Previous thread
>8065920
>Fantasy
Selected: http://i.imgur.com/3v2oXAY.jpg/
General: http://i.imgur.com/igBYngL.jpg/
Flowchart: http://i.imgur.com/uykqKJn.jpg/
>Sci-Fi
Selected: http://i.imgur.com/A96mTQX.jpg/
General: http://i.imgur.com/r55ODlL.jpg/ / http://i.imgur.com/gNTrDmc.jpg/
Talk about whatever you want
>>8078729
>Talk about whatever you want
Do you feel personally responsible for the furry fandom?
Wheel Of Time, yay or nay?
>>8078786
It's basically fine, but really long, generic, and got ended by Sanderson.
>>8078776
No, I had nothing to do with it.
Dinosaurs are awesome and so is old fantasy.
Deal with it, kids.
>day off tomorrow
>just got copy of Way of Kings
>going to spend all day reading it
I'm being a pleb and fucking NOBODY can stop me.
Is Malazan in any way comparable to The Second Apocalypse? Currently reading The White Luck Warrior, and I need a new series for when I'm finished. The Prince of Nothing trilogyare some of the best fantasy books I've ever read
>>8079082
I don't disagree - had no idea Canticle was that old, actually, it's aged really well - but I still want to make a better "the last 20 years" chart as an alternative to that one with all the Xs.
>>8079160
Stormlight archive is a lot better than Mistborn and a fun read
>>8079235
It was written before the second Vatican council so umm yeah
>>8079082
>moorcock
fag.
>>8079235
You're someone else, right? If so go ahead. The guy who made the initial chart has pretty pleb taste.
>>8078729
>Talk about whatever you want
Fifth Head of Cerberus is really good.
I also like A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Has anybody read St Leibowitz and the Wild Horsewoman? Does it live up to the first? Also, what do people think of Urth of the New Sun? I loved BotNS, but am hesitating over Urth for some reason.
>>8079345
Yeah, thinking of doing 8 fantasy recs, 8 SF, and a handful of horror and hard-to-categorize. Part of the problem was just too much stuff on there.
I'm in the middle of reading of Dangerous Visions with all the "New Wave" authors from the 60s/70s. Very good book overall, PKD has the best story so far.
>>8079386
Maybe an overall imaginative fiction chart, can also include surrealism, magic realism, other works that deal with something that can't happen in real-life but not really considered sci-fi/fantasy.
>>8079386
Looking forward to it. When are you making it?
>>8079393
Think it should still be thread related. What works did you think of? Something like John Crowleys Little, Big would fit I guess, but I don't know of much more like it. Magical realism could also include Murakami and Marquez but then we are drifting pretty heavily away from SFF.
>>8078974
Not even a little? It was spawned from places much like this. I just think that SFF has a lot to answer for.
Any high quality shit with transcendental themes?
I'd like deep lore, but more Dark Souls rather than OTT world building.
If it's influenced by the classics then even better.
>>8079406
>Magical realism could also include Murakami and Marquez but then we are drifting pretty heavily away from SFF.
Perhaps some entries from the "slipstream" subgenre (rather than "magic realism"). Here's the "Core Canon of Slipstream":
1. Collected Fictions (coll 1998), Jorge Luis Borges
2. Invisible Cities (1972, trans 1974), Italo Calvino
3. Little, Big (1981), John Crowley
4. Magic for Beginners (coll 2005), Kelly Link
5. Dhalgren (1974), Samuel R. Delany
6. Burning Your Boats: Collected Short Fiction (coll, 1995), Angela Carter
7. One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967, trans 1970), Gabriel Garcia Marquez
8. The Ægypt Cycle (1987-2007), John Crowley
9. Feeling Very Strange (anth 2006), John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly (eds.)
10. The Complete Short Stories of J.G. Ballard (coll 2001)
11. Stranger Things Happen (coll 2001), Kelly Link
12. The Lottery and Other Stories (coll 1949), Shirley Jackson
13. Gravity’s Rainbow (1973), Thomas Pynchon
14. Conjunctions 39 (anth 2002), Peter Straub (ed.)
15. The Metamorphosis (1915), Franz Kafka
16. The Trial (1925), Franz Kafka
17. Orlando (1928), Virginia Woolf
18. The Castle (1926), Franz Kafka
19. The complete works of Franz Kafka
20. V; (1963), Thomas Pynchon
21. Nights at the Circus (1984), Angela Carter
22. The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (anth 2007), Kelly Link and Gavin Grant (eds.)
23. The Heat Death of the Universe and Other Stories [UK title Busy About the Tree of Life] (coll 1988), Pamela Zoline
24. Foucault’s Pendulum (1988, trans 1989), Umberto Eco
25. Sarah Canary (1991), Karen Joy Fowler
26. City of Saints and Madmen (coll 2002), Jeff VanderMeer
27. Interfictions (anth 2007), Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss (eds.)
http://www.wired.com/2007/07/the-core-canon/
>>8079438
Eh, I dunno. I really don't think we should have things like Pynchon, Eco or Kafka on SFF charts.
>>8079453
No one ever suggested we should.
>>8079453
I don't see why not honestly. The difference between Dick and Pynchon is minimal in many works.
