Recommended reading charts. (Look here before asking for vague recs)
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>Archive:https://warosu.org/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=sffg
>Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1029811-sffg
>Previous:>>24536347>Thread Questions:What trends do you see happening to fantasy and SF in the next ten years?
>>24545219 (OP)some kind of revival of old style fantasy? you're already seeing hints of that with "alt-right, men-only books" fear mongering. perhaps similar to osr in tabletop roleplaying?
Lovecraft says to read these books
https://hplovecraft.hu/index.php?id=529&lang=angol&page=library_etexts
>>24545219 (OP)>I have no memory of this place...
do anons appreciate other anon's sf/fantasy webnovels here? Or is it like /wg/ where they balk at them. I'm aware of /wng/ but just curious
>>24545320The salty fags in /wg/ are in this thread as well
>enjoy A Spell for Chameleon as a kid
>20 years later
>find out Piers Anthony wrote a book about an old man fucking a five year old
Piers bros, why did he do it?
>>24545219 (OP)>What trends do you see happening to fantasy and SF in the next ten years?Good question. We saw Romantasy rise, but that was just formalization of certain preferences in fantasy that have been true for a long time. Decades. Is there anything similar going on?
>>24545365contemporary romance with tons of coffee shop dialogue and how her childhood friend is rich and powerful and only has eyes for her
>>24545320We're tradpubbed only
Acceptable reasons to drop a work of science fiction or fantasy:
>20% of its word count consists of recapping information from its related works.
>Gay main character
>Prisoner arc longer than a chapter
>Academy arc longer than a book\volume when it's title does not contain the word academy
>Talking pet/spirit companion
>The main character is completely barred/unable/unwilling to use and or engage with the main power system of the author's chosen setting
So what IS modern fantasy, does anyone know? Or is it just basically isekai, similar to how modern romance is just animalistic soft porn?
>>24545417You forgot
>Not a single instance of the author's fetish
>>24545417Unacceptable reasons to drop a work of science fiction or fantasy:
>You disagree with the author's critique of religion or ethnocentrism>You dislike the author's cultural or linguistic background>You do not want to listen to social commentary>You disagree with their social satire of capitalism or nationalism
>>24545419>Modern fantasyA fantasy setting where power is shared by everyone, rather than being top-down and hierarchical.
>>24544622He writes the same 4-6 distinct personalities across dozens of different characters.
>>24545425>>You dislike the author's cultural or linguistic background>>You do not want to listen to social commentary>>You disagree with their social satire of capitalism or nationalismThese are all completely acceptable reasons to drop a work of science fiction or fantasy. Do not enable aids pigs.
>>24545365More like that orc latte book maybe?
>>24545219 (OP)>What trends do you see happening to fantasy and SF in the next ten years?actual good prose
no litrpgs. Soft magic is good. This obsession with turning the medium of written story into a lvl up video game is cancer.
>>24545492thought thread question was *what do you WANT to see in the next ten years.
nevermind then. What I want will not happen. I'm tired
Just finished project hail mary, can somebody tell me what I thought about it?
>>24545219 (OP)>What trends do you see happening to fantasy and SF in the next ten years?More slop, maybe a small ressurgence of SFlit.
slop
md5: ea945d2a509db036bd669e5c68af44ea
๐
>>24545507There's slop in every walk of life.
>>24545516>indigenous tomboys of samoaSweet googly moogly
Have you ever been enjoying a book so much that you have to put it down and take a break?
>>24545535The Brothers Karamazov makes me put it down every time I get a huge dopamine hit from reading it
>>24545219 (OP)>>24545365>>24545489Yeah, we're already see "comfy fantasy" becoming a thing. Which is just copying slice-of-life bullshit where there's no real story going on.
>>24545535I do this when an author does something I predicted (and would really enjoy).
>>24545535Sometimes, when something big happens, I have to stop for a bit, yes. Conversely, there are times when I can't stop reading.
66567
md5: cf3e81fcd1894fce0b63b37d73451c78
๐
Any fantasy books that are actually proper heist stories? Just a group of dudes breaking into some place and stealing shit? I read Mistborn because I heard it was one and I feel like I was lied to.
>>24545219 (OP)>Sci-fiI'm just gonna share a story I like here.
There was a Sci-fi magazine that was investigated by the US government for possible spy activity during WWII because a story called "Deadline" had a pretty accurate description of nuclear bombs and their effects that was published while the Manhattan Project was being worked on in New Mexico. The editor had to prove that it was just speculative fiction made by nerds with readily available publicly known scientific data and he did so to the point he was cleared of suspicion. The same editor, John W Campbell, also told the government he was completely aware of the project they were working on New Mexico despite nobody telling him about. The Sci-Fi crowd was fairly tight knit and he noticed that a lot of the subscribers whose fields of expertise in nuclear, weapon manufacturing, and shit all happened to have their subscription addresses changed to Los Alamos, New Mexico at close to the same time when the government was snatching up any swinging dick with the expertise to make their nuclear bomb. So anyone who could connect dots would arrive at the conclusion the government was working on that project, they were doing it around Los Alamos, and the sci-fi nerds were part of the talent pool. US intelligence agencies (still in their infancy) learned a pretty valuable lesson about mundane paper trails unrelated to the main issue can easily lead to logical conclusions if viewed in the right way as a result though, so they weren't even upset the guy figured it out. Better him than a foreign enemy and now they can plug a hole they didn't know was leaking.
>>24545633>Better him than a foreign enemy and now they can plug a hole they didn't know was leaking.They still do dumb shit like that on the regular. To the point that there's twitter accounts that publicly track pizza orders near the pentagon. Since Trump got re-elected pretty much all the gay bars within a short drive of the Pentagon have had their revenues crater.
>>24545320it's not really this simple in reality, and there is a lot of overlap that causes friction, but in terms of the generals with some interest in genre fiction:
>/wg/ - anons that read so called 'high' sff like peake, wolfe, moorcock >/sffg/ - anons that read tradpubbed YA and NA like red rising, brandon sanderson, harry potter, grrm etc (two of those became so popular that they split off from the thread) >/wng/ - anons that read/write litrpg and cultivation who got bullied out of /wg/ and /sffg/
>>24545843Speaking of pizza and pentagons, pretty wild how that guy with into the Comet Pizza shop and fired one shot that conveniently hit the hard drive of a specific computer. But pizzagate faded like anything else.
