/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

[Anonymous No.20569481]

Last Survivors Edition

Previous Thread:>>20562360

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

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

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

[Anonymous No.20569484]

Bakker is a cuck

[Anonymous No.20569489]

Redpill me on the second age. I want to know more about it. I’ve been meaning to read some Tolkienesque grimdark stuff but I only know of Bakker and maybe GURM. Tolkien’s own dark age would be fitting.

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.20569506]

Oceanic - Greg Egan (2009)

Lost Continent (2008)
A teenager is smuggled out of his home universe that has been invaded by those from a future universe. He arrives in a future universe where everything is much better, but they strongly prefer not having any more refugees from war-torn universes. And so he waits in the refugee camp...and he waits.
Ok

Dark Integers (2007)
A sequel to Luminous. This one was a mathematical conspiracy thriller as well. Although a distinct narrative existed this time, it remained mostly infodump. Two of the story's ideas were that the same physical expression of an integer may qualitatively differ and that dark integers existed. A dark integer was analogous to dark matter. They're integers that had remained undetectable but may have constituted the majority of integers. What did that mean in practical terms? I haven't the slightest idea. The problems that were thought to have been resolved, weren't.
Ok

Crystal Nights (2008)
A billionaire wanted to create AI far greater than humanity that would in turn out of gratitude allow his own apotheosis. A world simulation was thus created. His attempts at being a benevolent creator almost immediately failed due to not being omnipotent. Ethics become irrelevant. Consequences occurred.
Enjoyable

Steve Fever (2007)
A non-sentient though goal-directed AI nanoswarm that temporarily commandeered human brains to suitable biological computation and physical presence compelled the protagonist to go to Atlanta.
Meh

Induction (2007)
A simple story of creating the means to travel light years as data and then doing so.
Ok

Singleton (2002)
Many-Worlds Interpretation is assumed to be true. That means that every possible action may be occurring in some other world. What if there was a Singleton though, an entity whose actions were always the same?
Enjoyable

Oracle (2000)
Singleton is the prequel to this story. A character travels back in time to a different world and teaches him all he needs to know to make technological breakthroughs well ahead of their time.
Ok

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.20569509]

>>20569506
Border Guards (1999)
A Jewel story. Immortals play Quantum Soccer. An unknown woman appears and tells the story of her life. Even several millennia later, some memories remain open wounds. Death is derided, as few remember it.
Enjoyable

The following three stories take place in the Amalgam universe.
Riding the Crocodile (2005)
After being married for over 10,000 years, a couple decides to go on one last adventure, to understand that which remains unknown. 10,000s of years pass by as they travel, though they subjectively experience no time for almost any of it.
Enjoyable

Glory (2007)
Researchers travel to a relatively undeveloped planet to study the artifacts of an ancient civilization before the contemporary culture destroys everything because they revere only war and expansion.
Enjoyable

Hot Rock (2009)
Researchers travel to a planet thought to be uninhabited to see if any cultural legacy remains, though what they find is far more than could have ever been reasonably expected.
Ok

Oceanic (1998)
20,000 years ago from their present, posthumans came to the planet. To the last they gave up immortality and eventually technology, cut off from the rest of humanity. Over the many 1,000s of years various religions came into existence. The protagonist was born into what is considered by many to be a fundamentalist cult. As he grows older his relation to the religion of his birth changes. There's also an explicit sex scene which ends with an intriguing biological process.
Enjoyable

[Anonymous No.20569538]

tonight i had a dream about I Shall Seal the Heavens, i dreamed about meng hao and everyone and i was dreaming what would be the next adventure, meng hao and the gang across the universe, after 1 month just reading and consumingI Shall Seal the Heavens, 10 books, more than 30 thousand pages, there was a void after finishing the last book

damn author should have done about 2 more books and told more stories, I wanted to know more about parrot and meat jelly, about green coffin in the vortex and what will meng hao do next

[Anonymous No.20569588]

>>20569538
im thinking about reading The Wandering Inn - Dungeon Crawler Carl - The Travelers Gate - Duna or Spraw Trilogy to kill time before cradle dreadgod release

Is The Wandering Inn really that good?

[Anonymous No.20569606]

>>20569588

[Shiller No.20569616]

>>20569588
TWI really is that good, but I recommend starting with Dungeon Crawler Carl if you want to read Cradle as it releases. I'd generally say DCC is an easier read considering TWI's length, so try TWI after you finish Dreadgod.

Whether you like The Wandering Inn or not depends what you want to read, it's not a typical progression fantasy or LitRPG, more like an Epic Fantasy with a lot of Slice of Life elements accompanied with 'Larger Than Life' events, LitRPG is just a flavour. The author's major inspirations were books like The Wheel of Time or Warhammer universe, so expect a mix of that, but written in a 'modern' way.

[Anonymous No.20569703]

>>20569616
yeah i just checked how many books and pages TWI have and i decided that i will read after cradle release, TWI sounds comfy so i gonna give it a try

[Anonymous No.20569706]

[Anonymous No.20569709]

[Anonymous No.20570350]

have you ever fallen in love or become infatuated with a book character? i have but i'm a gay boy

[Anonymous No.20570358]

>>20570350
Literally all the time

[Anonymous No.20570397]

>>20570350
I haven't myself, but to do that unironically might be a sign of psychical issues. Do you talk to other people on a daily basis?

[Anonymous No.20570440]

>>20570350
Let's all love Lain.

[Anonymous No.20570505]

>>20569076
>>20569098
Eat shit retards. He drank the coolaid, this is what the series is about now.

[Anonymous No.20570510]

Is warhammer 40k lore one of the best sci fi ever created?

[Anonymous No.20570537]

Any books with a good waifu for the protag like Kitai from Codex Alera was for Tavi? I'm talking about no shitty drama and high levels of competency while not hijacking the plot

[Anonymous No.20570641]

>>20570537
Tradwife

[Anonymous No.20570726]

>>20570510
In my opinion it is. You can write any story you want in this setting and make it interesting.

[Anonymous No.20570785]

Finished the Black Company entirely. I'm almost sad it's over. I enjoyed it greatly. What's next?

[Anonymous No.20571027]

>>20569481
Just picked up Ken Liu's Speaking Bones, the final book in the Dandelion Dynasty series. It just came out the other day so I got it asap. I guess now it's time for me to read all day.

[Anonymous No.20571059]

Reading Between Two Fires and there are things I don't like. The dialogue is nicely sharp and flows very organically despite some of the arcane language. I'm still waiting for something to happen with the heavenly war, and thought the death of one of the characters happened too abruptly. Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.20571121]

>>20571027
I'm at 83% right now on it. I'll finish later today.

[Anonymous No.20571130]

>>20569481
What are you reading and what are you planning to read?

[Anonymous No.20571272]

>>20570510
I finished Malleus of the Eisenhorn trilogy just yesterday. The Triumph of Thracia was one of the coolest moments in the genre to me. I listened to it on audiobook and the sheer grandeur and scale of description was gripping. The rest of the book less so, second half really lost me by comparison.

[Anonymous No.20571308]

What's the difference between magic, miracles, science and technology? I get frustrated when authors/writers can't agree on such things, and it's enough to stop reading books altogether because I feel like it is making me dumber.

[Anonymous No.20571309]

>>20571130
About to finish The Thousandfold Thought for the first time. Not sure what I'll read next - was considering some true crime, maybe a Jim Thompson novel.

[Anonymous No.20571321]

>>20571308
Why should they have to agree?

[Anonymous No.20571332]

>>20571321
"Um, magic is about magical energy, not worshiping gods, which is miracles, not magic- alsoalso magic totally isn't science or tech since it breaks physics and science and tech don't break physics, derpderpderpderpderpderp"

[Anonymous No.20571344]

>>20571332
Isn't magic just unquantified physics?

[Anonymous No.20571363]

Sup brahs. I'm gonna be in a hotel room all weekend since my landlord is renovating my apartment. I just want to spend it eating room service and reading. If you have any comfy sci fi recommendations I can power through in a weekend I'd appreciate it.

[Anonymous No.20571381]

>>20571344
Yes, but a plethora of authors lack sense and don't like it when magic is "just fictional physics" - even though that is every instance of magic ever. The word 'supernatural' has never not been an oxymoron, or purely ironic. If it exists, it is natural. If it "defies" physics, it is defying current understanding of physics, not physics itself, which makes no bloody sense.

Series like Dresden Files are gross because of this. The technology-vs-magic angle does not work when such things overlap much too intimately and are indistinguishable after a point.

[Anonymous No.20571388]

It got buried in the last thread so I'll ask again, does anyone have an opinion on whether I should read a TSR Black Sun novel or Tarsnman of Gor for my next comfy Sword and Sorcery book?
>>20571363
Afraid I don't read enough Sci Fi to give a good comfy rec anon, but sounds like a relaxing weekend.

[Anonymous No.20571399]

jolenta booba being sprayed by the river so severian has to dry them off, gently & slowly

[Anonymous No.20571493]

>>20571381
What is wrong with Jim Butcher?

