previously read the Ken Liu one, so that was even less incentive. I kept reading though for three reasons. I wanted to see how the experiment went, it bothered me to only have a third of the story, and honestly probably most of all I wanted to be accurate with creating the image that summed up the stories of the three volumes.

HERD IMMUNITY - Tananarive Due
She hasn't seen another human in 9 months. When she finds a guy, she's desperate, even though he doesn't want anything to do with her, for good reason.
Blah

THE SIXTH DAY OF DEER CAMP - Scott Sigler
...was the counterattack
Meh

GOODNIGHT STARS - Annie Bellet
The daughter of a woman on the moon colony and her friends rush to find safety from the moon debris.
Meh

ROCK MANNING CAN’T HEAR YOU - Charlie Jane Anders
They're wacky adults now making zany gonzo films, but for some reason their films keep ending up with someone killed. WEIRD! Also, the world is a disaster, but don't worry about that.
Blah

FRUITING BODIES - Seanan McGuire
A mother and daughter attempt to survive in a world devoured by fungus. It's repetitive for a short story, which I assume was to mimic the mother's OCD, but I didn't appreciate it. I also don't have any appreciation at all for this particular type of dark story.
Blah

BLACK MONDAY - Sarah Langan
Another group attempts to survive, but choices make in desperate circumstances often lead to unfortunate outcomes.
Blah

ANGELS OF THE APOCALYPSE - Nancy Kress
Now everyone under 30 is docile. Popular sentiment is that they all need to be killed because they're soulless monsters. Also, it was aliens all along.
Blah

AGENT ISOLATED - David Wellington
Agent Whitman tries to escape with a group of survivors and evade both the zombie hordes and the military who are hunting down the potentially infected.
Ok

THE GODS WILL NOT BE SLAIN - Ken Liu
The uploaded human consciousness battle each other for supremacy.
Enjoyable

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.20174345]

>>20174338
YOU’VE NEVER SEEN EVERYTHING - Elizabeth Bear
A woman treks against the United States to be reunited with her partner and child. Flu has killed off many, more than it should have, as it was exacerbated by the anti-vaxxer movement.
Meh

BRING THEM DOWN - Ben H. Winters
The two characters in the dead world bumble around until the plot happens.
Blah

TWILIGHT OF THE MUSIC MACHINES - Megan Arkenberg
Highly acidic rain slowly corrodes the world, but in this town mostly everyone lives as if doom wasn't upon them. A slice-of-life during an ongoing apocalypse.
Ok

SUNSET HOLLOW - Jonathan Maberry
Hack & slash survival horror zombie b movie with an infant escort mission
Blah

PENANCE - Jake Kerr
He didn't decide who would die, but he had to tell them that they would, which would forever haunt him.
Meh

AVTOMAT - Daniel H. Wilson
1707, Imperial Russia, the last mechanician creates two humanoid automata using ancient relics that give them life.
Ok

DANCING WITH BATGIRL IN THE LAND OF NOD - Will McIntosh
His wife of twenty-two years announced she's been having an affair, so he leaves to try start a relationship with his celebrity crush, the 58 year old actress who played Batgirl in her younger years.
Meh

BY THE HAIR OF THE MOON - Jamie Ford
In 1910, a cousin of the protagonist from the previous story tries to survive while high on opium.
Blah

TO WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD - Desirina Boskovich
Despite aliens constantly destroying cities all over the world, many people rise up against the "true enemy", the government, because they don't believe that the aliens exist. It's all a hoax and false flag they say. One young woman doesn't want anything to do with any of it and only wants to survive.
Ok

IN THE MOUNTAIN - Hugh Howey
Oh no, the Chosen Ones thought they were superior to all but it turned out that they weren't!?
Blah

DEAR JOHN - Robin Wasserman
An epistolary story written on toilet paper by a woman in the ark about all the men in her life, almost all of whom treated her terribly. This was surprisingly amusing and funny.
Enjoyable


OVERVIEW:
>>20166339

[Anonymous No.20174610]

>>20174338
>even though he doesn't want anything to do with her, for good reason.
She's fat.

[Anonymous No.20174631]

>>20174345
>Oh no, the Chosen Ones thought they were superior to all but it turned out that they weren't!?
SHUT
IT
DOWN

[Anonymous No.20174719]

>>20174610
He survived the apocalypse by being extremely careful, but then she sexually assaults him while he's sleeping, infects him, and he dies. She takes all his stuff. The End.

>>20174631
TOO
LATE
NOW

[Anonymous No.20174797]

Any recommendations for fantasy with a circus/clown theme?

[Anonymous No.20175108]

>>20174797
name of the wind

[Anonymous No.20175194]

>>20174162
why are her breasts weird and blurry

[Anonymous No.20175204]

God Emporer of Dune really drags on, huh. On page 290 or something. Leto having a cult-like ceremony saying he doesn't like males in his army cause they turn to rape? Why am I getting 20 pages at a time of bad philosophy. And all the chicks want to fuck Duncan, even the most disciplined soldiers? Was Frank Herbert just a horny man writing all of this? The book was set up nice with a rebellion story and now it's just dragging on.

[Anonymous No.20175233]

>>20175194
Anon, that isn't a real woman.

[Anonymous No.20175245]

A maze of death is super dark man. And it gets darker the longer I think about it. Going to be reading more Phillip K. Dick. Books are long enough for good character development but not long enough where it begins to drag on.

I really like the themes of questioning reality.

[Anonymous No.20175264]

Why do trannys hate Sanderson?

[Anonymous No.20175269]

>>20175264
They love him. He's part of the non-problematic wizarding world.

[Anonymous No.20175283]

I thought I hated sanderson but I'm coming to realize that I just hate fantasy altogether

[Anonymous No.20175324]

I was trying to look for an HP Lovecraft story where Lovecraft describes the literal last human on the planet trying to survive the scorching-hot death of the sun. The guy lives at the south pole.

[Anonymous No.20175359]

I haven't touched fantasy books in ages but someone recommended Bakker's Prince of Nothing books because I like Dune and they are apparently Dune but fantasy. But then I heard from other people that they are shit and "problematic" whatever the fuck that means. So which are they and why would they be problematic? Something to do with rape I guess?

[Anonymous No.20175389]

>>20175359
> then I heard from other people that they are shit and "problematic"
From who? Redditors? If it's not an evil white person being killed disney-villain style by blameless, saintly brown people, then the work of fiction is problematic. Hell, evidence against the "out of Africa" theory is problematic. Those books might be shit but "problematic" is a nothing word used for people that are afraid to more carefully articulate grievance; because in careful articulation all of their grievances crumble into nonsense.

[Anonymous No.20175504]

>>20173213
I've heard a lot about Patricia McKillip, and her prose. And I'm wondering where should I start.

