/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

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>5th Season
>lots of child abuse
Not even close.

What is the ligature of literature

>>8423357
>Damaya gets her hand broken and gets emotionally manipulated by an immortal soulbinding loli-whisperer
>Albaster's unnamed kids get lobotomized, chained up, and sexually abused
>Syenite suffocates her toddler son to death
>Nassun gets her hand broken and gets emotionally abused by the tiger mom from hell
>Jija beats his toddler son to death
>Jija physically and emotionally abuses Nassun
>Nassun gets emotionally manipulated by an immortal soulbinding loli-whisperer
>Hoa gets his arm ripped off, if Hoa counts

Plus those people who suffocated to death or turned into icicles or rocks or whatever.

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Has any of you guys read the Magic 2.0 series? I just finished the third book and I quite enjoyed it. I've used the first book of the series to introduce a couple of my friends to audibooks because it's such simple fun plus the narrator is A+.

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>you'll never settle down with Spinner-of-Rope and have intergalactic adventures together while you cuddle in the cabin

How do I come up with a name for my series, without making it Book One of the Overwrought Fantasy Name Cycle? Or can I just leave it with no name, and let people think of one if they want (or not)? I don't think "Bas-Lag Trilogy" or "Culture series" are official names after all...

What are some novels that can bridge genre readers to literary fiction? And vice versa? People should be at liberty to appreciate both.

My leads would be Borges and Calvino. For the other camp, Le Guin, and Bacigalupi's Wind Up Girl.


I really want to say Lem and Wolfe, but their themes are relatively inaccessible for newbies.

A chart entailing this would be superfluous but useful.

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Not the greatest book I've ever read, but I thought it was legitimately good, definitely a solid contender for one of the better fantasies in recent years.

Confusing at times, and occasionally it feels like it was expected to be more than it ended up, but it was definitely a comfy read, and original enough that there isn't a whole lot I can easily compare it to.

>>8423675
It's probably a fairly simple jump from Strange and Norrell to standard Victorian novels (Dickens, Austen, etc.)

what is the general opinion of Brandon Sanderson here? I'm kinda getting back into fantasy and obviously his name is everywhere, all I know is that he seems to write a shit ton of books and supposedly his quality doesn't dip.

>>8423800
Sanderson writes western anime

>>8423675
The Magicians.

>>8423800
I've only read Mistborn, but I thought it was solid. I have a friend who loves Mistborn but thinks all his other stuff his crap, though.

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Anything that has a sense of exploration or adventure? I want to write a fantasy about motherfuckers going on an expedition. But I feel as though I need to read more to get a better feel of fantasy. Comfy reads also helps

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>"Well," Shallan said to the captain, blushing but still eager to speak, "I was just thinking this: You say that my beauty coaxed the winds to deliver us to Kharbranth with haste. But wouldn't that imply that on other trips, my lack of beauty was to blame for us arriving late?"
>"Well...er..."
>"So in reality," Shallan said, "you're telling me I'm beautiful precisely one-sixth of the time."
>"Nonsense! Young miss, you're like a morning sunrise, you are!"
>"Like a sunrise? By that you mean entirely too crimson"-she pulled at her long red hair-"and prone to making men grouchy when they see me?"
>He laughed, and several of the sailors nearby joined in. "All right then," Captain Tozbek said, "you're like a flower."
>She grimaced. "I'm allergic to flowers."
>He raised an eyebrow.
>"No, really," she admitted. "I think they're quite captivating. But if you were to give me a bouquet, you'd soon find me in a fit so energetic that it would have you searching the walls for stray freckles I might have blown free with the force of my sneezes."
>"Well, be that true, I still say you're as pretty as a flower."
>"If I am, then young men my age must be afflicted with the same allergy-for they keep their distance from me noticeably." She winced. "Now, see, I told you this wasn't polite. Young women should not act in such an irritable way."

>The man pulling the machine was short and dark-skinned, with a wide smile and full lips. He gestured for Shallan to sit, and she did so with the modest grace her nurses had drilled into her. The driver asked her a question in a clipped, terse-sounding language she didn't recognize.
>"What was that?" she asked Yalb.
>"He wants to know if you'd like to be pulled the long way or the short way." Yalb scratched his head.
>"I'm not right sure what the difference is."
>"I suspect one takes longer," Shallan said.
>"Oh, you are a clever one." Yalb said something to the porter in that same clipped language, and the man responded.
>"The long way gives a good view of the city," Yalb said. "The short way goes straight up to the Conclave. Not many good views, he says. I guess he noticed you were new to the city."
>"Do I stand out that much?" Shallan asked, flushing.
>"Eh, no, of course not, Brightness."
>"And by that you mean that I'm as obvious as a wart on a queen's nose."
>Yalb laughed.

can't believe i fell for the meme. two chapters of fighting with no characterization worth a damn, then this autist

fucking DROPPED with the force of a thousand suns

>>8423800
Not much wrong with his output. He writes anime slash not very deep entertainment. His books could use a stricter editor to trim some verbiage.

It doesn't hurt to read him if one likes fantasy. Randomly insightful information like theses from The Wealth of Nations shows up in his work. Again, for the general open minded reader, it shouldn't hurt to read a little.

>>8423849
Wud about space exploration

>>8423886
I wouldn't really mind that it falls under sci fi. I Just want to get a feel for how those kinds of stories go.

>>8423873
>>8423830
hmm what are other contemporary authors worth checking?

I ask because Sanderson seems to be dominating the landscape from 2010 or so onwards and I don't usually read much of the more modern works around.

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First for sandersonfags

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>>8423857
>He raised an eyebrow.

>>8423950
Wait does Latza still make videos? I thought /tv/ crushed his dreams?

>>8423849
The more that I think about it, the more I realize I haven't read much where the story is focused on exploring uncharted territory and finding new things; generally speaking, journeys tend to go through previously traveled lands, with the focus being on the endgame rather than the moment.

The first Southern Reach book is expedition-y, though the overall focus is moreso on character interactions, and while I enjoyed the second and third books, they kind of tossed all the mystery out the window and focused on big reveals and "whoa" moments.

>>8423928
Bakker
Erikson
JVJones
Cook

>>8423849
Stardust
The Farthest Shore
A Princess of Mars
Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Hobbit
The Golden Compass
Sabriel
A Darker Shade of Magic
The Thousand Names
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
The Colour of Magic
The Magician King
Dark Lord of Derkholm/Tough Guide to Fantasyland

>>8423977
yeah, if it wasn't shit before, it's definitely shit at that point

le over-reactive cardboard character, endlessly fascinated and engaged

Anyone read anything set in a school/academy that they'd actually recommend? Can be sf or fantasy

It's a really interesting setup but in my experience it's almost always either aimed at younger readers or uses the training part of the book to just loredump.

Blood Song's the closest fit I can think of but mainly just because the series starts to go to shit after the training school section

To whoever the one guy who keeps recommending Red Rising is I read the series and it was pretty fun.

Although the author cannot handle the transition between books at all. He ends book 1 with something intriguing happening and then book 2 starts with a timeskip to the end of that period, with the protagonist being weak and dumb because the plot requires it.

