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>Previous:
>>24594072

>Thread Question:
Should authors have real jobs or turn their writing into a career?

>>24605400
>Just go listen to GRRM rant about how jealous he is that Wolfe had a real job and therefore had no deadlines to meet and could basically perfect his book before publication.
Let's not pretend GRRM is less known than Wolfe or that he hasn't earned a fortune from his series. Problem is GRRM is a goddamn procrastinator on the best of days.

>>24605413 (OP)
>TQ
I'm doing a doctorate in engineering but I would like to write a book and/or series. I have no clue how long the story I want to write will take to complete (in either years or word count) but I've already fallen for the "multiple PoVs" meme so it's probably doomed. I write a little prose here and there but it's mostly outlining the general structure that I do when I really should be writing my dissertation instead. I might try writing some short stories to get started with a few ideas I want to test out.

Listening to Brandon Sanderson talk about his career makes me realize that I don't want a the stress of a deeply uncertain career even if it means being less prolific, because to me if I can finish my story that's all that really matters, I don't care if it's in my 40's. So I'd rather be a Wolfe than a Martin or Sanderson.

>>24605416
people say that but he has written stuff since 2011. he just doesn't want to continue the main series.

>>24605416
>>24605463
>w-what if they don't like my book?

Any recs for dwarf enjoyers? I pretty much finished everything Tolkien wrote.

>>24605583
Crippled King

reddit rising

Lysander MUST die.

Favorite printing/edition of Lord of the Rings? There's quite a number of boxed sets, just curious which is your preference

I was reading the blade itself yesterday and it was enjoyable despite the frankly garbage writing. I liked the Logen and Glokta POVs but on ch 4? 5? he switched to this Jezal guy's POV and it's so fucking boring. I hope this isn't a major character

>>24606005
Folio society or the deluxe illustrated edition

>>24605705
>Victra a best girl
But gold damn does Darrow whine and get everyone killed like a fence sitting bitch.

>prince of thorns
goddamn that's boring. Why am I supposed to care, by the second book? Because I'm so in love with this random dickass? Smitten with the world building? Fuck off. lmao

>>24606083
It’s babbies first entry into edge fantasy and isn’t worth taking seriously

Just ordered The Stars My Destination, Solaris and Ubik, all three should all arrive on Tuesday. I think i'm in for a good week anons

>>24606088
>babbies first entry
youre in a scifi thread, every book here is babies first entry into (real) literature

Currently reading Consider Phlebas, so far so good. Looking forward to the rest of the Culture. Any other Inherit the Stars enjoyers here? The most underrated scifi series ever because the author was an antisemite.

>>24605583
Have you The Dwarves series?

I need something GOOD to read. Every book I've picked up recently I've DNF'd, because it either starts shit and doesn't improve a few chapters in, or it starts strong and goes to shit really quick. What ever happened to good books? Are there any left?

PLEASE recommend me something that I definitely won't drop again

>>24605427
Being a prolific writer is overrated. Most people don't read more than 1 or 2 books/series from a single author. If you're prolific the majority of your catalogue will only be read by a very tiny portion of your reader base.

Better to write just one thing and write it well, than to keep churning out shit just for the sake of publishing statistics.

>>24606273
Well, what have you tried to read so far?

>>24606273
Fun great till end stuff I like:
>Jerusalem man trilogy by Gemmell
>Von Bek by Moorcock
>The Broken Sword by Anderson
>The Mask of the Sorcerer by Schweitzer

>>24606273
Soundscape a problem with you instead of the books.

>>24606294
>Better to write just one thing and write it well
this triggers all modern writers don't say that! They need to write 100000000000000000 word bloated unedited slop for their webnovels.

I just can't do it. I'm only 6 chapters in and it's boring me to tears and everything I've heard it doesn't get better.

>>24606294
What if you can do both?

>>24605467
Rothfuss will never deliver, right?

>>24606354
>6 chapters in
That's hardly anything. At least get to Emesh. It's the weakest of the series but there's plenty to like. Delos was comfy, the gladiator passage was fun, and Calagah sets up everything else in the series

>>24605583
I liked the way of legend series

>>24606063
>Victra best girl
Correct.
Musty horse cannot compare
Total Victra victory
Justice for Ulysses

>>24606273
Have you considered that you may be seriously depressed and are confusing your anhedonia for the book being bad?

>>24605467
>write incel power fantasy at the perfect moment in time
>sell outrageous amounts
>never have to work again
he's a garbage storyteller, but I admire the hustle. The cons he pulled over the last few years were top notch work too.

>>24606354
It's the single most plagiarized, soulless, bland piece of garbage I read last year. And I read a ton of slop.
How it got published is a mystery.

>>24606273
>The Time Machine
>Conan
>The Hobbit
>Titus Groan
>The Broken Sword
>The End of Eternity
>The Stars My Destination
>Solaris
>The Dragon Masters
>Dune
>Lord of Light
>A Wizard of Earthsea
>The Knight of the Swords
>Swords and Deviltry
>The Forever War
>The Deathbird
>The Deep
>Blind Voices
>Sandkings
>The Shadow of the Torturer
>Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
>Fevre Dream
>Neuromancer
>Bridge of Birds
>Berserk
>Assassin's Apprentice
>A Game of Thrones
>The Darkness That Comes Before
>Black Leopard, Red Wolf
>Lovecraft
>Borges
>Dick

>>24606550
>The cons he pulled over the last few years were top notch work too.

>>24606575
>Guys donate money to "charity" and I'll release a chapter from my new book
>never releases anything

Any new Science Fiction and Fantasy that has come out this year that you read and enjoyed?

Would you read my book?

>>24606747
is it pozzed or based?

>>24606684
They came out in 2024, Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts and The Navigator's Children by Tad Williams.

Thoughts on Neal Asher? He seems like a typical British boomer, but is he a good writer?

Horse.

>>24606354
Oh it gets better, then worse, then better again.

Apparently the sequels are much much better and more consistently good, thoughever.

Victra this, Virginia that but what about this prime GMILF?

>>24606782
And before the Victrafag shows up, here.

>>24606684
Grave Empire
A Drop of Corruption
Paved with Good Intentions

>>24606793
I would feel a little weird fucking a pink after knowing how they were made to be that way I'm ngl

>>24606793
F and to be killed “of screen” is even worse. RIP to the best hagfu

>>24606836
>off screen
I could have swore Virginia saw it.

>>24606836
>>24606838
Yeah it was broadcasted to her in pretty gory detail.

Along with another one of the Arcos. Alexander's mom, I think. I don't know why Pierce hates that family.

>>24606845
Need the Arcos widows to go crazy and kill Lysander

recommend me some short stories by philip k dick, please. it seems to me like he has a lot of cool ideas but i dont feel like reading an entire novel to be presented with them. are his pulp stories really that bad, or are some worth reading?

>>24606794
I'm already here >>24606416, horsefag

>>24606857
Do you want individual short stories or do you want a collection of short stories? As in, naming individual stories and you look where they are or picking one book with a lot of stories?

>>24606788
Disquiet Gods = Demon in White > Howling Dark > Kingdoms of Death > Ashes of Man > Empire of Silence

>>24606854
and then julia au bellona eats his heart

>>24606873
Death to Virginia haters. Shoot all Virginia haters into the sun.

>>24606923
Worst girl + lost to her ten-year-old clone brother and his femsimp + can't even beat Pixie Lysander. I would gladly endure sundeath suicide for Victra au Julii.

>>24606684
The Sword Triumphant

>>24606878
individual short stories, preferably ones i can easily find online. collection is fine too if the quality of stories is consistent throughout

>>24606940
Victra wouldn't appreciate this Mustang slander, anon.

And worst girl (allegedly) is clearly Orion.