Currently reading The Colour of magic, and I dont know if I missed something, but I dont get how the day/night cicle works, does the sun orbit around the rims of the disc or does it go all the way circling the turtle like it would do if the world where round?
besides that, I like the humor, the same way I appreciated the humor in the hitchkhiker series, I like it, but I never found anything that I considered laugh-out-loud funny, maybe im just dead inside.
>>8079483
just to clarify, I read some of the other books in the series, but out of order
>>8079483
The sun orbits the entire turtle-elephants-disc system (I'm not sure how the orbit differes over seasons though) but light travels much more slowly in the high magic field of cori celesti, so the light sticks around a bit longer than you'd expect.
I'm sure they have more detailed notes in one of the companions, or maybe one of the science books, but I've neglected those for some reason.
>>8079453
Pynchon almost had a story in Dangerous Visions.
>>8079438
I don't really like the term "slipstream", I think that imaginative fiction is a good umbrella term for any fiction that deals with something that can't happen in reality.
>>8079554
I still say we should just rename these threads Imaginative Fiction general.
>>8079554
People aren't really here for non-SFF 'Imaginative Fiction' though. Or at least that's only a very little percentage of what people here read.
>>8079438
What about The Master and Margerita?
i posted this in the old thread not realising it was going down with all hands...
This series is the one that kicked off my love of genre fiction when i was about 12-13
i re-read it recently and although i could see the ropeyness of some of the writing and storylines, i still loved the shit out of it. partially because of nostaligia and partially because yiddish knights, centaur injuns and weird universes created by half mad hippie arseholes and connected by a series of portals is a pretty kickass concept.
TV i loved as a kid looks ropey as shit now, but books i loved as a kid stand the test of time, more often than not. weird.
>>8079480
You can also consider Infinite Jest a sci-fi novel. A film that makes people addicting to watching it and nothing else until they die is definitely a sci-fi concept.
>>8079563
True, but it could prevent people from arguing that something isn't sci-fi/fantasy. Everyone would still mostly talk about Sci-Fi/Fantasy since their the most popular forms of Imaginative Fiction.
>>8079345
>>8079393
>>8079406
ALL
DONE
>>8079808
>perdido street station
dropped
>>8079808
Scifi part looks ok, though something went wrong with your Fantasy selection. Gaiman over Guy Gavriel Kay, really? And I feel like Perdido / Pratchett shouldn't be on there either. Dunno about the three of them, so no opinions on those.
>>8079808
Not too shabby. My personal suggestions:
- Consider swapping Egan's 'Teranesia' for Egan's 'Diaspora'
- Consider swapping Miéville's 'Perdido Street Station' for Miéville's 'Embassytown'
- Consider adding Vinge's 'A Deepness in the Sky'
- Consider adding Wilson's 'Spin'
>>8079808
Under fantasy, add Guy Gavriel Kay's "The Sarantine Mosaic" duology ("Sailing to Sarantium" (1998), "Lord of Emperors" (2000))
>>8079807
Nisi čitao priče iz davnine? Jer to je to. Nemoguće da nisi.
>>8079808
I'm guessing you read a lot more SF than you do fantasy huh.
>>8079826
Not really familiar with GGK actually, otherwise he probably would've taken one of the Pratchett/Gaiman slots.
>>8079840
>Consider swapping Egan's 'Teranesia' for Egan's 'Diaspora'
My thought with Teranesia was I'd already got JCW and Morgam in posthuman, so adding another one from Egan might be overkill (and I didn't want to have the same author twice).
>Consider swapping Miéville's 'Perdido Street Station' for Miéville's 'Embassytown'
Haven't actually read that one yet, is it that much better? In general I'd stand by PSS, it's not the most disciplined book but there's some brilliant ideas in.
Of course everything there's subjective, so feel free to substitute, rearrange and X out.
>>8079808
>John C. Fedora
>Chuck Tingle
Theodore go home.
>>8079867
The problem with PSS is that it does too much world building for its own good, so other parts suffer. But Embassytown is more scifi. I think Railsea would be better than both there
>>8079892
>>8079808
I'd like to see The Buried Giant by Ishiguro on this. It's a single stand alone book and "literary" fantasy which is scarce in recent times, probably over Pratchett or something.
Also I second the other guy with Railsea over Street Station. I really think one of the slots should be Prince of Nothing series too.
>>8079853
Diaspora ovdje ;( Samo imam "Mrav i Azdaha" i "Zlatokosa Djevojka (kratke price)". A te su za djece.
>>8079193
The Great Ordeal comes out on July 6
Get hyped
>>8079930
I Ivana Brlić Mažuranić je za djecu, ali je fantastična.
>>8079374
Late reply.
Urth of the New Sun is truly wonderful and complements BOTNS in a fantastic way. It makes a lot of stuff that is only vaguely alluded to in BOTNS explicit, but not in a crappy "last episode of LOST" way, it's more like you read it and maybe get a small tear in your eye, and then a few days later you'll still be thinking about what you read, and you'll realise something, and you'll be like "WOW".
Yes, it's good.
>>8079927
Kicking myself for forgetting Buried Giant, probably happened exactly because it's more "outer /lit" than the rest.
Railsea by popular demand, then - weirdly, I'm actually in the middle of it right now. Can't tell yet which I prefer, but it's definitely more fun than Perdido which felt a bit grimdark at times. Probably an early-career thing, from what I've heard King Rat takes itself a bit too seriously also.
Prince of Nothing has too much gay, rape, and incest for me, hence Malazan instead.
>>8079892
Kek. That man's twitter is gold.
