/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

[Anonymous No.20938640]

A Tower of Clocks & Pipes Edition

Previous Thread:>>20925124

>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.20938644]

Well written books that have good endings and positive healthy romantic subplots? The woman could even be inhuman I don't care

Theme wise I just finished The Night Land
Similarly enjoyed the first three Black Company books, Lyonesse, and the Broken Sword

[Anonymous No.20938646]

Name the most obscure fantasy book you know.

[Anonymous No.20938654]

>>20938646
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

[Anonymous No.20938662]

>>20938646
what castle is that

[Anonymous No.20938668]

>>20938644
Women are always inhuman anon

[Anonymous No.20938713]

>>20938668
That's why I like fictional women anon

[Anonymous No.20938718]

I have an entirely made up fantasy universe in my own head

[Anonymous No.20938721]

[Anonymous No.20938725]

>>20938721
Is this supposed to be about the main character?

[Anonymous No.20938726]

>>20938718
All tales may come true.

[Anonymous No.20938728]

>>20938725
Yes, but coincidentally the text color match the book covers.

[Anonymous No.20938743]

>>20938646
The Castle of Iron by Lyon Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt. It's a collection of three short stories two of which are co-authored. The protagonist is always the same, a comical scientist weirdo who learns how to move between "universes" and drags his friends through various adventures, including meeting the Orlando Furioso cast, battling an Evil Wizard and getting a lift from Odin just before Ragnarok

[Anonymous No.20938756]

>>20938644
Realm of the Elderlings
>Inb4 cucking

Actually the Liveship Traders and rain wild chronicles have really good and complex romances.
Althea + brashen
The housewife + the ship captain in rain wilders
The main dragon keeper girl and her childhood friend

[Anonymous No.20938771]

>>20938644
I wish Lindon and Yerin's relationship had more of a focus

[Anonymous No.20938796]

Remember, whenever you find yourself in a tough situation, stuck between rock and cock place as they say, just follow the WWKD principle: sit down, close your eyes, still your breath, enter the probability trance, and ask yourself, out loud, "What would Kellhus do?". The answer should come to you naturally provided you'd read the masterpiece 7-books-and-counting saga The Second Apocalypse by R. Scott "King" Bakker (pbuh)

[Anonymous No.20938802]

>For me? It's R Scott Bakker. Intelligent, Nihilistic and with a Wicked Sense of Humor.

[Anonymous No.20938812]

>>20938796
>and counting
cope

[Anonymous No.20938824]

In times of trial
When the soul's in utter despair
The body in pain
The mind in chaos
And no fantasia to cope.
Jut remember.... The three guiding paths to the light. The murmur of the wizard, the cry of the warrior the hope of the maiden, which says:

>Fuck Bakker

>Fuck chinkshit

>Fuck Litrpgs

[Anonymous No.20938851]

l How do I into Clive Barker? Just saw Hellraiser and it was pretty sweet, now interested in his books

[Anonymous No.20938888]

read cradle

[Anonymous No.20938901]

>>20938644
The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe has a good, happy ending and a nice romance between the human main character and an elf-like creature

[Anonymous No.20938904]

>>20938721
Severian is not evil

[Anonymous No.20938936]

>>20938888
Why are you so focused on cradle and reverend insanity when there's dozens of better chinkshit

[Anonymous No.20938971]

>>20938904
Have read it already though I enjoyed it
Pirate freedom too

[Anonymous No.20939004]

>>20938971
>>20938901

[Anonymous No.20939012]

>>20938640
Someone recommended Radix. I just can't finish it I don't want a fat main character who shits himself

[Anonymous No.20939015]

>>20939012
Ahh fuck, he did it in the last thread too, don't fall for his tricks
>>20925308

[Anonymous No.20939016]

>>20938904
>“All right, we are devils,” I said. “If you would have it so. But we are necessary. Even the powers of Heaven find it necessary to employ devils.”
The Sword of the Lictor, Chapter III - Outside the Jacal

[Anonymous No.20939052]

>>20939012
>>20939015
It's a good book and worth the read.

[Anonymous No.20939057]

[Anonymous No.20939067]

>>20939052
does he ever lose weight and stop shitting himself? I'm like 1/3 the way in I suppose

[Anonymous No.20939080]

>>20939067
It has been many many years since I've read it and I surely don't remember much, other than yes he does lose weight and becomes a swole fit fucker, basically a 180 to his previous physique. I'll get around to it again eventually.

[Anonymous No.20939083]

>>20939080
Lol ok then, sorry to hate on a book you like but fuck that fat crybaby

[Anonymous No.20939093]

>>20939083
He grows up and becomes a man, some type of revolutionary figure IIRC. I may read this again once I finish the massive series I'm digging through right now.

[Anonymous No.20939104]

>>20939093
all right, thanks fren, one more to the list huh

[Anonymous No.20939183]

>>20938771
It's nice how it doesn't really alter them too much as characters, but it does feel almost forgotten some times.

[Anonymous No.20939206]

>>20938796
Two sublime Stacies under the command of the ruler supreme, with a snap from his majestic fingers they assume position.

[Anonymous No.20939250]

Anything similar to Lyonesse? I've already read Broken Sword

[Anonymous No.20939291]

>>20939016
The Tortures are devils in their profession but Severian is not evil

[Anonymous No.20939623]

>>20938644
Anything Lois McMaster Bujold writes
-The Vorkosigan Saga. Multiple romance plots in that. The first romance in the series is probably the healthiest. The couple end up giving birth to a son, and that son goes on crazy space adventures in subsequent books. Every now and again, the narrative checks back into the original couple, and they're still going strong.
The son ends up having a few romances of his own. They're a little rocky, but he tries to make them work, and their endings are more bittersweet. Until he finally finds "the one", and starts a family of his own. So ultimately, it's a good end after a number of books.

-Curse of Chalion. 3 books, 3 romances. Not much complication there. It's fantasy, and the romances really are subplots. Except in the 3rd book, where the romance is more entwined with the larger plot.

-Penric and Desdemona. 1 healthy relationship there. Again, not much of a complication there. Penric ends up finding someone willing to be with him, despite his "affliction". And they stay strong over the years.

[Anonymous No.20939629]

>>20938936
Why have you read a dozen of cultivation novels, but you still call it "chinkshit"? Are you too ashamed to admit you like the genre? You can't show it a modicum of respect?

[Anonymous No.20939644]

>>20939629
>JUNIOR, YOU DARE?

[Anonymous No.20939668]

>>20938796
This. I am currently training my son as a Dunyain, but our genetics are not conditioned.

I have been looking for land up in Canada's far north, more in the east where it is more remote for our monestary. There we will begin carving the Thousand Thousand Halls.

I have found some people willing to join, pending their IQ, reaction, and fitness tests. However, it has been very hard to find high IQ, for women.

[Anonymous No.20939681]

>>20938796
The post that saved /sffg/.

[Anonymous No.20939694]

>>20939681
I didn't even read it. I saw the bakker image. Started to read the first sentence. Realized it was unfunny bakker posting and skipped it.

[Anonymous No.20939725]

>>20938743
Thank you for answering.

[Anonymous No.20939729]

>>20939668
>breeding women for iq

You completely missed the point of the whale mothers

[Anonymous No.20939831]

I started my Sanderson reading like I said yesterday and I can see why people like him.
However I did the mistake of visiting the reddit and I've never seen such brainrot.

[Anonymous No.20939833]

What the fuck was his problem?

[Anonymous No.20939850]

>>20939729
You still need the original stock of whale mothers to have good traits. But then you breed them for reproduction so that you can have very high child output. This allows you to kill or experiment on most children, the Defectives, while keeping the highest few % of males for training and the highest few % of females for reproduction.

The problem though is that the Whale Mothers never made sense from the perspective of human genetics. You can't get radical sexual dimorphism like that in 2,000 years. You'd end up with wide hipped whale men. Even if you cull those men, it means that your mean is going to get stuck because half the genetic material is coming from strong, hyper intelligent, high reflex men, while the traits for the Whale Mothers will also drag down progress on your males towards the ideal.

The whole thing reeks of Bakker's edgelordism and sexism. Even if it made sense for the Dunyain to not allow women, so as to avoid romantic relationships (I suppose they also cull gays?), the model doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

And while they may have benefited from removing women at first, over time it would no longer make sense. Once the conditioned master their urge for pussy and won't have romantic relationships, you'd do better breeding both sexes for the same traits.

Obviously female Dunyain could have contributed, because Serwa is the most powerful of the half-Dunyain and least insane.

He just wanted more shock imagery and a reason for the Dunyain as a whole to be evil. But he could have done that just by showing how they torture the Defectives by running brutal neuroscience experiments on them.

It's like how he had to randomly have the neuropath in Neuropath start raping the budget Kellhus at the end. He has problems with women that fuck up his work.

Had he used an actual editor for the second books they could have told him to drop that shit.

