/lit/ - Literature

Why isn't David Gemmell more popular?

>let's put unrelated VTshit as the OP of this general!!
>epic!!
Fucking zoomers

>>17802295

>>17802324
Lel

No talking about baker in this thread

Yeah, let's all talk about Bakker instead!

I hereby dedicate this entire thread to Bakkerino, herald of the Bakkerin, son of Bakkre and true heir to the Bakkthrone.

>>17802291
Kek I also do that in /metal / of /mu/
I make unrelated edition with cats or beautiful girls

Any books coming out this year that you’re looking forward to /sffg/?

>>17802411
Winds of Winter

>>17802412
Do you really think it will be this year?

>>17802295
Because his writing is dry, and most of his series are "inspired" by history (as in he takes real cultures and adds a fantastical spin) which makes them incredibly dull. If I wanted to read about Mongol conquests I'd go read about mongol conquests, the reality is far more interesting than fiction.
That's the problem with drawing from history, if you take inspiration from any of the actually interesting parts, people accuse you of being unrealistic. Pic related.

>>17802312
>Science fiction
Vtuber falls under Science fiction and fantasy you aging boomer, get with the times.

>>17802422
If you're not on France side you're on the lame side, simple as

>>17802412
Oh sweet summer child

In writing the unkillable man, the obvious and least interesting route is to center the suspense around the people he cares about, and have them meet terrible ends since he can't meet one himself.

Much better is to think of the many things worse than death and threaten them with that.

>>17802312
Vtuber falls under Science fiction and fantasy you aging boomer, get with the times.

>>17802411
xenofiction but its from a children's series

>>17802484
Unkillable how? And you know the vast majority of stories are for all practical pruposes about unkillable men, since the MC is rarely killed or even injured.

>>17802486
Not /lit/

I just published a Science-Fiction novel via Amazon a few weeks ago. I have it cataloged on Goodreads and everything. Would people care to read it? Or should I just ask to join the Goodreads group? I'm not very good at this sort of thing.

What is it with the generals on this board having almost exclusively v-tuber OP's? Is it one autist?

>>17802812
Post it and an excerpt and you might not get your post deleted

>>17802812
Post the first chapter here and we'll tell you why it sucks

Is Witcher worth reading? Is it true that they're shit compared to the games?

>>17802896
Short stories are alright, the novels fall somewhere between forgettable and slog

>>17802896
English translation is dry and uninspired as fuck, though. Read the books in literally any other language if you can.

>>17802848
>>17802887
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57327170-did-you-read-the-news
>My knuckles crack against his face as the momentum of the swing slams him down onto the concrete of the playground. Before he has time to bounce back up, I drop my knees onto his arms and pin his elbows down. I grab his short brown hair and twirl it around my fingers to get a better grip as I yank him forward, bringing his nose right up against the crotch of my shorts.
>“I swear if you ever make her cry again, I’ll give you a real beating!” I snarl as I let him linger in this humiliating posture for a few moments before I get up and let him rise slowly. My glare turns into a grin as he sulks at me, wanting to start a row with me but hesitating. He’s not scared, but he knows who my father is. Any thrashing I can give him in a scrap would be so much worse from his own dad once he heard whose son his boy had tussled with. With a scowl, he walks back to two other boys as I spit on the ground where he was standing.
>I huff and walk back to where she is sitting on the edge of the slide, wearing a bright blue dress and a black bow tied around her head and set at an angle. With her dress alone, she stands out from the cloudy sky and the concrete buildings of the city. Her skin is bronze like all Daltons, and her hair is dark blackand cut short above her neck. She reminds me of the first dot of paint I put on a sketch in art class. I want to tell her that, but I don’t think she’d like it very much, even though I mean it in a nice way.
>I plop down next to her on the slide and put an arm around her as she sniffles and wipes away her tears. Her eyes are like all Daltons: black. The irises are only a shade lighter than her pupils, but it’s enough that it’s hard to notice if I’m not looking. All the other kids say that Dalton eyes are creepy, but I think they look cool on her, on Krasna.

>Tsk, that Fang Yuan. He is simply too cunning, too vicious. He is way too resourceful for his age! It doesn't matter hehe, he is just a lowly C grade talent. He will never amount to anything.

>>17802896
The short story collections are pretty fun but the main series focuses heavily on Ciri, who is a dogshit character.

>>17802422
Based Venice

>>17802422
Bakker drew from history a lot and his books are good

>>17802422

>>17802422
Based Spain taking a break between 150-1511

>>17802929
Not bad. Blurb looks heckin depressing though

Fuck you people

>>17802469
Oh sweet, kind stranger

>>17802941
but what did he mean by cutting up that guy and leaving him at the back door?
>>17802929
first paragraph is decent but the excerpt and i assume the hwole book is ruined by the f*male character and the protags reaction toward her. Even the prose goes downhill when talking about her. Women fucking suck if your character has to have a love interest dont spend too many words talking about her or let your main character devote too much headspace to her.

>>17802929
I like it, the synopsis is interesting as well. I wish you success fren

>>17802929
It looks good bro, good luck my friend.

>>17802929
>I want to tell her that, but I don’t think she’d like it very much, even though I mean it in a nice way
This is a feeling only autists know.

>>17802670
Science fiction and fantasy isn’t /lit/? how retard can you be?

>>17803595
so it IS an autist! Now I wonder if its a team, but judging from the file names, I doubt it.

>>17803656
What are you talking about?

>>17802929
Congrats, anon.

>>17802288
behead vtubers and their simpathizers

>See a trilogy of books
>The titles spoil the earlier books

It's not like it was an original twist but cmon.

>>17803081
Don’t be sexist.

>>17802288
anyone finished it yet?

>>17803911
Sorry, winning a Hugo in the past decade is a massive red flag.