[Anonymous No.20571508]

Just finished Wheel of Time today. It was a decent read though it's definitely a series with significant ups and downs.
What I don't understand is what the bond between Rand and Morin/Ishamael was about. Why did Rand's soul transfer to Morin's body when he died?
Also, did Rand gain reality bending powers or something at the end? He wasn't able to channel any longer but he lit a pipe by "thinking" it so

[Anonymous No.20571531]

Can I jump into Hyperion straight off or do I need to read other Dan Simmons to get his style first?

[Anonymous No.20571535]

The /sffg/ roiled. The very extremity of their passion, wailing as old women one moment, whooping as young boys the next, oppressed them, and for all their frantic gratitude the Anons found themselves turning, as all manly souls turn, to anger and contempt. Anonymous posting is never so cheap as when executed for the lulz; and they were, in the end, cruel, spiteful, bitter shitposters.
Sinners.
So they began baying for the blood of their foe. Anon could feel it as much as they, the need to affix their sin to disposable Animefags.
“Brothers!” he called, hoping to gather them once again within the harness of his voice. “Broth—!”
>"I FEARED WHAT I MIGHT FIND ..."
Their Holy Bakker-Shill had returned from his three day ban.

[Anonymous No.20571545]

>>20571531
yeah
don't read endymion tho

[Anonymous No.20571551]

>>20571308
A writer's inability to grasp what constitutes magical thinking is a red flag they aren't very educated, or at least skewed in an improper direction.

You will notice that these sorts of topics aren't too dissimilar from religious arguments.

[Anonymous No.20571557]

>>20571388
Black Sun are D&D novels.

[Anonymous No.20571560]

>>20571059
It was a great book with great imagery, specially for a Souls games fan.

[Anonymous No.20571588]

>>20571381
That's true in a technical sense but I can conceive of universes where there's a meaningful difference from a practical one.

There's a physical world and a world of conscious monads, tied together in some way. One of the rules is that if you imagine fire hard enough it appears in the physical world.

A god exists in this world. He sometimes does favors like igniting fires because he gets off on submissive requests.

The physical world is built out of vibrating strings. If you arrange some matter in the right way it vibrates the strings such that they shoot fire wherever you point your device.

Yeah it's all "physics" but practically speaking I can choose between many dissimilar actions to light someone I dislike on fire.

[Anonymous No.20571597]

>>20571531
Just jump right in. Fall is great too in my opinion, the ending especially.
If you're going to continue after that, I would suggest taking a break before reading Endymion.

[Anonymous No.20571599]

read cradle

[Anonymous No.20571602]

>>20571588
>but I can conceive of universes where there's a meaningful difference from a practical one.

Congratulations, you just broke the fourth wall, since from the in-setting inhabitants' point of view everything is real and existent, and hence by-default physics/phenomenon.

[Anonymous No.20571609]

>>20571602
The inhabitants don't have to know any of that. They just noticed they can do many dissimilar things to light people they dislike on fire.

[Anonymous No.20571612]

>>20571308
There isn't one really, they're just different flavors of the same thing, and it's subjective at that. To a wizard magic is perfectly scientific, to a god miracles are simply obvious, to a random person math is incomprehensible devil worship.

[Anonymous No.20571614]

>>20571609
Then it's just cosmic sleight of hand, which is closer to the truth than you think.

[Anonymous No.20571641]

>>20571508
How did you manage to sit through all 14 of those?

[Anonymous No.20571656]

>>20571614
I don't know what you're suggesting. The answer is yes, if you're being autistic about it everything that exists is part of the same system. All biologists and chemists are just specialized physicists. But deciding you can fire all your doctors and replace them with physicists is still really fucking stupid.

All of mathematics is shuffling symbols around but demanding mathematicians stop specializing in cryptography or group theory is still really fucking stupid.

[Anonymous No.20571670]

>>20571381
>>20571609
I can swallow leaves and fruit and transform them into muscles and bone.
I used to be smaller than a grain of sand.
I am a conscious thinking being who performs computation by dissolving sugar into a vat of greasy saltwater.
And all of this is somehow considered perfectly mundane and scientific, despite the fact that there's little to no understanding of how any of it works.

[Anonymous No.20571699]

I could kill a giant arachnid. First of all, they like to knock out their enemy before killing them....

[Anonymous No.20571708]

>>20571641
There was just enough incentive to keep me going, though the middle books were a slog.

[Anonymous No.20571769]

>>20570397
>Do you talk to other people on a daily basis?
all my social interaction comes from /sffg/ and other 4chan generals

[Anonymous No.20571790]

>>20571641
they're good
>>20571508
when they were in shadar logoth and crossed balefire streams their souls became interlinked

[Anonymous No.20571806]

>>20571670
>despite the fact that there's little to no understanding of how any of it works
There's perfect understanding about how two of those work. You can interact with all three of them by moving physical objects around. That's the entire reason you're able to think of them as the same thing.

>I am a conscious thinking being who performs computation by dissolving sugar into a vat of greasy saltwater.
No you're not. You're a monad who beams his thoughts directly into a vat of carbon that works as a receiver, using electromagnetic radiation. Unfortunately Jesus hates you, so while he was hanging out in Valhalla he modified your monad to be incapable of using pure thought to move distant objects with monad to anti-quark radiation. Unfortunately this means you can't notice the practical difference between moving objects with physical chemical reactions that obey Newton's laws, versus monad radiation that doesn't. He fucked with your monad because he wishes you would stop being a pedantic, unimaginative faggot.

[Anonymous No.20571811]

>>20571599
sorry, i dont read progression fantasy

[Anonymous No.20571817]

This general feels like 70% xianxia and litrpg lately. How long until light novels get admittance?

[Anonymous No.20571847]

Hai guise, i'm new here. Anyone else reading "Peerless Scoop "Scoop Laser Beam!" ( `・ω・´)〓〓〓〓(゜Д ゜ ;;;).:∴Ka-Choom"?
It's great. Light novels are the best.

[Anonymous No.20571857]

>>20571847
Trying to claim high ground while reading Chinese power fantasy rings kind of hollow

[Anonymous No.20571871]

>>20571817
it's isekaifags from /a/ migrating here because manga and LNs don't offer enough sex scenes for them

[Anonymous No.20571885]

>>20571656
Magic in the mystery/occult/arcane/etc sense is just a gap in information. Functional ignorance. Why do you think wizards hoard their knowledge? They don't want wider science assimilating it. In much the same vein, a stage magician won't tell you how he goes about his tricks. The difference between the magician and the charlatan is one of honesty.

[Anonymous No.20571924]

>>20571641
It was a "bucket list" item for me. I started reading WoT in the 90s. The problem was that I took a break when the series was only half finished, and had to reread those books. I have to confess that I'm not much of a fan of the series. It was simply unfinished business like beating Mega Man on NES. I do these things because I wanted to complete them when I was a kid and it's satisfying finally doing so years later as an adult. In my opinion WoT is grossly overrated and I can't in good conscience recommend it to anybody unless they're really running out of epic fantasy to read.

[Anonymous No.20571950]

>>20571924
Isn't Rand supposed to be like 20 at this point? Why does he look 30+

[Anonymous No.20571972]

>>20571535
Fuck you. I hadn't been on /lit/ since January and I came just to see if maybe anyone had heard anything about Bakker and this image made me think for just a second it had been announced.

I fucking hate Bakker for making me get to into this shit just to vanish off the face of the Earth. At least GRRM let HBO ruin his shit so that I wouldn't care about it anymore.

The Unholy Consult left me more curious than when I finished The Thousandfold Thought.

2018 was four years ago... I wouldn't even mind if it was announced.

[Anonymous No.20571993]

>It was a stately, mature beauty-as one might find in the portrait of some historical scholar. Shallan realized that she'd naively been expecting Jasnah to be an ugly spinster, like the stern matrons who had tutored her years ago. How else could one picture a heretic well into her mid-thirties and still unmarried?

uhhhhh Sanderson based?

[Anonymous No.20572014]

>>20571885
A druid that cures someone by grinding plants up doesn't have to be hoarding their knowledge of medicine. Maybe they legitimately have no better idea of why what they do works than "tree spirits did it because i asked". If I'm an inhabitant of the druid's tribe I'm not going to group him and the guy who built my canoe together, just because they're both creating useful things in physical reality.

I'm not saying authors who think "muh magic side vs muh science side" is a real, objective distinction aren't retarded. But it's completely reasonable that the dumb inhabitants of their world do think it's a real distinction. And it's even reasonable that the physics in that universe do reduce to meaningfully different types of phenomena.

Maybe ghosts do exist and will blow people up for you if you get some maidens to dance for them. You have absolutely no way to influence ghosts besides making maidens dance.

Maybe in the same universe atoms release a ton of energy if you split their cores apart. The only way you can do that is building complex machines.

I'm going to treat my dancers and physicists in completely different ways, and call them different things. Yeah they're both "doing things to alter reality". But from a practical standpoint that's a completely worthless observation.

[Anonymous No.20572015]

>>20571993
>that paragraph where shallan compares jasnahs breast size to hers

Jesus Christ Brando...