[Anonymous No.20939852]

>>20939831
I only browse /cremposting

[Anonymous No.20939872]

Anyone notice how Bakker had two stand-ins in every book.

He has Niel/Kellhus, the Mr. Hyde who outsmarts everyone and is perfectly controlled by logic, with an iron will and no biases to cloud their judgement. This is Bakker online, with time to think and edit his speech, and show a certain image. It's the super version of him.

Then he has the realistic standin, Bible and Akka. They're both homely academic types who feel too much and fall in love too easily. They have all these doubts and give in to their emotions. But they're also intelligent, scholarly.

Then he has his Mr. Hyde cuckold his Dr. Jekyll, a self cuck where is ideal image cucks or raped his actual image. Very Jungian, his Shadow raping his persona.

[Anonymous No.20939910]

>>20938796
I actually do this. And in most cases an answer does come to me. But I'm too weak willed to act on it.

[Anonymous No.20939923]

Go on an adventure with your gender-bent rival.

[Anonymous No.20939946]

>>20939833
A sociopath anarchist. Pathological messed up.

[Anonymous No.20940095]

>>20938851
Read Books of Blood if you want fun short horror stories.
If you're looking for some weird ass perverted but genuinely great fantasy read Imajica, Weaveworld and The Great and Secret Show.
If you're into YA his Abarat books are pretty good as well.
And The Thief of Always is a masterpiece of a children's book.

[Anonymous No.20940135]

>>20939629
>Are you too ashamed to admit you like the genre?
I wonder how true this is for a good deal of fantasy fans. They still seem to put the genre down despite reading it.

[Anonymous No.20940254]

Bakker is King

[Anonymous No.20940257]

>>20940135
You're allowed to enjoy dumb shit sometimes Anon. It's alright.

[Anonymous No.20940266]

>>20940254
SO true.

[Anonymous No.20940288]

>>20940257
Liking dumb shit, and then acting above it is not ok.

[Anonymous No.20940483]

I can only grab one at the moment, should I buy the first Monstromologist book or A Crown for Cold Silver?

[Anonymous No.20940528]

Books about opposing mage/wizard factions: one wants magic to be wielded only by a elite of qualified magicians to their own ends and the other wants to use magic to power machines and other implements for the general population, unleashing an industrial revolution

[Anonymous No.20940561]

[Anonymous No.20940583]

>>20939629
I'd say chinkshit is the better term. With cultivation you already reveal that the work is no more than a soulless collection of its troupes(much like isekai or litrpg). But with chinkshit there is opportuntiy of depth and opinions from a foreign culture

[Anonymous No.20940742]

>>20939291
Then why does he rape Jolenta at the Autarch's garden?

[Anonymous No.20940748]

Don't really know how I feel about Chapterhouse Dune's ending, feels like a weird place to cut off.

[Anonymous No.20940758]

>>20940748
I've come to appreciate it a lot. The way I choose to interpret it is that the series is about how bad prescience is for humanity; Leto II's whole plan is to render prescience obsolete so humanity can be free. At the end of Chapterhouse, the main characters rocket off to God knows where, where even the AUTHOR can't see them any more. It symbolizes humanity exploding out into the universe in such a way that our species will live forever.

Of course, the real story is that Herbert died before he could write the last book in the series, but that's all my headcanon.

[Anonymous No.20940786]

>>20940758
My interpretation was that Leto's plan did succeed but in the end, only introduced more problems. It's not very clear to what the Honred Matres were running from is because I don't think it's the Futars or their handlers.

[Anonymous No.20940788]

>>20940758
>Of course, the real story is that Herbert died before he could write the last book in the series, but that's all my headcanon.
The series would have a better reputation if not for that horrible man that was his son. Why would he eviscerate his father's legacy like that? Throw it into mud, then keep jumping on it, like a fervent animal in rage.
Why couldn't he just leave it be?

[Anonymous No.20940810]

>>20940786
It's been a few years since I've reread the books, but don't they make it pretty clear that the Honored Matres are running from Face Dancers?

[Anonymous No.20940864]

>>20940810
Oh right, I forgot that the Tleilaxu designed Face Dancers to absorb the consciousness and memories of the person whose identity they steal and thus break from being pawns of masters like Scytale

[Anonymous No.20940903]

>>20938936
>chinkshit better than Cradle
I don't believe you. And Cradle isn't even that good to begin with.

[Anonymous No.20940912]

Does Fang Yuan have sex?

[Anonymous No.20940919]

>>20940912
Sex is a hindrance to cultivation. You're literally leaking Qi for temporary pleasure.
Dual Cultivation with your Dao companion is the thinking's man sex.

[Anonymous No.20940963]

Anyone read the final frontlines book and want to talk about it?

[Anonymous No.20940997]

What are some fantasy novels with big fat butts?

[Anonymous No.20941016]

>>20940997
BotNS
Jonlenta is caked up.

[Anonymous No.20941075]

FWIW, last night I finished reading Alastair Reynolds's new novel, Eversion. 3/5. The first half entertained me WAY more than the second half, and at the end I felt a little unsatisfied. I'll probably reread it in the future just for the first half though.

[Anonymous No.20941119]

>>20940919
That's why I don't have sex

[Anonymous No.20941252]

>>20940742
He does not rape Jolenta. One thing I have noticed is that people no longer interpret the text on their own but instead just parrot whatever theory is currently popular. No semblance of rape is apparent from the text. Just because she doesn’t scream out how much she wants to have sex right now doesn’t mean she isn’t willing. The only one crying after they went at it was Dorcas because she felt cheated on. Aside from that, even if he did rape her Severian still wouldn’t be evil.

[Anonymous No.20941258]

>>20940254
GFY Scott

[Anonymous No.20941294]

>>20940583
Recommend some chinkshit then.

[Anonymous No.20941550]

>>20938796
Cringe

[Anonymous No.20941558]

>>20939016
He abolished the torturers guild you retard

[Anonymous No.20941660]

>>20940288
Yes it is.

[Anonymous No.20941723]

>>20941075
I agree about the first half being way better. I gave it 2/5 though.

[Anonymous No.20941782]

>>20940742
You have to be an exceptionally stupid 12 year old to read it like that.

[Anonymous No.20941871]

Conan

[Anonymous No.20941961]

>>20941871
For me, it's Kull the Conqueror

[Anonymous No.20942091]

>>20941252
I have headcanon that Severian actually does rape several times, but its not the rape where the woman totally abhors it. In the three named cases where there is evidence (Jolenta, Dorcas and Thecla, in the first sexual encounters), all seem to still be amicable with Sev and liked him well enough after the fact (at least to his perspective, esp in the final judgement). Still, there are textual hints that at the very least, the initial contact with them is forced, got violent, and not entirely consensual.

His other victims are female clients in the guild. Due to his torturer upbrining he has a depraved view on what sex is - it is after all a method of torture in the tower. Another thing is that the only female relationship he knows is that of a torturer<>client one. Both factors fed into his initial interactions with the three named characters above - he has no idea otherwise on how to initiate sexually.

That said, this part of him improved as the story progressed, and the physicality seems to have toned down and became a lot more controlled. Very impressive (nigh-impossible), for an adolescent male with such an upbringing imo.

[Anonymous No.20942211]

>>20939291
He does as he was told from the young age without questioning it. As you cans see, he is rationalizing his behavior, identifying himself with the devils. He is clearly conacious about his trade, he knows he's doing bad things for the greater good, hence he's lawful evil.
>>20940742
He was thinking of Agia while he was raping Jolenta. He projected his feelings towards Agia in his sex crime.
>>20941558
And he put his guildsmen to the torture. That's not an act of kindness. That's not justice either.

[Anonymous No.20942218]

I feel the desire to read Dune once more. Convince me not to do it.

[Anonymous No.20942244]

>>20941252
The text says Severian believed she had passed out, possibly from soporific drugs embedded in the cushions of the Autarch's pleasure boats, when he started using her body for his pleasure. As the text is written, that is clearly rape. I agree that she probably "wanted it." We know they performed naked on stage together and that a large part of the appeal of their play was basically pornography. Personally as I read that scene a few days ago, my impression was that Severian was probably failing to record many of her signs of interest and that she may have feigned sleep to temp him, perhaps sensing that he was an awkward and straightforward man more likely to just take what he wanted from her rather than playing games of courtship. It's fair to say that Jolenta may have "designed her own rape." I understand why you'd say that's no rape at all, but Severian probably didn't know that, as far as he knew he was choosing to rape a sleeping woman because he desired her body and nothing more.