Also the third book suffers because by like halfway through you know roughly how everything is going to end

>>8424120
I don't really like edgy stuff but IMO a story about a cunty gold rising to power would be more interesting use of the setting than the noble rebellion stuff that RR does

>>8424069
>le

>>8424151
>l'epic

>>8424090
Inda's your best bet for something actually good

Question.

I've been pretty selective in my fantasy novels since I read a few with decent character development/interaction.

Tried that Guardians of the Moon in the Malazan and it was absolute shit. None of the characters mattered and I didn't care if they lived or died in these DBZ-esque super power battles. I also made it to book 6 of the wheel of time but the women's chapters made me *tug my braid angrily* and I couldn't handle it anymore.

How do I ensure that the series is somewhat decent? Le reddit recommended Malazan/WoT so i've been avoiding them

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>>8424120
I couldn't put these books down while I was reading them, but I got to the end and felt like the author hadn't done anything meaningful with his premise.

It doesn't examine the ethics or morality of genetic engineering as hyperbolized by the color system. It doesn't have anything interesting to say about human classes or castes as hyperbolized in the color system. Neither the MC nor Bean-knockoff-wolf-kid really even bridge the gap between the colors, they just become the better color as the result of massive surgeries. There wasn't even a sense of "genetically modified superhumans, cool!" because most of the relevant caste was superhuman, so any coolness of Bob throwing a 5x stronger punch was useless in the face of Joe being 5x more able to take a punch.

The color system stuff was a shiny distraction that never went anything meaningful, and if he wasn't going to express anything meaningful about the human condition through his color system premise, he should have just thrown out the color system and written Space Hunger Games. I don't even mean that dismissively, because I don't need deep social commentary from all my pulp fiction, and the Space Hunger Games stuff was decent completely independent of the color stuff.

>>8424212
Ask here desu or find some forums you trust

Reddit fantasy isn't bad but you have to use it as a tool for gathering up a list of potential titles to read rather than as a source of surefire recommendations.

Malazan's popular because people see it as this epic fantasy that they've been hankering for but it's so fucking clear that it was a boardgame campaign first*

And WoT is a popular recommendation because it's by far the most popular modern fantasy, it was the first one to really take off.

*slight disclaimer Feist's stuff was also based on a D&D campaign and a lot of that is pretty good. So it's more down to Malazan having a shitty writer than a shitty origin.

>>8424231
Yeah, the colors actually work against him because you can't really buy any rebellion working with something that entrenched.

And the main character doesn't prove eugenics wrong, he just proves that the wrong people used eugenics.

I wouldn't mind more hunger games ripoffs desu, the idea of violent competition is a good one even if it's often badly executed.

Space Romans is still a really neat setting though

Holy fucking shit KJ Parker absolutely cannot write the third book of a trilogy to save his life

Two different series and both of them utterly fuck the landing with books 3. The Engineer trilogy is especially bad, at the end the character has basically done all of his epic ruses for no real reason as everything could've been solved in a much easier way

>>8424212
Gentleman Bastards by Scott Lynch is fun. It's about a group of thieves in Not Renaissance Venice. The fourth book in the series is due out in a little less than a month, actually, so it's not a bad time to get into the series. If you like stylish heist films odds are good you'll like the GB books. If you're looking for something a little more aggressive, give Joe Abercrombie a try.

>>8424212
>reddit recommended Malazan/WoT

I haven't read either but I have a hard time believing anyone could put out a 10+ series without it slogging or getting down right bad for a couple of books. Also I don't know if any story really needs 10+ books to be told, at some point the author is probably just filling space.

I'm mainly a reader of short story collections or stand alone books so it might just be my bias showing and my relative inexperience with large series.

>>8424337
Discworld's 45 or so books and the bad ones are mainly from after Pratchett started to literally forget who he was

>>8424351
yeah but it's not like it's 40 books of the same continuous story and one absolute ending, it's more like 40 stories that sometimes happen to share characters.

>>8424362
Yeah, best longish series I can think of is black company but even there the nine books are divided into three separate story arcs

I couldn't stand Wheel of Time because from what I read it was one fairly simple plot being stretched over a whole series

>>8424401
It sometimes surprises me how there are series out there each consisting of 5 or more books and each book being 800+ pages long. I can't imagine just what sort of stuff is happening that it demands such length, I figure the writer just becomes too in love with his world and just starts wanking for a few hundred pages.

>>8424401
Wheel of Time is like an abusive relationship. There will be two or three moments in each book that makes you go holy shit, I need more of that! What happens next? But to find out means reading another 300-700 pages of awful shit. The worst transition of all is Path of Daggers into Winter's Heart, where the tremendous ending of PoD is immediately thrown down the shitter with an impossibly dull beginning in WH. There's never a sense of appreciable segue between each book, always some disjointed heartbreak that goes from focusing on cool shit you care about to boring shit you don't. One book is almost entirely characters that were not present at a certain event reacting to that event. It's a serious slog. Is it worth it in the end? Honestly, no. If you're already 5 books into the shit you might as well Churchill it up and keep going, but if you haven't started yet I'd stay away from it. There are cool ideas and worthwhile moments, but they are diamonds buried beneath two tons of semi-solid turds.

>>8424456
>Book 2
Boy I sure hope Rand stops being a retard about this mysterious woman who clearly has ulterior motives
>plot carries on for 11 fucking books
...

There should be a horror general.

>>8424494
Dead genre

>>8424456
it's hilarious just how unanimous it seems to be the opinion that WoT goes to crap after the first books and never truly recovers. Definitely a series that hasn't aged well and it finished fairly recently

>>8424494
I would love that but it would most likely die after a few posts.

>>8424090
I'm gonna say Anathem turned this concept on its head and made it good. It's more "magic grad student fantasy" than "harry potter" though.

brent weeks
>lightbringer was lame as fuck
>night angel contains IMMEDIATE gay rape for shock value

wew kobe
he just can't pick a happy medium between the two ends of the edge scale

>>8423675
Anything that's obviously sci-fi or fantasy-ish, yet gets grouped into the general fiction section at a library: Joe Hill and some of Stephen King, Lev Grossman, the John Connolly books he cowrites with his live-in girlfriend, Max Brooks, those sorts. They're science fiction-y and fantastic without necessarily alienating newbies the way hard-line sf and GRRM textbooks otherwise would.

>>8424144
IMO we got the best of both worlds, with Darrow almost forgetting that he's red most of the time and just falling into his role.

>>8424256
>And the main character doesn't prove eugenics wrong, he just proves that the wrong people used eugenics.
That's the beauty of it. The author wasn't setting out to honor our current status quo, he wasn't trying to say that the caste system is wrong. He just told a story about the solar system's most massive case of Stockholm syndrome.

>>8423675
The Etched City by K. J. Bishop is a good read. The setting is fantastical, but the characters themselves and the way they interact with their world feels grounded in a way that keeps it from feeling like a genre piece. It isn't overly long, around 400 pages, and I found every aspect of it interesting.

>>8424494
Western
Mystery
Thriller
Detective
Romance
True Romance
Regency Romance
Gay Romance
Vampire Romance

Generals for all of these should push some DFW threads off the cliff.

>>8423651
Just give each book its own title and use some alternate, subtitle as the series headline. "A Game of Thrones" is the first book in the "Song of Ice and Fire" series, "The Lies of Locke Lamora" is the first book in the "Gentleman Bastards" series, etc etc. What your idea of overwrought is probably differs from mine, though, Anon. I'd say use your best judgment and let others take a look at it.

