/lit/ - Literature

>>20294840
Next Fantasy series to break the mold and become mainstream after ASOIAF?
My money is on this guy, I don't think Sanderson can do it despite his huge number of books sold because his books are too anime to be made into live action movies.

>>20294851
This is what winning looks like.

King of /sffg/. Simple as.

I'm torn between wanting to make memes and effortposts about what I'm reading, and not wanting to spoil anything.

>>20294872
You know you can set spoiler warnings on 4chan? Just write a text, highlight it and press ctrl+S and you don't even have to type the annoying syntax. For the picture there is a toggle.

>>20294881
Yeah let me just write an essay and black the whole thing out. Cunt.

>>20294898
Yes, that is what the spoiler function is for.
Maybe 4chan is not the website for you, champ.

Will this thread finally remain? Dunno if It's worth participating in. Would be nice if Jannies gave at least one fucking message to validate it

>>20294898
Just how retarded are you that you don't understand how to use the spoiler function?

>>20292720
>Temeraire to scratch your dragon combat itch, it’s Master and Commander with dragons.
So is this actually good? I have to admit that I am intrigued

>>20294851
I think Mistborn's first book could absolutely be made into a movie (it's practically a heist movie), but I don't think the trilogy as a whole could.

>>20294840
>mfw Horus Heresy
So, story stops being a linear narrative after a while? Because the four books I've read so far seem to logically follow events.

My friends told me I'm immature because I read fantasy and sci-fi too much. Is this really a thing?

>>20295133
Anybody who defines somebody else's maturity by their tastes in media is inherently being immature and not allowing for a variety of tastes beyond what is deemed by society as "acceptably mature".

>>20295133
problem with me is all the classics and shit people to jack off to I already read in high school and college. nowadays I enjoy genre literature because it's relaxation.

>>20295133
fundamentally no, my father reads more sff than me and he is 60 and rich
maybe if you only read Harry Potter

>talked with someone about books we've been reading
>Wolfe comes up
>they thought he was a YA author because of the back cover short description of The Wizard and The Knight books
Well, that was a laugh.

>>20295133
you're immature because you're a dumb frogposter

>>20294249
Chinese BL (“danmei”) cultivation novels have sold like gangbusters for a while. In addition to comics, some of the most popular ones get animated and live action adaptations. The fandom for one adaptation, “The Untamed,” was so big and vocal that their antics got reported on NPR. Lots of novels are fan translated, and some of the most popular have been licensed and officially distributed. It sometimes has a lot of the same gimmicks as non-BL xianxia, like transmigration or being reborn, but there isn’t much power levels autism. They tend to have really slow burns on the homo front, so the better ones usually have an adventure/mystery/war that drives what the MCs are doing, and the POV character very gradually falls in love/realizes that the other guy is in love.

One of the most popular authors possibly just spent two years in jail for making too much money off erotica.

I do like the alien environments and worlds in Tongue Eater in of themselves but yes I struggle to understand their relevance in the overall Mage Errant saga itself considerinv it is still localized to their world.

>>20294851

>>20294932
>>20295049
You guys are retards. If I put effort into something, I want people to read it. That's the dilemma. I would spoiler it, intending everyone to ignore the spoilers, leaving me back at square one.
But I'm okay with that, because the quality of this general is actually your problem, not mine. If I put effort into any sff discussion it won't be here.

>>20295278
>I won't get as much attention as I want if I spoiler!!
Sounds like the problem of a newfag tourist like yourself.

>>20295276
Mage Errant going multiversal feels like a misstep. He should've capped off the series and then moved into a more multiversal one that maybe touches upon the two other worlds he's already got but isn't based in them. Multiversal stuff almost always feels cheap when it's shunted in midway through.

>>20294945
I hope they all get deleted and shit up with Bakker spam. Faggots.

>>20295283
It has been mentioned before but I get what you mean. What I have read so far in book 6 seems like the multiverse is so incredibly above and beyond our protege currently that they should not be getting involved. The two (so far) encounters with random multiversal travellers felt like a plot device with no stakes.

>>20295290
Protags, not protege. FUCK I hate being stuck on a phone.

>>20295290
I mean, it wasn't really mentioned until a few books in. The highest scale was "Hey magic is because of the heat death of the universe" and then in book 3 it's like "Oh yeah demons are from dying other universes" which is fine, but then it's multiversal bullshit after that with organisations that span multiple universes. I liked it when it was just remnants and small pieces poking in, but zooming out so much feels like it's cheap, because we haven't even explored much of THIS universe before we're hopping around.

>>20295305
I agree.
And yes we still have several continents on Anastis that we know less about that some worlds.

>>20295317
Hell, compare to Cradle, which is explicitly multiversal from the start. The only stuff we really learn about stuff apart from Cradle is glimpses from Suriel's POV, because the majority of the story is about Cradle, even when multiversal stuff coalesces on it.

>>20295277
You need to read more, soja anon. His first book series is directly inspired by Paradise Lost.

>>20295278
I struggle to believe that someone with as much brain damage as you is even able to create an effort post.

Just split your review into a spoiler and a nonspoiler part, viewing spoilers literally just takes a mouseover. Are you a woman or a tranny that even the possibility of getting a miniscule fraction of attention less is such a deterrent to you?

>>20295278
you can just spoiler part of your post.
just make clear what you're posting about and maybe also how far into the series you are, that way people will be sufficiently warned before reading it.

look at this example from the last thread: >>20288288

Books for this feel?

>>20295349
I was just doing a little trolling. What is the best book to begin with of his? I remember making a stab at Malice or whatever and it was really gay and boring.

>>20295641
I recommened the sisyphus of oedipuss

I started reading The Dragon Bone Chair and I'm done with part one. Absolute chore to get through, I feel like it picked up towards the end a little but so far everyone just feels a little bland and generic. The Sithi and their lore/mystery are cool I guess. Tell me Simon becomes less annoying of a character.

>>20295153
>isekai
>not YA

>>20295727
A shame, I love that series.
It takes pretty long for Simon to become less of a bitch, and to my disappointment He never learns magic despite being a mage's apprentice
The Sithi and the other races of the Great Garden however become more and more the focus of the books as you read on, so that is something to look forward to.

Friendly reminder that in order to understand GRRM's masterwork you need to have read The Prince and other elite theorists. Follow that up with the entire Western Canon. Only then can you possibly tackled the sheer depth that is Deanery's squatting.

How is Portal to Nova Roma?

I very much enjoy the fact that even introductory Xianxia like ISSTH blows away much if not all the western fantasy classics. Even something like Dune would be trounced if there was a bit more world building.
It pretty much signifies China's spot as the global forerunner in terms of art, science, tech, culture.

>>20294851
are his books any good, seen them in bookstores around the place

>>20295782
Yes, political maneuvering and brutality is such a difficult concept to understand. Medieval Europe was not more brutal than the fat man's ideas. I was not told about evil politicans like Hitler my whole life. How will I ever understand the greek tragedy of the noble house of Atreides.... I mean stark... I know you're being sarcastic. I think my largest issue ASOIAF the notion that everything must be overanalyzed and the belief that every bit of the world is tied to a master plan. George just likes building a very large world with different stories. This is similar to how Tolkien builds Middle earth. There are loads of detail and curiosities in the world, but they don't all tie into one master plan plot with millions of hidden details to study for foreshadowing. Readers of this series do not trust GRRM with anything at face value... when I'm reading the first book.... it's like I realize this is no different than any other fantasy series. Tolkien and Herbert built and expanded as they went along. Herbert still didn't seem to know how things would tie together in the end. This is the creative process. Tolkien had more structure but still he made alterations along the way. I read retarded theories like Ned's dream not being a true account of the tower of joy. The dream is plain as day. "As they were in life" it is repeated.

>>20295972
Furthermore when it comes to theories about a book series written so far apart, I do not consider GRRM of today or his social media persona in thought and ideas to be the same man that wrote the first book. I consider what the author was thinking relative to the historical context of when he wrote it. In this case, 90s Martin. I mean, Herbert changed big time on a personal level by the 80s.

>>20294851
What a shit beard

>>20295771

I'll keep reading then what I did like was how Simon and Hayholt seemed to have been massively influenced by Gormenghast and Steerpike's character giving both are former kitchen boys. Simon climbing the rafters and rooftops definitely gave me Steerpike imagery.

>>20295916
No.

>>20295916
>ISSTH
really? i read a bit into a title from the same author, AWE, and it ready like cheap comedy.