[Anonymous No.20175559]

>>20175359
The "problematic" claims usually come from the brain-addled feminists who hate the trilogy for having only two female characters of note both of whom are prostitutes. Apparently the fact that 90% of the story is dedicated to a military campaign flies over their head.
>In relation to your portrayal of women (and any controversy thereof), it seems to me that the demands of the (Kellhus-centric) plot rather the constraints of gender roles in pre-modern societies have dictated your choice of weaker, more needy female types over stronger ones. Would you say that this was the case?>
>Not at all. I've always thought that sanitizing gender relations in ancient worlds comes very close to 'selling out.' The only real editorial pressure I received to make the book more commercially palatable was to make it more 'female friendly' - they even wanted me to change Conphas into a woman at one point! Apparently the male share of the fantasy book market is dropping quickly (because of weed and video games, I suspect). Once you decide to portray a repressive patriarchal society, then character becomes the place to explore the inevitable distortions that result. I actually think of Esmenet as quite strong, though in a conflicted (which is to say, unsentimental) fashion.
Funnily enough, the sequel tetralogy overcompensates by introducing a dozen Super Important female characters

[Anonymous No.20175602]

>>20175559
orange woman bad

[Anonymous No.20175617]

What's the most generic fantasy name that ISN'T "X of Y"?

[Anonymous No.20175627]

>>20175324
I looked through my complete works of HPL and couldn't find it, (I may have missed the needle in the haystack) my HG Wells short story collection. Asimov may have written something like it but it was him, and it wasn't in the I, Robot collection. I remember it reading like Lovecraft, there was only one named character that remembered his mother or friend.

[Anonymous No.20175644]

>>20175617
X and Y

[Anonymous No.20175651]

>>20175617
The X Y.

[Anonymous No.20175656]

>>20173358
Nice, but bro...you realize GERM's novel was a dying sun story right?

[Anonymous No.20175662]

>>20175617
The X of Y and Z

[Anonymous No.20175681]

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/g39385874/best-fantasy-books/

>50 Best Fantasy Books of All Time
>#13 "a foundational text for feminist fantasy."
>#12 "20th-century Black woman in California who travels back in time to a slaveholding plantation in Maryland before the Civil War, where she meets her own ancestors"
>#11 "an action-packed epic about colorism, classism, and sexism"

do you guys think these books deserved to be that high?

[Anonymous No.20175701]

>>20175681
>fifth season number 1
Lol.
Lmao.

[Anonymous No.20175722]

>>20175656
*first novel

[Anonymous No.20175765]

>>20173213

Going to continue with The Expanse since I only read book one this year and I'd like something more modern to read since my current sci-fi reads have all been pre-2000s. Here's how I would rank the POV chapters in AGOTs. I'm considering a re-read this year to refresh my memory on a lot of smaller details if Winds is ever announced:
Ned
Tyrion
Catelyn
Bran
Daenerys
Arya
Sansa
Jon

I wasn't a big fan of Jon or Sansa chapters in AGOT but I found those characters got a lot better ACOK and onwards I found them to be the weakest of the first book

[Anonymous No.20175770]

Currently reading short stories from a S&S magazine. Gonna review a couple of the stories now because I can:

>THE WIZARD’S DEMISE by Géza A. G. Reilly
Imagine a typical Conan vs. Evil Wizard tale told from the perspective of the evil wizard in first-person. I liked this; nothing special, but solidly S&S with a slightly different take and a fine WHAT A TWEEST at the end.
4/5

>QUESLAVALAKA by J.B. Toner
This is in second-person narration so I was instantly turned off and started skimming. The story ends on the word "Fuck" so I know I made the right decision.
0/5

>THE TEMPLE OF VANAS by Kieran Judge
Generic female warrior comes across a temple in the middle of nowhere and saves another woman from evil men. Feminist and very generic.
2/5

>AS REPELLENT AS I by Chase A. Folmar
The best story so far. Very much in the vein of Clark Ashton Smith and even Karl Edward Wagner with excellent prose. Has a little bit of everything that makes S&S and dark fantasy in general so good.
5/5

[Anonymous No.20175811]

>>20175617
Adjective Noun

[Anonymous No.20175828]

>>20175770
>>20174345
>>20174338
nobody likes you faggot

[Anonymous No.20175835]

[Anonymous No.20175847]

SOVL

[Anonymous No.20175912]

>>20175828
speak for yourself, double faggot

[Anonymous No.20175937]

>>20175912
Shut the fuck up and never reply to me again faggot bitch. Keep your faggot ass reviews on some faggot website like goodreads

[Anonymous No.20175951]

>>20175912
not that guy but i agree, no one cares about your walls of text

[Anonymous No.20175963]

>>20175828
REKT

[Anonymous No.20175976]

>>20175937
>>20175951
I'm not the one posting the reviews, but holy fuck, it's one or two posts per thread and you sperg out like it's taking precious time out of your lives. At least he's talking about books that are not Bakker or Sanderson or whatever.

[Anonymous No.20175992]

>>20175976
>Sanderson
literally the most overrated fantasy author of the 2010s

[Anonymous No.20176031]

>>20175992
Did you not even read anon's post? Well of course you didn't.

[Anonymous No.20176072]

Sanderson's materials and ideas are great, much effort is put into his books. Last time I read the Stormlight Archives, his style seemed very dry at times,exchanges between peopel that should be more tense or emotional just come off super flat. At the same time inner-character struggle gets mountains of prose, which is jarring. I find inner-struggle less interesting, maybe it's just the characters.

[Anonymous No.20176095]

>>20176072
A good point on that front is Oathbringer. The climax has two 'major' character moments, Dalinar telling Odium to fuck off and Kaladin fighting Amaram. The former is almost entirely spurred on by internal conflict and Dalinar's shouting mostly for his own sake, he doesn't give a fuck about Odium. It's a pretty solid, if perhaps overblown moment for his characterisation. Meanwhile Kaladin fighting Amaram is SUPPOSED to mean something but it just comes across as "Kaladin is having a fight with the guy who betrayed him" and there's no real weight to it.

[Anonymous No.20176116]

>>20176095
Yes, yes. Chiefly in my mind was when Shallan admits to Dalinar that she's a radiant and Dalinar just basically says "okay."

also
I FOUND IT
>>20175627
>>20175324
It's "till A' the Seas" from "Horror in the Museum - Collected Short Stories Volume II," though it wasn't written by Howard himself.

[Anonymous No.20176122]

I've finished reading Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. Mandel, author of Station Eleven. As I thought, it doesn't seem I'll be posting whatever I write about it here, despite time traveling being the central plot device. The last time I did so with a book that did similarly with time travel it was deleted from the thread. That doesn't matter anywhere near as much what I want to do though.

[Anonymous No.20176140]

>>20176116
I think he has this sort of issue where dialogue in Stormlight is always either really 'weighty' or really 'witty'. Nobody just says things earnestly, except under some thin veil of humour, with a couple exceptions (Wit's talks with Kaladin, for example). I think he's better at this in Mistborn (era 2 specifically, era 1 is rough all-round), so I wonder if it's just a symptom of him trying to make his epic fantasy 'feel epic'.

[Anonymous No.20176177]

>>20176140
marvel syndrome

[Anonymous No.20176190]

>>20176140
Strange, that his writing style gets worse. I don't remember Elantris having this problem. Warbreaker did humor and people relating oddly pretty well. Redditor types love "extra wittiness," if such a thing actually exists so maybe he smells the money. Wittiness wears thin to me. At this point he could write utter shit and people would buy it in heaps, so I hope he writes more naturally. A perpetual problem he has is that many of his characters have hidden abilities and information, so they are smug about it. The reader is invited in on this smugness, as if they've read the books, they know of these secret abilities as well.

