/sffg/ - Science fiction and Fantasy general

[Anonymous No.17669411]

Ninomae Ina'nis edition
Previous Thread: >>17655237

>Recommended reading charts (Look here before asking for vague recs)
https://mega.nz/folder/kj5hWI6J#0cyw0-ZdvZKOJW3fPI6RfQ

>Archive
>>/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=sffg

>Goodreads
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1029811-sffg

>Discord
Won’t be created

[Anonymous No.17669426]

>>17669411
Give me that, the book

[Anonymous No.17669450]

>haven’t worked on my sci-fi in a week
Wtf am I doing

[Anonymous No.17669492]

>>17669450
Not working on your sci-fi apparently.

[Anonymous No.17669506]

>>17659810
The first one is pretty bad. The plot is ridiculous to the point a 17yo girl manipulates several lords with very few tools nonstop and mostly gets away with it.
The setting feels like a mix between Aztec and Edo Japan bullshit. The whole culture was retarded from the way it was presented and not exactly appealing to my taste. "Cows" have six legs, there are stupid ant like aliens, bunch of made up creatures poorly described, swords and knives made out of special leather because metal is scarce.
And the writing is quite generic, bordering on awful. Similes like "Lord X acted like a NotBull" or similar expressions are everywhere and they make no sense since you don't ever know what the creatures being mentioned are supposed to be like, in appearance or behavior.
It's supposed to be a fun revenge adventure but it's way too dumb.

[Anonymous No.17669542]

>>17669411
I love Ina

[Anonymous No.17669548]

/sffg/, I kind of want to just blow my brains out.

I'm not cut out to be a fantasy writer and everything I do to try to get better just makes me wore

[Anonymous No.17669586]

>>17669548
Yeah you should probably do it

[Anonymous No.17669674]

>>17669548
It's up to you

[Anonymous No.17669735]

>>17669411
Shit thread

[Anonymous No.17669778]

>>17669548
Then try something outside of fantasy.

[Anonymous No.17669854]

>>17669548
If I had become a fantasy writer then I would have blown my head off. Write sci-fi, or just fiction

[Anonymous No.17669867]

Sleeping under a bridge, I'm literally going cnauir modr

[Anonymous No.17669878]

>>17669778
>>17669854

It's not fantasy that makes me want to kill myself, it's that my writing sucks, I'm reliant on encouragement to function I've spent the better part of the past two years because of those two factors, and that depression makes those two factors worse

[Anonymous No.17669886]

>>17669878
> I'm reliant on encouragement to function
Don't. 4chan should teach you that there will be always some contrarian faggot here and there.
Read Marcus Aurelius or something. I don't know.

[Anonymous No.17669927]

>>17669886
it's the "gifted kid burnout". I spent the first 18 years of my life being told I was incredible for just not being a fuckup and I now that I'm an adult and not being a fuckup is the expectation I can't get over associating silence or worse criticism with failure

this would be easier if I had some pride and drive of my own, but I've found that I'm only capable when I'm capital-H Happy. anything less, including contentedness isn't enough because I know I'm functionally lobotomized without it

[Anonymous No.17669948]

>>17669927
Athiest

[Anonymous No.17669965]

>>17669948
huh?

[Anonymous No.17669971]

>>17669965
I assume you are one

[Anonymous No.17669985]

>>17669878
I started writing in 2008. As for degree of improvement over 12 years, see for yourself. Before
>The summoner, an old man dressed in red robes with intricate symbols made from golden threads, sat in his brightly lit and book filled cabinet and read an ancient manuscript that he recently bought for a hefty sum from a gang of tomb raiders. Maybe a few years ago he would've never accepted their offer or even called guards to arrest them, but it was in the past.
>Now, when he clearly felt his age and knew that he would be forgotten as soon as died, he was desperate to accomplish a deed that would make him a legend, thus making his name and knowledge widely famous and sought after.

And now my writing looks like this
>Soft yellow light permeated the square before the restaurant. When x balled her fist to test, a dust sized drone hurried in to eliminate even that miniscule shadow..
"That's taking it too literally."
>But she had no time to voice the complaint about tonight's tradition, as a waitress took her hand while another took y's.
The girls separated under the entrance arch and shown to small rooms. The inside was sparse, two chairs, a table and walls decorated with white paper and red wood. x managed to sit the phone on one of them, while thinking about who her partner might be. Same as interview, right?
>Although, with z's focus on a memorable story and y in charge... .A young pilot that came to a foreign city. Out of her depth, she meets a young man that decidicated his life to a failing cause. Since then, they met almost every day at the city promiment place, an old traditional temple.
>x stood up to walk around and the suspicion became more believable with every step.

[Anonymous No.17670004]

>>17669985
Missed a couple of > there.
But the point is that your improvement is gradual, depends on experience and edits that you make after you put the draft aside and returned to it when you see what the words say, not what your imagination shows.

[Anonymous No.17670013]

Isekai/coomer trash be like, obvious Catholic Church ripoff

>literally just called the church

[Anonymous No.17670020]

>>17670013
>catholic
Well, molesting is not that uncommon in webnovels.

[Anonymous No.17670034]

>>17669971
I'm more agnostic. I don't think there's a god but im not sure. if there is I'm not enjoying how his involvement or lack thereof is playing out

[Anonymous No.17670153]

>>17670034
No one cares!

[Anonymous No.17670181]

>>17669542
Me too!

[Anonymous No.17670206]

As anyone here read Unfinished Tales and is it good? Does the book have a proper story(ies) or is it just a book's worth of addendums?

[Anonymous No.17670224]

>>17669927
So you're basically what awaits the western world.

[Anonymous No.17670231]

>>17670013
More like Dragon Quest rip-offs. I wouldn't look up to Japanese LNs in the first place, though. More often than not they're even worse than fan fiction you can read online for free.

[Anonymous No.17670618]

I feel like I have forgotten something.

Will you help me remember?

[Anonymous No.17671138]

I’m what you would call a cynic.
This isn’t to be confused with a skeptic. Skeptics don’t believe in anything because they care too much. For them the dignity of truth is perpetually beyond the slovenly reach of humankind. We’re just not qualified.
A cynic, on the other hand, doesn’t believe in anything because he doesn’t care enough. I mean, really, who gives a fuck?

[Anonymous No.17671139]

>>17669927
Do keto. I'm being serious. It will be bad for a couple weeks and then you will start writing your book.

>>17669985
You got worse?

[Anonymous No.17671162]

>>17671139
More of a sidegrade. Used to have flowing runon sentences and just telling the story as a third party observer. Now, my writing is described as good ideas walking on crutches.

[Anonymous No.17671194]

>>17671138
literal fedora tipper

[Anonymous No.17671445]

>Nonman architecture
>Pic related but times one billion, latticing the entire interior and exterior of a mountain-sized structure, scaled from the miniscule to the colossal, depicting all the joys and glories of millenia as they dissipate into memory
AN AGE? YOU SQUANDERED AN ENTIRE AGE FOR... THIS?

[Anonymous No.17671452]

>>17671138
Not a Bakker quote
The man's a hardcore skeptic and I believe he cares too much

[Anonymous No.17671509]

finished this.
it's about a dude wandering about a seemingly endless world consisting of huge halls with statues. there's also a second dude there.
it's short and comfy. read it.

[Anonymous No.17671514]

>>17671509
I read it recently too
I was a little disappointed with how the Borgesian magic and mystery in the beginning sort of dripped off into a pretty standard police mystery story in the second half But otherwise it was incredible.

[Anonymous No.17671640]

>gets recommended pic related
>go to goodreads
>search results for lgbt 1/XYZ
>read description
>A double-agent sacrifices all his ideals in order to save his smuggler lover before a government coup takes over their decadent city in Lara Elena Donnelly’s glam spy thriller debut
Is there anything similar to this without the faggotry? I like the art decor setting.

[Anonymous No.17671648]

>>17671640
>Exploring the roots of hatred, nationalism, and fascism, while at the same time celebrating the diversity, love, romance, fashion, and joy the world is capable of producing.

[Anonymous No.17671660]

>>17671452
Its from Disciple of the Dog.
Sadly /sffg/ hasn't even read any Bakker other than Second Apocalypse.

[Anonymous No.17671696]

>the good guys win at the end of TAE
Nice

[Anonymous No.17671707]

>>17671648
what did I miss? Is nationalism evil now? Admittedly I do live under a rock.

[Anonymous No.17671775]

>>17671696
HOW LONG HAVE YOU SERVED GOLGOTTERATH?