>>20296097
>>20296186
Filtered

Guys, give me recommendations for some solid Progression Fantasy, but not just popcorn, I need that juicy motivational mindset, overcoming obstacles, possibly from zero to hero, something like this. I really need that today.
I've already read Cradle, so not that.

>>20296511
Mother of Learning

>>20296511
Warlock of the Magus World
Against the Gods
The Legendary Master’s Wife
I Shall Seal the Heavens
Sovereign of the Three Realms
Reverend Insanity
Martial God Asura
Library of Heaven’s Path
A Will Eternal
World of Cultivation
True Martial World
Ze Tian Ji
Genius Doctor: Black Belly Miss

>>20296532
Read that too. I've probably read all the most recommended stories, so something not from the top 10 ranking.

>>20296547
Thanks man, will check them out.

>>20296551
I've only read 5 of them, 7 if you count only a few hundred chapters, the other I haven't read at all. No, I won't tell you which :<)

>>20296511
Depending on your feelings about LitRPG, He Who Fights With Monsters is pretty solid. Not quite zero to hero, admittedly. Rage of Dragons is okay for what it is, though the progression is just "getting better at fighting". Bastion's solid enough, though the pacing is a bit of a mess.

>>20296601
>Depending on your feelings about LitRPG, He Who Fights With Monsters is pretty solid. Not quite zero to hero, admittedly. Rage of Dragons is okay for what it is, though the progression is just "getting better at fighting". Bastion's solid enough, though the pacing is a bit of a mess.
I will add Bastion and Rage of Dragons to the list, but HWFWM I am familiar with, and it's basically the opposite of what I asked, MC is an asshole who gets strong right off the bat with powerful friends, HWFWM has one of the most Mary Sue characters the genre has to offer.

What are some of your favorite tropes?
I like when a cultivator goes to a litrpg world/universe and the weird interactions created by two different systems.

>>20296511
lord of mysteries. it's about as much progression as you can possibly get. it's within a very unique power system as well.

>>20296547
>Genius Doctor: Black Belly Miss
i love me some badass female MCs, but that author goes WAY too far with it. dropped it at the climax of one of the arcs, might even have been the first one.

>>20296644
That's one of the ones I haven't read. But yeah I wanted to read some Female MC cultivation novels, but no synopsis except has me hooked, I'm looking for a preteen MC ya smell me?

>>20296641
>What are some of your favorite tropes?

Protagonist evoking fear and awe in people due to how insanely strongly he is, despite the fact he has no right to be so powerful. It's cheap, self-indulgent and reeking of power fantasy, but it's my absolute guilty pleasure.

>>20296630
I suppose I can see that being the case for HWFWM (I generally like the protagonist because he's at least a character compared to something like Defiance of the Fall where the protagonist just doesn't have a personality).

>>20296670
>That's one of the ones I haven't read. But yeah I wanted to read some Female MC cultivation novels, but no synopsis except has me hooked, I'm looking for a preteen MC ya smell me?
Forge of Destiny is what you should read, on Royalroad. I think it's the only popular xianxia with female MC that I know of. The protagonist starts at around 14-16 years old.

>>20296674
A very fun thing I always enjoy seeing is when the perspective swaps to the enemy at that point, and they just go "Holy fuck what the hell is this person".

>>20296687
Too OLD

>>20296767

>>20296807
I have heard it might written by a woman? Is it pozzed?

>>20296023
Good catch

>>20295234
t. frogposter

>>20295641
What you liked in the movie? The cool futuristic tech?

thoughts on this?

Fantasy stories with sex that aren't grimdark? Does such a thing exist?

>>20297256
Any sex at all, or sex like every other chapter?

Newfag here. Started reading Stormlight Archives. Currently in the middle of book 3, Oathbringer. It's been pretty great so far, much better than Mistborn to be quite desu. But Bridge 4 is low key reminds me of a cult:
>initiation ceremony by putting tattoos on their forehead
>wakanda forever
>pretty much starting their own religion with Kaladin as their prophet

>>20295283
Everything Mage Errant does is a misstep

Any suggestions leaning towards villain protagonists?
I've read the broken empire, some black company and the blade itself
I don't mind garbage or capetrash or anything if I enjoy it

Should I read Dawn and Darkness or Shadow and Sea after reading Sea and Shadow?

>>20297431
I personally alternated, Calder > Shera > Calder, because it helps clarify and contextualise things about the others, and Calder's books generally were the more upfront, whereas Shera's fleshed things out but had plots that made little sense without Calder's books beforehand.

I just finished The supernatural horror in literature and I have to say Lovecraft has a verbose and sometimes confusing way of writing.

Other than the obvious, what are some old (40s-50s or earlier) sci-fi?

>>20297571
try Gor by John Norman
1966

>>20294840
>2/3 of the way into book
>MC decides he's gay
Tiresome.

>>20297595
Thanks mate I’ll take a look.

>>20297607
What book?

>>20296547
>Warlock of the Magus World
Will always be disappointing to me because the obvious heavily foreshadowed twist was expecting never happened and turned out to be entirely imaginary on my part.
When he created that clone in the magic universe who thought he was a real person and I thought for certain it would be revealed that he himself was just a clone created by some other entity and the chip was just the control mechanism planted in him, and we were going to find out that some rank 10 asshole from outside reality was actually pupetting around him and a bunch of other clones to steal the universe core because he couldn't break into the universe without destroying it. Then of course the MC would use the clones he created without the chips to break his main body's connection and escape the mind control so he could backstab the guy and steal the origin core for himself
But instead we just got the shadow planet arc, which was perhaps the worst case of filler I've ever seen in any story.

>>20297607
if its a female then it doesn't matter

>>20297420
Reverend Insanity. It's physically impossible for anyone to be more villainous than Fang Yuan.

>>20297633
That sort of begs the question of "why root for him?". Villain protagonists are admittedly a fine line, but I tend to wanna like them even if they're evil, but if they're just the absolute worst why bother.

>>20297616
Arcane Ascension book 1. It's not bad. It has a magic school, but until just now there was no magic school teen drama, just some daddy issues.

>>20297626
Sadly it's a boy who was up to now just an autismo who didn't like people touching him. I'm sure he'll be taking it in the ass by book 2.

>>20297633
I think i dropped it a few years ago some time after he left his village. lost interest. Ended up enjoying birth of the demonic sword much more
does it get better?

>>20297640
Oh yeah, Arcane Ascension is a little odd, because he's initially pretty clear that he's asexual, but then it's sort walked back to "not aromantic", so he can be into somebody, just not wanna fuck 'em. If it helps he's into women romantically too.

>>20295679
retarded rec

>>20297648
Just so it doesn't devolve into that being what the book is about. I started it because I'd read book 1 of the prequel series not realizing it was a spin off of something. In that one the flirty banter between the guy, his dragon and his magic sword was fun (if excessive) but I don't want this to be the same thing with guys.

>>20297672
It doesn't really matter too much, the plot takes precedence. Also that other series is a prequel series of sorts, but it's diegetically being told after the second AA book, and is itself a sequel to another series because literally everything this author has done except one is connected in one single story.

>>20297672
>it’s okay for guys to flirt with dragons
>it’s okay for guys to flirt with magic swords
>it’s not okay for guys to flirt with guys

tried reading assasin's apprentice but it was boring so i dropped it

>>20297680
Yes, exactly.

>>20297672
Corin ends up mostly focused on just his own problems and the plot over teen drama stuff.

>>20297680
I don't want any flirting, much less gay shit. If it's some sissy trap fagget, that looks like a gril, then I can ignore it, cause as we know. traps aren't gay.

>>20297686
you didn't miss out
he gets cucked

>>20297277
A middle ground between the two, sex about as common as it is in real life.

>>20297568
his mind was too wrapped around hating blacks.

>>20297256
There is a ton of lewd fantasy harem books being written these days. At some point I think all of sffg read Tamer King of Dinosaurs which was a founding member (hehe) of the genre. These are generally not grimdark but may involve monster girls.

>>20297645
It expands quite a lot
>>20297639
Because he's interesting to read about. He's not really "evil" in the sense that he irrationally only does bad things, just that he's absolutely ruthless and will always take the path he thins is most effective regardless of what it involves.
He's kinda like Cao Cao, if you've ever read the romance of the three kingdoms. You can't deny that he does many villainous things, but the internal motivation for those actions isn't so simple.

>>20297769
>At some point I think all of sffg read Tamer King of Dinosaurs
False. I knew that book was shit and the author looked like shit, so I didn't touch it.

>>20297826
Yeah but you don't count.

>>20297826
Did you read Super Sales or Large Chests? I feel like these were three strong marker novels for the genre shift on this board.