[Anonymous No.20572035]

>>20572015
>>20571993
sounds based, maybe i should pick up something from him after all.

[Anonymous No.20572052]

>>20571972
Are we sure Bakker isn't dead? He had a growing fandom scene and did book tours and had his blog and shit and disappeared like half a decade ago now.

[Anonymous No.20572064]

>>20572014
>A druid that cures someone by grinding plants up doesn't have to be hoarding their knowledge of medicine.

That poultice is just some drug you buy at the pharmacy many, many, many (millennia+) years down the road. It is no longer magic, but science. The mystery and charm has been stripped. It is only magic in acknowledgement.

Do you see the issue here?

[Anonymous No.20572085]

>>20572064
No. How is that an issue?

[Anonymous No.20572088]

he pushed and jumped in the air. he saw his enemy pushing at him so he pulled to counteract the push. he threw a coin pushed on it and softened his landing by pulling on the coin. he flared steel to pull harder. the strength of his opponents push was still too much despite flaring. he threw a coin and pushed into the mists.

[Anonymous No.20572113]

>>20572088
Dude sffg has no taste. Don't bring that brainlet in here.

[Anonymous No.20572121]

>>20572088
And here I was getting worried about repeatedly describing how a character breathes because my magic system hinges on it. There are only some 90 instances of "breath" in my thus far 62k word third book.

[Anonymous No.20572134]

>>20572121
Are you unaware that Sanderson already did a magical system based on breathing? Also, there are a number of other popular series that have done the same.

[Anonymous No.20572136]

>>20572121
Considering that breathing is an important part of any high level actual fight how would you describe a boxing match. Please I want to laugh

[Anonymous No.20572139]

>>20571363
PKD's Ubik. It's not too long and it has some cool ideas mixed in a cheesy futuristic noir setting. Some scenes in the book take place in a hotel.

[Anonymous No.20572150]

>>20571399
Literally rape.
>>20571531
Yeah, just skip Endymions. It doesn't even feel like it was written by the same author.

[Anonymous No.20572153]

The irony is that Sanderson isn't even relatively that popular overall, then again basically nothing in this general is.

[Anonymous No.20572160]

>>20572153
He just made 40mil on Kickstarter so someone's reading this shit.

[Anonymous No.20572177]

>>20572160
Crowdfunding is always dominated by relatively few high paying supporters, as is most everything in general.

[Anonymous No.20572183]

>>20572136
I usually don't actually constantly mention it unless it's pertinent, usually in relation to building up power for a significant technique.

Though, I do have a good number of unarmed combat scenes, so here:

>>20572136
I don't read brandosando. I wanted to do my own spin on how breathing is handled in wuxia/xianxia, so breathing techniques are the most widespread technique for generating arcane power in my setting, followed closely by methods that draw from the leylines or ones that rely on some special trait of the user (for example a race of tribals who live on volcanic islands generate their own Ignis and thus usually develop this rather than breaking through into special breathing techniques).

[Anonymous No.20572193]

>>20572183
ah shit, the copypaste didn't work

1/2

When she regained her bearings, he had her left leg in some sort of hold, staring at her with a demented grin on his face. “Forfeit or your knee goes,” he seethed, taking hold of her kneecap. As if an addendum, he muttered “Cloud-scattering Sacred Breath…” to himself, taking in another sharp inhalation. She knew he would be able to maim her well before she could take a proper breath, that feeling of impending danger screeched in the back of her head like a wild beast. The world briefly slowed to a crawl as her mind rushed, her eyes locked to his.

Zelsys dug as deep as she could, exhaling every last wisp of Fog she had left and hoping it would render her upward kick to his head fast enough to get him off her. His head whipped to the left, and the grin vanished from his face as his fingers slipped from the fabric of her pants.

A sharp breath, rolling to the right, then up to her feet in a wide stance. His stomping boot threw up dust where she had laid moments prior as he quickly handsprung back to his feet, flowing after her in that low stance like his body was the head of a giant snake, his hands the fangs.

Just then, she realized. If he wanted to fight like a beast, then it would only be appropriate to treat him as one. “Come on! Come at me!” she mocked much in the same way she had mocked the rot-bear, grinning ear to ear as she sidestepped his charge with a larger exhalation, moving just barely out of his reach and landing securely on her feet. Fury filled his features in a split-second and he redoubled his pursuit, turning on a dime.

Mid-turn, he was as open as he would get, and Zelsys saw the opportunity clear as day. She stepped forward as if she were going to punch him again, placing her weight on the heel of her left so it could act as a pivot point. When his raging face turned to a grin, she knew she had him. “Like an open book,” she inwardly chuckled to herself.

A twist on her heel and an exhalation, raising her right leg into a kick straight to his chest. His ribs against her heel, she felt them bending under the force as she sent him careening across the cobbles again. Halxian slid over the ground, eventually brought to a stop by the foot of a man in the audience. He laid there motionless for a few seconds, until he struggled to his feet, retching and puking blood.

[Anonymous No.20572200]

>>20572193
2/2

The boy struggled to take a breath, and he did - but it wasn’t an explosive one, it wasn’t a breath of Fog. It was the wheezing inhalation of one who had the breath completely knocked out of them and didn’t know how to regain it. “Wghr…” he tried to speak, only to spit out a tooth.

Halxian’s left eye twitched, his face twisted into uncontrolled rage. He took an implosive breath, and without any regard for his own safety charged Zelsys in an erratic dance of punches and claw-like swipes of his immaculately manicured fingers. There was little to no technique or consideration in his assault, his strikes had long wind-ups that she had no issue reading and countering.

She managed to dodge the first two strikes, but he slipped past her guard with a low gut-punch. A full-force elbow strike to his forearm forced the boy back, his arm bending under the force like a branch in the wind. Three consecutive punches, she blocked with her forearms. Halxian swiped at her, which she answered with a light uppercut to his wrist. He wound back, grunting in pain as he unleashed a right jab. A slight movement of the head to avoid the strike, whilst cross-countering with a right-handed jab of her own, exhaling as she did. He ducked under the jab long before it would have struck, well before she had committed. She turned it to a slightly downward right hook.

Her fist, his temple.

The young man spun around and fell to the ground trailing a spiral of Fog, having lost consciousness. Still riding the body high of combat Zelsys stepped towards him, oblivious to how this all must’ve looked to the bystanders.

[Anonymous No.20572204]

>>20572153
>In 2020, Sanderson's agency updated his number of copies sold to over 18 million worldwide, and in early 2021, to over 21 million
That's pretty solid.

[Anonymous No.20572215]

For me it's The Charter.

[Anonymous No.20572231]

>>20572177
What's your point? It's still the most successful kickstarter campaign of all time.

[Anonymous No.20572235]

>>20572204
He has a lot of books and as it says, that's worldwide. He has like 30+ novels, several novellas, graphic novels, abd various other stuff. Sure, the total amount is solid enough, but on an individual book level, not so much.

[Anonymous No.20572236]

>>20572183
>>20572193
>>20572200
Ok I actually get what you're going for with your techniques but I think most of that should have already been established and explained, but not in an infodump like manga or cultivation settings, so that the system could be shorthanded to focus on the swiftness and violence of a fight scene.

[Anonymous No.20572246]

>>20572231
That's only because no one high profile really uses it and for a few other reasons.

[Anonymous No.20572254]

>>20572153
does any other contemporary fantasy author come close?

[Anonymous No.20572267]

>>20571806
Stop being retarded, modern medicine is literally "I made it up" tier. All it's got going for it is blindly following previously successful treatments, which were either copied from ancient herbal medicine or discovered through literal random chance, and cataloging everything they can look at in a microscope, and mostly getting the functionality wrong. Remember, these are the same people who said fat caused diabetes and you should replace it by eating more heart-healthy corn syrup. And don't forget about throat soothing, lung cleaning cool menthol cigarettes!

[Anonymous No.20572274]

>>20572236
That's a compkletely fair point. This was one of the very first fights in the story, and THE first fight against another cultivator. I've tried to make the fights more snappy since then, but I often can't help but describe the specifics of what a character is doing, at least if the POV is attached to that character.

[Anonymous No.20572279]

>>20572254
Define "contemporary". Also, yes, quite a few have more on an individual level. If terms of /sffg/, not really much. But again, /sffg/ isn't representative of sff overall, which was my point.

[Anonymous No.20572281]

>>20572064
Indeed, science is just a thin coat of atheism paint ontop of alchemical herbalism. If anything the druid understood it better than the doctor does.

[Anonymous No.20572282]

>>20572246
Okay I guess your right. Kickstarter is an obscure crowdfunding website, Sanderson's not actually popular, and only a few people gave him 40 million on kickstarter.

[Anonymous No.20572287]

>>20571531
>Can I jump into Hyperion straight off or do I need to read other Dan Simmons to get his style first?
The best option would be not to read Hyperion at all, but if you have to, do try to imagine it as a comedy. It will make much more sense that way. Also, prepare Benny Hill soundtrack for the sex scene in the later part of the book, trust me, it will make everything much better.