>>8423651
Culture is

It's presented as
PLAYER OF GAMES
A Culture Novel

>>8424625
Just call it "dime rack paperback" and cover all of them in one thread.

Yo /sffg/, I'm trying to name some characters in my fantasy novel.

I'm terribly indecisive but I would like your input on the names I have.

Kind, naive, and aristocratic young man - Marche

Passionate, slightly hot-headed warrior, wants to rule - Faris Blackmore

Reserved and stern female military commander -Arya Aquilla


Most of the fantasy name generators are shit.

>And of course I know about the hentai. (By the way, I’ve looked at every sort of porn there is, and just so you know, Rule 34 is not actually correct; there are quite a few things no one’s made porn of yet. Also, I’m really not sure why so many humans prefer it to cat pictures.)

>But, here’s the thing. He was causing harm to himself every time he delivered a sermon railing about “sodomite marriage.” Because he was gay. The legitimate studies all have the same conclusions. (1) Gay men stay gay. (2) Out gay men are much happier.

HUGO
AWARD
WINNING
PROSE

>>8424494
There's a thread here that could work
>>8424205

>>8424496
But dreaming

>>8424653
>Tila Tequila

>>8424653
Pretty gud except "Arya", that name's been overused between GoT and Eragon

>>8424656

Yeah, I'm not terribly satisfied with her first name.

>>8424654
>>But, here’s the thing. He was causing harm to himself every time he delivered a sermon railing about “sodomite marriage.” Because he was gay. The legitimate studies all have the same conclusions. (1) Gay men stay gay. (2) Out gay men are much happier.

>Politicizing the Hugos? Nobody's politicizing the Hugos, you're just paranoid
>What do you mean boring sermons? I'M excited.

>>8424661

Oh whoops, I meant to put "Anya."

I can't decide on a surname for Marche. I wanted Montresor but I don't want to alliterate too much.

>>8423849
The Half Made World by Felix Gilman

>>8424265
>the character has basically done all of his epic ruses for no real reason as everything could've been solved in a much easier way
True.

I did actually like the ending of the Engineer trilogy but I can understand the complaints.

>>8424653
>Kind, naive, and aristocratic young man - Marche
Does he disapprove of escapism?

Hey guys, what's the deal with Robert J. Sawyer and Stephen Baxter putting inexplicable sudden timeskips to the end of civilization in all their books? Every book I've read by either author has it, and it sticks out in my brain. Like, the book trilogy about the sentient internet by Sawyer was cool and all, but it goes straight from the little girl saving the internet-creature from death in the present day straight into the sun destroys the earth and kills the internet creature while others live out on the earth colonies. It's fine in one, but in every book?

>>8424653
The theme you've got of the fantastic, yet grounded names (with the neat last names) seems solid enough to me! One caveat, though: please change Arya Aquilla's first name to something else to avoid the inevitable comparisons to ASOIAF and Eragon. It'll come up, trust me.

>>8423651
Do the standalone thing for the first installment, then when the next book comes out list it as "from the author of" such-and-such. Once you've gotten three or more books out, the fans and community gossip will eventually pick out a few names for you to choose from when you eventually get them reprinted in omnibus forme

>>8424683

Haha, no but I did get his name from that. He's a different character but I decided on Marche due to him not being the hero despite being the protagonist.

>>8423325
Are there any necromancer books apart from Johannes Cabal?

>>8424667
Marche Aipryl

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>>8424705

>>8424705

Why does everyone I ask say that?

It's pronounced like Marsh anyway.

>>8424710
Marche Bogg

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>>8424713

i will find you

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What are some good Warhammer books?

>>8424654
Jesus H. Christ, It took me two rereads to parse that correctly.

>>8424703
>Necromancer books
Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen by Garth Nix
the first couple of Anita Blake novels before they turned into porn
The Summoning/The Awakening/The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong is a trilogy about a genetically enhanced experiment necromancer whose powers start flaring out of control
uh... Pet Sematary, kinda?

>>8424715
Marche Steppe?

>>8424654
It's a really good short story desu

>>8424726

Ciaphas Cain
Red Fury
Fulgrim
Grey Knight series
Storm of Iron
Space Wolf series

>>8424665
The people politicizing the Hugos are Vox and his gang of NRx faggots who are appalled that their Sharia-tier views are socially unacceptable.

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>The winners this year were generally fantastic and point to the health and quality of the field. Some of the best SF/F ever is here now.
>13% year-over-year decline
>point to the health of the field

Has Scalzi lost it?

>>8424703
Frankenstein :D

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>>8424740
>>>/co/

>>8424748
Just join ISIS already.

>>8424726
40k or fantasy

For 40k Abnett's your best bet for Fantasy Gotrek and Felix or Ambassador

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Starting Mistborn. Is it any good?

>>8424740
Is the complaining just down to Jemisin being a black woman?

The Hugo noms are always mainstream as fuck safe picks

>>8424763
Its fun.

Don't expect anything more than that.

>>8424763

more like Stillborn lol

>>8424763
No, It's popular, so you should probably read it anyway.

>>8424740
>>8424754
Could you adopt a trip so I can filter you? Thanks.

>>8424763
1st books decent, probably the only recent "deconstructionist" fantasy that actually fits the label assigned to it, 2nd's eh
Second trilogy is more fun overall

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>>8424743
Did he ever have it?

>>8424767
>The Hugo noms are always mainstream as fuck safe picks
They aren't, barely anybody had heard of Jemisin before now. She doesn't even sell enough copies to write full-time and is entirely dependent on charity.

>>8424768
>>8424770
>>8424774
Alright going for it. Thanks.

>>8424770
>Could you adopt a trip so I can filter you? Thanks.
Peace be upon you, Mujahideen.

>>8424767
>Based Aram gets no-awarded because he touched icky Vox Day
Yeah, no other reason than because we're 1960s racists, that's the only reason we don't like the Hugos, because if we weren't bigots we would actually like Jemisin MORE because she's black.

>>8424778
>first book won Locus got neb and hugo noms amongst others
>even Goodreads, the home of mainstream plebs
>"nobody had heard of her until now"
Nah

If you follow scifantasy so little that you've never heard of someone whose been talked about since their debut then you really have no business commenting on awards

>>8424791
You've got a strange concept of mainstream senpai.

>>8424740
>>8424767
reminder that vox is tricking these idiots into nominating and buying his shitty work

that's what it's really about

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>>8423445
I'm going to say that compared to Brave New World and 1984 Schaffa and the Guardians really aren't that bad. All (even the children) have some measure of free choice as long as they get some rings and don't sperge out completely and massacre people.

I mean the breaking the wrists shit is pretty messed up, but at least they're not sending all the mentally children off to fight alien Lovecraftian horrors who can mindrape and mutate people's bodies as canon fodder in gigantic robots which contain the souls of their dead mothers while their fathers just reject them in totality and send their child the freshly laundered clothes of one of their classmates who died while they were in a coma only for said child to kill the only friend they ever formed.

>>8424800
and other stuff his publishing company is behind too, it's a pure publishing campaign

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Notice how the entire dynamic of the thread changed? Guess who linked to us, again.

Any good fantasy with a trap in it?

