/lit/ - Literature

>tfw imagining being dominated by soulcatcher

One more week, get on the Dick!

Free Dick (download): http://b-ok.xyz/s/?q=Flow+my+tears+the+policeman+said

third for re-reading botns over summer

>>11067890
no G or R, but a surprising bit of I. That got me a bit.

>last 4 chapters of a book that was painful to read were great
Fuck, read book 2 or not

Serious question do you read real books or an ereader? If an e reader what do you use?

>>11068120
E-reader. I used to lug around six books with me, because I'm an indecisive reader. Now I have hundreds with me at all times.

It's also nice because they're free. Then, if I like a book and buy a physical copy, it's in perfect condition. Wins all around.

Give time before starting book 2

6th for New Weird

>>11067890
I've always liked the bit at the end of this, where he's so desperate for human companionship, or anything stable in his weird world, that he just hugs a random guy at the gas station, and the guy just lets him and seems to understand. Anyone who says Dick can't do realistic emotions isn't paying attention, he's much better at it than supposed "greats" like Clarke and Niven. (Maybe that passage just reminds me of "forever alone" types on chan sites, I dunno).

>>11068120
Both - paper books at home where it's comfy and I have good lighting, Kindle on the go when I need to save space and/or read in dark places. Never understood treating it as an opposition, that's like choosing kibbles OR bits.

>>11068117
>tfw you'll never get fucked by Alys

Worth a go?

>>11068120
say what book you fucking Cryptic Chris

12th for book of the new sun

Post Romance Sub-plots you liked.

I'm in a winsome mood.

>>11067870
>Best girl
Good choice

>tfw no fantasy with a /fit/ amazoness love interest
Guess it's up to me.

>>11068266
mycroft & saladin

>>11068120
>Serious question do you read real books or an ereader? If an e reader what do you use?
Phone.

To whoever posted it last thread: yes Eumeswil is sci-fi, though not what anyone typically thinks of as sci-fi and most genre fans will probably be confused by it.

>>11067855
What would you like or not like to see in an upcoming interstellar epic?

>>11068314
Gorgeous.

>>11068524
Something akin to Infinite Ryvius. Lord of the Flies in space. Surviving on a wrecked ship with seemingly finite resources

Brandon Sanderson

sanderfag a hack

>>11068643
sanderhack a fag

sand in my fag

Hand in my vag

>>11069189
>sandy vaginas

I just want to live beyond space and time ;_;
Is this too much to ask?

>>11068469
Oh, it was me, thanks for the answer

>most genre fans will probably be confused by it

Well, it depends on what kind of "genre fans" we're talking about. If you're comfortable reading BotNS you can manage Eumeswil imho; rather than confusion, you might risk getting bored (since there are no real "action" scenes in Eumeswil, unlike in BotNS). The style and nature of the book are much closer to "literary" fiction than any other genre fiction I've ever read, but I think this is part of what makes Eumeswil so charming and interesting to read.

At times it feels like a sort of reverse time capsule: it's like a historian / professor / intellectual who lived 1000 years from now recorded all his thoughts and reflections in a diary, then somehow that diary arrived in our time for us to read

>>11068120
buy a kindle (best quality for price) and put books on it for free using calibre

>>11068120
Phone with night filter app. For maximum relaxation.

>>11068120
I read physical books whenever I can but if I don't want to buy a book and can't get it from a local library I'll read it on my Kobo. This year 4 of the 22 books I've read have been digital.

So I'm listening to Alzabo Soup's podcast on Book of the New Sun and I feel so stupid for missing all these details.

https://alzabosoup.libsyn.com/category/The+Book+of+the+New+Sun

It didn't even occur to me that Severian may have forged the orders for Thecla's torture or that the man at the brothel may be either the Autarch or that Dr. Talos may be a robot.

So I'm doing a read of Glen Cook's works.

Finished all the Black Company. They were great.
Loved Instrumentality of the Night and I'm pissed that he isn't going to finish it.
I have mixed feelings about Dread Empire. You can really tell that they are early works.

What should I read next by him? Swordbearer if I can find it? Starfishers? Garret PI?

>>11068314
I only read the first omnibus and I remember her dying. Does she come back?

>>11070730
>Severian may have forged the orders for Thecla's torture
Why would he have done that? Because he believed that she was going to be tortured eventually and didn't want to prolong her suffering?

>>11070730
>Dr. Talos may be a robot
I've always thought of him as a engineered biological being. But honestly, does it matter?

>>11070754
Yeah, she tracks down Croaker and makes him sew her head back on, she gets a bit of a character assassination though, when lady is beloved, which may just be from the bias of the lads writing the chronicles.

Hey gang

Recently found myself with a lot of free time throughout the day and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for light reading in sort of 10-20 minutes chunks. I've been finding that some of the reading material I have was way too heavy and required more attention than I felt I could give, so anything that could keep my interest without getting too involved would be great.

Pic related, pulpy indulgent novels are my jam

Thanks in advance

Is it worth reading the next book?

Most of the characters were pretty fun, but the story seems pretty up its own ass and serious moments, especially any attempted character development, isn't really done well. Does it get any better? It seems like things may be getting more serious with the next book, so I'm not sure if it'll be worth it.

>>11070929
that's a big butt

>watching the expanse
>fucking dykes in s3

why is there so much poz in sci/fi media?

>>11070747
Garret PI is good. Very much "Glen Cook visits Ankh-Morpork" and it's noir-themed.

The Dragon Never Sleeps is great.

Starfishers is a toss up IMO. The first one is a okay space opera, the second two are espionage-themed novels about a minor character from the first book, and Passage at Arms is a great Das Boot style story about a stealth spaceship and is a standalone prequel.

Apparently the Darkwar series and Tower of Fear are both good but I haven't read them.