[Anonymous No.20176227]

>>20176190
Is that really a thing, the smugness? Maybe with Zahel/Vasher, but Hoid is just like that, and nobody else really important so far exists in stories beyond their original (Kelsier WILL show up later but hey). I wouldn't say his writing necessarily gets worse, Mistborn era 2 is still being written and I think it's some of his best serial work (Emperor's Soul is arguably his actual best work because it turns out when he limits himself and doesn't write 500 pages for a single story he actually tells a good story). The dialogue isn't incredibly 'natural' but it characterises everybody pretty solidly in a way that fits the... Sort of Victorian pulp-y aesthetic it has going on/

[Anonymous No.20176229]

>>20175828
>>20175937
Based

[Anonymous No.20176238]

>>20176177
Nah, Marvel writing is when every serious moment is undercut by a quip. Sanderson does at least know when to leave quips out of things, they're mostly for downtime or for... Shallan characterisation.

[Anonymous No.20176251]

>>20173212
Can I get a qrd on Saruman?

[Anonymous No.20176279]

>>20174151
Is that Richard’s brother?

[Anonymous No.20176285]

>>20176227
Vasher, Hoid, Shallan (she has a Perrin-esque personality arc), God-King-Dalinar, Adolin, some of the spren.
Emperor's Soul was compelling, I think it was written before he wanted to fit settings into a large cosmology. One character wants to do one thing, and one force wants to stop them.
Too many characters seem like too much of one or the other, too witty, or far too dour (Szeth, the old scheming out king- you know the guy), to the point where the magic Peter-Pan fairy (oops) seems like a relatable, personable character by comparison. Does his writing need more boring people?

[Anonymous No.20176296]

>>20176251
Uruks bow to Saruman
in contact with Eru Ilúvatar
confirmed to possess angelic abilities
control Rohan with an iron fist
own castles and banks all over the world
direct ancestor of the ancient royal blood line
will bankroll the first cities in Mordor (Sarumangrad will be be the first city)
own basically every DNA editing research facility on Middle-Earth
first designer babies will be Saruman Babies
said to have 200+ IQ
ancient Elven scriptures tell of white angel who will descend upon the Middle-Earth and will bring an era of enlightenment and unprecedented technological progress with him
Own Nanobots R&D labs around the world
You likely have Sarubots inside you right now
Saruman is the Archangels Michael and Gabriel
Learned fluent Gondorian in under a week
Nation states entrust their gold reserves with the him. There's no gold in Dol Amroth, only Dol Orthanc
He's 67 years old, from the space-time reference point of the base human.
In reality, he's a timeless being existing in all points of time and space from the first note of existence to the end of the universal chorus
Saruman will guide humanity into a new age of wisdom, peace and love

[Anonymous No.20176298]

>>20176285
All the boring people are forgettable or dead, is the problem. Do you fucking remember Sigzil? I don't.

[Anonymous No.20176299]

>>20176251
Sauron's man, to the surprise of literally everybody, is the employee of Sauron.

[Anonymous No.20176323]

>>20176298
Without looking: Bridge 4, he wanted to train as a doctor? I think the traitor from bridge 4 killed him but I forgot his name. I might have them confused.

[Anonymous No.20176326]

>>20176296
Based

[Anonymous No.20176337]

>>20176323
Nope. He's the guy who's a scholar, was trained by Hoid. The rest of Bridge Four were a bit weirded out by his ability to read and write because Alethi culture. He's from those people who're big on bureaucracy and paperwork, the Azir. He's still alive.

[Anonymous No.20176340]

>It swelled as each pulse attained its peak, then shrank back a bit while the next throb grew. Everything around it remained in shadow, for it greedily consumed all the sunlight. Slowly, but inevitably, its girth widened and its tip rose high into the air.

[Anonymous No.20176343]

>>20175828
an hero yourself fagget. I like review anon, he actually reads books, unlike your loose anus ass.

He is one of the very few that actually read a book before he shits on it.
neck yourself fagget. no one likes your ass, not even your mom, that is why she kicked you out.

[Anonymous No.20176355]

>>20176340
sounds very phallic

[Anonymous No.20176405]

What makes the knights of the Vale the best in Westeros?

[Anonymous No.20176494]

>>20173212
What’s your favorite noble house? For me, it’s House Mallister

[Anonymous No.20176503]

>>20176405
the fact that no one can fight them if they don't want to leave the Vale?

[Anonymous No.20176517]

>>20176503
So it’s just the geography of the Vale that makes them the “best” and not their actual prowess as soldiers?

[Anonymous No.20176522]

>>20173213
im reading the fourth wheel of time book. Im liking the series a lot the only thing that is really bothering me is that egwene, nynaeve, elaine, and the amyrlin seat are all aparently retarded and think 3 girls with little training can take out a bunch of fully realized black ajah

[Anonymous No.20176531]

>>20176517
On one hand, they're the oldest group of andal warriors in Westeros.

On the other hand, the ones who stayed in the Vale kinda had it easiest didn't they? It's like the conquerers left the Vale and took the Reach, etc. the weak babbies just holed up behind their mountains

[Anonymous No.20176543]

>>20176522
Imagine every Aes Sedai in the tower as looking like a 18-year-old female in perfect health. The books aren't clear enough on this aspect (or that they're all obsessed with secrecy). Also, the Cairhien look vaguely Japanese.

[Anonymous No.20176561]

>>20176522
Oh, and Siuan is only like 30 or something (40?) at that time. It is also a setting where a normal 16-year-old would be considered an adult for soldiering or marriage.

[Anonymous No.20176574]

>>20176405
isnt that the kings gaurd?

[Anonymous No.20176589]

>>20176561
right but the 3 girls havent been trained. I get that they have raw power but the knowlege they lack is a huge deal i feel like. Also, if elayne dies its going to make their already bad relations with caemlyn a lot worse

[Anonymous No.20176610]

>>20176589
You can teach a stupid person to do complicated or tasks difficult tasks, but of course it takes longer than for someone brilliant to grasp it. Intelligence matters more than training (for espionage)- the girls are seen as bright and even if they can't do this or that weave, there's reason given for tasking them to simply listen. If you read New Spring Moiraine and Siuan hear of some dark plot when those two are still accepted, so that's a good reason (for her) to task the accepted to keeping their ears open.

[Anonymous No.20176616]

>>20176574
Kingsguard is a paper tiger, the only feared members they have are Jamie and Barristan

[Anonymous No.20176628]

>>20176589
>I get that they have raw power but the knowlege they lack is a huge deal i feel like.
They touch on this in the books but if you don't mind getting into super into the autistic power level detail than you should know that nynaeve, egwene and elayne aren't just a little more powerful. They are three of the most powerful women of the age by several magnitudes. There's even a chart from one of the companion books that compares all the aes sedai so you can see just how high those three are compared to the others (don't look it up yet though because it's spoilery). And it isn't a secret. All the aes sedai can see their strength and it played a part in Siuan's decision to send them after the black ajah.