>>8424809
ooh it must've been those evil leftists, I hear they influence everything

>>8424816

I'm currently writing a fantasy novel that maybe have a trap as the MC's love interest. Depending on how I feel about it. 16-ish kid rescued from sex slavery and a 22-ish MC.

>>8424817
>Projecting
>This hard
Calm down Anon.

>>8424817
Those sneaky (((leftists))) wont rest until they've cucked sci-fi!

>>8424827
Sounds good senpai.

Godspeed

>>8424827
>rescued from sex slavery
Real original.

>>8424816
The Sir Apropos of Nothing series has one of the books with a supporting trap character. And if it counts, one of the main characters in Robin Hobb's Assassin's Apprentice series is a reverse trap.

Other than that, not really, no. Doesn't tend to come up much unless you're specifically looking for porn in online archives; otherwise, "cute grill with a cute penis, surprise!" tends to get sidelined into comedy and hentai

>>8424839

What other explanation for traps would there be?

>>8424849
Prince hiding from assassins

>>8424849
C-Calm the fuck down, your going to trigger Tumblr.

>>8424809
I'm just a regular that doesn't like bad short stories winning prestigious awards, senpad.

>>8424517
Oh my god it get even sillier
>main character gets a new identity
>name is KYLAR
>he outright spells killer in case you didn't get it
lel this is cheesy af

What are the best short stories by Harlan Ellison?

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>Safe Space as Rape Room by Daniel Eness
>SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police by Vox Day

When I think 'non-fiction works related to science fiction or fantasy' I think something like a historical account or ruminations on the genre, not 'retarded blog post I shitted out of my ass and submitted to reddit for upvotes'.

I hope that next year a MLP dissertation wins this category so they can remove this cancer altogether.

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>>8423675

>>8424212
Find anons with good taste on goodreads.
See what else the person is recommending you.
Also, avoid anything that is a series with more than 1500 pages like this plague.

>>8424911
>Safe Space as Rape Room
Seriously that fucking title.

>>8424981
Both those pieces of 'non-fiction' are so hyperbolic that they may as well have been sensationalist click-bait articles.

>>8424665
Is this from a fucking novel? Not an angry post arguing somewhere?
And that novel won a Hugo?
Kek, Vox was right, the bastard.

Should I pepper my fantasy novel with Christian imagery to make it seem deeper?

(Here's looking at you, Evangelion)

>>8424911
>When I think 'non-fiction works related to science fiction or fantasy' I think something like a historical account or ruminations on the genre,
Yes, like a historical account of child abuse by science fiction authors.

>>8424997
Short story. The novel that won was even more condescending.

>>8424999
You should plant your plot in Christian themes to make it actually deeper.
>Tired: amoral protagonist does amoral things, the universe is meaningless
>Wired: amoral protagonist realizes he does amoral things and goes through a 10x worse ordeal to atone; the universe is good

>>8425008

What about

>moral protagonist does amoral things while the moral antagonist does amoral things and overall the world is better

>>8424997
It's a comic short story, it's fine just like Pratchett being nom'd was fine

>>8424816

I actually thought about writing one but it turned into straight-up transgender stuff. I came up with this story that was pretty nasty and cruel but I thought it'd be fun to write, at least.

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>>8425008
>>Wired: amoral protagonist realizes he does amoral things and goes through a 10x worse ordeal to atone; the universe is good
uhh

>>8424997
Vox was right before he even knew what was going on, Harry Potter won back in 2001 for for goodness' sake.

I don't even think anybody watches the Award ceremony, otherwise they wouldn't call it "prestigious", seriously, go watch it, It's literally about 50 people in a unkept room who struggle with climbing the 4~ steps to the podium. It's live-streamed on a single 20 dollar webcam operated by baboon.

>>8425016
This part of it was an angry progressive rant on what they think Christians think like when they preach.
But assuming that wasn't the tipping point, referring to legitimate research in a fucking work of fiction is a joke.
I bet she was proud she used the word sodomite, a complex and archaic word.

Do you people really give a shit about these awards?

>>8425050
They used to indicate some quality and are pretty iconic, yeah.

>Golden Son was the most Hugo-worthy novel written in the last ten years
>doesn't even make the nom
Truly the Kali Yuga is upon us.

>>8425050
Having a Hugo does wonders for sales

The whole campaign thingy is an attempt to kill that prestige

>>8425002
>works as 'patrician' as 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens', 'My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: “The Cutie Map” Parts 1 and 2', 'Supernatural' and Avengers Capeshit and artists that can't even draw at the level of a three year old get nominated
>instead whinge about the quality of a decent novel and complaining that no one has ever heard of the book when the archives and the ability to move your hands in magical rhythms and press those impression mystical squares exist and the book has been mentioned many times on this thread before because one anon keeps shilling it
>actually posting this on a Singaporean Carpetweaving Board where 99% of individuals only care about fapping to Cantonese cartoons without actually understanding the language

Just yesterday I saw some fag complain that they got kicked from the livestream for shitposting /tv/ memes too hard and another fag celebrate that something that they could fap to won a Hugo.

It's about as prestigious as the nerve in your right buttcheek.

>>8425088
I'm not the one saying no one's heard of it. I made it partway through before dropping it because it's trash.

The Hugo's always been about novels first and short stories a distant second. Only people who read sci-fi blogs care about the sci-fi blog awards. Yeah, I'd love for Nihei or Kitoh to get on the ballot too, but no one has ever cared about Hugo-award-nominated graphic novels.

>>8424231
>>8424256
it was definitely not the highest form of literature, but the dude was like 25 or 26 when he wrote it so I'll give him a break. I think for a debut series in his 20s he did a great job with the characters, setting, and action.

>>8425096
>Voting for the awards [Hugos] is open to all members of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), and to become a member all you have to do is buy a membership in that year’s Worldcon. It is not necessary to actually attend the convention. A “supporting membership,” the cost of which varies from year to year (in 2015 it costs US$40; in 2016 it costs US$50), is all you need to join WSFS.

>3,130 valid Hugo ballots
>3,130x50 = $156,500 USD to 'have your say'

Man I wish I could start my own Hugo Awards.

>>8425087
Films make like 500 mill USD+ per film.
Book authors are basically lucky if they break minimum wage unless you're GRRM. I highly doubt the Hugos do anything for anyone except to line Hollywood with shekels.

>>8425118
People often forget that even moderately successful authors don't sell above 50k copies, somebody mentioned Scalzi, /he/ doesn't sell above 100k.

>>8425118
Going from 15k sales to 20k can make a massive difference to your per book fees

>>8424231
>they just become the better color as the result of massive surgeries.
It's not about the surgeries, the first thing Sevro does in the story is kill a kid that's twice his size because he's got the Will to Power and the other kid doesn't.

For real talk, has anyone here ever enjoyed a book more because of the author's race?

>>8425122
>>8425123
It's just fucking and horribly depressing, that's what it is. It's even more depressing that the publishers and editors take what is essentially the lion's share from the profits of any book sale.

An average art commission (and that's drawn art not the photoshop variety that's popular these days which takes five minutes) would probably set you back about 120 USD on some shithole like Deviantart where even the best artists cost the price of a coffee to hire. And since the text is basically all yours, they're essentially just packaging up your work. They're not even paying a bunch of people for their labour.