>Stop attempting to resist anymore
What's the point of writing in the 21st century when people read this garbage for entertainment? We're too dumbed down.
>>24545425I defend my right to drop a book if the author keeps slipping in Mexican phrases and noble genius black characters thank you very much!
reading the screenplay for the sunshine movie
first time reading a screenplay but it's pretty fun
>>24545320It's not bad. I'm enjoying it.
>>24545962>writing for other people to readWhat's the point of reading in the 21st century when authors write garbage for entertainment?
>>24546001What did The Lopen ever do to you? What a shitty character and he had the GALL to make him one of the main characters of Dawnshard.
>>24546099I don't write entertainment. I write art that is barely seen outside a close knit circle of literary critics and people with PhDs.
>>24546124>people with PhDslol
>>24546126Snarl and balk! Laugh and chide all you want, gong farmer. I am the literary master, and you are not fit to be my apprentice.
>>24545484And that alone puts him above 80% of web novels.
Just ordered Crash by JG Ballard + 16 cans of baked beans with varying flavoured sauces.
The greatest limitation of almost anything self-published is how niche their appeal is. 10% of the readers may love it, 50% are apathetic, and 40% hate it. It's similar to fetishes. If it appeals to them, then for many quality doesn't matter all. Everyone else sees unappealing trash.
>>24546168Groupthink vagueposting at that. Every time.
Reading should be transformative and make you more empathetic. It should not be merely entertainment.
>>24546160I don't know, man. Ryan Cahill self-published Of Blood and Fire to great success.
>>24546141That's nice for you but Crash isn't a sffg book. Ballard has written some excellent sci-fi but that isn't one of them.
>>24546172Because he writes very good stories
>>24546182SFF is garbage by and large
This is coming from someone who has most of their publications in Lovecraftian journals
>>24546172How are you defining "success"? As far as I can tell, relative to highly successful self-published works, it is neither a resounding commerical success nor is it influential. Describing it as moderately successful seems more accurate.
Write slop for Royalroad or write short stories for clarkesworld et al?
>>24546195Royal Road is potentially lucrative, but won't ever give you prestige.
Traditional magazines may give you prestige among a small audience and possibly win awards, but it will never be financially viable.
>>24545582I guess there's cozy murder mysteries and cozy horror so why not put that bullshit label on fantasy as well. Hell, make it cozy murder mystery fantasy or some shit.
>>24546195Write what you want but send it to your favourite writer's agent and get a huge payout (enough to live on).
>>24545492>>24545500I feel like Litrpgs would be better if they did away with the hard levels and stats and focused mainly on abilities. I feel that my ideal LitRPG would be one where characters can't normally see their exact stats and only gain new abilities rarely, but those abilities are impactful.
>>24546198Short stories are there for you to "git gud" so you can start writing novels.
>>24546204The appeal for many is NUMBER GO UP!!! So what you want is unlikely to happen because it'd require someone who is uninterested in pursuing fame or fortune, but also wants to take a more literary approach to LitRPG. That's niche indeed.
>>24546207I disagree. They are different forms and quality in one doesn't correlate with the other. A novelist should be writing a lot and intentionally work on improving as a novelist. It was never "write short stories to get good". A very long time ago it was "write short stories to get noticed".
>>24546204There are a several 'soft' litrpg's that are like that. They don't have the 'crunchy' stat sheets and constant (skill) levelling but there is still game-like progression. Cyber Dreams is one that comes to mind.
>>24546248the xeelee sequence ultimately encompasses ~30 stories within a universe ranging technically from its inception but mostly something like 100000+ years of humanity's development
so it largely depends on what you are looking for in that precise moment
>>24546204Isn't that kind of like what Sanderson does in Stormlight Archive with Radiant progression?
>>24546230You can be a good short story writer and not a good novelist, or vice versa, but the traditional way to get good at any writing was trial and error through short stories due to length and time spent on them. Gene Wolfe would churn out a short story every second week. He said it taught him how to write; Kurt Vonnegut said the same. The writing market was better when they wrote because magazines would give detailed feedback.
>>24546248>mfw most people don't acknowledge the first four stories with Xeelee
>>24545219 (OP)SF died in the 20th century, OP.
>>24545362He's of English origin.
>>24546351What do you consider the first four stories?
>>24546399publication order
>>24546427Barely anybody talks about the series in-depth at all. I always rec Vacuum Diagrams first. Lots of people begin with Raft only because it's the first novel despite it being in a literal alternate standalone universe.
is Games of Thrones similar slop like Wheel of Time? I finished the latter and while the first and second book was good I did not like the rest. Wondering if I should read more fantasy or skip to some scifi stuff.
>>24546483Aren't there like 14 books in WoT? How did you not drop it
>>24546276A lot of stories do this kind of progression. I guess the difference here would be it being more gamey, specific, and technical in presentation.
>>24546483Do not start reading a series that will never be finished. Save your time and read something else.
>>24546570Do you believe that in general or only because of your anger at GRRM? Are you also an advocate for standalone fantasy?
>>24546583Mostly GRRM hatred at this point but it's an abandoned series, I see no point in investing any time into it any more.
>Are you also an advocate for standalone fantasy?I'm an advocate for series that get finished. I want resolutions, completed stories etc. I don't care if there are delays or it's incomplete, but gurm has no interest in the series so why should we?
/sffg/ reads shit that was relevant from 10-20 years ago; they don't know any upcoming authors
>>24546483The tone is very different, GRRM has a weird sort of notion that everything needs to be gritty, while Jordan is more whimisical for the most part.
You should only care about authors who are chads. Simple as.
>>24546613define relevant, the most read authors on the planet died hundreds of years ago
>>24546632That's not true at all now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_authors
>>24546613I read the poppy war
I don't want grimdark fantasy, real world is grimdark.
I took the Tolkien pill - I want to escape the prison, nobledark it is.
>>24546659Is it worth reading or nah
>>24546613I read current year authors every year and current year debut novels.
>>24546710Did you like Rakesfall or Saint of Bright Doors?
>>24546713I didn't read either. There are many current year authors and debuts.
>>24546734Ah, right. They are just recent books I've read. I also got into Stephen Graham Jones; he's quite good.
