/lit/ - Literature

>>15745962

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF) July/August 2020

Knock, Knock Said the Ship - Rati Mehrotra
A Lunarian refugee and a spaceship AI who tells jokes may be the only chance they have when their spaceship is boarded.
Enjoyable

Last Night at the Fair - M. Rickert
An aged woman laments her loss of innocence and childlike wonder, but perhaps there's a way to regain it one last time.
Blah

Bible Stories for Adults No.37: The Jawbone - James Morrow
Biblical fanfiction more or less.
Blah

Spirit Level - John Kessel
Guy sees the ghost of his ex-wife even though she's alive and other supernatural happenings as well as various interpersonal problems.
Blah

All Hail the Pizza King and Bless His Reign Eternal - David Erik Nelson
See post image/magazine cover. A pizza oven is possessed by a demon and they have to fight it. Includes uxoricide, cannibalism, mental illness, Seinfeld, Bitcoin, and other stuff.
Ok

Madre Nuestra, Que Estas en Maracaibo - Ana Hurtado
Grandmother is dying. Daughter doesn't want her to. Granddaughter says she wants to. Conflict ensues.
Blah

A Bridge from Sea to Sky - Bennett North
An orbital elevator is in disrepair and due to government malfeasance this leads to events that no one expected, perhaps least of all the protagonist who sets them into motion.
Enjoyable

Crawfather - Mel Kassel
A family has hunted a massive crawdad for many generations and it has become an annual tradition to do so, even though from time to time family members die. This year it goes differently. I couldn't help but be thinking about Crawmerax the entire time.
Ok

'Omunculus - Madeleine Robins
A wealthy nobleman hires an engineer to develop an automaton that can speak like a human and learn. He identifies it as female, because it is subservient to him. A woman's liberation story follows.
Ok

The Staircase - Stephanie Feldman
Contemporary urban legend silliness that is meant to be unsettling but falls flat for me. I didn't like her previous story at all either that was along similar lines.
Blah

The Shape of Gifts - Natalia Theodoridou
Bird researchers fall in love with each other at their remote outpost. However, one of them isn't what they seem and a tragedy unfolds. Why do so many of these "lesbian" romances end with one of them dead by the end? Maybe it's just random chance by what I've been seeing. Also, soul(?) transferal between bodies briefly occurs.
Ok

I feel like the issues, but I haven't done an actual check, are increasingly lighter on speculative content in general, let alone SFF.

>>15802567
Any kino Aztec-inpsired fantasy books?

>>15802567
Hey, /sffg/, I need a little bit of help with this paragraph, as I don’t quite get what’s going on. This is from Le Morte D’Arthur, the part where Ulfius and Brastias go to France to make allies with King Ban and Bors. However, eight knights of Claudas’ host ambushed them and is about to take them prisoner. The rest is really difficult to decipher, and I really need your help telling me what’s going on. Any help would be appreciated.

>>15802601
Obsidian and Blood series

All patricians post in /hfg/ instead
>>15793667

>>15802627
The two knights make 4 passes on horseback at the 8 knights and each time they kill 2 more of the knights until they've killed all 8 of them.

Any fantasy novels that best encapsulates the pre-Tolkien era of the genre?

>>15802685
Wouldn't you be kind of muddying the definition and going into proper mythology or the 'fantasy' of medieval literature? Seems like a bad way to go about it. I think Tolkien is a good figure to use as a catalyst for fantasy because everything before him wasn't really seen as fantasy, just stories. You can find mythical creatures and the like in the modern period (1800s) but I wouldn't call that fantasy.

>>15802662
Thank you :). I’m trying to learn this archaic prose as best as I can, but it’s hard sometimes...

>>15802063
Sadly no :(

in other news i think i found the new queen of /sffg/, she wrote kino-YA fantasy just like our goddess Sarah Maas

Which one of you finished William D Arand remnant 3?
Was it good?
Did he pick up more women?
Does he fuck the kobold?
is the mc still angry?
Is that fucking annoying bitch brat (the siren's daughter) still opening her yhap?
Did it end with some big battle?

I finally finished The Dragons of Babel. I don't understand the point of it other than the author wanting to write more in that universe.
>MC from Iron Dragon's Daughter makes a cameo and tries to seduce MC of this book
>gets rejected
At least it's a nice way to know where this book took place in the continuity.

I'm reading this Gaylo series by Greg Bear, pretty hard fuckin' sci-fi right now.

>>15802783
Fuck! She looks like a slampiggie too.

>>15802583
>I feel like the issues, but I haven't done an actual check, are increasingly lighter on speculative content in general, let alone SFF.

There are a lot of reasons, but the fact that every writer has the tumblr knife to their throat is bound to dissuade the Cormac McCarthys of the world from taking up a pen.

>Since its founding in 2003, 4chan has attracted a unique population of deeply cynical men, once all young, but now aged from their 40s down to their teens, who generally use the board to express their angst through dark humor. People who are unhappy with the circumstances of their life tend to retreat there. The unhappier they are, the longer they stay and the more they post.

What a news article that is entirely true and entirely explains why these threads are always such a mess.

>>15802627
>>15802662
I don't think they explicitly killed them, just dehorsed them since it says "he was sore hurt or bruised"

>>15802898
When you run someone through with a spear, it tends to kill them in those times. That refers to the two victorious knights.

/sffg/, I may have accidentally made my story into 9/11 inspired islamophobic propaganda, which was not my intention at all, so to minimize the changes I need to make I'm turning the villain into a bush allegory. What do I name him?

I'm thinking Wright for a last name

>>15802927
you should probably just throw that garbage into the trash

>>15802887
I wish 40 year olds posted here then there would be some fucking quality.

>>15802944
>thinking it would be any different
Yeah, no.

Thoughts on the current state of modern fantasy?

>>15802936
and you should probably hang yourself, but you're still here

>>15802968
some good, some bad. just like books ever since books were invented

“One way you can describe the collapse of the idea of the future is the collapse of science fiction…Now it’s either about technology that doesn’t work or about technology that’s used in bad ways. The anthology of the top twenty-five sci-fi stories in 1970 was, like, ‘Me and my friend the robot went for a walk on the moon,’ and in 2008 it was, like, ‘The galaxy is run by a fundamentalist Islamic confederacy, and there are people who are hunting planets and killing them for fun.’” Peter Thiel

>>15803005
>‘The galaxy is run by a fundamentalist Islamic confederacy, and there are people who are hunting planets and killing them for fun.’

What book is this?

>>15802627
>>15802898
>>15802898
I don't think it really matters. "left them lying", "laid unto the earth", "fell to the earth", and similar expressions all imply the enemies are out of combat and that's what really matters. From the Chivalric spirit and all that, knights aren't so keen on killing others, but rather besting them.
Sometimes there will be an explicit mention of someone dying or getting killed ("fell dead to the earth"), but if there's no mention of someone getting back into the fight, don't really worry about them, because they've been bested and they probably won't show up again.

Breaking a spear just means they broke the spear, which usually means they won that pass, not that they pierced their enemies through. Problem is that it's also an expression related to dehorsing your opponent, and being dehorsed at full speed can be quite deadly. But again, the intent is on besting your opponent and not killing them.