[Anonymous No.17671804]

>>17671707
Since the 1940s?

[Anonymous No.17671813]

>>17671804
Try WW1 for peak nationalist retardation

[Anonymous No.17671825]

>>17669411
Is Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre good?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamsnake

[Anonymous No.17671900]

>>17669506
Have you read Magician and its series? It's not leather but a certain kind of wood laminated to be basically a metal substitute because the world is mineral-poor.

[Anonymous No.17671901]

>>17671813
WW2 was just the most recent obvious example. Nationalist retardation goes back to pre-history.

[Anonymous No.17671933]

Do I read The Hobbit before all three LotR books or does it not matter?
And is Chronicles of Narnia worth reading as an adult? I remember reading the first one in school and I liked it.

[Anonymous No.17671956]

>>17671933
Read the hobbit first.

I don't remember Narnia at all.

[Anonymous No.17671994]

Brehs I just read Sorweel dying. I knew it was coming but I hoped. Why so much pov for this? I liked him :(
All that struggle and waiting amounted to nothing. I wanted to see their reaction to his hatred most of all, at least that before he died. Man didn't even get to reveal himself and enjoy their shock, the all-seeing blind caught off guard.

[Anonymous No.17672086]

>>17671994
I am reading the white luck warrior and sweet sejenus it is a slog.

I took to reading some lovecraft now and hope that at some point I wanna continue the slog of slogs.

[Anonymous No.17672095]

>>17671994
learn 2 spoiler dumbass

[Anonymous No.17672112]

>>17671509
>>17671514
Is this good?

[Anonymous No.17672202]

>>17672112
yes

[Anonymous No.17672233]

>>17671509

>The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.

[Anonymous No.17672279]

>>17671933
>And is Chronicles of Narnia worth reading as an adult?
It is, the kid characters can be annoying at times but that was probably intentional.

[Anonymous No.17672300]

>>17671933
You should read Book VI: The Magician's Nephew (which is the main inspiration for Piranesi) and possibly Book VII: The Last Battle (Lewis' Revelations fanfic). Anything else probably wouldn't hold up as an adult. CS Lewis' other writings are good too if you're interested in Christian skepticism and apologism.

[Anonymous No.17672440]

Bakker's writing has inspired me to create a ceramic sculpture. A stylized frieze inspired by the Inverse Fire. It's going to be amazing bros.

[Anonymous No.17672594]

read muvluv

[Anonymous No.17672711]

Got my copies of The Knight and The Darkness That Comes Before. Can I sit at the cool kids table?

[Anonymous No.17672737]

>>17670206
No one, it seems...

[Anonymous No.17672774]

>>17671648
>>17671640
>fascism bad
>narionalism bad
>diversity good
>faggotry good
Why are they like this?

[Anonymous No.17672782]

>>17672737
Yes, Unfinished Tales is great if you liked the Silmarillion. It includes the Children of Húrin novelette plus many other stories. I love the stories of the petty-dwarves, Númenor, and the third age.

[Anonymous No.17672788]

>>17671660
>Sadly /sffg/ hasn't even read any Bakker other than Second Apocalypse.
I read Neuropath and didn't even finish White Cuck Warrior.

[Anonymous No.17672824]

>giving up during WLW
way to give up the slog like a weeping faggot and miss the glorious insane kino awaiting the last two books

[Anonymous No.17672869]

>>17672824
you forgot to (You) me, let me help you

>>17672086

[Anonymous No.17672898]

Bakkker thinks mean have a “rape module” in their brains, and at least are predisposed to rape women on some level.

As such Normies hate him.

Do you agree?

[Anonymous No.17672901]

>>17672898
Yes.

[Anonymous No.17672915]

>>17672774
You must be over 18 to post on this site.

[Anonymous No.17672923]

>>17672898
A specific module for rape? Not inate, for sure. But I am sure a lot men converge on it because you have modules for agression and for sex from which modules for sexual violence could be derived.

1st rule of neuropsychology: neurons that fire together link together.

[Anonymous No.17672935]

>>17672898
>Bakkker thinks mean have a “rape module” in their brains
Why would this be controversial? I thought it was a feminist take.

[Anonymous No.17672958]

>>17672898
A specific part of the brain that's just there to make you rape? Yeah, that's fucking stupid as fuck. You don't need to invent ridiculous extra magical parts for the human brain or mind to explain why people are evil. People are just dumb apes driven by emotion with weak impulse control, which is often further impaired by substance abuse and exacerbated by dumb cultural norms that excuse shitty behavior.

[Anonymous No.17672966]

>>17672901
Why?

>>17672923
Normies criticise his writing as childish and edgy, given the above, as many of them hold the belief that rape should be held to a higher standard than other crimes.

How do you counter this POV?

>>17672935
I’m not defending the simple mind of the Normie, but if we want more Bakker, the normie must be persuaded.

[Anonymous No.17672968]

Does Kellhus fuck any of his daughters? I find it odd that at least two of his sons want to fuck the disgusting whore empress.

[Anonymous No.17672976]

>>17672958
So you would agree that his writing is founded on shaky principle - and lend credence to the argument his writings and tone are immature and childish?

[Anonymous No.17673027]

>>17672898
>Bakkker thinks mean have a “rape module” in their brains, and at least are predisposed to rape women on some level.
Nah, the rape nodule is only skin-deep.

[Anonymous No.17673031]

>>17669411
sff I read in February
Murder by Other Means (The Dispatcher, #2) - Scalzi, John
The Original - Sanderson, Brandon
Orphan Black: The Next Chapter - Older, Malka Ann
Binti: The Complete Trilogy - Okorafor, Nnedi
The Sacred Book of the Werewolf - Pelevin, Victor
Quarantine - Egan, Greg
The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) - Jemisin, N.K.
Null States (The Centenal Cycle, #2) - Older, Malka Ann
Twelve Kings in Sharakhai (The Song of the Shattered Sands, #1) - Beaulieu, Bradley P.

[Anonymous No.17673039]

>>17672966
Isn't Bakker a literal male feminist? The "normies" don't like him because they think (wrongly) that he promotes or trivializes rape, but it's understandable they would think so since some of his writings have attracted a crowd who thinks rape=gud.

[Anonymous No.17673071]

I'm reading this, mostly because it was the only book I could find with A Boy and His Dog in it for less than like 50gbp
>the beast that shouted love at the heart of the world
In the introduction, Ellison says that this story is supposed to be circular, with everything happening simultaneously like different points of a turning wheel. This is bullshit, it's just told out of order. Aside from that it was pretty neat.
>along the scenic route
Man and wife on a Sunday drive get cut up by some teenage punk in his hot rod, call up the Highway Authorities, and get permission to duel him at 200mph. I chose to let the "hey maybe we should stop getting road rage and wanting to kill each other over minor things" message fly over my head and thought "whoa! cool car combat!"
>pheonix
Expedition to visit a lost city, with the crackpot theory the city has sunk under a desert rather than an ocean. The city turns out to be irradiated New York, after the party gone out to find it has all died but one. It was okay.
>santa claus vs s.p.i.d.e.r
Aliens that control peoples minds are using characters like Nixon and Reagan to cause all the worlds problems, but Santa saves them and puts a stop to their diabolical plan. Lots of James Bond parody. The hippy bullshit in it would have annoyed me in the past but I'm over all that now, and it's obviously not a serious story, so I liked it.

[Anonymous No.17673269]

>>17670206
Have not read them, but I recommend Silmarillion.

[Anonymous No.17673313]

>>17671648
no thanks

[Anonymous No.17673399]

>>17673039
this

[Anonymous No.17673415]

>>17672966
> if we want more Bakker, the normie must be persuaded.
Fuck the opinion of normies. He should just self-publish– it's unfortunately the only way to go uncensored in today's absurd atmosphere of PC censorship. It's not even Bakker's politics the normies have a problem with; it's the fact that they can't grasp his complex points so they just write it off as "muh canadian man sexist."

Self-publish already. We're waiting, Scott....

