/lit/ - Literature

"Give, give, O magnanimous and liberal lord of the poor," cried the beggar.

Avoosl Wuthoqquan, the richest and most avaricious money-lender in all Commoriom, and, by that token, in the whole of Hyperborea, was startled from his train of reverie by the sharp, eerie, cicada-like voice. He eyed the supplicant with acidulous disfavor. His meditations, as he walked homeward that evening, had been splendidly replete with the shining of costly metals, with coins and ingots and gold-work and argentry, and the flaming or sparkling of many-tinted gems in rills, rivers and cascades, all flowing toward the coffers of Avoosl Wuthoqquan. Now the vision had flown; and this untimely and obstreporous voice was imploring for alms.

"I have nothing for you." His tones were like the grating of a shut clasp.

"Only two pazoors, O generous one, and I will prophesy."

Avoosl Wuthoqquan gave the beggar a second glance He had never seen so disreputable a specimen of the mendicant class in all his wayfarings through Commoriom. The man was preposterously old, and his mummy-brown skin, wherever visible, was webbed with wrinkles that were like the heavy weaving of some giant jungle-spider. His rags were no less than fabulous; and the beard that hung down and mingled with them was hoary as the moss of a primeval juniper.

"I do not require your prophecies."

"One pazoor then."

"No."

The eyes of the beggar became evil and malignant in their hollow sockets, like the heads of two poisonous little pit-vipers in their holes.

"Then, O Avoosl Wuthoqquan," he hissed, "I will prophesy gratis. Harken to your weird: the godless and exceeding love which you bear to all material things, and your lust therefor, shall lead you on a strange quest and bring you to a doom whereof the stars and the sun will alike be ignorant. The hidden opulence of earth shall allure you and ensnare you; and earth itself shall devour you at the last."

"Begone," said Avoosl Wuthoqquan. "The weird is more than a trifle cryptic in its earlier clauses; and the final clause is somewhat platitudinous. I do not need a beggar to tell me the common fate of mortality."

give me your absolute best fantasy book

>>10144062

>>10144071
die

It's out boyos

>>10144062
Gormenghast

>>10144105
Been meaning to get into The Prince of Nothing series, but from what I've the books are extremely bleak with no characters you can actively root for. Which begs the question, what makes these books good?

>>10144126
GRI
Lore
Pretentious philosophizing

>>10144126
Pseuds like them because the author flunked out of getting a psychology degree and uses big words to shock normies into thinking he's "deep."

>>10143871
>How many sff books you completed so far for the year?
around 10 so far
>How many sff books did you borrow for the year?
0, I buy all my books.
>How many sff books did you lend for the year?
4

realistic sci-fi? I can't buy the world dynamics of the forever war.

>>10144126
Fucked up, dark shit
A variety of insane characters
A genuinely epic feel, especially some of the battle/army scenes

So im about halfway through the fist of the Mistborn saga and its good. I am turned off though by the fact that it jumps into steampunk out of fucking nowhere though. I like my fantasy to stay fantasy not fucking neo tech faggotry shit.

>>10144418
Book 3 was far too predictable and YA in parts. It should have been Nassun recreating Evangelion.

>>10144071
Which fat fuck will have their series finished first? Fatty Patrick or fatso Georgie Martin?

>>10144647
I can see what you mean. I didn't mind the orogene/Niess backstory, but I do hate these sorts of status quo endings. Overall I'd say I enjoyed it, even with the ending. What odds do you give it of getting the hugo 3 times in a row?

>>10144670
bet none of these clowns can write in the era of Trump haha

Hello, I'm the pathetic Terry Brooks shill, and I'm here to talk to you about the Heritage of Shannara tetrology. Now, we can all agree that Terry Brooks is now shit. Rehashed plot and plot structures, genuinely terrible narration and dialogue, and so forth.

Take a moment to consider the Heritage, however. Post-OT and pre-1999 Terry Brooks peaked as a prose stylist and achieves (somewhat) literary status. Emotionally resonant and genuinely fun to read, Heritage (starting with Scions and ending with Talismans) is very underrated and, dare I say it, quite original.

Now suck my dick Martinfags.

>>10144472
You think we care about your likes and dislikes because??

>>10144803
>is now shit
It doesn't seem that you know the drill when it comes to author with the nzmenrpf

>>10144850
>nzmenrpf
New Zealand Movie-inspired Escapist New Role Playing Fantasy?

>>10144698
>What odds do you give it of getting the hugo 3 times in a row?
Probably very low and I don't think the third book deserves it. Obelisk did in my opinion.

>>10144803
>implying Sword of Shannara wasn't a rehash from the get-go

>>10143871
>How many sff books you completed so far for the year?
86
>How many sff books did you borrow for the year?
One which I immediately DRM'd because it appeared on overdrive faster than I could torrent it. I wouldn't be able to read so much if I didn't regularly torrent. I can't imagine spending $60 per book like I was forced to in the past.

Four more I downloaded from overdrive because the copies weren't retail.
Maybe a few more I downloaded and ended up deleting.

I have access to about 10 overdrive accounts totalling a tonne of accessible books and most of those are probably hacked accounts that I might never end up downloading a single book off.

>How many sff books did you lend for the year?
0

>>10145084
I said post-OT. Yes, Sword of Shannara was a carbon copy of LotR, and so bad it hurt. Comfy as fuck tho.

Luckily that's pretty much the reason it was published. If we'll be serious, if it weren't for Terry Brooks (along with Donaldson, McCaffrey, and McKiernan [who BTW wrote LotR fanfiction]), epic fantasy would not even be a thing today. No Rothfuss, no Martin, no Jordan, possibly even no Wolfe.

>Request audiobook upload for unpopular series
>Tfw gonna take weeks if anyone even bothers

>>10144126
It subverts typical fantasy tropes to the point where you end up supporting the "villain"

>tfw no good fantasy to read

>>10145134
It's a foolish endeavour trying to request anything on a website that isn't redacted.ch (and generally speaking, it's a bad idea to waste buffer on stuff that could be gotten from OD).

you can get OD cards from bib PU, search the series on OD, decide which libraries have it, pray that the list matches up with the card list 99% of the time it will and request the card from the libary

This is after you have scoured audiobook irc channels and the web and mobilism and everything.

You can also use the audible trial and rip shit off that but I don't listen to audiobooks.

>>10145167
I think you need to enter your card details for audible trial, and no way I'm doing that

>>10145176
What's the series?

>>10145178
Dark Immolation - Chaos Queen by Cristopher Husberg, the second book

>>10145179
The biggest problem for you isn't the fact that the series of unpopular but the fact that Overdrive is the biggest source of ripped audiobooks because it is a free service run by libraries and the series you want isn't on overdrive in any form except an epub.