>Be an individual!'“ Conroy contrived to make the slogan sound obscene. “And what's this been twisted into? The biggest Big Lie in history! It's no use making your life so private you refuse to learn from other people's experience—you just get stuck in a groove of mistakes you need never have made. We have
more knowledge available at the turn of a switch than ever before, we can bring any part of the world into our own homes, and what
do we do with it? Half the time We advertise goods people can't afford, and anyhow they've got the color and hold controls adrift because the pretty patterns are fun to look at when you've bolted and barred your mind with drugs. Split! Divide! Separate! Shut your eyes and maybe it'll go away!
>“We mine our gardens, we close our frontiers, we barricade our cities with Macnamara lines to shut off black from white, we divide, divide, divide!” A stamp emphasized each repetition of the word. “It gets into our families, goddamn it, it gets into our very lovemaking!
>Christ, do you know I had a girl student last year who thought she was having an affair with a boy back home and all they'd ever done was sit in front of the comweb and masturbate at
each other? Twenty miles apart! They'd never even kissed! We're going insane, our whole blasted species—we're heading for screaming ochlophobia! Another couple of generations and husbands will be afraid to be alone in the same room with their wives, mothers will be afraid of their babies, if there are any babies!
>“And for what purpose? Why are we encouraging the spread of this lunacy? I mean we here, in North America. I don't mean the
Afrikaners sitting smug on top of their pullulating heap of poor black devils hungry, half-naked and diseased, the richest people in
the world battening on the poorest. That's just greed, which is a comparatively clean kind of vice. I'm talking about perversion, horrible, disgusting, systematic, deliberate perversion of the power of Reason to destroy people without killing them, to strip them of their initiative, their joy in life, their hope, for Christ's sake, their last ultimate irreducible human resource, hope.
>Out of sheer desperation millions of people are abandoning the use of reason, bankrupting themselves to buy mass-produced plastic idols, in a last puerile attempt to outdo the bastards who've made 'Reason' a dirty word.

Haha would you imagine living in a world like that? scifi writers from the 60s sure have a lot of imagination!

What advice do you have for someone wanting to write fantasy?

>Be an individual!'“ Conroy contrived to make the slogan sound obscene. “And what's this been twisted into? The biggest Big Lie in history! It's no use making your life so private you refuse to learn from other people's experience—you just get stuck in a groove of mistakes you need never have made.
>We have more knowledge available at the turn of a switch than ever before, we can bring any part of the world into our own homes, and what do we do with it? Half the time We advertise goods people can't afford, and anyhow they've got the color and hold controls adrift because the pretty patterns are fun to look at when you've bolted and barred your mind with drugs. Split! Divide! Separate! Shut your eyes and maybe it'll go away!
>“We mine our gardens, we close our frontiers, we barricade our cities with Macnamara lines to shut off black from white, we divide, divide, divide!” A stamp emphasized each repetition of the word. “It gets into our families, goddamn it, it gets into our very lovemaking!
>Christ, do you know I had a girl student last year who thought she was having an affair with a boy back home and all they'd ever done was sit in front of the comweb and masturbate at each other? Twenty miles apart! They'd never even kissed! We're going insane, our whole blasted species—we're heading for screaming ochlophobia! Another couple of generations and husbands will be afraid to be alone in the same room with their wives, mothers will be afraid of their babies, if there are any babies!
>“And for what purpose? Why are we encouraging the spread of this lunacy? I mean we here, in North America. I don't mean the
Afrikaners sitting smug on top of their pullulating heap of poor black devils hungry, half-naked and diseased, the richest people in
the world battening on the poorest. That's just greed, which is a comparatively clean kind of vice. I'm talking about perversion, horrible, disgusting, systematic, deliberate perversion of the power of Reason to destroy people without killing them, to strip them of their initiative, their joy in life, their hope, for Christ's sake, their last ultimate irreducible human resource, hope.
>Out of sheer desperation millions of people are abandoning the use of reason, bankrupting themselves to buy mass-produced plastic idols, in a last puerile attempt to outdo the bastards who've made 'Reason' a dirty word.

Haha would you imagine living in a world like that? scifi writers from the 60s sure have a lot of imagination!

Just finished the Farseer trilogy. And I know I'm super late to say this. But jesus christ, I can't believe how similar it is to game of thrones. They were published around the same time, so it's hard to say who copied who. Maybe Robin Hobb and GRRM shared notes. I don't know. But it's ODD.

I'm too tired to write more right now. I have a lot to say about the the third book though.

>>15803170
Dune

Should I take a chance at the Wheel of time? I heard the first book plays off like Fellowship, then just becomes its own thing later on.

>>15802968
90% of everything is shit

>>15803659
never take chances, die safely

Fuck E William Brown

>>15803005
um, dune??

So how do I get into /lit/'s self published collection

>>15802583
Thanks for suggestion, but no. Most if not all of these are sjw and women authors, hiding behind pen names.
Pic related is mr bennet north (who is also an editor of some transgender/women sff web magazine)

>>15803442
weird take desu but I'm looking forward to your thoughts on it

>>15804026
Neck yourself.

>>15804276
shoo shoo tranny

>>15802685
Lord Dunsany.

How the fuck - I am asking this with total sincerity - Can Sanderson write a book with 435k words; and not do the most basic editing, cutting of chaff or just simple reordering of sentences?
And even then, why is his lack of writing-talent not commented on more?

I thought I was being nit-picky when I noticed the constant passive voice, but fuck me, there are some craft issues here that I'd expect a Middle Schooler to make, and it's in a published work.
It felt like I was reading 'And then, and then, and then, and then, and then...' for the past 500 pages.
There's no image, there's nothing but words telling you what shit looks like, I can't see the things he writes.
His character's, bar one - and go figure it's the one that the normies dislike - are so fucking cringeworthy that I'm surprised that it's touted as 'serious' fantasy by so many people.
His animu fight scenes aren't even good. They feel bloated as fuck, and frankly boring to read.

He can teach, whatever that's fine. He might be a nice enough guy irl, got no problem with the dude.
But I just don't see the charm. Alarm bells rang when I read his blog posts to understand his thought process - like, surely something must've gone wrong - and it was just a fucking mess.
I needed to vent, my reading circle seriously gets upset when their idol is given any sort of criticism.

>>15802927
Stick with the islamophobic propaganda.

>>15803005
Did Thiel publish anything on his thoughts on stagnation? His main book looked like it was about startups, but it's his take on the strange inertia of our times that interests me. I liked Ross Douthat's "The Decadent Society" but it has a heavy NY Times infusion and when Thiel speaks about it he sounds clearer of vision.

Is there any market for military scifi in this day and age?

>>15804525
Only if it's a gang of empowered lesbians

>>15804525
There's mountains of it being produced on the lower tiers, so probably the kindle unlimited mosh pit and audiobooks.

>>15804377
>his characters are incredible

Is there a better sci-fi novel than Ender's game?

>>15804893
Speaker for the Dead

>>15804893
Probably.

>>15804893
About 1000

>>15804377
>write a book with 435k words;
It's because before editing the book was ~15-20% longer. Or perhaps he said something like that about the Stormlight sequels. It came up in the livestream he did with Christopher Paolini lately. The editing and test-reader process he uses does seem a bit arcane, as he seems to be on his fifth draft of Stormlight 4 according to the website.
But perhaps he writes this way intentionally. While I like the cosmere stuff when considered as a larger whole, I've found the few YA books of his I've read to be way more insufferable.
I've also noticed he might be using the trope of a dead brother a bit too much, it seems almost like a unifying theme in the Stormlight books.