>>11070929
Me on the bottom

>>11071011
taht's not you on the bottom, you weren't in that picture. i don't understand why you would say something like that.

thoughts on the name of the wind?

>>11071130
Mary Sue MC's should be fucking illegal

>>11070777
The first client Severian is given after becoming a Journeyman he brings to the cell next to Thecla who then proceeds to say, "He knows. He's mailed letters for me-haven't you Severian? And he's been saying goodbye for these last few days. He's really rather a sweet boy in his way."

Sweet boy. That is all he is in Thecla's mind, despite the fact that they have been sleeping together and he is now supposed to be a man.

The next paragraph describes how Drotte sees that there is something wrong with Severians eyes. (He is furious and heartbroken).

He then goes up to Master Gurloes study. Finds it empty, finds Thecla's orders and then the next paragraph is him struggling to sleep without explaining what happened next in the study.

He was furious at Thecla for calling him a boy. He changes her torture order to the most exotic and horrible torment he can find. It is even mentioned that they haven't used the Revolutionary for ages.

>>11070950
Book 2 and 3 are by far the best in the series. It's not even close.

>>11068266
Stephen Maturin and Diana Villiers

>>11070967
>that's a great butt

*fify

>>11070929
this'll be good fap material when i crop out the dudes

>>11071490
*braps*

Man, I passed on reading The Twelve Kings of Shakalaka like a year ago and reading it now I'm wondering why I let something little like a sex scene in the first ten pages turn me off to it

>>11071508
>>>/outerlit/

>>11071162
I’m reading it again after finishing the 4th. There are so many seemingly trivial details and brief interactions that carry so much weight after you’ve been through the books. Knowing what you know about Severian the Autarch and narrator vs Severian the boy, it also makes some of the omissions and coincidences even more relevant.

>>11071168
That's great to hear, thanks anon.

>>11070950
Of the ones I read (first four), the 2nd was the best. I'd recommend reading it and all the books are fairly self contained so you can drop the series directly afterwards if you like.

which wheel of time book is the best?
>inb4 they all suck

I am looking for more fantasy novels with dark humor like The Black Company books?

>>11071642
I liked the one where everyone was chasing Rand

>>11071162
Jesus, Wolfe really is 2deep4me.
Does this come up again after she gets alzabo'd into his mind?

>>11071642
Say what ever you like about the series later on but books two through to book six were legit great and a masterclass in world building. If I had to pick a single book probably The Great Hunt as that's where the scope of the entire series really opened up.

>>11068213
It blew my mind in college but I reread it recently and it just doesn't hold up. Faith of our Fathers is PKD's best story and there's a fun Zelazny story at the end about car bullfighting but most of it's by-the-numbers stuff that was mildly transgressive 50 years ago

>>11071877
TGH introduced best girl Lanfear
too bad she got shafted hard and got killed by worst boy in the end

>>11068213
>>11072051
I still like reading old SF. I don't go expecting something that old to be cutting edge.

To whoever recommended this book, I legitimately hope your entire family gets cancer

>>11072151
Tell us where the bad anon touched you

>woman author

>>11071677
It is these little details that just fly by.

For example Thecla wears a bracelet shaped like a Kraken whose tentacles wrap around her arm. (page 58 in the chapter The Conversationalist)

That is a very specific thing for Wolfe to describe. He could have said she wore a bracelet. But no he specifically describes her wearing a sea monster on her arm.

What other sea monsters are in the book?

>>11071677
Nigger that wasn't even that deep, it was basic reading comprehension

>>11072274

>Wolfe
>basic reading comprehension

lol who the fuck are you trying to impress?

>>11072151
>>11072179
i'm fine with women authors but that affected prose is just annoying

>>11072089
It's less a "good sci-fi that didn't age well" and more that group anthologies tend to serve as a dumping ground, especially given that Harlan was shopping around for rejected stores. A couple of the authors took it seriously and put in good stuff, and Harlan was able to paper over the rest of the book by selling it as transgressive.

just finished Grey Sister
that was REALLY boring...

>>11072179
my nigga

>>11072383

How do you read the first book and honestly think the second one would be worth reading?

>>11072670
the first book was kinda okay but there's literally no plot progression in this one

Finally read that Wild Wastes book. Now I appreciate a good monstergirl harem, but there's too many fucking dryads. The author needs to calm down with them.

>>11073313
petra is best girl. followed closely by alyssia.

>>11072151
what didn't you enjoy about it? I thought it was pretty refreshing, and a real pleasure to read. Not exactly groundbreaking sci-fi, but fun nonetheless. Seven Surrenders is excellence

>>11068391
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35825875-the-amazon-s-pledge?ac=1&from_search=true

>>11073593
>male fantasy written by a female author
Well that's interesting.

Malazan question/confirmation. I am wondering if anyone else got the impression that in Dust of Dreams..
The wolf destriant and the barghast shaman hetans brother accidently travelled to earth. It was kind of jarring and kind of out of character for the whole trilogy to make mention of earth. Never the less have people transported there.

>>11073589
at least it's over soon

>>11074056
I never got that impression. Could you be more specific about where in the story it happened? Dust of Dreams is a massive book and it's so slow moving that a lot of it blurs together in my memory.

>>11071642
The Great Hunt is probably my favorite WoT book. Later books do have more spectacular moments, but everything about TGH is so comfy.

>>11074099
They try to escape something or other and risk using a warren but the barghast shaman is not sure where they'll end up. They end up in a forest. Near them are trees cut down 'impossibly precise' and the destriant can sense people are close and feels some imminent danger from them, as if meeting them would be very bad or something. She calls on power from the wolves to escape. The souls of them start coming out of the forest and they are killed in all sorts of ways, poison, traps, etc. Then a bunch of other animals souls start coming, ones she does not recognize. She realizes this place is very old and there is a shit ton of death. She gets overloaded with power and they all the souls rush through the gate she creates. I think they even allude to giraffes or something at some point.