>>10145187
Ah shit, so the request will basically not be fulfilled for like a year.
Guess I'll have to read it instead

>>10145188
Different places have different fill rates. Sometimes it won't get filled at all and epubs are way easier to get ones hand on than audiobooks.

>>10145206
Yeah ebooks are way easier, graphicaudio is perhaps the hardest for things that aren't really popular like Sandersons things

>>10145211
It might be because the epubs are really small, available all over OD and potato internet can upload it.

>>10145218
Probably more people getting the ebooks rather than audiobooks too

Did anyone here read Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain as a kid?

Female warriors ruin books

...wow

just picked this up. what am i in for?

>>10145383
Mindfuck

>>10145386
in a good way?

>>10145391
Yes it's number 2 on my favourite book list.

>>10145394
good. just curious, what is number 1?

>>10145397
see>>10145308

>>10145397
At the moment it's
1. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
2. Hyperion Cantos
3. Ubik
4. Foundation Series (Tie between Forward the Foundation and Second Foundation - Mule's story)
Three Stigmata tops Hyperion simply because I like Barney and Eldritch and the plot individually more than Silenus, Sol, Rachel, Keats and the Shrike but cumulatively they are better than the rest of Three Stigmata's cast.

I am probably going to rearrange numbers 5 to 10 when I find a new book that is amazing.

>>10145114
>No Rothfuss
>implying that would be bad

>>10145424
*
But anyway, Priest's Tale and The Scholar's Tale >>>> Three Stigmata. The Consul story was a disappointment and what dragged Hyperion down in my opinion.

>>10145431
*was

>>10145424
thanks

>>10144126
>with no characters you can actively root for.
You can root for all the chads that fug Akka's waifu in front of him.

I'm reading Name of the Wind for the first time now. Why is the MC so cringe

>>10145604
>reading Name of the Wind
Why? Don't you listen to us?

>>10145622
My friend bought it for me so I'm obligated

>>10145629
What kind of person is your friend?

>>10145629
>tfw I also read it for that reason
You might comfort yourself knowing that the first book is not really worse than average. Just make sure your friend don't buy you the second book.

>>10145635
A good dude. Doesn't read much anymore, not sure if he's read much fantasy, but then again I havn't since I was a teen, either.

>>10145651
So basically he was impressed by the book because he hasn't read a whole lot, kind of like most people who read A Song of Ice and Fire?

>>10145657
Maybe. I've probably read much more fantasy than him, it was basically my childhood. Also, it's my first time in this general thread - I havn't read a fantasy book in over 5 years, probably.

>Write a thankful message to an author whose books you like
>He basically tells you to fuck off

fucking asshole

>>10145699
Please tell me it was Sanderson

>>10144903
It was supposed to be "know the drill when when it comes to authors who have the name Terry in their title." I was fighting sleep when I typed that...failed obviously.

>>10144126
The Consult
The magic system
The most violent of all men

>>10145699
Post the message. There are a few SFF writers who I have a feeling are huge pricks IRL.

>>10145308
I really wonder what the mentality going into making the exact same posts in multiple threads over the course of many weeks. Do you not have any other thoughts?

>>10145720
>>10145731

I'm conflicted between him actually taking the time to respond to me, and him being such an asshole in his response.
There's not a whole lot of authors who I imagine would actually respond.
But even then, I won't give him any free advertisement, I will never even mention his name or his books. Word of mouth is extremely important for authors

>>10145188
Or you could get an ebook reader, a Version 5 text to speech voice(neo Bridgett or something), and make your own audio book.

>>10145699
>>10145720
>>10145731
It's either Vox Day and his ilk, or the Moorecock cunt.

>>10145745
Just post the message without any names. Then we'll have fun trying to guess who it is.

>>10145745
Can you please post who it is and the message spoilered even?

Hello.

Your vehement admiration is by no doubt unique. I thoroughly enjoy you going through the effort of reaching out to me, albeit I am completely clueless as what you ever hoped to achieve with that.
Did you imagine me thanking you for your support? Did you imagine me giving you some half-assed words of encouragement?
I am in the process of writing the next book in the series, did you think you would encourage me in some way? The only thing you have accomplished is wasting my time by responding to you when I could be writing the book. Are you happy with that? Does your ego feel fulfilled now that an author has finally replied to you, no doubt you've reached out to many authors, we know your kind. You have delayed my book, but I have no doubt you feel very good with yourself indeed, because you have received a response.

With the upmost love and respect -

>>10145797
kek

>>10145773
>>10145769
>>10145767
>>10145745
>>10145731
>>10145720
I saw Gene Wolfe at a grocery store in Illinois a few weeks ago. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, and that he was a huge influence in I becoming an author, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly

>>10145797
definitely gurm

>>10145797
This was obviously Rothfuss.

do most Baen books suck?

I was reading David Drake's attempt at the Aubrey-Maturin novels IN SPACE, and it was god-awful. Apparently Drake came away with only one personality trait for both main characters- Jack Aubery is exuberant and cheerful, so his fan-fic character yells MY GOD and BY JOVE every two pages. Stephen Mataturin is good at dueling so his expy remind the readers every three pages that she's just -so- good at dueling, you guys. And the racism turns from charming to grating as everyone from allied planetary dictators to inbred inhabitants of other worlds are treated as "wogs" and called as such to their face.

And it doesn't even make any sense- the main characters' empire consists of a single world in a single system that doesn't even have a technological advantage over other planets and it's never explained how they got to be on top.

But the Bolo series was awesome. Was it a diamond in a pile of trash, or are there other good Baen books?

>>10145797
H i a t u s

>>10145797
HAHAHA that's incredible

>>10145797
Now that is some narcissism lel

>>10145767
Rothfuss rofl

>>10145918
Baen notoriously publishes anything that they think will sell. If you're not a right-wing/libertarian pleb, finding something good published by Baen will amount to a diamond-in-the-rough search.

>>10146010
meant for >>10145797

>>10146012
well fuck

how about Tor?

>>10145429
You got me there.

>>10145797
This is great. My guess is GRRM, possibly Rothfuss.

>>10145651
>read much fantasy, but then again I havn't since I was a teen, either.

>>10145918
>>10146012
Baen?

>>10146291
Some of those like Sabriel are so fucking old that it is laughable to imply that the person you're responding to wouldn't have read them in their teenage years.

>>10145949
What books does a Kemono Friends poster read?

>yfw you realize Norrell is a satire of Sanderson-style autists who want to codify magic with a bunch of complicated rules, losing sight of the things that were Magical about it in the first place
GOAT book

>>10146291
what's the cut-off for modern?