>>15802887
>express their angst through dark humor
>humor
Pretty fucking generous way to describe petulant whining and lazy shitposting.

>>15804377
Pretty crazy how I always see mouthbreathing fans of Sanderson claiming how much he's improved since Mistborn, but it's evidently clear that that there's been fuck all improvement. All the issues people continue to list about SLA are pretty much exactly the shit that made the first Mistborn such a mediocre read. Good thing I never bothered reading anything more from him.

>>15804989
>posting variations of wojak isnt humour

>>15802662
Lmao when I first read the passage I was completely confused, read this, went back and it made perfect sense. Thanks bro, I’m retarded

I'm writing a space road trip travelogue between two characters, gimme some one-sentence ideas for weird characters they come across.

>>15805258
Pre-Lacerta Earth in Diaspora is the most solarpunk setting I've ever seen.

>>15805258
you own a Nintendo switch, don't you?

>>15805266
Sounds good. Thanks.

>Way of Kings Kickstarer now has 4million worth of money now
literally fucking how

>>15803934
By picking a book and reading it?

>>15804276
You seem upset.

>>15805273

Does SFFG respect the Foundation series?

>>15805298
200$ minimum for the book.

>>15805298
You sound jealous of a mainstream author.

>>15802824
kill yourself

>>15805354
Not them, but;
>Jealous of a mainstream author

>See >>15804377
>Whose entire career is held up by social media bloating
>Female characters consist of Witty, Quippy and Sarcastic
>Male characters consist of 'What is sex?' and 'I have 15 children.'
>'Oh I hope my readers haven't read the bible...' or 'If they read the bible, they'll get a kick out of this!'
>"Storm you/Storm It" - Wow, so clever.
That's one that really fucking shines the light on Sanderson not taking his audience seriously. Just say fuck. He's an 40 year old that can't say fuck. He's a man-child given, but still an adult.
>Utilitarian descriptions to the point of zero fucking prose. Why write a book at all if you ain't going to use the hallmark of novel writing?
>More simply, a man that cannot write

I'd rather die knowing I pleased 1000 people with a genuine attempt at a masterpiece rather than forcing my social media cult's positivity on everything about the book.

>>15805354
I am literally just asking how

>>15802567
What's some good warhammer 40k fiction?

>>15805410
>>"Storm you/Storm It" - Wow, so clever.
>That's one that really fucking shines the light on Sanderson not taking his audience seriously. Just say fuck. He's an 40 year old that can't say fuck. He's a man-child given, but still an adult.
That's just weak

>>15802601
There is the "Tekumel" universe by some guy called M A R Barker who was just as obsessed with details as Tolkien, but it never took off the way LOTR did. It is more a role playing background, but he has written several novels that take place in that universe too.

>>15805334
I tried to read those books once but the dry as dust and painfully unengaging and unnatural style made it impossible to read more than a couple of pages.

>>15805471
Just the awful and glaringly made up names of the characters made me cringe so hard

Has anyone read this?

Reading through Heretics of Dune, and it's slowly becoming sadder that I'm going to eventually have to stop despite there being like 50 more books.
The journey so far has been great, but man, is it rough knowing what mediocre cash grabs KJA and Brian Herbert churning out.

why do you idiots read fiction when wikipedia is so much better

>>15805654
>always just 5 clicks from Hitler
Wikipedia is too utopian for me.

>>15805590
Just think of the Brian Herbert books are shitty fan fiction instead of official books so you don't feel as bad.

>>15804946
>It's because before editing the book was ~15-20% longer.
I struggle to believe this, because there's so much that I ask myself 'Why wasn't this cut out?'
The interludes can be entirely jettisoned. If they really mattered to the story that much; he would've incorporated Szeth into one of the 5 parts as bookends.
For what the story tells, there is no reason for it to be more than 250k words.
Fellowship of the Ring and Dune - two works that WoK is 'On the same level as' - were both ~180k words, and are great.
WoK is nowhere in the leagues of either, and is more than double the length.
That's a fucking problem, Sanderson's yes-men and mouth-breathers can deny it all they want; it's quantity over quality at play and the fact people aren't upset by it baffles me.

Also, I really struggle to believe it because this comes from the man that says "Finish the second chapter before revisiting/rewriting the first chapter." because it feels like he's doing this on a much larger scale of finishing book 2 before revisiting book 1.

>>15805322

>>15805395
Are you some underage newfag?
Since the last thread I've seen you telling people to an hero, when what the person posted was about books. Do you feel some type of thrill telling people shit and not getting into trouble?

>>15805410
>>"Storm you/Storm It" - Wow, so clever.
>That's one that really fucking shines the light on Sanderson not taking his audience seriously. Just say fuck. He's an 40 year old that can't say fuck. He's a man-child given, but still an adult.
It's not earth. Curses / cusses are developed from the culture / world you live in. Why can't you autists understand that storms are the worst things that happen on that world, so of course it will become a curse. It's like when you have books with magic and actual Gods, they say the death God's name and some body part (balls,cock, dark asshole, etc).
You read a fantasy book and expect everything to be earth like? Cultures to follow earth customs? Why the fuck are you reading fantasy you fucking spergs?

>>15806166
There is a reason why the best thing an author can possible is a good editor.
Word economy is sadly something that is mostly ignored today.

>>15806424
don't get me wrong, people get that.
But it sounds like a fucking joke and my eyes burn so bad when I read it.

>>15806424
Because it's so fucking obvious what it is.
It's not clever.

>It's worldbuilding
That's a fucking stretch. That's a reeeal fucking stretch.
If it were good worldbuilding, he'd go the Dutch-Afrikaans route and use something akin to Bliksem - a by product or possible element of the thing that's unpleasant; not the entire thing.
It get's confusing when I'm reading "We'll leave you out in the Highstorm" and wondering if it's a literal storm or there's some weird sort of compound cursing going on.

>You read a fantasy book and expect everything to be earth like?
Fuck no.
But Sanderson sure thinks so, so I don't know why you brought up the point.

>>15806166
That spoilered character will be the feature character of Stormlight 5.
What Branny Sanny set out to write with the Stormlight Archive was not a good/desirable book by conventional publishing standards, such books do not have several prologues and epilogues, a multitude of interludes, or so many seemingly superfluous characters. He set out to write something he wanted: a bloated Gordian epic with bricks enough to build an outhouse, and all that tied in to his Cosmere universe.
He has all these plans, all this "feature creep." Small characters and off-hand references might gain relevance several books down the line (or even in a separate series series set on another world), or might be equally obscure characters from past books. With each new book the lore continues to sprawl and hardcore fans gobble it up, catalog it in wikis and eagerly speculate over the new holes in the fabric of the greater story.

It might not be optimal for many readers, but it is interesting to see him slowly chipping away at this Sisyphean task. So what I'm saying is that it is a mess by design and we'll see in 40 years what has come of it.

>>15802567
Top 5 Best Rated Books With 17+ Ratings By The /sffg/ Goodreads Group (only the first book in a series is included and other limitations)
The Way of Kings
Dune
The Shadow of the Torturer
Ubik
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Is this representative? It's a mystery. The Way of Kings is considerably higher than the other 4.