>>11073313
Its because he wants to write domination porn, but all the other monstergirls are too physically strong to be dominated.

So more dryads instead.

It's worth slogging through Book of the New Sun for the reread right? I'm in the middle of Claw right now and I have to say that other than Wolfe's prose, there's nothing that engages me about it.

>>11074241
Claw picks up, and Sword is sensational. I wouldn't re-read until you finished the first 4 + Urth

>>11073313
well its better than fucking ants m8

>>11068213
It's worth it just for Faith of Our Fathers

>>11070777
Except he didn’t because the theme of the book is coming to recognize a higher justice than the one decreed by the arbitrary orders of civilization ... if sev did, there goes that crucial character development. Sounds like alzabo soup nonsense to me.

>>11072274
Except it’s wrong and a dumb theory.

>>11071195
great choice

>>11074521
I think him choosing not to destroy or alter the orders when he had the opportunity to makes more sense.

>>11070929
>>11070967
>>11071369
>>11071490
>>11071508
That's a dude on the bottom. Welcome to being gay.

>>11074521
Alzabo Soup are the 9/11 truthers of Gene Wolfe fans

>>11067890
I got through it in a mere 3 days. Out of the 4 PKD novels I've read it's the weakest of the bunch but it was pretty good. I was fascinated by the dystopian world and eccentric characters but some of the plot was a bit iffy and I'm not sure how to feel about the don't worry, society eventually went back to normal and Jason lived happily ever after epilogue.

What would the worst profession be for a point of view character in a fantasy novels?

Best/worst I can come up with so far is cow(/gay fantasy cow equivalent) milker.

is Cloud Atlas worth reading? didn't know it was a book before I began watching, but it's one of those films where you can immediately tell it's adapted from a novel. I always prefer to read a book before watching the film adaptation if I can help it.

>>11074895
stableboy
pleasure slave to a disgusting person
posion food taster
shoe polisher
beggar/prostitute
the guy that has to clean up after barfights
the guy that has to clean up after a busy night in a brothel

also generally any position or job someone with more power wants to remove you from.

>>11074912
rand is a meme dont bother unless you are incredibly board or have nothing else to read.

>>11074924
Anon, CLOUD Atlas was written by David Mitchell.

>>11074895
human furniture

>>11074928
oh boy i was thinking of atlas shrugged.
my minds a bit unfocused right now.
sure go ahead cloud atlas is alright. a bit boring though.

>>11074639
i just made an observation and nothing else!

>>11074895
why not just a fucking slave

Is this worth reading? I'm still salty over stormlight archive.

why don't you faggots read actual literature?

>>11075021
Someone already said sex slave.
Step it up and have it be the bottom slave boy at a church/whatever religious building your world has. He will be abused physically, sexually, have a ton of shit jobs to do, and you could actually make the story interesting with him seeing things unfold from the sidelines.

That reminded me a bit of that kite runner book actually.

>>11075046
What if I told you that you could do both?

>Why does the rest of /lit/ hate us?
Cause people ITT actually enjoy what they read and tend not to care about the opinions of literary snobs. This causes anxiety in /lit/ posters for whom reading is mainly about getting the approval of the literary community, it makes them doubt their whole value system. To cope with this they channel the anxiety into spite toward genre fans, because it's easier to disregard contrary examples to your assumptions if you hold the people giving those examples in contempt. Hence the ritualistic debasement of genre fans on this board, and hence the constant, desperate affirmations of their own importance and superiority.

This is the mind of a person for whom reading is a means to an end.

>>11075080
are you any better than them for writing that post?

also answer my question
>>11075033

>>11075093
I didn't write that, I copied it from and old thread because it's relevant to >>11075046

Never read it so can't comment sorry.

>>11075033
First book is somewhat okay. The second book goes full retard though. It's really bad.

>>11075080
Why did you copy/paste this post from an earlier thread?

I picked up Emperor's Blades today on a recommendation from this thread. I hope I'll enjoy it, but I'm not gonna start it til I finish my current book and then start First Law book 2.

>>11075212
It became relevant to a post above.

Bakker fans unite.

I just finished The Judging Eye and am onto The White-Luck Warrior.

Did Akka fuck Mimara?
Just what IS the Judging Eye? Mimara can sense morality? Ooo boy..
Kellhus has a son who is practically Chucky. Kelmomas is absolutely the lamest part of the book.

Please tell me The White-Luck Warrior is better.

>altered carbon
3/5
interesting puzzle, decent noir, not enough science for me

why do some books have too many protagonists

whats wrong with a single protagonist?

>>11075033
No, unless you're a faggot or a 15 year old girl.

>>11075403
Some stories are hard to tell effectively through one point of view without getting overly telly with your writing

>>11075021
Because then it would just turn into a dreary millennial muh dignity book

I'm gonna sound like a massive faggot for asking this but are there any books with explicit sex scenes ala ASIOAF?

Pls be gentle

>>11075480
With midgets, I mean

>>11075549
Eat shit reee

Never really read any 'Sci' before, but I enjoyed how The Dark Forest dedicated the entire book to play with some concrete ideas the author had
I liked the second and third book more than the first, don't mind that it lost all it's rooting in reality over time
You can tell the guy who wrote them was an engineer
Any other modern books like it, I've placed an order for Blindsight but looking to sock up on more

>>11075594
I haven't read The Dark Forest, but what you said about playing with an idea made me think of Greg Egan, who this board shilled me into reading. I haven't liked the last two I've read as much but I was really delighted by Quarantine. It started out as mediocre sci-fi noir, then seemed to take a nose-dive into quantum gibberish and infodumps, but then it got clever and playful in a funny way. Maybe not the greatest ending but I didn't care -- by then it had more than paid off the time I spent plodding through the start.