>>10143891
this was a nice story, read the whole thing

>>10145797
lmfao

>>10146363
>Complicated rules
>Sanderson
>Implying the reason 'muh strictly defined magic systems' didn't pop up in the first place was due to people getting tired of lazy ass writers writing themselves out of corners with their vaguely, and sometimes self-contradictory, bullshit.

>>10146690
>implying it wasn't because modern readers are soulless autismatons lacking in imagination and whimsy

>>10146867
The ironic thing here is that autists like Sanderson have far more unique and interesting magic compared to the vague dinosaur shit of the past. Sorry, not everyone is impressed by wizards who can seemingly cast anything out their dick holes.

>>10146884
Care to post a book/s that exemplifies for you the vague and self-contradictory writing of lazy dinosaurs? I know Sanderson's writing, but I'm curious exactly what you're on about.

>>10146370
There isn't a cut off. The premise of that chart is books a "modern-day reader" would enjoy. That is why you see some old books there, because those aren't dated.

>>10146363
>satire of Sanderson-style autists who want to codify magic with a bunch of complicated rules
You what mate? Susanna Clarke put this book out before Sanderson became a thing. Do you research next time before you open your mouth.

>>10146867
>because modern readers are soulless autismatons lacking in imagination and whimsy
It takes more imagination to use a Sanderson book than his predecessors. While reading you're thinking of ways the magic can be used, and if it violates his own world.

A lot of authors before the 90s liked their deus ex machina BS and that pissed me off so much. I hate ass pull shit that the author plainly said wasn't possible, but our hero does it anyways.

Look up years ago when Sanderson did a panel. He said he made magic consistent to an extent so you had to logically work your way out of problems. The other panelists got mad at him (because obviously if he sets a new precedent their lazy ways will have to change), they told him what he was doing was stupid, and "how would your character get out of a tight spot if magic wasn't bendable". They told him he was a bad author. But I think history told what readers actually want.
Who got a multi-million dollar deal?
Who gets their shit translated to Chinese?
Who travels to Dubai to do book signings?
Who gets an okay on any project he does, because to publishers what ever he touches turns to gold.
I will tell you who, it wasn't those other panelists.

>>10147030
>A lot of authors before the 90s liked their deus ex machina BS and that pissed me off so much. I hate ass pull shit that the author plainly said wasn't possible, but our hero does it anyways.
See >>10146911 please
>But I think history told what readers actually want.
>Who got a multi-million dollar deal?
>Who gets their shit translated to Chinese?
>Who travels to Dubai to do book signings?
>Who gets an okay on any project he does, because to publishers what ever he touches turns to gold.
You aren't helping your case here.

>>10147030
By that metric Rowling is the best sff author of all time. And her magic rules are autistic, lacking imagination and stupid

I've been working my way through a lot of Philip K Dick books. I'm surprised Ubik has not been made into a film yet. It's one of his more entertaining stories. That and his vivid description of the constantly changing world around the characters could be adapted to a visual medium, like TV or film, rather effectively.

>>10147133
It was turned into a film idiot (parts at least) you never saw inception?

>>10147050
>See >>10146911 # please
>>10146911
>Care to post a book/s that exemplifies for you the vague and self-contradictory writing of lazy dinosaurs
I wasn't the same guy as you first responded to. And I can't, off the top of my head give examples without searching through my previous read to see which jogs my memory. I read 80 books so far for the year, and 120 last year. To my knowledge I didn't read any of those heavily contradictory deus ex machina books recently (this to last year), as I tend to avoid books that look like they might have that.

If you actually read a range of books you would get your own examples. Unless you are autistic or was raised on ass pullery, and that is why is seems normal to you.

Tell me, do you like the Eragon series? Your answer to this will shed light on your disposition.

>>10147645
>I read very many books
>I can't come up with an example
>your inability to come up with an example prove that your reading is incredibly limited
>do you like Eragon?

>>10147645
>And I can't, off the top of my head give examples without searching through my previous read to see which jogs my memory.
Odd that it elicits such a response from you without leaving much of an impression. Okay, I'll admit to having a poor memory too.
>If you actually read a range of books you would get your own examples.
I do, and at roughly the same pace as yourself.
>Unless you are autistic or was raised on ass pullery, and that is why is seems normal to you.
It seems there is no hope for me :(
>Tell me, do you like the Eragon series? Your answer to this will shed light on your disposition.
I'm pretty sure I read the first book. Don't recall liking or disliking it. I enjoyed Mistborn if it helps. Honestly, I enjoy both kinds. I'm just not sure exactly what it is that bothers you. From thence rose my inquiry.

So I've just finished pic related. It's not bad, but it felt underwhelming overall. Stripped from technical jargon, the plot itself is painfully simple, and most of the time, the characters seem to be driven by unconvincing motives. There are two outright -albeit minor- mistakes in the story (VV had once apologized for a plot hole in Marooned In Real Time, so he's not above such missteps) , and the scenes and environments are described awfully.
The characters and the universe are really cool though.

>>10144708
Scalzi literally can't write because DRUMPF

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2017/10/02/2017-word-counts-and-writing-process/

>>10147030
>being popular equals being good

Maybe this is overasked, but are there any good scifi books that incorporate all the new media platforms and innovations from the information age into a cosmic civilization? Maybe even a book that's entirely about that?

I've always wondered how the web would work across star systems. Would there just be a bunch of localized "webs" for most things requiring fast connections thanks to light speed? Or could you imagine a galactic /int/-style message board?

Lotr is catholic
Narnia is anglican
cosmere is mormon
his dark materials is atheistic
Is there a lutheran fantasy series?

>>10147697
>the da vinci code
>fiddy shades of twilight fanfic
>ready player one
>donald trump

hmm looks like popular things are actually.... bad!

>>10147862
>Donald Trump

I'll tell /pol/ on you.

>>10147820
Not a novel or anything but IIRC the tabletop roleplaying game Eclipse Phase has a bunch of stuff about social networking and stuff.

But yeah it's a interesting concept I can't recall seeing explored too much/at all. Earth to Pluto is a 4.5 hour trip by radio, you'd only be able to post on really slow boards like /tg/ or /diy/ or whatever.

>>10143891
Whats up with the name? Is it fun for you to say? I'm curious.

>>10147866
my bad, a 38% approval rating isn't popular, and i forgot he didn't win the popular vote.

>>10147946
There is no "popular vote" in the US

>>10148045
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin

>>10147855
maybe mein kampf would suffice for the lutherans?

>>10148045
Are you retarded?

>>10148109
it was her turn huh?

>>10148109
they don't call 'em trumpanzees for nothing.

Does anyone else like the malazan books or am I just retarded?

Everything I've read after just seems so bad.

>>10148145
No you're just retarded

>>10148145
they are the best fantasy works outside of the lord of the rings

>>10148206
Funny.