>>20297420
A Practical Guide to Evil, the premise starts out with the main character joining the Big Bad Evil Empire occupying her homeland and trying to rise up the ranks in order to reform the corrupt occupational leadership. It doesn't fall into the troupe of the main character suddenly deciding to join the rebels or shit like that.

>>20297639
Because it is fun to read? in a sense it is a true power fantasy because there is nothing that limits evil protagonist, he can do whatever he wants or needs to do because morality does not exist. A story of commiting a crime and getting away with it is the best type of fiction. While good, righteous protagonist literally can't do anything because rules, laws, his morality and other good people are stopping him at every step.

>>20297645
Demonic sword was alright at the beginning, mc was cool and was doing stuff, later the mc turned into good/boring coomer. Also the characters were bland (only the drunk master had any kind of actual personality) and world building terrible. The potential was there but the author seriously lacked ability.

>>20297882
Yeah, I read those two. But not the Tamer shit.

>>20297846
>is proven wrong
>y-you don't count

>>20297925
>Demonic sword
he got married
only made the series better imo

>>20297935
>made it better
How? I mean it was not a romance novel so why include it? Ok, if he wanted to fuck then include that, mc is coomer who fucks a different girl every night. But why include romance and even the whole mariage thing? It's like I am reading and enjoying action and adventure and suddenly there is romance, it completely messed up the pace and just ruined the main character.

>>20297256
Garrett PI.

>>20297959
>Romantic subplot breaks anon

>>20297983
I was not reading romance novel, I had to skip all the romance parts at first becaus it was breaking immersion. Later when it got too much I dropped altogether.

>>20298003
The mere existence of romance breaks immersion?

>>20298008
Yes

>>20298008
Any dramatic tonal shift breaks immersion.

>>20297826
I really couldn't get past the first chapters of it, same with D-list supervillain
Some of the shit on those first charts were downright terrible

>>20298122
Are any sci-fi/fantasy smut novels good? They all seem to just be at most 'fine',

>>20298132
Quality's all over the board in the genre desu but you can find some decent to good-ish stuff here and there
Here's a list of the ones I've enjoyed most over the years in descending order of enjoyment:
-Tsun-Tsun TzimTzum (I've barely seen it discussed over here and I highly reccomend it)
-Daniel Black
-Fostering Faust
-Super Sales on Super Heroes
Keep in mind the target audience for the genre and the kind of people that would write it though, more often than not you'll find quite cringy scenes and moments
Also, more than with general fiction, the latest sequels tend to be a tier or two below the rest of the series, probably because of the constant need to raise the stakes and look for cool moments for the MC to flex and add girls to the harems

>>20298203
Are any of them just one-offs that aren't endless sequelbait? I've seen one that had like 24 books in its series and I was thinking there's no way that's any decent level of quality.

I can't fucking do it, bros. I'm going to drop this series. It's just so fucking annoying now.

>>20298214
Randi Darren / William D Arand has a thing for writing Trilogies.
When the three books are done, the story is done.

>>20298122
I can't believe you saved my one off meme pic for a throw away question that was answered right away.

>>20298203
I enjoyed all of those except Tsun Tsun Tzim Tzim, it never really clicked. Dropped the series after book one.

>>20298255
Noted, I did pick up one of Arand's books (Otherlife Dreams) but never got around to reading it.

>>20298214
I don't think I've read any one-off now that I think about it kek
Most of the series either end with a cliffhanger after 6 books when the author just moves on with life and stops writing under their smut name or are trying to make some MCU shit like D. Arand
I'd say Tsun-Tsun is the most "concise" and regular fantasy-like series I've read, it's scheduled to end in book 5 and has a clear plotline that the author isn't trying to stretch forever

>>20298255
>When the three books are done, the story is done.
That nigga has scheduled second trilogies for most his series, I've started to think of him as smut Sanderson (and hackier)

>Tsun Tsun Tzim Tzim, dropped the series after book one
I'd say the second and third books really pick up and are much better in general than the first one, I encourage you to maybe give it a second shot someday, anon

>>20298280
I get the market is basically "write a lot that's just good enough to be successful", look at fucking Dante King and his absurd number of books, but it does mean there's not much of actual quality.

>>20298255
I dropped Arand when he tried to merge Super Sales with his alternate universe. What you say is untrue.

>>20298203
>>20297826
>>20297882
How did the people who wrote these get popular? How did they promote? I want to write one but I've been burned too many times

>>20298235
I dropped Stormlight at Oathbringer too, idk why.

>>20298310
Go on r/haremfantasynovels and do your usual reddit cricle jerk to get reddit friends and shill your shit there. Either that or pump out a book every week like eric vall or logan jacobs or whoever those big name harem authors are.

Remember to get your book on kindle unlimited. No one wants to spend 5 bucks on a new author but most people who read that stuff have a KU subscription and will be happy to read your book for free and you still get paid.

>>20298310
They just caught a shift in the winds. SFFG is a very conservative genre. Baker and Sanderson could be Donaldson and Eddings from the seventies just freshened for the new decade. Same with gurm who wants to be the same thing but different. But good or bad there was a shift in 2015 or so and some people started telling stories a different way. For the most part they are objectively worse than established authors, but maybe you prize novelty, maybe you prize someone who caught their drift and did better but there was a shift.
Those authors ten years from now might find a readership, but most likely would not because their real value was in offering people something new in our time.

>>20298235
I dropped this 1/3 of the way and read the entire Lord of the Rings to clean my mind of this trifle

>>20298317
It just started feeling like the characters regressed and everyone is treading the same ground all over again. The story feels stuck and everytime I look at how much is left I just don't think it's worth continuing.

Walder Frey did nothing wrong

>>20298401
heh

>>20298375
>characters regressed and everyone is treading the same ground all over again
Is this a common thing with Branderson? I've only read Mistborn era 1 but I felt that same way though good chunks of book 2 and 3

>>20298401
Sup Lothar

I finished Tongue Eater and it was yet another reminder that I am glad I do not spend money on this trash. What fucking filler and then a short story nobody cares about.

>>20298420
Mistborn characters are more palatable. Any story arc stormlight characters begin goes by the wayside with the second and jumps off a cliff by book 3 it seems. What do you expect though, what author proclaims his series will be 10 books and each of his books are already bloated. To do this and write quickly, you get a bunch of filler. Not good filler, not interesting filler. Not poetry. Not songs. Not the details about some lord in a castle or what he eats for breakfast. No, you get extremely immature dialogue and plots that fail to pick up any pacing. The stakes and threats don't feel like a threat. There is no foreboding of a threat. I can't even put my finger on what the threat actually is other some evil God in which case it's the same shit as Mistborn all over again with prophecy and capeshit powers. Everyone is a superhero. The enemy of the first two books just gets thrown by the wayside. There just is nothing to latch onto. Even the main character, probably the overall fan favorite or one you are most sympathetic for from the first book gets upstaged by everyone else. It really is shit. I don't understand how even sanderson consumers get through it. I think they lie and cope to themselves that they are reading Tolkien tier writing.

>>20298401
Explain your reasoning

>>20298235
How bad can it be? I'm almost done with Words of Radiance, and I'm liking it more than Way of Kings. As much as I complained about Sanderson being a mid writer who spoils all the fun by over-explaining, I was still curious what would happen next. So I began book 2 right away. About 4/5ths the way through right now, and I'm thinking it's an improvement over book 1. So now I'm kind of excited to get to Oathbringer.

Are there any books that have similar vibes to the section of fellowship of the ring between Rivendell and Moria? The descriptions of traversing varied landscapes, camping out under the stars in unfamiliar territory, hearing the sounds of unknown creatures at night. Some of my favorite stuff in LOTR

Bran ate Jojen.

>>20298520
Yeah I too was hopeful with how the 2nd one shaped out but trust me. You will be back here venting and you will be told that you were warned.

>>20298545
We'll see. I'm guessing by the cover that it focuses on one of the female characters. So from that, I'm guessing that dissatisfaction a lot of anons express over the book is based on the amount of female PoV chapters there are. Curious that the cover character doesn't have red hair though. It makes me wonder who that is. Don't tell me. I'll figure out when I get there. But I have a couple of ideas.

>>20298541
Ayo, he took the whole thing?!

>>20298604
Yes female POVs are generally shit but I'm telling you Shallon is pure cancer.

>>20298676
Shallon is pretty fun so far. Well, aside from the stupid backstory parts. Those are pretty cheesy. But current day Shallon is good.

>>20298688
Book 3 anon. See you soon.