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.17673501]

>>17669411
Twelve Kings in Sharakhai, The Song of the Shattered Sands #1 - Bradley P. Beaulieu
I'd classify this as being New Adult, a marketing term which hasn't had anywhere near the success that Young Adult has had. Çedamihn 'Çeda' Ahyanesh'ala, the 19 year old female protagonist, makes a living as the gladiator known as The White Wolf. This is simply a set-up for the plot however as the gladiatorial combat quickly falls to the wayside in favor of her quest for revenge against The Twelve Kings of Sharakahi. There are a few character perspectives, though the two dominant ones are present Çeda and past Çeda, beginning with her age being in the single digits and progressing forward.
The city of Sharakhai is a a North Arabian setting where twelve immortal kings have ruled since being blessed by the Gods over 400 years ago. The population descends from the twelve tribes, which in this case seems to be referencing the Ishmaelites rather than the Israelites, as well as a lost thirteenth tribe. The Gods seem to be at least marginally active in worldly affairs.
One of the primary questions the book presents is whether it's better to try to destroy the system from the outside with guerilla warfare and little concern for civilian casualties or if it's better to infiltrate and destroy the system from within.
Unfortunately I didn't care about a single one of the characters. The setting is interesting, I liked the sailing through the sands, and it at least provides an alternative to the standard European fantasy setting. There is some magic, blood magic mostly so far, though I suspect thee will be more later. If you aren't familiar with Arabic culture there will be a considerable number of words which you may have to look up or guess their meaning from contextual clues.
Considering the length of each book and that there will be six of them as well as eight other works of shorter length, I found that I had insufficient interest to continue the series, so I won't. It had a relatively strong start, but the overall dullness and pacing that seemed to intentionally and repeatedly cease its momentum made it difficult to finish.
Rating: 3/5

[Anonymous No.17673530]

>>17673501 *(2015)

[Anonymous No.17673606]

>>17669985
I guess the second part tries to be more about *in the now* details?

[Anonymous No.17674091]

>>17671994
epectations subverted

[Anonymous No.17674102]

>>17673415
bakker still has a publisher

[Anonymous No.17674204]

>>17672898
It's all so very overwrought and melodramatic and will no doubt eventually exceed that by far more than I could tolerate, even in brief doses.
To sum it with a single word: insufferable. Kellhus is especially so.
Maybe if it was adapted in some way I could care more, but probably not. It could easily be worse that way.
I will not be reading this. I will not ever be reading this. I cannot be convinced to read this.
It's strange because I don't even actively dislike like I with various other stuff or feel much about it in general. It's simply that I seem anti-interested in anything to do with it. I have no doubt if I somehow read all the books my feelings about it would collapse upon themselves from the sheer expected senseless and nonsensical unpleasantness.
I read the first two chapters. That's all I have to say. I don't want to spend any more time involved with this.

[Anonymous No.17674246]

>>17674204

[Anonymous No.17674371]

>>17672898
he never said that provide a source or fuck off

[Anonymous No.17674390]

Any good pulp scifi/fantasy authors like Schuyler Hernstrom?

[Anonymous No.17674442]

>>17671514
That was my issue with it, too, and why it's distinctly inferior to her other work

[Anonymous No.17674510]

>>17674102
No he doesn’t. Overlook did not renew his contract

[Anonymous No.17674600]

Any recommendations on how to start writing science fiction short stories, asides from just writing it? Like worldbuilding, techniques of making it, etc.

[Anonymous No.17674610]

>>17674600
Whatever else may be true of him, Brandon Sanderson's BYU lecture series on Youtube is really good, and contains a lot of useful information.

[Anonymous No.17674809]

4 horns, 4 brothers

[Anonymous No.17674872]

>>17674510
citation needed, Madness says he still has a publisher.

[Anonymous No.17674932]

>>17670759
>>sent Abominations of Yondo to a friend
>>he says he is tired of Lovecraftian fiction
>>says he is reading more "introspective stuff"
>>its mothman prophecies
>I'm fucking mad bros, Clark Ashton Smith is such neat writer with a great atmosphere, and even without any great philosophical thesis, pulp lit is so fun (and come on, conan has some nietzchean concepts).
>Why people think horror is just dumb entertainment? Not every writer is stephen king

CAS is easily one of the most artful prose authors the genre has ever seen. It's a shame that he's a virtual unknown next to HPL and RH, especially since he had such an impact on their writing. His Zothique stories are still unrivaled masterworks. We wouldn't even know who Jack Vance was if he hadn't copied his setting and style.

[Anonymous No.17674941]

What happened to the book of th month?

[Anonymous No.17674968]

>>17674932
fuck off clark ashton smith is fucking TRASH.

literally nobody reads him except people who know of the lovecraft connection, his prose is godawful purple trash

[Anonymous No.17674985]

>>17674968
CAS was cute

[Anonymous No.17674986]

So, it's true that Greg Egan actually MOGGS and filter all of sffg? Even bakkerfags got rekt by it?

[Anonymous No.17675309]

>>17674986
Greg Egan knows actual math and physics, so yes. Trying to understand his orthogonal books is beyond /sffg/.

[Anonymous No.17675347]

>>17673071
Don't buy books if it's a strain for you

[Anonymous No.17675370]

Am I a brainlet for struggling to read the Silmarrillian? It's good but dense.

[Anonymous No.17675379]

>>17675370
Only if you're not an ESL.

[Anonymous No.17675463]

>>17674941
It moved out of the thread over a year ago.

[Anonymous No.17675762]

>>17669411
That's INAff of that!

[Anonymous No.17675844]

>>17674941
Books are read every 2 weeks on discord now.

[Anonymous No.17675858]

>>17675844
Link?

[Anonymous No.17675872]

>>10562011
Bakkeresque thread, specially towards the end.

[Anonymous No.17675878]

>>17675872
Why did that fail? Oh well, here is the last post: >>10563491

[Anonymous No.17675883]

>>17675878
What the hell? The thread is still up. I don't understand.

[Anonymous No.17676114]

>>17669927
Then grow up dude come on.

[Anonymous No.17676217]

>>17675858
https://discord.com/invite/KWPCM7m
reading bakker currently

[Anonymous No.17676357]

/SFG/ Speculative Fiction General
>>17675995

[Anonymous No.17676442]

>The class was utterly frozen. "Detention for one month, Potter," Severus said, smiling even more broadly. "I decline to recognize your authority as a teacher and I will not serve any detention you give." People stopped breathing. Severus’s smile vanished. “Then you will be -” his voice stopped short. "Expelled, were you about to say?" Harry, on the other hand, was now smiling thinly. "But then you seemed to doubt your ability to carry out the threat, or fear the consequences if you did. I, on the other hand, neither doubt nor fear the prospect of finding a school with less abusive professors. Or perhaps I should hire private tutors, as is my accustomed practice, and be taught at my full learning speed. I have enough money in my vault. Something about bounties on a Dark Lord I defeated. But there are teachers at Hogwarts who I rather like, so I think it will be easier if I find some way to get rid of you instead.”

Yud... please

no more

[Anonymous No.17676554]

I need lightning to strike my brain's cock and light my mind up once again

>>17676442
nani?

>>17671640
god, why does every cool-sounding story with a 1920's style setting end up being weirdly written, boring or just straight up gay porn?

The golem and the jinn was good but I haven't found anything else that scratches that itch.

[Anonymous No.17676591]

Thought of a a fantasy adventure, might make this the first half of ch1.

A skeletal thin arm shuddered but gripped the handle harder. The weapon was as old as everything else on this abandoned battlefield but its rusted blade held out as the human's figure stood up.

Its dark hair reached the ground, bathing in the muddy puddles, and its androgynous body was devoid of clothing. It stood still for several minutes. The heavy rain washed the dirt off pale skin, covered by dark bruises. The figure sharply drew its first breath.

With mana rich air in its lungs, it glared down. And almost immediately the old sword stabbed the ground. Again and again. A metalling sound came from ground and the figure dropped to its knees. Without releasing the weapon, it clawed through the mud until it pulled out the treasure. A rusted armor plate with an old bone underneath.
With a guttural cry, they were thrown away and the figure screamed to the haze covered sky.

Eventually, the outburst ended and it stood up. It was barely conscious but when it looked at the blade, two words continued to come up. Go and Blacksmith.
Soon, the figure followed the first word and walked forward to leave the old battlefield behind.


It walked without thirst hunger or tiredness, barely aware of the strangely shaped snimals that passed behind the trees. And after several days before it met humans. Two men in leather armor.

-Look at this. Hey who are you.

The figure stopped and gave voice to the words in its mind. It repeated them until one of them slmost jumped back as he pulled our a dagger.
-Its one of the monsters.

-Check your eyes. We aren't deep enough into the forest to meet the human ones.
But the other man reached for his dagger even as he talked back.


-It has legs you fool. Cover me.

The first dagger strike was supposed to be the last but the anemic hand moved the sword with lightning speed. If his reflexes were any slower he would've lost his hand and his head. Instead he fell on his back as the dagger flew out of his grip.