>>8079972
Looks good now.
What's Mirror Kingdoms / City of Saints and Witches of Lyford like? I've never heard of them.
I have dropped into this thread to recommend my top 5 science fiction books, in no particular order:
1. Book of the Short Sun (all 3 books - On Blue's Waters, In Green's Jungles, and Return to the Whorl). By Gene Wolfe. Make sure you read this last. I stopped reading science fiction after this series because this is as good as it gets, everything afterward is a disappointment.
2. The Mote in God's Eye, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. There is something about this book, it is perfunctorily written and set in a not particularly interesting universe, but somehow, I keep coming back to it, and have re-read it dozens of times, it's just a cool, fascinating story.
3. Cities in Flight, James Blish.This is just pure fucking magic.
>book is called "Cities in Flight"
>it's about cities, in flight
>>8080029
4. Whipping Star. Frank Herbert. One of just a couple of novels set in the "Consentiency". It's just a perfect and tremendously intelligent novel with lots of aliens.
>>8079988
Mirror Kingdoms is a best-of for Peter S Beagle, the Last Unicorn guy - short stories and novellas, he's got a really solid prose game (occasionally dipping into poetry).
City of Saints and Madmen comes from the same Weird school as Mieville, but it's presented as a collection of letters and reports. Kind of like a Dracula-style epistolary novel, but broader scope.
Witches of Lychford was one of the only good things to come out of the Tor Novellas line - the others felt like short stories that'd been stretched out or novels that'd been boiled down, this one fits novella length just right. Cornell cracked the female protagonist problem too, by going with a middle-aged woman as the lead rather than your typical "badass chick".
>>8080064
>Cornell cracked the female protagonist problem too, by going with a middle-aged woman as the lead rather than your typical "badass chick".
So solving that problem is just being a writer worth a damn?
I'm getting into Lovecraft and I'm curious about something. I know that Cats of Uthar worship Bast. Does she have a Cthulhu-mythos name, is she just herself, or does is she a fake god in the canon?
What are some sci-fi novels that explore political and economic systems other than liberal-capitalism-but-in-the-future?
Thoughts on Mythago Wood (and Holdstock in general)?
>>8078786
It's fucking annoying.
>>8080129
Dune
>>8080233
Already read it senpai.
>>8080129
Iain M. Banks' Culture books are about a bunch of post-scarcity anarchists if that helps
>>8079257
Mistborn has more action going on, at least. SA is so slow, especially tWoK with its pacing issues.
Honestly, I'd say Mistborn Era 2 is better than Stormlight thus far.
>>8080333
Mistborn era 2 is pretty bad, full of feminist bullshit
>>8080362
what?
>>8080358
>full of feminist bullshit
>one character who continues to have nothing right go for her
Era 2 is great.
WTF
Durzo is ALIVE???
What the fuck do I think about this?
Do I like this?
Do I want to read the final book?
>>8078786
>The Wheel of Time contains barrels of conceptual Lego, swiped or stolen or recycled from every great story-cycle known to Western man: which, I believe, was the author’s intention. But it has precious little originality. When you take it apart to play with the pieces, you find that all the pieces are somebody else’s. From Dune, you have the secret magic sisterhood that controls the fates of families and nations, the Bene Gesserit (renamed Aes Sedai); and the shockingly male creature that sets the world on its ear by having access to the magic and ignoring the sisterhood, the Kwisatz Haderach (renamed Dragon Reborn); and the wild desert-dwelling people who have a hard-won lore of their own, with whom nobody can tangle and not regret it – the Fremen (renamed Aiel). From Tolkien – well, the very first page of Jordan’s interminable saga mentions ‘the Third Age’ and ‘the Mountains of Mist’, and if that isn’t straight-up theft with the serial numbers left in blatant sight, I don’t know what it is. Nobody writes Wheel of Time fan fiction – at least none worth speaking of – for The Wheel of Time is itself fan fiction, in which all the fandoms collide together.
Do publishers automatically throw cthulhu mythos stuff in the trash unless there's a big name or a twist attached
>>8080484
This is delightful. Who wrote it?
>>8080129
Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed. Paean to anarcho-syndicalism.
Adam Roberts' Salt. Pure anarchists vs democratic fascists.
John C. Wright's Golden Age. AI-guided libertarianism with captains of industry igniting Jupiter and building a particle accelerator around the Sun's equator.
John Barnes' Jak Jinnaka trilogy. Monarchy's back in the far future, with a state religion explicitly based around being a self-serving douchebag. Parody of Heinlein juveniles.
Hannu Rajeniemi's Quantum Thief trilogy. Grey goo gods vs the descendants of MMO guilds.
Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space. Instant nanotech democracy.
Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Reputation-based economic system.
Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. Galactic empire rebuilt around an encyclopedia foundation.
Orson Scott Card's Worthing Saga. Universal pacifism enforced by psychics.
>>8080535
Tom Simon over at bondwine.com. I found him through JCW's blog but he writes these awesome Tolkien essays, like one about how the Council of Elrond is a classic example of a bad meeting, or another about how medieval vaunts and honor currency are used in Lord of the Rings.
He also hates Wheel of Time and Thomas Covenant.
>>8080485
Publishers automatically throw fan fiction in the trash.
Just make it cthulhuesque.