>>20295274
>One of the most popular authors possibly just spent two years in jail for making too much money off erotica.


Oh CCP never change.

>>20295355

You talk like a faggot and your shit's all retarded.

>>20298502
Robb made him lose face and look like a bitch by breaking his oath and not marrying his daughter, on top of sending his bannermen on a suicide mission at the battle of the green fork

>>20296601
Cant remember the name, something like blue mage dragon. It was cultivation lite.

>>20296670
>I'm looking for a preteen MC ya smell me?
Oh I smell you all right.

>>20298779
Robb did him dirty but the Red Wedding is unforgivable. It would be one thing if he declared his rebellion, but he slaughtered guests in his home.

>>20298493

I mostly audio book and my god that graphic audio movie in your mind bullshit was absolutely intolerable. Some gay ass scene with some three second loop of dogs barking for 20 minutes, or the fight scenes with swords clashing. Worst is the fucking music that pops up like they have to tell you by the music that this is supposed to be the epic part. I legit cant stand it. Sanderson books are so fucking formulaic. I swear it was written by a shitty AI. OK its been this many pages sense we had a fight so it's time for another one. Now it's time to change locations... Orson Scott Cards newer books feel like this as well.

>>20298824
Old gods are impotent so the old laws are useless. Deal with it.

Liking lolishit isn't a personality, anon

>>20298831
I feel like Michael Kramer does a good job with his audiobooks. I don't know about any dramatizations or graphic audio movies. I wouldn't recommend that for any book.

>>20298280
>Tsun-Tsun
didn't he rewrite book 5 twice and is starting yet again with it?
it's not looking to good

>>20298476
The magic in the world is super fun, it’s too bad the author can’t write and all his characters are fsggots

>>20298521
eragon and eldest (eragon#2) may have what you are looking for, particularly for eldest when the mc and his support party travel from the land of dwarves to that of the elves and the stay in the elven lands, extremely comfy.

This fucking jannie is legit trying to get me banned for posting loli that is less lude than the loli in the official 4chan banners.

>>20295296

Can you find the title or author please.

On an unrelated note our jannie is legit functionally retarded and doesn't understand how this site works.

loli =/= loli porn

Deleting my posts and submitting a ban request =/= ban

Waiting until your ban request is rejected and then posting again =/= ban evasion

Rec me a fantasy or sf with a beautiful nature. Something like the movie avatar, if you know what I mean

>>20299020
Of course, /lit/ would have the most self-serious pretentious jannies.
Janny, your head is so far up your ass that your shoulders are caked in the diarrhea leaking out of your shit filled diaper.

>>20298203
>-Tsun-Tsun TzimTzum (I've barely seen it discussed over here and I highly reccomend it)
The protagonist is one of the biggest pussies that has ever walked the Earth.
I hate him so much I'd rather have Chad McThundercock as a protagonist for every book I'll ever read.

How do I discover new books? Almost everything on the recommended lists either looks like shit or I've already confirmed to be shit by reading it.

>>20295114
yes. horus heresy was essentially intended to be a LOT shorter.

>>20299484
*fistbumps back*

>>20299484
Look at goodreads' lists created by users, they tend to have a loot of books, sorted by rating and popularity.

>>20299150
Are you new here? Our janny is pozzed.

>>20299465
Let me guess, you read just the first book too?

>>20294840
>Exodus of the Long Sun
>Calde Silk has a tax policy and he explains it
lol based

>>20299150
Are you new here? Our janny is pozzed.

>>20299662
It is important that we remind them frequently that we disapprove of their performance.

>>20298782
I don't think you meant to reply to me.

>>20298908
Imagine what we could have had if the author werent a J.

update from the big guy
>THE WINDS OF WINTER is going to be a big book. The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF STORMS or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, the longest books in the series to date. I do usually cut and trim once I finish, but I need to finish first.

Just got a copy of Roadside Picnic but it turns out it doesn't also include Tale Of The Troika like I thought it would. Am I missing out? Should I read that next?

I've read Wolfe and Tolkien. NOW WHAT?!!

>>20300454
Vance

>>20300267
> Tale Of The Troika
Tale of the Troika is a sequel to Monday Starts on Saturday, and Monday Starts on Saturday is literally a book for children. Troika is not, but it's really only worth it if your read Monday and want some more.

>>20300257
>The way it is going, it could be bigger than A STORM OF STORMS or A DANCE WITH DRAGONS
I just wrote the first sentence of my book, it could be 10000 pages

>>20298779
>Robb made him lose face and look like a bitch by breaking his oath and not marrying his daughter, on top of sending his bannermen on a suicide mission at the battle of the green fork
That might be a reason to retract his allegiance, but the Red Wedding was going way too far.

>>20298836
Regardless of the Old Gods and the Old Laws, Frey only made the situation worse for himself politically with the Wedding, and regarding face - the Wedding stained the image of his house way worse than any slight ever could. Even their supposed allies treat Freys as utterly untrustworthy pieces of shit now.

I read two books from Noobtown series, I'm not going to read the third. It might be one of the most dissapointing experiences I've had so far with a published LitRPG book. First book was just average, meandering, with uninteresting system that sucked any enjoyment from reading about the progression. The humor was so-so as well. Unfortunately, the second book was even worse. Thankfully, I'd learned my lesson and skimmed most of it. I've seen some truly popcorn stories before, but this one is simply EMPTY. There is nothing. No theme, message, or over-reaching goal that the cartoonish protagonist really strives forward to, the jokes get old very quickly. This books are competent in meaning that there is nothing horrible about them, but I don't think there's a single thing that I could like.

If this was a webnovel, I'd say it's extremely average. As a published book? Its existence baffles me. The worst is that the series appears to be popular, so I expected at least a decent experience out of it. But no, I just feel like I wasted my time. Is it really that simple to get popular? Just write something coherent, give MC a cheat ability, add some jokes, take the entire infodump material and space it out over the entire book so that it's not offensive? I'm dogshit both at writing and english language, yet even I would tentatively claim to be capable of writing a better book.

Recently, I've started to thinking about reading books like this as smoking marijuana, an empty experience that grants nothing and yet takes your time. This one is not even enjoyable. Reading through both of them I'd felt like an addict taking the worst drug possible, just to satisfy the craving. This is not the worst litrpg or evne book that I've read, but I am feeling somehow dirty right now, dissapointed with myself that I decided to read another book after the first. Is this that famous life experience that you need to learn yourself? Or maybe I've finally hit some sort of mental void.
Idk, Noobtown series 4/10, don't read it.

>>20300522
Monday Starts on a Saturday is very good, I would note write it off as merely a book for children

>>20300544
I had a similar feeling with the Ten Realms series. I didn't even finish the first book because it was just so bland and nothing, and yet it's weirdly popular and liked and I don't get it. There's good LitRPG stuff, but it baffles me how the utterly mediocre is highly ranked too.

Been going throw this series and I've enjoyed the books thoroughly.
I guess I really am just a simple monkey

>>20300590
Noobtown is far better than Ten Realms, although that anon's criticism of it isn't that far off.

>>20300687
I'm going through some lesser-reviewed ones myself, currently going through Apocalypse Knights which I'm actually enjoying quite a bit. Doesn't do a lot new, necessarily, but it clearly knows what it is and how to do its thing right. A solid protagonist with an actual character, too, even if he's basically just an archetype played straight (he's a war vet turned cop turned adventurer, so he's exactly as gruff as you'd expect), even his OP shit is just "right time right place" it feels like.

>>20300544
haha that rating shows how silly scales have become
it is the worst drug possible, it brings me a mental void 4/10

found a copy of Artemis Fowl, should I read it?

>>20300938
Yes
Holly best girl

>>20295138
nah

>>20300855
>haha that rating shows how silly scales have become
>it is the worst drug possible, it brings me a mental void 4/10
Nah, I said it's not the worst I've read, just that it had a specific combination of content that resulted in a minor mental devastation on my side.
4/10 for a published book is actually quite low, usually I'd give such ratings only to poor, unedited webnovels. To go lower the book would not only have even worse content, but also be offensive or even unreadable.

>>20300544
Yesterday, someone recommended me Warlock of the Magus World as a good progression fantasy. I wanted to have paletee cleanser after Noobtown, so I expected some quality, despite it being a translation. I've read 17 chapters so far and it's trashy as fuck. MC has OP AI that does everything for him, he becomes respected and liked, every female in the story is described by how fuckable or curvaceous she is while still being thirteen years old. Basically an arrogant OP Protagonist with a cheat abillity that only smirks and plans how to fuck up everyone around him while everyone just gape in awe of how 'amazing' he is. So far it's worse than even Reverend Insanity.