End the brother wars. They are both top tier babes. Save your energy for hating on Lysander my goodman

>>24606971
Darrow had the slightest chance for this 3way and he bungled it

>>24606946
I haven't read all that much in terms of his short fiction, but here's some:
The Skull
The King of the Elves
The Exit Door Leads In
The Crystal Crypt
We Can Remember It For You Wholesale

Keep in mind that PKD is very much an ideas guy. His primary ideas are identity, alienation, paranoia, surrealism, and absurdism. The technology and science are incidental. There's no author I want to like more than PKD, but due to his circumstances I find that difficult due to the quality of much of it..

Been reading Alastair Reynolds. This series has been an absolute treat so far. On the 4th book rn. The whole reason for the existence of the machines sounds kinda retarded though.

>>24606986
Would you say his more famous novels are actually higher quality in terms of the ideas/writing, or is it just entertainment value? Also, I know Blade Runner is not a faithul adaptation, but is reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep worth it, having seen the movie, or is there not much difference in depth?

>>24606955
>>24606971
As Victra knew when to relent with Lyria and Volga, so I do now. No more brother wars. Also Darrow and horse in the cave at the Institute was comfy

>>24607115
i've read a lot of his short stories and only two of his novels (androids and a scanner darkly) and i personally think those two novels are better than a lot of his short stories but i still greatly enjoy his work generally and i wouldn't say the novels being better is a mark against his shorts. i think most of pkd's stuff is worth the read.

What's some fantasy with good villains that you almost can't help but root for? Like they have a good reason for what they do, or they've been so mistreated or wronged by the setting/society that they almost could be excused for the evil they do? This is genuinely my favourite trope

>>24607351
The Lord Ruler from mistborn. He did nothing wrong, minus getting a bit crazy and creating a slave race to genocide for fun

I'm looking for PKD stories that most closely deal with simulated reality/brain in a vat/ideas along that line, which stories/novels fit the bill?

>>24607234
based

fuck lysander

Some guy tried to convince me that Atalantia was smarter and a beter ruler than Virginia, and as many mistakes as she's made as Sovereign, I just cannot agree. The issue with Virginia is that her adherence to kindness and being the opposite of her father is a nerf that greatly benefits her enemies.

If Virginia had no concerns about what was evil, there would be no sequel series. Atalantia with no concern for being perceived as evil is still in a dogfight with her.

>>24604662
>What does everyone here think of cradle?
It's alright, a western take on the xianxia genre (mostly) without the tropes that everyone makes fun of. Didn't care for the overarching plot of dimensional stuff, so I stopped reading at Reaper.
About the romance part, there's a bit of strangeness in the second book because Yerin has the hots for Lindon without much reason to imo, he's msotly a useless fawn. The author stops pushing it and lets it grows naturally over the series which is a much better take.

>>24607654
Ubik

>>24607887
Nice Skyrim loading screen render.

Working through Red Rising and after four books of it I've been conditioned to get a little anxious any time the chapter is longer than average because it usually means someone is getting betrayed, murdered, or pissed on.

>>24607682
Atalantia is a nepo baby bitch. All her power was inherited from Magnus and Octavia. The Society's only real leaders are Lysander, Apollonius, and the Abomination. This is also my main complaint against the sequels, there are mysteriously no old people in power anywhere especially after Light Bringer with Atlas and Fa dead on either side

>>24607887
Go back to the old cover, it was less garish
Btw Baynefag, how did you discover the series? Seems pretty obscure

>>24608289
I was conditioned midway through Golden Son.

>>24608307
Maybe living to an old age is a luxury for Golds. Like if you can survive, you make it to 150, but most don't. All the Golds we've met thus far...how many have been fucking murdered?
>octavia
>lorn
>nero
>Every bellona besides julia
>Daxos
>Tharsus
>Tactus
>Aja
>Romulus
>Dido
I think this can be explained by Golds just not living that long due to lifestyle.

>>24608307
>This is also my main complaint against the sequels, there are mysteriously no old people in power anywhere
The Rim still has mainly a bunch of old moonies calling the shots and there was a whole entourage of old core golds introduced in Dark Age when Lysander met Atalantia.

>>24607682
>The issue with Virginia is that her adherence to kindness and being the opposite of her father is a nerf that greatly benefits her enemies.
This. All of the shit that went down in Lune in Dark Age could have been avoided if she psycho spiked a couple of the senators she was suspicious of.

Empire of the Vampire is edgekino. At first I thought it was really cringey and almost dropped the book but as soon as I realized the author was doing it on purpose the book became incredibly enjoyable.

>>24608405
At least it seems like she's learning her lesson to be more cold when she needs to be. Like in Lightbringer she dropped the shields to let the ships in so they wouldn't blow out and leave them vulnerable. she killed a shit ton of people by doing that.

>>24607009
Ultranaut chicks gave me a raging boner wish he’d write a whole series about them with tons of kinky sex.

>>24608318
It was one of the first ebooks I bought when I got a Kindle back around 2012ish. I grabbed a handful of random series (wasn't much at the time) and it was the only one that stuck with me.

>>24608462
>>24608462
>Author: I am edgy.
>You: Cringe
>Author: I'm doing it intentionally, so you're allowed to like it.
>You: Don't mind if I do then.
>Others: CRINGE
>You: No, It's okay, the author gave me the cringe pass.

>book has a typo

>>24608646
> Book has a typo.
fyp

>>24608679
>fyp
FYP.

>>24605583
Death Gate Cycle

>>24608716
HAPLO AND THE DAWG

Lyria and Ephraim chapters did more for worldbuilding than any of Darrow's chapters ever have.

>>24608740
I mean that's kind of the point of them isn't it?

It reads better than Wind and Truth

>>24605413 (OP)
Writing is a great career choice if you're Walter Gibson. I'm fairly sure he had hypergraphia and the Shadow novels were his way of dealing with it.

>>24607887
I wonder why authors don't just pay someone for a cover, but then remember even the most generic shit cost $400-600 dollars years ago.

>>24607009
Oh yeah I read the first one and now I'm reading Chasm City.
Really love the atmosphere. Not sure how to even describe it. I've often seen it being referred to as dark and "gothic". And, yeah, I guess.
Decay and decline is everywhere.
They found traces of alien civilizations in the environs of Earth but they're all long dead. Or inscrutable.
The colonies had their best days behind them. Planetary/orbital infrastructure from their early days are just wrecks now. Expansion/trade have greatly slowed down. Technological/cultural regression. Decadent elites. IIRC the lighthuggers aren't even being built anymore. They're hundreds of years old. They might have cubic kilometers of dilapidated space.
All of this decay takes place over decades or centuries. Some characters experiencing a lot of it due to time dilation and/or life-extension.
The first novel deals in part with the aftermath of research/exploration done by some scientific institute which is long gone. The main character feels like a remnant of another era to still care so much about his research.
How it described the slowed-down audio transmissions of interstellar space (from doppler-shifted or time-dilated sources) as the haunting moans of ghosts stuck with me for some reason. I mean, this novel has "ghosts", kind of.
It's fitting that the first novel starts in an archeological dig. To me the whole novel felt "mournful".
I haven't read it but I've heard LOTR being described as "mournful" too. It also deals with the aftermath of things that happened in long-gone, more "grand" eras.
We're used to think of the future being more glorious than the past due to technological progress which would presumably go on forever. Not all cultures saw things that way though. Many thought of the past as more glorious in whatever ways and the present as mediocre or lacking in some crucial ways. Very different mindset. It's what this novel made me think of.
Maybe stuff will happen in the following novels that might change that though.
The author really worked hard on creating a whole "vibe" for this novel and it pays of I think.
Anyway thanks for reading my blog.
>>24608501
Volyova is mai wife not a huge fan of how much the other ultras are cyborgifying themselves though tbqdesu.

>>24606971
I shall never surrender this hill. Mustang is a simpering pacifist! I mean when you really think about it she has almost as many freindly scalps to her name as fucking darrow! She is also a horsefaced self interested twat, nothing like loyal and pure victra who would abandon even her family for you on pain of tourture death. It's not even a fucking contest.