>>15802968
https://www.goodreads.com/genres/most_read/fantasy
Basically it's another form of Harlequin books.

>>15806927
god, i really need to start using the term 'classic fantasy' rather than simply 'fantasy' when people ask me what i like to read

>>15805307
No, I mean I just published something.

>>15806927
>Lydia Kang

/sffg/, I think I might have come up with the stupidest possible defeat for a villain ever: he gets stuck in the elevator

>>15807210
With Merv Griffin?

>>15804132
>>15803442
Throughout my read, starting with the first book, there were many things that made me think "that sounds like game of thrones." But I didn't bother noting them, so they're already fading from memory. And I didn't mention this in previous threads, because I was afraid it would invite spoilers.
But as soon as I finished the trilogy, I googled "farseer trilogy game of thrones", and sure enough, there are a bunch of people making the same observation. GRRM and Robin Hobb even did an event together. So I suppose they're buddies. I didn't look into much farther than that. But if you wanted to dig deeper than myself, you might be interested in this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXLYSnMIrXM

Here are some similarities I recall:
- They both have prophetic fools.
- They both have warging/wit sense. And while this ability practically works on any animal, it's mostly portrayed through wolves.
- The protagonist dies, and his spirit is held inside of his wolf friend. This is only theory of course. But most ASoIaF fans agree that Jon reached out to Ghost just before he died, and believe that Winds of Winter will have at least a chapter dedicated to Jon inhabiting Ghost's body, before he's resurrected.
- It's also notable that Fitz and Jon's downfall happens after they are betrayed in a raucous confusing event. For Fitz, he kills a couple of the betrayers, before Regal's men take him down. But not without the interception of some of the King's men, resulting in a crazy fight. His death comes later after some imprisonment. Whereas Jon's death is more immediate, but it's pretty much the same. The disloyal men kill him, while they fight against King Stannis's men in a crazy mess.

- All of the talk regarding stone dragons. Obviously in Farseer, the dragons are literally carved from stone. However, in Game of Thrones, it's more symbolic. You have dragonstone, where it was optimal to birth dragons. And of course dragon eggs turning to stone over time. Thus Daenerys birthing her dragons were like waking dragons from stone. Melisandre has some wacko prophesy about king's blood waking strone dragons. Shireen, Stannis's daughter, has a dream about dragons eating her. Cressen says "Cressen: We have talked of this before. The dragons cannot come to life. They are carved of stone, child". This is interesting on two levels. 1, being the parallel of living stone dragons, but 2, that Shireen's greyscale is symbolic of a partial dragonic nature. It's there in the name "gray scale". As if a dragon was turned into stone.
And that's exactly what the disease was originally. It's said to be a curse that killed off Valyrian conquerors. So it killed dragon people by turning them into stone.

>>15807543
tbf assassin's quest came out 14 years before the book where the jon/ghost thing (probably) happens

>>15807396
nope. Just a jackass stuck on an elevator a milein the air with no way to get up or down

What's a fantasy book with SOUL in it?

>>15803442
>>15804132
The other game of thrones similarities are already slipping from memory. But about the book itself:
I didn't think they would actually cuck fitz. The idea came to me in the second book, when Molly and Burrich were getting close. But I thought "naahhh, not THIS book. That's too dark for this book". And then throughout the entire third book, with every Molly/Burrich dream, I thought "no waaaaay.... He's like a grandfather to her. He's too old. Even if Fitz doesn't come back, they still wouldn't do it" And then they did it.
But then they did something I never considered, they cucked Fitz TWICE in a ROW. With his own fucking BODY. Like that was insane. Because I thought Fitz and Kettricken were going to cuck Verity. But no. Turns out all the leering those two did at one another was just to make Fitz's cucking that much more painful. You know somewhere deep down he desired Kettricken. And she made it clear as the blue sky that she would fuck him, if not for Verity. And then Verity snatches his body to fuck her at the last minute. I can't believe they did that to him.

Except I CAN kind of see why they did that to him, because Fitz ended up being a huge bitch. Like, this wasn't fair. For him, or me the reader. At the start of Book 3, they downgrade Fitz to be a little bitch boy. And he remains that way for the remainder of the book. He doesn't grow at all. He makes fuck up after fuck up, never masters his emotions, never makes smart decisions, despite being fed information.(on the rare occasion anyone ever communicates to each other) The book lampshades the fact that he's a fuck up, but I still hate that fact. The book lampshades the fact that no one communicates, and I hate that too.

The book was so much longer than the second one, which was longer than the first one. Which I suppose is fine, because they introduce new characters, and it gives the room required to flesh out the journey. But the journey honestly felt like some weird wizard of oz thing, completely divorced from the events the preceded it. Like the universe got reset. This weird follow the skill road journey felt like the kind of story you would get in the first book, not the third one. But what really bothered me, was again that Fitz wasn't growing or even changing. Everyone was more or less the same character for the WHOLE length of the story. Until all the changes get cramped in the final couple chapters. When Fitz didn't suspect the Fool's strange behavior and his insistence to know where Molly was, I was whisper-screaming at the air at how stupid he was.

>>15807576
Right, right. But I think Jon's death was planned for a long time. Remember, GRRM wanted the books to be a trilogy, and it kind of spun into something larger. Even though George is taking longer to get his book done, their first books were released only a year apart. Hobb's being first.

>>15807793
I think burrich is only in his 30s in the farseer books, his age is upplayed a bit due to the younger narrator
assassin's quest is definitely the most divisive book in the entire elderlings series for sure. or maybe not divisive but definitely the most complained about
liveship is completely different but also very similar in some ways

>>15803442
>>15804132
Oh yeah, and it was kind of lame that we never got to know more about the red ships. There's a brief sketch of explanation at the very end. And it's some hamfisted idea of the circle of revenge. The red ship raiders taking revenge for what dutchies folk did to them long ago.
Which is some crazy thing about them having been "forged" in a sense, by the feelings they lost while in the presence of dragons. And then they learned how to make their own magic that resembles the dragon magic. So their forging ships were fitted with black stone that stole feelings from people. And if this isn't what GRRM is planning for ASoIaF, then I'll eat my shoe. I bet the Others are akin to the red ship's black stone. They were created to enact some long held grudge. They're some kind of imperfect dragon magic.

Oh also, I just remembered the whole "three heads has the dragon" thing. A quote from game of thrones. Connected to the prince that was promised prophecy. Well in the Farseer Trilogy, you have a three headed dragon of sorts. Verity, The Fool, and Fitz. All capable of waking dragons from stone.

>>15807921
the red ships thing is expanded on a bit towards the end of the third trilogy

>>15807877
I wanted The Fool to be a girl. I mean, I guess he's a cool character if you're into gay ships or whatever. But I still was hoping he was actually a girl.

Are there any books (other than the starwars franchise) that give the feel of Knights of the Old Republic and characters as great as Kreia?
ominous, dark but not scary, or horror.
topic on the nature of the universe like the contemplations on the force.
scifi or fantasy I'm not picky

>>15807877
>>15807968
oh yeah, and another thing: Starling left a kid with Fitz at the end. Was it really just some random kid, or was it secretly Fitz's kid? I mean, they ended up fucking near the end, with this whole idea of people needing comforting lies or some crazy logic. I forget exactly. But the gist being that they were willing to pretend, if it meant they could bring each other comfort. And that's a lesson Fitz takes to heart.(one of the few lessons this guy actually learns, is how to lie. Which he should have ALREADY known, thanks to his assassin's training, but whatever) I can see their arc ending with Starling lying about her and his child, if it meant that Fitz would comfortably watch over him, without the whole family drama.