>>11075549
>midgets
>not shortstacks
fucking pleb

>>11075480
Just hit up Literotica pussy

>>11075714
Any recs? Average no specific fetish fantasy porn, that place has a metric fuckton of things, at least they have a rating system.

>>11075760
look at what category you want read/jerk to
do i gotta tug your dick as well?

>>11075760
>>11075776
Literally not me, I dunno why he's pretending

Also Literotica has a terrible UI, like holy shit

>>11075760
There's a fantasy category and a random button
Just hit that until you find a title you like

>>11075760
3 square meals on literotica seems decent enough to read & jerk off to

What does /sffg/ think of Orion's Arm? Both the lore/website and the short stories.

orionsarm.com

>>11075830
getting some ogame vibes

>>11075838
oy vey now that pictures are working again 4chanx decides to post one.
might as well. ask anyways.
audiobook soon. never heard nick podehl though. is he any good? why didnt jeff hays do it.

>>11069253
thanks kyle

>>11070950
yeah, books 2 and 3 are amazing and things really take off after the first book. i can see where you're coming from thinking that this book is unpleasant, but strongly recommend checking out books 2 and 3 before deciding to throw in the towel.

>>11075830
lore is good but could have more stuff focusing on what transaps and archai do, and weird clades instead of furry wank and other crap.
stories are mediocre.

>>11074166
i had always taken this to be that they had stumbled into a warren of the k'chain nah'ruk (short tails). this made plenty of sense given the climax of the book pivoted around the bridgeburners stumbling across the short tails and kicking ass/getting asses kicked. i thought that the only possible connection to our world was via the cripple god

>>11075258
1) yes
2) yes
3) yes
4) no

if you keep reading you will put in a lot of effort and time into a series that utterly fails to deliver and explain. instead, you might be tempted to read what the author has to say to make shine a little light as to why you feel letdown. instead of being enlightened, he'll shout "CRASH SPACE OF MEANING!!!!1!!" and splurt black alien seed all over you. don't say you weren't warned.

i lol when i see fags talking about how they slogged through or forced themselves to finish reading something.

man i'm soo cool because I forced myself to read that shitty 6 book trilogy 3 times in a row! Now I can quote gandalf the black !

Mom look I'm making fun of something people do for entertainment that I don't like. Yes I'm doing it even though it doesn't effect me at all! Haha yeah I have so many friends.

>>11074166
I think I recall that part, it was weird and disorienting so it could be you're just reading too much into it or it could be I didn't read enough into it.

>>11075480
Nevernight Chronicle
f/m in the first book and mostly f/f in the second

>The sandy haired kid grinned at him from above. It wasn't a nice grin as if he were happy to see him. Instead, it was a malevolent grin.

What other first lines for a novel instantly made you say "fuck you" to the author and put their shitty fanfic down?

>>11076678
>amazon reviewer

you were warned anon, you were warned.

>>11074929
>human furniture
Imagine getting turned into a chair

>>11076678
I would have never gotten past the title or the artwork.

>>11075931
Why do people get so mad about the ending? Did you want le good guys to win1! the no-god doesn't come back and everyone ends up in hell?

>>11076678
>Instead, it was a malevolent grin.
powerful

>>11076689
Amazon self-publishing was a mistake.

>>11076837
the crimson queen was pretty good for a self-published book
better than most fantasy shit you're getting nowadays

>>11076678
>AT THE HEIGHT of the long wet summer of the Seventy-seventh Year of Sendovani, the Thiefmaker of Camorr paid a sudden and unannounced visit to the Eyeless Priest at the Temple of Perelandro...
Lies of Locke Lamora have one of the most cringe opening chapters I've read. Fortunately it picks up later and become a quite good book.

>>11076914
Thorn of Emberlain never

>>11076741
haha yeah imagine that lol

>>11076741
>Imagine getting turned into a chair
I want to be Kendall Jenner's chair. That shit would be full popcorn, man.

>>11077007
Says the person who committed sudoku

>>11076844
Sounds okay, I hope the Paladins succeed in purging mages from the world though.

>>11076837
There are some okay self-published things. I read a novella--that ended up being a short trilogy--where the MC was something like a demigod trying to find his memories or some such and it turns out that he was the artificial biological creation of someone from another dimension, one of a handful of similar creatures. Literally had NANOMACHINES in his bloodstream and reinforced <supermetal here> bones.
I liked it. There is a LOOOOOOT of shit on Amazon though and I wish we had any Amazon-core charts.

On another note, Eye in the Sky by PKD seems like the only Twilight Zone-esque novel of his I've read so far.

>>11077416
I've definitely read good self-published stuff, but I've never found any. It's always either the author themselves or a friend of the author recommending me their work. They usually have zero reviews too, which makes me sad for the state of the literary market

what should i read while i give blood plasma today?
no vampires

And what was this short trilogy?

>>11077570
Maybe you could try Egan's Blood Music. It's been on my TBR for a while but I haven't started it yet and have been reading a short duology, but the theme seems appropriate.

>>11077542
Please shill the good ones you find here.

>>11070950
Deadhouse Gates is the best book in the series, to the point that I've recommended that people read it, and nothing else.

What's /sffg/'s general opinion on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

I really, really, really liked it

>>11077792
The movie was better.

>>11077792
Re-read it and found Adam super annoying. But it was still a good time.

>>11077792
Great if you like british "humour".
I do

>>11077734
They're rarely fantasy or sci-fi, now that I think about it. Usually horror or fiction with supernatural elements

I want to write a short story about a woman who has become a wandering mercenary, but instead of just doing genderswapped Conan the Barbarian, have her actually struggle with the issues of being a woman in a very masculine profession that she isn't physically optimized for, and having to conceal her sex so that she doesn't just get raped by twenty guys at once.