>>24546613I recently finished the Green Bone Saga. Very good series.
>>24546670NTA but nah. She is incapable of having an original thought. Every event in her books was stolen from history and then had the proper nouns changed.
Every one of her books is about anti-imperialism or anti-colonialism. They exist more as manefestos then they do as actual stories.
She's that brand asian-american that believes they are an integral part of the BIPOC crowd. When in reality, that crowd hates them and groups them with whites. I remember one in uni that got real pissed when they found out they didn't qualify for 99% of scholarships because they were east asian and therefore not a POC
>>24545582I don't see "comfy fantasy" becoming a major genre. It's a fad.
>>24546898What did you study at university? Your privilege is showing...
>>24546898It's even funnier because she studied in Cambridge and Oxford.
>>24546630>tfw wrote a book while living at home and now you can crush fangirl horsepussy whenever you want
>>24544303Maybe I need to be more explicit: George is a PROFESSIONAL writer. I know people here are not professionals, at best they are amateurs, and so it may be necessary to define these terms explicitly. A professional writer writes in order to get paid. It is his livelihood. An amateur writes for the love of writing. That is the actual root of the word "amateur", a person who loves what they do, and does what they love, without requiring compensation. A hobbyist, but with more passion.
George may or may not have passion for what he writes. I don't know the man personally. But I do know he writes for money and has been writing for money for most of his adult life. He is a consummate professional. You do not get to be a professional writer for decades unless you are productive and possess some skill, because most writers fail to make any kind of money off their work at all regardless of skill.
The reason I lay this out like this is because of what I suspect are George's primary motivations for writing his book series. He began writing A Song of Ice and Fire in the 1990s and continued into the 2000s. Then HBO approached him with a pitch for a TV series and everything changed for him. He now had a revenue stream disconnected from writing. It was based on things he had already written, but did not depend on him writing anything NEW. This is important because it's how a PROFESSIONAL writer approaches the craft. The prime motivation of their practice is to get paid for writing. He no longer needed to be paid to write. He ceased to be a professional writer. The only way he could continue to be a novelist is if he shifted his entire paradigm from professional to amateur. And this is where I contend that George does not have it in him to be an amateur novelist, because he simply failed to produce anything after Dance of Dragons. The show's ending preempted anything he could've gained professionally by finishing the series.
His career as a novelist is DONE. All that is left is the endless tinkering of an amateur. I don't suggest that George has no love for his writing or his books, only that he has no reason to PUBLISH.
>>24546968She's kinda a baddie tho
>>24546172How pozzed is it?
About to read this, what am I in for?
>>24545617Lies of Locke Lamora?
>>24547042Bad Sci Fi that has anti-gravity weapons.
>>24545219 (OP)FUCK she is good....
>>24547055Very cool cover.
This was fantastic. Watts packed in several books worth of ideas and concepts but makes it work in less than 400 pages. The "Vampires" alone would make a great story (Neill Blomkamp is apparently making a movie using the concept)
Is the sequel worth reading?
>>24547086Echopraxia is more of a sidequel than a sequel but if you want more Watts writing about consciousness then 100%. It's more word-y than Blindsight however that should be one of your last complaints. I recently reread them. You should read
I'd rec you read this short story first
>https://reactormag.com/the-colonel-peter-watts//and you don't HAVE to but this story gives you a bit of an insight of what I am 99% sure is one of the main factions of Echopraxia.
>https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-twenty-one-second-god/
>>24547042>starts off as solid sci-fi>suddenly turns into slopbut it lands well enough that i kept reading the sequels
>>24545276 I knew I should have turned left at Albuquerque
>>24546966Computer science at a cheap local school. The entire 4 year degree cost 32k in Canadian fun-bucks. I got an internship and ended up with no loans by the end.
>>24547029It is all the pozzed.
>>24546613I do. I've read lots of newer authors who've published recently (last 5 years). But these threads don't have as many people as they used to and it's hard to find anyone who has read the same novel as you unless its very popular and famous, so that means the same old names tend to get discussed the most.
I have though encountered a couple other people who've read Anthony Ryan or Django Wexler, and a few others, but conversations tend to peter out once we each say our piece, find some common ground, and then there's nothing left to say. Without a lot of competing opinions there's not a lot to discuss.
>>24547297>But these threads don't have as many people as they used toI left for a bit. What happened? I noticed /wng/ spawned when I was away.
At local book store. Here is a pile of sci-fi they have. Is this worth buying? Dude said I can take it all for $50?
>>24546898I found her plagiarism of history less off-putting than her particularly noxious brand of self destructive feminism she subscribes to. Kuang's protagonist, Rin, somehow manages to grow into prime adolescence without figuring out that women menstruate. Rin despises her expected role as a woman, she is horrified of her female body once it "betrays" her, and then sets out to rid herself of its weakness by poisoning her womb, irreversibly. This is treated as a heroic moment in the narrative, and a turning point at which Rin came into her power as an individual.
I could go on about the disconnect between this character and her treatment in the narrative, but that is honestly enough.
>>245473214chan in general is dying slowly. The site being hacked and down for 2 weeks didn't help with that. And in This thread's case, our activity was kneecapped 5 years ago when a certain autistic spammer started targeting us, and he never left. He's just become less active.
>>24547339Boys I gotta fuck off outta here ASAP. Gonna need everyone to assemble and weigh in ASAP
>>24547352What spammer? Bakkerfag?
>>24547356The very same. He's been active since late 2019, so we're approaching 6 years of his nonsense. Though anymore he barely even menaces threads except to remind everyone he's still here.
>>24547346>>24547352>>24547356I need maximum concentration and attention the matter at hand fellas. Is this shit worth buying? Is there enough here that $50 out the door is a good deal.
>>24547375>$50Is the book gilded? Why is it so expensive? If I had your address I'd mail you my copy cause I still haven't bothered to sell it to a used book dealer. I have no intention of ever reading it again nor reading its sequels. No I don't recommend it unless you enjoy hating a protagonist you're forced to follow.
What's the impetus here? Why this book? Cause the author is an Asian woman? I can name other Asian woman authors that are far better.