Or worst: What if the kid is secretly her own that she had with another man. That would mean Fitz got cucked THRICE.

>>15808067
nah hap is just a rapechild of the red ship raiders I think.
also I may be autistic but I was actually fairly empathetic to most of fitz decision making. sure, a lot of it was pretty dumb, especially in retrospect, but I think most of it was reasoned fairly well during that moment.

>>15806177
Botw 2 looks nice (:

>>15808209
I don't think he was reasoning at all. He would become overly emotional, and then whatever reason he had would fly out of the window, and he'd just do whatever he felt like doing. Despite repeated warnings. Despite actually suffering pain for his rash actions. He always fell back into the same poor decision making patterns.

This reminds me of what I said about the first book. About how it all seems to be about mental health.(or lack thereof) Fitz's behavior is probably meant to resemble that of an addict. An addict to elfbark, and an addict to the skill. His addiction to the wit is something he can't kick, but he eventually learns how to function with. Burrich being like Fitz's sponsor in an AA program, he tries to keep him on the path of sobriety, and helps him when he relapses. I don't think there is any coincidence that Molly's father is a drunk. Because while Fitz isn't a "drunk" in a technical sense, he still acts like an addict, that that's why there is so much tension between him and molly. Until he "cleans his act" so to speak, she can't accept him. And he always relapses. He always puts his addiction ahead of her. Burrich is a literal drunk, but he still learns to master himself, and becomes a trustworthy man. His mental fortitude against the wit is so much stronger than Fitz's, and that parallels his fortitude in life in general. Burrich IS capable of changing for Molly, despite his occasional faults, he's a reliable guy.

>>15808302
>>15808209
Oh, and it just came to me that in the third book, Fitz is literally and metaphorically "chasing the dragon".

>>15807991
Elfhunter by CS Marks hits some similar notes. Especially Darth Sion hunting the Exile.

>>15808361
Not so much the philosophy though

Thoughts on city of brass? I'm about 300 pages in and unimpressed

>>15804377

>>15805030
I'm not a fan of Sanderson but I will say that there has been clear progress since mistborn, just not enough that he's worth reading

>>15806562
>I don't know why you brought up the point.
Because you want them to cuss like they are a sailor on earth.
You're like those ignorant americans who don't understand there are other cultures in real life where shit happens, and they flip their shit when thet see it in books. Case in point, there are cultures where the breast is exposed, so of course it would lose it's appeal as a sexual object, but mommy deprived americlaps think everything revolves around breasts.

>>15803659
I've only read the first two books, they are ok. they are also incredibly easy to read, i'm a slow reader but i finished the great hunt in like 3 days.

So what modern fantasy / sci-fi is actually good? I haven't read nearly enough that I can dismiss it and knowing the scope of human output at least some of it has to be good but I've also only read trash so far

>>15808937
There hasn't been progress since mistborn. He's gotten worse. At least mistborn was just a trilogy

>>15809073
The Book of the New Sun

>>15809073
None. People write like middle school and high school students. No plot is worth subjecting yourself to that

>>15809082
I would say the ways of kings is significantly better being a relative term

>>15809094
lol, okay
what books ARE good, then?
lmao

>>15809108
The real red pill is that literary snobs are right that genre fiction is bad, it's just that so are most works outside genre fiction with the exception with a handful of book are also bad so most often the snobbery is hypocritical

>>15808937
>progress since mistborn
I don't get this. Way of Kings greatest problem IMO, is that it's fucking BLOATED, Mistborn, simply by the virtue of being a smaller book, is not suffering from that
The new Mistborn series being downright fast paced

>>15809105
His cosmere shit is awful. He writes for the cosmere crap rather than as a neat little extra. His writing suffers from it

>>15809129
Wrong, all non -genere fiction is boring. That's a fact.

>>15809131
I find the way of kings bloat inoffensive and while not good it's just all around better than mistborn imo. It also feels weird to debate the relative merits of the novels from an author I despise

>>15809180
>author I despise
That's some dedication to keep on reading his fat books just to shit on him, in a non-debate setting

>>15809206
I unironically have a problem with reading absolute shit, any thing you put in front of me I usually finish in a few days regardless of quality, it was probably at it's worst when my step grandfather died and I ended up reading a good chunk of his collection of 80s self help books

>>15809235
>step grandfather
I understand now

>>15809272
I never pretended not to be autistic as fuck

Thinking about posting a link to my novelette in pdf format here. Would that be a bad idea? I'd just like people to read it since it's not making me money anyway.

>>15809308
I'd read it

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08BZ25FLW/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Self-published my first serious book. Wish me luck, anons.

>>15809325
Krabe was better, sad to see a decline in quality

>>15809360
I'll probably never top Krabe anyway.

Also come on anon no way you read both

>>15809073

Terra Ignota is pretty slick, although the first book is really, really slow to get going. The later books are a worthwhile payoff though.

Here's a link to my sci-fi novelette.

>What is the spark of life? How many years can pass before it’s too late to fix our mistakes? Off World begins with a young man named Jasper South waking from a ten year stay in cryostasis. He’s woken forty years early by his former employee, Phillip Swan, who has lived those ten long years entangled in a world of illegal, state-of-the-art science and the criminal underworld. Jasper finds that a dark conspiracy has put not only his life in danger, but the lives of those he loves.

The link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vDHaDhtLb0wQGVpekIcf_KsYzf_2euGW/view?usp=sharing

If you enjoy it my email is attached. Having testimonials will help me promote it in future.

>>15809636
Cool beans. I hope your parents like it too

>>15809677
My mum read it the other day. She reads mum-fiction. But she finished this story and liked it. So yeah it was cool.

>>15809636
>physical version is apparently double spaced as well based on page count as well as other silliness
MADNESS

>>15809636
>"publisher" is for CHRISTIAN AUTHORS
>biblical names and references
>3:69, but what book?
>MOON LANDING WAS FAKED!
>It's not possible to leave Earth, it's a cover up!
>This lie has been perpetuated for 300 years!
>Somehow no one has figured it out

>>15809711
Nice anon :]

What you cunts reading?

>>15810174

Fall, or dodge in Hell

>>15810174
The City and the Stars

What's some sci-fi where the "sci" is so elusive that it might as well be outright mystical? Stuff like Dying Inside, Solaris, and Roadside Picnic come to mind. I find this to be the perfect sweet spot for exploring characters and humanity in general.

>>15810174
The city of brass

>>15810269

Ted Chiang's work. Best known for the film "Arrival" but a lot of his short fiction pulls that off.

Other authors that get there;
Michael Swanwick (Stations of the Tide, Vacuum Flowers, various anthologies)

China Mieville; Three moments of an Explosion, others

Hannu Rajaniemi; The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince, The Causal Angel

That's just off the top of my head.

>>15803659
yes.

>>15810322
10/10 response. Thank you.