It's set in 17th century Poland, so there are pistols and muskets and whathaveyou, killing people isn't an issue if you're a dragoon or something, but how do I keep this from feeling like grrl power crap?

Also how do you have a woman act tough without making it total cringe?

>>11077821
You can't

>>11077821
>Also how do you have a woman act tough without making it total cringe?

By not having her try to act tough, because she isn't. Embracing the fact that her occupation is at odds with her physicality is more interesting than having her supernaturally succeed at being the cartoon fighting woman.

You could actually sell this really well by having her use woman-logic on other soldiers to get them to do shit for her, but they never realize that they're instinctually trying to impress a girl.

>>11077821
Mistborne series is a good example of a female MC.

>>11077821
>how do I keep this from feeling like grrl power crap?
Have her fall in with a semi-pious bro or two who feels obliged to help her not get rekt.
>have a woman act tough without making it total cringe?
Best you can do is let her get rekt once in a while. Considering the setting you're asking too much.

>>11077821
How do you plan to write her struggling with her issues?

Without jumping into discussion of Periods, you could talk about clothing fitting issues for her body, some philosphy discussion or encountering a girl or woman living the live she wants somehow.

Every character wants something, even if it's a class of water from across the room.

I'm not sure how you could bring in another woman around 17th century poland. But I found a non-fiction story about someone finding an old diary and bringing it back to the original writer.

>>11077816
I'll put anything promising through my strainer.

>>11077858
The idea is it's set during the khmelnytsky uprising, when a bunch of Cossacks got asshurt about being oppressed by the Poles so they started burning the country down. She was a Polish officer's daughter, but then he got Cossack'd. Now she's looking for revenge on the traitorous officer who betrayed them to the rebels, and the best way to do that is to blend in with the mercenaries who are supposed to be hunting him down, under the leadership of a Ruthenian noble who was supposed to be her betrothed.

It's all pretty gay but I promise it sounds better when I explain it in person.

>>11077821
How anime are you?
There's a character in over lord that is a wondering mercenary who deflects attention by acting overly womanizing.

>>11077821
Like, historical poland?
Or can you stretch it with magic and shit?
Because really where would the story go? She becomes a mercenary, raids a few villages or something while trying to look like a dude, then either dies of an infection at 25 or gets found and killed one way or another.

As for general women characters, making her more pragmatic than generic "strong" or "heroic" would be the first step.
Don't give her a fucking bow. That's the cringiest shit literally everyone does now.
Hell, with warfare in the 17th century being just batshit stupid as it is, she could propably just lie down at a trench, have someone next to her in a hole reloading the musket, and pick off an entire army that's marching single file along an open field towards her.

>>11077875
>khmelnytsky uprising
brb five hours of wikipedia

>>11077883
l-lewd.

>>11077886
I was sort of torn between doing a serious Polish history thing, or doing a weird fantastic version of Poland with low-key magic and Slavic folklore, but I figured people are probably sick of that after vidya discovered that Slavs exist and we got 3 Witcher games.

>>11077892
I always really enjoy the subtle kind of magic, where you could live your entire life without ever encountering it. Something that doesn't outright break reality but just lightly bends it, so you always wonder if it's even there in the first place.
Like a lucky charm that actually gives you good luck in life or death situations so you just barely survive, but you can never really prove it.

>>11077886
As for bows, of course not that's both mega cringe and unrealistic. Medieval warbows were crazy hard to draw, there's no way a regular woman could use one. Tatar horsebows were even worse because in addition to being hard to draw, they were also comically difficult to string because they turn into this goofy wishbone shape when they're undone and are fucking impossible to get back into shape unless you know what you're doing.

No, guns definitely. A woman could operate a musket about as well as a dude.

>>11077887
Give her a Jew sidekick who figures out she's a woman. She promises not to tell anyone he's a Jew if he doesn't rat out that she's a she, they work together to go unnoticed by covering for each other.

>>11077909
>"tell me girl, how did nobody notice your huge tits before?"
>You tell me, big nose!"

>>11077909
I was afraid of bringing Jews up at all because the whole scenario really makes them sound like they had it coming. In reality it was more complicated than that, the Commonwealth authorities felt that extorting Cossacks was beneath them so they paid the most contemptible people they could think of (Jews) to do it for them. Then when the uprising hit, the Jews took most of the fall for it.

Cossacks really get into it when they flip out.

>>11077872
These were all good, imo:

https://www.amazon.com/Rapture-Evan-Evans-ebook/dp/B0139RRQ9I
Poorly written and poorly formatted, but if you can look past it, the story is good. Space-age techn mixed with spiritualist concepts

https://www.amazon.com/Nameless-Jacob-Beach/dp/1523225815
A bit wordy at points, but great horror stories, if you're into them.

https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Logan-Christian/dp/1519534256
Pretty well written and fast-paced, but can feel a bit edgy at points.

>>11077919
>Is it Sexism or Antisemitism?

>>11077904
Exactly, or a chance encounter with something that only after the fact you realize might've been a witch or a spirit. Or maybe it was just someone giving good advice.

Having Baba Yaga flying around in a cauldron shooting fireballs at people sort of takes the charm out of it. Then you're just doing Dragon Age with vodka.

>>11077906
I don't know that much about this era in warfare, were they doing big marching blocks of guys with muskets and funny hats yet, or were they still using formations of pikes supported by gunners? Actually I don't know dick about Poland. Did they ever do that?

>>11077954
It's that era, but Poland was always much more cavalry-centric because the terrain and the enemies they fought included Swedes, Germans, Turks, Tatars (Mongols basically) Russians, more Germans, mercenaries from Scotland of all places, and Germans.