Any hard sf about this?
>>24608810

This book kind of sucks. A lot. I'm not done with it but I'm like 180 pages into a 300 page story and it's been boring as hell, over bloated with stuff we really didn't need reiterated so much and just generally lacking interesting prose or dialogue. They keep cutting into chapters to focus on the villains but all you ever get out of them is them going an about how they don't like Conan very much. I've only read a medium bit of Conan pastiche but this is just dullsville.

>>24609019
>Conan
>Post Jordan
SHYGDDT

>>24609022
I didn't care for Jordan either, frankly.

>>24605467
>>24606408
>Says there's 3 more books in that world after Doors of Stone and that it wouldn't end there

>>24609073
what's the best working theory on why he stopped?

>>24609039
>Not liking the slop I shovel you
What the FREAK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffvRhsViyIQ

she never misses, huh?

>>24609105
He didn't write any of it. He got the writings of an incomplete book series from a deceased family members and edited it himself then claimed it as his own writing, fully aware he'd never be able to finish it from the start.

>>24609105
Only he really knows. Like GRRM he's already made his millions and doesn't need to write ever again.

>>24609148
This is the schizo answer. He talks like he writes.

>>24608952
>not a huge fan of how much the other ultras are cyborgifying themselves though tbqdesu.
thats the best ones they're basically living latex mannequins it just hits all my fetishes just right, i almost forgot Volyova was an ultra half the time desu.

Give me some recommendations for required scifi reading, for someone (relatively) new to the genre, coming from fantasy and pop lit. So far i have read:
- Dune: all six F.H. books (absolutely loved all six, even Heretics and Chapterhouse; catalyst for getting more into scifi)
- Hyperion: both Hyperion books, not Endymion (mostly very good but all shrike-related themes/imagery too cheesy and juvenile, felt out of place in the setting)
- Neuromancer (fantastic, want to and will read more W.G., but its also the only book i have ever read where i struggled with the prose, as a non-native-speaker)

If possible, i would prefer recs for single books (as opposed to series) for now, so that i can more quickly get a variety of authors in and find my footing in regards to what and whom i like.
Thanks anon

>>24608601
Your post is cringe too but I still didn't like it. Must be something else at play.

>>24609226
> All the classics
Flowers for Algernon
Childhood’s End + Rendezvous with Rama
Ender's Game + Speaker for the Dead
Foundation + I, Robot
Ringworld
The Forever War
A Fire Upon the Deep

>>24607009
>This series has been an absolute treat so far.
He doesn't know...

>>24609274
>0 Lem or Dick
You don't belong here.

The Fremen didn't kill 60 billion people and depopulate dozens of worlds with their primary means of warfare being hand-to-hand combat with fucking swords.

Fuck off, Herbert you fucking HACK. IT'S NOT EVEN REMOTELY POSSIBLE EVEN IN FICTION LAND!

>>24609105
Perfectionist. He said himself he'll complete something then go over it and say "oh, I should do this..."

RINSE AND REPEAT FOREVER

>>24609274
>Enders Game
Fuck off and die.

>>24609073
It will only take until 2097 to read them all!

>>24609383
>The Fremen didn't kill 60 billion people and depopulate dozens of worlds with their primary means of warfare being hand-to-hand combat with fucking swords.
Correct, they didn't. They killed most people by just cutting off their interstellar logistics, leaving them to starve.

>>24609410
You're wrong. Didn't happen.

>>24609226
>required scifi reading
A lot of the old classics are good scifi but bad books. I get why they're classics, but I don't think I'll read any other book by asimov or clarke for example.

Standalone books:
Blindsight - Best first contact story I've read
Stranger from a strange land: Heinlein hippie autism
Starship trooper - Heinlein military autism.
A Canticle for Leibowitz - Postapocalyptic monks
Vurt - Cyberdrugs. Just be prepared for dogshit

Books that are classified scifi, but I'd say it's more scifi adjacent. But good:
A Clockwork Orange - real horrorshow
A Scanner darkly - drugs
Fifth head of cerberus - three intertwined shortstories, featuring natives on colony worlds

>>24609388
Why so angry anon?

>>24609544
Because I'm STILL mad about that utterly DOGSHIT ending and I'm sick of adult retards touting fucking young adult fiction.

>>24609471
>Blindsight - Best first contact story I've read
You evidently never read Fiasco.

>>24609471
>Blindsight
Dropped at the introduction of centuries old vampires in a fucking space exploration science fiction novel.

>>24609548
Peter Watts is a very clever boy who read a lot of peer-reviewed articles and imagined some neat shit from what he learned.

I'm kinda confused as to why he then decided to stuff his vampire ideas, savant psychopath ideas, multiple personalities disorder ideas, AI ideas, solipsism ideas and unconscious mind ideas all into one novel. A novel that happens to be about first contact, and not about all the aforementioned basket cases.

>>24609545
> He thinks Ender's Game is YA
kek. that book was written before that term even existed, and not all stories featuring children are written for children.

>>24609471
> Blindsight - Best first contact story I've read
Wrong, that would be Forge of God.

>>24609554
>1985
>before that term even existed
bruh

>>24609554
Retard.

>>24609555
What if he hasn't read that?

>>24609547
No, I haven't read Lem yet. On a sidenote my dad talked me into watching a low budget german show called Ijon Tichy: Raumpilot. I thought it sounded like something based on slavic scifi and it was. Based on the Star Diaries by Lem. Very liberal adaption made with like $20 of budget, but I think it got the "feel" of their scifi take down correctly.

>>24609548
I agree. The vampires really deserved their own series, not just being a sidenote in blindsight.

>>24609558
YA as it's used today didn't really begin as a 'thing' until the early 2000s with series like Twilight and Hunger Games. Sure young adult books existed before that and had sections in libraries - small ones - but it wasn't the juggernaut of popularity you see today. It's such a ubiquitous term its lost all of its original meaning.

>>24609560
Then he should correct that error. Actually a lot of Bear's books would be good recommendations (Bloodmusic, Eon, City of Angels)

I was rereading the Wikipedia summaries for the Percy Jackson series recently. The Last Olympian really was the perfect ending.

Dresden files getting another book in january, did butcher run out of money or something. I thought he hated the series because of how much everyone in it gets tormented, even the daughter is latin goblin muggle
That said i liked battle grounds and changes

>>24609567
>Sure young adult books existed before that and had sections in libraries - small ones - but it wasn't the juggernaut of popularity you see today.
How does that contradict Ender's Game being YA lit written explicitly for Young Adults?

>>24604797
>cunny 1
That's more than I expected.

>>24609599
It wasn't written as YA but if it was released today I agree it would be classified as it.

>>24609599
Are you going to claim the sequel is also YA?

>>24606152
> The Stars My Destination, Solaris and Ubik
Ubik is PKD’s best non-schizo (or mildly schizo depending on your pov) work. You are in for a treat if it’s your first time.

>>24609591
The delay was due to either depression or waiting until his ex wife no longer got half his paycheck, I forget which

>>24609567
>City of Angels
Do you mean Queen of Angels? I have Forge of God and Blood Music on my TBR, while Queen of Angels and Eon were shelved (for the moment) in favor of the former two, but not for any particular reason.

Since you seem to know Bear's work quite well: which of his novels would be the best first introduction to Bear?

>>24609622
Yes.

>>24609642
Oops, I did indeed mean Queen of Angels. I'd recommend starting with Blood Music since it's self contained. Eon and Forge of God have sequels (the latter, Anvil of Stars, is very, very different). His best books not mentioned are Heads (short-story), Moving Mars, and Darwin's Children - that was probably his last great book.

>>24609662
If you think Speaker for the Dead is YA you have clearly never read it.

>>24608874
Nobody ever cared about the cover until it was changed.

>>24609715
If I change that again will it die?