>>24547375The only sci fi people here read is red rising. Canโt help you lad
>>24545859>le popular = badfaggot lol
>>24547388It was the stack of books like 8 posts up. Stor owner said I could take the stack for $50 out the door but I don't know if anything is worth getting
>>24547396He's right, you know.
>>24547339YES
>>24545859Red Rising only left because bakkerfag had a fucking schizo meltdown that people were actually discussing the series so fast that the entire thread reached bump limit in 3 hours as opposed to 3 days.
>>24547414We were simply too powerful
>>24547352Was it because of the election tourists in 2016? We can just go back to Warosu and /sffg/ before the tourists invaded our lands.
>>24547414Is red rising the dragon series girls read? I'm 40 and my mom told me my sister in law recommended some series about girls riding dragons.
My mom knows I read sci-fi/fantasy and asked if they were any good. I told her I hadnt read them. I forget what she said the series was called. I think I'd recognize the covers if I saw them, though.
>>24547439No there are no dragons in RR. It's space opera
>>24547439No. Red Rising is game of thrones in space.
>>24547444It's hunger games in space book 1, then space opera kino. First book was YA just to get published, then the real story begins
>>24547444>no dragons in RR/ourfag/ begs to differ
>>24547414Bakkerfag is a newfag like you so he wouldn't have any issue with a thread burning fast.
>>24547469He has a problem with people talking about books he personally doesn't like, which near as I can tell is everything except Bakker. What originally triggered his spam in 2019 was the release of Sanderson's latest novel and people actively discussing it all day. He became so mindbroken over people happily talking about "inferior literature" that he proceeded to relentlessly spam the thread for weeks afterward to kill all discussion.
>>24547339If that Ringworld Engineers is a First Edition, that alone is a $40-50 book.
>>24546613I read every gemmel morningstar award winner for new author before the award got closed
>Financially unsuccessful as a writer, Lovecraft believed a vast Jewish conspiracy controlled American literature and publishing. In a letter from 1933, he lamented how โJewish publishing houses like Knopf, feeling the pressure of Jewish finance and mercantile advertising, are daily getting farther and farther from the real feelings of the plain American in New England or Virginia or Kansas.โ This anti-Semitism led Lovecraft to defend Nazi Germany during Hitlerโs rise to power in the 1930s. He viewed fascism as an extreme but necessary reaction to the danger of the corrupting of Teutonic culture by other races.
Lovecraftsistahs.... why was he so based?
>>24547594Which was good?
So I've read numerous Star Wars and Warhammer 40k novels. I've read The Expanse, Foundation, and Dune. Hyperion is on my to-read list.
What other Space Opera fits in with this list?
>>24546198Not really a thing ever since the awards and several of the magazines were taken over by blatant cliques and diversity hires where utter trash unfit for even webnovel sites wins awards and where the non-writer organizers get co-writing credits from award winners shortly after stepping down.
At most you can get some real fan readers from one of the few independent magazines not involved in all that trash like say Cirsova.
>>24547681The novel that I'm editing for a friend desu
I got a little sugar in the tank
>Gene Wolfe was 39 years old when his first novel, Operation Ares, was published in 1970. He had previously published short stories, starting at age 34.
That is a very late bloom.
>>24547665>"conspiracy"lmao meanwhile if you read his letters and those of CAS and others in the business they name actual specific names of publishers who were thieving cunts and they even got together to help multiple new writers get in contact with lawyers in order to get paid at all by both Hugo Gernsback and the Knopf family.
>>24547681The Barsoom Series and Planet of Adventure are more Planetary Romance but if you can call 40k Space Opera, these might be close enough for you.
>>24547701Steven Erikson was 40 when Gardens of the Moon was published
>>24547718Wasn't he in an MFA way before that?
>>24547725Yea he did the Iowa writer workshop for the MFA. He also got undergrad degrees in anthropology and history. But he was working a day job writing malazan on his lunch breaks on a handheld computer powered by AA batteries.
>>24547737Okay, I just assumed he was already a published writer when Malazan was being written. I know he did litfic for a bit.
>>24547439>my sister in law recommended some series about girls riding dragonsIt's probably Fourth Wing. "New adult fantasy romance", aka smut for millenials that refuse to grow up (no offence to yorr sister-in-law)
>>24547707What would you call the Eisenhorn/Ravenor series if not space opera?
>>24547339If you didn't buy them for 50 but still want them, go back and offer him 25. 50 isn't a terrible price, but it's still overcharging for 21 books that will never sell otherwise.
>>24547583This anon is insane. Nobody is going to buy a beat up copy of Ringworld Engineers for 40 dollars.
Sams Club had copies of Will of the Many, Fourth Wing, Game of Thrones, and Poppy War.
>>24547787Okay? Sounds like shit.
Posting a 1.9k word long excerpt of Chapter 9 of my political-fantasy story. I'd appreciate any feedback particularly on dialogue and prose and less on plot as it's taken literally right in the middle of dialogue with no added context.
https://medium.com/@panosfrag/chapter-9-excerpt-c7f9e9205022
Thanks in advance.
(last time I post before work begins on Chapter 10)
>>24547802Think will of the many was $12 trade paperback. GOT was a brand new print pic related really good quality $12.50. Poppy War was mass market $7
>>24547787So? You can get all those books for cheap (used) on ebay.
>>24547819I know but it was just weird seeing Islington at Sam's Club when it's usually Patterson shit
>>24547818is poppy war even good
>>24547701Some guys just need to live life for a while before they write a book.
>>24547681Dominic Flandry, Demon Princes, Emphyrio, Planet of Adventure, Dumarest saga, Space Viking, The Voyage to Arcturus, Last and First Men, The Centauri Device, The Rediscovery of Man, the World of Null-A, Lensman series, Berserker series, Ringworld, Northwest Smith.
>>24547824No, it's not. Consult posts already made ITT about it.
>>24547346Oh wow so I'm definitely not reading that lol what the fuck
I feel like if this was written by a man, most of what you just described would end up on /r/menwritingwomen. except the womb poisoning of course. That's something only a radfem could come up with.
>>24547818I actually really like this cover
>>24547842>That's something only a radfem could come up with.It's textbook radical 4th wave feminist. The secret of modern radfems is that they actually hate women. Not women as a class, but the idea of women, the concept of "woman" is what they hate. If they could they would classify femaleness as a disease and try to direct exorbitant amounts of money and resources to curing it. Their advocacy for women as a class is rooted in their belief that being a woman is fundamentally horrible and wretched and it would be better to be anything else.