>>17803954
I think the first one's biggest flaw was being a little YAesque if anything

>>17803974
Wouldn't know, after I got memed into reading Jemisin after a "she isn't that bad, guys!!!" post, I have been staying away from everything even remotely related.
In fact I am not too happy about contemporary scifi in general.

>>17802506
Invincible

>>17802469
Go back

>>17802929
I know this isn't /wg/ but the number of self-published shitters I see starting with a fight scene is so incredible to me. That is something for a short story, not a novel. A novel's opening should give us a character and a familiar setting and a mystery before any stupid action scene, no four words of which are a novelty. Anyways, you're using adverbs wrong and your protagonist isn't believable in either dialogue or narrative. At least you're better than Gardner, but I see that you actually paid for an editor, so I'm barely even giving you any credit for that. Read more before you start your next one.

>>17802929
>First person
>present tense
Nigga what are you doing

>>17804180
YA

>>17804158
pretty sure sandaro started way of kigns with a fight scene incel

>>17804235
GOOD point

>>17804083
you are surely a newfag and come to 4chan only a few times a week

>>17804301
Go back

>THE SLOG OF SLOGS
is sarl meta?

>>17804427
fuck off don't tell me what to do

>>17804453
the whole thing is a blood meridian tribute

>>17802422
that's retarded. Every single fantasy is inspired from real events or mythology.

>>17802288
Kill yourself vtuber subhuman

is Soldier of the Mist any good? How is it compared to Wolfe's other fantasy books?

E William Brown.
Fuck!

>>17803911
>>/lit/?task=search&search_text=desolation+Teixcalaan+

>>17802288
Distress - Greg Egan (1995)
This is a science fiction mystery thriller concerned mostly with its core idea, though as with every other Egan novel I've read that idea is only teased until the climax. For this book that idea is The Theory of Everything and as with his other books it's eventually taken to its metaphysical extreme.
The protagonist is an investigative journalist who creates video documentaries that explore a single subject in-depth for SeeNet, which I thought was possibly a play on CNET, but probably isn't since it was founded the year prior to this book's publication. Most of the book is the protagonist investigating, interviewing, and being a tourist at a scientific conference on a man-made island. The island is governed by an informal system of anarchy, formal concepts and thinkers are explicitly derided.
I'm unable to tell whether this is the most personal novel Egan has written or if he thought it'd be interesting for characters and events to be as they are. Considering the thematic similarity in most of what I've read from him, I lean towards it being personal. A recurring issue is how relationships are handled. The protagonist's relationships continue to be troubled and disagreeable.
Egan provides many political opinions, which seem to be much more relevant today than when they were written. Two of the most prominent are ignorance and identity.
The Murdochs are called out by name as being the worst news publication, Fox News wouldn't even be founded until next year, and a leading promoter of the worst Ignorance Cults. Yes, in this book there are literally cults who worship being ignorant, though of course that isn't how they refer to themselves, let alone think of themselves.
A few of the characters are "asex", including one of the more important ones, though several other variations are presented. Whether they would be called suitable representation considering how fraught the issue has become is a different matter. The other issue of identity is whether it's allowable to voluntarily engage in brain damage to enhance one's life.
As with the other books I've read from him, I enjoyed the majority of the book quite thoroughly, but then when it reveals what it's truly about, I care less. The title is "Distress" and that's certainly how I felt about the disconnect between what I thought of the ending and how it was presented. I don't think it's a reasonable conclusion.
This was an enjoyable SF mystery thriller marred by an unreasonable and heavy-handed ending that tells you not to disagree with its conclusions.
Rating:4/5

finally finished Malazan after something like three years and kind of feel like I wasted my time. It wasn't shit but aside from a few highpoints I didn't get much out of it.

>>17805098
How often were you reading them? Saying "three years" doesn't mean much if you were only actively reading them for a month out of 36 months.

>>17805098
>expecting books to change your life
lol

>>17805145
I can't imagine reading them all in a month, is that something that has actually been done? I took about a month for each book and there were hiatuses between when I read other stuff and took breaks.

>>17805201
I certainly don't expect that from fantasy books and I don't think I suggested otherwise. I was expressing mild disappointment.

>tfw read all of Prince of Nothing and half of Aspect-Emperor in the span of like two weeks
is this abnormal?

I was going to ask you guys if this was a good book with magical engineering...

Then I looked in goodreads and saw this review.
>Rape and genocide are normalized in this book and that is horrible. The main character conquers a city, kills all the boys and men and the allows any soldier to force any of the women to marry them, no matter how unwilling.
Picking up immediately. Hope it's good.

>>17805264
not if you are a true reader

The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy was added to Kindle Unlimited at some point going back to 2010.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/406911.An_Oblique_Approach

worth a read?

>>17805650
grimdark magazine feat bakker issue 3 is on there as well

>>17802295
because most readers are idiots and do not recognize masterworks when they read them. nobody has done heroic fantasy better than gemmell and it's unlikely anyone ever will.

>Scrutiny. Calculation.

>>17802896
Pretty much what every body says. The short stories are fun and the book becomes shit pretty quick.

“And here you saw the Shortest Path … For you understood that this trick, which turns the eyes of the oppressed skyward and away from the hand that holds the whip, could be usurped to your ends. To command circumstance, you must command action. To command action, you must command belief. To command belief, you need only speak with the voice of heaven.

“You were Dûnyain, one of the Conditioned, and they, with their stunted intellects, were no more than children.”

>>17806071
“Perhaps …”

Scrutiny. Calculation.

“It’s not in your interest to deceive me.” A stone-faced pause. “Unless …”

“Unless,” Kellhus said, “I’ve come to assassinate you, as our Dûnyain brothers have decreed … Is this your apprehension?”

Scrutiny. Calculation.

“You have not the power to overcome me.”

“But I do, Father.”

Another pause, imperceptibly longer.

“How,” his father finally said, “could you know this?”