I haven't quite finished the last book but I still don't really understand why Severian chose to hurt Dorcas like that, actually. I originally thought maybe the whole outing with Jolenta was originally designed to create the appearance of a fling to (temporarily) push Dorcas away from him for some plot-related reason, but if there was an explanation like that I don't recall it. Is Severian even aware of the concept of sexual fidelity? He never seems to consider it inappropriate to fall into relationships with women who are "taken" or while he should probably consider himself "taken" as well. And I suppose, given what he's carrying in his mind, he could never really be completely faithful to a single living woman anyway. Maybe to him it's purely a question of potential male violence, and he sees no problem with cucking any man he could easily kill (yet still, he never describes Jonas as anything other than his fond friend).

>>20942091
This makes a lot of sense. I think the original situation with Thecla is intentionally twisted--technically, he's her jailor. The idea of him having sex with her could hardly be anything but rape. But she is physically, socially, even intellectually his superior. Eventually he comes to understand how she saw him at that time, the awkward and kindly "boy" (certainly not a man) who could be her last dalliance. Despite the jailor-prisoner scenario it's equally unimaginable that he could be the one taking advantage of her.
I don't think he ever sexually assaulted anyone in his duties in the guild. If he had stuck around long enough eventually he would have, and would have thought nothing of it except the hope of a job well done. But it's pretty clear that was a duty taken on by the guild masters and that he'd had no sexual experience of any kind before the master sent him to that whorehouse.

[Anonymous No.20942252]

>>20942218
Just the first book or the whole series?

[Anonymous No.20942261]

>>20941252
Still feels dirty.

It does make me think of a question about SA, does Kellhus rape all the women (and men) he fucks?

Even in the more disturbing situations, they all seem to consent. Hell, they basically worship him and are in love with him. But is it still rape because the relationship between a Dunyain and a World Born human is essentially the same as between and adult and a toddler?

I also never got why he let his wife see what he was really like. She hates him in the second series, but obviously he could have kept her enthralled by him. Not sure what the goal was there.

[Anonymous No.20942304]

>>20942218
dune anime?

[Anonymous No.20942318]

>>20942261
Tricking someone into having sex with you under false pretenses is also rape. Dunyain can't fail to rape just as they can't fail to lie. By his breeding and training, every possibility other than abomination is closed to him (so the Survivor realizes when given a taste of artificial bravery). It amuses me that the plainest fact in those books is that damnation is real and that Kellhus is the most accursedly damned person in the universe, yet readers never seem to accept this. Surely it's a trick, and the trickster-god character who always lies is the one we should trust, right?

[Anonymous No.20942347]

>>20939833
He got sweltered

[Anonymous No.20942352]

Why are we arguing about rape

[Anonymous No.20942371]

We're mostly agreeing about rape.

[Anonymous No.20942375]

>>20942091
Stop trying to learn about men from other women.

[Anonymous No.20942479]

>>20939850
Yeah it doesn't make much sense. The correct method would be to have the population be mostly women, with all but the absolute top percentage of the males culled and the remaining few impregnating all the women. Selecting for high birthrates is fine, but considering that a normally shaped modern woman can successfully produce octuplets, albeit with medical assistance, it wouldn't be much of an issue for a dunyain female to have ~50 kids each, and that's already allowing for a MASSIVE culling assuming a 50/50 split of sexes. Assuming a society of 100 men and 1000 women, each year they'd double in population! maintaining a steady population they could cull 99.8% of the males and 98% of the females! It would already be stretching the limits of feasibility for the adults to even manage this many children, studying, training, sorting, dissecting, etc... They could easily have a population of to-be-judged subjects ten times the size of the adult population, or higher!

And I agree that having giant fat women isn't nearly as evocative and edgy as saying every single year they vivisect hundreds of children and torture them to death infront of their peers as medical demonstrations. What Kellhus did to that skin spy, the dunyain do to their won children en masse! That's MORE than bad enough to judge them as evil.

[Anonymous No.20942541]

>>20942091
This is me - I'll expound on the textual evidence later. Once I'm up to it.


>>20942244
My theory is that there is a lot of unaccounted time which passes from House Azure up to his exile. We know that Sev actually has other sexual experiences aside from that initial one, he admitted such later in the books. Also based on the House Azure encounter and his post-reflection, he disliked the ingenuity of prostitutes/paid sex. By process of elimination (as well as some seemingly throwaway lines), the female clients are a likely source of his sexual experiences.

[Anonymous No.20942554]

>>20938796
wtf the Judging Eye on the left??

[Anonymous No.20942562]

Is there any sci-fi/fantasy award program that recognizes GOOD books? The Hugos are tonight, and it's sad to see it devolve into an award show that gives out participation trophies to niggers, women, and fags who write books to make up for their meaningless existences.

[Anonymous No.20942565]

>>20938824
Based

[Anonymous No.20942574]

>>20938888
I am currently 24 pages into the Kindle edition of Unsouled. As much as I love Daoist philosophy this shit is... Fine? Not great, just "okay" which is probably a more damning thing then being outright "shit"

[Anonymous No.20942585]

>>20942562
What does GOOD mean to you? Maybe you can find some random blogger. I don't think there's going to be any large number of voters that would meet your criteria. There are a lot that exist though.

[Anonymous No.20942589]

>>20942562
the last thing that attempted that was the sad puppies shit and that went nowhere

[Anonymous No.20942597]

Walking to Aldebaran is the best science fiction novel I've read in ages. That's not necessarily "praise" it's about as bare bones as you can get, it's a sign how shit and cliched the genre has become it is now as bad as the fantasy genre.

Please send help.

[Anonymous No.20942735]

>>20942562
Having an award program implies there's an affiliated group of professionals jerking each other off over how well they can execute on a broad set of shared ideas. Tradpub is totally focused on socio-anal conditioning, so you're not going to get that unless a bunch of well funded self pub authors get together, and if they're active they don't have time for something like that. Maybe in 10 years.

>>20942589
It was a grift. They tried to directly co-opt the Hugos from a tiny minority position, which was obviously never going to work, and everyone involved had to have known it was never going to work.

[Anonymous No.20942749]

>book gets criticized for being an escapist fantasy
I guess I'll read it then.

[Anonymous No.20942922]

>>20939850
an actual editor would have told him to make some significant rewrites in order to salvage some of the gems he'd actually written - Sorwheel, Serwa, Cil-aujas, Inshorial, Sauglish, the dragons, Malowebi, hell even the philosophizing-off between killhouse and shae-shay in the golden court was fine.

but nothing made sense with proyas, and the text post-scalding was just the dumbest bit of torture porn put to pen. also, he did sorwheel dirty in the end, especially post-scalding and i just can't see why that was at all necessary.

tl/dr: bakker could have listened to his editor before being fired, but instead chose to be a lazy SOB and try astroturfing a fanbase that was nowhere close to the right size for that and then shopped ARC's out to literal schizos for their input.

[Anonymous No.20942941]

>>20940788
because there was lots of money to be made, especially if you worked with a mormon YA author to dumb it down and add more unnecessary sex to titillate to get on bestsellers' lists.

now where have i heard before about a mormon YA author writing being hired to finish off a series for a far better writer...

[Anonymous No.20942966]

>>20942244
i don't buy that he raped jolenta. she is asleep, but her presence on the boat, alone with severian, was certainly her consent for a sexual encounter. it was clear as day that she was offering her body for severian to use.

[Anonymous No.20942988]

>>20942735
Wight Awards when?

[Anonymous No.20943003]

moar like dune
new to genre literature in general just came off an ancient greek bender

[Anonymous No.20943010]

>>20938640

On behalf of the rest of /lit/, I again want to thank /sffg/ for keeping its genre trash (which is always prefaced by a silly, kitsch "DUDE WORLD" image) confined to a containment thread. You are well-behaved nerds, and we really appreciate your not disrupting our shitpost threads about Guenon, Deleuze, and others we haven't read. Sincerely, a competent representative of the rest of /lit/

[Anonymous No.20943047]

>>20941016
Kek

[Anonymous No.20943057]

>>20942966
You could imagine a more gallant, experienced character rousing her with an innocent touch or a gentle kiss, and then thrilling her with his prowess, all with her vocal, enthusiastic participation.
Of course Severian is not that type of character (and neither, really, is Jolenta), but it definitely says something about him.

[Anonymous No.20943113]

Have anyone ever read this? Is it any good?
I heard that it is a prequel to Theft of Swords

[Anonymous No.20943121]

>>20943113
Pozzed trash.

[Anonymous No.20943125]

>>20943010
You're welcome, incel.

[Anonymous No.20943130]

>>20943121
>pozzed
elaborate please?

[Anonymous No.20943170]

>>20943130
>WHITE MEN BAD
>WOMEN AND DARKIES GOOD

[Anonymous No.20943174]

>>20943170
isn't it elves bad?

[Anonymous No.20943198]

>>20943174
I wouldn't know; never read it.

[Anonymous No.20943332]

I just watched Dune for the first time and I unironically cried seeing the pure spectacle that it was
I love Science Fantasy so fucking much man
As someone who has read the books it was perfect but thinking back it left a lot of the explanations out of the film which makes sense

[Anonymous No.20943358]

>>20943332
You should lower your hormone intake.