And speaking of characters ages, do Chinese have some young people fetish? And I don't mean it in pedophilic/ephebofilic way, but I noticed that the characters tend to be weirdly young, yet acting ten years older. Like, it is literally said the protagonist fucked 100+ women despite being only THIRTEEN. And speaks like an equivalent of 20 years old from a western story. Why are people so young in Chinese stories? Wiki tells me people are adult there upon reaching 18. Is it just the Chinese fantasy authors' edginees, or some weird cultural notion?

I decided to finally read Tolkien. I read the Silmarillion years ago because a friend gave me a copy for my birthday and I had read some of his academic work because it was of interest to me (same with Lewis whose fiction I also haven't read) but I could never get through the Hobbit or the Fellowship because I couldn't find anything interesting in the first couple chapters of either book and the movies made me think hobbits were the most pathetic and uninspiring creatures ever imagined by human mind.
But in both books once you get out of the shire I was happy to find things really picked up and Jackson completely fucked up characterizing the hobbits. Anytime in Fellowship where Frodo was proactive and valiant Jackson made the retarded decision to make Frodo look cowardly and weak.
I couldn't believe what I was reading when Frodo stopped in the middle of the river to cross blades with the wring wraith and defied him to take the ring from him. Why the fuck would you take that away from the main character of the series?
I know allot of people got into LotR because of the movies but they really turned me away from them since I got into fantasy from the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard and LotR came off as, frankly, effeminate, the fact that the only people I knew who were into it were girls didn't help either.
So anybody out there putting it off for similar reasons as I did I would recommend to give it a chance and even though "elventy-first" birthdays are the most retarded things on earth just bear through to the Old Wood and you'll be through the worst of it.
Right now I'm about halfway through the Two Towers and look forward to finishing the whole series by next weekend.

>>20301032
chinese webnovels are often like that. that's just their flavour of power fantasy. it's the reason i couldn't get into a lot of them as well, despite trying.

there are genuinely good ones like LotM though.

>>20301032

>>20301134
What is Danmei? First time I see that word, google says it's it's some type of Yaoi? Is it actually good or just a meme? I don't think It would matter to me if the MC is gay as long as the story is good, but all I've heard about such stories is that they are trash written by women.
I welcome any recommendations.

>>20301032
>17 chapters
Did he even get to the school yet? For the first 100 or so chapters, there is the feeling that he could easily die/become an experiment at any point, it's a bit meta because there are plenty of novels where they do take the path of the MC getting captured, losing his cheat, and falling even farther into despair before the rise.
Many cultivation novels have characters that start young because 1000 chapters down the line they want the protagonist to be the genius disciple of some sect master.
As far as acting older, leylin died and the scientist took over his body, Most of the characters he travels with act young/naive during most of the school arc, but they are all turn 17 within the first hundred chapters. You should read about what Saddam Hussein sons were doing at that age.

The Bakkerposters where...... right
I am 3/4 through Judging Eye and thoroughly enthralled by this world. It even has it's own fantasy version of Leto II.

>>20301073
The movies gets a lot of things wrong but I the overall feel of the hobbits I don't think they did. The big problem is they are all very young in the films. Frodo is supposed to be like 50-60 years old? They are very brave and each of them have their heroic moment by Return of the King. However, I think the shire chapters are the best in whole series. The Elves are not men, and they are still flamboyant in the books I think. The real problem though, is what you consider to be effeminate, pathetic, uninspiring, I consider angelic, curious, and adventurous.

>>20299821
because janny does it for free. Don't expect good moderation, with every new thread this general becomes more and more pozzed.

>>20300552
It is a very good children's book, but still.

>>20301310
It's way past pozzed at this point, this moderation is worse than Reddit/twitter, even a classic forum has better moderation than this. This is on the level of a progressive Subreddit. Janny needs to go back FAST.

>>20300257
That's awful news. GRRM lost control of the plot post-ASOS. The guy has no sense of moderation. He can't help but bloat the story with bullshit. Most, if not all, of the sample WOW chapters is stuff that was cut from ADWD, and ADWD and AFFC were originally going to be one book. I keep saying it, but unless the Others suddenly invade halfway through WInds, there's no way GRRM will be capable of finishing the story with only two more books.

>>20301206
I will say, though, that if you aren't enjoying a cultivation novel at least a few times every 3 or so chapters, it probably isn't worth continuing, rather if you contemplate what you are doing with your life more than once every 10 chapters it's not worth continuing.

>>20301389
There's very few cultivation things I've enjoyed. Cradle sort of remains the peak for me but I admittedly haven't read TOO many, a lot of them just seem same-y.

>>20301396
I haven't read cradle, but I get the same feeling from a popular western cultivation novel as I get from The Black Parade, Yeah, it's probably very good, and I'll like it, but it's tones down some of the more based elements of the genre in favor of more mainstream sounds.
I think shamelessness, face, casual racism/sexism is part of the genre, and it moves towards soullessness the more that is removed to garner mass appeal. That being said, I like The Black Parade, and I'll probably like cradle, because I have half a brain and can put a work into context while reading it.

>>20301486
Cradle admittedly feels more like a standard fantasy adventure that has the trappings of cultivation and other Chinese stuff going on. It's moreso character-focused than progression-focused, anyway.

>>20301330
>authoritarian dislikes authoritarianism when personally affected by it

>>20301512
>when personally affected by it
If by personally you mean half the thread being deleted, then yes. Also, 4chan has always been a libertarian site.
"No gods, no masters" - Moot

>M

>>20301176
Danmei is Chinese homo fiction, including but not necessarily porn. Quality is a meme--like everything, 99% of it is shit.

If you want to give homo cultivation webnovels a try, most people start with Mó Dào Zǔ Shī/Grand Master of Demonic Cultivation. An infamous necromancer is summoned into a new body under mysterious circumstances years after his death, and gets dragged on a road trip by a cultivator rival from his past life to solve the mystery of a weird corpse. The licensed English translation got memed into bestseller status last January (more proof that the NYT system is broken). https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2022/01/02/trade-fiction-paperback/

God, this book was gay as all fuck. You don't even have to check the author, it's glaringly obvious that it's a woman. But it's nice to read something from a woman every once in a while. Especially from one who very clearly loves men. And it was a perfectly solid pulp fantasy. Nice world, nice atmosphere, excellent sense of classic adventure. Kindled in me some incredibly strong nostalgia for Albion, I'll probably have to replay that game now. Also Hesseth best girl.

>>20294840
Axiomatic - Greg Egan (1995)

Most of the "Ok"s here are at the threshold of enjoyable, so it was almost the case that I enjoyed every story. Although Egan is known for Hard SF, several of these aren't. Quite a few are arguably horror stories as well. I couldn't have reasonably expected to have enjoyed myself more than I did. His ideas all are almost always interesting, but it's less often that they have enough substance outside of the idea itself for me to enjoy.

The Infinite Assassin (1991)
A relatively invariant assassin is to sent to kill those who create reality whirlpools, which is where an infinite number of realities swirl together. If this were represented visually, it'd be extremely surreal. What I assume to be the relevant mathematical concepts are presented, but I only understood the most basic aspects required to understand their relevance to the narrative.
Enjoyable

The Hundred Light-Year Diary (1992)
At birth every child receives a diary, provided that they wrote one, that chronicles their life as written by their future self. Are these absolute decrees? Can we trust who we will be in the future? Are there other unknown forces acting upon our lives?
Enjoyable

Eugene (1990)
The title is a play on words, as it's primarily about eugenics, but many other social issues are forcibly expounded upon as well.
Ok

The Caress (1990)
A crime investigation horror story about the titular chimera.
Ok

Blood Sisters (1991)
Biological warfare research goes awry and infects the world. This provides the backdrop for exploring the ethics of triple-blind medical trials.
Ok

Axiomatic (1990)
Beliefs can be bought and implanted. Anything you want to believe is possible. A cautionary tale about moral clarity.
Enjoyable

The Safe-Deposit Box (1990)
A man awakens every day as a different pre-existing man in the same city and almost the same exact age.
Enjoyable

Seeing (1995)
A man is shot in the head and has a brain lesion that forces him to view himself from a bird-eye view that feels like an out of body experience.
Ok

A Kidnapping (1995)
A kidnapper holds a questionably conscious digital reproduction of his wife hostage for ransom.
Ok

>>20301590
Learning to Be Me (1990)
A story about identity, consciousness, and mind uploading.
Highly Enjoyable