>>24609144
>Royal Road author acting like that
Really makes you think

>>24609663
Thanks, then Blood Music it is. I have some other stuff on top of my tbr stack first, but I hope I'll get to it soon. So many good books, so little time. fml

>>24609144
https://youtu.be/ffvRhsViyIQ
https://www.hilarylayne.com/
https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/122619/the-blue-prince

No, I think she's really missing and doesn't know what's she's doing. You're only saying that because it agrees with your feelings.

>>24609548
It's not like they're really undead. They're just an archaic humanoid subspecies brought back with genetic engineering. Where it gets retarded is the crucifix glitch thing.

>>24609548
>no mention of all the empirical data backing up vampirism nor the fact that the vampires were not portrayed as centuries-old stereotypes
>bad faith vaguepost instead
hang ten, dude!

>>24609144
who is this and how do I make her my wife?

>>24609553
Each character/species/AI represents a different approach to consciousness. The vampires represent consciousness as experienced through a permanent semi-lucid dream state. The vampire stuff is a little distracting perhaps but maybe Watts felt "guy who zones out 99% of the time but then also pops off with the correct answers to complex problems without needing to think about them" isn't an engaging concept by itself.

>>24609876
Asking that disqualifies you.

>>24609847
Sarasti was fine. He's a fairly well rounded character with some nuanced motivations and relatively grounded, if occasionally slightly silly, strengths and weaknesses. Valerie jumped the shark with some truly preposterous intelligence-fueled superpowers.

>>24609720
It would be extremely painful.

>>24609226
Lord of Light
A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky
Roadside Picnic
Diamond Age, Anathem
Blindsight
Culture (can be read in any order, try Use of Weapons to see if you like it)
Accelerando
The Dispossessed

>>24609847
I honestly don't understand why do people seethe about the vampire thing so much. Even if you find it a bit silly, it's nowhere near prominent enough to be a big deal.

>>24609105
He clearly burnt out after A Wise Man's Fear didn't get the same glowing reception that Name of the Wind did. People were disappointed at how meandering the second book was, and how it didn't advance the story much at all so that his promise of "a story in three parts" wasn't going to work or be really shitty if he tried to stick to his original framing device in the first book.

For a while he kept insisting he was working on it, then admitted he wasn't working on it and made excuses for why, then he stopped even deigning to make excuses and simply dropped off the face of the earth.

>>24609154
>Like GRRM he's already made his millions
He is nothing like GRRM and has made a tiny fraction of the money GRRM made. Rothfuss was a celebrity author 15 years ago, GRRM has a mega popular HBO series adapted from his works and has been on-call in the entertainment industry to give his input and writing skills to various projects. People stopped asking Rothfuss to even show up at conventions like 6 years ago. He was paid a big lump sum for Name of the Wind but that was like 18 years ago. Rothfuss is at this point a total has been. Or maybe "never was" is more accurate since he never even finished his debut trilogy.

>>24609567
>YA as it's used today didn't really begin as a 'thing' until the early 2000s with series like Twilight and Hunger Games
lol this is so fucking wrong

>>24609226
Ringworld and other Larry Niven books
Xenogenesis series (Octavia Butler)
Honor Harrington series (David Weber)
Revelation Space series (Alistair Reynolds)
Commonwealth series (Peter Hamilton)
Uplift series (David Brin)
Foreigner and Company Wars series and other books by CJ Cherryh

>>24609105
he's a faggot hack

>>24610101
YA used to mean books aimed at preteens. At some point during the 2000s its meaning changed as publishers started using it as a euphemism for harlequin romance novels to make them seem more respectable. In fact that was just the beginning. Romance novels skinsuited genre fiction in general in the 2010s so they could be marketed under less embarrassing labels, and this is a big source of confusion in the discourse around fiction and publishing these days.

>>24610120
>preteens
>young adults
They're not. That category was and is Middle Grade.

What is a young adult anyway, it sounds like such an arbitrary term.

>>24610130
If Harry Potter had rape basically

>>24610120
Yeah this seems mostly true YA used to be genre fiction that focused on young characters like Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, His Dark Materials, Unfortunate Events, Percy Jackson, Maximum Ride etc. but I really can't think of any popular YA series since the 2010s that wasn't heavily romance based or heavily targeted at a female demographic, but the genre is mostly dead these days anyway since kids don't read anymore so this just intensified the trashy romance takeover of the genre.

>>24606354
Stick with it. This book is mostly used for worldbuilding. The series ramps up in the second book.

>>24610120
No, Young Adult has always been a marketing term cooked up by publishers to sell books to teens. Teens hate being condescended to, so instead of calling them "older kid lit" they call them "young adult" instead. This has been the case since before you were born, and no it didn't change in the last 20 years.

>>24610138
Harry Potter had a whole lot more fucked up shit than a lot of YA.

>>24606857
I like some of his pulp stories, but you could probably allocate your time better reading other authors if you’ve already read his big hits and want more fulfilling sci-fi.
Most of his short stories are good. Paycheck is a good example that is from pretty early in his writing, a bit pulpy but a good preview of what would come later. The Minority Report is also really good, but borders on being a novella.

I like his novels best though, and you really should read one to judge if you’re interested in his larger body of work. Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and DADOES are some of his best places to start.

A Scanner Darkly is his best overall.

>>24610168
It did change because now it's used to sell romance stories to adult women

>>24610207
No it's still used to sell books to teens. Nothing has changed.

>>24610130
See >>24610168
Books aimed at teenagers is the short hand. Themes and conflicts that appeal to teenagers, deal with issues they can relate to. If you need something more concrete: YA books almost always feature teenage protagonists, school settings are common but by no means standard. Conflicts are usually some variation of coming of age / inheriting one's birthright / or rebellion against the established social authority. YA authors get a lot of mileage out of the "she was born different from everybody else and made to feel bad for it, but it turns out she is the one who will save them all..." premise.

Young Adult should have been the modern bildungsroman, but it was not meant to be

>>24610177
Nothing in Harry Potter is "fucked up" unless you were raised Mormon and Harry Potter was the first book you read after moving away from home.

>>24610177
What is fucked up in Harry Potter?

They should just double down on calling the smut for millennial woman New Adult and leave Young Adult to the books for teens

>>24610220
nta
That's the premise for most Japanese light novels and especially web novels. They get enough mileage out of it to make regular trips throughout the entire system.

>>24610231
They tried that.
It failed.
Thus we arrived where we are.

>>24610233
Yeah but Japan has its own publishing industry with its own standards, an "YA" is very much an American / British publishing industry invention. In Japan the concept of "light novel" has a lot of overlap with the audience for YA novels in the west, but light novels also have a host of conventions and cliches particular to them that don't show up in YA.

But it turns out essential conflicts about growing up and grappling with the hypocrisy of adults cross cultural boundaries.

>>24610225
>steal piece of your hair
>turn into you
>rape anyone while wearing your body
You have zero imagination. Much less all sorts of other shit like Moaning fucking Myrtle trapped in an afterlife limbo of bathroom sewer pipes, forcing everyone to learn magic inside of an ancient magickal castle (labyrinthe rape dungeon) with a rape forest outside, and the entire oppression of muggles, among many others.

>>24610244
So basically, nothing in the actual books is "fucked up" and you project your own perverted fantasies onto the setting.

>>24610244
nta
This is what happens when you think too deeply on material meant for children. It's not different than the people who say similarly absurd stuff about Pokemon.

>>24610248
>buzzwords
What else did I expect? Nice discussion.
>Mormons out of nowhere
>accusing anyone else of projecting
Newfag niggery, as always.

>>24610250
Point to the buzzword in that post. Why am I not surprised somebody who thinks Harry Potter is "fucked up" (because of his own fan fictions he wrote about it that he conflates with the actual text) has a stunted vocabulary? Maybe if you read something other than Harry Potter you wouldn't be confused by multisyllabic words like "perverted".