[Anonymous No.20943368]

>>20943358
Is it really that unusual?
I am on a high dose of estradiol but idk, how can you not cry?

[Anonymous No.20943375]

>>20939629
And I've been on 4chan for more years than I care to think about but I still call mods faggots and this website a shithole. It's just a label who cares

[Anonymous No.20943430]

>>20942252
First two and maybe Children and God Emperor if I trick myself into believing they're actually good. They weren't the first time.
>>20942304
Not real. It's one of those regional posters for the film.

[Anonymous No.20943439]

>>20939250
No because Vance and wolfe each just wrote the one fantasy novel

[Anonymous No.20943441]

>>20939623
You have intrigued me sir
Cop this? $15 incl postageAUD on the bays
I'm a little confused because researching the series it seems there are like dozens of books/stories/novellas

[Anonymous No.20943445]

>>20943439
Vance also wrote the Dying Earth series you mong
Plus Lyonesse is technically three novels
God I do wish Vance wrote more fantasy and not just lame-o Sci fi

[Anonymous No.20943446]

Please recommend me some edgelord kino, I'm tired of reading dogmatic trash for NPCs.

[Anonymous No.20943452]

>>20943441
There's 3 stand-alone novels in the series, and about a dozen novellas. The novels are as I said, completely stand alone, although the first two feature characters that cross over.
The novellas (the Penric series) are a separate series in the same universe, set several hundred years before the full length novels.

All of them are worth reading.

[Anonymous No.20943453]

>>20943446
The broken empire

[Anonymous No.20943476]

can you believe this shit

[Anonymous No.20943482]

>>20943446
reverend insanity for xtreme chinkshit xianxia edge overload

[Anonymous No.20943489]

>>20943445
Dying earth isn't fantasy
It's dying earth

[Anonymous No.20943495]

is dungeon crawler carl actually good

the plot summary sounds like total shit but everyone seems to praise it

[Anonymous No.20943500]

>>20943495
It is, surprisingly so. It uses the completely ridiculous plot to contrast Carls very deep, very real anger at the whole situation. Anger which he cannot express externally, because he is being watched by billions of aliens 24/7 and if he lets on just how much damage he fully intends to do the moment he gets a chance, he will never get the chance to get even.

[Anonymous No.20943508]

>>20943121
>>20943170
>>20943198
very insightful.

[Anonymous No.20943534]

>>20943482
Fang Yuan isn't edgy, just ambitious.

[Anonymous No.20943547]

>>20943446
Renegade Immortal, Warlock of the Magus World

[Anonymous No.20943572]

>>20942589
The puppies might not have been such an utter failure if they hadn't rallied around total garbage.

[Anonymous No.20943585]

>>20943572
Terms of Enlistment wasn't bad even if its sequels were.

[Anonymous No.20943598]

>>20942562
/lit/ should unironically make one, it would be pretty prestigious really. The only problem is getting all the nominees but maybe we can steal other rewards short lists.

Like most people I gave up on Hugo and Nebula about 2003 or so

[Anonymous No.20943612]

Apparently "everyone knows the twist of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" but I'm not sure if I know anything about that book, can you just give me simple yes/no answer to this random guess: Jekyll and Hyde are the same person

[Anonymous No.20943617]

>>20943445
his sci-fi is simply fantasy in weird settings; the entire planet of adventure series feels like an extended version of cugel's saga.

[Anonymous No.20943621]

>>20943612
Yes. It's not quite a split personality, though, it's more like Hyde is Jekyll unrestrained. He has unspecified 'base urges' he wants to undertake as Jekyll, and uses a potion to transform himself into somebody else who can more freely indulge those urges. He does lose control of the transformation, though.

[Anonymous No.20943627]

>>20943612
you should read it.
easy to read novella

[Anonymous No.20943631]

>>20943612
Someone saw The Pagemaster

[Anonymous No.20943644]

>>20943612
kek I haven't read it for exactly that reason

[Anonymous No.20943719]

I read Record of Lodoss: Grey Witch today, and it was absolutely great. One of my favorite fantasy novels just because it was a straight forward true blue adventure with likable characters.
Unfortunately while Grey Witch has a pretty decent translation, its the only one with an official english release, and the fantranslations butcher it pretty bad, which is unfortunately common for english translations.

What would be the western equivalent? Googling around seems to point me to the draogonlance and forgotten realm novelizations. What should I start with? It seems there's quite a lot of them.

[Anonymous No.20943740]

>>20943719
Watch the anime, it's fantastic.

[Anonymous No.20943757]

>>20943740
I already read the manga and watched the animes, unfortunately.

[Anonymous No.20943781]

>>20943757
The plural of anime is anime.

[Anonymous No.20943787]

>>20943781
AnimeS
MangaS
Suck my dicks

[Anonymous No.20943801]

>>20943787
I didn't know that the plural of anime was anime when I was underage either, so now you know. :)

[Anonymous No.20943814]

>>20943801
Listen here Honda, I've been saying animes for 25 years and if you don't like it you shouldn't have lost WW2, got it? God bless the USA.

[Anonymous No.20943815]

>>20943801
>>20943814
Actually, the correct term is 'japanimations'.

[Anonymous No.20943824]

>>20942211
>And he put his guildsmen to the torture
Didn't he just lock them up in the oubliette for a few weeks so they would know how it feels? I'm pretty sure he didn't have them tortured. Who would perform it after all?

[Anonymous No.20943852]

>>20943719
Record of Lodoss War is based on the author's D&D campaigns. So you want to read Dragonlance, a companion novel series to literal D&D. First book is Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Enjoy!

[Anonymous No.20943860]

>>20943852
THE quintessential ambitious voluntarily-celibate 4chan archmagus.

[Anonymous No.20943968]

Does Red Rising get good?
I read it while I was traveling, well I got about 60% of the way
Holy shit
It was so bad??? Like it was way more YA than I expected
Space men on Mars but they got to an elite martian school for godlings and then play war games
Reminds me of hunger games, it's bad

[Anonymous No.20943983]

>>20943968
I think it's fun.

[Anonymous No.20944162]

>>20943968
The Red Rising series is the First Law of science fiction.

[Anonymous No.20944176]

>>20943968
>read YA
>be surprised its YA
>proceed to tell your surprise to your fellow vietnamese bird spit soup enthusiasts instead of re-evaluating your choice in literature
Why?

[Anonymous No.20944204]

>>20943534
Fang Yuan is supreme, he makes women cream

[Anonymous No.20944222]

>>20943430
Children can get pretty stupid but God Emperor is very good if you read it as comedy

[Anonymous No.20944249]

>>20943547
>Warlock of the Magus World
Trash

[Anonymous No.20944257]

>>20938646
The Chronicles of Prydain never ever gets mentioned here.

[Anonymous No.20944309]

>>20944222
Leto II is such a pretentious prick who deserves everything that's got to him.
>cooms to the memories of his grandfather and grandmother

[Anonymous No.20944328]

>>20944204
Holy kek autism

[Anonymous No.20944335]

>>20944309
I'm pretty sure the whole book is Leto committing suicide by proxy, he knows Hwi is made for him and will get him killed, he knows how alienated Duncan is from the society he's created

[Anonymous No.20944374]

>TWI V8 Interlude – Pisces
jesus. i need jesus in my life after this.
i didn't think it would get me but that was quite uncomfortable.
also i really like that this started and concluded in one chapter.

[Anonymous No.20944410]

>>20943968
>Does Red Rising get good?
>I read it while I was traveling, well I got about 60% of the way
>Holy shit
>It was so bad??? Like it was way more YA than I expected
>Space men on Mars but they got to an elite martian school for godlings and then play war games
>Reminds me of hunger games, it's bad
The first book is an edgier Hunger Games, the rest of the series is Space Opera Kino with Space Greeks. I believe the publisher wanted him to make the series more marketable during post-apo YA Hunger Games clones. Starting with the second book, the author goes off the rails.

[Anonymous No.20944437]

>>20944335
I wouldn't call what he did a suicide. He's just split across multiple sand-dwelling lifeforms. If anything, his terraforming will kill far more people than death by dissolution in water.

[Anonymous No.20944444]

>>20944374
>jesus. i need jesus in my life after this.
>i didn't think it would get me but that was quite uncomfortable.
>also i really like that this started and concluded in one chapter.
And you read the REVISED version. The first was even edgier, with Pisces being ordered to rape the garuda, Cawe, not turn that other slave into a necromantic abomination. Having an editor for chapters like these pays off. It's also the third longest chapter of Volume 8 at 46k words.

[Anonymous No.20944457]

>>20944437
True but we never get any descriptions of the sandworm's inner thoughts in Heretics or Chapterhouse, they sort of go back to being animals but everyone is convinced there's a gram of Leto II inside of them. Hell you get some thoughts and feelings of the Futars and those are just cat furries.