I mean this fucking article: http://mackcollier.com/so-how-much-money-will-you-make-from-writing-a-book/
$1.25 per book is all you get.

Jesus Christ.

>>8425133
So what do you think is next? Word-of-mouth on Amazon indie publishing? Japanese-style web novel-light novel ecosystem? Castalia House curation?

>>8425141
Industry crash, publishing's been panicking for years

>>8425141
"Japanese-style novel-light novel ecosystem" doesn't work in the west for so many fucking reasons, it has been tried and failed horribly.

>>8424212
The wheel of time ia a solid series. The 1st fez books at least. Malazan is shit.

>>8425128
I don't really give a fuck.

I read my books like this:
1. I pump this thread for book recommendations by noting down everything that people have spoiled, said they enjoyed they read or placed inside a recommendation chart
2. Then I google a list of recent/similar books and also note down the ones that sound good from their synopsis
3. I then mass download or overdrive and deDRM the books that I am interested in reading upon which they are sorted by author name for easy searching. If I'm desperate I'll also go to the library to collect the books and if I'm really desperate I will purchase them. Also, as the metadata contains the name of the book I can also search by book instead of merely author. The author sorting is only there because I originally used Calibre to sort my collection and that was the unchangeable default.
4. To read, I read a few chapters. If I dislike the book, it is consigned to my recycle bin. If I vacillate in my opinion over the book, it remains in the folder and I may read it later
5. Upon finishing the book and enjoying it, I may look up similar books or other books which have also been published by the author

I honestly thought for the longest time that NK Jemisin was a guy, Harper Lee was a guy and Zelazny was a female (obviously based on the surname and he sounds like a girl when he writes).

>>8424763
It's very Herocentric. Not enough world building for me. Try the 1st book. The second one is hedious.

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>>8423325
just finished the first legend of drizzy book.

personally i liked it. its a bit predictable and drizzt has a typical "im better than the rest of you" cliche about him but i found his moral dilemma intriguing. solid worldbuilding and an easy read. hopefully the sequels will have a more interesting and complex plot with bigger variety of characters other than "cruel drows".

what does /sffg/ think of the drizzt books?

>>8425141
>word of mouth amazon publishing

Honestly, that's exactly what I see becoming the dominant force in the near future. One of my online friends writes fetishy monster porn and puts the stories up for sale on amazon, for either 99 cents or $2.99, and although it doesn't turn up THAT much money, it rakes in enough to pay a couple of his bills each month. It gets directly to the readership of horny monsterfuckers who are willing to shell out for quality stories, allows faster turnaround and feedback than a traditional publisher's cycle, and he only has to deal with Amazon taking its cut, which... I think it's 25% out of each sale? 30%?

So content, sales, and marketing direct to the fans while avoiding scrupled editors blocs that normally screen out submissions which make a killing online? I think that's where we're headed with digital publishing. We've already got fanfiction and AO3, wattpad, Amazon, and the bevy of other micropublishers out there, so it's bound to keep rolling downhill until Random House is in flames and books are a niche library product only

>>8425128
Only people who are from China/Japan or are white and from Europe/USA/Canada/Russia and are of course male can actually write decent books.
So there is no reason to read anything by other """authors""" except for ironic purposes.

>>8425170
>what does /sffg/ think of the drizzt books?
They terminally damaged DnD.

>>8425172
>books are a niche library product only
>implying the libraries of the future won't be Wal-Mart kiosks where a Mexican hands out tech support pamphlets for the crappy DRM'd municipal library app

>>8424069
I get the impression that he's acting for her benefit, but I agree, that passage is insufferable.

>>8425170
>the Drizzt Do'Urden books

They're great, honestly! Drizzt himself is a bit of an embodiment of the reformed savage trope more than I'd care for, yeah, but Salvatore has a flair for making some of those standard fantasy tropes interesting and fresh again, and Drizzt himself is written so charmingly. The two series I'd recommend most of the Drizzt books are the one you're reading now (Homeland, Exile, and Sojourn), and then the Icewind Dale "sequel" series set years afterward (they were written first, but come across more enjoyable if read after the Homeland books). You can keep reading on after that if you still dig the setting and our drow protagonist, but... after that, Salvatore visibly begins running low on fresh ideas and starts recycling plots and characters.

>>8425184
i plan on reading exile and sojourn. they were given to me as a gift.
the cleric quintet caught my eye in a bookstore and was wondering thats worth the read as well?

Looking for some similar for Tiger Tiger.
I don't like another books, that bester wrote

>>8425193
Try the rest of songs of innocence and experience

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what's the best book you've ever read?

>>8425267
Stoner, Book of the New Sun, Everything That Rises Must Converge, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina

>>8425293
I've heard very good things about Book of the New Sun? What's it similar too?

>>8425299
Borges, Chesterton, Proust, Vance

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>>8425133

Yeah, it's pretty grim but I guess it could be worse. I'm writing not because I want to be rich (though that'd be nice), but because I want to create things and have people read them and so on. Even if it's only a small number of people it's still a nice feeling.

>>8425267

Slow Lightning/Infinity Beach, but I'm confident nobody else thinks it was anything special. It just satisfied my genre-mix itch.

>>8424777
Fat Dog
Fat "Man"

>>8424517
Night Angel is ridiculous but Lightbringer corrects 80% of its flaws

>>8423675
Margaret Atwood insisted she wasn't writing science fiction with Handmaid's Tale or Oryx and Crake, and apparently Philip Roth thought he was inventing alternate history in The Plot Against America.

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>>8425267
I meant this Tiger! Tiger! (The Stars My Destination)
I don't like The Demolished Man, The Computer Connection and Golem100, but The Stars My Destination/Tiger! Tiger! is fucking good.

>>8425524
Atwood is significantly worse than most SF, from Herbert and Asimov to Wolfe or Le Guin.
She's almost as bad as Heinlein in Starship Troopers.
I mean she didn't even try to make it genuine non-ideology. She makes ŽiŽek sniff very hard.
Also, is Roth retarded? TV shows, movies, of course books were done by the hundreds.

Recommendations for space (exploration) scifi novels, based on these criteria:

* no aliens

* no ftl

* no superhuman AI

* no "special" humans (genetically/technically enhanced, "gifted" etc)

* no unobtainium

All the big names in scifi seem bent on exploring very far out concepts, I'd like something that hits closer to home. The Martian (with all its faults) is kinda obvious example from the mainstream. I've also read Red Mars that mostly fits the description. By now I wouldn't mind getting off Mars to see some other places too..

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>>8424743
>decline

Measured in what, scientific advancement units?

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>>8425772
Maybe the Integral Trees by Larry Niven. Stranded survivors of a colony ship have forgotten their civilization and eke out a living in an alien environment. There is a computer and non-sentient life, though.

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>>8425772

"Moving Mars" by Greg Bear but it's more solar system political theory than Apollo 13 and also focuses on...Mars.

>>8425801
Dollars.

>>8425772
Radio Free Orbit. The AI is pretty human. Also Planetes.

>>8425801
I wonder what it's like being so enlightened you don't know what horse collars and crop rotation are

>>8425592
>>8425265

>>8425866

On second thought, scratch this. I believe they did have AI later.