Hence why they urge women to become imitations of men and encourage also transgenderism which makes mock of biological sex and totally obscures the traditional physical definitions of sex, thereby in some small way, destroying "woman" as a concept.
This is where Kuang comes from, it's what informs her work. I want no truck with it.
>>24547747Yep that's it. That rang a bell. How gay are those books. My sister in law is very basic and normal. She supposedly never reads fantasy. Is this Harry Potter with dragons I assume?
>>24545425found the laptop-class gatekeeper
What /wng/ works are we reading?
>>24547919>It is the first book in the Empyrean series, following the journey of Violet Sorrengail, who is forced by her mother, General Sorrengail, to join the Basgiath War College and become a dragon rider in the kingdom of Navarre. Even though she has been trained her entire life to enter the Scribe Quadrant, Violet must endure deadly quests and competitions that push her to her limits while trying to avoid being killed by one of the most powerful riders in the quadrant, Xaden Riorson.Yeah, definitely going for that Harry Potter crowd
>>24547086>great story>Neill SlopkampPick one.
>>24547665Incels aren't based.
>>2454733914 out of those 21 books are good. It's a good price, anon.
>>24547701>>24547718I'd have pointed out Fred Pohl who was about 50 when he did "Gateway".
Although he had built a lot of respect in the industry as an editor before that, and the pre-"Gateway", "Merchants of Venus", was a decent selling short.
>>24547812https://pastebin.com/aRNMcNp3
Turned into a wall of text that couldn't fit in one reply. Not sure if this is the kind of thing you are looking for anon, but good luck.
>>24546160This dork could never imagine being Siri Keeton.
>>24547895So this is the term for this. I've been getting annoyed by this exact kind of thing in politics and pop culture for like the past ten years without being able to put a proper name to it.
starting to think we won't be getting a nogod series...
A Few Series That Will Never Be Finished
A Song of Ice and Fire
Cosmere
The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox
The Kingkiller Chronicles
The Sea-Beggars Series
The Second Apocalypse
The Song of the Lioness
The Tales of Alvin Maker
The Zimiamvian Trilogy
rwe
md5: 161303aa00d4889bbd2a349789bebdaf
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>>24547766>Nobody is going to buy a beat up copy of Ringworld Engineers for 40 dollars.A little under $40 but close enough.
>>24548114The book is inferior to the first volume in the series. Bad deal.
>>24548185You're only jealous because you will never pump and dump your way through a dozen humanoid species while on a roadtrip.
>>24548306I've done sexual tourism in the past, anon.
I think I'm done with The Sparrow. I'm about a third of the way through it and I really don't care about anything other than wtf happened. Do I just throw in the towel and read a summary?
>>24548102Don't forget most of /sffg/'s series because they'll never even finish book 1
>>24548102> The Second ApocalypseIsnt that finished?
acobi
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>>24547339I've read Where Time Winds Blow and it was pretty atrocious. Can't say much about the other books except Aldiss is always a good call. I would try to haggle it down to $40
>>245481022 or 3 years ago I would have added Sword of Shadows on this list, but now J. V. Jones is actively providing daily updates on her Patreon (Endlords of complete, she's just doing chapter rewrites now) and bros I couldn't be any more excited. If you are looking to scratch that GRRM gave you with GoT and can't wait any longer for WoW I would recommend this series.
What are some based tropes and messages I should put into my fantasy book?
>>24546172Tried to like this series but the author wrote the protagonist as such an angsty mid-wit that gets all his allies killed and captured that it made it completely irredeemable.
>>24548495you should write what you want to write and not ask other people what you should do.
>>24545362>find out Piers Anthony wrote a book about an old man fucking a five year oldThat's terrible! What's the name of the book, so I can avoid it forever?
>>24548495>If you are born a specific gender you cannot be considered another gender as the magic that can transmogrify your genitals reverts back faster and hurts more each time it's cast upon you.>Same sex enjoyers are killed on sight by a majority of law enforcement due to a disease only they are capable of spreading.>Only one race is superior to the rest and althought there is a diversity alliance army they get thoroughly trounced and enslaved because their command structure can't agree on anything.I really am trying to be a more tolerant person I swear.
>>24547042Excellent space opera with a really good TV show
>>24548408Yeah its very underwhelming, the payoff isn't worth it but i really enjoyed Emilio's recovery from the trauma when the story is set during the current day.
>>24548551Looks like it's a book called Firefly. Found it 5 seconds on Google searching "piers anthony sex kids pedophile nude children". Learn how to search with keywords.
>>24548185I actually thought the overall plot of Engineers was better and it was definitely paced better. But the sense of awe and wonder was dialed back.
>>24548598Thank you, I'll do my best to never read it!
>>24548530how about Fitz's girlfriend marrying and having like 6 kids REPEATED 'PIES with his dad? What kind of horrific woman is Robin Hobb?
>>24548102>The Zimiamvian TrilogyOh, come on.
>>24548619He's also gone to defending pedophilia and befriending and collaborating with a convicted pedophile.
>It may be that the problem is not with what is deviant, but with our definitions. I suggest in the novel that little Nymph [the 5 year old girl] was abused not by the man with whom she had sex, but by members of her family who warped her taste, and by the society that preferred to condemn her lover rather than address the source of the problem in her family.>But this is another bit of evidence of the problem in our society: as far as I know, Santiago Hernandez [wrote a story in Firefly] did not hurt anyone. He just happens to be sexually attracted to small boys [convicted of molesting them].
>>24548626>He's also gone to defending pedophilia and befriending and collaborating with a convicted pedophile.Welp, I'm starting to understand why he got so much ostracized in the Fantasy community...
>>24548626>5-year old>Nymph>had sex>society is to blame for condemning her loverAre we sure he has no criminal record?
>>24545219 (OP)>What trends do you see happening to fantasy and SF in the next ten years?1) SF will get biggrr than fantasy again be ause we are getting way more better SF adaptions than fantasy adaptions
2) litrpg will explode into mainstream (blame dcc)
3) ai has the potentials to fuck things up ( in good and bad ways) but i have no idea what will stick in the end
>>24548671>3) ai has the potentials to fuck things up ( in good and bad ways) but i have no idea what will stick in the endI wonder if people have considered that Japanese LN authors have been using AI for a while? There's seemingly a deluge of endless, derivative isekai LNs that has kept up for over a decade now.