-Stop!
His yell froze his partner just outside the range of the lowered rusty blade. But it twitched every time he tried to move away.
His partner carefully took a raincoat out of his bag and threw it like a net. It never reached the target, hanging off the sword tip, but the pair took the chance to flee.

Meanwhile, the owner of the sword tried to understand what it was supposed to do with the coat and the nearby dagger. It would leave them behind but another floated up. Gifts are not to be abandoned.

[Anonymous No.17676596]

>just found out my aplication is gonna take another 12 weeks minimum

>another 12 weeks of sitting around doing nothing

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Anonymous No.17676602]

>>17676591
>A skeletal thin arm

there are like 3 things wrong with the first 3 words

[Anonymous No.17676606]

>>17676602
Why though.

[Anonymous No.17676609]

> More than twenty sword souls in an instant, wherever they passed, the towering trees that had grown for a hundred years were torn to powder in an instant.
> almost in the blink of an eye, it ran through the entire dense forest, leaving a spacious and empty road.

Jfc what’s the matter with this guy

[Anonymous No.17676616]

>>17676606
if it's skeletal it's automatically thin.

if you mean it's thin like a skeleton that's a bad metaphor.

If it's literally an arm stripped of all flesh and is just bone then it's just skeletal, not skeletal thin

and skeletally is a word.

[Anonymous No.17676779]

>>17676591
Go away

[Anonymous No.17676799]

>>17676779

[Anonymous No.17676801]

>>17676591
make it more purple and insane and it could be eye of argon fanfic tier

btw this general has collapsed. the bakkerfags were the last thing holding it together and now that they’re done, it is truly over.

[Anonymous No.17676866]

There is a head on a pole behind you.

Brutalities spin and scrape, like leaves blasted in the wind.

He is here … with you … not so much inside me as speaking with your voice.

There is a head on a pole behind you.

And he walks, though there is no ground. And he sees, though his eyes have rolled into his brow. Through and over, around and within, he flees and he assails … For he is here.

Here.

They seize him from time to time, the Sons of this place, and he feels the seams tear, hears his scream. But he cannot come apart—for unlike the Countless Dead his heart beats still.

His heart beats still.

There is a head on a pole behind you.

He comes to the shore that is here, always here, gazes without sight across waters that are fire, and sees the Sons swimming, lolling and bloated and bestial, raising babes as wineskins, and drinking deep their shrieks.

There is a head on a pole behind you.

And he sees that these things are meat, here. Love is meat. Hope is meat. Courage. Outrage. Anguish. All these things are meat—seared over fire, sucked clean of grease.

There is a head on a pole.

Taste, one of the Sons says to him. Drink.

It draws down its bladed fingers, and combs the babe apart, plucking him into his infinite strings, laying bare his every inside, so that it might lick his wrack and wretchedness like honey from hair. Consume … And he sees them descending as locusts, the Sons, drawn by the lure of his meat.

There is a head … and it cannot be moved.

So he seizes the lake and the thousand babes and the void and the massing-descending Sons and the lamentations-that-are-honey, and he rips them about the pole, transforms here into here, this-place-inside-where-you-sit now, where he has always hidden, always watched, where Other Sons, recline, drinking from bowls that are skies, savouring the moaning broth of the Countless, bloating for the sake of bloat, slaking hungers like chasms, pits that eternity had rendered Holy …

We pondered you, says the most crocodilian of the Sons.

“But I have never been here.”

You said this very thing, it grates, seizing the line of the horizon, wrapping him like a fly. Legs click like machines of war. Yesss …

And you refuse to succumb to their sucking mouths, ringed with one million pins of silver. You refuse to drip fear like honey—because you have no fear.

Because you fear not damnation.

Because there is a head on a pole behind you.

“And what was your reply?”

The living shall not haunt the dead.

[Anonymous No.17676958]

>>17676866
I really love that the outside is all eternity in a single moment

>we pondered you
>but I’ve never been here

[Anonymous No.17676975]

>>17669927
Lift weights or something. Get up earlier.

Long-form writing is not a worthwhile endeavor if you need concrete, immediate praise to work at it. Try building up confidence from something more concrete and spending using your excess confidence/effort on that.

[Anonymous No.17676978]

>>17670231
>Japanese LNs
I'm almost done with a "light novel" but I don't know the extent to which I want to call it a light novel because I'm not Japanese. The artist I'm getting illustrations from is Japanese though.

[Anonymous No.17676990]

>>17669927
Try breathwork and pranic breathing. Improve your mood and inspiration will come easier.

[Anonymous No.17677083]

Good fantasy authors: clean shaven and not fat
Bad fantasy authors: neckbeards and fat

Why is that?

[Anonymous No.17677106]

Is there an author or book with the lore and world building of Tolkien with the down to earth dialogue and characterization of GRRM. I guess I'm looking for some magical realism of Borges in a fantasy setting with heavy world building.

[Anonymous No.17677107]

>>17677083
fat people are lacking in morals and character

[Anonymous No.17677110]

>>17677083
Being fat means there is something wrong with you. Probably a correlation more than anything tho.

[Anonymous No.17677116]

>>17677106
Literally bakker

[Anonymous No.17677125]

I need a book or series that is close to pic related in textual form

[Anonymous No.17677126]

>>17677125
don't get me started on faggozaki

[Anonymous No.17677129]

>>17677125
>all his movies feature a sexualised prepubescent girl

[Anonymous No.17677136]

>>17677126
>>17677129
i hate you

[Anonymous No.17677170]

>>17677136
>“Even in the Indiana Jones movies, there is a white guy who, ‘bang,’ shoots people, right? Japanese people who go along and enjoy with that are unbelievably embarrassing. You are the ones that, ‘bang,’ get shot. Watching [those movies] without any self-awareness is unbelievable. There’s no pride, no historical perspective. You don’t know how you are viewed by a country like America.”

>(I am), Anti-jeans, anti-bourbon, anti-burgers”, “Anti-fried chicken, anti-cola, anti-American coffee”, and “Anti-New York, Anti-West Coast, Disneyland go back to America!”

On global warming:

>"I want to see the sea rise over Tokyo and the NTV tower become an island. I’d like to see Manhattan underwater. I’d like to see when the human population plummets and there are no more high-rises, because nobody’s buying them. I’m excited about that. Money and desire—all that is going to collapse, and wild green grasses are going to take over."

>Americans shoot things and they blow up and the like, so as you’d expect, they make movies like that,”

>“If someone is the enemy, it’s okay to kill endless numbers of them,” he continued. “Lord of the Rings is like that. If it’s the enemy, there’s killing without separation between civilians and soldiers. That falls within collateral damage. How many people are being killed in attacks in Afghanistan? The Lord of the Rings is a movie that has no problem doing that [not separating civilians from enemies, apparently]. If you read the original work, you’ll understand, but in reality, the ones who were being killed are Asians and Africans. Those who don’t know that, yet say they love fantasy are idiots.”

[Anonymous No.17677171]

>>17677129
Truly a man of taste

[Anonymous No.17677388]

Anyone else also thinks that Bob (and his clones) from Bobiverse are one of the biggest idiotic douchebag is sci-fi? I'm not sure if it is deliberately that way to show his
detachment from humanity or if author is just autistic hack.

[Anonymous No.17677398]

>>17676217
>reading bakker
How original

[Anonymous No.17677709]

>>17677129
Such is the Japanese way

[Anonymous No.17677826]

>>17676442
Harry got all his money from his dead parents. Why would someone not interested in HP (I'm not either and even I could remember that from my childhood years) write a HP fanfic.

[Anonymous No.17677838]

>>17677129
Yeah he's a based cunnyseur.

[Anonymous No.17677850]

>>17677388
These books are bad, just like most self-published novels.

[Anonymous No.17677911]

>>17677083
Wolfe is the best, dumbnuts.

[Anonymous No.17677963]

>>17670206
I've read them anon. Worth reading if you love Tolkein (as I do). If you read them and like them, I'd suggest "The History of Middle Earth"

[Anonymous No.17677970]

Anyone read Chronicles of Amber? Is it any good?

[Anonymous No.17677981]

>>17677970
I have read a couple of them that my father had laying around. They were ok, from what I remember. Dara a waifu.

[Anonymous No.17678019]

>>17677970
One of the best fiction series of 20th century.

[Anonymous No.17678257]

>>15444444

[Anonymous No.17678354]

>>17677970
I couldn't finish the first. I loved Lord of Light when I read that, but Chronicles of Amber felt more like Sanderson than that.