>>15802879
Triggered

>>15802583
>speculative tone
Do you want actual hard SF speculation in the stories?
>>15804026
>triggered

>>15802685
actual pre-Tolkien works
The King of Elflands Daughter - Lord Dunsany
Mabinogion - Evangeline Walton
The Worm Ouroboros - E.R. Eddison
Conan the Barbarian - Robert E. Howard
>>15802858
>I don't understand the point of it other than the author wanting to write more in that universe
Is a work of fiction supposed to have a point other than telling a story?
Also there has been a third and probably final book published this year, The Iron Dragon's Mother

think i realized i don't enjoy the adventuring or fighting in fantasy that much, i prefer the political/sucession stuff more in these books

Only posting this for that one awesome anon who wanted to post in /hfg/
>>15810843

Come join everyone else, if you want.

>>15810805
Funny, I'm getting to the exact opposite point where the politics are becoming boring and I just want the adventure.

>>15810805
lucky for you every multi-volume epic fantasy is 700 pages of running and politicking and one 15 pages fight

>>15810702
I think you misunderstood what you read. I was saying that issues overall seem to have more and more stories that don't have any speculation, by which I meant they aren't fantasy or science fiction, which is the ostensible purpose of the magazine.

I need some recommendations anons. I listen to a lot of audiobooks at work and i'll be done with my current series tomorrow. These books are my crutch.

Recent series i've listened/read and enjoyed:
>Red Rising
>The Expanse
>Stormlight Archive
>Forge of Gods
>The Cradle series

Last time I posted on 4chan an anon recommended me the expanse, I love that anon.

Speaking of adventure, what are just some great adventure books? Vast wildernesses, small towns with cozy inns, sprawling cities that can be seen from miles away, the good stuff.
Sci-fi or fantasy is both good.

>>15811147
Dragonlance

>>15804377
Who's the character that the normies don't like?

lit in this universe?

>>15805453
>Tekumel
This seems interesting, gonna check it out thanks anon

>>15803659
FUCK
THIS
STUPID
SERIES
SO
FUCKING
MUCH
I FUCKING HATE IT

>>15802858
>I don't understand the point of it other than the author wanting to write more in that universe.

That's all. Swanwick is past his prime. To his great credit he stayed relevant longer than his contemporaries like Gibson, and published more works that have lasting potential.

The Iron Dragon's Mother is similar in that regard but maybe slightly better. Swanwick is not a consistently spectacular novelist; his best work is usually short fiction and some of his novels are just bad attempts to expand his short fiction into novellas.

He's an interesting and underappreciated writer. He was an early social networker in the 1970's, 1980s, 1990's science fiction community. I would like to be able to say something like, "without his efforts I don't know where we would be" but the truth is that without his efforts we would not be where we are. Which is different and more conceptually challenging.

IMO Swanwick is a sort of under-the-radar Roddenberry.

>>15811147
Ringworld

>>15811481
Library at Mount Char

>>15810600

My pleasure. Thank you, too.

Any books with deergirls? It has come to my knowledge that doe are sluts with their tongues. I'm sure any books with doegirls would have crazy head.

>>15811481
Second library at mount char

>>15810224
>The City and the Stars
WTF that is next on my list. I stumbled across that book because David Brin named the young hoonish adventurer in his last three "Uplift" novels Alvin, apparently after the main character in that book by Arthur C Clarke.

>>15811091
Get yourself some Alastair Reynolds as read by John Lee.

>>15803659
EotW is written beautifully but is mind numbingly boring.
I got about 300 deep and couldn't stomach much more LotR fanfic.

Does anybody have a source for the Wildbow- Ward ebook? The mobilism and Libgen mirrors are alle dead as far as I can tell l.

>>15810269
Kefahuchi Tract trilogy

>>15811583
>>15811816
kaye I'll have a look

>>15812635
scrape the site and convert it to an epub

>>15811481
What even is this?

>>15803285
watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6HOdHEeosc&list=WL&index=23&t=6s
Gives you a decent insight into the process of writing a novel from the back end perspective, something you can only get from people who have written an entire novel and published it.

>>15806424
>Why can't you autists understand that storms are the worst things that happen on that world, so of course it will become a curse.

Right, which is why on Earth we use 'fuck'. Oh wait...

>>15813015
>Sanderson

I get that he's a teacher and all, but honestly he's not the best reference.
I don't need to link the arguments why that's the case.

>>15813090
This is a stupid thing to say and you should feel bad for holding such an opinion.

His lectures clearly outline multiple writing methods and how to refine and edit your own shit-scribbling, even if you don't enjoy his work you can't slight the information he puts forth.

>>15813122
his methods work for some people and but not for everyone. You can use it if it works for you.

>>15811305
Broooo please tell me the niggas in pic related are just constantly smashing and chillin

>>15812653

Oh, jeez... that fucker wrote another one?

>>15811091
Try the six "Uplift" novels by David Brin.

>>15802968
I'll take modern fantasy over nineties fantasy any day of the week. I'm sorry peeps, but Stormlight Archive is a million times better than reading more Terry Goodkind or the piles of terrible D&D novels that flooded the market back then. Wheel of Time was neat until we realized we were being strung out with an endless series of books that we all suspected would never be completed. The covers suck now though. Frazetta's art got me into reading. I have no idea why any kid would want to read anything after seeing today's cover art.

>>15811782
Gene Wolfe's Tracking Song

>>15813034
You must be American, I'm sure of it. Canadians and Europeans have more logical synapses than you guys. Probably all those decades of purposely dumbing down the population for better control of the masses.

>>15809636
>pdf
post the epub, you fucking nigger
also why did you put our email on every single page?

>>15804377
>And even then, why is his lack of writing-talent not commented on more?
I'm too busy enjoying the experience to criticize it. I love the characters. I enjoy the fight scenes. I don't even notice the writing. I watch the movie. I'm feel like a kid in a comic book store all over again.

>>15804905
The worst book I've ever read. Period.

>>15813462
This. They don't realise that fantasy has improved somewhat. These are some improvements I saw:
>you don't have much doormat protagonist anymore
>the authors no longer insults your intelligence (to your face) with stupid ass endings because they want to tie shit up
>the goodie two-shoes protagonist who lets an enemies live to come back and attack him again is decreasing
>there are less blatant deus ex machina in books
>we are moving away from stupid lotr quick knockoffs for cash books
>you are not locked into a publisher deciding when you can get a book to maximize their profits
>a lot of writers are mixing modern technology or scientific understanding into their books, it's fun reading about magical engineering or magical biological warfare.

>>15813663
So if you post it on pirating site, his email will be available for snitches to inform him.

>>15813712
I liked it.

Is there any chance the WoT show will be good? The showrunner is just some guy who was a contestant on Survivor.

>>15814099
in 2020? nope

Just finished Accelerando. Read it properly and with a dictionary. What did /lit/ think of it? I disliked the family drama but otherwise thought it was pretty good and thought the frantic feel was pretty appropriate. Got a bit easier to read when time went on and he could reference less random real world shit.

>>15813712

Shit taste

>>15814259

It was alright. Pretty fun, snappy singularitarian stuff at the time it was written, but getting quite dated these days. Not Stross' best work overall.