In such an environment you had combinations of musketeers, guys with axes or halberds/bardiches, cavalry with pistols and carbines and lances, and occasionally groups of pikemen trying to figure out which way they were supposed to be charging. It was the meeting place of Steppe and Forest, and so every battle there was a huge clusterfuck.

The Poles in particular were famous for their cavalry, particularly the "Winged Hussars," who supposedly wore big goofy wings (probably didn't in reality) and famously frontally charged a pike formation at Rocroi and destroyed it.

One significant detail that's fun: The Cossacks were famous horsemen, but when they fought the Poles, they almost always did it on foot, building forts out of wagons and then emerging to fight before retreating back inside. Wagon forts are impenetrable to cavalry, which trolled the Poles endlessly, so the Poles started bringing cannons, so the Cossacks started filling the wagons with dirt, and so on.

>>11077928
https://youtu.be/yDT3_jVYAkI

I'm not even Polish but,

Ogniem i Mieczem
g
n
i
e
m

i

M
i
c
z
e
m

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buJIJz3O9zs

>idea for a story
>polish history
>3 hour long movie about the polish period in question

Nigger what the fuck is going on in this thread

>>11078129
Female warriors ruin threads

>>11078133
>ruin
this is the closest thing to a good sffg thread we've had since Oathbringer came out.

>>11078083
>dis nigga's getting strangled with a rope
>oh shit betta help him
>hey thanks lol but I gotta go
>okay
>oh also my name's actually Bohan Chimminanski
(lightning)

Literally what the fuck is this, did he just save Hitler? Does he have magic? Why is there lightning?

>>11077821
>Also how do you have a woman act tough without making it total cringe?
Don't be a total try hard about it.I've seen a lot of female protagonists written in a way that constantly feels the need to beat you over the head with how amazing they are compared to men and if it wasn't for some patriarchy they would rule the world. Just write her as a woman who knows her limitations due to her sex and has to find ways around them. Don't make her a special snowflake that can suddenly upstage experienced veterans when it comes to combat, leading or politics.

When is the next Waldo Rabbit book coming out? God I love that series. Gronk is dumb and annoying, though, but it's getting really good

Black Company, The Knight, Gardens of the Moon, Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit

Which to read first?

I'm going to make my female protagonist a turbo slut.

>>11078386
Black Company

>>11078386
Always read Tolkien First.

>>11078306
Best advice of the thread. And really it boils down to "don't be a total tryhard about it." Do not do the thing where the fact that you're writing a story about this is more important than the story.

>>11078345
bad news author does it for a hobby. waldo rabbit book 3 should have come out in 2013 originally. he rewrote the whole thing because he wasnt satisfied with the initial thing. expect it to take another 3-4 years for book 4.

>>11078345
i love how the whole cult thing spins out of control in the third book and melissa just rolls with it in the end because waldo did in a few days what the whole of avalon couldnt do in years.

>>11078393
Good luck.

Making my female protagonist a consort of a demon now.

Does anyone have a good idea of how to pronounce words in the Marain language from the Culture? Normally when I pronounce foreign/fictional words I assume vowels have the same pronunciation as in Spanish/Latin/IPA. But I'm not sure if the author is writing like this or trying to write them as though they were English words. How would Marain be transcribed in IPA? Would Gurgeh's name be [ˈdʒɛərnaʊ ˈmɔrat ˈgɚrgɛ] ?

>>11078415
Is that why it was available and then so difficult to find for the longest time? I finally read it but it was a pain to find book 3 until now

>>11078428
I really like Melissa, I liked her introduction, I liked the tension when they first met, and I like how she doomed him. Melissa really pushes the story along

>>11078515
>Is that why it was available and then so difficult to find for the longest time? I finally read it but it was a pain to find book 3 until now
yes. the book was released about 4 months ago in december just after christmas. before that you could read a few chapters on a fanfic forum because he liked people to beta read like this. unfortunately he wasnt satisfied with it.
if you want you can check his facebook page. i cant really since i dont have a facebook account but there might be some info there:
fagbook.com/nelson.chereta

>>11078515
i like how insane melissa is. she deludes herself into rationalizing all her deicisions just because she loves waldo so much.
i keep anticipating whats gonna happen when she finds out who waldo really is.

>>11077792
Loved it. There used to be a great read-by-the-author audiobook but I think they replaced him with an actor in later releases.

Why is Children of Dune so fucking good

>>11078529
melissa is a great character

I'm currently trying to read Baudolino. Only a few dozen pages in. I think I like the setting and character, but holy flying fuck is the writing annoying to read. It's well done for sure, but it's a freaking pain in the ass to read.
Is it going to change and improve / become more regular prose soon? Otherwise I might actually drop it, it's surprisingly cumbersome.

>>11078794
Are you talking about the early chapters where he doesn't know how to write properly? It's just the very first part of the book that's written that way.

>>11075844
nick podehl is pretty good. he narrated the kingkiller boosk which were excellent. im pretty sure hell do a great job. gotta admit though. jeff hays is a fantastic narrator. he really gives life to the characters and i love how he brings personalities to across. no idea why he isnt doing the audiobook but im confident in podehl. its a shame that jeff hays only primarily narrates litrpgs. kinda a shame. he is one of the best voice workers ive ever heard.

>>11078832
Thank you, now I'll actually continue. Like I said, as far as I'm able to judge it's well done in regards to how convincing the 'barely able to write coherently' prose seems, but that doesn't make it less annoying.

Red Anjah best Anaj

Just finished pic related. While it wasn't the worst fantasy book I've read, I feel like the story was quite underwhelming. Like how he dealt with the shadow in the end. Also, Ged's constant moving from island to island makes me feel like all but three characters are mostly irrelevant. Those three characters being Ged's true master, Esterriol and Jasper.

Anyone else read this?

>>11077939
The Baba Yaga is pretty rad though.
Stillborn babies, milk going bad, etc.
Also a three witch circle really lends itself to all kinds of symbolism.