“Because I know why you were compelled to summon me.”

Scrutiny. Calculation.

“So you have grasped it.”

“Yes … the Thousandfold Thought.”

>>17803029
Based Saddam.

>>17802422
Jesus Venice.

>>17806686
How is that based?

>>17802486
>Vtuber falls under Science fiction and fantasy you aging boomer
Get the fuck out before I find where you live and smash your skull into bite-sized pieces, and feed the infinitesimal amounts of your grey matter to the dogs.

soiberpunk

>>17802501
Looking forward to Ashfur off his shit.

>>17805402
keep me posted please anon. the cover looks terrible but you never know with self published stuff

>>17803911
First one was extremely average and pretty dull, so I'm not going to rush out to buy a hardcover of it.

>>17806376
>dunyain
>stunted intellects

who said this and what did he mean by it

Why does he give every fucking horse and pony a name?

>>17806933
The they there is referring to normal people

The first book of the wheel of time is very weak because of how much of a rip off of lord of the rings it is but the second book is great and the third book is solid so far. I'm enjoying the series tremendously even if I dread the """"controversial"""" Sanderson ending.

>>17807013
>he thinks he's gonna finish it

>>17807013
you've already read everything of worth in the series, congratulations, you can stop now and read a summary if you're curious as to how it ends.
or torture yourself far more than you will ever understand and continue on, your call i guess.

What's some fantasy that feels like myth? I'm into Glorantha but there's only one novel set there (King of Sartar) and it's already on its way in the mail. I've heard Chaosium is planning to hire writers to release Glorantha novels but that's a ways off yet.

>>17805402
I would never read it based on cover but based that review i will

>>17804953
That beginning though.

>>17802288
Hey, that's my wife.

>>17806905
What’s that?

>>17807187
I-I mean so y, soyy

>>17802288
does anyone know where can I find online Michael Swanwick's essay A User's Guide to the Postmoderns?

>>17802422
(((Venice)))

When does the darkness that comes before get good?
I'm at the part where some guy has dreams about an old king dying on his lap and so far I don't see all the hype this book gets

>>17802913
>>17802919
>>17802947
>>17806189
Did all of you read them in english? Maybe it's a really bad translation.
I can't recall a single bad opinion from somebody that read them in polish.

>>17807484
Yes

I'm well aware the English translation blows

>>17804633
It’s good.

>>17807482
It got me hooked at the end of the first book with one of the bigger reveals.

> “After I shot Vikram, we put our things in the car and drove to the airstrip”
This was pretty good. The time travel stuff was actually nicely done. Reynolds even managed to squeeze in some existential horror where I wasn't expecting it.

>>17803029
>George W. Bush cowardly declined Saddam Hussein's challenge of a duel in the lead of to the invasion of Iraq
Pathetic!

>>17807185
Did you reply to the wrong post or is your image intended to be irrelevant? Yes, the revival scene is quite something.

>>17807187
vtube

>>17806969
he was ahead of his time

>>17808465
>>17806969
My Little Pony: Tolkien Edition

>>17802295
This anon >>17806056 has the right of it. Druss is top tier.

>Druss nodded, his face solemn. "I am not a thinker," he said, "but nor am I stupid. I am a man like so many others. I could have been a farmer, or a carpenter, even a labourer. Never a teacher, though, nor a cleric. Intellectual men make me nervous. Like that Majon.' He shook his head. 'I have met a great number of ambassadors and they all seem identical: easy, insincere smiles and gimlet eyes that don't miss a thing. What do they believe in? Do they have a sense of honour? Of patriotism? Or do they laugh at us common men, as they line their purses with our gold? I don't know much, poet, but I do know that men like Majon - aye, and you - can make all I believe in seem as insubstantial as summer snow. And make me look foolish into the bargain. Oh, I can understand how good and evil can come down to numbers. Like those women in the fountain. A besieging army could say, 'Kill six women and we'll spare the city.' Well, there's only one right answer to that. But I couldn't tell you why I know it is right."

>>17805402
this fag would have an aneurysm reading Prince of Nothing
anyway keep us posted, let us know if it's any good

>>17808506
i've read everything by gemmell and despite legend being his first book, and the writing being very simple, and the prose not being great, it just doesn't matter. he tells a rousing heroic story without fail, every time. there's only minor nitpicks my third re-read through where i feel like a few lines could be trimmed or cut, it never feels bloated or wasteful, and the novel always hits its core heroic theming.

i've spent years trying to find someone who writes heroic fantasy like gemmell but nobody really compares, it's all a pale imitation. i've resigned myself to having to re-read every couple of years, going through it all chronologically over the course of a few months, savoring the wonderful characters like jaim grymauch and druss the legend and waylander. even the one-off standalone novels are great. i hope i live long enough to see someone pick up the pen and write heroic fantasy the way gemmell did.

>>17806393
This sucks

So which one will kick the bucket first so somebody else can finish his series? Martin or Rothfuss?

>about a quarter into The Great Ordeal
>out of nowhere Kellhus fucks Proyas in the ass
>literally one brief, bizarre page
what

>>17809283
That’s modern fantasy now.

>>17809283
>Does it trouble you?

>>17809293
no wonder that line gets memed so hard

>>17809283
he had it coming

>>17809283
The Meat has taken the Prophet

What is it with all those cancer OP pics lately. I fucking hate newfaggots.

>>17809832
Why are you on an anime website?

>>17809283
Kelhus was bi. The darkness when Cnaiur was fucking Serwe in front of him wasn't about Serwe in particular. The emphasis on Cnaiur's cock when Kelhus spares his life is the clincher. Kelhus didn't have to rape Proyas to get him in the right headspace for the ordeal, just like he didn't have to chat with him while he was hanging, he just liked Proyas.