The Moat (1991)
An attack on anti-immigration racists and the ultra-wealthy who may be conspiring to create a genetically engineered master species which would be unable to reproduce with normal humans.
Ok

The Walk (1992)
A man is held at gunpoint. His murder is imminent. The murderer decides to engage him in a philosophical discussion about the meaning of life and existence.
Ok

The Cutie (1989)
Greg Egan's first published story. An obsession with having a baby leads to a male pregnancy and birth that becomes a horrific nightmare.
Enjoyable

Into Darkness (1992)
Some suspected alien technology changes the local physics of an area from being isotropic to radially anisotropic. In practical terms, this means any movement away from the core is lethal. The protagonist tries to rescue people by leading them towards the core, where they then wait for the effect to dissipate.
Ok

Appropriate Love (1991)
An insurance company wants to cut costs in a full body replacement procedure. His wife is coerced into carrying his brain in her womb for two years until the clone is an a viable state for transplantation.
Enjoyable

The Moral Virologist (1990)
A deranged religious virologist develops a virus that will kill all homosexuals and adulterers, which he defines as anyone who has ever had sex with more than one person. It will also kill anyone who gets blood on them from someone else. However, he's overlooked one critical issue. I laughed a lot because I read this as a tragicomedy. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I found it to be utterly hilarious in how ridiculously absurd it all was.
Highly Enjoyable

Closer (1992)
An exploration of sexuality, intimacy, and identity.
Highly Enjoyable

Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies (1992)
Ideology has become infectious and has formed ideological basins. Anyone who enters them becomes indoctrinated. There are still a few yet who remain in the center and have not fallen into ideology. But, perhaps there's no escape from ideology and they're unable to accept their own.
Ok

>>20301590
>>20301594
>90s
Literally a decade full of cavemen anon, get some taste and read stuff from the current year. PLEASE.

Tomorrow begins a month of focusing on reading Asian works translated into English and traditionally published. I'll be reading various other stuff as well.

>>20301613
I have read and wrote up about at least 1 current year book per month and will continue to do so for rest of current year.

>>20301531
It's just two retards that are getting their posts deleted though

>>20301512
Lol since when is 4chan authoritarian?

>>20300522
Ok thanks

>>20301363
GRRM got radicalized and empowered by modern progressives so his ability to write went downhill, many such cases. Liberalism makes you stupid.

>get friend to read dune
>he likes it, says it's like game of thrones in space
>first instinct is to punch him hard
but he's right

>>20301717
>popular thing is like other popular thing I know
>btw, my reference is only a few things total

Male trio:
>Rand going mental due to saidin and baal's tricks, learning how to use the power, killed 13 people like it was nothing
>Perrin going mental due to wolves, killed several white cloaks with an aiel by his side
>Mat showing his incredible ta'veren luck by managing to avoid Lanfear and some bandits due to sheer luck and coincidence
Female trio:
>clean shit, find some bait from the bad guys and doing questionable decisions
>egwene can't still stfu
>nynaeve can't do shit without being in rage
My enjoyment from this series is inversely proportional to the amount of female chapters I read in a day.

>>20301717
No, he's wrong. When season 1 of game of thrones came out, everyone said "It's like Dune but medieval setting." Don't agree and defend your friend for being uncultured and a midwit.

>>20301752
I don't get it, why do they include females in anh capacity other than third rate side chadacters.

>>20301752
This is one of the reasons why Jordan is unappealing to me. Seems too progressive.

>>20301910
Weird that this is something that could be said either by am old-school male reader or by a degenerate fujoshi

And now there's a god of trannies.

>>20301590
Glad you enjoyed them overall.
-the fag who rec'd it

>>20302318
Well, I was already planning to read it way before then, years really, I just hadn't got around to it. I've read a considerable amount of Egan previously. There's just so much to get around to.

>>20301752
the only way to read the books is to skip all female pov chapters and every perrin chapter after he leaves the two rivers for second time.

The TRUE way to read the books is to only read the mat chapters.

>>20294855
>I live on the south coast of the UK with my beautiful wife, three sons and my daughter
>three sons
uhh

>>20296767
based

>>20294851
>>20295110
The Reckoners is prime capeshit. Better yet, it's The Boys style capeshit, so it would sell like hot-cakes.

How do litrpg/cultivation authors manage to make exp grinding worth reading?

>>20302962
It's not anywhere violent, dark, or cynical enough to be compared to The Boys.

>>20302987
Same way they do in games. It's something their audience already enjoys. They don't have to do much of anything, which is fortunate for them because that's all they're capable of.

>>20302987
They don't. Progress is often either incidental, achieved as part of some other endeavour, or is glossed over after the character discovers the current most effective way.

>>20294389
nah i'd rather ask someone who's already read them

GRRM saying TWoW will be longer than ADoD even though his publisher wouldn't even let him make ADoD longer is strange.

>>20301717
Dune's plot is way too basic and straightforward to be comparable to GoT

>>20302991
It's a dystopia ruled by superpowered tyrants where civilians die in droves and all infrastructure is fucked. It's absolutely darker than The Boy's, difference being the MC is a dork that likes to quip.

>>20298520
Shallan is insufferable and brings down the quality of the whole book quite a bit. She gets even worse in WoR. The other characters are still good. Dalinar's backstory is great.

>>20303130
I fucking love schizo Shallan

>>20303127
It's a sanitized YA version of The Boys at most.

I decided to finally read a book for the first time in a long while and I really enjoyed it. What should I read next?

>>20303146
Im glad someone does because I didn’t. She spends so much time struggling with her mental disorder she ends up doing nothing meaningful and the plot around her moves slowly as fuck.

>bad female characters ruining entire books is the most common complaint in this thread
Why is it so hard to write women that is not insufferable? Batshit insane women does not apply.

>>20303168
because women are insufferable.

>>20302987
They don't. Novels that have grinding just show authors inability to write.

>>20303179
>write women as insufferable
/sffg/ complain
>write women as non-sufferable
/sffg/ complain

>>20303188
Yeah, I want to read fantasy, why bother to add the worst thing about reality into your stories?

Yerrin is cute!

>>20303168
>Why is it so hard to write women that is not insufferable?
Because fictional characters are based on real human character irl. And real women are insufferable.

>>20303199
I appreciate artists that go all-in on Lindon having a face that looks like he wants to punch you.

>>20303194
>>20303206
What are your favorite novels with a homosexual misogynist protagonist?

>>20303199
Who cares what she looks like. I am reading a novel not watching porn, her looks are irrelevant, character wise she is annoying and irritating.

>>20303209
The kindly ones

>>20303130
Shallan and Kaladin both become pretty obnoxious in Oathbringer imo.

>>20303209
Why do you assume that I am homosexual or that I am into homosexual stories or characters, just because I find women insufferable?

>>20303209
Brian Herber’s Dune prequels where Baron Harkonnen gets a lot of screentime

CS Pascat’s Captive Prince

Ricardo Pinto’s The Chosen, a book that made “dinosaurs with flamethrowers” boring

>>20303092
when did he say this?

Thoughts on the bear and the maiden fair?

why is sword and sorcery dead

>>20303373
It's repetitive.

>>20299821
because janny does it for free. Don't expect good moderation, with every new thread this general becomes more and more pozzed.

>>20303164
are the sequels worth the read?

>>20303164
Ringworld

>>20303450
what were you replying to

>>20303485
Deleted post

>>20303281
Yesterday on his not a blog

>>20303484
I did not enjoy ringworld or the sequels. Reminded me too much of that boring ass bobaverse book.

>>20303485
Retarded mods being retarded. Banning and deleting anything that offends their Mormon sensibilities. Legit doesn't understand the difference between loli and loli porn. Or ban evasion and simply waiting out the post block on a ban request (jannies cant actually ban).

>>20303281
This is what he said yesterday

>>20303092
This fat fuck won't finish the books. Move on

>>20303587
We can hope he dies soon. Covid failed but maybe the new bill gates bird flu will get him.

>>20303585
If he actually did finish it at this point they'd let him publish a fuckoff huge $1,500 leatherbound hardback like Tolkien wanted for Lord of the Rings.

But he won't because he lost control of the plot 15 years ago and he doesn't have the balls to admit it.

>>20303582
god I hate fags

any books for this feel?

>>20303696
Orson Scott Card’s Songmaster.

>>20302049
>progressive
Jordan was the opposite of progressive. The vast majority of the female characters live in a literaly ivory tower on literal vagina island and get btfo at every opportunity. The only truly competent women are the Aiel Wise Women, and Nynaeve after she gets the dick. The angle he was going for here is that all of these competent women were something before they were powerful, they were mothers, or village wisdoms, or Far Dareis Mai, something that gave them actual life experience, rather than silly girls raised in an ivory tower and told they were always right.