>>11078529
>You'd make a great White Mage!
>Waldo internally REEEEs
>You'd make a great Dark Mage.
>Melissa internally REEEEs

The series is just so fun, I'm glad I picked it up from these threads

>>11079072
yandere is truly best dere.

cultivating is truly the pinnacle of literature gimmicks

>>11078083
>I promised St. Mary to remain chaste until O, too, cut off three heads with one blow. [...] Touch luck. Two heads, quite often, but never three.
Pretty good anon.

Has anyone read or is going to read Christopher Nuttalls Ark Royal series? I'd like to talk to someone who has and see if it was just me who found books 1-3 pretty good, 4-6 meh and 6-9 dreadful.

>>11078612
I realy liked Alia on Messiah, so I was pretty invested seing her fall in Children. Just felt so bad for her...

>>11079248
Hot naked shooting sim, amirite?

>>11079254
Bullseye

any good or reddit bait?

>>11078794
I found Eco to be impenetrably bad. Full of great ideas and interesting footnotes but unable to communicate effectively. Like a really tasty pizza fed through a mincer.

>>11079305
>katherine
Reddit bait

>>11079305
the bear and the female author mor elike rofl

Question: when growing through books to read if I'm looking at sci-fi especially the first redflag for me is seeing a book with a woman's name on it. The second is a book having more female characters than male. The third is gay characters but the ultimate is furry anything.

Is this the correct hierarchy?

>>11079479
>The second is a book having more female characters than male
This one depends. That kind of setting can work well for a set up where the protagonist gets a harem or a scenario where something caused a large population of men to die off and over time women took over and fucked the world up. Then it'll be up to the protagonist to use his weapons(cock) to restore order.

>>11078306
this is exactly whats wrong with the salvatore's writing in the cleric quintet

>>11079479
There a plenty of absolute garbage books without any of these flags so I'd say that hierarchy is pretty bad and lacking.

>>11079557
Add to it then?

>>11079479
pop culture references where they don't belong
miscegenation
religion or nazi's being the bad guys
condemning "bigotry" or other liberalist opinions despite the fact you have established explicit significant differences among the various races/species
protagonist crying
protagonist getting captured more than once
etc

Any books set in a fantasy setting underwater? Mermaids, krakens and shit.

>>11079479
>but the ultimate is furry anything.
Depends on your definitions I suppose.

Rand better give Selene a good diddling here and stop blushing like a wee manslag.

>>11070967
for you

>>11067855
I'm desperate so I will ask here.
Does anyone know where the fuck I can find epub/mobi of The Great Ordeal by Scott Bakker?
I checked every place that I know of.

>>11079305
>low fantasy
pass

>>11072151
This, but with "The Sparrow" instead.

>>11077792
I was disappointed. I've been assured that later books are better, maybe I'll try another someday, but there are too many books I want read in front of them.

>>11080320
I'm curious to know why? I've found The Sparrow to be a very divisive book. People either love it or hate it but often for very different reasons.

>>11080268
https://www70.zippyshare.com/v/7AzwhF5K/file.html

>>11078406
This. Foundation first, then build everything else.

Also, speaking of foundations -- Foundation Trilogy, bitches.

>>11080435
>blocks your path

>>11079608
>nazi's being the bad guys

But Rocket Ship Galileo is just so much gee-whiz Boy's Life fun...

>>11074895
Human who gets milked

>>11080381
I found it just grindingly unpleasant, and the final payoff was not nearly enough to make up for wading through so much crap to get there. Just wound up feeling like violence-porn, almost. Didn't feel like the exploration of the science or the religion ever went anywhere.

For a sci-fi book about Catholicism, or heavily featuring it, "Canticle for Liebowitz" was, for me, the book to read.

Having said all that, I'm curious to hear why anybody liked it. I don't mind that they did, I just really don't get it.

What do you guys think is the most "important" sci-fi/fantasy book? Not necessarily the best written or plot but one you think society needs to read

>>11080491
For me, the intersection of suffering and compassion is what is elevating and compelling about Christianity. So I responded to a sci-fi book where science didn't act as a palliative against revelation. That affirmed the idea that the suffering God didn't promise relief from, but compassion with and meaning in suffering. Also enjoyed Canticle though.

>>11080406
Holy fucking finally. Thank you anon. I managed to download it eventually but my browser tried pretty hard to fry my cpu after clicking this link.

>>11080571
OK, I see where you got that out of it, even if I didn't.

Fair play to you.

>>11080406
next time just check mobilism.

Hey The Hobbit is alright, maybe Lord of the Rings isnt such a meme

>>11071642
Lord of Chaos for Dumai's Wells.

I read self published coming of age fantasy with good ratings on amazon and I'm proud

>>11080927
Not proud enough to post the title?

>>11080435
>>11080455

I did a weird reading order that was excellent. I would argue even the best reading order.

Prelude to the Foundation
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation
Forward the Foundation

Also the 4th and 5th books were dumb.

>>11070929
Worm, by wildbow

>>11077850
Vin barely has a personality though

>>11081230
Woman tend to have dull personalities.

>>11070730
>>11070797
>Dr. Talos may be a robot.
I figured that was obvious because like Jonas, he doesn't eat or sleep.
I'm only halfway through Lictor though so I don't know if Talos swings back into the story.
>>11071162
Doesn't he admit in his narration early on that he wasn't going to help break her out because she saw him as a boytoy? I think he was in the tomb at the time. He thinks about it again later during his flight from Thrax, about how he could have saved her but wasn't willing to leave the guild to do it. There was something there about the Thecla in his head getting agitated when he brought that up, too.
>>11077792
>>11077809
Concur. Just a low-key good time with no geewhiz predictions to make or ideological axes to grind.
>>11074639
lel, no it's not-
>finger length
Dammit, 4chan.