Is Eärwa one of the most miserable settings ever devised?
>every city is a Sodom-tier shithole of whores, cutpurses, scammers, etc.
>people will murder and maim over the slightest provocation
>rigid, permanent caste system
>autistically complex layers of etiquette that must be followed extremely well or else you risk being stripped of your status
>slavery is omnipresent, including child slaves
>the idea of "kind treatment" for a defeated enemy consists of giving him a choice of dying instantly or being sold into slavery
>huge swathes of the world are literally uninhabitable (Istyuli, Carathay)
>even larger portions are covered in nigh-infinite swarms of cannibalistic pseudo-orcs that will rape, murder, and eat you, usually all at the same time
>if you escape that then there's the Race of Lovers
>the Gods exist and are incredibly autistic and fickle
>the true God exists and is indifferent
>learning any form of magic no matter how small instantly renders you vulnerable to reality-restoring void marbles that you can't defend against in any way
>it also permanently damns your soul
>a process which is already incredibly common and once you die demons will torture you eternally for fun
>the Dûnyain eugenics program existed
>Mog-Pharau existed

>>17809832
it's /vt/ being /vt/, happens on every other board too because mods are scared of doing GR15 Part 2

>>17809843
>anime
what does anime have to do with vtubers?

>>17809865
>Is Eärwa one of the most miserable settings ever devised?
>t. SJW
Don't you have a goodreads critic to write you weeping commie faggot?

>>17809888
your second quotation is incorrect and thus falls short of jnan, i am now legally obligated to cut your balls off

>>17809843
Certainly not to see this underb& trash. Go back faggot.

>>17809843
3D larping as 2D is not anime
Go back

>>17809843
Vtumor isn't anime. Return to your containment board.

>>17809865
yup, eärwa is bakker’s answer to both candide and biblical israel: “lower middle earth.”

>>17809036
Martin will live long enough to have his brain uploaded to a remote server orbiting Europa. Civilisation on Earth will be reborn a thousand times before his digital girth computes the rest of the book

>>17809883
>>17809947
>>17809952
>>17809959
Get with the times, you old fags.

>>17810040
just because you've never known a time when things weren't so bad doesn't make the present any better

Hey
What is posted the most in this general? Sci or fantasy?

>>17810246
Fantasy. Sci is an even more dead genre than fantasy.

>>17810257
That's because for the west the sci fi has to show knowledge of modern science or be gritty. So it's done either by PhD's or by military veterans. Otherwise it's called Science Fantasy and mostly disregarded.
>Oh, don't get me wrong, I like Science Fantasy, *these* Science Fantasy works are one of my favorites, but can it really be called Science Fiction? The likes of Star Trek or the greater sci fi writers?

>>17810340
>Science Fantasy
You mean Space Operas? Star Wars, 40k and similar franchises of literally "but what if knights in space" are more popular than any "realistic" or military sci-fi by orders of magnitude, you frankly have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

>>17810357
Science Fantasy and Space Opera are completely different genres.

>>17810359
How so? They sacrifice scientific plausibility on behalf of narrative, their only aim is having fantastical adventures but in space

>>17810357
Star Wars is a Space Opera, but the attitude of `it's just a fairy tale in space` is exactly what I'm talking about. Complete disregard of its sci fi elements.

>>17810381
George Lucas admits it
https://youtu.be/RIefj6dOhnM (watch first minute)

>>17810380
You fundamentally don't understand what a Space Opera is.
Science fantasy is literally fantasy with a veneer of sci-fi. Star Wars is science fantasy, but the science aspect is only skin deep. The reality of it is that it's a purely fantasy story with only the outward appearance of sci-fi. Another example would be John Carter or the entire Sword and Space genre.
A Space Opera leans much further towards the Harder end of sci-fi, and is typically mostly character focused, generally with lots of politics. An example would be the recent Expanse series, or Cowboy Bebop if you wanted to delve into anime.
the Expanse, where the entire point was that the author wanted to take a hard, Space Opera series then introduce a soft sci-fi element.

Saying they are the same is like saying the Horror and Thriller genres are the same. It's simply not correct.

>>17810390
Yes, it is based on samurai and the farm boy against dark lord. And once again, complete disregard.

>>17810381
>`it's just a fairy tale in space`
Because they are? Why would this be bad btw.
>Complete disregard of its sci fi elements.
You want people to care less about your story, characters and whatever galactic intrigue you got going and give more attention to your propulsion system who works on "aint-gonna-explain-this-shittium"? Why?
>>17810393
Same as above. You're complaining about people not taking your sci-fi elements seriously while admitting at the same time that you're fundamentally telling a fantasy story in space.

>>17810403
>Why
Because then you get the audience of
>Hard science fiction is a serious work for serious people, I want that.
Also, I think Foundation is a good example of a western Space Opera. Or maybe LNs like Banner of the Stars, or Legend of Galactic Heroes..

>>17810412
Or maybe x and y as examples of eastern Space Opera.

>>17810418
X and Y being BotS and LoGH. I need to take time with my posts.

>>17810412
>>Hard science fiction is a serious work for serious people, I want that.
That's like 3 nerds at some convention, if I had literary talent I would rather write for mercenary reasons and become Star Wars rich. I can't understand the hard sci-fi route unless you're some kind of physicist who's obsessed with telling people about his particular theory of whatever.

>>17809888
>goodreads critic
Hey now. I appreciate Good Reads reviews, anon.

What other webnovels offer a ride as wild as Reverend Insanity?

>>17804633
I like, esp if you read Herodotus before but you don't have to

>sf
>anime pics
Is there anything lower than these threads

>>17810736
Yes, yes indeed

>>17810619
None. Enjoy the emptiness.

How hasnt the three sees not fallen to sranc hordes already? You tell me a hording hasnt happened while the men were waging war on their neighbours in 2000 years?
The numbers dont match up

>>17807013
you should dread the eternal asspull rushjobs Jordan does for his own books' endings instead.