>>20303732
There are no women in The Hobbit.

>>20303764
Yes, and it's based, but nobody here is saying Jordan is equivalent to Tolkien, just that anon is misinterpreting how the Aes Sedai are intended to be taken.
My favorite movie is John Carpenter's The Thing for what it's worth.

>>20303769
I don't know. To me it just comes off as conflicted. He feels intellectually obligated to write muh stronk woman, but his seething male resentment makes them just come out as cunts. It's the worst of both worlds.

>>20303678
I loved AFFC and ADWD, but as i was reading them it felt like he forgot he planned to finish the series in 2 more books. He could probably manage the plot if he had 3 or 4 left, but with just 2 left it seems like he really wrote himself into a corner. It's a shame he put it off for so long because if he were slightly younger with a better work ethic he could probably have
made 4 more books.

>deleted
lmao

I need more books about first contact with ayys.

Thieves’ World was pretty good anons.
>>20303373
The man who got me into Sword and Sorcery had a very astute point to make on it. He said it’s, “Not a genre for all time, or all seasons.”
I think it’s fine if it isn’t as popular now as it was.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9r0qpU1IOXI

>>20303764
>There are no women in The Hobbit.
>>20303769
>it's based

>>20304083
Tolkeks BTFO'd

>>20299821
because janny does it for free. Don't expect good moderation, with every new thread this general becomes more and more pozzed.

>>20303845
It's really not. Literally everyone who isn't Aes Sedai in the series repeatedly states that the Aes Sedai are untrustworthy, Rand has prophetic dreams telling him not to go to Tar Valon, you're persistently beaten over the head with the fact that the Aes Sedai are incompetent, dishonest, and not to be trusted. They are consistently portrayed as violent, petulant, spoiled and incapable, capable only of maintaining their status due to their monopoly on power.
Moiraine essentially admits this outright, late in the series, that she was so caught up in the mystique of being Aes Sedai she paid no heed to the consequences of her actions towards Rand.

>>20301580
Sounds like you liked except calling it gay then?

>>20304272
He likes book from authors who like men.

>>20303206
This is absolutely true.

>>20303849
>sadistic barbie doll queen
see, I can imagine why everyone would go fucking crazy for a cersei looking like that

>>20303373
because today everyone has almost fetishistic-level obsession with character relationships at the expense of everything else. if you're not relating to the character in the first 50 pages it's a bad story.

>>20301752
Nynaeve is a lot more bearable once she gets away from Egwene and Elayne. Egwene never really becomes bearable, unfortunately.

>>20304448
It's not just that. Sword and Sorcery started as a genre for serialized stories, the issue that creates is that you kind of have to have a static character. They can't really develop beyond where they begin, because the serialized format meant that many readers wouldn't be getting the full character arc. The format also meant they were repetitive. And especially, because the Sword and Sorcery hero was basically an unstoppable baddass regardless of series.
I think the reason Conan endured while the rest didn't was because Howard found a way to write around that. To expand, in one of the earlier Kane stories, Kane fights a Werewolf. Rather than using a Silver weapon, or brewing up a potion of Wolfsbane or anything like that, he just strangles the fucker, because he was a big, strong, immortal badass.
If you compare that to Conan, Conan has two things he absolutely hates and is persistently pitted against: Snakes and Magic. This allowed Howard to write a character who was an absolute, unstoppable gigachad, but also in mortal peril constantly. You can't cut venom or magic, Conan was just as vulnerable as anyone else to these things, and so his physical prowess became secondary to his cleverness, which on the whole made him more interesting.

I think modern S&S makes the same mistake a lot of old S&S does, it lacks tension because it tries to present itself as pure S&S with an indomitable hero who can't be beaten. Whereas the most successful S&S has a hero who is *constantly* on the brink of defeat.
S&S won't get a revival until authors take a step back and actually write it in a way that firstly takes advantage of the long novel formula that is most common today, and create a protagonist whose strength is offset by his enemies.

>>20304478
S&S is going through a mini revival with publishers like DMR books
it's nowhere near the old pulp stuff or even the 60's-80's revival that had guys like wagner writing but it's pretty good

>>20304478
>>20304540
but overall you are right. modern S&S seems obessed with strong-thewed characters who hack their way through dozens of enemies only taking a few surface cuts and injuries.
maybe it's because i'm a huge kane fan but that can be explained because he wasn't written as a sword and sorcery protagonist and is more of a gothic horror character but even in stories like raven's eyrie he's close to death and only survives by sheer luck alone
but sword and sorcery is suffering from a lack of realistic characters. we all like conan and kane and guys who can slaughter dozens without breaking a sweat but what happened to characters like fafhrd and the grey mouser? in jewels of the forest fafhrd almost meets his end facing two thugs and is only saved when mouser intervenes. fafhrd and the grey mouser are capable of fighting and killing but spend half their time thieving or running away from their enemies

>>20304083
>Implying they ever read books

>>20304609
Women? they read but they only read the pozzed, sjw, trash pilled garbage and non-supreme books.

>>20304767
No, fags like you who shit up the general.

So, what happened to /sffg/? The last few threads had people actually discuss books and stories, which is something that never happened before for the past year or so.

>>20304809
The autist spamming stupid shit seems to have gotten banned.

>>20304809
Pretty sure people grew tired of the spammer that they started reporting him, which made the general more useable after the jannies and mods dealt with him.

>>20304812
Nah, he comes again, but his posts get deleted, and he seethes about it before getting ban for spamming again.

How do I separate the wheat from the chaff? It's impossible to know if a book is going to be good

>>20304843
>It's impossible to know if a book is going to be good
That's why you read it, anon, and form your own opinion on it.

>>20304809
>>20304812
>>20304841
in awe at the fact that 90% of the low effort shitposting and 50% of the bakkerposting was literally just one severily mentally disabled guy
why do generals always attract people like this?

>>20304847
But I don't want to figure out I'm reading a bad book a third through

>>20304850
Why a third? I can usually tell from the first two or three pages if it's worth my time or not. Don't even have to buy/download it as I can read these on Amazon usually.

>>20304848
>why do generals always attract people like this?
I can only assume because they got no life.

>>20300938
It's a series for kids and the author has a very in-your-face environmentalist bent. So as long as you're fine with that, you might enjoy the first book. It rapidly goes downhill after book 1 so you can stop there.

>>20294851
I find the idea laughable.

>>20295967
I found him so utterly boring and trite I could not even finish Malice. He's one of those authors that is just so eager to explain everything to you up front, robbing his story of any suspense or mystery. So after blowing his load early there's nothing to do but gradually watch events unfold in a series of utterly predictable cliches.

>>20304843
>screen works using trusted recommendations
Fails because most people have bad taste, or at least don't completely overlap with your own taste.
>screen works by grasping the character of the writer and extrapolating what they're likely to write
Fails because it usually takes quite a while to get a solid impression, and is unreliable since authors frequently change their opinions or writing style/skill over time, and in modern times often represent themselves falsely to avoid confrontation.
>screen works by reading them
Gets straight to the point, but as most works are shit, you'll spend most of your time reading shit.

The most efficient you can get is to employ a multi-level strategy of all three methods, ranking incoming works by review/author profile/current reading progress and then reading from the top down in relative quality.

In the end you're still going to be reading a lot of trash, so the only option is to learn to derive enjoyment from it somehow. If you take up writing as a hobby yourself it can become very interesting to analyze the construction of poorly written stories to pick out the things you want to avoid or do, and to make an exercise of re-writing them in your own style to see if you can do better. It can also be interesting just in the context of introspection to think about why you (dis)like certain aspects of stories. Or simply to compile your experiences and discuss them with others.

The latter is the foundation of this thread, and you'll find as time goes on that you'll probably spend way more time discussing books than you do reading them.

>>20304848
I'm more surprised it took over an year to deal with it.

Is too much conflict a thing or am I just too soft?
More often than not I find myself wishing the main character(s) had a lot of allies but not many sources of evil and pain that oppose them

>>20304935
Depends on the mood, sometimes I don't mind conflict, especially if the main character will solve it or if it turns into a satisfying revenge story.
but yeah conflict can be too much, especially if the book is filled with evil and pain and there is no ally or hope.

>>20304850
Literally just read the first few chapters.