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I feel kinda bad for Andy Weir.
>mfw my first novel wins the John W. Campbell Award, the Best Dramatic Long Form award, the Seiun Award, and is made into a $650 million dollar blockbuster, and everybody is waiting for my next book

>>8425772

"Sail 25" by Jack Vance technically fits the bill although it's not so much about exploration as it is a story about solar sailing written on a whim. It's a short story though.

I'm having a hard time thinking of a story that has the required omissions: "Rendevous with Rama" by Arthur Clarke fits except the artifact is alien in origin.

>>8425174
xD

>>8425605
Bruh she doesn't even identify as a feminist.

>>8425868
>Radio Free Orbit

Google did not find anything with this?

>Planetes

Anime? Well, that would be a new frontier, but maybe not exactly what I'm looking for now.

>>8425946
>Sail 25

I'll check that out.

>I'm having a hard time thinking of a story that has the required omissions

I find it bit odd that this kind of particular subgenre is so barren. I don't think it has even a name..

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>tfw I want to be a SF writer for a living
>mfw reading this thread

Welp I better hope I marry a rich girl or my country introduces UBI otherwise I'm gonna stave to death.

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>>8426019

>I find it bit odd that this kind of particular subgenre is so barren. I don't think it has even a name..

Yeah, near-Earth or near-future don't really do it justice.

"The Expanse" series, maybe? I haven't read the books; only watched the first season of the television adaptation so I don't know if there will be aliens later.

"Planetes" as suggested by >>8425868 is really good, at least in the anime adaptation of the manga. That's hardly a novel though but if you're starved for material you might risk close contact with the weaboo kind.

>>8425772
The Songs of Distant Earth
Mars Trilogy by KSR
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
The Odyssey books by Clarke but particularly 2061 and 3001.
Clarke's short stories have a lot of these, actually, just pick up the collected works.

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>>8426019
>Google did not find anything with this?
Whoops, Radio Freefall. Matthew Jarpe. Also has a lot about a future music industry. And space cockroaches.

>I find it bit odd that this kind of particular subgenre is so barren. I don't think it has even a name..
Near-future hard SF. There's a lot out there but I think it's much stronger in short stories.

>>8426050
Not if you git gud.

>>8426057
>you might risk close contact with the weaboo kind.
Planetes was my gateway anime because I wanted hard SF. Didn't take a year before I was sucked into cute girls doing cute things and ten years on... take care, anon.

>>8423325
Why exactly would that skeleton need armor?

>>8426252
He doesn't, he just died with it on and they're a booger to get off with skelehands.

>>8426258
That's pretty reasonable I guess.
>>8426019
I would like to add that despite planetes being an anime, it does not have a lot of the things that you typically associate with anime, it's a great entry-level show.

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>>8426019

I'm listening to "Tau Zero" by Poul Anderson right now and it focuses on using sub-FTL and time dilation effects. So far it seems to fit the bill, as long as you don't mind Sixties scifi and their awkward cobbling together of space yarns and social justice themes. I'm a couple of hours in and he's just now getting around to describing the ramjet.

>>8426258

That's a damned good point. Nobody would bother rezzing the skeleton squires.

>>8426272
backing up this guys comment about Planetes being entry level, it was my first anime and I really enjoyed it

>>8425128
Sure, it's not scifantasy but stuff like Bolano or Teju Cole is interesting because of the perspectives of their author

If they didn't grow up black and galican respectively their output wouldn't have that perspective.

So race is a fundamental part of why I enjoy them

>>8425128
It's not about enjoyment based on race. It's about opportunity for those who would have a harder time getting it.

>>8426399
No, their ability to present a perspective is why you enjoy them. People loved Margaret Seltzer, Leon Carmen, the Million Little Pieces guy, all those fake Holocaust memoirs.

>>8426410
Publishing houses trip over themselves to get minority voices. They don't have a harder time.

>>8426429
and no white writer is even trying to do those perspectives so stop fucking telling me what you think I'm thinking

>>8423471
I've read the first 2. I thought the original premise of the file was really cool but it wasn't really used to as good effect as it could have. Also the love interest was a massive bitch, he should've dropped her instead of chasing her.

>>8426432
Cool it, toots. Plenty of white writers try those perspectives, even if you haven't heard of them. Here, have sample. These are just some fake ones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_memoirs

>>8426429
>Publishing houses trip over themselves to get minority voices. They don't have a harder time.
And thats a good thing. Its still really easy to get published if you're white anyways

>>8426439
Neither of the authors I mentioned were writing memoirs, they are/were explicit writers of fiction.

You're moving the goalposts so hard that you've left your point behind

>>8426429
>all those fake Holocaust memoirs.
WHY IS THIS THREAD SO INFESTED WITH /pol/?

>>8426442
>And thats a good thing.
Its the textbook definition of racism.
Don't confuse equal opportunity with equal outcome.

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>>8426457
>Its the textbook definition of racism.

>>8426439
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_memoirs
Dude

Not one work on that list features a white writer writing from the perspective of another race, it's entirely irrelevant to your point

>>8426442
>And thats a good thing.
What if I don't care if my purchase is correcting some unquantifiable injustice and I just want to read something good?

>>8426451
>Neither of the authors I mentioned were writing memoirs, they are/were explicit writers of fiction.
None of the authors I mentioned were either. They wrote completely fictional memoirs that were praised for their authenticity. I'd say that sticks pretty close to the original argument.

>>8426459
Yes, choosing the books you publish based on race and not quality is racist.
It doesn't matter who you favor.

Any remotely sane person knows that.

>>8426457
the textbook definition of racism is the prejudice of others because of the belief that they are inferior

that has no relation to publishers picking up minority writers

>>8426460
Dude.
>Wanda Koolmatrie (actually Leon Carmen), My Own Sweet Time, Magabala Books, Australia (1994), was presented as an autobiographical account by an aboriginal woman born in 1949, who was taken from her mother and raised by white foster parents. Its true author was Leon Carmen, a white Australian male taxi driver with literary aspirations who believed that he could not have gotten published under his own identity. The publisher discovered the hoax when Carmen attempted to publish a sequel.

>>8426466
>that has no relation to publishers picking up minority writers
They should pick based on quality.
If they choose a black person instead of a white person because the person is black they descriminate based on the prejudice that white people are worse writers then black people.
Aka your exact definition of racism.

Even little amount of rational thinking would tell you that.

>>8426474
It has fucking nothing to do with quality

Publishers pick up what sells and right now minority authors bring in sales from an audience that other books don't

I don't know why you think a capitalist industry (and a struggling one at that) is hiring because of some political view, that's horseshit you've invented

>>8423857
>look mom I posted it again

>>8426474
>If they choose a black person instead of a white person because the person is black they descriminate based on the prejudice that white people are worse writers then black people.
More likely they discriminate based on the idea that black people are disadvantaged and they're correcting that perceived imbalance - which is also far from optimal, and probably not how the black writers want to be treated if anyone actually asked them.

>>8426437
True, I kept thinking of all the cool things that could be done with the file while reading it. I can understand why the author didn't write any of them in, the book would become eccentric and complicated which is not a bad thing but probably not what he wanted out of it.
The second one was the weakest in the series but I think the third makes up for it.

>>8426486
>I don't know why you think a capitalist industry (and a struggling one at that) is hiring because of some political view,
Because they say it on their websites?
http://publishing.tor.com/submissions/
>In addition, both Lee Harris and Carl Engle-Laird actively request submissions from writers from underrepresented populations.