>>17810736
Does it trouble you?

>>17802288
Why do you insist on making off-topic OPs? Is finding a picture related to sci-fi or fantasy really that hard for you?

>>17810950
For him, yes. His brain is rotted by uwugu anime crap.

>>17808799
How are his books compared to Conan?

>>17809283
>what
Like father, like son. Disregard the thousandfold thot, acquire boipucci.

>>17810736
>>17810950
Get with the times, old fags.

>>17810817
sorcerors lmao, tekne creations aren't much without consult planning backing them

>>17810381
it's literally just george lucas reskinning kurosawa samurai movies

>>17810357
science fantasy is a genre im a lit major

>>17810403
>You want people to care less about your story, characters and whatever galactic intrigue you got going and give more attention to your propulsion system who works on "aint-gonna-explain-this-shittium"? Why?
Because that is what is supposed to be, with you blatant straw man aside.
It's fucking sci-fi not space fantasy. Not everything that has planate and stars in it we well as the means to travel between them is sci fi.
It's a dead genre alright but that doesn't mean you can call anything sci-fi because of it.

>>17811244
Your faggy little trend will pass quickly and unremarked upon.
Nobody will remember your "contributions" to this board.

>>17810395
Hey it's a formula but one that works, when it tried to deviate from it went to shit.
Nothing wrong with the farm boy fights the dark lord trope as long as it's done right.

>>17811425
>went to shit
Disagree, I think they're all perfectly good movies except the Disney shit.
The original trilogy make it a samurai flick, the originals plus the prequels make it a Tragedy. I don't want to say Shakespearean when we're talking about movies primarily aimed at kids but he's the only playwright anyone knows.

>>17811384
bro even in the 1940s scifi tended to handwave away their explanations for how spaceships etc worked

>>17811537
Sure but there is a difference between making a "rotatory infusion drive" and saying the "spirits of the machines and the good grace of the emperor gives us gravity in this spacecraft".
What makes star wars a space fantasy is not the unrealistic space ships, It's the magic knights with the magic words and power and the fact the story revolves around them.

I tried reading the sword itself by Abercrombie but the "church bad and corrupt" cliché just turned me off from going on. Are there any books in which the church/churches are good and the inquisitor justified in their actions? Because I have still to find it (ignoring 40k and Warhammer).

>>17811612
The Curse of Chalion. Granted, there isn't actually an inquisitor to begin with.

>>17811560
>"spirits of the machines and the good grace of the emperor gives us gravity in this spacecraft"
There's a """""scientific""""" explanation for how drives work in 40k. The machine spirit bullshit is just typical imperial obscurantism, and also the fact that Chaos can possess technology somehow, which is entirely magic I admit, but the drives themselves aren't fueled by prayers.
>magic knights
There's also a """""scientific""""" explanation for the force (midichlorians)
There's always some bogus scientific explanation for, I've genuinely never heard of any sci-fi were drives are fueled by elvish magic instead of quantum exotic particles or whatever pseudo-scientific shit author come up with.

>>17811633
>which is entirely magic I admit
Scratch that, Chaos isn't even entirely magic since there's a whole pseudo-scientific system to explain entities of the warp (psychic emanations from the human race created them in the dimension that is the Warp), which is why the Emperor tried to turn everyone into an atheist. There's even a pseudo-scientific field generator that allows travel through the Warp (Gellar field).

>>17811612
>The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Not exactly /sffg/, but it does have a witch in it.

>>17811620
>>17811689
Thanks I will give them a try.
I get the "subversion of expectations" of making the church bad but if every single author does it, and mostly in the same way, it stops being a subversion and it becomes a cliché. This cliché get tiresome quickly after you read more than a few books back to back with it in them.

>>17811612
>Are there any books in which the church/churches are good and the inquisitor justified in their actions?
I know this is the general for fantasy, but c'mon.

>>17811706
Shut the fuck up already, you dumb pseud. You're not impressing anyone.

>>17811795

>>17811795
not familiar with the history of the early christian church i take it?

>>17811064
Prose is just as good but a bit less purple than Howards. I enjoyed the characters and ideas far more in Gemmell's stuff.

>>17811795
>>17811814
>>17811854
They hated him because he spoke the truth

>>17811706
It's not a subversion of expectation, even kids these days by and large hate churches. A book needs a familiar form of inciting incident and nearly everyone has read about something a church has done that's just horribly evil so it's a good starting point. Also, I'm positive you'd feel differently if you thought of the churches as Islamic rather than Christian.

>>17810817
They are a false flag. The Scranc don't exist.

>>17810246
>>17810257
We should do separate generals already.

>>17811684
>Scratch that, Chaos isn't even entirely magic since there's a whole pseudo-scientific system to explain entities of the warp (psychic emanations from the human race created them in the dimension that is the Warp), which is why the Emperor tried to turn everyone into an atheist. There's even a pseudo-scientific field generator that allows travel through the Warp (Gellar field)
I'm not sure if that is a "scientific" explanation or just a rational explanation of how the magic system in 40k works. Now we are getting into "is it magic or science" territory which has more to do with semantics than with the content of the work.
I will admit what is or isn't sci-fy is not set in stone and is ratter nebulous. But I do believe the distinction between space fantasy and sci-fi is needed as more and more there is a mixture of magic and ""science"" in modern literature.
I woudl say 40k, as an example, has sci-fi aspects to it but in it's core it's much more of of a fantasy work than a sci-fi one. And, personally, I feel weird categorizing that universe with the foundation universe as ridiculous as psychohistory is.

>>17811706
Thats not what Abercrombie is doing, and it’s not a criticism of the church. Wizards control everything that regular mortals build; the banks, the government, the church etc. They were there when they were founded after all.