If the black ajah are all trained knife fighters then the wonder girls are three grunts with fully loaded machine guns. A fight between them could go either way depending on the circumstances.

[Anonymous No.20176650]

>>20176610
i do plan on reading new spring eventually, and i guess its true siuan never said to fight them i think. Maybe the girls just gave me the impression they were trying to fight with the trapping them talk in book 3.

[Anonymous No.20176664]

>>20176628
ya i get theyre stupid strong i dont know id take moraine over any of em if i had to choose, atleast for now.

[Anonymous No.20176683]

>>20176650
The kids are really stupid but the trouble won't play out how you think.
>>20176628
The Ajah leaders remain conspicuously unnamed through the books.

[Anonymous No.20176693]

>>20176683
>The Ajah leaders remain conspicuously unnamed through the books.
until around the time egwene returns to the white tower anyway

[Anonymous No.20176724]

>>20176522
Siuan's thought process is something like
>okay, the black are finally making a move
>and I can't trust fucking A N Y O N E
>except Moiraine, those two girls she found, and the princess
>but those three are stronger than any five Aes Sedai put together and stubborn as a silverpike
>and Moiraine has her hands full minding the Dragon Reborn
>and I'm desperate

[Anonymous No.20176815]

>>20176543
wtf is wrong with her thumb...

[Anonymous No.20176822]

>>20176815
A severe case of club thumb.

[Anonymous No.20176824]

>>20175559
her review was on point doe

[Anonymous No.20176831]

>>20175701
gave the first book a try.
dropped it.
woke shit wrapped in a "fantasy" series.
written by a nigger, so, of course, retards will shill it.

[Anonymous No.20176872]

>>20176831
You may enjoy life more if you weren't always so angry about everything in the world.

[Anonymous No.20176873]

I just finished Wheel of Time, and the last few books were really fun, though I feel slightly cheated in the fact that Rand, Perrin, and Mat didn't get to all meet up before the end after being apart since right after they took the Stone of Tyr, if I recall.
The final showdown against The Dark One was fucking choice, and Logaine's story had a nice little cap to it.

[Anonymous No.20176899]

>>20176872
>you WILL eat the bugs

[Anonymous No.20176948]

>>20176873
dont spoil for me because im this anon >>20176522 but i hope he kills some of those tal valor witches. I know im supposed to be rooting for them overall because theyre the good guys but the way the reds go after men in not cool.

[Anonymous No.20176949]

>>20176899
The bugs may exist, but you don't have to acknowledge their existence, let alone eat them.

[Anonymous No.20176958]

>>20176873
Sanderson actually wrote a reunion scene for the the Emond's Field 5 just before the last battle but cut it because the book was already too long and he needed more room for Androl chapters.
Same with the girls making the bridal wreaths for Rand and their marriage.
No I'm not making this up.

[Anonymous No.20177004]

>>20176958
Where can I read it?
I liked Androl, especially the little speech he gave before his "miracle", but the book could have been a little bit longer for the kids to sit down and talk after they reached the end of their character development.

[Anonymous No.20177019]

>>20176958
>get tasked with finishing one of the biggest fantasy series of all time
>give a third of the final book to your self insert OC instead of any of the characters we've followed for thirteen books
I will NEVER not be mad

[Anonymous No.20177038]

>>20177004
He never published them but he's talked about them. I'm still holding out hope he's saving them for another short story anthology like the other two he's done

[Anonymous No.20177056]

>>20173797
Write a short story, or even just a scene or a few paragraphs from one of those "branching stories" every time you're tempted to world build. DO NOT READ THEM afterward, unless you can't get it out of your head.

[Anonymous No.20177067]

>>20176824
Why?

[Anonymous No.20177112]

>>20173380
none

[Anonymous No.20177158]

Can someone give me a book that's cosmic in nature? Space fantasy is so hard to find. Scifi work that's not as "hard" or something as most science fiction is fine too.

I really liked Foundation, Hyperion Cantos and Three Body Problem, but I haven't found any fantasy that's got the astronomical slant I want. Elden Ring and Gene Wolfe really got that itch started, and the closet I've gotten is reading Mythology and such. Paradise Lost and Hyperion are both stretching over multiple planets and realms while still being very fantasy like.

Any recs?

[Anonymous No.20177172]

>>20177158
Maybe old Howard Lovecraft? Try Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

[Anonymous No.20177173]

>>20177158
Try Fire Upon the Deep. It's about space faring humans landing on the planet of sentient dogs who live through medieval times

[Anonymous No.20177194]

>>20177158
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_and_planet

[Anonymous No.20177270]

>>20177158
You might try C.S. Lewis's sci-fi trilogy if you like his stuff.
Or A Wrinkle in Time if you haven't already somehow.

[Anonymous No.20177294]

>>20177172
he cute

[Anonymous No.20177373]

[Anonymous No.20177386]

How many vassals are there in Gondor? I know of Dol Amroth and Ithilien but there must be others

[Anonymous No.20177470]

>>20177386
There are some.
I think most if not all of Gondor's fiefdom are mentioned in the Return of the King book.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Southern_Fiefs

[Anonymous No.20177530]

>>20177373
>Missing all the elves of color
not canon chud

[Anonymous No.20177535]

>>20173212
What’s the total population of men in Middle Earth? If Gondor can only muster less than 20,000 men then I would assume their population could be no more than 200,000

[Anonymous No.20177568]

>>20177172
>>20177173
>>20177194
>>20177270
Thanks guys, very useful. Ill try some more Lovecraft and Simmons soon.

[Anonymous No.20177700]

>>20174151
well that's unfortunate. alas, we live in a fallen world.

[Anonymous No.20177844]

>>20175204
God Emperor’s narration musing on Duncan’s fuckability is pretty funny, but Heretics/Chapterhouse are even hornier (including explicit /ss/ in Chapterhouse).

Speaking of Dune, I just finished Sandworms of Dune and it was total shit.

- Forgot that most modern people in this universe have anti-prescience genes.
- Forgot that oldtypes don’t have anti-prescience genes, so the Ithaca crew should never have let Thufir/Stilgar/Liet off the ship.
- The entire Vlad Harkonen subplot was cartoonish and stupid. The Alia subplot went nowhere. “Baron raises a Paul” was actually an interesting fanfic premise, ala Slytherin Harry fic, and it went nowhere.
- The Tleilaxu subplot went nowhere.
- The space Jews subplot went nowhere.
- Everything Murbella did went nowhere.
- Brian and KJA’s pet oracle saving the day, blah.
- “Ghola babies” was also a funny fanfic idea but nothing interesting happened. Also none of them other than Paul, Thufir, and Leto were plot relevant. Chani, Liet, Stilgar, Jessica, and Alia were useless. Yuen redemption was an interesting thought but executed like shit.
- Erasmus saying “lol I painted the Van Gogh” epitomized how stupid these books were. Frank set up “this is special” and Brian went “HAHA JK”
- Why is Brian so in love with Erasmus
- The set-up for the final climactic conversation is so awkward. It’s just two people standing around talking while a load of other people gape and say nothing.

The overarching story was dumb, but what really got me were the continuity errors and dropped plot threads.