>>24610244
>DUDE RAPE
>that never happens in the books BUT IT COULD ACCORDING TO THIS FANFIC
grow up

>>24610257
>that never happens in the books
I mean, they pretty heavily imply the centaurs raped Umbridge.
But that's at the latter end of the series when everything got lincon park edgy anyway.

>>24610267
It is not heavily implied

>>24610299
>Centaurs drag her off into the dark woods away from human eyes
>later 'What happened to unbridge?'
>'She won't talk about it, but she goes into a ptsd shock when people make hoof clopping noises around her'
>original greek centaurs are famous for raping women
It's not exactly hidden.

>>24610256
Repeating in my head
The voices, they will not end
Fear is how I fall
Confusing what is real

There's something inside me that compels me to schizopost
Consuming, confusing
This lack of self control I fear is never ending
Controlling
I can't seem

To get (You)s again
The mods are closing in
(Without a sense of confidence, I'm convinced)
(That there's just too many pills to take)
I've felt this way before
So insecure

Discomfort, endlessly has pulled itself upon me
Distracting, reacting
Against my will I look upon my own shitposts
It's haunting
How I can't seem...

>>24610257
>>24610267
Not to mention whole thing of Voldemort is evil because he's a rape baby.
>A child conceived under the effects of a love potion cannot feel love

>>24610327
If Harry Potter was written by Gurm, maybe but that’s not how Rowling writes her world. The centaurs are extremely intelligent and probably just bullied an incredibly mentally fragile idiot. Now if the centaurs were trans, then Rowling would make them rapist murderers but she hadn’t reached her online psychosis at this stage yet.

>>24610368
>Well if I just ignore the implication that means it doesn't exist

>>24610378
There is no implication but the one you’re making yourself believe.

>>24610382
>>24610378

>>24610393
>>24610382

>>24610401
>>24610327
>>24610378

Shut The Fuck Up
https://youtu.be/KRB-iHGHSqk

>>24609274
>>24609471
>>24610043
>>24610112
Thanks a lot for the recommendations, guess i will be busy for a while. I'll skip multi-book series for now, apart from maybe the Culture books which im really curious about

>>24610476
If you don't like the first Culture book then stop there. I listened to people saying it gets so much better, and read the first four, and it didn't get better at all. Exactly like malazan now that I think about it.

ok honest answers please.

I did watch the show twice over and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not an avid reader of sffg but since I have retaken to reading I have read the first law trilogy and I'm not with the gentlemen bastards, which I am enjoying quite a lot (although Abercrombie has left me amazed)

I did read the hobbit, LoTR, and the silmarillion back in my time, so at least you know where I stand. I enjoy fantasy but I haven't read a lot of it in the last few years.

Will I enjoy reading ASoIaF even though I know the show by heart? is it worth gulping the 8000+ fucking pages of it? what say you

Never trust random recommendations off chatgpt. I honestly thought I would enjoy this.

Never ever trust a nigress writing fantasy.

>>24610598
it's not finished so no. Read what Martin stole from instead:
>Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn
>The Accursed Kings

>>24610614
is it a trilogy? I get tired easily, I left dungeon crawler carl on the 5th book, it got tiresome

>>24610598
>Will I enjoy reading ASoIaF even though I know the show by heart?
Absolutely. A Game of Thrones is "Season 1 with more scenes and details"
The show's divergences from the books are slight at the start and become cascading as you go on, so it's a pretty fascinating and fun read. It's also much easier to get into because you won't struggle much with character names having a showfag background. By Feast and Dance, you'll feel like you're looking at the same characters in an almost entirely different story, because what D&D did was adapt the Red Wedding without much care or consideration for anything else.

You'll be left blueballed at the end, but imo it's totally worth checking out if you're a fan of the show.

>>24610598
They are far better than the show but it’s also an incomplete series that will never be finished. Use your time on something better.

>>24610632
>>24610627

that's what I thought

I'm out of the loop. Is the fatman never gonna finish it or what?

>>24610633
Last month, the last book published, A Dance with Dragons, turned 14 years old.

The last update from George was that he was at 1000/1500 pages written in 2023. Historically, George is eager to blog about it when he makes progress writing his books, and when he's struggling, he's silent. He hasn't given a page count update in 2 years.

Oh, and if you think 1000/1500 pages sounds like he's close, keep in mind that when George finished ADWD in 2011, he had roughly 500 pages of overflow that became the beginning third of The Winds of Winter.

>>24610653
well shit then I'll stick to something else

besides gentlemen bastards which I'm reading now and leaving ASOIAF, what should I take on next you reckon?

>>24609144
bros hold me...did she call frank frazetta terrible?

>>24610656
I'm the anon who said it's still worth reading even if it's incomplete, but if you can't stand the idea of being left on a cliffhanger I understand. I have yet to find something that is "Like Martin" and that's why people still sing his praises even if his work is incomplete. I haven't read MST or Accursed Kings yet though. I liked BotNS and I'm currently marathoning through Red Rising, which the later books get into increased complexity. You might like The Expanse books too, they're written by Martin's proteges.

Also I'd like to add that George's main assistant is 100% convinced the story will be finished one way or another, alluding to a posthumous release.

>>24610656
Malazan

>>24610656
Red Rising

>>24610670
He would rather die and have it be released that way so he doesn’t have to spend all night reading the comments on his blog. His schizo meltdown a few months ago shows he hates his fans but is addicted to reading what they write.

>>24610177
True, one of the characters was Irish

>>24610670
You sound like you have taste. Shill me on red rising. I dropped it after the third. It just seems the protagonists either get fucked because of muh morals, or have the author asspull retarded ways to fuck with them because he doesn't know how to advance the plot otherwise. I absolutely love miseryporn, but not this retarded shit

>>24610603
chatgpt just pulls from all those glorified blogs listing the "top 50 fantasy series of all time" or "most influential fantasy series" or whatever they call them this month and this book is almost always at the top, sometimes even above Tolkien, simply because it's written by a black woman.

>>24610671
>>24610673
/Lit/ in a nutshell.

>>24610487
I only managed to read Feersum Endjinn especially because it was short.

>>24610598
I was never a fan

>>24608797
This shit is all over Amazon. Is this actually any good or are they trying to bait me into buying YA tier womanslop.

>>24611097
It's romantasy, currently the best selling genre of fantasy, and yes almost all the readers are women.

>>24611103
So no.

>>24609584
And then rick pozzed it up

>>24611097
>>24611103
>>24611176
>Maas
of course it's garbage

Give me quintessential Star wars fiction, I hear so much about Thrawn and the pre-disney EU madness that I'm genuinely curious. If you don't like star wars, hit me with some general space opera, Currently reading Foundation but it's far slower paced than I thought it would be.

Chink CG adaptation of The Stars My Destionation announced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzsnzgaZwhs

>>24605413 (OP)
Can I get some recommendations for funny fantasy books?

>>24611709
If you like Pratchett then try Robert Rankin, Start with The Antipope.

>>24610603
> Never ever trust a nigress writing fantasy.
Never trust any woman writing anything.

>>24611424
You can tell it wasn't made by a western studio because the girls are cute.

I started reading the Wheel of Time. I've barely read a few chapters and it's basically
>men bad, women good

My instincts tell me it's going to be some feminist power fantasy where muh independent strong women need no man.
Is there a point in even continuing with this series?

>>24611424
fukken hell

>>24610598
Read the Dunk&Egg novellas, they are standalone, can be read in an evening, and are really good. If you like them, I'd recommend reading the main series as well - it's a great ride despite being unfinished.

>>24611934
> Is there a point in even continuing with this series?
Yeah, because your instincts turn out to be completely wrong.

>>24612043
So the books will not women constantly saying that everything bad is men's fault and then it turns out to be true every time? Because that's what it reads like.

So far I want the bad guys to win and end the world. That society doesn't deserve to survive.