>>8080552
>descendants of MMO guilds
>tfw you realize all the Amazon reviews are from the author's family and friends and you have no real gauge of quality
>>8080577
They hold LAN parties as an ancient ritual, downloading themselves into physical bodies and printing off cheap beer and Cheetos.
>weaponized memes
>combat autism
>>8080592
Does the author post here or something?
>>8080601
He's a Finn. He doesn't need to.
>>8080485
I think it's safe to say they don't
>>8080485
Ehh, it's better to be more influneced by Lovecraft then outright using his characters.
>>8080585
Tbh thats why I don't read newer fantasy/sci-fi unless it has mainstream attention.
Someone in the last thread was asking for sword and sorcery, and I thought of Alan Dean Foster's Carnivores of Light and Darkness trilogy. It's sort of S&S, sort of fairy-tale, static characters exploring strange new locations in self-contained adventures.
>Magic negro shepherd gets a dying request from a shipwrecked sailor
>Travels across the world with a vulgar swordsman and a talking panther
>Discover strange new danger
>Shepherd pulls something cool from his backpack and saves them
>Denies he is anything special magicwise
>Repeat
It was really chill, just some cool adventures strung together.
>>8080615
Many of those stories in those anthologies are really just Lovecraft influenced, not using his creations.
>>8080615
Black Wings I've read, the only good stories were by Laird Barron and Caitlin Kiernan.
Are there any sci fi books that have epic massive scopes like the Mass Effect video game series? Like the antagonists constantly destroy planets or entire fleets and the heroes barely pull a win out from their ass?
>>8080754
You need to read E. E. "Doc" Smith, young man. But to answer literally: yes, there are many.
>>8080754
Revelation Space is basically what Mass Effect took the idea from.
>>8079808
Hmm you took some of my recs and placed your own.
>>8079082
>not posting the smaller sized version
How would you have improved Red Rising or it's subsequent novels?
>>8080834
>The Way of Shadows
I remembered reading this years ago, is it really being recommended?
>>8080889
Yes, there seems to be a Brent Weeks meme going around (much like stomach flu).
>>8080424
Your answers from last thread still apply. And yes you want to read the last book.
>>8080882
Are you the anon who was doubting that it wasn't YA and now you see the light?
>>8080916
I was the anon who said Golden Son is what Ender's Game should've been
>>8080889
All the books listed there I read, and I think there is a bit of something for everyone in that chart.
It's not a thread voted chart, some like it, some hate it.
If it was put up for a vote the vocal minority (Dinosaurs), would vote it out of existence and have usnread nothing but classics and literary works.
>>8080882
Drop the first person present tense if at all possible, or do something clever like make it past tense when he's feeling Gold and present tense when he's primal Red. Hone the focus in the first half of book 1, make it more relevant to the rest of the series somehow, and shorter in general. Split book 3 into two or peel off a bunch of the sidequests into short stories, sell those for a dollar a pop on Amazon. Make the Jackal more of a martial character and less of a mob boss, a martial mob boss even, but hanging around in nightclubs doesn't suit him at all. Build up the Howlers you kill as characters beforehand. Give the Boneriders at least a little bit of menace.
Show more of the anarchy in the underground city. Intensify the fear felt by citizens of Obsidian-occupied cities at their impending death by snu-snu. Make the endingmore bittersweet, have him talking to a grave or something, we don't need to see your family, we don't care about them anymore.Play up the Dune references with the Ionians. Pay at least lip service to how orbits work. The second two books need more horses, both for future archaic and to remind us why we call her Mustang.
Aside from that they were p. good.
>>8080922
Do you think red rising is a metaphor for blacks/Hispanics sneaking into Americlap and take prime white meat for themselves?
>>8080942
The author's one hammer away from being a full-blown communist, take your retardation back to your containment board
>>8080937
I think if he would've actually detailed the supposed "purges" and massacres going on in red caverns It'd have a better feeling of atrocity, and I wasn't nearly scared of Obsidians as I should have. He should've at least put in one scene of one smashing in a child's head or something to show their blind loyalty and brutality
>>8080961
I thought seeing them smash in someone's cervix was enough.
>tfw no pink gf who would be loyal to you fod all time
Why live bloody damn?
>>8080979
No time for pinks when there's Gold's to kill, gorydamn bronzie
>>8079387
That PKD story is one of his best, and probably the best in that collection as well. Not sure why it doesn't get brought up more when discussing him.
>short story lol
I guess
>>8079808
Not bad, although you obviously are more of an SF than Fantasy guy.
>>8080948
>economics major
>banker's son
>worked for a Republican campaign
>explicitly glorifies aristocracy in his books
>has a framed portrait of Grand Moff Tarkin over his desk
Do you have a source for that claim?
>>8080050
You're just being contrarian. Dune blew Herbert's ConSentiency books out of the water. There's a reason he never went back to that well (money, but that's besides the point).
>>8080999
I think your claim stands against mine although I never took economists to be more conservative than librul
>>8080961
We're distanced from the massacres because Darrow has almost completely gone native. He knows a bunch of Reds are getting slaughtered but he's already used to that, and a lot of them are Gammas anyway so no loss. Losing the Gold that betrayed you like five times just after he threatens your mentor's grandchildren, though, that breaks his heart.
Is Night Angel by Brent Weeks any good?
>>8081012
Are we coming to the conclusion that Darrows a sociopath??????
>>8080102
She's just herself, which doesn't preclude her from possibly having another name. The Dream Cycle stories are a pretty different perspective on the Mythos anyway.