The audiobook narrator was decent, though nowhere as near as good as Simon Vance doing the Frank books.

[Anonymous No.20178268]

>>20177158
C.J. Cherryh
Iain M. Banks
Edgar Rice Burroughs

Almost all of the sci-fi ever written would probably get your rocks off, just not (((hard SF))) or new wave/cyberpunk

[Anonymous No.20178308]

>>20176355
Well, it *is* a tower we're talking about

[Anonymous No.20178367]

>>20173777
Checked
The end of my world is a desert under a black sun. Ayy lmaos have terraformed the planet and killed the sun using their magic so they can "live" in the perverted darkness for eons longer than they would have been able to on their home system, which orbits a black hole that is dying out and will eventually dissappear. (There was recent scientific evidence to show that not all black holse expand permanently, some actually give off more radiation than the amount of mass they pull in and will die a second time one something or other. I don't really care about that, it's just a springboard into fiction for me. Scientists don't actually know anything at all, they're just quack faggots that think they're better than everyone)

[Anonymous No.20178486]

>>20173212
What are some lighthearted fantasy adventure novels to kickback and relax to?

[Anonymous No.20178514]

>>20178367

[Anonymous No.20178559]

Any recommendations for fantasy with eldritch gods or cosmic horror?

40k and the usual suspects have been explored

[Anonymous No.20178623]

>>20178559

[Anonymous No.20178797]

>only read fantasy, sci-fi and horror
>only read original english books, no trannylations
>don't read anything by black and/or female authors
>if a book is highly rated and all the reviews on amazon and goodreads are by women, i do not read that book

[Anonymous No.20178798]

>>20176948
>I know im supposed to be rooting for them overall because theyre the good guys
No, you're not, and no, they aren't. I don't know how far along you are so this might be an actual spoiler but nearly HALF the Aes Sedai turn out to be Black Ajah.

[Anonymous No.20178801]

>>20178797
All right, so you got some good recommendations then, or is this just a random shitpost?

[Anonymous No.20178824]

>>20178801
Bakker.

[Anonymous No.20178890]

>>20178824
Based

[Anonymous No.20178922]

>>20178559
Kane series by Karl Edward Wagner

Also Malazan if you have the mindset and time for it

[Anonymous No.20179021]

>>20175283
>I just hate fantasy altogether
But fantasy is broad anon. Elves and wizards is just a small subjection for faggots.

[Anonymous No.20179039]

>>20175828
Kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.20179070]

>>20177844
you should kill yourself for even touching br*an's abortive filth.

[Anonymous No.20179079]

>>20175847
correct. shame that these threads are too full of bakkerniggers and sanderfags to appreciate it.

[Anonymous No.20179084]

>>20175204
>Was Frank Herbert just a horny man writing all of this?
Yes, that's why he writes fantasy anon.

[Anonymous No.20179115]

>>20175204
SFF authors are all horny.

[Anonymous No.20179395]

>>20178801
What makes it a shitpost, and why are you specifically asking for recommendations in response to it? Like 95% of all the SFF books people hold in high regard were written by white men, and the vast majority of recent SFF written by women and blacks is filled with woke shit. Recommend something recent written by a female/black author that exists to tell a story and not to push an agenda or to virtue signal, and I'll read it when I'm done with my current book.

[Anonymous No.20179466]

>>20179079
Be not mistaken, for I am also a Bakker and Dune chad, soon Ill be a Gormenchad as well.

[Anonymous No.20179490]

>>20173358
Damn I've nearly read all that already. My thoughts
>Cugel is an asshole
>Zothique kicks ass

[Anonymous No.20179491]

>>20178486
Fritz Leiber books if you haven't read them - Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, whichever ones. I really enjoyed that shit

[Anonymous No.20179544]

>>20173358

[Anonymous No.20179616]

People who write LitRPG garbage should be set on fire.

[Anonymous No.20179712]

>>20179616
Yes.

[Anonymous No.20179717]

Is litrpg and progression fantasy the same thing? Or does it need to actually include levels and classes and experience points to be litrpg?

[Anonymous No.20179724]

>>20179717
The latter is litrpg. Progression fantasy has a lot of crossover with it though.
Cradle is progression fantasy, but it isn't litrpg for example. Litrpg is a blight.

[Anonymous No.20179817]

>>20179724
Cradle should be set on fire.

[Anonymous No.20179823]

>>20179724
I don't think LitRPG is inherently bad but it suffers from the same problems as progression fantasy where the author seems to replace characterisation and such with "getting better" instead of making them side-by-side.

[Anonymous No.20179846]

>>20179823
>I don't think LitRPG is inherently bad
Unfortunately, you're wrong. It is inherently bad. The worst aspect of it is that it completely misses the point of why games use those systems. All the stats and numbers presented in video games were not the goal, they were the means. They were a way to convey information to the player in a coherent manner. The fact that they were numbers was not the goal, it was simply an imperfect solution necessary to convey important information succinctly to the player.
A book is not constrained in the same manner, so it does not need to use the same imperfect solution. Yet these retards writing litrpgs have fixated on the numbers and stats as if they were the goal rather than a compromise.

It's like someone creating a movie with intentionally bad CGI, because they saw bad CGI in a low budget movie and came to the conclusion that the bad CGI is what the directors wanted.

[Anonymous No.20179861]

>>20179846
I think you're overreaching here. LitRPGs and gamelit in general is just using diegetic game systems to tell a story in a different way. The best ones don't actually have them as the goal except in broader strokes, the characters will usually have some personal goal that can be ACCOMPLISHED by achieving some gamified thing. And yeah there's a lot of trash that's just "Random dumbass protagonist somehow bumblefucks their way into the most OP super class ever" but that's just most of everything being shit to begin with. I think progression fantasy overall is a stronger 'sub-genre' as it were, though, because LitRPG is by necessity quite constraining. You either have to discard the game elements more and more as the story goes on or go full-tilt into them, you can't really do a happy medium.

[Anonymous No.20180010]

>>20178486
lies of locke lamorra

[Anonymous No.20180074]

Finally reading Lyonesse atm. Fantasy writers of today have really lost their touch when it comes to well, writing, havent they? I mean, this just feels so smooth and effortless compared to modern contrived shit, and the actual mastery of the language is refreshing to see, even though it isn't trying to be Proust

[Anonymous No.20180252]

>>20175681
Sounds like yet another ideologically motivated list. All libshit trannies deserve to be shot or fed to the dragons.

[Anonymous No.20180285]

I really don't get why people cry about how Ship of Fools is unfinished. I think it's pretty clear that the aliens weren't actually the ones who massacred the humans on Antioch. It was an entity native to the planet that made them all kill each other/themselves, and the aliens saw their signal and came to their rescue. The entity followed the fleeing humans aboard the alien spacecraft and continued its massacre, also infecting the aliens, leaving the ship stranded in space. The human living quarters on the ship suggests that the aliens prepared to help them with no ill intent, and that they lived there for a while before the infection spread.