>>8426486
>It has fucking nothing to do with quality
That is why sci-fi/fantasy has gone to shit in recent years and the only decent mainstream books are not from the West.

There have been certain reactions to the Hugo's that exactly agree with your statement.

>>8425772
The Expanse series. Set in our human colonized solar system. No AI, no ftl, no specials, no magic resource everyone wants, but there is an alien presence. No aliens, just some of their ancient tech that shouldn't have been dug up and is making trouble for everyone. The plot revolves around the averagely human protagonists and the interactions of the different factions.

>>8426332
Tau Zero seems interesting, definitely putting it high on my reading list

I'm also making a note of all the positive comments Planetes has gotten

guise, could we please take the race discussion elsewhere, it is really offtopic here.

>>8426505
I didn't even know Tor were still attempting submissions, they were complaining about receiving 200+ full-sized novels a day last I heard.

>>8426486
>Publishers pick up what sells and right now minority authors bring in sales from an audience that other books don't

Somebody literally refuted this before you even made this post, did you even read the thread?

>>8426542
>just some of their ancient tech that shouldn't have been dug up and is making trouble for everyone.
And here I was a showonlyfag thinking it was grey goo. Oh well.

That scene in the hotel lobby was ace though.

>>8426461
Then read something you think sounds good. Do you think brown people inherently can't write or something?

>>8426474
Calm down there Bobby Smith. Go fuck your cousin Sue until you're feeling better.

>>8426565
Is that a trick question?

Yeah, Planetes is pretty cool. The first couple discs have bonus interviews with NASA staff that track orbital debris.

>>8426565
>Then read something you think sounds good.
That's what I'm trying to do. It's a lot harder when affirmative action writers like Jemisin get undeserved fanfare. I thought Fifth Season sounded good, I really did, but it was just some poor sick soul working out her issues on paper.

>>8426571
Don't you agree that publishers should choose their authors based on quality?

Personally I want to read good books and don't give a fuck about the amount of melanin an author has under his skin.

>>8426576
One of the handful shows I've dropped. Honestly don't get why people like it, it's super boring

>>8426561
Don't beat yourself up over it, for all they've shown it acts just like some grey goo. Expect the part where they say that they found it on some moon implying that they didn't make it implying that it is of alien origin.

>>8426588
I can headcanon little things like that. Thanks, anon.

>>8426585
I could see that if you were watching because it was an anime. The level of realism attempted tends toward a slower pacing.

>>8424654
You haven't seen anything, check out the current Hugo award for best novel.

>LET’S START WITH THE END of the world, why don’t we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.
>Pyramids are the most stable architectural form, and this one is pyramids times five because why not?
>The Black Star is where the leaders of the empire meet to do their leaderish things.
>None of these places or people matter, by the way. I simply point them out for context.

You can't make this shit up.

>>8426561
>>8426542
How much does the expanse show cover so far, is it the whole first book?

>>8426632
Half, more or less. S1 ends with Eros.

>>8426602
man you really can't handle an informal narrator without wigging out

>>8426641
Oh that's perfect, I stopped like halfway through and wanted to use the show to remind myself of the story

thanks

>>8426650
Zelazny did great informal narrators. I can handle Stephenson's informal voice just fine. Jemisin reads like she's a CIA experiment in transferring the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard into prose.

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>>8423800
>>8423928

>>8426650
Go back to spamming blacked threads on /tv/, please.

>>8426492
Kek
I was just going to post that.

It's a carbon copy from the previous post.

>>8424212
>pretends he actually read the books
>just taking multiple meme posts and memeizing them even more

>>8424336
>The fourth book in the series is due out in a little less than a month, actually
Anon... I have some bad news for you...

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>>8426809
REMOVE RAMA

If we're speaking modern, heard of The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts? I try to mention it at least once a month, because it's bloody spectacular.

>>8426583
If that was the case about 90% of Baen's authors would be unemployed and unpublished, and about 80% of other genre fiction writers.

>>8426919
You may not believe it but those are usually the best out of their submissions. Vast, vast majority of submissions are hideously bad.

>>8426466
Nope textbook definition of racism is treating someone differently because of race.

Also holy shit the amount of leftards here.

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if you are interested here are a ton of weird westerns from Story Bundle for those who like this kind of genre spec fiction, all professional writers
https://storybundle.com/weird#buy_now

>>8426967
>spellslinger
my g

>>8426957
They literally quoted a dictionary definition...

>>8426973
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination

guess what treating non-whites differently falls under

>>8426332
>social justice themes.
Ewwww

>>8427044
treat them as irony!
also OW the edge

>>8426460
There's The Education of Little Tree, which was presented as a non-fiction memoir of a cherokee boy, but was actually written by a white supremacist KKK member and speech writer for the infamous George Wallace. He was the one that coined the phrase "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever". Even more delicious was the fact that it was at one point featured on the Oprah book club.

>>8426665
I found Zelazny, Vance, Kay and Jemisin all to be fine.

>>8426665
>>8426602
The narrator is a cannibal gargoyle with amnesia, the attitude makes sense in context.

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>>8426957
>read thread from top to bottom
>takes more than an hour
>100+ post are dedicated to /pol/posting
Remember to sage hide and report pol posts. They are fucking up our general desu..

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>>8426957
>Also holy shit the amount of leftards here.
/lit/ was a predominately leftist board until you stinky /pol/cucks started squatting here.

>>8424009
He is someone thanks to /tv/

Yo hol up, if the planet in mistborn is only habitable on the north and south poles, does that mean theres another civilization on the other side of the world?
Also, does this planet have a moon? Ive seen no mention of one?
Also, since they're at the pole, doesn't that mean they should have whacky lengths to their days in summer and winter? Like days with constant sun and days with almost no sun?

>>8427477
who gives a shit

>>8427477
Being this invested into fantasy

Kill yourself faggot

>>8426978
Look, you're on 4chan so your only choices are being a neo-nazi who loves racial discrimination (and only dislikes it here because your people don't run publishing houses), or a socialist who loves racial discrimination as long as it hurts whites.

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>>8427477
Keep reading, faggot.

>>8425293
>Everything that rises must converge

Noice!

>>8423857
>Author's name is bigger than the title
>Dropped

>blurb/summary says "after bad thing happened...."
>bad thing takes 1/3rd of the book to happen

tfw when you're reading a book assuming it's subtle scifi like New Sun and then you realise you read the description wrong and it's just fantasy

>>8428002
I dunno, sometimes you can wedge "pure" fantasy into a contrived sci-fi scenario. Not the best example for many reasons, but there are still a lot of people who think ASOIAF will reveal some kind of sci-fi origin for the setting. (Malfunctioning generation ship, planet with an unusual orbit, something like that.)

>>8427975

>blurb implies obvious treachery
>spend half the book waiting to get it over with

>>8427975
>half the blurb is just namedropping other authors or series

>"It's a book!" - George R.R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones

>>8427975
>blurb implies romance will be a main part of the book
>they dont actually meet each other till the book is 75% done

>>8428124
>Blurb is in praise of a different book the author wrote previously

>>8427975
>Book is called Kingkiller Chronicle
>No kings are killed

>>8428117
>"Me and my wife read it while we were fucking Stoya and it was mesmerizing." - Neil Gaiman

>>8428178
>I've never actually seen one of your films
Yeah fucking right Neil, literally no one buys that

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>>8428205
I want to be like Neil Gaiman one day. Hordes of cute goth girls want his dick and he can oblige them while still being happily married.