[Anonymous No.20572311]

>>20572282
It's all relative. The average payment is $225. The median is probably far higher. 185k is nice, but not absurd. You have to also remember that this isn't just him either, it's to pay for everything with his publishing company. If it were all just selling the base ebooks, it'd be like $2m per book. Then all the other expenses and taxes and etc, and their cut for hosting it. If anything the advertising and marketing for this is worth more. I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers were goosed to get all this publicity.

[Anonymous No.20572347]

>>20572085
It means magic is more of a state of ignorance than a discernable thing. The problem with too-understood magic is that it is just a science by any other name, and hence highly disingenuous.

[Anonymous No.20572349]

What I mean is that a considerable amount of YA sff marketed to women sells more than Sanderson, but that isn't relevant to this /sffg/.

[Anonymous No.20572372]

>Maithanet is Kellhus' half-brother
Didn't see that coming, Bakkerbros...

[Anonymous No.20572388]

>>20572287
>filtered

[Anonymous No.20572396]

>>20572254
Guy Gavriel Kay is a better writer. Or Kazuo Ishiguro but I'm not sure if he still counts as /sffg/

[Anonymous No.20572427]

>>20572396
Popularity, not quality
Kay's best outing is a small fraction at best. Ishiguro has one major book of similar popularity.

[Anonymous No.20572443]

>>20572427
Oh, then yeah. Martin probably sells more books but his main series is obviously dead in the water, and otherwise I can't think of anyone

[Anonymous No.20572445]

>>20572347
That's not an issue.

It's also not entirely true. What did you think about the dance-loving ghosts? It's perfectly possible for universal laws to exist such that the world is influenced in meaningfully different ways.

God exists and you can either make things happen by praying to him and letting him temporarily suspend whatever laws of physics he feels like. This is completely based on his whims and the only pattern you can discern is he's more likely to listen to you if you're a virgin female who just killed a goat. Or you can manipulate the position of atoms by yourself by moving things with your body. There is some sense in which both of those are "the same thing" because you can define "physics" to include all of it. But once again, that observation is worthless and no one cares about it.

So congrats, you've intellectually owned some retarded light novel authors and medieval characters with your superior understanding of philosophy. Why are you still talking about it?

[Anonymous No.20572532]

>>20572139
seconding this

[Anonymous No.20572550]

>>20572445
Yes, but by that point you're relying on culture/society to continue referring to such things as magic - and then you start to wonder if magic is just style/aesthetic/contrary physics to these people, rather than objective possibility/exposure/wonder/mystery/etc. We certainly do not refer to our 21st century amenities as magical, despite them meeting such criteria.

>What did you think about the dance-loving ghosts?
Magic that is volatile and left to the whims of outside forces/intelligences is a lot more buyable than something that is reliable and replicable, or just systematically defined. The stuff of coincidence, or something approaching that. In the vein of Game of Thrones, magic that is comparable to throwing a tiger a piece of meat, and expecting it to do something.

[Anonymous No.20572598]

>It's a 4 (four) interludes in a row chapter.

[Anonymous No.20572602]

why does /sffg/ hate wot so much?

[Anonymous No.20572613]

>>20571924
That's not Rand, that's Calder!

[Anonymous No.20572616]

>>20571924
i guess to keep in the style of the previous covers

[Anonymous No.20572624]

>>20572602
Because we can recognize it's just over-bloated western haremshit

[Anonymous No.20572625]

>>20572602
Because it's boring filler shit, and is one of the worse examples of 90s fantasy. The only reason it got go big was because people didn't have much choice when it came to genre fiction.

Now with Kindle Unlimited and other webbased publishing, publishing houses no longer get to dictate what they think you should read.
I haven't read a publishing house book in years, last time I tried to read one, it was the same old shit.

[Anonymous No.20572633]

>>20572550
>if magic is just style/aesthetic/contrary physics to these people
>rather than objective possibility/exposure/wonder/mystery/etc
The latter don't contradict the former.

I don't have a problem with people calling unusual physics "magic" if it's completely dissimilar to the rules that govern the rest of reality. The word doesn't have to imply that no one has any clue what they're doing. To me it's just when people are doing things in ways completely distinct from standard life. Probably using education that has no connection to whatever things normal people know.

[Anonymous No.20572638]

>>20572550
These perceptions are something to be explored in the story. Think it was Clarke's 3rd Rule that states sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic? The magical counter to this is 'any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science'. I'm not familiar with many series that explore their magic or future interpretations of it outside of Mistborn. The push/pull of allomancy becomes something you can do with magnetism, integrating the systems with the advancement of the world.

Legend of Korra for a cartoon reference, if you want an example of this done poorly. Lightning bending. A rare feat exclusive to master class benders becomes run of the mill, used to power generators in the city. Recognition fades for the ability to achieve this. Now it earns them minimum wage.

[Anonymous No.20572639]

>>20572625
>Now with Kindle Unlimited and other webbased publishing, publishing houses no longer get to dictate what they think you should read.
oh right. no we live in the golden age of the wandering inn. what a time to be alive

[Anonymous No.20572668]

[Anonymous No.20572690]

>>20572639
Wandering inn is shit. why the fuck do you keep trying to shill this crap?

[Anonymous No.20572696]

>>20572668
does RI even have a satisfying ending

[Anonymous No.20572712]

>>20572625
Can you name a few kindle unlimited titles that aren't gamelit, harem, xianxia, progression, Isekai or similar?

[Anonymous No.20572726]

>>20572696
No, the chinese goverment banned it before it got finished.

[Anonymous No.20572737]

>>20572550
Computers are magic. And back in the time of actual wizards practicing alchemy, they called themselves scientists and thought it was perfectly understandable and reasonable to transmute lead into gold using encoded bible passages. In every case anyone actually said to be a practitioner of magic was practicing a scientific discipline and had mountains of texts, instructors, experiments, and research documents about their craft. No only that, but modern science was considered to be more magical than the magic! Production of steel required magical ore, but driving out demons with the lord's prayer was perfectly mundane.
Pythagoras was part of an exclusive mystery cult that hunted down and executed any outsiders who leaked their secret texts. Those secrets? GEOMETRY. He considered it to be too esoteric and divine for the common man to understand and viewed any attempt at doing so to be blasphemy.

[Anonymous No.20572761]

>>20572726
good

[Anonymous No.20572783]

>>20572726
if only they would ban all the other wuxia shit

[Anonymous No.20572809]

>>20572783
>ban what I don't like!
yuck
china tried to ban birds once

[Anonymous No.20572916]

>>20572215
I really need to read the second and third books

[Anonymous No.20572940]

>>20571557
Are they good, though?

[Anonymous No.20572948]

>>20571560
Yes there are things I like (I mentioned the dialogue). I think Delphine is a great character. I just wish it had more of the "heavenly battle". I'm not finished yet.

[Anonymous No.20572955]

100 pages in and this book still hasn't done anything to hook me. I feel like I've been reading for days. Reading a page is like slogging through thick swamp water, my boots are full of pebbles and every step is painful. There's got to be a reason people like this though. Maybe it will get good if I read 100 more pages?

[Anonymous No.20572962]

>>20572955
I liked it.
I did read "Mistborn" first, though.

[Anonymous No.20572970]

>>20572962
When did it get good? I just read the part where the slaves are holding the bridges and I guess that was alright.

[Anonymous No.20572999]

>>20571924
>>20572613
Why didn't they paint his other arm here? The artist got lazy? Took a coffee break and forgot?

[Anonymous No.20573015]

>>20571130
I'm re-reading The Runes of the Earth now. It's nice having already read the final chronicles seeing how everything fits ahead of time. I'm thouroughly enjoying it.
Next I'm going to either read The Algebraist by Banks or read some William Burroughs science fiction.

[Anonymous No.20573023]

>grimdark

[Anonymous No.20573025]

>>20571950
The same reason this happens.

[Anonymous No.20573036]

>>20572088
I can't bring myself to read Mistborn. Not after the third Stormlight Book. I confess that I love The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, but I can't continue on with Sanderson. I just cant.

[Anonymous No.20573052]

>>20573036
Is that a picture of Sanderson in his Latter Day Saints uniform?

[Anonymous No.20573080]

>>20573052
Yes, but this one is from my spank bank.

[Anonymous No.20573083]

>>20572372
>opens first spoiler
you fucking piece of shit faggot if you just spoiled what I think you did

[Anonymous No.20573086]

>>20571381
Of allll books and authors that deal with magic, you pick Dresden and Jim Butcher as your "I just can't..." example?!?

[Anonymous No.20573095]

>>20572916
Definitely. I wouldn't strongly suggest continuing after that though.

[Anonymous No.20573096]

>>20571493
Closet homo.

[Anonymous No.20573101]

>>20572177
>Kickstarter
That 40 mil came from 185,341 people, that's not "relatively few".

[Anonymous No.20573108]

>the no discussion “look guys I read” poster spoils Bakker once again
Swear to god I could strangle this fucking weasel…

[Anonymous No.20573153]

>>20569481
The Hobbit is better than LOTR.

[Anonymous No.20573159]

>>20573108
Why don’t you just read faster or, better yet, stop reading for the plot?