It basically ends with the people aboard the Argonos leaving in shuttles to escape the derelict ship by returning to Antioch, which ironically is even more dangerous because the silver entity is still there waiting for them. Maybe that's why the book is called Ship of Fools. They're all fucking retarded. What do people expect, for the Argonos crew to create a new settlement? They're headed for death.

[Anonymous No.20180335]

>>20178922
>Kane series by Karl Edward Wagner
Why is this generally unknown? It's great.

[Anonymous No.20180341]

>>20179544
>mfw modern covers
Is there a club for people who hate them? Because I really really hahte them.

[Anonymous No.20180353]

>>20180341
Tchaikovsky has some great covers, though.

[Anonymous No.20180370]

Thoughts b?

[Anonymous No.20180402]

>>20180252
It's just j-school retard who doesn't care about sff is forced to read a mountain of sff for his job and posts the ones he liked the best. Which is why so many of the top 20 are <20 years old or something he saw as a movie or read as a kid. Because who else has the fucking Myst novel in their top 20?

[Anonymous No.20180604]

Read Revelation Space and House of Suns. Are all of Alistair Reynolds' books this fucking long?

[Anonymous No.20180654]

>>20180341
The problen with modern sffg covers, besides subpar digital art, is that they're made to look like cereal boxes or videogame posters. Contrast contrast, rainbow colors, huge TITLE in stylized font, even when it's not terrible it still feels wrong.

[Anonymous No.20180803]

If someone tells you they like Jack Vance's Dying Earth, Gene Wolfe's Long/New/Short Sun series, what would you recommend them?

[Anonymous No.20180807]

>>20180803
Clark Ashton Smith.

[Anonymous No.20180821]

>>20180807
Right, I forgot to mention that I already read his Zothique stuff and enjoyed it. I also read the Viriconium book that was mentioned earlier in the thread as well.

[Anonymous No.20180842]

What are some /femalecore/ fantasy books I can read so I have something to talk about with girls who read the genre? Or is it enough to just read whatever sff stuff trends on booktok?

[Anonymous No.20180846]

>>20180821
Also, does anyone actually know where I could buy a copy of his Zothique works?

[Anonymous No.20180858]

>>20180842
>bros please simp enable me

[Anonymous No.20180865]

>>20180842
Check female book readers on youtube, there is only incel chuds here.

[Anonymous No.20180880]

>>20180865
Only "incel chuds" follow female book readers on YT. Go look at female meme reviewers on Gayreads instead.

[Anonymous No.20180918]

>>20180880
Oh ok, I was trying to help him, he wanted recommendations about femalecore books and I pointed him to the source.

[Anonymous No.20180951]

books that give same atmosphere as this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AODwTW8V7FA

[Anonymous No.20180954]

>>20180918
The billion female reviewers who dominate Goodreads is where you find that, not on YouTube. An overwhelming amount of simps follow these book vloggers. That's their core demographic, not other women.

[Anonymous No.20180966]

>>20180951
Between Two Fires
The Aching God
Swarm and Steel

[Anonymous No.20180990]

>>20180954
I think watching one video that mention multiple books is better than going to Goodreads and clicking books one by one and scrolling down to the reviews.

[Anonymous No.20181045]

>>20180803
The lit archives.

[Anonymous No.20181726]

guys, this is going to sound a bit lame maybe, but I definitely think my local people and community has had their myths and fantasy stolen from them by modernity and I've been entertaining a low key dream of doing a tolkien and trying to return their dreams to them

But I'm a fucking geologist and I dont know how? Is there anything you sugest I start doing even if the end product isnt any good?
I just want to not die without having tried to have done it, you know? Online courses one could take, or books one should read on how to become a competent amateur fantasy author

[Anonymous No.20181735]

>>20180966
>Between Two Fires
stop shilling your shit book here

[Anonymous No.20181749]

>>20181726
Ask the writing general. Then ignore whatever bullshit those losers tell you and just start writing. The best way to get better is by practicing.

[Anonymous No.20181762]

Any recommendations for fantasy or sci-fi novels with charismatic male leads? Dunno, the charming rogue archetype or something. Like Scaramouche, only fantasy or sci-fi. Already tried Locke Lamora and didn't like it.
Also, are the Dresden Files any good?

[Anonymous No.20181919]

>>20181735
It's actually not the same person you retard. , Fuck off. I was the one asking for opinions about it but no one answered unfortunately

[Anonymous No.20181983]

>>20181726
best way to learn is probably practice. start writing short passages, maybe a single scene, then some short story that you have in mind and work your way to a longer work once you have some practice. assume that your first pieces will be utter shit, and it will take a long time before you are good enough to start writing seriously about the things you really want people to read

[Anonymous No.20181991]

>>20181762
The Quantum Thief. i would advice against the sequels because they get pretty bad, and also because they stop being about the MC

[Anonymous No.20181994]

>>20181983
that's pretty good advice actually, I can totally do that

[Anonymous No.20182010]

cradle seems okay so far (i'm in book 6), i like 'beware of chicken' and 'ave xia rem' more though. anyone here read those?
that being said i'm still really hungry for a good xianxia. ave xia rem seems to be the best one i've tried so far but it's still being written. i need some that are completed so i can binge them.

does this thread also talk about translated novels? is there anything that can scratch the same itch as stories like 'lucia' or 'under the oak tree' in the western novel space? not sure if offtopic.

[Anonymous No.20182011]

>>20181762
>Any recommendations for fantasy or sci-fi novels with charismatic male leads? Dunno, the charming rogue archetype or something. Like Scaramouche, only fantasy or sci-fi. Already tried Locke Lamora and didn't like it.
Eyes of the Overworld
>Also, are the Dresden Files any good?
No. Jim Butcher is a weird closet case, it comes through in his characters, and Dresden being crazy OP from the start doesn't fit with le quirky magical detective. Try Old Tin Sorrows if the formula sounds appealing.

[Anonymous No.20182019]

>>20181762
Undying Mercenaries

[Anonymous No.20182028]

>>20181991
>>20182011
>>20182019
Thanks, will have a look through those.

>Jim Butcher is a weird closet case, it comes through in his characters
Could you elaborate on that?

[Anonymous No.20182030]

>>20182010
Cradle isn't really a xianxia (I don't think), it's got some of the trappings of one, but it's clearly more just Eastern-inspired fantasy.

[Anonymous No.20182035]

>>20180335
Too much horror for the S&S crowd and too much S&S for the horror crowd; which is exactly what Wagner was going for ironically enough.

[Anonymous No.20182121]

>>20181726
That honestly sounds like a really noble goal, friendanon. I'd reccomend doing a deep dive into greek mythics and other works that are in the same vein to try to emulate them. Kalevala, lotr, old myths like beowulf and gilgamesh maybe. You can never go wrong with just starting to write tho

[Anonymous No.20182168]

>>20174797
Johannes Cabal the Necromancer is about a guy running a carnival for Satan

[Anonymous No.20182184]

>>20182011
>Eyes of the Overworld
Eh, just realised I've read that one ages ago. Ha!

[Anonymous No.20182204]

>>20182028
>Jim Butcher is a weird closet case, it comes through in his characters
>Could you elaborate on that?
The fairy godmother. The vampire half brother who you're constantly reminded is really hot. The way Dresden lives and interacts with women. If you've ever known a guy who's 95% into dudes but lives a straight lifestyle anyway, that's him. Of course his inner monologue is written 100% straight and it comes off weird as hell because Butcher has no idea how straight guys process reality.