[Anonymous No.20944462]

>>20944444
>>20944374
Book?

[Anonymous No.20944473]

>>20944457
Futars speak and do some basic shit like the Khajiit from TES. They're still people. Who knows how sentient the sandworms are?

[Anonymous No.20944494]

>>20944473
Just like Sheanna and Duncan's journey into the scattering, it's something we'll never know because Frank died and his son can't satisfy most fans

[Anonymous No.20944528]

>>20939923
I'm annoyed because i was expecting a romance subplot between them after mermaid flashbacks. Fang Yuan just rushes to become a God instead, I don't think the author himself knew just how tall he went so fast.

[Anonymous No.20944566]

>>20944462
The Wandering Inn, he's at Volume 8 at the moment.

[Anonymous No.20944580]

So many otherwise fine stories ruined by authors awkward coom bait scenes. Most writers are cringe at writing sexual content but I think they get a pass because a lot of readers enjoy anything sex related even if it's weird

[Anonymous No.20944591]

>>20944580
>smooth of flanks
Damn I'm fucking hard

[Anonymous No.20944605]

>>20944528
>I CATEGORICALLY REJECT YOUR VERDICT

[Anonymous No.20944629]

Based.

[Anonymous No.20944630]

>>20944444
nice quads
it wasn't even that edgy, probaby because of the slow escalation. it just got more and more uncomfortable to read. rape wasn't even directly mentioned except for one time. it was well done imo. shows the power of having an editor i guess.

there's probably a lot of other things to talk about in V8, but i'd post quite a lot if i covered everything i've read so far in V8. i'll just say this:
mrsha vs belavierr was hilarious and great. that battle overstayed its welcome towards the end tho. it was a bit long and the end was anticlimactic. but then again i didn't expect her to perish there i guess.

[Anonymous No.20944647]

>>20944629
This is recently published according to Amazon
How did you learn about it? Is it good? How pozzed is it

[Anonymous No.20944669]

>>20944647
>How did you learn about it?
See that DMR in the bottom right corner? They're a publisher who have their own website I've been visiting for years now.
>Is it good?
I don't know; I just purchased it myself, but I've read other Adrian Cole stories before and he's a good writer.
>How pozzed is it
A review I just read from a very conservative source praised it. And DMR doesn't publish pozzed trash in general.

[Anonymous No.20944775]

>>20942585
>>20942589
>>20942735
>>20943598
Thanks for your insights. My desire for a non-pozzed awards comes from my annoyance at, within the last couple of years, every end-of-year list, seasonal preview, and awards show consisting of sf/f books that must have some kind of retarded SJW messaging: fags finding love amid a galactic war; niggers/chinks/non-whites trying to "fit in" or "find themselves" while on a quest; or "gender-fluid" troons trying to be the hero. It's all degenerate. And, if Goodreads is a good indication, that's what most recent sf/f has devolved to, and it's harder to find modern books by non-SJW authors who don't feel the need to inject needless feelings or personal histories -- for example: growing up as a queer black bitch in America -- injected into their novels.

[Anonymous No.20944787]

>>20944669
This dmr site has some good shit

[Anonymous No.20944852]

>>20944669
>>20944629
im thinking of getting it, dmr books is great

[Anonymous No.20944918]

>>20944787
>>20944852
Based.

[Anonymous No.20944977]

>>20943446
What we do to survive, kind of.

[Anonymous No.20944991]

>>20943446
BleakWarrior

[Anonymous No.20945019]

>>20942244
>I think the original situation with Theclia is intentionally twisted
Whenever there is a discussion of Severian's relationship with women they never mention that Thecla is likely older than him, larger than him, and of an unambiguously greater social class than him. We even know for a fact that she would hit him and scratch at him while he was an apprentice.

[Anonymous No.20945208]

>>20945019
>tfw no genetically superior vampiric mommy bully gf

[Anonymous No.20945304]

>>20943441
Yes, that's the first book in the series. So starting there will get you properly introduced.
I read stuff in publication order because it makes things easier to keep track of. After all, the order in which the stories were written, are the same order in which the author conceived the world. So publication order will ensure that you're gradually introduced to new concepts as the world expands.

Anyway, check the order here: https://www.goodreads.com/series/43463-world-of-the-five-gods-publication

[Anonymous No.20945330]

>>20943375
It's a little different. Because first of all, most mods are faggots. And I or you can probably do a better job than them. So you can actually conceive of yourself as better than they are. Similarly, most of the website is comprised of users that are beneath me.(or you) The fact that this place is a shithole, is due to the user created content. If your contribution is better than others, then you are above them.
But can you honestly say that you're a better writer than the people producing "chinkshit"?

Also, there's the difference in using words that demean your own people, and words that demean other people. If you're not Chinese, but you call their work "Chinkshit", then you are removing yourself from their group. But that's hypocritical, because you're reading their work. So you're in the same audience as the Chinese. Would you call yourself a chink?

[Anonymous No.20945504]

>>20945330
Chinkshit stories are trash. It's OK to enjoy them on occasion, but the fact that you like them doesn't mean they're not trash. It means there are aspects of your character which are also trash. Same as harem, litrpg, or light novels.

I'm going to keep calling them chinkshit too because chinks have no humility and insist on giving their shit pretentious names.

[Anonymous No.20945534]

>>20941294
I don't read chinkshit. What do you take me for? A teenager?

[Anonymous No.20945540]

>>20945534
A sexy, busty teenager...

[Anonymous No.20945564]

>>20945504
>It means there are aspects of your character which are also trash.
I can understand that. However, you can just as easily call it a name that has the same connotation without using the term chink. Because that adds an unnecessary layer of negative racial connotation. You're saying, that they're trash because they're chinese. But you're not trash, because you're not chinese.

>pretentious names
That's all of fantasy. Or literature for that matter.

[Anonymous No.20945579]

>>20938888
These niggas are kind of ugly

[Anonymous No.20945704]

>>20945579
That picture is legitimately making me mad as a fan. I have a feeling that's why he spams it every day. They don't look like that.

The guy probably looks more like pic related. Tall, broad shouldered, and has the face like he's always looking for a fight. But he's actually very polite and thoughtful.

[Anonymous No.20945748]

>>20943446
Red Rising

[Anonymous No.20945769]

>>20938662
Minas Tirith

[Anonymous No.20945777]

>>20938721
Leto II is trying to make sure the flame of humanity never enters a dead end, hes neutral good

[Anonymous No.20945835]

>>20945777
Checked, but by what means? His methods were far from good. His love for humanity was the kind of love you feel for the pet you keep in a cage.

[Anonymous No.20945840]

The Apocalypse Gates series was such a fucking disappointment it's hard to find words for it. The author's relatively popular, which made me think his books will be above average Harem stuff...and the first book, Rapture, had managed to convince me of that, for a time.

Now, listen what this book is about:

The protagonist is a ~27 guy that died and due to his participation in criogenic project had his brain frozen until the technology could revive him, which kinda happened, but in a bad way. He is forced to participate in...a Live TV show, where he is forced to survive in a post-apo Earth with fantasy elements...while using a bugged and unreliable Litrpg system prone to being constantly patched and changed at the whim of developers...trying to work with his manager, who's forbidden from explaining too much to him...and having his survival partialy based on how much viewers and fans can he gain, who can then support him if they like what he's doing.

Doesn't ring any bells? Well, it's basically Dungeon Crawler Carl, written two years before DCC started releasing chapters, but it's a Harem erotica and way worse than DCC. It's curious how many elements are similar, even if DCC is light years ahead in writing and quality. Not that it's bad to take story ideas and improving on them in every regard.

A sociopathic protagonist with an personality?
Some actually interesting litrpg stuff?
Artificial world used where dead people are inserted in for research and entertainment of the living?
Snarky AI that manages him?
Edgy as fuck relationship between two psychos?

It was so great at first! Yeah, there were hiccups, but it seemed to be one of those books that manage to get by thanks to the quality of their plot, characters and ideas, not the writing quality itself. When the story got to its edgier parts where the protagonist wants to fuck with a Goth girl he saved sometime before it becomes particularly interesting, the girl is 18 years old and want to fuck the shit out of the main character. But her father is an abusive asshole. So the protagonist kills him. He roughly fucks with his hot daughter not even 24 hours later. Dangerously based.

Starting with the second book, everything falls apart. The story is boring (there basically isn't one, there isn't even a concrete goal, just traveling). The protagonsit and his girl are reduced to unfunny sex freaks. Everything is about sex and BDSM, it's all the characters care about.The Litrpg system is boring as fuck and could just as well not exist. Nothing interesting happens. There is no reason to read, aside of sex scenes, which are relatively decent for the genre, but for BDSM fans. Damn disappointment, that's what it is.