>read book 1 of a series
>don't want to continue on in case something bad happens to the characters
This way they'll be safe

>>11081572
i used to do that. then i realized thats pussying out. go on anon. you and i both know you want to know and in reality you are only afraid of being hurt because you self insert. that shit is lame and is holding you back on a personal growth level.

>>11081572
>read book 1 of a series
>don't want to continue in case the story spirals downward

>>11081572
>reading a series
>it has 5 different view points
>literally just skip every pov other than your favorite male protagonist

>>11081572
>start reading trilogy
>book 2 ends on a great note with all the major plot lines wrapped up
>book 3 starts off with some contrived tragedy that fucks everything up
>put down book and pretend it ended with book 2
I'm much happier this way.

>>11080509
I don't think anything modern is necessary.

If you stretch the definition, everyone should read Shakespeare's The Tempest.

>>11081722
Tell me about the Tempest, why is it important?

>>11081572
kek do people really do this?

>>11078083
>tfw the Olgierd vs Geralt scene is literally copypasted from the Woldyjowski vs Kmicic scene

>Would you like to wait for the rain to stop?
>The sky is weeping, because we're about to bury a Colonel

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_sxC7gtV2w

>>11076960
>reading past the first book

>>11078999
Did you expect him to have a big fireball contest with it? Earthsea isn't like that my dude.

>I've been having book 7 of Way of the Shaman this whole time

wtf I could have been reading !!!!! I missed this series

>>11080509
Society as a whole?
I think people today need to be a lot more aware about the dangers of AI, biotechnology and social control through social media etc, so maybe something along those lines (I can't give a good recc as I mainly read space-scifi).

If you really forced me, Life 3.0 has non-fiction but with some fiction elements and really talks a lot about theoretical dangers of AI with elements of sci-fi casually mentioned, so maybe something like that. I'll actually take a minute to shill this book, it's fantastic

What authors have the tightest plots with the best pacing?

I've realized my biggest problem in my own writing is that it meanders, and I need to outline and plot better, and seeing how it's done seems like it would help.

>>11083280
shill it, i'm listening

>ugh men are so dumb lol
Is there a single woman in the Wheel of Time that does not say those exact words?

>>11083374
Well it's basically just an excellent contemporary summary of the current nature of the AI field, and the vast if not endless impacts it could have on human life. The author opens by telling a short fiction story about a realistic AI takeover, then throughout the books refers back to it, talking about what went wrong or right.

I wouldn't normally mention it in our fiction board, but the novel encompasses so many classical elements of AI-based scifi and weaves these principles around real theories and studies to the point where you actually start to find them believable. It's essentially the hard sci-fi writers dream.

He starts talking about very grounded concepts, how AI might arise, it's breakout, or misuse by authoritarian regimes. This gradually ramps into how entire societies or the world could benefit or suffer from the maturation of AI into more advanced forms. Then towards the end of the book he goes absolutely nuts, starts talking about bonkers concepts like pic related.
>Figure 6.10: If life evolves independently at multiple points in spacetime (places and times) and starts colonizing space, then space will contain a network of expanding cosmic biospheres, each of which resembles the top of the champagne glass from figure 6.7. The bottom of each biosphere represents the place and time when colonization began. The opaque and translucent champagne glasses correspond to colonization at 50% and 100% of the speed of light, respectively, and overlaps show where independent civilizations meet

Like I said, I can't recommend this shit enough, one of my favourite non-fiction books I've ever read.

>>11083446
I'm sold, gonna download it off of somewhere

>>11083280
Are there any good realistic books about AI

>>11084286
One of my favourite books featuring an AI is actually The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Not that realistic, however.

>>11084286
Poseidon's Children trilogy has some of that

>>11084662
>Reynolds first announced his plans to write the Poseidon's Children trilogy (known at the time as the "11k" trilogy) in early 2009. He described the first novel of the series as featuring a utopian future where Africa is a leading technological power.
>Africa is a leading technological power.
Hmm, does it do it well?

>>11084838
It's okay.

Reminder that Perrin was true to his marriage vows for the entire series despite seduction attempts by the two most beautiful women in Randland.

>>11083440
I want to say Birgitte, but Elayne might have rubbed off on her at some point.

>>11085169
Perrin a shit.
Faile a massive shit!
Lanfear was best girl until she got ruined by Jordan

>>11085178
>Lanfear was best girl until she got ruined by Jordan
Guessing you mean Sanderson?
Can you recommend any good Lanfear fan art?

>>11081597
I did this with Starfish + Maelstrom
>surely it can only go down from here

>>11085213
I glossed over what you're replying too, but upon recollection I did exactly this.

>>11084286
Bishop - Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning (2006)

I'm a poor fag but I'd like to read the current issues of Asimov's/Analog/F&SF to see what they're like. Bookz doesn't seem to have them up to date. What do?

>>11085529
mobilism
irchighway/undernets #ebooks channel.

>>11085536
grazie mille

>>11085430
credited, read Hastie&Tbshirani too

>>11078345
are there more books like waldo rabbit? i really like the 3 so far. i want more comedy adventures.
ive read pretty much all the staples but i only found out about waldo rabbit because it got posted here. maybe some lesser known books. i dont mind indie authors or self published books.

>>11075033
I found it pretty meh and I enjoyed the Riyria books

>>11071130
I had a good enough time with it. Would've enjoyed the sequel more without the sex fairy shit.

>>11083446
This is the most interesting shit I've ever seen shilled here. Bought it already.

>>11083446
>>11087122

This is fucking gold anon, thanks

>>11085184
Sanderson was only doing what Jordan had laid out.

Well /sffg/ are they right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dnrcVZIK7M

>>11084838
White South Africans, dur.

>>11087682
they're dead jim