>>8080485
No, but you're better off being influenced by him with maybe an occasional homage rather than just straight out writing stuff set in his world.
>>8080961
>I wasn't nearly scared of Obsidians as I should have
If Darrow had had a problem fighting one they might have been scarier. Ragnar had too much time shown playing with kids and not enough time ripping throats out. His intro was one of the highlights of the series, though.
>>8081024
He's not a sociopath. He just values gold lives more than red lives. He still values reds more than almost any other gold, though.
>>8080754
Mass Effect was heavily influenced by Revelation Space, although ME is a little more optimistic.
>>8080767 is an OK recommendation but you might find the Lensman novels, which are mostly what you're looking for, pretty dated.
I'd personally recommend Count to a Trillion and its sequels, but you might want to go with Revelation Space first.
>>8081035
Nice, untouched pastures. I kind of wanted to write a fairytale involving a cat god who's supposed to be so much more than just a cat god. It's the god of contradiction: both dead and alive, both here and there. You know the cat god's name, especially it grins
>>8080568
Thanks for the link. This guy is right up my alley.
>>8081011
Right wingers like to believe that they have the monopoly on economics even though they're typically the ones who ruin economies.
>>8081220
Not falling for it, anon.
>>8080937
>Make the ending more bittersweet, have him talking to a grave or something, we don't need to see your family, we don't care about them anymore.
>Tfw my crack theory of the Darrow in Morningstar being a Jackal sleeper agent and the Darrow who was executed was the real one didn't come true
>>8081013
Anyone?
>>8081326
It's pretty good. Super edgy in the first couple of chapters though
>>8081323
That would have been amazing.
>Some Gold gets Shaped to be Red then Gold again, intensive training in Red customs and habits
>Subtly sabotaging the resistance effort
>narrative voice is a little different, a little more prideful and dismissive, nothing that Darrow wouldn't have developed into>Real Darrow's brain was salvaged by Mickey
>His mind is loaded onto a chip with the rich guy's forbidden tech, then secretly implanted into fake Darrow
>Wakes up and overwrites Fake Darrow when someone says "Break the chains"
Wanna get into fantasy. Whats the holy trinity of fantasy novels/series? Like if you had to recommend three monuments of the genre, what would they be? Whats the best fantasy has to offer?
>>8081492
Glen Cook's Black Company books would be a good starting point.
Night Watch is probably the best introduction to Discworld IMO.
>>8081492
Lord of the Rings.
Earthsea trilogy.
Book of the New Sun.
Chronicles of Amber as an honorary mention.
Is the Chung Kuo series worth reading? My local library has the original series and I'm wondering if it's any good or just a artifact of the late-80s/mid-90s "The inscrutable oriental is going to dominate the world!" paranoia from the west.
>>8081492
Belgariad
Dragonlance
Drizzt
Riftwar as an honorary mention.
I tried to get into it but it felt like the narrative was all over the place, like I was reading a sequel or a summary of another novel. A lot of people liked it, your mileage may vary, and I think I liked a few of the characters.
>>8081492
Wheel of Time
Mistborn
Berserk
>>8081492
Mistborn
Lightbringer
Kingkiller Chronicle
>>8081492
Sword Art Online
Log Horizon
Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash
>>8081546
>Rothfuss releasing the next book never
>>8081492
Malazan
Book of the New Sun
Nightwatch
>>8081565
>grimgar
>log horizon
>Wheel of time
>Mistborn
He'll get anime shitter thrown around soon enough.
Though WoT isn't animu, it's mediocre. Though it's still possible to enjoy it if it strikes your taste buds rights.
>>8081578
Don't really know if Malazan is the right series to get in to if you're new to the genre or reading in general.
First book is chaotic and just throws you in the story. It's also noticeably badly written compared to the other Malazan books.
What does /sffg/ think of Dresden?
I can recognize at an intellectual level that the Dresden files is bad, but the execution is so amazing and the words themselves are so perfectly selected that I can literally sit down and read about a guy riding a polka-powered zombie T-Rex and not even consider that what I'm reading is bad. Even looking back on it the whole thing never once felt "bad" I actually have to come up with reasons why it doesn't qualify as good, and even them I come up short
Maybe it's not deep enough? A single line from one of the books (or short stories) literally redefined how I understood the idea of money as a human concept
>>8081621
>What does /sffg/ think of Dresden?
a good t2 cruiser if you get used to her slow shell velocity
>>8081621
>but the execution is so amazing and the words themselves are so perfectly selected
I read the first book of the Dresden files. That was not my impression while reading it at all. It was pretty shitty while all the characters were laughably cliche. I heard it gets better but i skimmed through later books and didn't see an improvement.
>>8081639
It picks up around book 3 I think. I stopped during the second book, but then picked it up again a year later and read the entire series that summer.
As for cliche, it's only cliche if you read a bit of the genre already. It may not be the original urban fantasy, but it carries itself like the real one to the point that everything even remotely similar feels like a knockoff, even if it came years before. I couldn't read Vlad Taltos because it felt like a Dresden clone even though it predates it by 17 years
>>8081653
okay, maybe that's the definition of cliche, but like I said, it feels natural, like falling over drunk and landing in a seductive pose as it was your plan from the start
>>8079937
Yeah, I'm pretty hyped.
Still need something to fill the void until then, though.