>book has a interesting description
>oh wait it's young adult

>>10148295
>book has an interesting description
>oh, it's Scalzi/Rothfuck/Sanderson

>>10148126

>it's racist when they call people monkeys but it's acceptable when i do it

not a trump supporter nor white but the hypocrisy of so-called "progressives" never fails to astound.

Snow Crash is incredibly overrated.

>in an FTL setting messages only travel as fast as your ships
>humanity discovers faster ships than the Kzin
>a human armada appears above the Kzin Homeworld before they even realize their empire is gone and most of the Kzin species has already been wiped out
Damn humanity! You scary!

>>10148308
>thinks anybody who disagrees with them is automatically a fart-huffing socialist

lol triggered much?

>>10147820
Even in stories with FTL travel star systems if not planets are usually more or less localized for one reason or another, usually some combination of bandwidth or latency. Beyond the technical reasons though a cosmic civilization with instantaneous high-bandwidth communication loses a lot of things that make cosmic civilizations interesting.

A Fire Upon the Deep has an interstellar, inter-species text-only bulletin board that is basically Usenet. I can think of others that incorporate "new media" but they're usually either planetary or solar: Too Like The Lightning, The Quantum Thief, The Golden Age are the first three that come to mind.

>>10148318
>we want the furry audience

>>10148379
>Beyond the technical reasons though a cosmic civilization with instantaneous high-bandwidth communication loses a lot of things that make cosmic civilizations interesting.

I've some that get around it by having "slow FTL" so that while you can talk in real time to somebody 50 light years away, but it takes you a week or two to go there physically.

Though personally I do prefer the ones where news travels as fast as the space ships. The Alexis Carew series has a few parts about how the ship computers tend to carry thousands of outdated messages because it can take weeks or months for a ship to get new orders, so whenever a ship is in a friendly star system it automatically picks up copies of all outgoing mail in the hopes that it will eventually get to it's destination faster.

>>10143871
riverrun, my asshole snapped forward with a sickening squelch. from it, a glistening, crimson, fleshy pipe oozing a brownish-green liquid, like watery sewage-paste, highlighted by the scarletness of my prolapsed rectum. my gay friend Rascario's tongue flicked up and down the floppy appendage, circling around the descended hole and lightly pushing the pink organ inside the extraordinarily loose orifice, sucking it with a slurping echo the salty runaway juices.

>>10148401
>I've some that get around it by having "slow FTL" so that while you can talk in real time to somebody 50 light years away, but it takes you a week or two to go there physically.

Yeah but from a story standpoint it doesn't really matter, you could just as easily be writing about the Roman Empire. You've still got a relatively small core of more-or-less connected territories and then a huge unknown Outside of poor/slow communication. This is the historical norm but compare to the present situation on our own planet with real-time communication almost everywhere except a few backwards areas.

>Ships carrying messages in their computers and picking up telegrams in port etc
This is exactly what happened before radio communication on Earth.

Tolkein's success spawned a million copies. Why are there no Rowling copies? They would also be a lot easier to write. It's strange because even Hunger Games has way more clones

>>10148435
Err, you couldn't have remote real-time communication in Antiquity, the 19th century might be a better example. And obviously olden ships didn't carry messages in computers but the concept is the same.

Riverrun etc.

Yawn.

>>10148449
The most blatant Tolkien ripoff, Sword of Shannara, wasn't published until 1977. Even allowing for the fact that Tolkien's popularity took a while to take off, that's a pretty long lag. Tolken was probably about as popular in 1967 as in 1977. Maybe you could make a case for Dragonriders of Pern (1967), and place Tolkien's rise to popularity with the unauthorized US publication of LOTR in 1965, but I don't really buy it.

Actually there have been tons of Harry Potter ripoffs in fanfiction form. LOTR fanfiction existed back in the day (really!) but it was nothing like the modern Internet-enabled scene. For sure at least a few of these have ended up on Kindle Unlimited with the serial numbers filed off, and I suspect that Harry Potter has inspired a lot of KU authors, but that's a whole world that this board doesn't really have much contact with. I know I can't be bothered.

>>10148449
>Why are there no Rowling copies?

Uh what? there were a ton of (mostly mediocre) "potter killer" franchises like Percy Jackson, Eragon, Charlie Bone, Landon Snow (for christian teenz), Artemis Fowl (marketed as such but otherwise only vaguely similar) and so on.

>>10148449
Law suits out the ass.

One thing I liked in both Lord of the Rings and The Once and Future King was the the vibe of them being modernized, yet almost reverent takes on mythology. What else is similar on that aspect?

>>10147030
>Don't have arguments
>Time for an ad populum

>>10148449
Something like Hunger Games has a greater variety in possible settings.

A Harry Potter clone would always need a magic school and Rowling's people will probably handle that with lawsuits.
But there's plenty of (fan) fiction of HP.

Give me something comfy and long like the wheel of time

>>10148723
Dragonriders of Pern

Malazan

>>10148747
It has to be comfy as well as long. Malazan isn't comfy

>>10147820
Try accelerando by stross. It has some of what you want. It was published in 2006. I'm sure if it was written after failbook became so big with the normies (getting an IPO) it would have incorporated more things into the story.

>>10148430
Man.... faggots really are nasty fuckers

>>10148690
Are you retarded(yes you are)? How this whole thing started was because the anon is shitting at how popular it is these days to structure magic.

>>10148793
It's ok, mr. English as second language.

Why isn't Dying Earth an actual thing and has more entries than post-apocalyptic fiction? I feel like there could be some genuinely decent Dying Earth stories if it was more popular, it always felt like the thinking mans post-apocalyptic fiction like how magic realism is the thinking man's fantasy.

>>10146980
Not that anon, but he said Sanderson-style, not Sanderson. Autistic rules that are strictly defined and don't feel magical and don't leave much room for experiment/imagination (like in rpg's) had been around before him. I think he just worded it like that because Sanderson is one of the more successful examples of that and he has that autistic set of rules like #1 you need to have a defined magic system etc etc.

>>10148977
Magic realism is kind of shit tebehe.

>>10148977
>thinking mans post-apocalyptic
This is probably the reason. Post apocalyptic (a lovely setting) is simply more accessible, it's only one nuclear war away. Dying earth on the other hand lie millions of years away.

>>10149035
Is The Road halfway between the two?

>>10149040

The Road is the thinking man's post-apocalyptic novel, the setting is pretty generic but I loved how Mccarthy was ambiguous throughout the entire novel and didn't actually let on to what caused what happened to happen.

>>10149035
>one nuclear war away
That reminds me: is there anything good about life DURING a nuclear war?
Everyone just seems to assume once the nukes fly it's all over until the post apocalypse, but every contemporary military document implies that's just the start, and a long and horrible campaign comes after that with the kid gloves taken off and all the exotic nuclear tech back on the table since everything's radioactive anyway.