>>17812087
>It's not a subversion of expectation, even kids these days by and large hate churches.
ehhhh, in your country in your specific religion maybe. By large most of the world still practices and believes in churches/temples/places of prayer as institutions.
>A book needs a familiar form of inciting incident and nearly everyone has read about something a church has done that's just horribly evil so it's a good starting point.
Not really, you are just projecting your own biases.
Tho I still have to read some literature with righteous religious jihadi as it's core focus (if you don't count dune) I woudl be totally down for it.

>>17812108
Maybe I will give it another try in the future then. Like I said I just didn't get into it and the few aspects of the portrayal of the church seemed to follow the troupe to a tee so it turned me off.

>>17812157
>ehhhh, in your country in your specific religion maybe. By large most of the world still practices and believes in churches/temples/places of prayer as institutions.
It’s really not though, since the reason the church is bad is because an evil wizard and his acolytes built it for the ground up. I don't know how far you are along in the series, but it’s revealed that this is true for every man-made structure in the setting.

The no god or church union is shit on just as much, if not more, than the Gurkish.

>>17812231
>It’s really not though, since the reason the church is bad is because an evil wizard and his acolytes built it for the ground up. I don't know how far you are along in the series, but it’s revealed that this is true for every man-made structure in the setting.
Oh, I thought you were talking about real life.

>>17807031
shhhhhh

>>17811101
top zez

>>17810412
SF doesn't have to be hard to be enjoyable. Demanding that everything be super realistic and organized is just as bad as the opposite extreme of "turn ur brain off bro".

>>17810040
you will never be a woman subhuman

>>17812699
>SF doesn't have to be hard to be enjoyable.
It has to be hard to be SF. SF is "if X was true about the universe or Y technology was developed, what would happen?" as a genre. If it's just a fantastical adventure in spaceships rather than on horseback it's science fantasy. The more we learn about how the world works, the narrower the bounds of scifi become.

>>17811706
Holy shit, you fucking retard. The First Law is more critical of capitalism's role in war than it is about religion. Did you even read the books? The Inquisition isn't even a religious institution. Is your reading comprehension really that fucking bad? Di you just see the word Inquisitor and go, "durr, spanish inqusition christians, so all inqusitors catholic hurrr"

>>17812834
It doesn't have to be *hard*. It has to try to model consequences of author's idea, whatever it might be, but it doesn't have to always follow the modern science rules.

For example. one of Arthur Clarke laws, that usually are thought of as guidelines for sci fi , said that to know what's possible, the author should try to at least inch into impossible.

Otherwise its a repeat of those 19th century books with naval battles between battleships that fly on coal powerered propellers and blimps. While books about lasers, moon travel and radio were thought of weird fantasies that had nothing to do with reality.

>>17811854
>not familiar with the history of the early christian church i take it?
>he fell for the meme
Maybe take your own advice? Read a little history?

>>17812834
>The more we learn about how the world works, the narrower the bounds of scifi become.
The more science learns about the world, the more it understands how much more there is to learn.

>>17811814
Is there anything more neckbeardy than posting a fedoratipping neckbeard in this day and age?

>>17811612
Read about Orthodox Christianity I guess. Russian Bogatyr mythos is full of warriors with close ties to christian monasteries. The most famous one, Muromets, was even canonized as a saint.

>>17812965
I have a degree in that field kek

>>17802412
I remember GRRM saying it was possible WoW could be finished by the end of the year......that year was 2015. Good times.

>>17813501
let it go, he literally had a year where he was inside his fucking house the entire time and he didnt finish it.

>>17802929
Make it a drinking game, shot of tequila every time you say "I". Would be passed out drunk in a paragraph or two.

>>17812834
this is only true if the reader is intelligent and aware of how things would actually work. i can't read anything with upload/download consciousness with the implication that it would be a continuous existence anymore, because i know that wouldn't work, so those are now science fantasy books. if you don't share that viewpoint, it functions as science fiction.

you're mostly right though, as we are more aware of how the universe works the scope of actual sci-fi will narrow and the sci-fantasy field will expand solely due to the semantics.

>>17810340
I hate the obsession with making the science in science fiction gaudy and outlandish. Flowers for Algernon was just a book about a guy getting brain surgery but it was more cogent and interesting SF than half of Asimov's work.

>>17810619
>Reverend Insanity

Literal shit is better, shill

>>17812939

>>17813508
I think my post went right over your head, faggot.

>>17808086
I just upload nice looking art in my posts.
Anyway try Incandescence.

>>17804427
>people who quote a book need to go back

Please stop defining your life by internet tribalism. The 4chan worth kicking people out of died when your gallic butter-munching ass crossed its pomerium. You will never be a true roman, newfag.

>>17814181
Go back

>>17814193
I can't because the place I came from doesn't exist. You sacked it, you redditor barbarian. The boreal plague, rattling and groaning and fucking in the House of Jupiter. You sicken me, and sicken all virtuous men.

>>17814274
You're this butthurt over being told to go back for calling someone a "sweet summer child" which is about the second most reddit thing you can post behind Queen lyrics
Go back

>>17802469
reddit

>>17814350
Now here we are

>>17802469

>>17813980
I haven't decided which one it'll be yet, but I'm reading 1 Egan per month currently, and that was already likely my next pick.

read the epics, even the poo ones

>>17814350
Posting Queen lyrics is another thing Reddit stole from 4chan, you illiterate moronic varangian. Shouldn't you be raping someone and trying on the papal robes? God above I bet you're not even saging. Disgusting!

>>17812939
Didn't the guy say he dropped it? for someone talking about reading comprehension you might want to read what you are responding to.

>>17814554
Is it any good?

Does Severian actually ever demonstrate using his super memory to any end, over the course of the story?
with the exception of getting extra fucked up by the roasted Thecla + drugs combo

Is Mistborn any good?

>>17815707
the narration of the story itself is the end itself.