>>24611424

>>24611934
Snowflake

>>24612049
You just started the incredibly long series. It's giving you the setting that is indeed that women have all the (magical) powers because men can't be trusted / went mad.

But the actual *story* then shows how it turns out that a system ruled by only women can be just as broken, flawed, incompetent, and abused as one run by only men. And that the overall theme is that men and women are equals and have to work together (with magic) to make the world better (beat the baddie).

>>24612058
Then why does the story prove the female characters right when they blame men for all the bad things? It seems like some feminist fever dream.

This is off-putting. It's like seeing NTR in a fantasy novel.

>And that the overall theme is that men and women are equals and have to work together (with magic) to make the world better (beat the baddie).
So that the men can go back to serving women? The only times they get a say is when the women need lots of disposable people - soldiers and laborers.

>>24612076
You admit to having only read a few chapters in a thirteen book series and are already freaking out because it has women in it doing things you don't like? Sounds more like a you problem.

Kill all Aes Sedai.

>>24612079
I looked up more information on the series. That's what I found. Is it wrong? Do the books not have men making mistakes and women gloating about how men can't be trusted?

>Sounds more like a you problem.
You're right. I should have stayed away from published fantasy. I had a feeling I might not like these stories, but I didn't quite expect this.

>>24612111
Impressively dramatic.

>>24612111
Are you a woman?

>>24612111
>Do the books not have men making mistakes and women gloating about how men can't be trusted?
Yes, they also have women making mistakes and men gloating about how women can't be trusted.

> I should have stayed away
No one is forcing you to read it. I'm sure there's something out there more suited to your fragile little mind.

>>24612114
Ironic, isn't it.

>>24612111
egwene fucks up constantly. so many times during her POVs she's so blatantly wrong about shit that it's hilarious

>>24612111
That's some snowflake-tier zoomer autism right there. Do you even like reading books?

>>24612124
>That's some snowflake-tier zoomer autism right there. Do you even like reading books?
Published fantasy books? Not anymore.
>>24612114
No. If I were a woman I probably wouldn't have minded the story.
>>24612112
I feel let down. My expectations were high going into it. I thought I had something to read for a few weeks.

What's something extra misogynistic I can read to clense my palette after I finish Wheel of Time

>>24612137
Circe - Madeline Miller

>>24612136
Bro, you sound like you're twelve and have never talked to any girls irl. The main character is male and has a harem, the two main side characters are male. The women side characters end up in the authors fem-dom kink. It's about as non "female power fantasy" as you can get for mainstream novels.

>>24612143
>fem-dom
>It's about as non "female power fantasy" as you can get

>>24612144
They're the ones getting dominated, retard

>>24612147
Even if they aren't, femdom is much more of a male kink than a female one. This discussion is dumb, by the way.

>>24612148
Maybe the act itself, but the perception is certainly different. Socially it's much more feminist and "acceptable" if it's the guy on a leash getting pegged than the other way around.

>>24612137
r/haremfantasynovels
They are all shit though. The story seems to always go on hold so that the MC can collect more Pokemon (women).

Question about the ending
Is Kali meant to have regained her memories of Sam when she is laying her offering?
And
Are the witches meant to be aliens like the glow mothers and demons?

>>24612159
It's hilarious. The Pokemon are all the same: the blonde, the brunette, the red head, the asian, maybe the latina. Their hair or skin color is their entire personality.

The only good story is probably On Astral Tides which even make jokes about at all the harem tropes.

>>24612111
I hate tWoT and even I am impressed be these trips of clinical autism

>>24610112
Amazing diarrhea list, I don't think I could ever come up with worse recommendations.
>Weber, Brin and Cherryh at the same time

>>2461012
>YOUNG ADULT used to mean books aimed at PRETEENS
Brotha...

bakker

>>24612165
>Is Kali meant to have regained her memories of Sam when she is laying her offering?
my interpretation is that she has some vague recollections, but is not really the same anymore

>>24612178
Mashallah

>>24612171
you missed Octavia Butler, the worst of them all.

>>24610112
Mate, you should leave this place.

I like Gene Wolfes' the Knight, but when I started on Soldier in the Mist I felt like a child listening to adults talk: I know that theres a lot going on above my head and I wish I understood it, but I don't and it frustrates me. I also enjoyed the Fifth Head of Cerberus which gave me something of the same sensation but it bothered me less.

Is there another, more accessible Wolfe you'd recommend - baby's second/third Wolfe? Or possibly something by another author - in the same vein but more immediately accessible? Cheers.

>>24610130
The same as teenager basically with a connotation of at least 15 I'd say. It's probably a marketing thing to differentiate stories with romantic content.

>>24612326
You do have to trust Wolfe to come around and make things clear for you in Latro. The point of Latro is the question of whether Latro will make good/right decisions despite having recurring daily amnesia. He has to deal with gods like this too. Maybe that perspective can make it more interesting.
FHoC and TK are good, I recommend trying The Deep by John Crowley for a short novel and The Dragon Waiting by John Ford for a longer one.

some Thoughts, on looking through some of the collected charts in sticky.

(1) Fair amount of bait here.

(2) Foreigner, by CJ Cherry - libertarian? This seems wrong. The release and spread of technology needs to be guided by intelligent long seeing government. Trains are good, motorways are bad, and shortsighted profit seeking always seems to lead the human island down bad paths. We need to be stewards the earth. I wont claim to be impartial here, because I like foreigner and I am not a libertarianism, but I do doubt this.

(3) Robin Hobb seems to be underrepresented. Not wild about the Soldier Son books, the Rain wild books, or the third Fizt/Fool trilogy, but the first two fitz trilogies are great.

(4) I won't claim that Red Rising is great art or whatever, but I enjoyed it - "shit" tier seems unreasonably harsh.

(5) Possibly I missed it, but I don't think I saw "Puck of Pook's Hill" in any of the charts. Fantasy in a very loose sense (Faery?) but I do enjoy it and think it could find a place somewhere.

(5) Suprised by the amount of Terry Pratchett. I always throught he seemed far to pleased with himself but maybe I'm missing something here.

(6) I remember there being some very keen Bakker partisans here several years ago. Is this still a thing or has that passed?

(6) Negatively polarized against Poul Anderson because I associate him with that goodread psued who praised him to the stars in his lord of the rings (Keely?). If I am missing out on something good because of spite, please let me know.

>>24612406
Cheers! I will give it another go. I gave it to my dad when I got stuck and he read it, enjoyed it, and asked me to download the others. I think he probably knows as much about ancient greek history and mythology as I do (not much) so a change of mindset probably needed on my part.

I will add the ones you suggested to the tbr list. I follow a guy on twitter who was very keen on Little Big and I trust his judgement, so I understand that Crowley is good.

>>24612440
Speaking of Crowley, if you want something something dreamy/ambiguous that ultimately makes sense, try Engine Summer. And speaking of knowing things, The Deep is a sort of reinterpretation of (Shakespeare's version of) the Wars of the Roses, but again, no actual knowledge is required.

>>24612457
beautiful, will do. Battling with new job and have limited gas in the tank, so - ultimately makes sense - and - no actual knowledge is required - are very compelling recommendations at this point

>>24612427
The Assassin's Aprrentice being the go-to recommendation for a fantasy book featuring an assassin in the SfSignal list is a joke. Most assassinating bro does is throwing poisoned bread to zombified peasants in throwaway passages inbetween chapters of reiterating the only three or so bits of worldbuilding Hobb bothered to actually come up with for the series.