>>15802567
on the topic of high and low tech in single setting, Alastair Reynolds' Terminal World had a great setup for exactly that sort of thing, where Something Happened and broken the fabric of spacetime in such a way that the "resolution" of particles scaled up and down in unpredictable ways, leading to regions of the world where no technology or even life was possible because everything just sort of merged into a single particle/lump because thats all that the spacetime could manage in that spot. Interesting concept, fun book.

>>15806917
Book of the New Sun is literally best possible Sci Fi so all 5 should just be first 4 in BotNS and then Urth of the New Sun.

>>15814099
Seems p diverse, does this kind of distribution happen naturally?

>>15814099
The wot books were shit, you expect the show that is based on shit to actually be good?

>>15814099
>confirmed changing character endings
>confirmed changing Rands harem
>moiraine isn’t short
>”there will be pillowfriends galore ;)”
>Rand doesn’t stick out now that 2 rivers people are all diverse so why would he feel like he doesn’t belong
>the trollocs will look like shit
Of course it’s going to be terrible. Almost as bad as Amazon’s Middle Earth series

>>15814370
>dated
Sure it has many dated things all the way through, but what makes that noteworthy enough to point out? Just by being about the singularity makes it less "dated" than 99% of SciFi. The first chapters were more satirical than serious predictions. So you don't then take that and analyze it from a modern perspective with how the years in the book line up with real life. Do you read classic SciFi condescendingly snorting throughout too?

>>15815069
>Just by being about the singularity makes it less "dated" than 99% of SciFi
Nah. According to Ray Kurzweil's original predictions in The Singularity is Near (which to this date he defends as being essentially correct) we in 2020 should be able to buy a human-level AI for one grand among many other predictably wrong things that didn't happen. Accelerando is only a slight exaggeration of how those people thought it was going to go down. It's approaching flying cars levels of dated.

Most of those technocratic Silicon Valley sorts have graduated into straight up neoreactionaries or libertarians that want to set up colonies in space/the sea

>>15813712
Only second to Prince of Thorns to me.

e william brown a fuck

>>15802567
How come we are having so many /g/ authors? Why is it that almost all new authors know how to code?

I dropped A Fire Upon the Deep am I a brainlet?

>>15815526

pmuch yeah

>>15815526
Yes.

>>15810805
>Bro, surface level medieval European politics, but with mages! Lmao
It gets a little tiresome after a while.

>>15810805

Off you go

>>15815616
I just rather magical guns being used.

Any good /sffg/ with a bounty hunter wild west-type of protagonist?

>>15816158
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15793094-the-six-gun-tarot

>>15812127
Second time an anon recommend me this series. Imma pull the trigger.

>>15816378
By series I meant the revelation space series.

>>15809636
Will read and report back.

>>15816038
based

>>15816158
You just described The Dresden Files and the Temple Chronicles.

How could he just leave best girl, Io___ like that?

>>15816893
Why was Io so damn thirsty for him?

>>15811554
Oh I didn't mean to bash him or anything. This has been my third book of his, behind the other Babel and Stations of the Tide. Someone recommended some of his works ITT a while back while I was searching for weird fantasy/sci-fi. It is most certainly DIFFERENT but I like it.

Recommending this. Nothing groundbreaking or deep, just a good read with a fun setting. Can recommend the rest of the trilogy as well, even though I sorta lost interest on the third book.

>>15816977
What book is your pic from?
Her panties are just dropping on their own.

>>15816400
He has nice standalone books, and two other series. Try Pushing Ice or something.

give me the lit fantasy book image or any variations pls

I'm at a dead end with reading

i recently tried goblin emperor, but its just

'half-jewish kid becomes emperor and has to overcome racism' and i found the plot boring

>>15818031
>reading modern fantasy
pretty cringe desu

>>15818163
Based, Moorcock hung out with the band Hawkwind back in the day

The fuck happened to Neal Stephenson? Everything since Anathem has been just pure garbage. A solid decade of doggerel. FUCK.

>>15818215
Oh shit I'll check him out hawkwind is b&r

>>15811305
>why yes let me blunt the tip of my sword on the gourd in order to rest my hands for a bit.

>>15818163
>>15818215

Is there a certain book or series that it's best to start with?

>>15817878
Oh Pushing ice seems fun too.

Damn you set me up for a month

>>15802583
Tldr
>she
It sucks

>>15803442
Not surprising considering grrm was recommending her as the number one go to for the fans clamouring for more books.
I like ships of magic, but damn that first trilogy was a slog. Muh statue. Skip 100 pages. Muh statue

>>15816158
Same thing but in a sci-fi setting?

>>15814775
The LotR books were even shittier than WoT and they somehow turned it into okay movies.

>>15818824
Magic swords don’t get blunt

>>15818425
Hrs a libtard suffering from trump derangement syndrome

Any books with size queens?
List a few.

>>15818215
>>15818800
Get back to your cages, /mu/tants

>>15819816
Is Terminus Est magic?

>>15819770
Because the producers took liberties. They made it into an action movie instead of a travelogue.

>>15814099
I know this sounds cynical but I think Hollywood has lot the ability to ever make good fantasy movies again, the wokeism prevents it

Shortstack stuffing 3 is out, so is incubus corporation 2 audiobook .
Looks like I will use up all cummies this weekend. Thanks based Arand.

Any fantasy epic recs that have little to no romance? I just finished the 4th WoT book and can't take any more cringey love triangles.

>>15819995
LOTR

Can you rec some books where the protagonist is a blue mage?

>>15820062
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Mage-Raised-Dragons-ebook/dp/B0738SBVTF

where my dresdenfiles bros at? you guys excited for tuesday? any expectations? i havent read the 5 preview chapters because i like to wait for the entire book to read

>>15819995
Any fantasy recs with romance but no awful love triangles?

>>15820151
>reading Dresden Files beyond the age of 12
ISHYGDDT

>>15820192
Codex Alera

/sffg/, because my main character's usually in a bad mood, I often picture him with pointy teeth. If I actually mention that in his description, would it be cringe?

>>15820623
Yes, very.

As a manlet, this book spoke to me deeply

>>15805410
Not them or wanting to add to that word choice debate, but;
The entire thing would make a whole lot more sense if the 'humans' were bugs, insects or some kind of Humanoid-bug Hybrid. To me at least.
I've enjoyed the piece a lot more once I made the conscious switch. It now feels like a fantasy book, more than some idea of a videogame Brandon wants to make.

It feels very clunky when Sanderson explains Shard Plate, each time it comes up. It's abilities are whatever, but it just doesn't feel as though it's real armour. It's even described like it's got the sheen of a beetle shell.
He talks about Alethi being able to do all this acrobatic nonsense - Grasshoppers come to mind immediately, literally leaping father than their bodies could in theory.
Bridge crews are worker ants. They carry things all day so the noble can benefit.
Crustaceans eat smaller (sea) bugs, and apparently crustaceans are the big threat of the world.
Why didn't he just make humans, not humans? It feels like he wrote about an Ant hill attacked by some beetles or wasps, or even a crab; and wrote the fantasy story about it. That's at least the evocation that I get from the story.

inb4 worldbuilderfag/Sanderson's Stan gets annoyed with me.
I think it's a solid entry into fantasy. But by no means is it as good as normies say it is.

I need a time-travel mechanic in a story that isnt strictly about time travel. Is this acceptable?