[Anonymous No.17678397]

>>17678257
Curse Likaro!

[Anonymous No.17678490]

>>17678257
damn you

[Anonymous No.17678624]

>>17678257
her cunt became the World

[Anonymous No.17678752]

Where the Fuck are the books, E William Brown?

[Anonymous No.17679015]

Started reading The Worm Ouroboros and I just passed the wrastling match and I just realized all the characters aren't the traditional depictions of Goblins, Witches, Demons, etc. And are all pretty humanoid in some characteristics. Doesn't this make it a blend of sci-fi and fantasy rather than being pure high fantasy considering it takes place on another planet also does Witchland REALLY deserve the hatred it receives?

[Anonymous No.17679070]

>>17676442
Cringe as this writing is, I approve thematically. Much better to teach kids that abuse of authority ought not be respected than teaching them to grin and bear it

[Anonymous No.17679087]

Any fantasy series with a setting like this?

[Anonymous No.17679098]

>>17679087

Ice and Fire? I'm getting Winterfell vibes.

[Anonymous No.17679441]

>>17679087
>generic castle

idk like anything

[Anonymous No.17679521]

Just brought Chiang's Story of Your Life.
If I don't come back, you know where to look for me.

[Anonymous No.17679829]

>>17679070
Kids should learn to respect authority.

[Anonymous No.17680069]

left: fanim
center: nansur
right: scylvendi

[Anonymous No.17680293]

Zeumi or Norsirai: which way Three Seas' man?

[Anonymous No.17680307]

>even bakkerposting can't revive /sffg/ any more
Its over...

[Anonymous No.17680315]

>>17680293
the white one

[Anonymous No.17680321]

>>17674968
>Another limp wristed soïboï filtered by The Emperor of Dreams
Go read more Sanderfag and xianxia, tasteless faggot. The legendary poon-hound Clark Ashton Smith is undeniably based

[Anonymous No.17680355]

>>17680293
They both have dicks, don't they.

[Anonymous No.17680393]

>>17676801
Pure kino. It's too bad all this liberal faggotry has killed any chance of us getting more Atrocity Tales any time soon

[Anonymous No.17680395]

>>17680293
Which one bathes the most?

[Anonymous No.17680427]

>>17677911
Don't mind me. I'm just posting pictures of the real GOAT

[Anonymous No.17680454]

>>17671648
>Exploring the roots of hatred, nationalism, and fascism, while at the same time ignoring the roots of communism, degeneracy, and social engineering.

[Anonymous No.17680460]

>>17680355
Depends on culture. They are historical eunuchs. Some had dick but no balls and some had neither.

[Anonymous No.17680485]

>>17679087
Half a King

[Anonymous No.17680491]

>>17680460
I thought eunuchs were big hulking types, on account of having more testosterone after their castration, like bulls and whatever a castrated bull is called.

[Anonymous No.17680506]

>Bro, there's no free will, we're just automatons of flesh pre-programmed by our dark physiological urges
>Bro, everything good and bad that we experience in life, every choice we make, is just rote biological function of unknowable origin
>Bro, you can't counter muh Argument because even your desire to reply to it is preconditioned and involuntary

We get it Bakker. We get it. Freud made the same points a hundred years ago. But where does one go from here? Since there is the illusion of free will, why can't that we make courageous and liberating choices for ourselves? Nietzsche would cringe at the hopeless pessimism you express... Is this nihilistic cul-de-sac the reason Bakker can't get off his ass and face the public, let alone write and publish something new?

[Anonymous No.17680509]

>Reading long-runners in anything other than chronological release order

[Anonymous No.17680525]

>>17672440
Post it once you're done

[Anonymous No.17680536]

>>17680491
>on account of having more testosterone after their castration
No, testosterone is even named after the testicles. The lack of testosterone had some interesting effect on development: a lack of musculature that tended to make them fatter or at least flabbier and a lack of hardening of the bones which allowed them to grow elongated and tall (assuming the testicles were cut before the male stopped growing).

Male animals are castrated for a more docile temperament and for making their meat more tender. They can't get as jacked without balls.

[Anonymous No.17680543]

>>17680491
they're hulking because they put on weight after castration
>viz. fat trannies

[Anonymous No.17680585]

>>17680069
Why does the middle one look like it has a bulge....

[Anonymous No.17680611]

>>17679015
>I just realized all the characters aren't the traditional depictions of Goblins, Witches, Demons, etc. And are all pretty humanoid in some characteristics.
Should have bought an illustrated edition, that would have been apparent from the beginning.
>Doesn't this make it a blend of sci-fi and fantasy rather than being pure high fantasy
No. There is nothing that could be regarded as science in the story, it's just set on another world.
>does Witchland REALLY deserve the hatred it receives?
Finish the book.

[Anonymous No.17680641]

I have a $25 Barnes’s and Noble gift card and I think my mom has a discount too, what do I get?
Neuromancer
Ringworld
Foundation Trilogy
Stranger in a strange land
Slaughterhouse five
Starship Troopers

[Anonymous No.17680647]

>>17680506
>Bro, there's no free will, we're just automatons of flesh pre-programmed by our dark physiological urges
Yeah but did I ask?

[Anonymous No.17680725]

>>17674204
I swear I've never used this, I'm not even a spamming mindless bakkerfag bot, although I fucking love Bakker.
But my dude, you literally got filtered. You're case is linked in the actual Oxford dictionary definition.

[Anonymous No.17680750]

>>17680641
neuromancer is a bit of a meme

[Anonymous No.17680764]

>>17680750
I’m pretty new to sci-fi, only really read dune and red Mars and Hyperion, is it bad?

[Anonymous No.17680765]

>>17680307
>drive away posters by spamming the same thing over and over
>wtf why are threads so slow???

[Anonymous No.17680815]

>>17680506
It's it good though?

[Anonymous No.17680827]

>>17680647
Huh?

[Anonymous No.17680837]

>>17676866
Why are the gods called Sons?
Also
>and sees the Sons swimming, lolling and bloated and bestial, raising babes as wineskins, and drinking deep their shrieks.
This image is forever burned in my mind. Gigantic monstrosities swimming in a literal ocean of fire, tearing souls apart and drinking their suffering. God please have mercy on me, the sinner, for I don't know right from wrong. If hell is anything near Bakker's Outside, we're all fucked.

[Anonymous No.17680840]

>>17680641
Get Neuromancer and Starship Troopers
>>17680764
>Is it bad?
No, it's excellent. If you enjoy it, continue with Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive

[Anonymous No.17680885]

>>17677170
I agree with almost everything he says.

[Anonymous No.17680896]

>>17680764
it's not bad but it's not that good, only really read because le cyberpunk influential

[Anonymous No.17680918]

Neuromancer is fucking atrocious

[Anonymous No.17680971]

>>17680840
Thanks, chose these two

[Anonymous No.17681031]

>>17680506
>Experience, unspooling like a movie, qualms for color, hopes for shape, decisions for the illusion of movement, waiting for the bulb to burn through, for the celluloid to boil into black rings, so that it all could vanish into the hidden frame, leaving only catcalls and white light on a white screen.
Since Bakker wants to reduce all human experience to involuntary drives, he himself, and all his work, are as valid as any other human to be placed under the microscope of analysis. That being said, why does he feel such a need to prove all of human experience so hollow – 'The Argument,' capitals included, that is the substance of his books?

Is it simply the need of a sensitive, insecure, and fragile ego to 'irrefutably' assert its own intellectual superiority over a world that has harmed it?

[Anonymous No.17681084]

>>17680971
Not that anon but good choice.

[Anonymous No.17681162]

>>17680837
Those are probably lesser ciphrang, in Ajokli realm

[Anonymous No.17681238]

>>17680918
t. filtered so hard by Gibson that he denys me my hard earned (You)s

[Anonymous No.17681246]

>>17681031
I think it's just intelectualized neuroticism.

"Why do I feel like I have no control, that they I am adrift?" Most people use practical approaches, looking for particular problems to be solved. Some people abstract themselves away from the problems that can be solved. It's a common affliction of philosophers.

[Anonymous No.17681248]

>muh scrutiny
>muh calculation

[Anonymous No.17681344]

>>17681246
“Man is the most terrible of beings” (Heidegger); “Man is a wolf to man” (Hobbes); “Man is a monstrous living being” (a neuro-biologist).
Now, “the philosopher is the man par excellence” (philosophers). And the conclusion is . . . ?