>>8081517
This is the only correct answer. Problem is, you read these early and then a lot of the rest just won't seem as good any more.
>>8081621
>What does /sffg/ think of Dresden?
Not much.
>>8081517
Earthsea is garbage and LOTR is a waste of time.
>>8081815
C'mon, don't spare us your opinion on BotNS.
>>8081821
It's good, shouldn't be in a list with shit like the other two.
>>8081621
It's okay. Not high quality but fun enough to read.
Kinda like Lovecraft or Warhammer 40k novels. Or a Die Hard or Michael Bay movie.
>>8081653
The first three books were literally written for some writing classes he was taking in the late 90s that his teacher told him to shop around to publishers. They're really bad (the working title for the series was "Semiautomagic") and IIRC didn't even get hardcover releases.
Somebody new to the series is better off starting with Dead Beat or Proven Guilty.
>>8081832
You can't skip a huge portion of the series like that
>>8080221
It's excellent. Holdstock writes beautifully.
>>8081621
I liked when Molly saidwhile smoking a cigarette "how did it feel to finally go inside me"I'm not supposed to be getting boners for this series.
First fantasy series I delved in after the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
It's FUCKINGAmazing
Brandon Sandersons Booksare really GOOD
Are his other works this way?
>>8082214
But Mistborn is terrible. Read his Stormlight Archive, it's his only good series.
>>8082215
>not liking Warbreaker conceptually wise
>>8082215
I'm glad I'm an still a pleb when it comes to fantasy. Because I'm really having fun.
I will eventually read it the Way of Kings. I was lazy though. The Storm-light Archive isn't translated to my mother tongue
>>8082224
If you can post on 4chan you can read English books. Especially Sanderson.
>>8082225
Like I said, I'm lazy. It's a real bummer when you have to pick the dictionary every 2 pages.
>>8082227
Get an e-reader, tap the word to get a definition.
>>8082227
You type just like a native english speaker I'm sure you'll be fine.
>>8082225
if you are monolingual and never read a book in another language you don't know what you are talking about
you probably can read them, but the enjoyability (and speed) of the process may vary greatly
>>8082251
Except English is my third language. And obviously it's slightly difficult in the beginning, but if you engage with English media and web sites often the difficult phase will cease quickly. I have no respect for people who are fine with stagnating and not improving themselves because "laziness".
Man, the Stormlight books feel real small in your hand, I expected them to be bigger. They're basically just thick.
>>8082276
>hitchhiker fag
>>8082286
I don't actually like it and only read the first book.
WHO THE FUCK SUGGESTED THIS SHIT?
FUCK YOU. YOU BETTER HOPE I DON'T FIND YOUR ASS.
>>8082317
>Abercrombie blurb
you were asking for it
>>8082276
That's mass market paperbacks for you.
>>8082214
Depends on what you're looking for.
>>8082223
>that feel when Nightblood NEVER
>>8082320
Red Rising also looks like shit, but how the anon described it i took a chance and was rewarded.
After the anon shilled it to me, I thought I was going to sit down to a fun read.... boy was I wrong. And being the fucking ocd completionist fag that I am I finished it, though it took me 2 weeks because I was finding other shit to do and procrastinating the shit out of this book. I did not want to finish.
>girl says she's really into some scifi series
>talk to her about it
>she just says basic shit and talks about meaningless character emotions that you forgot
>try to talk about philosophical themes or sense of wonder or neat features of the setting
>"yeah i was sad when duncan idaho's son didn't love him"
WHO FUCKING CARES
>>8082337
You sound like a tryhard
>>8082317
>that anon tricked 3 people so far into reading this shit
Anyone else read this shit?
>>8082337
To be honest when someone asks me to describe something I read I can never find the words for it. Not just books but in general. I feel so retarded
>>8082337
Silly bitch. Did you break her jaw?
>>8082339
bake a pie, broad
>>8082330
>Nightblood NEVER
Did he scrap the project?
Did that fucking Rekconers 2.0 take it's slot?
Fucking Sanderson
>>8082341
Its honestly better that way. You have no idea how much people like to talk endlessly about XYZ just to feel smart. So long as the book made its impact its done its job and nothing else needs to be said.
Just look at all those people still endlessly "theorizing" Gene Wolfes work, when its really just a matter of fucking reading.
>>8082334
Second paragraph deals with the retribution shits book.
>>8082345
You are why some /lit/ users are wary about having scifi threads, you Reddit faggot
>>8082345
Well yeah I don't bring it up myself. But I feel retarded when others asks me "What's it about?". I can't piece the words together, probably because I'm a social retard. I'd probably sum up BOTNS as "Oh uh there's some torturer who gets exiled and goes on a adventure, but uh there's much more than that and it's a bit of a diffcult read heh" when asked without preparation. I usually tell people that I'm not good at explanations and to read the blurb to dodge the issue though..
>>8082354
>Oh uh there's some torturer who gets exiled and goes on a adventure
At face value that's what it is. Don't be stressed about other details if you know the conversation isnt going to go any deeper than that. If anyone actually wants to know what a book is about they'd read it themselves.
>>8082261
>I have no respect for people who are fine with stagnating and not improving themselves because "laziness".
You don't know shit until you speak English better than your native language.
>>8082361
I probably do. I don't even use my native language anymore since I'm a NEET without human contact, and the only websites I browse are in English.
What now captain?