>>24546170That's what parables and fables are for.
>>24546190How often are you going to bring that up?
>>24546977Most people live at home. Or did you mean he was living with his parents or something? If so that's pretty nice.
>>24548453>subscribe and buy my shit and women will like you!Nice scheme.
>>24547973Thanks a lot. I will consider your suggestions. What were your overall thoughts on the piece?
>>24548452The final planned No-God trilogy is nowhere near publication despite rumours Bakker is still working on it
>>24548630If anything that should make him fit in with the awards and convention crowd considering how many of them were either known real life pedos like Zimmer Bradley with her husband Breen and Edward Kramer well into the 00s or defenders of them like Harlan Ellison (defended Kramer as le harmless despite having dozens of child rape convictions) and Anne McCaffrey (attacked the child rape victim of Bradley for pointing out that they all knew about Breen and Bradley).
People there handwaved it away because Breen was considered LGBT and that made it okay in their eyes since fag pedos were considered part of fags (much like Delany's open pedophilia being ignored today by awards scenesters because he's black), only three people in the Berkley scene back in the 60s-80s objected to Breen raping kids despite everyone knowing about it and keeping their kids away from him themselves.
All three are basically no-names (albeit based ones who threatened to blow his brains out if he showed up around their neighbourhood) so don't be shocked when convention cliquesters darlings like Le Guin or GRRM turn out to be outed in pedoshit as well.
Extra fun points: there's new papers articles of the Eddings couple being convicted of child abuse of both of their adopted kids in South Dakota in 1969 for putting a 4 year old boy in a cage and whipping him with leather straps.
> "Dr Meade told of finding the child in a fenced enclosure under the basement steps . Dr Meade described Scott David Eddings' appearance as "bewildered friendly but frightened". On first examination he noted one of his hands was swollen as if circulation had been impaired, that the child walked with a limp, had a small cut on his cheek and a bruised leg. A later and more extensive examination disclosed that the child had multiple bruises on both legs, both old and fresh, an abnormality of the scalp. Dr Meade said that perhaps the most evident thing he noticed was the fright and furtive glances that the child made each time someone came down the steps into the basement". Thankfully there's plenty of authors who were not involved in the convention scene back then at all or were only invited as speakers for pay not real "regulars".
>>24548491Never heard of it. Thx anon, gonna check it out!
>>24548948I slightly misremembered McCaffrey was on Kramer's defense team not sure if she was one of the authors who attacked Greyland for talking about how they were all happy with the pedos.
Amusingly McCaffrey and Darrell Schweitzer both claimed the Kramer's child-rape sentencing was because Georgia's courts consisted of anti-semitic and bigoted southerners.
>>24546630>just write better bro
>>24548551Why do you write like you are on reddit? Fellow man of culture XD am I right??? doots on left kind strangers!
Be honest with me /sffg/, is it worth it to read Dune if I'm really not interested in scifi or fantasy, but just for the sake of understanding the David Lynch movie?
>>24549414>understanding the david lynch movie
>>24549414I have no idea what the impetus behind this question is. Why do you want to understand the Dune movie if you don't like sci-fi or fantasy, or apparently, Dune? Are you some kind of pretentious idiot?
>>24548674No that's just a consequence of the way the Japanese publishing industry works. The barrier to entry is a lot lower because publishers are fine publishing extremely niche titles for modest return and have been doing this for nigh on 30 years.
>>24549414Film fags are the worst. Just admit you want to read the book lol
>>24548674I don't know, I doubt AI was that advanced 10 years ago, not to mention that the slop ratio in that particular niche is incredibly high and the novels are just very easy to write because the writers themselves are just some less than talented guys who put some ideas on paper.
Novellas are short story collections are supreme
>>24549414the only way I can make this question make sense is if I assume you're such a David Lynch fan that you'll consume anything he makes, even things you don't like
that is psychotic behavior. life is too short for that.
>>24549449>>24549461>>24549552I think he simply found the Dune movie obfuscating and figured the book might clear up some things even if he's not particularly fond of sff.
I'm writing a sci Fi story about a boy stealing time. He grows old but nothing around him changes or moves. Is this a terrible sci fi novel and premise? He lives by stealing food from grocery stores.
>>24549558What could it possibly be "obfuscating" that is of interest to him if he doesn't like the subject matter?
>>24549592That's not sci fi. It's speculative fiction at most, as are the others that have done it. Yes, it's a terrible premise as anything other than a deep contemplation of that human condition where it's all an allegory. In which case it'd be very literary.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding. What do you see as the difference between stealing and stopping time? What would you be writing about if only the the protagonist essentially exists? If this a story about extreme isolation, alienation, and loneliness?
Really, what is the purpose of this?
Or, is this simply an accelerated aging story? If so, why?
>>24549592I'm writing a story where we introduce McDonald's and Coca Cola to a bunch of hot alien babes and they become fat and nasty looking. Because of that, they start chanting and clamoring about fat is beautiful and the alien men begin checking out other hot alien babes because their own women are too fat, loud, and ugly. Then they also get mad human women are introducing these concepts to their own women
>>24549629The alien men better start force feeding our earth women their slop too.
>>24549629So it's an allegory about western cultural hegemonic colonization, specifically global homogenization?
I really liked the Empire of the East trilogy, but the 4th "bridge" book - Ardneh's Sword - between it and Saberhagen's Swords series is weird
Not in content - that's good, and what I'd expect - but it's doing a lot of strange things as a book.
For one, it uses sections / scene breaks constantly. as in 15+ times per chapter, sometimes 3-4 times on the same page (picrel)
Chapters often end mid-dialogue and then pick up immediately afterward. it's never on a dramatic moment, or an "oh shit!!!" reveal, it's just placed seemingly at random
and speaking of dialogue, he's doing this weird mix of actual dialogue interspersed with summaries of what was said, then back to more explicit dialogue. it's like he realized that multiple pages of dialogue would look ugly, but he picked the strangest solution.
am I missing something he's trying to do? is there a style or pattern that he's trying to evoke? it's distracting as hell.