François Laruelle, “The Degrowth of Philosophy”

[Anonymous No.17681353]

Finished 'The Land Across' by Gene Wolfe yesterday. Still trying to assimilate what I read. The only other late Wolfe work I've read was 'The Sorcerer's House', whose major events and secrets were "easy" to crack in comparison with this one.

The two most striking features of this novel are probably how descriptions are pretty much thrown out of the window except in the few places were the author may be leaving some breadcrumbs to the reader and how unsubtly political it is at (admittedly very few) times.

[Anonymous No.17681366]

Ok /sffg/

A very rich individual wants to give you 2 billion dollars, but you have to rewrite the percy jackson series into a mature high art masterpiece. How do you do it?

[Anonymous No.17681452]

>>17681344
>And the conclusion is . . . ?
Philosophers are furries

[Anonymous No.17681474]

>>17681366
>Make them longer
>Give Percy a harem
>Ungay nico
>Remove cringe
Done

[Anonymous No.17681676]

>>17681366
Convert one of the existing side characters or invent an additional character to have a first-person narrator like Nick Carrway from The Great Gatsby serve as the hype man for Percy. Rewrite them into poetic prose or poems and dress it up as the last part of a missing epic cycle of Greek lore. And give Percy a harem.

[Anonymous No.17681723]

Any of you remembered to vote for Second Apocalypse in /lit/'s favorite books of the month contest?

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.17681808]

>>17669411
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March-April 2021 (F&SF, #754)

NOVELETS
The Music of the Siphorophenes - C.L. Polk
A non-binary space pilot is starstruck by a female pop star who wants to listen to the singing of the siphorophenes, a sentient spacefaring species that are able to travel through the vacuum of space without a ship. After that's resolved, it shifts to being about emotional disclosure, which is facilitated by <spoiler> mind-melding.</spoiler>
Blah

Mannikin - Madeleine E. Robins
A mother fearing for the life of her newly born boy asks a witch to cast a permanent illusion so that she can raise her son as a daughter. This causes problems later on in their life. This is entirely a plot device and not about sexual politics, which was surprising. It's basically a fable.
Meh

In the Garden of Ibn Ghazi - Molly Tanzer
According to the author this is a fictionalized account of the time when she thought she had read a story with this title but she wasn't able to find any evidence that it had ever existed. This left her with no choice but to write a story where the character discovers that the story exists and explains why she wasn't able to find it herself. She then becomes part of the story. Ibn Ghazi is a reference to the Powder of Ibn-Ghazi which is an event card that appears in the Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Arkham Edition and was the inspiration for this story.
Meh

Jack-in-the-Box - Robin Furth
A journalist for Country Life magazine comes to Blackthorn manor. She's taken on a tour by a six-year old boy which becomes ever more macabre as she's exposed to the family's dysfunction.
Ok

SHORT STORIES
Crazy Beautiful - Cat Rambo
AIs programmed to value art above all else go rogue.
Meh

The Bletted Woman - Rebecca Campbell
A rather morbid story. "Bletting is a process of softening that certain fleshy fruits undergo, beyond ripening." It ends with <spoiler>zombies</spoiler>, which is well, whatever.
Ok

Our Peaceful Morning - Nick Wolven
The animal revolution has begun. All animals shall be made sapient. There's a lot of sociopolitical commentary involved though it's also meant to be humorous.
Ok

Minstrel Boy Howling at the Moon - B. Morris Allen
A guy plays a harmonica which causes inexplicable events to occur.
Meh

Speak to the Moon - Marie Brennan
A <spoiler>suicidal and immortal</spoiler> Japanese astronaut on the Moon seeks <spoiler>kaguya-hime</spoiler> so that he may finally <spoiler> be allowed to die.</spoiler>.
Meh

Character - Harry Turtledove
A self-deprecating metafictional tribute to Peter S. Beagle. The character is aware he's a character in this story but there isn't anything he can do about it.
Enjoyable

The Pizza Boy - Meg Elison
He may be the last Pizza Boy. It's an extremely arduous task to make and deliver them when seemingly everything and everyone in space is trying to kill you and every single ingredient is exceedingly difficult to acquire. His ship is in disrepair and his family is dead.
Ok

[None !SFFG.n1h7M No.17681830]

>>17669411
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March-April 2021 (F&SF, #754)

NOVELETS
The Music of the Siphorophenes - C.L. Polk
A non-binary space pilot is starstruck by a female pop star who wants to listen to the singing of the siphorophenes, a sentient spacefaring species that are able to travel through the vacuum of space without a ship. After that's resolved, it shifts to being about emotional disclosure, which is facilitated by mind-melding.
Blah

Mannikin - Madeleine E. Robins
A mother fearing for the life of her newly born boy asks a witch to cast a permanent illusion so that she can raise her son as a daughter. This causes problems later on in their life. This is entirely a plot device and not about sexual politics, which was surprising. It's basically a fable.
Meh

In the Garden of Ibn Ghazi - Molly Tanzer
According to the author this is a fictionalized account of the time when she thought she had read a story with this title but she wasn't able to find any evidence that it had ever existed. This left her with no choice but to write a story where the character discovers that the story exists and explains why she wasn't able to find it herself. She then becomes part of the story. Ibn Ghazi is a reference to the Powder of Ibn-Ghazi which is an event card that appears in the Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Arkham Edition and was the inspiration for this story.
Meh

Jack-in-the-Box - Robin Furth
A journalist for Country Life magazine comes to Blackthorn manor. She's taken on a tour by a six-year old boy which becomes ever more macabre as she's exposed to the family's dysfunction.
Ok

SHORT STORIES
Crazy Beautiful - Cat Rambo
AIs programmed to value art above all else go rogue.
Meh

The Bletted Woman - Rebecca Campbell
A rather morbid story. "Bletting is a process of softening that certain fleshy fruits undergo, beyond ripening." It ends with zombies, which is well, whatever.
Ok

Our Peaceful Morning - Nick Wolven
The animal revolution has begun. All animals shall be made sapient. There's a lot of sociopolitical commentary involved though it's also meant to be humorous.
Ok

Minstrel Boy Howling at the Moon - B. Morris Allen
A guy plays a harmonica which causes inexplicable events to occur.
Meh

Speak to the Moon - Marie Brennan
A suicidal and immortal Japanese astronaut on the Moon seeks kaguya-hime so that he may finally be allowed to die..
Meh

Character - Harry Turtledove
A self-deprecating metafictional tribute to Peter S. Beagle. The character is aware he's a character in this story but there isn't anything he can do about it.
Enjoyable

The Pizza Boy - Meg Elison
He may be the last Pizza Boy. It's an extremely arduous task to make and deliver them when seemingly everything and everyone in space is trying to kill you and every single ingredient is exceedingly difficult to acquire. His ship is in disrepair and his family is dead.
Ok

[Anonymous No.17681878]

>>17681676
>And give Percy a harem.
My man

[Anonymous No.17681883]

>>17672824
>>17672869
>>17672086
It ain't a slog, I read all of the books that are out in this series in like two weeks just reading before bed. People like advancing plot points more than actually reading it seems. Bakker makes it all enjoyable by being an intelligent writer and not even the series essentially being a long-winded propaganda pamphlet for scepticism detracts from that.

[Anonymous No.17681973]

>>17679070
>>17679829
yeah submission to authority is important for growth. you need to submit to eventually move beyond, refusal is stagnation in a petty, immature state (quite malicious to encourage). this is especially the case in a student-teacher relationship. this is partly why teachers suck these days.

[Anonymous No.17682025]

>>17681973
Of course, don't be petty and immature child, if the teacher tells you to take your pants off and sit on his naked lap you shouldn't refuse, it's important for your (his?) growth.

[Anonymous No.17682296]

>>17680506
>make up some mumbo jumbo about ideas Freud never expressed
>better namedrop Nietzsche as well, because, uh, nihilism or something!
This is the saddest pseud post I've seen in quite a while. Somehow I doubt you even read this book either.

[Anonymous No.17682304]

>>17681973
That's bootlicker talk

[Anonymous No.17682348]

>>17682296
Retard. I’m specifically referring to Civilization and its Discontents and the Gay Science here. Not that you’ve read either.

[Anonymous No.17682382]

>>17444444

[Anonymous No.17682432]

>>17682348
Don't talk like that to Bakker.

[Anonymous No.17682466]

>>17681031
>>17680506
That's not what he says at all. Did you even read it? The darkness that comes before is anything that moves your soul that you're not aware of or didn't consciously choose. He's not talking about 'urges' or whatever. It goes beyond psychological reductions. Also, the series is literally a refutation of this attachment to these principles in support of scepticism. See what happened to the Dunyain.