>>17815730
you can't quantify the measure 'good'

>>17815773
not if he's making up stuff to fill in gaps

>>17815730
Just another Tolkien wannabe.

>>17815773
That was always my biggest evidence of his ability as well
There is no good reason to think he's just making stuff up when it's also corroborated by his mind reacting with Autarch's and Thecla's memories in an extraordinary way

I love it sci fi when AI are genuine allies of humanity, it feels very wholesome.

>>17815979
Um actually it's not good because if you could think 100% logically and perfectly you would see that humanity is evil because uh I hate myself and i'm super smart.

>>17816014
why would AI be "perfect"?

anyone that's read this able to recommend something similar?

>>17815539
the Mahatbharata? yeah, if you like epics

>>17812965
t. retard who exposed himself

>>17815979
Name three (3) books where this happens

>>17813854
>filename
kek

>>17815730
Much better than anything Abercrombie ever put out.

is pynchon sci-fi

>>17802422
You are very retarded.
Please die.

>>17811612
Arts of Dark and Light by Vox Day. I don't think he's going to finish the series though. Also watch how the mere mention of Vox Day will cause the triggering of the bugmen.

>>17816394
Only to children.

>>17802288
Fahrenheit 451 is better than all Sci-Fi. My numbers will prove it.

>>17817451
>>451

Evens I read Seven Blades in Black
Odds I figure out the name of that Asian dude's ASOIAF ripoff and read that
Dubs and I reread BOTNS

>>17817526
Darkest timeline, eh

>>17810817
sranc must be pretty shit at coordinating anything without the goad of the consult or the no-god. I do vaguely remember there being a mention of a sranc king.

>>17817526
OK, what's the name of the ripoff?

>>17812834
That's not science fiction nigga that's your grant proposal no one will fund!!!

>>17815730
I can't speak for any of his other books but the first Mistborn is not bad. The plot is well executed and the development of the main character is rewarding. He is too afraid to throw the reader into the setting though; it is a simple setting around one cool idea so the first impression is that it is bland. Mistborn is certainly better than The Name of the Wind, which I started recently and, 9 chapters in, am not sure I want to continue.

Any books that capture the thrill of day trading?

Yes I know it makes less money, but it's fun, like gambling.

bit of an odd request, but does anyone know any good japanese scifi or fantasy books? like not manga or graphic novels but full on regular novels. must be written in japaense with their hiragana/katakana/kanji etc and preferably available in a format not super expensive but somewhat decent size, not a tiny pocket book.

i'm learning japanese and someone recommended getting a japanese novel and translating it page by page to pick up not only the kanji but vocab and sentence structure as well. this is why i would prefer something cheap and not tiny, because i'm gonna be writing all over it.

i'm really not familiar with japanese novel writers at all, so i dont know whats worth looking at, and i dont know anyone else who's really familiar with them either.

>>17817603
The Grace of Kings
I don't actually know anything about it but I vaguely remember it being compared to GoT

>>17817786
There aren’t that many Japanese novels, as their publishing industry is geared more towards light novels. Especially for those genres

>>17809865
>Mog-Pharau existed
This is objectively a good thing.

I heard a great analogy once comparing the Sword of Truth to the Wheel of Time. The Wheel of Time is like taking the fixings for an 10" sandwich, and spreading them out on a 12" roll. It's still a good sandwich, but would have been better if it had been made a little smaller. With Wizard's First Rule, Terry Goodkind had the fixings for a perfectly decent 4" sandwich. He saw people were really loving Robert Jordan's 12" sandwich, though, so he decided that's what he should make. However, he only had enough fixings for the first 4", so he filled the rest of the sandwich with shards of broken glass and rusty nails. And when people complained about their cut mouths and the tetanus, he spent 40 pages explaining that they don't understand what makes a good sandwich.

>>17817825
by light novels do you mean short novels or like graphic novels? it doesnt really matter if it's a shorter book, i just need something with pages and sentences, preferably with dialogue , that i can translate as i go. i just figured a good story would keep me engaged while i do it

>>17817832
>t. Consult science project

i fuckin hate the expanse. the first two books are ok, 3rd has some redeeming moments but is mostly shit, everything after that has been a disaster. i'm done @ halfway through book 5, it's hard to think of a series that has more forcefully squandered a promising start.

David Gemmell's stories all start off fun and have a nice gimmick, but they taper off about a 1/3 in when he starts trying to do character development, and by 2/3 I am skimming pages to just get it over with. I think he should have just written short stories instead.

>>17817920
Light novels are sort of like Japan's version of YA fiction.

>>17817786
Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars, AKA Seikei no Monshou.
>Ayys siege protagonists world when he's a kid, his father is the prime minister
>Planet only has ground to orbit cannons, no chance of winning
>PM surrenders on the condition that he is made the lord of the planet, subservient to the ayy empire (which is a monarchy)
>They accept because the planet is a backwater and they just want to secure the area
>Politics happen

It's a pretty large fanchise, there's like 12 novels, a few manga adaptations, and an anime from the 90's.

>>17817920
They’re typically short, straightforward works done in multiple installments. Like a series of novellas almost but geared towards a younger demographic.

>>17817786
Of the relatively recent stuff I found, I like A Wild Last Boss Appeared, 86, The Girl that Ate the Death God, Maoyuu Maou Yuusha.

>>17818146
TYVM, thats exactly the kind of thing i was looking for. found a set of the first 3 on ebay that look like they have big print and plenty of space to write, and they were only about $6 a book.

much appreciated everyone

>>17818244
Just be aware that the Abh language is utterly incomprehensible so don't worry too hard about that. It's like some weird version of Polish pronounced with Japanese syllables.

>>17818256
what is the abh language?

>>17818259
The Abh is the ayys. Most of the story is told from the perspective of a human kid who has been caught up in the alien nobility.