>>24612486
More a royal assassin man myself. It's been a while since I read the first book so I'm not going to argue that it had lots of rewarding assassin stuff. If I were reading it for that, or maybe even for the world building, I probably wouldn't be that enthused (see disinterest in Rain Wilds).
But I do think that the characterization is Good, and that the prose - while not being write home stuff - is significantly better than the genre norm. I like some world building stuff (lotr, grrm etc) but I if I am forced to chose, I'd take pathos, realized characterization, and (passible) prose etc over an interesting and/or novel world

>>24612486
Do wish that Hobb'd stopped at the end of the second Fitz trilogy though. Not hugely interested in Bee or v pleased with Molly being knocked off so fizt can pursue subtext with the fool

>>24612326
The Sorcerers House by Wolfe is what you want.

just finished blindsight, what a tour de force. read it in a day
echopraxia worth jumping into right after? the plot summart i glanced at looks quite a bit less compelling

Should I read Don Quixote in Portuguese or English?

>>24612976
Russian

>>24612973
I loved Blindsight but I've been struggling with Echopraxia desu. It's just not very gripping and the physical descriptions are vague as fuck, I can never get a good mental picture of what's going on.

>>24612976
Technically the Portuguese should be closer to the original, right?

Red rising fag is way more annoying than Bakkerfag ever was.

>>24612978
European Portuguese?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCcPvXdXxZk

>>24612999
Is the red rising fag in the room with us right now?

>>24611934
Listen here my son, I will elucidate. The Wheel of Time takes place in a world where women - the Aes Sedai - possess all magic and thereby hold great power. They want to KEEP that power, and try to control the population to make sure their power remains.
It will not remain.
Robert Jordan's depiction of women is so good it borders on pure misoginy. Women in Wheel of Time are catty, short-sighted, petty, vindictive, overly emotional, unreasonable, stubborn, arrogant, haughty, proud, vain, utterly hipocritical and perfectly willing to argue over protocol and who gets to wear which hat while LITERALLY EVERYONE is DYING around them because women can't fucking get their shit together. The rule of the Aes Sedai is the rule of women: capricious, overreliant on rigid rules, rife with gossip and jealousies. The further you read the Wheel of Time, the more you will realize how utterly incompetent every single woman in that series is (except Min, I like Min) and that they really, really, REALLY need men to make decision and run things to prevent the whole world from being destroyed. And even then, even with The Dragon Reborn standing in their presence, the only hope for the salvation OF ALL LIFE from the Dark One, the Aes Sedai will go "hmph, you have to what I say because I wear this hat!" because women are retarded and Robert Jordan will not let you forget that. (again, except Min, she's cool)
Jordan piles one humiliation after another on his women. There will be spankings, open palm and with paddles.
>>24612326
The Devil in a Forest is a completely straight-forward well almost not really but you know and easy to follow Gene Wolfe novel, pretty short too.
For someone trying to get more into Wolfe I would also highly recommend reading his short stories, for example pic related

>>24612999
Obsessed

>>24612973
Echopraxia isn't as good, but it's still good. People rate it too harshly because Blindsight set expectations too high.

>>24612988
DQ took a hilariously long time to get translated to Portuguese and the first official version was started by a blind man who died before finishing it.

>>24612171
>>24612209
must suck to hate fun this hard

Has anyone finished this series? I just started it and 150 pages in and I'm deathly sick of this Dune ripoff

>>24612973
Echopraxia makes Blindsight seem like a straightforward story in comparison. Also, check out a prequel short story sets in the same universe.

https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-twenty-one-second-god/

>>24613359
>Dune ripoff
Oh just wait until you get to Howling Dark and enitre chapters lifted directly from Book of the New Sun, I'm amazed Ruocchio isn't accused of plagiarism more often

>>24613372
so I won't miss anything if I dump it? I'd like not to waste $100+ on 4000 pages of print if it's just going to be a bunch of pseudointellectual grimdark gay sex like Bakker

>>24613378
>randomly insulting Bakker for no reason
You don't speak ill of the king here, pleb. Perhaps Ruocchio is more your speed after all.

>>24613381
that struck a nerve

>>24613112
That's appropriately quixotic desu

>>24613359
I'm up to date on it. Hyped for Shadows upon Time. Keep reading, when the real conflict comes to light you'll realize it's anything but a Dune ripoff. It's not a BotNS ripoff either, Ruocchio just wears his influences on his sleeve. Moment to moment it evokes those influences but as a whole it's very much it's own thing. It's also not bleak enough to be grimdark and the pozz drops off in book two.

>>24613447
No, the ripoff is so blatant you can't call it influence. The scene where Hadrian is in Khan Segara's waiting room is the same exact scene as the waiting room in the Autarch's palace, all those people waiting indefinitely and subsisting on tea and crumpets or whatever, it's not influence it's just lifting a scene
And there's other stuff he lifts, like giving Hadrian and Gibson the same lecture Severian got from Gurloes about the forms of government and loyalty.
Or the one that grates on me the most because it sucked when Dan Simmons did it and it sucks when Ruocchio apes it, the incessant repetition of "lions and tigers and bears" as if it were somehow a profound statement about the unknown.
Ruocchio frustrates me to no end. And yet, I read the first three books, because when he's not ripping off a better writer and stealing lines and scenes, he can actually do some interesting stuff. Everything he does well is cheapened and soiled by his plagiarism though. So fuck him. I'll keep reading. But fuck him. The fat fuck. Disgusting balding fat fuck. Fucking thief. Still some really cool shit though. And if there wasn't all that good stuff I wouldn't care, because I could just ignore his existence entirely like the thief deserves.

>>24613480
>Everything he does well is cheapened and soiled by his plagiarism though. So fuck him. I'll keep reading. But fuck him. The fat fuck. Disgusting balding fat fuck. Fucking thief. Still some really cool shit though. And if there wasn't all that good stuff I wouldn't care, because I could just ignore his existence entirely like the thief deserves.
>I'll keep reading
are you mentally ill and love to be mad?

>>24611934
That's the women's perspective, not Jordan's. For all his flaws, Jordan depicts the friction between men and women pretty well, although dramatized and exaggerated. He also depicts women's insufferable know-it-all and rationalizing attitude over life and their bad decisions.

>>24613018
Kek screencapped for future reference for WOT newfags. It really is true. The times when shit gets actually done is either because the men play some reverse psychology where the women do the right thing out of spite or because Chad Rand puts his foot down. Tar Valon truly is what would happen if a bunch of witches got together to rule the known world.

>>24606273
Try Bridge of Birds if you're looking for something different.

>>24605427
Yeah most people aren’t full time artists. Just write when you can, and don’t be afraid to use your background to enhance your writing. The more ways you can link science to fiction, the better.

>>24606684
From 2024 but The Navigator's Children by Tad Williams comes out this month on paperback. It's the last book in the series of the Last King of Osten Ard, which I recommend. I'd hedge my bets the last book will be very good.

>>24610622
Yes it's a trilogy and a very good one. I'm currently on my second reread of it. It's much tighter than ASOIAF and obviously much shorter, so I don't see why you wouldn't choose MS&T on account of its length since ASOIAF is probably twice MS&T's size. I say go for it

>>24613480
I'm not going to answer your derangement in detail. Either start Kingdoms of Death or go dilate.