[Anonymous No.20182237]

>>20182204
Sounds at least kind of interesting. Maybe I'll give the first book a try when I have time.

[Anonymous No.20182301]

>>20176522
Been on the fence about reading this since I've heard it's girl power shit. True or false?

[Anonymous No.20182310]

>>20181762
Dresden files is definitly worth reading

[Anonymous No.20182311]

>>20173213
Reading The Way of Kings right now. It took a bit, but it's growing on me, especially Dalinar. Kaladin's alright as well

[Anonymous No.20182315]

>>20181762
Dresden Files are pretty fun. They have a massive quality spike after book 2, and series peaks around book 12.

[Anonymous No.20182318]

>>20182010
cradle will get worse, book 8 is still ok but book 9 is trash

[Anonymous No.20182323]

>>20182318
Book 9 is just 'meh'. Book 10's better though.

[Anonymous No.20182596]

>>20182318
do the characters get better after book 5/6?
they aren't bad, but they also aren't very fleshed out imo.

[Anonymous No.20182663]

>>20182596
Book 8 is inexplicably twice as large as the other books and a lot of that time is generally devoted to characterisation.

[Anonymous No.20182735]

>>20173212
though on earthsea ?

[Anonymous No.20182767]

>>20182204
I've never read Dresden files but I have read Butcher's other stuff and I didn't get that impression from him at all.

[Anonymous No.20182878]

Any good fantasy books with detailed battles? I'm not fond of Malazan and finished Second Apocalypse

[Anonymous No.20182881]

>>20182878
A Thousand Names is honestly really great. Unfortunately the rest of the series is trash.

[Anonymous No.20182887]

>>20182881
The, not A

[Anonymous No.20182895]

>>20182878
Not a fantasy at all, but The Virtues of War by Steven Pressfield goes into super detail about Alexander the Great's battles and military units.

[Anonymous No.20182955]

>cadaverons
I like when the author is an English Literature major because instead of using already created words like 'zombie' he'll just make up his own words like this.

[Anonymous No.20182965]

>>20175617
X and the Y

[Anonymous No.20183016]

For me? It's skelebro

[Anonymous No.20183056]

i'm getting into the shakespeare influences of the fantasy genre, and i'm gonna do a read through of a bunch of the tragedies and histories i haven't read before. I'm also gonna read through Ovid, since he influenced a lot of Shakespeare in particular, and I've found a lot of good content in old English poetry (beowulf, the ruin, the seafarer, western wind) that feels very thematically correct. I'm a novice where theater is concerned, are there other playwrights I should look into? I've also considered reading Greek theater, but I don't even know what other European playwrights I would study.

[Anonymous No.20183068]

>>20182767
I've seen other Anons comment Codex Alera is pretty 'gay' like that too, but it could be one of those things that you either see and can't unsee or don't notice at all. Garrett vs Dresden Files though, Garrett has more nuanced plots and believable characters. Not that either is super serious literature.

[Anonymous No.20183073]

>>20183068
The girl in Codex Alera is very physically attracted to Tavi's uncle
Her teacher is very platonically attracted to Tavi

[Anonymous No.20183079]

>>20183073
Tavi is very platonically attracted to tigermen

[Anonymous No.20183216]

>>20180803

[Anonymous No.20183240]

>>20180803

[Anonymous No.20183315]

>>20182895
>first person narration
Shame

[Anonymous No.20183583]

any comfy books about an adventurer and his party, a companion or solo going out on simple adventures?
kinda like The Last Wish or Don Quixote, in a sense

[Anonymous No.20183590]

>>20183583
The Darkness That Comes Before

[Anonymous No.20183597]

>>20183583
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
Rogues of Merth
Mortu and Kyrus in the White City

[Anonymous No.20183598]

>>20183583
R. Scott Bakker - The Darkness That Comes Before

[Anonymous No.20183603]

>>20183583
The Darkness That Comes Before is the first installment in The Prince of Nothing series and is an intelligent, ambitious and complex recount of the beginnings of the great holy war that threatens the lands of Eärwa.

[Anonymous No.20183627]

Just finished pic related which dropped today and it was based. Very highly recommended for my fellow S&S chads.

[Anonymous No.20183632]

>>20183627
>w*man on cover
>based
more like unbased and pozzed

[Anonymous No.20183642]

>>20183632
Touch a boob.

[Anonymous No.20183649]

>>20183642
>be a Simp
no thanks

[Anonymous No.20183692]

>>20183649
Nice try, rabbi.

[Anonymous No.20183727]

>>20173212
Is Frodo a Gary Stu?

[Anonymous No.20183731]

>>20183727
Not sure why you're baiting but here's your (you)

[Anonymous No.20183884]

Getting tired of Stus and Sues in my Xianxia books. Starting to think I may have picked the wrong genre. So far only Lindon from Cradle and Scorio from Bastion have really impressed me, but Scorio's approach is questionable at best. As if the author has to make a point in having him fail.

Fang Yuan in Reverend Insanity and now Griffon in Virtuous Sons. Both intense faggots that have the entirety of the cultivation system handed to them. Disgusting character writing.

>>20175835
FUCK you

Anyways, can one of you recommend me a Xianxia that has a well written main character?

[Anonymous No.20183906]

>>20183884
The Darkness That Comes Before by King Bakker

[Anonymous No.20183931]

>>20183906
I'll check it out so you Bakker fags leave me alone. Next?

[Anonymous No.20183940]

>>20183884
Ignore the bakkerfag, it does this whenever people start discussing books. Have you read A Thousand Li?

[Anonymous No.20184000]

Reread Blood Song and loved every moment. Shame about the sequels though I didn't hate them.

The duology was okay and I hope he gets with Sherin for good. I like her.

[Anonymous No.20184001]

>>20183940
I've picked it up but haven't started it yet. That can be next on my list. I hear that's a series that takes some investment before it gets going though. What can you tell me?

[Anonymous No.20184024]

>>20183931
The Second Apocalypse by the Ruler Supreme

[Anonymous No.20184025]

What am I in for?

[Anonymous No.20184056]

>>20184025
A sucker punch to the senses... a killer story with real heart and soul.

[Anonymous No.20184060]

>>20184025
By Azura, by Azura!

[Anonymous No.20184097]

>>20183884
Plebian without either Hope Gu or Wisdom Gu.

[Anonymous No.20184237]

>>20183627
Lovely cover art I'll be adding this to my backlog.

[Anonymous No.20184248]

>>20184237
Based. It really is some high-level modern S&S. Plus the chick on the cover is characterized as an actual CHICK. She's not a lame YAS KWEEN WARRIOR WOMYN WHO DON'T NEED NO MAN. Her and that dude are lovers and it's a wholesome love even though they're both pretty ruthless killers and thieves.

[Anonymous No.20184528]

We'll never get it will we?

[Anonymous No.20184536]

>>20184025
Fuckoff shill

[Anonymous No.20184642]

>>20181735
Meds.