>There are areas where space and time take on different "states of matter". These areas are pretty normal over short distances, but over long distances time and space behave so strangely that even experts can't navigate it
>There reason it cant be navigated is that the entire region is controlled by an omniscient genus loci who controls who goes where, but can be bargained with

Is everything Greg Egan writes just a vehicle for his ideas with a plot grafted on afterwards?

>>15821154
That's stupid

>>15821154
Sounds like you read The Three Body problem.

>>15821449
yes.

>>15821154
>There are areas where space take on different "states of matter". These areas are pretty normal over short distances, but over long distances time and space behave so strangely that even experts can't navigate it

Your currently experiencing this right now, do you even understand what a 'states of matter' is?

>get on the couch whiteboi

>>15807750
Soul of the Paladin

>>15821756
Kaladin definitely got that BACC
>Big
>Alethi
>Cock
It's so big it needs two c's.

>>15818877
Elric of Melnibone if you want Witcher but good. And Corum if you like Berserk.

>>15820120
>>15820062
I read that series. That's why I want more books with blue mages. I'm 36 years old and never heard of a blue mage until March 2020. It seems like it is a fun topic to write about.

>>15820407
You're so new I can still smell the rebbit on you.
You think you can come here in, post a pepe and pretend as if reading a particular book as an adult makes you seem literate.
Well news flash, it doesn't.
Dresden Files is a /lit/ favourite. You absolute underage b&

This sucks ass. Power wank YA tranny garbage. KILL YOURSELF whoever recommended this to me.

>>15822006
Thanks fren

I'm new in /sffg/, and i suppose you had been asked for this a few times after me BUT, what am i into?

>>15823155
>what am i into?
'tolerable' YA?

>>15823155
>what am i into?
How am I supposed to know your fetishes, anon?

>>15822153
That's because it's a videogame concept and you didn't play games. It's been around since at least 1992.

What's a good book for someone who's never read fantasy before? Would it be a bad idea to start with something from Tolkien?

>>15823491
Depends on how highbrow or lowbrow you consider yourself

What is the best example case of a human-xeno/nonhuman relationship in your mind?

Romantic or otherwise.

>>15823648
>>>/tg/

Redpill me on the golden pill

>>15823462
>It's been around since at least 1992.
So that means there are more book?

>>15823663
Image was the best one I had for the question ;_;

>>15823491
>Never never
Probably something easy-fantasy, like really easy to the point where it's fantasy elements are almost invisible; The Demoiselle D'Ys, maybe?

>>15823491
Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings.

This is probably the best place to ask, does anyone know any good medieval fiction that's not set in england or france?
Fantasy that's grounded is pretty cool too I guess.

>>15823648

>>15824144
Man. I miss Ex Machina anon. He was funny sometimes.

>>15822401
it has good fights. not worth the long read.

>>15823491
>take normie requests
>read
>you will like some and dislike others
>repeat and develop your own taste.

I'm really glad you guys recommended me Book of the New Sun this is just POGGERS

I hope the Moorcock shills forget about that pulp trash soon.

>>15824115
Baudolino maybe, idk.

Is the plot in Stormlight Archive worth enduring the characters and writing? Will it make me shit bricks?

>>15818031
>goblin emperor
Is the book really that shallow or is this anon exaggerating, like usual? I was thinking of reading it.

>>15824710
Short answer; if you want an american anime novel, or something that reads like a Vulcan from Star Trek retelling a story, then it's for you.
Also if you're a mormon it's apparently better.

>>15824875
>Also if you're a mormon it's apparently better.
it will be the ultimate catharsis.

>>15824115
Name of the Rose

>>15823155
Nothing special. It's about as paint by the numbers YA as it gets. But if you enjoy poorly delivered info dumps about generic superhero/shounen battle manga powers, nothing does it better except for hundreds of comics and manga dating back several decades.

>>15824457
>it has good fights.
Imagine reading literature for fight scenes.

>>15825473
Imagine reading

>>15823155
> showing her feet
what a slut

>>15824727
Goblin Emperor is legitimately a Hallmark movie.

>>15821713
anon, I think you're the one who doesnt know what you're talking about

Over cosmically large distances, the properties of space and time are easy for experts to predict even if there are factors we don't fully understand the mechanics behind, like dark matter and dark energy. Over incredibly short distances however (approaching the planck length) our understanding breaks down fundamentally, to the point that we're not even sure how many dimensions we're working with. Space itself can take on many different kinds of hypothetical "states" similar to states of matter. The grid systems we use for board games and 8-bit video games for example would be roughly equivalent to a crystalline solid, whereas our current understanding of actual space is closer to a fluid foam.

>>15821620
I did, and I take that as the gravest insult possible. That shit with the sophons made me throw the book down in disgust

>>15826118
Nope, you don't know what your talking about, your mistaking theoretical physics for fact, our current understanding of 'actual space' is that of a 'crystalline solid', the theory that 'actual space is closer to a fluid foam' is a thought experiment to make gravity conform with our very limited understanding of quantum mechanics.

>>15823491
see >>15811305

>>15826248
anon, just stop right now. It's clear you don't have any understanding of physics beyond the middle school level. It's embarrassing to watch you try

>>15826248
Also I'm surprised you didn't understand that >>15821713 wasn't totally serious, experts can't navigate fog (a different state of matter) over long distances.

>>15826304
uh, dipshit? Experts can nagivate in the fog. We have things like compasses, radar, sonar, lighthouses. For fuck's sake, the vikings were navigating with pieces of calcite

>>15824700
filtered

>>15826381
RIP the fiberglass yacht you just collided with because you were staring at the radar.

>>15826514
I was on that yacht.

>>15813400
Not the audiobook anon but
>loved Startide Rising
>hated The Uplift War (dropped it about halfway through)
I just wanted to read more about smart dolphins

>>15802583
>The Shape of Gifts
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BuryYourGays

>>15826587

Tymbrimi waifu tho...

>>15826590
That isn't really relevant because in most of the stories I'm referencing are written by the same sort and almost exclusively feature that sort.

We at page 7.
Get to work slave

Got my dad Gene Wolfe's first four books of Book of the New Sun. . . .
What is he in for?

>>15826802
I'll wait to page 10 then or someone else can.

>>15826009
>imagine reading
Sorry, that's too outlandish for me

>>15824710
The characters really grew on me by the end of the first book. They continue to surprise me and I'm quite enjoying my read through the third book now. If you're looking to have your mind blown, it probably won't do it for you. The more you expect from something, the more it will have to do to impress you. It's best to sit back and enjoy these books for what they are. Are they perfect? Nope. That said, it's probably my favorite fantasy series at this point. I don't care what other people say. There is something special about The Stormlight Archive books I haven't experienced before.

>>15824710
I'm not touching that thing until it's finished. No more dangling series for me.

>>15827143
this, it may be good but i don't want to wait 10 years to see if kaladin marries the pixie

>>15822006
It has nothing to do with witcher you absolute tryhard retard

>>15827143
>>15827220
You're seriously going to wait 10-15 years?

>>15827349
I don't know if I'll wait, but I'm going to not read. Burned too many times. Sanderson is a fat mess - heart attack waiting to happen. Why invest myself in this? Who will finish the story for him? And what if he just flakes, like gurm?

>>15827379
>>15827379
>>15827379
>>15827379
Seems I made a new thread