>>8082351
I'm wary about Scifi because It's just so college liberal, no adult should have the political views of most of the currently popular SF authors.
It isn't even subtle either, It's literally just pasted on the pages in the most immersion breaking shit ever.
>>8082365
What your original language desu?
>>8081825
So what you're saying is you copy all of your opinions from /sffg/?
>>8082344
>Did he scrap the project?
No but he's instead taking obscenely long to get it done and keeps putting it on hiatus.
From the way things were explained, we'll probably get
>Elantris 2
>Nightblood
>Elantris 3
And we're not getting Elantris 2 until in between SA4 and SA5, around 2020.
Wonderful, huh.
>>8082214
Yeah most of his stuff is similar. Here's an excerpt from Stormlight:
"Kuso yarou!" snarled Szeth, wiping a ribbon of blood from the corner of his mouth. "Ore ga dare da to omotte yaru?!"
Electric guitars wailed in Kaladin's head as he watched light coalesce around Szeth's raised blade, indicating the preparation of Messatsu Tensei Ougi: Zantetsugetsumetsuken. Szeth's scream grew louder, while small rocks floated up off the quaking earth.
"Yare yare daze," muttered Kaladin.
>>8082406
Literally jibberish.
>>8082406
I would watch that, it would probably make for the best anime out there entertainment wise.
Too bad it's unreadable as a novel.
>>8082452
It's Hokuto no Jojo
>>8082453
Good thing an anime already exists of that post.
>>8082286
>hitchhiker
>bad
you must be a homo tranny
>>8082406
>kek
>mfw people who didn't read the book, and lurk here to gather others opinions as their own will believe this
>>8082515
I bet you think that Harry Potter is the pinnacle of fantastical literature, don't you.
>>8082520
>you'll never read Stormlight with Stands
Now I feel sad.
>The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy has this to say about faggots:
>>8082525
After reading The Gunslinger I really want to read some fantasy western shit.
Anything else besides the rest of the books in the series?
>>8082520
If the book actually was that I'd read it
>>8082529
Szeth is basically a Stand.
>>8082562
Not anymore!Now he's much scarier.
>>8081815
>Earthsea is garbage
Say
that
to
my
facefaggot
>>8082529
>this is considered good worldbuilding among fantasy "elites"
kh'ehck
41 days until the Great Ordeal
The king of Gay Rape and Incest will once again assume his throne.
Get fucking hyped
Finished Shadow of the Torturer. I liked it, though I think a lot of it went over my head. Not sure if I want to take a break with it or jump into the second book, hmm.
>>8082879
Jump in while it's hot.
On that note I'm 50 pages in Return to the Whorl. Everyone says this turns the Short Sun into a masterpiece. It's been good so far, but I'm not seeing it. It's like I'm missing a tangible theme his best works usually have, like what makes us human, memory, religious undertones, journey from evil to good or something alongside those lines.
Horn is also maybe a bit too similar to Silk as a character. Of course it is understandable because Horn wrote the character of Silk, but the distinction and a strong sense of personality elude him. It's my main problem with Wolfe, outside Severian and Number 7 his characters are not as strong or recognisable as say Alosha or Kiku or major Scobie.
>>8082520
>implying the end of Words of Radiance wasn't literally that
>>8082534
Patricia C. Wrede's Frontier Magic. Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son.
>>8082534
Gaskun just revealed his first book in another thread. Someone read a sample and said its sci-fantasy space opera.
>>8082757
>>8082964
>not liking the mines of Moria 2.0
I bet you're not even holding the gate
>>8083013
psst, gaskun, your trip
>>8083013
Pathetic fucking shill.
>>8083024
Yup. Cats out the bag.
The end of anymity.
I've post is up and the work is public.
Couldn't go on shitposting forever.
>>8083015
It's been a couple years, but I read the last two books of PoN back to back and then Judging Eye right after. I just had enough of Kelhus.
>>8082964
I just finished it. Felt the same as you. For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, it didn't impress me nearly as much as his first trilogy, but it's still pretty good. Currently reading The White Luck Warrior. I suggest reading that one if you haven't already.
>>8083013
it was merely an act
>>8083042
Didn't like them?
>>8083013
>Fifteen-year-old Fennius Taylor lives with his father in a small town in mid-22nd century Oklahoma and dreams of someday joining the global sport of hovercraft racing. The SLED circuit, a dangerous, 300+mph slug fest on magnetized tracks around the world. But with the world of racing so far from him, the closest escape he ever seems to get is the simulator he escapes into for hours at a time.
>When Team Nitro, a local amateur league racing organization from Oklahoma City, holds open tryouts for a new pilot, the opportunity Fennius has been waiting for may finally be a reality.
>But there’s more at play than just racing.
>As Fennius places his bid for a brighter future, he unknowingly attracts the eye and heart of Akiko Chiyo, a world famous sentient artificial intelligence that appears in the form of a perpetually 16-year-old Japanese hologram and plays sold out concerts around the globe to millions. And with Akiko pulling the strings of fate behind the scenes with her songs, Fennius will have more than to worry about more than just racing as a series of events that will change his life forever are about to begin.
>Fusion Heart is the speed-fueled starting point for Star Epic One, a multi-volume space opera that will take you and your imagination on a wild ride across the stars and back.
>Forget what you think you know about space opera. This is everything you never knew you
always wanted, and it all starts here.
This had better be good, man.