Basically I want WWII Eastern Front with nuclear mortars, atomic tanks, and fission jets. Where the snow is black and the sky is grey.

>>10147882
It's pronounced Ah-voo-sul Wuff-oh-kwan, according to an audiobook I heard. It's just Clark Ashton using a peculiar name, he kept a list of them.

>>10146396
CAS does funny little tales like this quite well. I enjoyed the description of the monster at the end - he describes monsters very well, generally, in more overt detail than Lovecraft. I'm thinking of The Tale Of Satampra Zeiros here as well.

>>10143891
>Avoosl Wuthoqquan
This name is like Quwrof Wrlccywrlir

>>10148977
I legitimately believe that part of the "problem" is that BotNS is so sublime that no one else wants to bother. It'd be like writing a book about whaling when Moby Dick exists.

What it lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality, maybe
>Jack Vance, obviously
>William Hope Hodgson (Night Land)
>Clark Ashton Smith (Zothique)
>Gene Wolfe (Solar Cycle)

You've also got Matthew Hughes, who consciously apes Vance's setting in particular and whom I've never read but seems to be at least decent, and a pretty solid anthology (Songs of the Dying Earth).

Compare to cyberpunk, which has more entries (though not really a lot) which are all generally mediocre.

>>10149157

>William Hope Hodgson(Night Land)

How does that compare to House on the Borderland? Currently re-reading it and it's one of my absolute favourite pieces of weird fiction and dying earth. But yeah, it's better that this movement doesn't become like with what happened to fantasy where Tolkien ripoffs and A Song of Ice and Fire wannabes began polluting the market

>>10149160
You're re-reading Night Land or HotB? Night Land is incredible, but the ersatz-Elizabethan prose is a major obstacle--he's no Dunsany. Anyone who can get past that loves it though.

>>10149168

Re-reading HOTB I've never really read any pre-Lovecraft before besides Hodgson but I'll look into stuff like Dunsany

>>10149054

>Black snow
I've really been wanting to write something lately that has black snow as a back drop since I think it would make an interesting aesthetic.

>>10149054
>Where the snow is black and the sky is grey.
I went for a walk (I went for a walk) on a nuclear winter's daaaaaay

>>10149157
There's an excellent poem by Lord Byron, Darkness, which he wrote after the Mount Tambora eruption; where ash clouds spread worldwide leading to famine, a year 'without summer.'

Anybody with an interest in the Dying Earth genre should read it - four pages of loosely structured verse. It imagines a world where the sun and moon have disappeared, people burn furniture for light, starve, become deformed - ('even of their own mutual hideousness they died.)' I'm sure Clark Ashton, Hodgeson and Vance were aware of it.

>>10149219

There's also that Lord Byron poem Darkness about the same year without summer.

Have you ever had good luck literally judging a book by it's cover browsing through used paperbacks?

>>10149261
Nope. Always shit.

>>10148768
Prince of nothing

>>10149219
poems are gay though

>>10148824
>let me attack his grammar because he is right and I have no legs to stand on

>>10149329

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame

>>10149414
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects—saw, and shriek'd, and died—
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless—
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them—She was the Universe.

>>10148995
If magic was real, it would be structured. If it wasn't we wouldn't be able to get a result every time we did a particular spell.

Even if you go the Cabal the necromancer route and say that you need demons / outsider help to practice / successful use it. There still would be a way for you to utilize power. Example get rid of your soul.

I don't understand you illegible magic (hard scifi) autists. Since days of witches, you add a newt tail, a salamander eye, and some frog spawn and you get an expected result. The problem was getting the ingredients, but the out come was never in question. That means it's structured. Why don't you guys admit that you were suckled on some lazy ass authors filled with deus ex machina. Who didn't have a creative enough bone in their body to explain magic.

If a story is about a soldier looking at magicians (Black Company), then yes, it will be confusing because the soldier isn't a practitioner himself.
If the story is about a wizard as the mc, then yes. It's supposed to explain how shit works, because we are viewing it through his eyes. Even if they don't go in depth, it suppose to give the outline of where he is drawing power from, and structuring it, and his limitations if any.
What pisses most readers off is how some authors drive into you that x isn't possible to set up the fallibility of our mc and his limitations. Then a couple chapters down the line he is doing the same shit you said wasn't possible.

>>10149414
>I had a dream
stopped reading right there
ripping off based MLK? no thanks.

>>10143871

This was some good shit here. Nice how he combined all the elements. Also the female protagonist is awesome.

>>10149446
>you will never get the prehistoric woman pussy of the mother of all dragons and your cousin will never watch while you do it

>>10149435
I'm just explaining what the anon meant, because you sperged out on him with
>Do you research next time before you open your mouth.

>>10149463
He shouldn't have said Sandersonesque(paraphrasing here). He should have used someone who did it before Mr Norrell was released.

Any fantasy or sci-fi novels with villains that are like Donald Trump?

what the fuck

Watts you're excellent but this ending was just too much. Can somebody give a rough estimation of what happened after Bruuks and Valerie left the military base

>>10149606
Books where the villain is actually the good guy? Not sure desu

>>10149606
>any scifi or fantasy novels where the villain is a meme

>>10147946
Popular vote doesn't mean anything, especially since less than 130 million people actually voted.

Approval ratings are nonsense, they're sources from the same shit house polsters that thought hillary had a ninety-eight percent chance of winning.

>call people on a landline
>only people who will agree to do a phone poll will actually respond
>hillary clinton loses 30k votes on day one of Wisconsin recount
>duuur approval ratings

>>10149648
All Discworld books, basically.

>>10149701
>they're sources from the same shit house polsters that thought hillary had a ninety-eight percent chance of winning.
Why do people always post this unsubstantiated nonsense. It's like you don't know how to argue like a human being so you just try and discredit the source.

And for the record, Trump barely squeaking out an electoral college win like he did was well within the margin of error on fivethirtyeight. No one expected him to cut it as close as he did.

>>10149643
You really cannot think of ANY books where the villain is the good guy? Just admit you don't actually read any books and you just patrol the board getting triggered by slights against your so-called God Emperor. I've never seen so many people who are so strongly compelled to post a limp-dicked retort every single time the president is insulted as I have for Donald Trump.

>>10149606
the scranc in prince of nothing

>>10149737
It's well substantied bro, just accept that no one wanted another clinton aka Dick Cheney in a dress.

>>10149773
>It's well substantied bro
Alright, let's go down the line here.
1) You can't spell substantiated
2) You called me "bro" and most importantly
3) You have not provided ANY proof of your claim

Why don't YOU accept that your idiot of a president is going to be 25th'd by the end of the year?