[Anonymous No.20573173]

>>20573101
since when is 100,000 people a lot?

[Anonymous No.20573182]

>>20573173
To me 6 million is a lot

[Anonymous No.20573240]

>>20573182
Just one ovenful.

[Anonymous No.20573247]

>>20573159
Discussing specific plot points along the way is retarded, because 99% change no one is on the same page as you. Complete the book/series/whatever, then you can discuss with other read anons.

[Anonymous No.20573266]

I just finished the first 3 books of the dread empire.
Can't recommend them enough.
It's more coherent in a way than the black company, as it's told more like a traditional story and not just from a single narrator (the annalist pov). Great characters, got romance, shit happens a lot, shit happens you don't expect.
Lots of battles and interesting sorcery and wizards but without convoluted rules for the sorcery constraining everything. Classical wizards that can do all kind of shit.
There's good bromance, tragedy and plot directions you don't expect as you often get enemy PoVs too.
Heroism and betrayals, good military engagements.


Just really good. Looking forward to finishing the rest of the books now.

[Anonymous No.20573269]

>>20570537
That was typical tsundere bullshit

[Anonymous No.20573271]

>>20573266
huh?

[Anonymous No.20573275]

>>20572955
I like the stormlight archives but I do think it's slow going, until you get a grasp on the world and what's going on it's kinda hard to push through.

Try stick with it a bit longer before deciding to drop it.

[Anonymous No.20573279]

>>20573271
Huh?

[Anonymous No.20573284]

>>20572550
Magic should absolutely have consistent internal rules, even if the readers are never explicitly shown those rules. If it "just works" it's begging to be used as deus ex machina, leading to bad writing habits.

[Anonymous No.20573306]

>>20573284
Those consistent internal rules should be surface level at best. A 'witch' mixing hallucinogenic herbs together without knowing the chemistry behind it. How many steps in a ritual are truly necessary?

[Anonymous No.20573311]

>>20573083
>open spoiler tag
>noooo you spoiled it for me!!!!

[Anonymous No.20573316]

FORGET THE DYING EARTH FAN FIC AND FINISH YOUR FUCKING BOOK YOU FUCKING FAT BLOB

[Anonymous No.20573337]

>>20573284
Too rules basically lead to a level up system like in Malazan or mistborn/stormlight though

Mistborn
>He can weild one kind of metallurgy
>This guy can wield 2 kinds!
>This guy can wield 8 (eight) kinds
>This guy can wield 1 kind of alchemical power
>This guy can wield 1 metal and 1 alchemical power!
>This guy can wield 8 metal and alchemical powers!

Stormlight
>Literal level ups via teirs of power

Malazan
>This guy can conjure a bit of light
>This guy can conjure light from a place so strong to generate flames and blind anyone looking at it's cast
>This guy can conjure light from an even stronger place that scorches battlefields

[Anonymous No.20573342]

>>20573247
*chance

[Anonymous No.20573348]

>>20573337
I prefer malazans out of the 3, to open the warrens or the ancient holds takes practice, natural talent and a lot of willpower so only the strongest wizards can pull through from the ancient holds.

[Anonymous No.20573352]

>>20573337
Poor terminology doesn't help either.

[Anonymous No.20573373]

>>20573284
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.20573391]

>>20573337
Good

[Anonymous No.20573407]

Is this worth reading lads? I like the idea of civilization threatening sci fi stories, is this any good or should I avoid because it's written by a chink

[Anonymous No.20573429]

>>20573391
good if you like dbz i guess

[Anonymous No.20573432]

>>20573337
Mistborn is retarded because it sidesteps the rules part of a magic system with rules by just making character access to said magic system entirely arbitrary by way of bloodlines.

[Anonymous No.20573439]

>>20573407
silted chink writing, glorified MTL shit
some cool ideas but hobbled, once again, by chink writing

[Anonymous No.20573465]

>>20573284
>an author will sabotage their own story, unless they constantly ask permission from bunch of fake gayme mechanics
Way to out yourself as wholly unable to understand both the essence of a narrative and the process of writing fiction.

[Anonymous No.20573473]

>mfw Achamian just revenge-cucked Kellhusand now hes about to go Columbine on Conogas and his boys

[Anonymous No.20573478]

>>20573473
Conphas*, even

[Anonymous No.20573485]

>>20569616
I like TWI, but that image is over posted and is getting boring.

[Anonymous No.20573492]

>>20573465
You misunderstand. Any competent author will develop an internal logic and with it rules for their magic system, even if subconsciously. A magic system that is truly rules-free is just the hand of the author, it's bullshit that works the way the plot needs it to work at any given moment, it is... What Gurm does.

[Anonymous No.20573501]

I finally got to the part in ISSTH where Meng Hao puts on the mask

[Anonymous No.20573544]

>>20573492
I wanted to continue acerbic shitposting, but I'm on a schedule. You are right that any competent author will develop "internal consistency", even without thinking. The themes, needs of a (good) plot and narrative arcs guide them. If the author can fuck up their own story with poor use of magic, they weren't writing a good story in the first place.

[Anonymous No.20573571]

>>20572139
Thanks for the recommendation bro. I’ll read this

[Anonymous No.20573636]

>Sanderson's March 2022 Kickstarter campaign became the most successful in history, finishing with 185,341 backers pledging $41,754,153.
How did this happen when he's a mediocre author?

[Anonymous No.20573643]

>>20573636
That is actually quite disgusting.

[Anonymous No.20573649]

>>20573473
Youre taunting me now. This is just cruel.

[Anonymous No.20573654]

>>20573636
He's better than (you)

[Anonymous No.20573692]

>Various rumors are floating around about my involvement, or lack of same. I am involved, just as I am with THE HEDGE KNIGHT and THE SEA SNAKE and TEN THOUSAND SHIPS, and all the animated shows. Kit’s team have visited me here in Santa Fe and worked with me and my own team of brilliant, talented writer/ consultants to hammer out the show.
>Yes, WINDS OF WINTER. No, have not forgotten. I was back with Tyrion this past week.
Nothing this fucking hack does should surprise me at this point but every time he commits to something new it's just another nail in the TWOW coffin

[Anonymous No.20573694]

>>20573636
le chinless YA man

[Anonymous No.20573698]

>>20573692
He will die of fatfuckness before he finishes it anon. Just accept it and move on with your life. Nothing you can do will change this.

[Anonymous No.20573714]

Can somebody recommend me a fantasy novel and/or series similar to Planescape? Something literary and deminsion-hopping.

[Anonymous No.20573747]

>>20571993
Delicious cake long expired...

[Anonymous No.20573773]

What are the primary literary issues with chink fantasy/literature?

[Anonymous No.20573774]

>>20573773
bad writing

[Anonymous No.20573776]

Quarter way through White Luck Warrior, I hate Kelmomas so much it's unreal. That lil guy just makes me puke.

[Anonymous No.20573779]

>>20573636
i haven't read him yet but i guess his books are actually quite good and you guys just hate him cause your incels who hate anything popular and just read obscure chink shit and bakker

[Anonymous No.20573783]

>>20573774
is it bad writing or bad translation?

[Anonymous No.20573785]

Rare: Author Brandon Sanderson at Yiffcon 2019

[Anonymous No.20573787]

>>20573783
Unprofessional authors translated and edited by unprofessionals

[Anonymous No.20573791]

“But!” Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable raised his hands as he shouted: “But do you know? Do you know how much I want to return?!”
Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable then lowered his head, his fingers stabbing into his hair as his eyes were hollow, he muttered: “Do you know how tough it has been for me?”
“When I was a mortal, I told myself that if I became a Gu Master, I will be able to find a way home.”
“When I became a Gu Master, I told myself that after becoming a Gu Immortal, I will be able to find a way home.”
“After becoming a Gu Immortal, I consoled myself again, if I become venerable, I will be able to go home.”
“But now, I am already a venerable! And yet, I cannot find Space Door! Where is Space Door?”
“Even if I find Space Door, can it really let me return home?”
“Gu Venerables are the strongest! There is no road ahead of me anymore. Sometimes, I will dream of Space Door, I dreamed that I found Space Door but realized it was completely useless.”
“Whenever I wake up from such a nightmare, I will be covered in cold sweat.”
“I admit that I am afraid, I am afraid that I cannot find Space Door, I am afraid that the truth behind it will send me into utter despair.”
“Can you understand my feelings?”
Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable’s breathing became rougher, he looked at the deepest part of Crazed Demon Cave, the thinnest part of the world boundary.

[Anonymous No.20573884]

>>20573783
Unironically both at the same time. Western self pub authors are bad enough, but chink ones are even worse. Add in a shit MTL and it's truly abysmal.

[Anonymous No.20573899]

>>20572970
How far into discovering the magic are you? I do remember WoK to start kind of slow but it's worth sticking with it, specially if you like hard magic.

[Anonymous No.20573912]

>>20573432
That's kind of addressed as we see less and less metalurgy and alomancy as time goes on and we go further away as the bloodlines get diluted. Also just because not everyone has access to the magic doesn't mean that the magic doesn't have rules.