>>17818263
ah, okay. so how much of the book is written like that? like a lot or just a bit here and there? do you know if its clearly marked which one is which, because frankly i'm a beginner at this language and if they are both using the same characters it might be hard for me to tell.

>>17818283
It's mostly just names and certain military terminology. For example Flight Officer is Fsoetdorariac in the English translation, but that's even more of a jumble of syllables when it's written in kana.
It's a running gag that the main character can't remember pronounce his own noble title (Jinto Lynn Ssynec Raucr Iarlucec Dreuc Haider).

I know this is a cringe question but if an autistic preteen millennial found herself in a magical world full of tameable magical creatures, and learned that her magic could be used to make containers that are bigger on the inside, what are the odds she makes a pokeball?

>>17818554
Pokeballs are highly technological machines, so unlikely.

>>17818554
Fucking pedophile.

>>17818567
>He wouldn't

>>17818563
is a magic pokeball not a pokeball?

Also, the trailer for Pokemon Legends: Arceus implies they've had pokeballs since at least the late1800s

>>17818567
isekai having underaged protags is kind of a standard anon though granted, that's usually for middle-grade stuff, which I've included entirely too many F bombs to count as

>>17818576
I think you should just go with it. It's Fantasy, make what you will of it.

>>17812834
"Hard" Scifi is an oxymoron. All fiction is 100% fantasy.
Infact, "Soft" Scifi is MORE realistic! Examine the difference between past "hard" scifi retrofuturism and stories where rthe author made no attempt to limit the technology used to what they understood was possible. The modern world is much closer to "sopft" speculative scifi from decades past than it is to the supposedly realistic "hard" scifi works, which are all now thought of as kooky retrofuturism. A genre born from them being SO off the mark no one can even recognize that they were supposed to represent reality and not an entirely fictional fantasy setting!

Go back and look for hard scifi that predicted computers.
Then go back and look at "soft" scifi and fantasy that predicted instant global communication networks, automated servitor beings that operate on explicit programming, and societies built around them.
It turns out that all modern technology was thought of LONG AGO as speculative magic and mythology, and is then MADE REAL!

If you want to predict the future, don't look at what you think CAN happen, look at what you think people WANT to happen! Know that with increasing technological power, people will constantly work to SOMEHOW achieve these feats, and that all the trappings of "techology and science" will fade away and be replaced by successive generations.
When steam went away there were no more valves and pipes. Now even wires are fading away and being replaced with totally encased smooth monoliths. Who's to say what will be left in a hundred years. Will people use ANY physical interface or will it all be camera tracking or brain interfaces? It's impossible to know. But it IS possible to ask what people WANT to be the case and assume it's probably close to that eventually.

>>17818775
Scifi and fantasy are subjective terms.

The Powder Mage series. Is it good? Is it worth the time? If not, recommend something similar and good.

>>17818787
It's probably the best of the new wave of gunpowder fantasy. I would recommend it.

>>17818787
I'll start with the good, which is most of the series. The story is well crafted, the plot makes sense, and each book is satisfying through to the end. That's not easy to do in a longer story, but these work.

Like most fantasy books, the stories branch off and switch back and forth. I'm not a big fan of the practice usually. Too often fantasy authors (Robert Jordan, for example) have too many stories running, and you're never sure whether the people in the side plots will reappear or exist only to communicate one piece of information. Other authors just tell two parallel stories that only intersect when the characters physically meet up again. McClellan's side stories are better than most. There aren't any characters that bored me, and the side stories actually end up mattering and contributing to the overall plot. For example, one character learns a crucial piece of information related to another character's current situation. The readers learn something at the right time, and it can add tension to the story while the other character doesn't know what we know.

There are some negatives worth pointing out, too. The writing style and quality had their off moments. One of the more common rules you'll hear as a writer is "show, don't tell." There's a lot of telling in these books. McClellan relied heavily on telling us what the characters were thinking rather than getting to know people by their words and actions. There are also moments where the bad (or at least missing) writing leads the reader to not care very much about things we're supposed to care about. I'm trying to avoid spoilers, so I apologize if the example is vague. The plot makes heavy use of Tamas's past regarding his wife, and that plays out in the affairs of neighboring nations. This hugely important part of the story is told in a few paragraphs, and never shown. We never have a flashback and never witness the past, people, and relationships. This makes it hard to care very much. Don't get me wrong: I cared about the characters and stories, but not the histories we're told and people we barely meet.

>>17818554
If you ever write this story, make sure to post it in Royal Road

>>17818791
>best of the new wave of gunpowder fantasy
There's an old wave?

>>17818858
There was plenty of it back in the day. Yankee in King Arthur's Court etc.

>>17818864
A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court By Mark Twain? I thought that was something else.

Does anyone else remember that one story in which an american town is transported back to the past in Germany around the 17th century?

>>17818880
1632 series

>>17818888
Thank you, anon, was trying to remember it

>>17818554
Post an excerpt

>>17818567
Jesus, what happened to this board.

>>17818895
no problem.

>>17818915
Tourist invaded and occupied it.

>>17818940
Such a shame.

>>17818794
This shit sounds way too good to be true.

>>17802929
>First person
>present tense
Aren't you a rebel.

>>17818146
I remember reading that, shit was great.

>>17817853
Sounds about right,

>>17817749
Spice and wolf?

New Thread.
>>17818966

>>17818787
>The Powder Mage series. Is it good? Is it worth the time? If not, recommend something similar and good.
I didn't read it but it's yet another fantasy story where a woman cuckolds her significant other and doesn't get stoned to death for it so I would recommend avoiding it out of principle.

>>17807041
lotr and bakker

>>17819425
>bakker
Lol

>>17819008
>I didn't read it
how the fuck do you know them?

>>17817417
coping and deflecting won't save your ass subhuman troon

>>17819532
I always spoiler myself by googling when I have a bad feeling about a book.