>>10149748
Try Boku no Pico

>>10148396
It's the best of all possible wars because it can be easily resolved.

>>10144126
the stakes. highest you have ever seen.

>>10149815
wtf I hate drumpf now

>>10149816
>>10149891
Get the fuck out of my thread.

>>10149628
it's up for debate
cba to link but look for some of his reddit amas

>>10148396
Don't Kzin have rat tails?

>>10149907
You have to go back.

>>10149981
>>>/pol/
Go.

>>10149628
Search the Watts AMAs in reddit, he tried to explain it.

>>10149981
Fuck off back to /pol/

>>10144472
the author said he also will do a urban fantasy and a futuristic one. All in mistborn world.

>>10150034
This.

>>10150034
This.

>>10149975
Don't recall. IIRC they have two ribcages and are built like rock trolls.

>>10150151
Troll bodies and cute catgrills don't mix.

>>10144472
If a high fantasy story has a setting technologically on par with real life: is it urban fantasy?

>>10150211
You'll need to take that up with the cover artist I suppose.

>>10149261
Bad covers are a huge turn off but having a map and an interesting story hook on the back blurb are far more important. I'm willing to try a book with a bad cover, I almost never bother with a fantasy book that has no map.

>>10150234
That means you miss out on Discworld, what the fuck? What's so important about a map?

>>10150234
>but having a map
Jesus. The levels of autism in this post. Are you so low iq comprehension and retention skills that you need a visual hand hold by the author to understand that they traveled distances?
Please select all that apply in pic related .

>>10150272
is this just the regular autism chat with /sffg/ inserted?

post all the reading order charts you have, /sffg/ (malazan, discword, etc).

Hi guys, lit anon, /sffg/ noob here, what did you guys think of pic related?

I really liked it actually, blitzed through almost 300 pages yesterday.
Although, I didn't expect at first that 2/3 of the book would be battle royale/hunger games

How are the other two books in the trilogy?

>>10150343
The other books are GRI APPROVED.
Gay, rape, and incest. In single doses and all 3 at the same time.

>>10150242
But later on he did make a map

Really liked this book, how is the rest of the series? Does it drop in quality?

>>10150597
The cover artist really liked Yamato huh

>>10150126
>>10150132

These

>>10148396
That's fucking disturbing.

>>10148544
Harold and Kumar show a very deep respect and affection towards the now mythical Cheech and Chong

I'm still negotiating Moorcock's Elric stories and their random chronology. After having read the Elric Of Melnibone and The Fortress Of The Pearl novels, I read The Dreaming City (1961.) The short story follows the deposed albino King's planned sea invasion and destruction of his decadent homeland, and rescue of his lover.

It's rollicking, dramatic, action-filled stuff, full of sword fights, death, and large scale destruction. Elric's a soul-sucking magic sword, that regenerates his deficient body, is an idea that is simple but very effective in generating conflicts and drama. Moorcock's use of elemental magic, of vocal exertion and swirling shadows, also gives things a foreboding touch. I was overall more impressed by this short story than the two subsequent novels I read; it's a 4/5 story.

>>10150892
Want more fantasy that is secretly actually science fiction. Better yet, hard science fiction.

>>10150892
what does the "The Weird" mean? like the "The Weird of [x]". >>10143891 uses that same format as well (The Weird Of Avoosl).

does it just mean a strange story or something? weird isn't used that way at all in the modern day.

are there any actually good lit rpgs?
seems like its all just some sort of mishmash of already established game mechanics with a mix of rule-breaking at opportune moments along with some wish-fulfillment. i like the concept and idea but it doesnt seem like theres any good stuff.

>>10150971

>>10150971
it's an archaic word for fate/destiny, but the word is specifically also suggestive of something supernatural/paranormal - something which plainer word like 'fate' or 'tale' lack.

This may be a strange place to ask this, but what are some /sffg/ that embody the same themes of decay of an empire and declining nobility and status like Buddenbrooks? Malazan maybe from what I've heard? I've already read other lit in the same vein like The Makioka Sisters and Parade's End but Mann is still the best

>>10150983
For reference, this is also what "The Weird Sisters" refers to.

>>10150988
Early ASOIAF maybe? Most mainstream sff tends to be about rises rather than falls (or at most a fall followed by a rise).

Excerpt from the tomb raiding tale gone awry, The Seed From The Sepulchre.

"Great grey walls there were, older than the jungle: old as death and time. They must have been quarried and reared by people from some lost planet. They loomed and leaned at mad, unnatural angles, threatening to crush the trees about them. And there were columns, too: thick, swollen columns of unholy form, whose abominable carvings the jungle had not wholly screened from view.

"There was no trouble finding that accursed burial pit. The pavement above had broken through quite recently, I think. A big tree had pried with its boa-like roots between the flagstones that were buried beneath centuries of mold. One of the flags had been tilted back on the pavement, and another had fallen through into the pit. There was a large hole, whose bottom I could see dimly in the forest-strangled light. Something glimmered palely at the bottom; but I could not be sure what it was.

"I had taken along a coil of rope, as you remember. I tied one end of it to a main root of the tree, dropped the other through the opening, and went down like a monkey. When I got to the bottom I could see little at first in the gloom, except the whitish glimmering all around me, at my feet. Something that was unspeakably brittle and friable crunched beneath me when I began to move. I turned on my flashlight, and saw that the place was fairly littered with bones. Human skeletons lay tumbled everywhere. They must have been removed long ago... I groped around amid the bones and dust, feeling pretty much like a ghoul, but couldn't find anything of value, not even a bracelet or a finger-ring on any of the skeletons.

"It wasn't until I thought of climbing out that I noticed the real horror. In one of the corners – the comer nearest to the opening in the roof – I looked up and saw it in the webby shadows. Ten feet above my head it hung, and I had almost touched it, unknowingly, when I descended the rope.

"It looked like a sort of white lattice-work at first. Then I saw that the lattice was partly formed of human bones – a complete skeleton, very tall and stalwart, like that of a warrior. A pale withered thing grew out of the skull, like a set of fantastic antlers ending in myriads of long and stringy tendrils that had spread upward till they reached the roof. They must have lifted the skeleton, or body, along with them as they climbed.

"I examined the thing with my flashlight. It must have been a plant of some sort, and apparently it had started to grow in the cranium: Some of the branches had issued from the cloven crown, others through the eye holes, the mouth, and the nose holes, to flare upward. And the roots of the blasphemous thing had gone downward, trellising themselves on every bone. The very toes and fingers were ringed with them, and they drooped in writhing coils..."

>>10151115
>>10143891
Two excerpts in one thread?!
Unheard of!