[Anonymous No.20573968]

>>20573791
Is this the kind of chink shit you fags jerk off to?

[Anonymous No.20574082]

>>20573636
Cause he isn't mediocre?

[Anonymous No.20574108]

>>20573773
The most popular stuff in china are webnovels, where authors are expected to publish daily (sometimes twice daily) in order to keep engagement and click views high.

This means a lot of story lines get fluffed out the ass.
This also means they fall back on common literary tropes. For wuxia/xianxia it's shit like arrogant young masters flipping tables, tournament arcs, auction arc, or finding out a new realm/sect to conquer/beat up.
It kind of makes the whole journey very meandering and often times the author just wraps shit up in like 10-50 chapters (which is like a week or month's worth of chapters out of 3000k+) because either they lost the plot and gave up or they want to move on.

I also dislike that so much of their magic system is based on real-life daoism/cultivation/internal alchemy. My issue is that it really limits what you can do with such a system. Everything is a variation of the same shit (think Tolkein and how every modern interpretation of elves/orcs is a riff off him). Don't be surprised to see the same shit, different story constantly with pills and whatever.

Also because there's references that sort of fly over people's heads. I'm not talking Mt. Tai, I mean sometimes they reference random ass real-life chinese folk stories and ancient history. It's the equivalent of expecting the average reader from America to know George Washington's pre-American Revolutionary War military career in the 7 Year's War.

Then there's the racism (China number! Communist Party Great! Taiwan belongs to us! Fuck the Japs! Koreans pls be our bffs!), the sexism (you think japs make shit waifus? Chinese are worse), and the shameless plagiarism (it's not uncommon for web novels to steal plot beats wholesale from each other but sometimes its impossible to tell since they're so shameless ripped off other things anyways).

[Anonymous No.20574126]

>>20574108
Half of those things you listed are positives

[Anonymous No.20574158]

Erikson claimed that bakker is treading in the wake of Glen Cook
Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.20574161]

>>20574158
They're not very similar

[Anonymous No.20574168]

>>20574158
>a sperg-hack comparing a homo-hack to a washed-up hack

[Anonymous No.20574170]

>>20574168
Supremacy of Bakker > peasantry of wolfe

[Anonymous No.20574223]

>Retracing his bloody footsteps, the wizard limped on.
Hold me, Bakkerbros.............

[Anonymous No.20574224]

>>20574161
Lots actually. Kellus prophet arc clearly comes from El Murid.

[Anonymous No.20574308]

>>20573485
>I like TWI, but that image is over posted and is getting boring.

[Anonymous No.20574451]

>>20571121
Nice!

[Anonymous No.20574601]

Bakkerbros all hope is lost
https://www.newsload.ca/post/insights-on-the-second-apocalypse-book-series

[Anonymous No.20574637]

>>20574601
So if we even get a third series, it will just be a sort-of prequel?

[Anonymous No.20574665]

>>20573636
>How did this happen when he's a mediocre author?
He's rich and has lots of advertisement methods/opportunities.

[Anonymous No.20574690]

>>20574601
>He might continue or he might not

Gee, how useful

[Anonymous No.20574696]

>>20573779
>I haven't read him yet but here's my baseless retarded argument

>>20573636
he's popular because people don't want to read quality, they want to turn their brains off and read popcorn shit and the guy is incredibly prolific with his brainless popcorn entertainment

[Anonymous No.20574707]

>>20573636
have you not seen the state of modern fantasy? hes probably one of the better authors

[Anonymous No.20574764]

just finished the first zones of thought of book, should I read the other two?
also, is there any other books that focus on tier levels between galactic civilizations and the possibility of godhood through transcendence?

[Anonymous No.20574789]

>>20574764
The Book of Mormon

[Anonymous No.20574793]

Just finished pic related, it was good but rolled straight into the second book. Does anyone who's read this series have any insight on whether it's gonna end at 3, or is it scope creeping to endless novels?

For anyone who hasn't read it, it's basically told through stories, and the setting has roughly six disparate countries and colors built around "blessings" which are abilities to control a certain element. Long but well paced and I never felt like it was dragging, but book 1 is definitely not stand alone, as it just sorta ends.

[Anonymous No.20574828]

https://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1656073645111.webm

[Anonymous No.20574865]

Sanderson really did put out an awful precedent for magic. The magic system subreddit is proof enough.

George meanwhile actually knows what magic is supposed to be. You don't need an explanation for things.

[Anonymous No.20574868]

>>20574828
I want one of those

[Anonymous No.20574941]

>>20574865
>Soft magic systems where everything is nebulous are better because...because I said so, Okay!?
Lmao, people really can't get over the fact some people want their stories to make sense. You can have magic in a story to serve some specific purposes like evoking emotions or resembling ideas, concepts, whatever, but bitching about people doing the opposite and just enjoying crafting and reading worlds in which supermundane fenomena has rules that can be understood and harnessed is the height of dumbfuckery.

That is not to say that Sanderson's magic is great, it's just decent, but as his books are popular, people mindlessly emulate him without understanding what is what. Jesus, this is not a hard concept to understand, different ways of presenting fantasy worlds are compelling to different people.

Also, I am not sure what George means by Gandalf never using spells, fucker literally spammed firebolts against Goblins when he was with the dwarfs on trees in Hobbit. I think there were also other instances of him using magic, like to provide light etc. That's as straightforward application of magic for mundane problems as you get.

That is not to say that George doesn't have a point by pointing out Tolkien's magic isn't just a series of spells someone can cast, there is a lot of mystery to it, and having that can be great for stories. But blanket statements about magic systems are jsut straight-up retarded.

[Anonymous No.20574953]

>>20574941
Gandalf doesn't make magic a crutch, is the bloody point. He's also one of just five individuals known as 'wizards'. Humans, by word of Tolkien, do not use magic without some sort of artifact or patronage.

You freely decided not to get his angle. Good for you. You must really hate the man.

[Anonymous No.20574960]

>>20574941
He talks about it more here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCCD4rWkMZ8

[Anonymous No.20575023]

>>20573266
>got romance
Is it better executed than Black Company? I thought Croaker and Lady were fine in the first trilogy, but it was a slog reading through their interactions later on

[Anonymous No.20575048]

>>20574865
>If magic is systematic, then it's not magic and more of a fake science.
Sanderson really spent like 500 pages of his last Stormlight book having Navani go full Mengele to explain how it works

[Anonymous No.20575113]

Serialized web fiction is the meth of genre fiction.

[Anonymous No.20575245]

>>20575113
Xianxia is the bootleg fentanyl.

[Anonymous No.20575436]

>>20575048
i actually liked the navani chapters

[Anonymous No.20575459]

books on future special forces going back in time and helping in major conflicts behind the scenes or assassinating important people?

[Anonymous No.20575573]

>>20575023
yes, actually
different romances that take different tones and have their own complications

[Anonymous No.20575617]

>>20574764
help anyone?

[Anonymous No.20575620]

>>20571130
I'm a third done Reaper's Gale. I'm trying to get through the rest of Malazan Book Of The Fallen by August. The problem being that my sleep has been atrocious lately and my reading speed drops to a crawl when I'm living on barely any sleep.

[Anonymous No.20575634]

>>20573714
Malazan is the closest thing I've read that gives this feeling. It's a similar mixture of philosophy and traveling through really bizarre magical warrens. Though I'm trying to remember how much of this kind of thing is in the first book which is a little rough.

[Anonymous No.20575645]

>>20573439
Barack Obama himself said it was good, surely he wouldn't lie to me

[Anonymous No.20575662]

>>20574451
I finished and wrote some stuff that I'll post in due time.

[Anonymous No.20575939]

>>20573714
>>20575634
I'd second malazan, though it may take a few books for it to open up to what your looking for

[Anonymous No.20575946]

>>20575620
>malazan art

i love the series but the fan art for it is mostly garbo

[Anonymous No.20575952]

>>20573025
>>20571950

[Anonymous No.20576016]

>>20574941
>But blanket statements about magic systems are jsut straight-up retarded.

What if I told you that magic is whatever the fuck? What is magic to one is not necessarily magic to another.

[Anonymous No.20576048]

>>20571381
Well. It comes down to how the author tells it is. Like either magic use has actual rules or it's handwavy soft magic.

[Anonymous No.20576054]

Anybody read anything else from the Metro series other than the main trilogy?

[Anonymous No.20576067]

>>20573275
No I can grasp what's going on easily. It's just not exciting or entertaining. What's entertaining about some girl wandering around a city buying books?

[Anonymous No.20576074]

>>20576067
Shallans pov is very weak early on, I agree
Kaladins trials are what kept me on in the first book, along with wanting to know what the actual fuck they are actually trying to accomplish over there

[Anonymous No.20576092]

>>20571381
Dresden has problems but magic vs physics isn't one of them.

[Anonymous No.20576102]

>>20576092
>magic vs physics isn't one of them.
wrong

[Anonymous No.20576191]

Thinking about the stuff that's happening in the USA today, can people who read the fantasy written in 2000 and before tell me what was those fictions view of abortion? In Poland the only example I can find is the Witcher series which portrayed it as a woman's choice.