[Anonymous No.17682486]

>>17682432
I wish it was Bakker so we could have an intelligent discussion in this general for once...

[Anonymous No.17682496]

>>17682304
no it's a requirement to be anything more than that, the rejector is the opposite end of the same thing (bootlicker) but even worse for the stagnation and lack of selfawareness.

[Anonymous No.17682513]

>>17681830
>The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March-April 2021 (F&SF, #754)
Link?

[Anonymous No.17682528]

>>17682496
>akchually not licking boots is the same as licking them
peak centrist

[Anonymous No.17682531]

>sandershit

[Anonymous No.17682574]

I listen to anakin's betrayal to find inspiration for my story

[Anonymous No.17682590]

>>17682486
He is touchy.

[Anonymous No.17682668]

>>17682513
I'm subscribed and I'm not posting issues here.

[Anonymous No.17682686]

>>17682590
Fragile after all.

[Anonymous No.17682711]

the only non cringe way to write sex scenes is to avoid the words cock, balls, tits, penis, and ass.

breasts are fine.

[Anonymous No.17682727]

>>17682711
cunny?

[Anonymous No.17682731]

>>17682711
>manhood
>phallus
>his/her sex
>buttocks

[Anonymous No.17682734]

>>17682590
"My kid loves your books, Bakker!"
*grumbles*

[Anonymous No.17682741]

>>17682727
cunny.

[Anonymous No.17682751]

>>17682727

[Anonymous No.17682754]

>>17682741
I.
SMELL.
CUNNY.

[Anonymous No.17682757]

So is DMRBooks any good? I'm looking for more old-school Conan-core sword-and-sorcery stuff and I've heard their name get thrown around a lot as a really solid publisher.

[Anonymous No.17682789]

>>17682711
and thus genitalia were interlocked and copulation was well underway. This intercourse lasted for many minutes before the crescendo was reached and its resolution was undergone. After his genitalia disembarked from hers they both fell into a deep slumber.

[Anonymous No.17682803]

>>17682789
lmao you know damn well there's a less clunky way you could write that

[Anonymous No.17682969]

>>17682731
>his/her sex
My favorite.

>womanhood
>shaft
>rear

[Anonymous No.17683006]

>>17682590
This is like one of those comics where anon bumps into someone he dislikes and then writes a long-winded post on 4channel about it.

[Anonymous No.17683179]

>>17682590
>this is /sffg/'s hero

[Anonymous No.17683189]

>>17683179
The one we deserve.

[Anonymous No.17683219]

http://www.heliotropemag.com/Issue01/pdf/Heliotrope_pg32-38_SkepticalFantasist.pdf

The actual article is pretty interesting and thoughtful.

[Anonymous No.17683230]

>>17682590
Utterly mogged

[Anonymous No.17683229]

>>17682731
>little brother

[Anonymous No.17683231]

>>17683179
This is the start of a longer paragraph
I guess the event didn't even happen, but he's just starting it off like that to make a point about 'genere fiction' being shat at

[Anonymous No.17683349]

So did this guy have a vore fetish or what.

[Anonymous No.17683629]

>>17682668
>A non-binary space pilot
Nevermind. Lol who reads this shit?

[Anonymous No.17683860]

tropes i love:
>love interest thinnks main character is dead (bonus points if they get irrationally mad when they're not)
>heroic last stands filled with desperation and last ditch efforts
>generally grounded character goes super saiyan after getting angry
>suicide

[Anonymous No.17683890]

>>17683860
read that as love incest

[Anonymous No.17683921]

>>17683890
get some help anon

[Anonymous No.17684041]

I want a short but wild ride
what should I read?

[Anonymous No.17684070]

I finished Cradle recently. Someone enlighten me on the difference between A sage and a herald?

[Anonymous No.17684125]

>>17684070
A sage embodies a greater ideal and is recognized by said Ideal (sage of the sword, sage of the void). A herald embodies acceptance of the self, by fusing with their own revenant
At least that’s my understanding of it.

[Anonymous No.17684136]

>>17684125
But Fusing with his own remnant is how Northstrider became a monarch, meanwhile Yerin becomes a herald after fusing with her Blood Shadow, while Lindon becomes a sage after advancing from Underlord, yet apparently he didn't advance to Overlord which implies that sage is an entirely different state of advancement.

[Anonymous No.17684154]

when i hear the word worldbuilding, i cringe because it makes me think of other worlds shittier authors have already created like Sandershit and his empty mormon world where magic takes precedent over characters and story and shit.

[Anonymous No.17684162]

>>17684154
ok, you should read different authors

[Anonymous No.17684178]

>>17684162
suggestions?

currently reading Dune. I really like his world.

[Anonymous No.17684187]

>>17683629
rf

[Anonymous No.17684195]

Science fiction or Fantasy series without "worldbuilding" exists?

[Anonymous No.17684217]

>>17684195
what would that even look like?

[Anonymous No.17684236]

>>17684195
only very short stories that only focus on singular ideas and concepts does that
you don't write a whole series without laying down some fictional foundation

[Anonymous No.17684255]

>>17684195
building worlds is sort of the point of science fiction and fantasy
I guess you can look for urban fantasy where most of the world is normal minus some paranormal shit

[Anonymous No.17684291]

>>17684195
So called *hard* sci fi, or military sci fi. First is an attempt to make the most believable and realistic science fiction, that is basically contemporary with blasters, so no worldbuilding needed. Second is the same, but the focus is not on the contemporary part, it's on what blasters there are and how space marines use them to blast whoever.

[Anonymous No.17684335]

How does Beyond Redemption compare to Second Apocalypse?

[Anonymous No.17684428]

>>17684335
not enough mother/son incest with futa twist

[Anonymous No.17684603]

>>17682590
lmao

[Anonymous No.17684608]

>>17683179
You mean Reddit's hero?

[Anonymous No.17684617]

>>17684195
no

[Anonymous No.17684633]

>>17669411
Any good entry-level fantasy books?

[Anonymous No.17684636]

>>17684633
The Curse of Chalion.

[Anonymous No.17684641]

>>17684636
Anything else? trying to binge-read a bit.

[Anonymous No.17684646]

>>17684633
Define fantasy? Pseudo-medieval stories with magic, sword and sorcery, magitech, or Tolkien rip-offs.

[Anonymous No.17684649]

>>17684641
The Powder Mage series. Cradle. Lord of the Rings.

[Anonymous No.17684650]

>>17684646
Anything, I don't care which, I just want to read. I don't care about the minuscule differences.

[Anonymous No.17684652]

>>17684649
>The Powder Mage series
Why not tell him to read American Front?

[Anonymous No.17684659]

>>17684652
What? Powder Mage is inspired by the French Revolution.

[Anonymous No.17684660]

>>17684659
Isn’t that one with the dragons inspired by the French Revolution?

[Anonymous No.17684667]

>>17684650
Try Princess of Mars, Chronicles of Amber and Corporation M.Y.T.H.

[Anonymous No.17684670]

>>17684660
What are you even talking about?

[Anonymous No.17684675]

>>17684670
I think he's referring to Temeraire?

[Anonymous No.17684676]

>>17684667
Or was it M.Y.T.H. Inc.

[Anonymous No.17684679]

>>17684675
I've literally never heard of it, so it's obviously got nothing to do with what I was posting about.

[Anonymous No.17684697]

>>17684676
What about red rising?

[Anonymous No.17684701]

>>17684697
I don't really care for dystopias.

[Anonymous No.17684713]

>>17683860
I WLL NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR WHAT YOU'VE DONE!

[Anonymous No.17684718]

>>17682574
Anakins dark deeds is kino

[Anonymous No.17684722]

>>17684701
Yeah, but it's Scifi, though.

[Anonymous No.17684733]

>>17684722
It probably is.

[Anonymous No.17684737]

>>17684733
It is, what are you talking about.

[Anonymous No.17684743]

>>17684737
What's your point though?

[Anonymous No.17684754]

>>17684743
How can you doubt that it's a sci-fi?

[Anonymous No.17684766]

>>17683860
Bad guys are actually the good guys. Lord of the Rings was a wild ride.

[Anonymous No.17684773]

>>17669548
Just do it.

[Anonymous No.17684775]

>>17669542
Who doesn't love Ina?