>>10151128
Just because I read this story today and was particularly taken by it. Easily among his best, the stifling and claustrophobic sense of the rainforest foliage, the dreadful progression of the seed, the grim ending.

>>10149435
>Since days of witches, you add a newt tail, a salamander eye, and some frog spawn and you get an expected result.
Actually, no. You're indirectly referencing Macbeth, not any real practice of witchcraft. Extremely little is known about what witches actually did, or to what extent the stereotypical devil-worshipping witch existed.

Modern occultism is very much not based on any "magic system" but that may be because of how incredibly muddled is with practices from all over the world

>>10151183
Also, to my knowledge, the closest you come to a "magic system" IRL that isn't outright religious practice is during the Renaissance with shit like the Ars Goetia

reading Viriconium right now, really enjoying it

>>10150343
Peaks at Golden Sun and the Moon Lord part of Morningstar. Both books are worth reading.

What can I do in a Dying Earth setting that doesn't devolve into political intrigue? I'm honestly bored of it and don't want to be forced into going in that direction.

>>10151365
A travelogue/picaresque tale about a wandering performer or bard, who meets interesting and dangerous people along the road, plays for kings and queens, sees interesting places. Maybe the bard has a double identity.

A POV/slice of life tale from a tavern owner/publican/market stallholder, overheard conversations from adventurers, rumors, tall-tales. Something Lankhmar-esque

POV/Lovecraftian horror from the perspective of a grave digger, robber, tomb raider/temple thief. A lot of early Conan stuff is like this IIRC.

A Dunsanian account of the belief systems and deities of your world - why do they think the sun rises and sets, where do they think they go after dying, why do they think volcanoes erupt, the sky is blue, why famine happens?

>>10151365
Are you retarded? The bulk of Dying Earth works aren't focused on political intrigue, they're more pulpy.

Hey anons, I have a book titled "Prelude to Foundation" and another called "Foundation and Empire". Am I missing the first and what order do I read them in?

>>10151206
>>10151183
IRL magic systems are INCREDIBLY codified and concrete though.
The thing is, they all share a pretty simple property which makes using it in a story difficult: results depend 100% on personal ability and have no limits.
So one guy can practice for 50 years and be able to light a candle by staring at it, and another can turn invisible, fly, summon and bind demons, reshape the landscape, hypnotise people, see the future, and cause volcanic eruptions with no apparent difficulty.
The problem with magic in literature is that it can do fucking anything if you're good at it. An authentic use of magic in a book would be like a written version of a bugs bunny cartoon, or that episode of Popeye where he unerases himself and beats up the animator.
I can't imagine that would be easy to follow in text form.

Of course, you could focus on someone lower level than that, but it still comes down to the fact that it's all dependent on invisible(to the reader) properties like willpower and imagination.

>>10151480
That's why the work's inherent drama shouldn't come from a codified system of magic, it should come from human interaction.

As is the case in most good novels.

>>10150272
Maps are fun. Not making a map means the author is lazy and probably has not thought out his setting to any real degree and wants to keep it deliberately vague so he can just make shit up when he needs to. I have no time for lazy authors.

>>10150597
On a scale from 1-10, how bad is the advertising and product placement in this book?

>>10151490
Exactly, treat magic like watchmaking. Don't describe the process or act itself, focus on the motivations and consequences. In other words, WHY you want to shoot fire out of your ass, not HOW.

>>10151507
...
>having no underwater map means oceanographers are lazy and want to keep it deliberately vague so they can just make shit up when they need to
Unless the author is writing in the third person omniscient. You find out shit when the character does.

>>10151541
Sadly (luckily) autists like you who don't want to know shit, and would give a magic novel 10/10 because of the human interaction is pretty low count.
If I'm reading a magic book, there better be magic and some explanations of where it came from.

Why are you reading fantasy if you don't care about exploring the fantastical? Why doesn't your eyes light up when someone dives into the discovery of magical use.

What are you even doing in sffg if it's philosophy you want? Why do I have the feeling you're the Buried Giant shill...

>>10151612
It's the specialist's curse. I was interested enough in magic and the occult to actually learn a lot about it in reality, which makes books that spend a lot of time codifying systems either cringeworthy and inane, or boring and old hat. I want to read about characters who use magic, not magic itself.

Going back to the watchmaking metaphor, I actually HAVE watched/read dozens of hours about the specifics of the craft and know a decent amount about it. I've even done a little myself. So I don't want to read about it again, probably from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about.

if that doesn't work, here's a third explanation: I don't want to learn the rules of basketball, I want to watch a basketball game.

>>10150658
Everyone likes Yamato.

aaaah I cut my finger aaaah

>>10151571
>I only read first person narratives
So basically you've read almost no high fantasy. Why even bother replying to me?

>>10151612
A fantasy/sci-fi setting can be used as a means to an end and not as the entire point

Gaps in my fantasy reading and my ?unfounded? prejudices against them:

1) The Last Unicorn, but if I read it then I would literally be a grown man reading a book about a unicorn, and I could be too old to get anything out of it

2) Howl's Moving Castle. I think this one might be too whimsical for my taste.

3) The Once and Future King. On the basis of a preview I read, it seems like it would be a slow paced book written in a dry and old fashioned prose.

4) Gormenghast. A thousand page trilogy is easy to put off, and the typeface of the Vintage print is tiny.

5) The Night Land. I enjoyed The House On The Borderland, but the prose and greater length of this is forbidding - but I hear there's an abridged version as well as rewrites out there.

>>10151905
I wouldn't call The Once and Future King dry or even slow paced except for the first book, which is basically a very long set-up for the rest of the series.

I think part of the reason there is so much work in the first book to paint a medieval setting is so you can discern how the rest toss all sense of historical accuracy out the window. An important theme in the series is how much of a gigantic fucking anachronism Camelot is, and that is ultimately from Arthur having a mentor who has lived all of human history backwards.

>>10151936
Also, the chapters where Arthur is turned into animals may seem childish, but they're generally foreshadowing to the themes the rest of the series deals with.

>>10151905
Grab a Night Land rewrite. Once you shave the terrible prose and repetition off, you've got a top class, incredibly inventive adventure story.

Blood EVERYWHERE

>>10151905
>Howl's Moving Castle
Genuinely no reason to read the book unless you're a huge fan of the film or have a child who is and want to get them into reading.

>>10151936
I'll bear it in mind, but it sounds a bit like putting up with a bad starter before the main course.

>>10151980
Do you mean the Stoddard rewrite? How about reading John C Wright's Night Land stuff without reading the original?

>>10152018
That was also my feeling, I have a similar idea about The Last Unicorn.