I don't really read American stuff from before 2000, so is someone knowledgable about that?

[Anonymous No.20576211]

>>20576191
America is so fucking retarded, holy shit. Wearing a condom is a bloody micro-abortion. These fat pigs don't even understand basic implications of basic math. Not having sex on Tuesday is a retroactive abortion.

Having an abortion after the baby develops consciousness is a whole separate matter.

[Anonymous No.20576215]

>>20576191
From memory, abortion isn't really touched upon much. It's more that babies happen, and are taken as a given. Talk of aborting them doesn't really come up. Not really as a pro or con stance, just that it's not really given a thought.

[Anonymous No.20576224]

>>20576211
I had sex last Tuesday, no condom

[Anonymous No.20576226]

hey there, is this sci fi can teach english? i have exam so i come to learn better english writing skills and need for that to happen some books to keep me entertained during exam period.

[Anonymous No.20576239]

>>20575952
What kind of SFF does Stirner like?

[Anonymous No.20576256]

>>20576191
I remember reading an old scifi story where post-birth abortion was legalized and there was the equivalent of a dog catcher rounding up stray children to put them down.

[Anonymous No.20576273]

>>20576256
That was a PKD story, iirc but I don't remember which one. I've read it.

[Anonymous No.20576289]

[Anonymous No.20576295]

>>20576273
I thought it was PKD, but didn't want to say because I was unsure. I used to read a lot of SF short story anthologies and the authors often blend together in my memory.

[Anonymous No.20576356]

>>20576295
I read all of his short stories (currently rereading them (slowly), coincidentally) and they all blend together. I wish I remembered more.

[Anonymous No.20576441]

>>20576295
>>20576273
>>20576256
That's The Pre-Presons

[Anonymous No.20576536]

>>20576256
>I remember reading an old scifi story where post-birth abortion was legalized and there was the equivalent of a dog catcher rounding up stray children to put them down.
Now that you say that, I do recall reading one book, I think it was YA kind of book, about a future in which having more than two children was outlawed and those children did not have laws at all, so they got all killed when they went to protest in the capital. The book was pretty forgetable though, so that's all I remember.

Still, it's not about abortion, just about callous authoritarian governments. I want to see fantasy stories that directly tackled abortion, as in there were ways to lose the child thorugh any means, alchemical or magical and the morality of it in those stories.

You know, now some doors in my mind opened and I do recall that sometimes in fantasy stories a 'plant' is mentioned that can be used to prevent or abort pregnacies. There was also this one story where women joked about jumping on their stomaches from the table if they get pregnant to get rid of that.

Btw, that stuff about 'easily acquirable herb that people ubiquitously use to prevent pregnacies so that casual sex is not a biggy' is very prevalent in fantasy. I know that most fantasy is written by liberal people, but it's a bit silly when people try hard to implant modern sensibilities to otherwise medieval settings, just so that sex can happen at any time and no one cares.

[Anonymous No.20576548]

PkD predicted Minecraft in The Trouble With Bubbles

[Anonymous No.20576559]

>>20576548
>that macabre dance of world-smashing

[Anonymous No.20576576]

>>20576536
The Shadow Children?

[Anonymous No.20576654]

>>20576536
I'm pretty sure it's >>20576576 gave me The Giver vibes.

[Anonymous No.20576720]

>>20576576
Yep, that appears to be it. Weirdly I cannot remember anything from it aside of the general plot, the scene when they boy eat the crisps witht he mother, and the last scene with the father of the other girl. Pretty forgetable book, it seems.

[Anonymous No.20576729]

>>20575634
>>20575939
Thanks lads. I've got the first two Malazan novels on my shelf but had put it off until I finished The Second Apocalypse

[Anonymous No.20576761]

>>20576226
Maybe try some Jules Verne.

[Anonymous No.20576806]

>>20576720
I only read the first book in the series as assign school reading in 7th grade, which was the year it came out. It was more memorable at the time. That teacher also had use read some book of ritual child sacrifice by groups of parents.

[Anonymous No.20576885]

>>20576806
I read it in school as well. The only things that really stick in my mind now are the ending and the part early on where the forest behind his family's property is turned into a housing development.

[Anonymous No.20576908]

>>20576806
>That teacher also had use read some book of ritual child sacrifice by groups of parents.
...Raven's Gate?

[Anonymous No.20576983]

>>20569481
I wanna get into Moorcock. Should I just start with Elric? Are there any novels of his I should avoid?

[Anonymous No.20576984]

>>20571381
Boy I've never seen someone run out of IQ between two paragraphs before

[Anonymous No.20577004]

Fellow Cradlebros how we feeling? Anything in particular you hope to see from Dreadgod? Anything you dread (heh) coming to pass?

[Anonymous No.20577023]

>>20576984
Are you saying you're a Dresden nonce?

[Anonymous No.20577028]

>>20573636
It's simply what it looks like when an author gets paid directly and upfront, instead of being drip fed loose change in royalties by a publisher.

[Anonymous No.20577046]

I can't understand Auk sometimes holy moly.
>scavy mate?

[Anonymous No.20577061]

>read Neural Wraith after anon posted in the cover a few threads back it's actually not bad.

[Anonymous No.20577068]

>>20577023
I'm saying there's absolutely nothing in the concept of magic interfering with traditional physics that excludes magic from being part of a wider system of physics. It's an entirely semantic distinction.

[Anonymous No.20577079]

>>20576908
No, that says 2005. It can't be later than 1998. All I really remember about it now is that they go on a vacation and go to some seaside cave and want to sacrifice children as part of a ritual to maintain their immortality. Something like that anyway. It's been a long time.

[Anonymous No.20577094]

>>20576983
Elric is amazing - high recommendation. All the other Moorcock I've read was a bit shit, desu.

[Anonymous No.20577106]

>>20573636
>this kills the bakkerspamer.jpg

[Anonymous No.20577253]

Just finished Dune.
Preserve the memory or continue on?

[Anonymous No.20577268]

>>20575245
mtl xianxia is carfentanil

[Anonymous No.20577286]

>>20577253
End. 80%+ of readers don't proceed to the second book.

[Anonymous No.20577289]

>>20577253
If you liked it, most people think it's safe to go to God Emperor. From there you may or may not choose to read the rest of the Frank books. After that...

[Anonymous No.20577302]

>>20577289
I understand about his son's books.
I did enjoy it. I liked the space nobles doing things parts, which was most of it, there weren't really parts I didn't like although I noticed that nearly nothing comes of any of Jessica's protests, "he mustn't! He mustn't! He mustn't!", like, why? Oh well.

[Anonymous No.20577304]

>>20577004
There's still one more book afterwards. That's the one that's far more importantm

[Anonymous No.20577307]

>>20577253
Read as much as you like, no further than God Emperor.

[Anonymous No.20577316]

>>20577253
Considering book 2 is le epic subversion of the cheesy 'chosen one' scenario in the first book, and absolutely essential for ascribing any form of literary value to the first book, yes.

[Anonymous No.20577339]

>>20577316
I really hate that my call back for this information is Ender's Shadow. It makes me think of cringe, even though I enjoyed the book as a teen.
I'm not well read enough and need to make more time for reading.

[Anonymous No.20577341]

>>20577253
Disregard >>20577307
Just read until you stop enjoying what you're reading. Many people love the last 2 books, others hate them. I recommend you at least try to get to the straight shota scene in book 6.

[Anonymous No.20577352]

>>20577341
That's a fine way to sell the next 5 books, my man. You have renewed my resolve.
I feel like if you told that to everyone who read the first book, that 80% drop rate would go to at least 40%

[Anonymous No.20577376]

>>20573407
it's good. All three books are really different despite following a central story.

[Anonymous No.20577379]

>>20577339
Being "well read" is a meme. There's nothing inherently more valuable about reading fiction than indulging in other forms of entertainment.

[Anonymous No.20577392]

>>20577352
The 80% rate is based on the 1 million read on Goodreads versus 200k or so for the second book.

[Anonymous No.20577405]

>>20577379
disagree, if you go into classic lit with an open mind and not a "i'm going to be so cultured" mind you might find a lot of interesting stories and parallels

[Anonymous No.20577409]

>>20577405
This, if you like Tolkien style travelogue style fantasy I recommend you try Moby Dick.

[Anonymous No.20577423]

>>20573407
I liked it a lot. Very fun first contact.

[Anonymous No.20577431]

>>20577392
The /sffg/ continuance rate isn't much better. There's almost always a huge drop off between the first and second book of any series.

[Anonymous No.20577443]

>>20577405
Yes, for entertainment.

[Anonymous No.20577452]

>>20577316
>absolutely essential for ascribing any form of literary value in the first book
I'm guessing the ecology and theology commentary in the first book went over your head? you don't need the second book at all to digest the many themes in the first dune book. it's still worth reading the next 3 though.