[Anonymous No.20184664]

>>20184528
We are stop being so pessimistic.

[Anonymous No.20184721]

>>20183216
>>20183240
You know, I always wanted to read his other works. Are they good?

[Anonymous No.20184737]

>>20184721
>Are they good?
They're good, but for some reason, Martin is ashamed of them.

[Anonymous No.20184750]

>>20183940
Thousand li is boring and mc is garbage.

[Anonymous No.20184769]

>>20184750
So is every other Xianxia story, what's your point?

[Anonymous No.20184791]

>>20173212
>maleniasisters...

[Anonymous No.20184810]

>>20184791
What's the issue?

[Anonymous No.20184826]

>>20184810
Something about her being black or something.

[Anonymous No.20184832]

Everytime i'm tricked into reading a fantasy novel where the protagonist's love interest is used goods i seethe so much

[Anonymous No.20184838]

>>20184832
Yes, we know, you’re mentally ill.

[Anonymous No.20184847]

>>20184838
at least i don't support cuckoldry

[Anonymous No.20184902]

>>20184832
>>20184847
Someone having a past relationship is somehow cuckoldry now? The word lost all meaning now.

[Anonymous No.20184935]

>>20184826
Okay, but what does that have to do with /sffg/?

[Anonymous No.20184949]

>>20184935
I don’t know, I don’t understand /pol/ users.

[Anonymous No.20184953]

>>20184949
>Everyone I don't like is /pol/

[Anonymous No.20184954]

>>20184528
We'll definitely get it in some form within the next quarter of a century, even if it's an unfinished version with a few pages of tacked-on notes to explain the ending.
We'll most likely never get the final one.

[Anonymous No.20184958]

>>20184954
Didn't he release a few chapters already? That shit was like in 2012-2013.

[Anonymous No.20184986]

>>20184953
Don’t even try to deny it.

[Anonymous No.20185002]

>>20184958
Everything he released is material that was written for the 5th book and cut because he decided it didn't fit or because the book was getting too long.
Hell, the Arya chapter was originally written way back in the early 2000s as her first chapter after the timeskip that was supposed to happen after the 3rd book.

[Anonymous No.20185008]

>>20185002
>timeskip that was supposed to happen after the 3rd book.
I wonder if he regrets not doing the timeskip.

[Anonymous No.20185010]

>>20185008
He's doing it right now.

[Anonymous No.20185012]

>>20183583
Aching God.

[Anonymous No.20185030]

>>20185008
As I understand it, it didn't work because not everything could just be put on hold for 5 years and he found himself writing more and more stuff to cover the gap to the point that there was no purpose in having a gap anymore.

[Anonymous No.20185043]

>>20183583
Honestly? Belgariad and the Magician books.

[Anonymous No.20185049]

>>20173380
What exactly are all those things anyway? Basically, just western isekai novels or it has to have those stat pages where you follow the actual numbers of their progression?

[Anonymous No.20185052]

>>20185049
>just western isekai novels or it has to have those stat pages where you follow the actual numbers of their progression?
Both, it's possibly the worst trend I've ever encountered and I honestly don't understand who reads that shit or why they read it.

[Anonymous No.20185079]

>>20185052
>I honestly don't understand who reads that shit or why they read it.
Because its entertaining.

[Anonymous No.20185084]

>>20185079
You consider this entertaining?

[Anonymous No.20185088]

>>20185084
Pretty much, yeah.

[Anonymous No.20185090]

>>20185088
Then you are mentally ill.

[Anonymous No.20185092]

>>20185090
Reading is a mental illness now?

[Anonymous No.20185093]

>>20185084
>>20185090
Are you one of those pseuds who reads “deep” genre fiction instead of actual literature because you’ll get filtered easily?

[Anonymous No.20185099]

>>20185093
No, I'm perfectly fine with reading pulp, but litrpgs are just plain autism. The video game bullshit adds absolutely nothing to the story, it serves no purpose except to attract braindead zoomers. It's meaningless padding at best and actively detracts from the actual story the vast majority of the time. I honestly don't understand how anyone can defend this stupid shit.

[Anonymous No.20185101]

>>20185084
my biggest problem with litrpg is how much pagecount is devoted to repeating the same shit over and over

[Anonymous No.20185106]

>>20185052
I received a Kindle for Christmas and the advertisements and looking at the Kindle top sellers list made me feel a similar way. It's filled with stuff that looks like complete garbage, yet all have 4-5 star user reviews and outsell everything else. I just don't get it. Maybe it's a lot of people who are new to reading or just don't value their time or something. I really wish I didn't have to see non-stop paid and recommended advertisements for things I wouldn't even read for free though.
https://us.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store/zgbs/digital-text/

[Anonymous No.20185113]

>>20185106
Women read, anon. They're the ones writing that and buying that.

[Anonymous No.20185118]

>>20185099
Anon, it’s a different genre, I don’t know why you’re seething so much about it.

[Anonymous No.20185119]

>>20185106
Porn sells. These books are women's equivalent of an Onlyfans subscription.

[Anonymous No.20185123]

>>20185118
Because it's fucking everywhere, it shits up my recommendations and it buries things I might actually want to read under mountains of absolute shit. It is actively hindering potentially good new authors simply by virtue of drowning them in a sea of noise.

[Anonymous No.20185127]

>>20185123
That’s the name of the game of self-publishing.

[Anonymous No.20185134]

>>20185106
One day, I'll write urban fantasy erotica.

[Anonymous No.20185143]

New thread
>>20185139

[Anonymous No.20185636]

>>20183884
Beware of Chicken, maybe? It's sort of a parody of xianxia, but the entire point is he gets by by being just a decent human being instead of ruthless asshole who wipes out bloodlines for the slightest dishonor. Also does Bastion really count as xianxia?

[Anonymous No.20185643]

>>20185101
This is why I actually like He Who Fights With Monsters, he brings up his stats very sparingly, and mostly after that it's just for descriptions of new things or reminders of skills he hasn't used in ages.

[Anonymous No.20185669]

Mfw all Brandon writes is various interpretations of xianxia

[Anonymous No.20185799]

>>20183884
beware of chicken, but that's more of a parody. but it is really nice imo.

also ave xia rem. it's the best western xianxia i've read so far. maybe the best xianxia in genral, but i haven't read a ton of the well known ones.
its title is outrageously bad but it reads like a classic. the characters are especially good.

[Anonymous No.20185876]

>>20185799
Just by the title, Ave Xia Rem feels like it's also a parody? Or is it more just playing the tropes straight and fleshing them out?

[Anonymous No.20186040]

>>20185876
the title has no bearing on the story so far. i don't see any harems forming, but it might still happen in the future. I wish the author would change the title, it sounds like ass and i bet it's the reason why it is relatively underrated.

as for the story, it's indeed playing its cards straight. one thing i really like about it is the way it handles the idea of power. the characters are also very well fleshed out and the plot is engaging. definitely give it a try.

[Anonymous No.20186069]

>>20186040
I'll look into it whenever I get around to reading all this backlog of serial web shit that's built up.

[Anonymous No.20186650]

>>20173213
Trying to read Words of Radiance but i can't get into like i did with WoK