>>10151467
The order of Foundation is
Foundation -> Second Foundation -> Foundation and Empire
Then Asimov decided to crossover the Foundation universe with his Robots series so read that if you enjoyed the first 3 foundation books (I liked Foundation more than Robots)
Then Prelude -> Forward -> Edge -> Earth

Just torrent or download your missing books.

>>10151755
Because I wan sum fuk bby. Let me at that asspussy.

>>10148396
>They just don't know when they're licked
I can help clear it up for her

>>10151645
>watching a game instead of playing it yourself

>>10151905

are there any fantasy stories where you genuinely felt you learned a lot from how shit it was?

>>10152156
>>10152156
>reading a book instead of writing it yourself

>>10152199
i don't understand
do you want books that give you knowledge
or do you want shit books?

>>10152215
I'm asking you, as an individual, what books have taught you a lot about writing, from how shit they were.

>>10152208
But that is what I do. While reading a book I imagine shit and rewrite it mentally while reading.

>>10152217
sooo
you want books that tell you what to avoid
by them showing you how shit the implementation was?

>>10152231
No, I want books that told YOU what to avoid

>>10152199
Never ever give your self insert character a waifu, especially not an ethnic one that talks like a walking stereotype despite supposedly having a 200IQ with 2 PhDs

>>10152255
I'm not looking for advice, I'm looking for anecdotes

>>10152199
Not very deep, but I had to quit reading a book because I was getting too distracted trying to figure out whether the main character was black. The characters were just so poorly described that every chapter my mental image flipped back and forth and I could never be exactly sure. The story had nothing to do with that, it was some cosmic horror shit, but I just could not figure it out. The actual mystery of the plot got overshadowed by the mystery of what the MC looked like.

Lesson learned from that: FUCKING DESCRIBE THINGS YOU MOTHERFUCKER!

>>10152256
That's obviously referencing a specific thing so it is an anecdote you dullard.

>>10152263
what buk? also it was an anecdote given in the form of advice and I won't abide by it

>>10152260
This is how I feel about blood song, some things just aren't described, or described very very late in the book. I still like it though

>>10152269
>buk
Yeah, it's quickly becoming clear you're not smart enough for this discussion so I'm not sure why you're still here. Let me be more direct this time: Get the fuck out.

>>10152274
You should meet the last girl that talked to me like that. Oh wait, you can't, she was cleaved in twain by my katana.

>>10152236
but i am not a writer
>>>/lit/crit/

>>10152317
Then why would you feel comfortable recommending me books ? also I'm not leaving my sffg safespace

>>10152037
Yeah the Stoddard. Haven't checked out the Wright stuff but he writes like a complete wanker on his blog.

>>10152278
I chuckled.

How accessible is Snow Crash? I've read that is has some satirical elements so should I wait until I've read a good amount of cyberpunk novels before reading it?

>>10152403
It's the best cyberpunk. Go in cold.

>>10152411
Its not even Stephensons best cyberpunk. The diamond age was amazing, though I guess its post cyberpunk

Are any of those World of Darkness novels good? I really love Vampire The Masquerade for it's strong worldbuilding and street level perspective but I've found most "urban fantasy" novels are shit.

>>10152453
I love diamond age, but yeah, don't really consider it cyberpunk.

>>10152328
>safespace
But you were never part of us in the first place. Leave while you can under your own power.

>>10152460
>Vampire The Masquerade
Is THAT an Anita Blake novel?

>>10152496
It's a tabletop game and a video game. There's novels set in the shared universe kind of like the Dragonlance and Ravenloft books.

>>10152496
Pen and paper/video game with really cool lore and really edgy fans

>>10145797
imagine being this much of a cunt.

>>10150597
It definitely drops, but maybe it depends on how much you like the characters. The second book is at least worth because it explains some things, but I haven't read past the third.

So do you use sepia, green, black or white? What font?

>>10152496
Its a pen and paper rpg, which later got turned into a video game with lots and lots of titty monsters in it, which is the reason 90% of the people on 4chan know about the universe.

>>10145797
Are we ever going to find out who it is?

>>10152615
One of the best games ever made tbqh

>>10150343
2nd book - space naval combat, MC poor attempt on spy craft and politics, implied NTR, then glorious battle over Mars with awesome power armors drop assault, then shocker ending of book 2!
3rd book - start with torture porn, MC get rescue, rehab, guerrilla warfare, MC get better at leadership (and politics), more naval battle, then final all out assault on Luna with 3 (+1) sword fight versus strongest bitch in the series!

Has anyone ever written a good book based off a tabletop campaign? Dragonlance isn't good

>>10152709
Malazan.

what's preferable, genre parody or genre deconstruction?

>>10152709
You take that back right now.

>>10152782
Common misconception, Malazan was not adapted from a campaign, it was originally conceived as a backstory for a campaign that never ended up happening, because the two principle creators got carried away writing and ended up creating a ton of novels instead.

>>10152888
Sincere storytelling is preferred to lazy insincerity dressed up as "insightful" criticism. Parody is funny exactly once, when it is new. The more those observations are repeated the quicker the parody becomes yet another cliche in itself.

Also I am of the opinion that "deconstruction" is not a real type of fiction and people who think it is are pseudo intellectual wannabe scholars without any of the discipline necessary for actual rigorous study, and so they lower the bar for scholarly debate the level of whatever escapist media they consume. Because reading actual literary theory is hard, it's much easier to read sci-fi novels and skim wikipedia articles then pretend you are an expert on literary theory.

I just can't take most fantasy books seriously. The characters feel unreal and edgy, and that the whole book is written for angsty teenagers even though it is written seriously.

Anyone else have the same problem? There are only couple fantasy books like Tolkien stuff and GRUMM's books that are actually well written and with believable characters. It feels real, the characters like actual humans.

It is weird because many books I've read like the Mistborn trilogy or First Law etc. are also well written, but just don't feel right. Maybe it's the over-the-top magic and not so detailed characters.


Can anyone recommend books I might like? With realistic characters and not too much magic and stuff.

>>10153378
I mean, the only characters that feel "real" in Tolkien's best known stuff are the hobbits and that's more or less by design.

The amount of intentional cringe in this book is weird, feels like almost every 10 pages the MC is getting into really awkward and/or embarrassing situations. Somehow keeps becoming more awkward as the book goes on too, almost reads like a parody but doesn't quite take it far enough.

>>10150597
Gateway is an excellent standalone book, and while readable I'd ignore the sequels just so it doesn't ruin the perfection of the original.

>>10151905
Last Unicorn is based. I was maybe late 20s when I read it. You'll be fine.

>>10152782
Common misconception, Malazan was not good.

>>10153378
Maybe some Guy Gavriel Kay?

>>10152484
what? I was always a part of sffg, kill yourself cuck, this is my SAFESPACE

NEW BREAD
>>10153931
>>10153931
>>10153931