[Anonymous No.20577466]

>>20577405
I think about the anon who told me, "Just 50 pages a day." all the time.
I waste so much time and I do the math on how many books that would get me in a year for just 50 pages a day. How I have my font set when I read Dune, it was almost 800 pages, so I could read 22 Dune length novels a year. And that doesn't count the ones that really grip me and I keep reading for hours.
So I've been chunking through some classics too like the 3 musketeers and count of monte cristo. Though with the classics theres homework to do for the best translation and I have to read the count again as I'm missing like 500 fucking pages of content and it was still my favorite book!
I just like my rich princes doing things, bad guys slain, and princessess and maidens shagged, I suppose.

[Anonymous No.20577469]

>>20577028
Very few authors ever earn out to even recieve royalties. Ever with the disinformation propaganda.

[Anonymous No.20577478]

>>20577466
If you make it a chore, you'll come to abhor.

[Anonymous No.20577489]

whats the scifi equivalent of huge epic fantasies like wheel of time?

[Anonymous No.20577490]

>>20577489
The Expanse

[Anonymous No.20577499]

>>20577489
The Wheel of Time is kind of scifi in a way

[Anonymous No.20577501]

>>20577478
True. But every time I read, I'm happy that I do/did read what I read.
It could help me grow as a reader, there are some people here or out there that actually drop books. I couldn't imagine reading so much that you know what you like so well that you're like, "Nah, this is shit."
Every time I finish a sci-fi I'm like, "Wow, how could anyone else present a neater and more compelling idea of how things are? I must have gotten lucky and I'm only reading the good stuff!" Which might be true considering how little I've read and you typically start at the top like Dune or some Asimov or some contemporary hit like 3 body problem. Its so strange. I read Blindsight and the MC is some know-it-all jerk who thinks he has it all figured out and I think, well how can you top that, then in Dune the MC is some know-it-all semi-jerk and it still compels me. Im glad it does.

[Anonymous No.20577509]

>>20577499
Care to elaborate? Cause I have no idea what you mean.

[Anonymous No.20577510]

>>20577501
Imagine being proud of a lack of discernment.

[Anonymous No.20577517]

>>20577501
I guess I should ask,
How would you all read? Continue the series right away or try something new. I know I'm kind of asking you to tell me how I feel, but I've yet to read Hyperion... and I'm on vacation so I though of maybe picking up the first Master and Commander book or the first Horatio Hornblower...
Do you read multiple series at once to prevent burnout?

[Anonymous No.20577519]

>>20577489
pic related, although it's actually good

[Anonymous No.20577522]

>>20577509
You'd have to read it.

[Anonymous No.20577523]

>>20577522
I did.

[Anonymous No.20577528]

>>20577510
Like I said, I've read few books. Im sure there's trash, but I don't think any of Dune, blindsight, 3 body problem, enders game, or the classics are trash.
I'm not sure if I would envy or pity the man who loves Anna Karina and hates War and Peace or Brothers Karamazov or vica versa.

[Anonymous No.20577553]

>>20577509
He probably refers to the age of legend stuff

[Anonymous No.20577604]

>>20577499
Only through tortuous semantics.

[Anonymous No.20577610]

>>20577519
I dropped his books in the second or third one, it started to feel like he was writing it as someone who wanted to live in the Culture rather than seeing it as the prison it was.

[Anonymous No.20577628]

>>20577610
Different people have different opinions.

[Anonymous No.20577631]

Man i hate sci-fi terrorists.
They're always doing shit that will literally kill almost everybody because they think others should hate the same things they hate. Everybody in this bubble is happy? Too bad! You're living too long or whatever!

[Anonymous No.20577634]

>>20577523
>>20577604
tee hee

[Anonymous No.20577675]

>>20577631
You've described /pol/ well.

[Anonymous No.20577676]

>>20577610
i feel like he takes a pretty nuanced approach since most of his books don't take part in the culture for the most part. It's just fun scifi imo

[Anonymous No.20577679]

>>20577676
Nothing is allowed to be fun any longer.

[Anonymous No.20577695]

>>20577676
I read the first and didn't find it at all nuanced, just reveling in having found a trump card that lets him bludgeon all the backward and wrong people out of existence with a clean conscience. I hated the book and hated the author too.

[Anonymous No.20577731]

>>20577695
Same desu

[Anonymous No.20577737]

>>20577489
shit infograph

[Anonymous No.20577748]

>>20577553
moghedien says they used the one power to go to other stars in the age of legends. ever since then i wondered if there were off world colonies and what happened to them after the breaking

[Anonymous No.20577754]

>>20577631
What an ignorant take. Scifi terrorists fight the evil corporations and the npc masses who directly or indirectly work for those corporations. Killing 1-10% of nlc population is acceptable.

[Anonymous No.20577762]

>>20577610
i haven't yet read the culture (but plan to) but i remember reading a bit about on wiki and it sounded like a globohomo wet dream

[Anonymous No.20577842]

>>20577695
the first book didn't even involve the culture other than the fact that they were are participant in the war. You meet like two culture citizens during the whole fucking thing.

[Anonymous No.20577853]

>>20577842
And that was enough to justify exterminating the reactionaries.

[Anonymous No.20577888]

>>20577754
The ones in Blindsight are fucking assholes.
Sorry humanity figured out how to let people be happy forever in a computer, no matter how shitty real life is.
I might feel different if I ever read a single cyberpunk book, but cyberpunk 2077 or whatever it was called did irreparable damage that set the genre waaaay back and left a sour taste in my mouth, and I didn't even play it.
Also I just think of like ugly people with black things for eyes that are like computers or whatever. Shadowrun imagery did not do any favors for me.

[Anonymous No.20577993]

>>20576191
You know what would make /sffg/ even better? Talking about politics! Yeah!

[Anonymous No.20577995]

>>20577888
Cyberpunk 2077 """updated""" the cyberpunk aesthetic for burgerstan globohomo goblinoids
Fortunately smaller properties in the genre maintain a grip on the legitimate cyberpunk aesthetic

[Anonymous No.20578071]

>>20577379
Thankfully there are plenty of studies on reading that disprove this ridiculous assumption. Actively engaging the brain reading fiction is inherently a more valuable use of time than watching television, consuming copious amounts of alcohol, or even playing most kinds of video games.

[Anonymous No.20578094]

>>20578071
Now if only the heroic feelings would last and I would do something with my life.

[Anonymous No.20578096]

>>20577675
>You've described /pol/ well.

[Anonymous No.20578129]

>>20577888
>left a sour taste in my mouth, and I didn't even play it.
Rent free

[Anonymous No.20578145]

>>20577995
>take satirical genre
>make it more satirical
>"this is societal decay!!" -some retard

[Anonymous No.20578164]

>>20577995
What's everything from the left from?

[Anonymous No.20578169]

>>20578145
He’s a /pol/tard, what else were you expecting?

[Anonymous No.20578180]

>>20578164
Original concept trailer vs. actual game.

[Anonymous No.20578185]

>>20578145
>>20578169
Neck (You)rself redditoid

[Anonymous No.20578199]

>>20578185
Supremacy of Bakker forever true.. ACK!

[Anonymous No.20578200]

>>20578169
Its fine as long as he's not a trannytard

[Anonymous No.20578232]

>>20578185
effortlessly made you mad, again
yes we've interacted before

[Anonymous No.20578235]

>>20578180
Oh no.
Not to be a reddit bleeding heart fag but why are the cops in cyberpunk who murder for private corporations so cool looking? We have that now and all the cops are fat like me. Why did the authors and artists lie to us?

[Anonymous No.20578239]

>>20578235
Because they are not supreme, just like sandi the fat mormon goon leader.

[Anonymous No.20578286]

>>20578235
unions. private police would just get rid of fat officers.

[Anonymous No.20578299]

>>20577068
Magic IS semantics, dipshit.

[Anonymous No.20578328]

New thread
>>20578325

[Anonymous No.20578340]

>>20578328
let this be the one, the image is better

[Anonymous No.20578348]

>>20578328
It’s not even page 10byet.

[Anonymous No.20578359]

>>20573714
I haven't played Planescape but maybe Vellum by Hal Duncan?

[Anonymous No.20578364]

>>20578359
Thanks lad, I’ll check it out after Malazan.

[Anonymous No.20578489]

>>20578145
I don’t know much about cyberpunk because I mostly read classic sci-fi but isn’t some cyberpunk intended to be a “serious” criticism of unregulated capitalism? If the is the case I feel like we should have hard cyberpunk and soft cyberpunk genres just as we have hard and soft sci-fi. I read snow crash a bit ago and it seemed way too silly for anyone to take seriously.
>>20578235
IMO the coolest cops in sci-fi are the judges from judge dredd. What cyberpunk books are you thinking of specifically?

[Anonymous No.20579058]

>>20578489
Nonspecific.
Ghost in the shell, Astral chain. There are a lot of cool cop designs because, well they can be cool peacekeeping forces or the last line between anarchy. Its just unfortunate the way our history is playing out these last 50 years. But we also wouldn't have a lot of that "cool" imagery without S.W.A.T.

[Anonymous No.20579065]

>>20578286
Good answer. I like it.
God bless unions, even that lazy fucker you really hate at work, (the fucking bastard).