First book 7.8/10
Rest of the series, 4/10 (6/10 if you are BDSM fan)

[Anonymous No.20945855]

>>20945835
It was necessary. He saw a zillion futures, but only one promising future. If he was true neutral, he would have cared less how other people live their lives. But the small amount of goodness in him, made him stick to the plan. Made him pro-active, instead of passive.

[Anonymous No.20945860]

>>20945840
Also, from the reviews I've seen it's clear all of the author's series suffer from this fate, so avoid harems written by Daniel Schinhofen

[Anonymous No.20945872]

Do you ever feel empty after finishing a book? I was thinking yes the book was fun but it was also kinda meaningless and a waste of time.

[Anonymous No.20945876]

>>20945855
So you're saying Paul was more true neutral because he chickened out of the golden path?
>>20945872
Yes. I'm still not over some books and it's been years.

[Anonymous No.20945878]

>>20945872
>Do you ever feel empty after finishing a book? I was thinking yes the book was fun but it was also kinda meaningless and a waste of time.
Do not read shallow entertaining stuff, read better stuff mainly othewrise you will burn out. Read schizo fantasy, like Joe Abercrombie etc, ones that explore difficult or interesting concepts and morality.

[Anonymous No.20945932]

>>20945704
A lot of Lindon fan-art is genuinely kinda bad at making him look mean. Even the official cover art makes him just look happy to be there, which is who he is, but they make it a point that he LOOKS like he wants to punch somebody.

[Anonymous No.20945937]

>>20945876
>So you're saying Paul was more true neutral because he chickened out of the golden path?
Uhhhh.... I suppose. To be honest, I forgot what Paul did. He kind of disappeared and became a crazy person for a while, didn't he? I think he was a little more self-interested, which caused him to deviate from the path a little. In a way, his erratic behavior makes him slightly more chaotic. Which is a tough thing to say, considering Leto II's behavior at times.
I think of true neutrals as people who are merely trying to survive. Not people who are actively trying to have an effect on the world.

[Anonymous No.20945959]

>>20941075
any chance you could suggest some good shit by Alastair Reynolds?
I see cool far future books and saw Beyond the Aquila Rift, but does the man have some genuine classics under his belt?

[Anonymous No.20945963]

>>20945878
Can you give specifics? What difficult or interesting concepts? I have never read a non-science book in my life that had any concepts in it which were meaningful and new to me.

[Anonymous No.20945967]

>>20945932
Yeah. And cover Lindon is also a little boy compared to actual Lindon. The publisher really just wanted to capture the 12 year old boy audience.
I said this before: But I think the lack of visual description in the book is hampering fanart. Because drawing these characters involves so much guesswork by the artist.

Some artists try to make him look tough, but they go too far and make him look like like and ugly 30 year old man. Finding a balance between aesthetic handsomeness and mean looking is tough.

[Anonymous No.20945996]

>>20945967
That one's 'better' but he looks too skinny. Pic-related is one of the few that feels like it really captures his pure 'take everything' energy that he had for a while.

[Anonymous No.20946006]

>>20945996
he looks to fucking old

[Anonymous No.20946015]

Are there any warhammer 40k books you like or do you think their all ultra low brow trash? Personally I like the eisenhorn and the warhammer crime series

[Anonymous No.20946029]

>>20945996
Yea, I would change his face to look a little younger and handsomer. And stretch him taller to give him the height the book always describes. Maybe taper up his hair a little, so it's less bushy?
But sure, as fanart goes, it's not bad.

I found this one yesterday. Makes him look as scary as cycling blackflame madra is described.

[Anonymous No.20946043]

>>20945963
>Can you give specifics? What difficult or interesting concepts? I have never read a non-science book in my life that had any concepts in it which were meaningful and new to me.
Read Dune and you will understand.

[Anonymous No.20946047]

>>20946029
Like, half of the fun of Cradle is that all the major protagonists are basically villainous tropes who're just good people, and they tend to look like those tropes (except Eithan), so Lindon SHOULD look kind of scary and horrifying.

[Anonymous No.20946078]

>>20945872
no, but I feel that way after playing video games
books increase my focus and help me express myself better, so I don't mind reading in my leisure, especially when I've already been productive for the day

[Anonymous No.20946115]

>>20946078
>especially when I've already been productive for the day
I guess that's it. I am prone to overindulge when a book grips me instead of reading for only half an hour before bed.

[Anonymous No.20946161]

>>20946015
Browse through the archives.

[Anonymous No.20946175]

Cradle bros, prepare. It is coming.

[Anonymous No.20946176]

>>20946175
Give it a few months still, right? He releases them every six months, though it seems like he tends to finish them before that, and just hangs on because it's a business decision.

[Anonymous No.20946297]

>>20946176
I really want to read Writer's Cut versions of Cradle where he doesn't take a chopping block to it during editing

[Anonymous No.20946299]

>>20946297
That's basically Wintersteel, given that book was just inexplicably the longest one by a fair margin.

[Anonymous No.20946309]

>>20944444
please stop with the word count bro

[Anonymous No.20946316]

>>20940288
Everything is ok. You only live once. You can read and enjoy what you want. You are the only one holding yourself back from happiness.

[Anonymous No.20946325]

>>20942218
If you keep reading beyond the first book, it does not end well...

[Anonymous No.20946331]

>>20942562
Goodreads rankings, word of mouth from others with similar taste as you. Generally, awards are meaningless, they are a pat on the head from people with no talent. They are also a product of groupthink, which loves to virtue signal. Secretly we all love pornographic cannibalistic Satanic murder, and that will never earn an award publicly other than cumshots.

[Anonymous No.20946336]

>>20942922
Bakker is intelligent enough to mind control any editor he would encounter. Basically he would provide arguments for everything any editor would want to change, they would just throw up their hands and move on to the next author.

[Anonymous No.20946346]

>>20943368
I cut myself off from my emotions years ago when I almost, well I won't go into that...Let's just say I don't want to see anyone get hurt.

[Anonymous No.20946348]

>>20946015
Horus Heresy is great.

[Anonymous No.20946382]

>>20946316
I would say that the people putting up this front, as if they don't like the things they like are less happy.

[Anonymous No.20946436]

>>20946325
I know. I've read them all last year.

[Anonymous No.20946440]

>>20938646
Chronicles of an Age of Darkness by Hugh Cook
Chronicles of Hawklan by Roger Taylor
Far Side of Forever by Saron Green
The Wayfarer Redemption
And the Dark Sun Prism Pentad series because it has a Buff Gladiator Mommy (she gets impregnated by a half-dwarf kek)

[Anonymous No.20946481]

>>20946440
>Hugh Cook
>Its not a pen-name

[Anonymous No.20946517]

>>20945959
Revelation Space is one of my favorite novels.

[Anonymous No.20946607]

So I have now finished all the Dwarves and Alfar (dark elf) books from Markus Heitz.

I actually didn't know about the dark elf books and finished all the dwarf books before starting any of the dark elf ones, even though chronology they are mixed in with the dwarf books.
Due to both races being long lived though and books taking places hundreds of years apart in mostly different locations I don't think I lost out. The stories in each series are different enough that neither spoil each other too hard, with the exception of how some main characters end up.

If you were looking for a book that shows the side of the villains, then the Alfar books are for you. They have their own society in which they have friends, lovers, politics and scheming and all the normal things you would expect but they are also known for being very cruel. Elves in this world are more generic, known for their art out of natural stuff. Alfar make their art out of bones of other races, sculptures, walls, palaces and paint with blood.
Compared to the dwarves books, which usually have a little politics and longer adventures, the Alfar books are flipped. Lots of adventures still, but a lot more politics and magic.

If you wanna get into it, my suggestion is read either the first two Alfar books or the first three dwarves books first.
The first two Alfar books take place 400ish years before the dwarves first book, but it basically covers how they came to be in the land with the rest of the 'good' races
Some of the main characters of the Alfar books are antagonists in the dwarves first few books.

Chronology for the whole series it goes like this
Alfar 1-2
Dwarves 1-3
Alfar 3
Dwarves 4
Alfar 4
Dwarves 5


There's characters that appear across both series. Dwarves 4 was very confusing to me but made a lot more sense after I read Alfar 3.
I really liked both series, pity I can't read German to read more of his stuff.

[Anonymous No.20946641]

>>20946382
it's not a front. not every thought is a "front" or a meme, or a fake signal to get attention. some of us are genuine in our enjoyment of life and things and people we like.

[Anonymous No.20946664]

>>20946641
You're not being genuine when you enjoy the books in private, but then in public to demean them in front of others. That is a sure signal of shame and self loathing.

[Anonymous No.20946665]

I want to start a long series and Asher's Polity has been on my mind for some time. I read pic related years ago and liked it, but I gather the Cormac series is very different. Never liked detective stories, is it one of those? I always read in chronological not publishing order, so Cormac is at the start.

Has anyone hete read all of it? How is it? Pros and cons?