[Anonymous No.17684783]

After rereading Blindsight the other week, I decided to go off the deep end and binge the Rifters trilogy. Boy that Watts sure is a pessimistic materialist man. Starfish was good. Cool setting, cool world, enjoyed how the rifters developed at the bottom of the ocean and frankly liked the low-stakes parts of the book where it's exploring Lenie more than the later parts where there's suddenly a crisis. Frankly it should have been a stand-alone instead of bloating outwards in scope into two sequels.

Despite saying that, I enjoyed Maelstrom. It was way, way less focused than Rifters was since the scope blooms so hard but made up for it by introducing quite a few interesting concepts like the Maelstrom itself: a roiling mass that was once the Internet but is now a chaotic realm infested with its own ecosystem of data creatures. As the middle part of the story, it really fucking drags Lenie's character through almost no development or interesting interactions as the plot unfolds, and she's honestly more of a thoughtless force of nature that the more interesting characters like Achilles can react to (not that camera chick, though, she's lame). Speaking of Achilles, he may be somewhat superfluous in showing the horrors of risk mitigation and "the greater good," but I enjoyed his segments. Overall clunky, but interesting.

Betamax fucking sucked. Dragged on forever, spun its wheels about overwhelming guilt and whatever, dumped a fuckton of names into the story too quickly and with too-little context, etc. It's setup for Seppuku that ends up just being a time-wasting book of spite. Also Behemoth was tweaked which felt cheap but I guess it was fine.

Seppuku was cool until it dropped the pretense of characters (and the world itself) struggling to survive amongst powers struggling to keep a failing system going at any cost to try and double-reverse-whammy the story into being a fucking supervillain plot. You have elaborate, really fucking gratuitous sex torture scenes to show how eeevil the bad man is and then the good guys show up to wrap everything up. Much better than Betamax, but the plot suffered from having half of Behemoth be sluggish setup. Frankly, it does end Lenie's emotional arc in a pretty satisfactory way

Overall: decent reads, stick to the first one unless you get really invested in the cliffhanger-y ending. If you play pretend you can imagine it's a pretty tight novel that stands nicely by itself in giving you a slice of a fucked world full of fucked people, but you might catch the sequel bug and live out Watt's magical realm.

[1/2]


>>17684291
Hard sci-fi does not have to take place in a setting contemporary to our own would. It just needs to have a strong basis in established science with few handwavy bits of tech to accomplish near-magic. It also does need worldbuilding unless it takes place right here, right now. How does the tech you introduce effect society? Answering that question is worldbuilding.

[Anonymous No.17684790]

>>17684646
Is there an actual difference?

[Anonymous No.17684794]

>>17684790
Yes.

[Anonymous No.17684800]

>>17684195
Is it even possible to write ANY fiction without worldbuilding?
Unless the main character is LITERALLY "literally me", the setting has to be established. Even in non-fiction, France is basically the moon as far as I know, the only difference is that the author doesn't have to speculate and can just directly describe it, assuming they've actually been there.

[Anonymous No.17684804]

>>17684800
>Is it even possible to write ANY fiction without worldbuilding?
Yeah, its been done before.

[Anonymous No.17684807]

>>17684775
People who think they’re above vtubers.

[Anonymous No.17684812]

>>17684804
Give an example right now. I don't believe you can write ONE SENTENCE of fiction without worldbuilding.

[Anonymous No.17684813]

>>17684807
They do know they're on an anime website right?

[Anonymous No.17684816]

>>17684807
They don’t care.

[Anonymous No.17684817]

>>17684775
Me. I prefer Pekora.

[Anonymous No.17684819]

>>17684790
>Actual
Sword and sorcery is heroic fantasy, like Conan movies, or Russian Bogatyr myths.
Pseudo-Medieval is knights and the like, or Chinese Dao novels, or Samurai supernatural stories.
Magitech is magic that is works like technology like steampunk, or gaslight fantasy or whatever other label.
Tolkien ripoffs are also called High fantasy, to contrast with Pseudo-medieval's low fantasy.

[Anonymous No.17684827]

>>17684817
So do I, I also love that she believes the Earth is Flat.

[Anonymous No.17684835]

>>17684819
>Tolkien ripoffs are also called High fantasy,

look at this dude

[Anonymous No.17684839]

>>17684783
>strong basis in established science with few handwavy bits
Poor Clarke and his law of
>The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

[Anonymous No.17684853]

>>17684835
They are, aren't they. You have big huge magic that deals with concepts of creation and divinity. Big huge evil schemes that corrupt and what not. They are as far from grounded as it probably gets.

[Anonymous No.17684872]

>>17684187
>rf
retarded faggots?

[Anonymous No.17684874]

>>17684853
plenty of tolkien ripoffs are low fantasy

[Anonymous No.17684883]

>>17684874
That just means that they are bad rip offs. Or Pseudo-medieval that's disguised as a Tolkien rip off for marketing.

[Anonymous No.17684925]

>>17684783
I accidentally copied over a big rant about the spoilery stuff. Fuck


Lenie's arc was pretty satisfying to see through the books. Starting out as this abusee who blossoms into an alpha bitch who then takes out her rage on an uncaring system before finding positive things to ground herself on and finally having to let go was a good progression. My problem with her lied mostly in the middle of the story during Maelstrom when she was on full Murderfuck USA mode. That all felt like such a bitter caricature of how humans lash out after feeling pain, and while in the end her revenge was pretty hollow (like wanting to kill rebellion lady in Betamax) it still left this bitter "burn it all down" taste in my mouth like Watts was just bleeding his own frustration onto the page. He had good reason to, though. As a marine biologist, he could really see how badly we're fucking up the planet and the huge nihilist/pessimist edge to the trilogy definitely feels like him struggling to come to terms with a shitty, uncaring world. I feel like there needs to be some spark of hope even in a dystopian story like this one, and the Seppuku stuff did create a little silver lining of humanity getting a second chance, but I can't imagine that Watts had the same state of mind writing that as he did while writing Maelstrom

The idea of sacrifices for the greater good was explored a ton through the series, but I don't know if anything really cogent ever developed from it. It served as a good backdrop for Lenie's frustrations (her punching the jellyfish was a great ending to Starfish) as someone who was a sacrifice for society and who was at the epicenter of another more drastic sacrifice done for the good of the world. My problem is that I don't really get what Watts was trying to say with it all. Was it that sacrifices are necessary for the continuation of the societal organism but terrifying to whatever gets swept under the rug? Alright. "The greater good" can be used as a cover for atrocities? Sure. If I was uncharitable I could peg it as something like "sacrificing something that you're not personally invested in is folly," but I can't really tell where Watts' rational materialism ends. Maybe that wasn't really the point, and trying to stem the flow of entropy from an unimaginably complex system was more of a backdrop to set the characters on


2/3, it went over in the rewrite.

[Anonymous No.17684932]

>>17684925
Achilles was great when set against that backdrop, but became really shitty when he was that backdrop. Maelstrom Achilles was this interesting pile of guilt that was being pigeonholed internally by his own guilt and by the reflexive guilt of his treatment. I liked him as this rational agent caged by a sensation, this tool who was incapable of acting in his own interests. While Watts tries to show the contrast between that and post-Spartacus Achilles, it ends up just creating a really unsatisfying, boring villain. We didn't need the double-reverse twist or the rape scenes (plural!). His transformation from a somewhat altruistic member of the system to a parasite trying to bend the system to his optimum behaviors (I see the parallel) ended up being unsatisfying since it says so little. An actor whose only interest is in keeping themselves in a state of pleasure is bad for others in their system? Alright. Those interested in perpetuating a system may benefit from it to the detriment of those in the system? Better, but if you want to teach that you can't have the system that he wants to perpetuate be entirely negative. There needs to be a genuine reason for this system to be tempting for me to care here, and a half-assed "if you kill me I kill your friends!" wasn't enough to save it, even if Lenie/Lubin chose to abandon their home to give the rest of the world a second chance. It would have been more interesting if Achilles was actually trying to save North America. That way, there's the actual dilemma that the doctor lady thinks about in his rape cave: will society accept a monster like this if it's the only thing that keeps them alive and who saves more people than he murder-rapes? I guess there's no real moment of sacrifice for Lenie in that situation, though, so I think that the last book just needed a lot more planning. Maybe lose the timeskip, don't have Betamax just be this insipid tribal wars bullshit that lasts half the book, and so on.

Now I'm gonna read his short stories. I just can't stop!

[Anonymous No.17685117]

>>17684041

[Anonymous No.17685253]

>>17684676
>M.Y.T.H. Inc.
Myth Adventures are fun, doesn't seem that a lot of anons talk about it here.