>>24613447
>>24613480
Can you spoil it for me? Seriously, I want to know everything about it so I can decide whether or not there's anything of value in it for me

>>24613820

Empire of Silence: you meet Hadrian, son of a minor nobleman, who flees his home planet hoping to become a scholar rather than a priest with the repressive imperial religion. You slowly learn about the Sollan Empire, the greatest human domain, as well as various lesser interstellar states based upon varying ethnic groups and political principles. Hadrian's a massive xenophile and wants to understand the Cielcin, the only other spacefaring race, who incidentally are maneating monsters.
Howling Dark: On account of his utility in communicating with Cielcin POWs, Hadrian has been given sanction by the Empire to seek out the legendary Kharn Sagara, a storybook hero said to be immortal who is rumored to have contacts with the Cielcin. At the end of his leash, Hadrian and his closest allies steal a ship and go rogue, traveling among the Extrasolarians--humans who practice extensive body augmentation and AI use in violation of Sollan law--on his way to Vorgossos, Kharn's planet. Once there, Hadrian appeals to Kharn's humanity, but Kharn, having sustained himself for millennia by cloning himself and transferring his consciousness, is self sufficient and sees no reason to help the Empire. Hadrian's handlers catch up with him, handing over thousands of cryogenically frozen human colonists to Kharn in payment for him arranging a meeting with the Cielcin. The meeting fails, as the Cielcin have no conception of equals, only master and slave. Battle ensues, and Hadrian is killed, but mysteriously raised to life again and kills a Cielcin prince.
Demon in White: for his service to the Empire, Hadrian is appointed to an order of Imperial knights and given his own warship. Word of his resurrection spreads, to the chagrin of the priest class, who see him as a threat. Emperor sends Hadrian on a suicide mission to find a lost legion, but Hadrian does battle with a general of the ascendant Cielcin Prince Syriani Dorayaica and triumphs. Upon his return, the Emperor wishes to politically disarm Hadrian by marrying him to one of his daughters, but Hadrian won't leave his cybernetically enhanced "witch" gf, Valka. He and Valka both survive assassination attempts, then leave the Imperial royal planet to investigate Hadrian's resurrection. Hadrian discovers he can choose between versions of himself to cheat death, contingent on the intervention of a force called the Quiet, which appears to move backward through time, ensuring its own future existence, which is threatened by the Cielcin. He uses this power in a climactic battle to thwart Syriani Dorayaica and win the day.
1/2

I've been browsing this general almost daily for over a decade and Bakker is the only name that I see on virtually every general.

I wonder why.

>>24605583
gotrek and felix

Chatting with Ian C. Esslemont about the Sanitization of War and Violence in Fantasy Literature
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=669FW5RicXw

>>24614147
Bakker is for all races/genders

>>24614137

Kingdoms of Death: Hadrian has been under house arrest on a remote planet for decades following his exoneration from charges of witchcraft. Following Cielcin expansion under Dorayaica, he is sent to the Lothrian Commonwealth, a totalitarian communist state, to seek allies against the Cielcin. But the Lothrians are aligned with the Cielcin. They capture Hadrian and turn him over to Dorayaica, who tortures his human nemesis extensively while explaining Cielcin philosophy, which is basically gnosticism in which the Quiet is the demiurge. Dorayaica takes Hadrian to a Cielcin ritual world where the aliens' ancestors communed with their gods, whose colossal remains are found there. Dorayaica has convened a gathering of Cielcin princes, and orchestrates a purge of those unloyal to him before naming himself Shiomu-Elusha, prophet-king. Hadrian's ship is lowered onto the ritual grounds for the warriors to feast on its crew, who mount a resistance with heavy losses. Hadrian, following years of separation from the Quiet, manages a miracle and frees himself. He rejoins his men and mounts and escape operation, but only he and Valka get to the shuttle alive. He then returns to the Imperial Archives on the Planet Colchise, where he can lie low, and witnesses his exiled mentor's death.
Ashes of Man: Hadrian spends years recovering from the events of the previous book. Eventually he is sent back into the fray, attempting to combat some human collaborators of the Cielcin. Meanwhile, the Emperor is under siege, since Hadrian gave up the stops along the Emperor's ongoing voyage while being tortured. He and Valka rush to the Emperor's aid, but Valka dies during the evacuation on the planet. During a diplomatic transmission, Hadrian kills the Cielcin general in charge of the siege by willing him to die. The Cielcin forces crumble and what little remains of the planet is saved. Later, the Emperor makes a dismissive remark about Valka, and Hadrian attacks him. Hadrian's allies break him out of prison, and his lieutenant, Lorian, is sent to a prison planet in his place, while Hadrian escapes to the Principality of Jadd, a powerful minor realm broken off from the Empire generations ago.
Disquiet Gods: after a period on Jadd, during which Hadrian had a daughter cloned from his and Valka's DNA, the Emperor offers Hadrian a pardon if he'll join the Empire's secret archaeological unit. His mission is to find and locate a Watcher, one of the Cielcin gods, and kill it. The Cielcin arrive not long after the excavation starts, but the Watcher deems their leader unworthy and kills it. A few surviving Cielcin pledge their service to Hadrian. He returns to the Imperial royal planet, where anti-Cielcin elements from various states, including Extrasolarians, gather to discuss their war effort. It comes to light that Kharn Sagara has Watcher-killing weapons, and Hadrian leads the alliance alongside Extrasolarian king Calen Harendotes.
2/3

>>24614277

Disquiet Gods continued: Hadrian's alliance sails against Kharn's rogue planet, Vorgossos. Harendotes turns out to be one of two Kharn clones following the existing Kharn's death in Howling Dark. One claimed Vorgossos, while the other, Harendotes, founded a new kingdom intending to retake Vorgossos. The alliance is successful; the Kharn clones die and Hadrian secures the Watcher-killing weapons aboard Kharn's flagship.
Shadows Upon Time: tbr
I should note that I've left out a lot of background lore, minor characters, etc. These are long books and there's a lot to the world. Now go read them. Or just cuck me and make my synopses pointless.
CAPTCHA: TYP0T

>>24614325
>>24614277
>>24614137
Your synopses are very helpful, because they have successfully convinced me not to pursue this series further. I thank you very much for saving me time, money, and grief. I would honestly rather read sequels to Dune - fortunately, Frank Herbert never wrote any Dune sequels.

I started re-reading the Wheel of Time and I'm surprised at how bad Egwene was since the very first book.
I already wanted to slap her by the time she forced her way into the party while they were leaving EF.

>>24614147
>I wonder why.
If our 6+ year shitposting newfag shits this general up nonstop, it is of no surprise that he shits up other generals.

>>24614689
He's also on other boards spamming Bakker.

>closing in on 100k words in my fantasy story
>feel like that’s a crazy amount
>realize book one of Wheel of Time has triple that
Damn…

>>24614579
Disappointing that I couldn't claim another convert, but I'm glad to have helped. Out of curiosity, what sort of SF do you read? I've found Sun Eater to be a love it or hate it series and I'm trying to discern why. I'm an epic fantasy reader at heart so I prefer space opera to hard SF. My fellow RRfags here seem to like Sun Eater so I'm presuming it's more SF oldheads who dislike it

>>24614846
Do you ever want it to be traditionally published?
Publishers are putting hard word count caps for most fantasy authors now. Peter McLean said his publisher for his most recent book gave him a 100k hard limit. Other authors have said similarly.

>>24614929
I know who caused this

>>24614846
Comparing my word counts to LotR (or worse, Sanderson) used to kill me. But not everything needs to be thousands of pages. My first two books are single POV, 300-400 pages apiece. I'm over 200 pages into a multi-POV project and haven't even finished Part 1 yet. Just get the story where it needs to go.

fantasy series where the female mc has to dress in a skimpy outfit to get into the bad guys lair?

Sanderson will never make epic fantasy kino like Erikson

>>24614974
"My diary desu"

>>24614929
>>24614973
Good advice. I post on RR so fortunately it isn't a huge problem

>>24614976
the reddit duology

>>24614240
I don't like this sentiment of "you're just dehumanizing the enemy, they're good boys who didn't do anything wrong just like you", sometimes the enemy really is evil.

>>24614846
Last book I wrote was around 210k words and it took me about three years to finish it. To think Jordan churned this shit out like hot cakes.

>>24614846
100k isn't a lot.

>>24614929
>>24614973
this is awful news for me. i'm writing a single POV sci-fi duology, and the first book is at 140k right now and I need more to get where I want it to end.

Damn /tv/ is having a better discussion about good books than we have in years... sad
>>>/tv/213420617

>>24615374
The non /lit/ threads are normally better. I enjoy the /v/ ones that pop up every now and then.

Does /sffg/ discuss chinaslop anymore? I'm currently reading New White Snake Asking The Immortals it's very uneven but a somewhat interesting change from the standard xianxia.

new thread
>>24615650