[Anonymous No.20946668]

>>20946665
Forgot pic ofc

[Anonymous No.20946692]

>>20944775
Don't search for books in award ceremonies, they sre all pozzed. The only thing you can do is to follow tour favourite authors individually waiting for new books. As for new authors, you just have to gamble and drop it, if it turns out to be leftist mental illness.

[Anonymous No.20946729]

>>20946668
>If you want sex, violence and excellent aliens this is your book

[Anonymous No.20946739]

>>20946607
I liked the Alfar books better than the dwarves. The relationships are more interesting and you get to see more of the world.

[Anonymous No.20946822]

>>20946015
Chris Wraight's Watchers of the Throne series was the best 40k I've ever read

Mike Brook's Alpharius book is great as well

[Anonymous No.20946842]

>>20946729
Whenever the liner notes aim for the fences like that you know it's going to be really good or hilariously bad.

[Anonymous No.20946878]

Nan Dungortheb

[Anonymous No.20946923]

>>20946175
Im not even halfway through Unsouled and I don't understand the appeal.

[Anonymous No.20947135]

>>20946923
The books take a while to get going, admittedly. The appeal is well-realised characters, a series that is aware of exactly what it is, and overall just fun writing. It's very 'anime' though, so if you're not into that style of thing you'll probably not be into Cradle.

[Anonymous No.20947190]

>>20946923
It’s self-publish popcorn, that’s the appeal.

[Anonymous No.20947235]

>>20945564
>However, you can just as easily call it a name that has the same connotation without using the term chink. Because that adds an unnecessary layer of negative racial connotation.
The racial connotation is both intentional and richly deserved.
>>pretentious names
>That's all of fantasy.
Dunsany alone did more for literature than all bugmen combined for the last 500 years.
>Or literature for that matter.
Harem and ライトノベル are pretty on point as genre descriptors. There's a vague connotation of foreign degeneracy. Like the author doesn't want their culture associated with it. I do insist on calling romance novels 'mommy porn'.

[Anonymous No.20947237]

Who is your favorite Tolkien scholar? I like Shippey and Flieger.

[Anonymous No.20947272]

>>20947237
Take your e-celeb shit to /soc/.

[Anonymous No.20947284]

>>20947272
What's an e-celeb?

[Anonymous No.20947307]

>>20947237
>Tolkien scholar
No such thing. Call them what they are, nerds.

[Anonymous No.20947321]

>>20947284
Stop playing retard and fuck off.

[Anonymous No.20947324]

>>20947235
>The racial connotation is both intentional and richly deserved.
You're not above what you regularly consume.

What are some of these "pretentious" names. I'm curious.

[Anonymous No.20947329]

>>20947321
Why?

[Anonymous No.20947363]

>>20947237
I cannot for the life of me, wasting my time watching online celebrities. Shit just sounds like a waste of time. I don’t know how you do it and haven’t killed yourself yet.

[Anonymous No.20947375]

Which night land version to read, original or the retelling?

[Anonymous No.20947382]

>>20947363
This. Time is better spent shitposting and seething on 4chan.

[Anonymous No.20947383]

>>20947363
What online celebrities are you talking about? Shippey and Flieger write books.

[Anonymous No.20947396]

>>20947375
Read whatever interest you, don’t know why you’re having trouble doing that.

[Anonymous No.20947405]

>>20947396
Thanks for taking the time out of your day to give a non answer

[Anonymous No.20947406]

>>20947363
>wasting my time watching online celebrities. Shit just sounds like a waste of time.
I've watch a few, and I can say for certain that it truly is a waste of time. There have been occasions where I was entertained, but those were few and far between, and for the most part it's just incredibly dull. Don't know why he's shilling his e-whore here, but then again, I've seen shill threads on the catalog, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

[Anonymous No.20947419]

>>20947405
Not really an non-answer. Just read the one that interest you. You’re the one that going to read it, not us. Or are you telling us, you’re that indecisive?

[Anonymous No.20947429]

>>20947419
Your post is useless and pointless but thanks for the (you)

[Anonymous No.20947431]

>>20947406
The person in the image I posted wrote a blog (not updated since 2017) and some published scholarly articles on Tolkien. She doesn't make videos. I don't know why you two are so upset over nothing.

[Anonymous No.20947433]

>>20947419
>Or are you telling us, you’re that indecisive?
Anon, he can't even decide which version to get, of course he's indecisive.

[Anonymous No.20947467]

>>20947406
>Don't know why he's shilling his e-whore here, but then again,
Probably to boost her viewership or something. I think that’s how it usually goes.

[Anonymous No.20947540]

>>20946607
You planning on continuing doing reviews?

[Anonymous No.20947545]

Chapter 71 of gormenghast is such a beautiful piece of writing.

[Anonymous No.20947600]

Any decent post-apoc stories?

[Anonymous No.20947611]

>>20947600
Check the mega in the OP links.

[Anonymous No.20947624]

The biggest problem with magic is that the placement of spells makes absolutely no sense. If you can summon a meteor why do it 500 meters in the sky and give your enemy time to evade it? Why not summon it on them and obliterate them instantly? The only fix for this is to have all the spells originate from the user whether it's using a wand, staff, or just their hands. But everyone always breaks this rule, and immersion is instantly ruined.

[Anonymous No.20947632]

>>20941871
Based and Hyborianpilled

[Anonymous No.20947637]

>>20947624
>But everyone always breaks this rule, and immersion is instantly ruined.
Maybe if you’re an autist who can’t enjoy reading a make believe story.

[Anonymous No.20947651]

>>20938640
I feel like some poetry in the same vein as CAS, REH, and HPL. Any recommendations?

[Anonymous No.20947662]

>>20947624
I haven't read it, but I heard that Fire Punch has that kind of superpower manipulation, like the protagonist who has regeneration and feeds his village by cutting off his limbs.

[Anonymous No.20947695]

>>20947624
>If you can summon a meteor why do it 500 meters in the sky and give your enemy time to evade it
Because it's not a meteor if it isn't falling from the sky. Magic is a language of symbolism, not one of technical fact.

[Anonymous No.20947718]

>>20938640
haven't checked in for quite a while
any new book releases with romance elements in them?

[Anonymous No.20947732]

>>20946923
>I don't understand the appeal.
The appeal is that it's just a fantasy story to read anon. Nothing more and nothing less, like the stories of old. Just to be read for entertainment.

[Anonymous No.20947744]

>>20947718
No

[Anonymous No.20947751]

>>20947624
Have you tried not to partake in video game spergery when reading a book?

[Anonymous No.20947764]

>>20947540
No
I usually just recap what iv read

[Anonymous No.20947767]

>>>/mu/112562380

[Anonymous No.20947772]

>>20947767
Nobody cares about what you post outside of /sffg/. I also think no one even cares what you post here to begin with.

[Anonymous No.20947793]

>>20947375

Try to read the original because it is actually a romance, and the fantastic emotions the author is trying to convey really do work well with the baroque prose used, but if you can't handle "Ah I'd love to put her in my pocket like a button of old" then feel free to swap over to the retelling, its mostly faithful and it really does try to convey what the original did, but it loses the charm of an era gone by of middle class love that hasn't been seen again.

[Anonymous No.20947794]

>>20947624
Because all things have an innate "field", that prevents magic from forming inside of it. This field is made up on the atomic level. So think of the strongest element in the world. This field is stronger than even that. Except is exists on the magical plane, so it doesn't actually interfere with material things.

The magic that a magician conjures, exists within the same plane as the field. So the only way you can amass enough magic to conjure anything, is in the absence of any fields. Otherwise, your magic won't have any room to coalesce.

The denser the physical matter, the denser the field. So logically, magic can only be summoned in open air, where matter is the thinnest. Within thin matter, your spells will coalesce enough to further displace the air around it. The displacement of air of course allows more room for magic to gather.

You still can't conjure your spell in people's lungs or up their nose or whatever, because the field slightly extends outward from matter, and chains itself across close distances to other parts of the field. The denser the object, the denser the extensions of the field are. You can think of it as a type of aura. Sparse matter creates a sparse field, and again, your magic can displace the gaseous matter and break the fields up, allowing you to conjure in open air.

Object like wands and other magical conjuring devices are actually assisting in field displacement, which in turn allows magic to coalesce with ease.

The matter you conjure with magic is born into the world with weak field chains. So it's easier to add more mass to a newly conjured object. However, it also makes the object easier to counter, as another magician can work their magic on top of yours.

Fuck you guys, I creating magic rules. I don't care if you think it's "gamey". It's fun.

[Anonymous No.20947804]

>>20947794
>fun
The classic excuse for shit taste born from lack of wider experience.

[Anonymous No.20947809]

>>20947794
Nobody but a few autists who can't enjoy a story for what it is, cares about magic system.

[Anonymous No.20947816]

>>20947804
>>20947809
Found the kill-joys. Does it feel good having vague ruleless magic that just does whatever is convenient for the plot.
>uhhh... uhhh... she gives birth to shadow babies, and uhhh... an important character dies instantly. That's drama!