>>24549644Is it? I just thought it was funny
>>24548534I was already going to do that
>>24548553>Only one race is superior to the rest and althought there is a diversity alliance army they get thoroughly trounced and enslaved because their command structure can't agree on anything.this is low key red rising
wtf pierce
>>24545424how can I tell whether a fetish included in a novel is genuine creative expression from the author's soul vs merely pandering?
>>24546710What is your favorite of the debuts you've read in the past few years?
>>24547929I'm still reading lord of the mysteries
check back in several months, this shit is almost 1,500 chapters and I'm at 270.
Very fucked up that the first arc ended with klein just getting fucking killed by the antagonist, then after the burial just waking up in the graveyard, shrugging, and going "oh guess i can just do that because isekai" with 0 further introspection or investigation and no previous foreshadowing
You can tell that it was serialized because spots like this where the author pulls a twist outta their ass would massively benefit from being able to go back and add supporting details to earlier chapters.
>>24549845These Burning Stars
>>24549461The more important thing is that Dune is not very well written
>>24549449Because I like David Lynch.
>>24549552I am unemployed. I have 16 free hours per day. 2 hours will not make my life go away. Also I never said I disliked sffg, but that it simply does not interest me. Also never trying new things is what makes you waste your life, not the other way around.
>>24549558Haven't watched the movie yet, but the general consensus is that it's only good if you have already read the book.
>>24548114Are you just blind or do you honestly think the book in the other anon's first picture looks "like new"?
>>24549826It's almost always the former.
>>24549997The movie is straightforward. You don't need to read the book to understand it. I watched it when I was a little kid.
>>24549826If it's gay it's only authentic if it's furshit. If it's straight, the authenticity correlates positively with sumptuous descriptions of breasts.
Rape, cuckoldry, and incest are always authentic, gay or straight
>>24549997In general we should be encouraging people to read more books.
In your case that'd be a mistake. Your particular combination of IQ and autism means the best way to experience Dune is via a Twitch stream watch party.
I wish you the very best!
Goodreads changed their favicon.
Black Company book 2 Shadows Linger. I'm like 50 pages in. We're going into a dark ass castle and it's fucking amazing.
>>24550382>>24550394they need to change their entire UI. It sucks
>>24550394looks like a giant sperm trying to escape a condom
>>24550405The old logo designer was smart to avoid that.
>>24550397the entire website is a dumpster fire. since amazon bought it they have shit with it.
I much prefer storygraph and hardcover
>>24550437>storygraphwtf this is so much better than goodreads. only thing is i wish you didn't have to click the book to see the ratings.
>>24550449Both Storygraph and Hardcover (and LibrarianThing) have things that are so much better than GR
but they all get at least a few things wrong, and inevitably feel slower to do things like add books or view key info about them
i come crawling back whenever i try to switch
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push back on the abercrombie shilling. bloke is writing just to get TV deals.
>>24550405sounds like when you bust a nut in her hair
>>24550437>>24550449>>24550544The problem I have with them is the lack of a community aspect, as with the Goodreads group. They're good for ndividual information. I don't know that the recs are really much more worthwhile, but I didn't try all that much. Obviously, for those not interested in the social aspect, they seem to be far better. Maybe they have more of that now. I haven't looked in some time.
DNF'd the locke lamora book
>>24550808I'm not watching this video, does the brown lady agree with reviews or mock them
>>24550906she mocks them. she is based.
Recommend me your favorite youtube channels/blogs that you guys like to watch/read about books.
>>24545219 (OP)Here is a comprehensive list of all my favorite booktubers:
>>24551115I don't see anything. I think your post got messed up somehow.
>>24550382>>24550394>>24550398>>24550426didn't even notice the change. as much as the site is a relic I hope they don't """fix""" it. it's primarily a datatabase and as such it works.
I feel like I would've loved Mistborn if I had read it for the first time when I was 13. Sanderson outputs so prolifically, but I'm starting to classify his writing as some of the worst paced literature I've ever consumed.
>>24549751I will now try to get into red rising...for the second time.
>>24551156Your pacing is bound to suffer when you make it your goal to make each book longer than the last just because
>>24551156>. Sanderson outputs so prolificallyyet stormlight won't be finished until the 2040s (his words). Meanwhile Erikson locked in and got Malazan done 10 big books in 10 years.
>>24551165In Sanderson's defence, the reason Stormlight part 2 is taking so long is because he's having a detour to finish another trilogy of mistborn books. Which concerns me as it makes me think that Stormlight era 2 will be a horrible MCU glup shitto cameo series of Cosmere retards coming in and out of it.
>>24549629Finally some slop about slop.
>>24545505You thought it was updoot-ville.
>>24546198Fuck prestige. Prestige is getting published in the New Yorker because you suck dick and pass a political litmus test. Prestige is having zero readers because no one fucking reads the New Yorker anymore, and your novel sold less than 12 copies but hey, at least David Israel agent and editor extraordinaire gave it his useless seal of approval so it could collect dust and spiderwebs in a Barnes and Noble. Prestige in publishing is the emperor's invisible robes. It's not there, just a bunch of feminists in New York blowing smoke up each others' queef holes. The fucking Nostalgia Chick has "prestige" because she was nominated for a Hugo Award.
>>24547665Capote said the same thing almost a century later.
>>24551165Malazan still has like five books to go (1 more Bauchelain & Korbal Broach collection, 1 more Kharkanas book, three more Witness books)
And that's not going into Esslemont, who has at least 2 more books to go
>>24551275Those are spin offs though. The main malazan series is complete.
>>24551282I haven't read Malazan yet but, should I read the main series then the spin offs or is it advisable to read the spin offs in between
>>24551291I'm not finished it yet but my understanding that one of the spin offs is a prequel series, the other is a sequel series and there is one that is just novels in the middle of the main series. I think it is best to probably just read the mains series which is what I am doing. It's so big and long that the thought of including extra books into it is off-putting but I plan on reading them when I do a future reread.