>>20304935
If there's too much shit to keep track of, or things constantly interrupt each other maybe, but that's more of a structural problem. In that case the author could just rearrange things into fewer, more abstract and general, conflicts that are easier to deal with and understand.
It could also be an issue of the conflicts being uninteresting or poorly designed. Like if there's too many fight scenes, or the tools the MC has are so limited they get boring and repetitive to use.
Or maybe the MC himself is just kinda boring because he doesn't have enough people to play off of. It could be that the reason you want more allies is just that the MC doesn't have enough personal presence or rapport with his enemies to keep you interested and a few more ally characters could make things more interesting.

Then again I often see people complaining about any conflict at all, like they're pathologically self inserted and get legitimately angry and depressed when everything doesn't go the MC's way instantly.
In that case maybe you're just stressed/burnt-out and should read something else or just put down the book and go for a walk or take a nap or something.

>>20304948
Maybe tastes just vary, personally I've never had any issues with conflict in stories, and consider most supposedly "grimdark/heavy conflict" stories to be pretty light reads. Like how some people are spooked by the scenes in horror movies where nothing even happens and other people find graphic dismemberment and torture scenes funny.
Oddly enough I'm actually the former in movies but the latter in books.

>>20304935
It can be a problem, especially when conflict feels unearned. If your character is a lying little shit and bad things happen because of his own failings, that's one thing. It's something else entirely when a ninja, completely unprovoked, comes outta nowhere to stab the guy.

>>20304919
That's how it is on a slower board like /lit/, it takes a very long time even with lots of reports to get any justice. On /wsg/ a similar thing happened. There was a general thread for anime webms, to prevent them from flooding the board, and a single autist spammed precure in it for a whole year, just reposting the same webms over and over again, smothering all other content and driving away 90% of the contributors who posted OC, until finally a mod showed up after a year and publicly banned the spammer and even posted in the thread to confirm it.

>>20304965
I think it's all down to execution, deus ex machina is both the foundation of storytelling and also the quickest way to completely wreck the whole thing.

>>20304935
I can see that being a problem if the protagonist is beset by so many enemies that, regardless of his triumphs, it never feels like he's making any progress toward his goals. It makes the struggle feel meaningless unless there is pay off for it. You need peaks as well as valleys.

>>20304970
Not him, but I’m pretty sure because people didn’t report the spammer until recently. Like two months ago. Though I ain’t complaining. The general is finally useable and has active discussion, not to mention new people are coming in.

>>20304980
I was trying to get people to realize it was all one autistic spammer way, way back when the bakkershit started in late 2020. I recognized it immediately, because like I said this isn't the first such case of autism I've seen on this site. But people here weren't ready to believe they were the victims of weaponized autism.

>>20305001
It’s not even weaponize autism, guy legit has no life whatsoever.

>>20305019
He successfully brought this general thread to its knees and all but killed actual discussion in it for over a year. Austism that destroys communities is the definition of "weaponized". /sffg/ has still not fully recovered from the damage he did.

>>20304272
Yeah. It's dark Gothic fantasy in space, and I genuinely enjoyed the setting, nightmares coming to life in the dark, space Christianity, and all. It's good pulp, nothing more nothing less.

>>20304278
You got me, anon. The jig is up.
It's just nice when female authors in the sf/fantasy scenes write traditional adventure with masculine men and feminine women.

Hmm, anyone know of any books written by a man/woman pair? I wonder how it would differ from a book written by a man or a woman.
I also wonder what difference it makes to have a same/opposite sex editor.

>>20305085
I know of only Daughter of the Empire and its two sequels, co-authored by Janny Wurts and Raymond E. Feist. The book is in Feist's Midkemia Cycle setting, and the events in it run parallel to the events of the Riftwar Saga, though with its own cast of characters and specific locations so there is not actually a whole lot of overlap with Feist's solo work.

As somebody who has read a lot of Raymond E. Feist, I can say that these books he co-wrote with Janny Wurts feel quite different from his solo work. It's a lot sexier, for one thing. I attribute this to Wurts. It's not that Feist doesn't do sexual content, he does, just not in this particular way, with characters frankly discussing it, or casually engaging in it.

There's also the fact that Feist's usual narrative style is very plot-driven, while Daughter of the Empire feels far more character-driven. The plot does the steering sometimes, but there's way more emphasis on character relationships as motivations for major events, rather than characters reacting to larger events outside their control, which is how I broadly and perhaps uncharitably characterize the sweep of Feist's Midkemia Cycle.

Anyone here read anything by Brom? I read Slewfoot and really loved it, I also loved his art on the cover and some pages in the book.

>>20305026
Honestly, just keep reporting his spam and low-effort posts. Until he finally fucks off for good.

>>20305085
>I also wonder what difference it makes to have a same/opposite sex editor.
Robert Jordan's editor was his wife. Make of that what you will.

>>20304809
>>20304841
while spamming is definitely bad, casual shitposting, bants and just natural progression of conversation in the thread is what makes 4chan interesting and attracts people. But the current reddit tier policy (enforced by the redditor janny) to force discussion is literally what is killing this general and few other generals on other boards, if people what that shit just go to reddit.

>>20305221
I've been trying to discuss books and the posts get deleted.

>>20305085
>I wonder how it would differ from a book written by a man or a woman
Why even bother? Just read fiction written by men.

>>20305221
Pretty sure you can still bants.

>>20305221
>to force discussion is literally what is killing this general
It's literally saving this general.

>>20305221
>>20305230
It's a compromise/fine line. OBviously with no janny we'd be fucked by the spammer. But then again too much janny is just as bad. And it's entirely up to said janny whether he's an asshole or not.
So far I haven't seen anything egregious, but only time will tell.
I hope we don't fall into a meta pit whether half the thread is talking about mods and spammers though. That's a whole other problem that frequently kills threads.

>>20305241
I only talk about the jannies and spammers when the thread reach the bump limit. Other than that, I just discuss books.

>>20305230
Nope

>>20305236
the thing about 4chan was to never force a discussion or what people can or can't say. Clearly /sffg/ is not that but reddit tier thread these days.

>>20305241
>So far I haven't seen anything egregious,
This. I keep seeing people talk about how its unjustified, so whenever I check the archive in warosu its anything but that.

>>20305249
>Clearly /sffg/ is not that but reddit tier thread these days.
If people talking and discuss books in /sffg/ is reddit to you, then I don’t known why you’re even here.

>>20304478
I've only read Night Winds but I didn't get the invincible aspect you're trying to depict. Aside from the first short-story, Kane was constantly being tested by the enemies he encountered like the giant sabrecat from the second story and the demon summoned by a random alchemist in the third story. In the former case, he wasn't even able to partake in the fight and had to watch from the sidelines while his giant friend fought it.

>>20305256
That is a reddit thing. You don't force a discussion on 4chan. If some day people don't feel like talking in depth about books then we just have a light conversation about literature and other things too with people in thread who are into sff.

>>20305256
Dude, just ignore him, he's most likely a shitposter seething that his posts are getting deleted.

>>20299821
because janny does it for free. Don't expect good moderation, with every new thread this general becomes more and more pozzed.

>>20305256
He is 100% the autistic shitposter.

>>20305241
Thread is past the bump limit, it's fine to talk about it since this thread is slated for deletion anyway and it's not good manners to carry over this talk to the new thread.

And if a certain giga autist doen't want his posts deleted he should rethink his life that led him to autistically spam this thread for over a year.

>>20305285
Just because you personally are not interested in what is being talked about does not mean it is being "forced", you fucking autist. Believe it or not people can have different opinions, and the world does not revolve around you and your incredibly narrow interests.

>>20305336
>Believe it or not people can have different opinions, and the world does not revolve around you and your incredibly narrow interests.
does that apply to you, are you projecting? Because I am literally the opposite of the type of person you mentioned.

New thread
>>20305374

>>20305085
This series was written by a husband and wife team. Personally I couldn't notice the husband's influence, it felt distinctly woman-written. But I have only read the first one.

>>20304919
The mods are as new as most posters. You really shouldn't be surprised at their incompetence.

>>20305085
Dragonlance

>>20303845
It's just showing that the people in power will tend towards being shitty regardless of gender.

>>20299821
because janny does it for free. Don't expect good moderation, with every new thread this general becomes more and more pozzed

>>20296807
can't believe they missed the chance to call the in story inn and the series itself "The Wander Inn"

>>20295641
Dhalgren

>>20305936
>can't believe they missed the chance to call the in story inn and the series itself "The Wander Inn"
But the name is a pun, 'wandering In-n.' MC called it this way on purpose, as a joke.

>>20306005
damn did i really forgetting how verbs work?