[Anonymous No.20947829]

>>20947816
>Does it feel good having vague ruleless magic that just does whatever is convenient for the plot.
You know magic isn’t real right? There’s no set of “rules”.

[Anonymous No.20947834]

>>20947809
>a few
You underestimate the amount of absolute dullards who have had their brain consumed by bing bing wahoos.

>>20947816
Didn't read.

[Anonymous No.20947835]

>>20947829
Yeah no shit. That's why you use your imagination to create rules. It's called world building.

[Anonymous No.20947836]

>>20947816
>Found the kill-joys.
No, I'm not autistic to cry about "Magic systems". I just read the story for the story that's all.

[Anonymous No.20947840]

>>20947835
>It's called world building.
Yeah, keep it in the background, not in the forefront.

[Anonymous No.20947845]

>>20947835
>worldbuilding is fake rules
We should have listened, when M. John Harrison warned us of this breed of self-important dweeb.

[Anonymous No.20947853]

>>20947834
"Didn't read." - The guy who didn't like what he just read.

>>20947836
I don't really need a magic system. They're just fun. If you can't enjoy a good magic system. Then you're a curmudgeon.

>>20947840
All things in the forefront of life, are controlled by elements in the background. If your background elements aren't consistent, then it will feel like things are just happening to happen. The magic people see will just be convenient plot devices that happened because the author needed it to happen. Rather than the result of "real" forces.

>>20947845
Name one form of world building that is not in some way, whether literal or abstract, a kind of rule. Just one.

[Anonymous No.20947858]

>>20947853
>I don't really need a magic system.
Okay, good. Don't know why you're arguing me about it. I don't care. I care about the story.

[Anonymous No.20947862]

>>20947794
That gives me the idea that magic is manipulation of the computation power of the universe, like how when you go fast enough time slows down. You could probably make an interesting magic system from digital physics.

[Anonymous No.20947865]

>>20947853
>The magic people see will just be convenient plot devices that happened because the author needed it to happen. Rather than the result of "real" forces.
Yeah, no shit. It’s magic, fake and not real. There’s nothing real about it.

[Anonymous No.20947871]

>>20947431
>because they can’t fuck

[Anonymous No.20947883]

>>20947858
You started arguing with me, dipshit. I replied to the guy who wanted to talk about magic systems. And I told you I just made up some rules for fun. And you got your panties in a twist for some reason.

>>20947865
This goes for fantasy or any story: If you introduce a convenient plot device that just nonsensically changes everything, then it's cheap and stupid, and the story is retarded. It has to feel like it makes a kind of sense.

[Anonymous No.20947891]

>>20947883
>This goes for fantasy
Yeah, it’s in the name, anon. Are you just figuring this out?

[Anonymous No.20947899]

>>20947883
>And you got your panties in a twist for some reason.
I'm not even the anon you're replying to. You called people kill-joys because one anon, >>20947809 rightfully said only a few cares about it to begin with.

[Anonymous No.20947900]

>>20947862
Uh, sure. If that's where you want to take it. I wasn't really thinking of computers. I was thinking more like a metaphysical atom. A natural element kind of thing. You could probably do some things that figuratively speaking, is manipulation of computation power. You would probably have to figure out how to manipulate the field itself. But that's a level of physics that only the smartest people in the world would comprehend. It would be like trying to grasp quantum physics. Which most people can't.

[Anonymous No.20947916]

>>20947891
Bro, are you esl? The phrase "this goes for everyone", is just an idiom that expresses something all encompassing. Rather than the specific subject at hand.

>>20947899
Yeah, because rather than contributing to the conversation in a positive way, they wanted to assert how sophisticated they are for being above magic systems. They're killjoys. Now stop tone policing me, killjoy.

[Anonymous No.20947930]

>>20947916
Magic is inherently convenient plot device. Again, stop being autistic about something that’s not even real.

[Anonymous No.20947932]

>>20947916
>Yeah, because rather than contributing to the conversation in a positive way, they wanted to assert how sophisticated they are for being above magic systems.
Nothing sophisticated about it, turns out people don't care about "Magic System" and people would rather read a story for the story.

[Anonymous No.20947946]

>>20947932
> turns out people don't care about "Magic System" and people would rather read a story for the story.
you've clearly never read modern fantasy

[Anonymous No.20947951]

>>20947916
Anon, they were brainwashed by lazy fantasy writers. There's nothing you can do for them now.

[Anonymous No.20947954]

>>20947930
Not necessarily. It's only that way in bad stories.

>>20947932
>a few autists who can't enjoy a story for what it is
Yeah... he wasn't being condescending at all. He was totally being level and just sharing his personal view, man. Shut up.

[Anonymous No.20947959]

>>20947954
>Yeah... he wasn't being condescending at all
Not him, but he literally shat on a song of ice and fire magic because it didn’t have rules. >>20947816

[Anonymous No.20947962]

>>20947959
>song of ice and fire magic because it didn’t have rules
I'll say it does have rules, but Martin like to keep it mysterious and wild, which in my opinion, is for the best views of magic.

[Anonymous No.20947970]

>>20947772
That was very mean, fuck you!

[Anonymous No.20947971]

>>20947954
>>20947932
>>20947930
Oh yeah, and another thing. I didn't even make up a magic system. I just made up some rules that literally any author can implement into their stories without explanation. You don't necessarily need to write paragraphs explaining this magic field. It's just a generic set of rules that can assist that anon in suspending disbelief for most magic system.

>>20947959
Bro, you just showed me my own post. Are you getting confused? If you guys were sharper, you would have realized that ASoIaF has rules. They're vague, but they're there. Melisandre's weird shadow baby magic was limited by Stannis's life force. That's why he suddenly seemed to age. And why she couldn't do more of the same magic without killing him. Why can only Stannis perform this magic exactly? It's not certain. But it's probably linked to the power of Kings somehow. King's blood is important to her magic. Whatever creates shadow babies is likely a source of power more potent than king's blood. Hence why he's dying at a faster rate. Borrowing life in order to create life. That's a consistent theme in the series. Even if it is vague.

I actually overestimated you guys by pulling out Game of Thrones. I figured you would call me on it.

[Anonymous No.20947980]

>>20947971
>I actually overestimated you guys by pulling out Game of Thrones. I figured you would call me on it.
Why would we cal you out about a magical system? Again, you shat on a song of ice and fire because it had vague has rule instead of multi-page paragraph about magical rules.

[Anonymous No.20947992]

>>20947971
Look anon, just keep being focusing on about magical system or whatever. I'm sure there's an author who will scratch that itch for you. I'll rather read for the story. This is going to be my last reply to you. But if you're going to shit on a series, at least read it, just because Martin doesn't go in-depth about his magic, doesn't mean he has no rules about it.

[Anonymous No.20947994]

>>20947980
Game of thrones spends multiple paragraphs explaining the rules of shadow babies. George just wrote the rules in a way that isn't too overt.

>Why would we cal you out about a magical system?
You didn't think it sounded wrong to make fun of asoiaf for not having a magic system, when it in fact does have a magic system?

[Anonymous No.20948004]

>>20947994
Yes, we get it, you would have preferred if Martin had made Melisandre the POV for clash of kings, since the it might have force him to explain his magic, but I prefer and liked that he made Davos the POV character instead. Made that chapter great.

[Anonymous No.20948007]

>>20947992
I've read asoiaf twice.

>Look anon, just keep being focusing on about magical system or whatever. I'm sure there's an author who will scratch that itch for you
Like I said before. I don't really need a magic system. It's just cool sometimes when there is one. I can be satisfied in both worlds. If you don't like magic systems, then you're just a curmudgeon. You're trying to act all cool about it. But you're just a no-fun.

[Anonymous No.20948020]

>>20948004
Yes, I'm going to just assume things about you, creating this strawman. So I have something to feel superior about.
Why are you making me waste time typing out the words "I wouldn't necessary prefer a Melisandre PoV for clash of Kings". You see? I didn't have to type that a minute ago. But you made me by putting words in my mouth.

I mean, even if she did get a PoV then, George can still write around the magic, retaining the mystery of it.

[Anonymous No.20948173]

>>20946923
>Im not even halfway through Unsouled and I don't understand the appeal.
Because Usouled is kinda shit. Only the ending is good, then the second book is actually somewhat good, only after that it becomes power progression kino. I'm still shocked the series managed to get popular with the first being this bad.

[Anonymous No.20948260]

>>20947853
>Name one form of world building that is not in some way, whether literal or abstract, a kind of rule
This is such a fundamentally retarded point of view that it is impossible to stoop down to its level without actual brain damage.

[Anonymous No.20948390]

New thread
>>20948385

[Anonymous No.20948718]

>>20947809
>2011+ newfag can't understand people liking things he doesn't
The iron knee of calling other autists, your favorite newfag buzzword.