>>24548453didn't this guy have nudes leaked where he's using a dildo? I recall /pol/ in all their homoeroticism posted them everywhere for a few days
>>245486712 is absolutely true. DCC is already confirmed to get an adaptation, though it's backed only by fuzzy door currently. This means it might not get huge funding and just end up being a clunky streaming 1-3 seasons affair, around the level of Resident Alien, which would pretty much assure it dies early as I can't imagine DCC without IMMENSE amounts of CGI. But then again, it's fuzzy door and they've done a LOT of animation work. They might go the rick and morty route which, really, could be a huge hit. It'll make sure it's not very good, but also have mass normie appeal which the books already have.
If it takes off you can expect a lot LOT of level ups in every sloppa anywhere, hell even stuff like mother of learning or whatever other litrpg slop is reigning on royal road would get adapted.
I somewhat welcome this, as anything mainstream touches just withers and dies, and I think web novels really need a new format soon.
>>24551291I read them in release order, so I read Esslemont's Novels of the Malazan Empire in between books of the main series, and a lot of things make more sense this way
>>24551516Do they... you know...
>>24551521No but thereโs a lot of drunken reservation sex
tariq
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>>24551516>hoo boy jim them bucks sure are naked
>>24551595Amazing to me that black American pretend theyโre the only oppressed, oversexualised, broken people in America. Natives went through way more and donโt have an entire entertainment industry crying about it.
>>24545219 (OP)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bfRu9rZHCI
>>24551095https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy0vG28c3YUro1sRRyq9USVc6egcDPUp_
>>24551291nah just read book of the fallen 1-10. Then you can read Ian C Esslemont's Novels of the Malazen Empire in release order if you want. Then you can read Kharkanas if you want. The Witness trilogy is a sequel to book of the fallen.
Esslemont's first two novels are REALLY bad. I can't imagine trying to read them between Reaper's Gale, Toll the Hounds, and Dust of Dreams - three titans of books in terms of length and substance.
>>24551804also typing in Reaper's Gale reminded me of Redmask
K'CHAIN CHE'MALLE wit a walrus head :D
Just read Dead Beat, maybe the Dresden Files are kino
Does someone have the horror recommendations chart at hand?
>>24550808>bloke is writing just to get TV dealsliterally all the mainstream authors do this. They write their stories like screenplays
>kneel gayman>gggg martin>kingall hacks that just want to be hollywood
That is why gene wolfe is goated. Always wrote for the medium and his work will never be adapted.
Are there any fantasy or scifi characters with a Billie Eilish type build?
>>24545219 (OP)Currently listening to The Silmarillion. I keep maps of Aman, Beleriand, and Middle-earth at hand.
The Devils isn't funny and it's trying too hard to be funny. Or maybe I'm just not the target audience for this style of 'humor'
The last Ishterebinth chapter in The Great Ordeal is wild. Insane climaxes in this series.
>>24552144GRRM has an excuse in that he literally wrote TV screenplays for a living for years before he became a novelist.
>>24551165It's cause he has like a dozen ongoing series or something and alternates which one he works on every time he finishes a book. Because everything is connected in a massive setting doing it this way makes it easier for him to keep track of the different parts I suppose, but it is frustrating for anybody interested in only one or two series.
>>24551291Spin-offs are optional. Book of the Fallen is a complete 10 book series. You only read the spinoffs if you enjoyed Book of the Fallen.
>>24551596Natives actually fought against the whites, though. And not just the occasional rare slave rebellion like the blacks, they formed armies and waged war against the United States, often as the aggressors rather than the defenders. Many tribes were exterminated because they refused to make peace or be settled on a reservation. They preferred to go down fighting.
>>24552764He was an award winning but low-selling novelist for 10+ years before becoming a screenwriter
>>24545492>actual good proseyeah, but that's because shit writers will use AI to hone their prose for them
>>24552099It's in the OP.
>>24553121Unironically, yes. Visual references help a lot when there's so much information, so many journeys and events. And the fact that Arda changes throughout the Three Ages adds an extra layer of difficulty.
I've come to realize I dislike stories with a heavy focus on the protagonist's strength being largely unknown to other characters.
>>24553453this falls into a similar bucket as "main conflict relies on people not talking to each other"
A good fantasy series needs to be at least a little sexist.
>>24552811Malazanโs Midnight Tides is about this
Erikson wanted it to be about a scenario where the โLakota-Sioux were actually successful in defeating the United States cavalry and marching on Washingtonโ
>>24554043thanks for reminding me that trull sengar is such a fuckass mary sue
>>24554053>by a womarWhere is C.S. Friedman's yaoi Black Sun Rising series?
>>24554056>casually parries your mary sue endgame boss that ended up doing nothing in The Chained GodIcarium was worse.
>>24554053Some charity shop wanted me to pay ยฃ8 for To the Stars. Sod them.
>>24554060malazan every book spoilers
Trull somehow is the only Edur who isn't mentally fucked despite growing up in that tribal society with harsh rules. He doesn't even have a magical weapon like Karsa or Derryg or blood like Icarium. Yet he fights hundreds of those ice horde things in midnight tides. Then he holds off Icarium with just a spear in Bonehunters. Then he instantly becomes friends with a cold ass soulless t'lan imass in onrack.
He somehow is the perfect love for Seren and solves her relationship issues, breeds her on first pull. Hedge, who is a bridgeburner who witnessed the worst shit imaginable, never meets Trull and weeps upon seeing his body. His death was basically the perfect way to send him off, it had to be unfair because everything about Trull is unfairly perfect.
r8 my top 10 definitely made by me
>10) Berserk (Golden Age Arc)
>9) The Left Hand of Darkness
>8) Will of the Many
>7) Best Served Cold
>6) Children of Time
>5) Hyperion
>4) Demon in White
>3) Piranesi
>2) Jade Legacy
>1) The Crippled God
>>24554151lol (at not with)
>>24550907But she's cringe
Books that filtered you? For me its A Storm of Wings
>>24554176Project Heil Mary and Prince of Thorns.
>"Hey croaker, go snipe this guy for us, you're the best shot in the company."
>Oh I hope I don't miss, I'm the worst in the company. Why do they always make me the sniper?!?
Finally finished; it was good but shifts perspective several times to show that itโs been narrated by an elder this whole time.
>>24554199he's a medic and annalist. last person to be taking vital sharpshooting jobs.
>>24554305>last person to be taking vital sharpshooting jobs.That's what Croaker wants us to think
>>24554053Those covers are so good.