>>8083045
Bear in mind it's been a couple years, but I think I didn't like that everyone but Kelhus was just so pathetic. Maybe there's some strong character that I am forgetting. I don't recall empathizing with anyone in the book.
I love Earwa and all the world-building too much to completely turn away from the series though.
>>8083047
I HATE him. Even in the PoN I liked Achamian much better. Kelhus is more of a plot device than an actual character from my point of view.
>>8083063
Pretty much everyone, in real life as well, turns out to be pathetic if you look so closely at their deepest thoughts and feelings the way a writer describes those of his character.
And even Kellhus seems to have his weaknesses, currently reading TWLW and he seems to be getting some powerful enemies.
>>8083074
I don't agree with your first statement at all, but I don't feel like debating with you. I will get TWLW and see how it is.
>>8083063
>not liking Akka
He's literally done nothing wrong besides love a whore
>>8083074
>Pretty much everyone, in real life as well, turns out to be pathetic if you look so closely at their deepest thoughts and feelings the way a writer describes those of his character.
There is only one person that you are capable of looking at so closely.
Finished Napoleon of Notting Hill, it was pretty good, but also supremely confusing. The plot is simple enough, but it's filled with nonsensical elements.
Just finished The Fifth Head of Cerberus.Are the Free People/Shadow Children telepaths, psychics? I got an impression, mistaken or no, that their 'shapeshifting' was all mental projection. That would mesh with the telepathy the Shadow Children displayed in "A Story". And if the Shadow Children in that story were just mutated humans from an earlier expedition, is it possible that St. Anne and St. Croix themselves create psychics? Is it something to do with the atmosphere of the planet, or perhaps those leaves that they were chewing?
>>8083136
It's easy to forget it's surrealism.
>>8082930
Finish the book and watch my video. Your instinct about silk being too similar to horn has narrative explanations. Note that the Horn of OBW was much more ... like Horn.
>>8083147
The shadow children are a psychic gestalt, the abos shape changers. Also,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=esAjkChAy7M
Discussion On fifth head starts 10 minutes in
>>8083158
It's similar A Man who was Thursday in the sense where themes are made obvious in the final chapter.
It's strange how great of a writer he was, but how I can never agree with his reasoning on just about anything, although we hold the same positions on most things.
His poetic truth always eludes me, but makes for a thrill of a ride anyway.
Reading Heretics now, his best essays IMO.
>>8083181
Something just popped into my head, is Horn in Silk's body?
>>8083193
Will you ever make more videos?
Not necessarily on Wolfe.
>>8083201
I'm partial to What I Saw In America myself, probably because I really love America.
What are some really good sci-fi/fantasy novellas?
Also, very apropos, would anyone happen to have an .epub or something of The Fifth Head of Cerberus? I can't find it anywhere
>>8083207
I've read some Father Brown, Everlasting Man, Orthodoxy, Man Who was Thursday, Napoleon of Nothing Hill and now Heretics. Not sure if I'll read more, as 6 books by an author satisfies me and I can move on content.
>>8083201
Yes ... (or he was when Silk needed him to he to be ...) in OBW you have all these statements like , "i'm the only one here who couldn't tell you where silk is ... i will search, but searching does not imply movement" to paraphrase.
>>8083213
Try Best of Gene Wolfe. It has the first Novella and a bunch of others stuff.
There was a Orb anthology of best sf stories, 2 500 page volumes. Try to find that one. It's a great section.
>>8083226
*to be ... one time
>>8083226
There has to be some Catholic symbolism in that.
Volume II of Between Light and Shadow when?
>>8083206
Yes but first I need to finish the last twelve essays of this project. When the Hugo goes to No Award I will upload the speech I would have given lol. It takes three scenarios from wolfe and applies them to universal experience we all face - moving one not only to pity, but to question the subjectivity of human experience and the validity of arbitrary distinctions like age and ... other things. It will end with a key line from Fifth Head of Cerberus. Then I might talk about Sterne, Dostoevsky, and the importance of genre determinations on useful analysis, as well as tackling the concept of misreading.
>>8083255
Can't you somehow convince the Fat Fuck Martin to shill you on his blog? After all, it's completely apolitical and he likes Wolfe.
>>8083241
It will be called Beyond Time and Memory. You will like the short sun video, I hope. It is the interpretation I have received the most flak on over the years, but it was the first one where I understood that Wolfe and I thought a certain way, and everyone else a different. It relies on the concept that the narrator cant face disastrous truths even if they are staring him in the face. The backash circa 2002 on the urth list was astonishing.
Is there any good Hindu inspired fantasy?
>>8083264
Lol he has already brought me up in his post on e pluribus hugo bashing me without reading me. "SURELY hartwell would have taken the book..." full guilt by association mode- the book is no good because of who the publisher is, and the whole category unworthy. "Well, this 800 page bio of heinlein and letters from tiptree found publishers ...". Hey george, I found a publisher, too.
>>8083270
Well my interpretation at the moment certainly wouldn't go in that direction.
Of course maybe because they are so well hidden, but I can't say I see any such calamities.
Maybe the fact that the Inhumini are a genocidal race and should be distrusted, the possible pacifism of the Neighbors and the fact that Horn inhabits Silk's body, but that pretty standard stuff for Wolfe.
>>8083279
Two big things. Dont want to spoil. One involves a personal sacrifice. Another involves a much much bigger sacrifice.