>>8428154
>was waiting for that too

Besides cutting all of the filler, what would have made WoT a better series?

>only have 3 pov characters max

>>8428288
More Mat chapters

Less Mat being sick for the first three books

>>8428288
I have an inherent problem with the premise

prophesy is such a boring thing in fantasy

>>8428288
I don't really think the premise is strong enough for 13 books

If you're going above 5 books then I don't think your story can be one long hero quest

do you guys read more than one book at a time? I usually read 2 books at a time but 1 is usually comprised of short stories so I read one story and then keep on with the longer book and when I get a bit tired of it or feel like reading something different I read another short story.

>>8428353
I am currently, but only because I don't want to drag my Malazan hardbacks to work.

>>8428353
If I get bored yeah

Usually happens when the authors made it obvious some plot point is going to happen but then they drag out it actually happening

Especially when it's something bad for the protagonist

>>8428318
I'd say Sword of Truth actually dealt with prophecy really well, too bad most of the other stuff reads like an Ayn Rand work.

>>8428178
>>8428205
Is there a meme I'm missing here?

>>8428388
It was fine up until the 6th book I think. After that it just became Ayn Rand: the fantasy novel

>>8428396
Stoya is a pornstar who is friends with Neil Gaiman. Neil has probably tapped dat ass.

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>>8427477
I'm guessing this mistborn planet north pole is close to parallel with it's star and it's too close to it like Mercury?

For north/south pole Mercury to be habitable by a civilization you have to supersize it and/or have huge wall naturally like from a crater or human made to regulate the temp, I'm guessing.

http://www.space.com/27450-messenger-mercury-water-ice-photos.html

>another civilization on the other side of the world?
That civilization have to live in a protective bubble to deal with hot/freezing contrast daily. Or just run with the rotation lol.

>Also, since they're at the pole, doesn't that mean they should have whacky lengths to their days in summer and winter? Like days with constant sun and days with almost no sun?
Assuming Mercury like, it's constant sunset that travels along the horizon. What's a cool name for that?

>>8428353
Not usually. I prefer focusing on a book until it's done without switching to a different one. In college I had to learn how to alternate books though. Length of the books was not really an issue, it was the difficulty of them that necessitated going slowly and only reading them in small chunks.

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>>8427477
>>8428432
Scratch that. Mercury's sunrise is way weirder than that.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/media/8-Wonders/09-Mercury.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPprOO2u1gk

Pic related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhWMOkrzKzs

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I finished "City of Light" by Keri Arthur the other day, this paperback that was in the new section at the library I work at. It was... relatively solid, more or less, as a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid novel. It's set in this alternate universe Earth world around 100 years after the war between the humans and witches vs. the shapeshifters accidentally caused the apocalypse, creating these dimensional rifts that unleashed demons in certain parts of the world.

The main cities cower behind UV-lit walls from the possibility of another rift opening up and spewing demons, and from the vampires that spread in the wake of humanity and the shapeshifters' retreat. The main character is this genetic experiment Tiger, made during the war by the humans as an infiltrator-class shapeshifter to seduce and extract info, and assassinate, shifter targets, and is one of the only surviving "dechet" (disposable experiments). Her powerset is kind of Mary Sue-ish (mostly shapeshifter, some human, a bit vampire, and a touch of witch; and can turn into shadows, hide with optical camouflage, prolonged lifespan, can speed-heal, and change her appearance), but they rendered her personality pretty well. Socially awkward, kind of a standoffish bitch, nobody likes her except the ghosts that live in her bunker. Pretty fast paced with intrigue, and the pending sequel sort of hedges at the bits of plot the author overlooked, but I'd definitely read it. It skews more "magic and science as magic" interchangably, which bothered me somewhat because neither is very well demarcated from the other, but still enjoyable to read.

>>8428432
>what's a cool name for that
Eternal sunset? Crepsucular continuum? The twilight zo--wait, no.

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>>8428494
>Eternal sunset?
If it moves up and down, then sunbob.
>Crepuscular continuum? The twilight zo--wait, no.
Cool word. But only exist if dawn and dusk exist. Which comes rarely or almost always in Mercury depending on which pole you're at, or never in some pole craters, which is perma-nocte.

Whew. No wonder accurate Sci-Fi is hard. Like the book you're describing, vague when it gets to close to explanation, let alone science.

Even pic related is falsely called Earthrise. It's catchy though.

>>8428568
Nice post.

A planet close to the sun would become tidally locked long before life can develop. If life developed at all, it would happen in the twilight zone.

For those who weren't there at the time, the Earthrise pic was taken from an Apollo capsule after it went round behind the Moon.

>author makes the main character a divine mary sue unlikable bitch and you can't actually tell if it's intentional or not

I'm leaning towards not because the author says it's based on her daughter. Still, I'm pretty mad.

>>8428701
hey, if nothing else, she's better about it than other authors, who do the "I'm a complete asshole to everyone and everybody loves me, and I dress like I crawled out of a factory bombing in a sack yet everyone wants to fuck me anyway" schtick.

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>>8428701
>>8428742
I believe this particular brand of character is commonly referred to as a tsundere.

What book is this?

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>>8428742
>>8428748

Pftt, if only it was tsundere. Going to just vent this all:

The book's about a demigodess daughter of a human magic priestess and a male centaur shaman. Unlike all the other kids she's born with satyr legs and is inhumanly beautiful and worshipped, but she wants to be a normal girl with normal friends! So she goes on a quest to rebuild a castle because the magic horse god pointed her towards it as a way to make people see her as a regular human ruler instead of a goddess.

So she does go and manages to make two wonderful friends, a cool smart snarky centaur lady with white hair and white skin and white fur etc and a "normal" person, a cute young girl who actually has a flaw where she's not ugly, just beautiful and pretty but she was fucking disfigured in a fire so nobody likes her. The protag literally describes her as a partially-melted wax statue at one point. So they become gal pals and also the protag's sexy handsome cool human brother who's cheeky and rogueish comes along too and he falls in love with the burnt-face girl, but they spend half the book with her thinking he's trying to give her pity-sex which was kinda cute but took way too long.

The other half of the story is about the protag's love interest, a fucking renegade half-demon boy who's pretty and has bat wings and leads a clan of half-demons who are the offspring of an army of evil rape-demons. But you don't understand anon! These half-demons are gentle souls, they're just tormented by the evil in their blood! so there's this prophecy they need to get the blood of the demigoddess bitch to cure their crazy edgelordness, but the leader boy has been having erotic dreams about the protag and wants to marry her and runs off to meet. They hook up and demonstrate feminist sex by having the girl take the lead while they fuck to prevent his evil murder-sex-urges. Protag then spends most of the book wondering how she can convince everyone to let her marry a gargoyle-demon.

cont'd

>>8428785
So end of the book is burnt-face and brother hooking up finally, and she goes skipping through the forest all happy at her good fortune. Turns out though that the demon guy told his followers a fucking retarded lie that the demigoddess wasn't here and one of them finds burnt-face and murders her to draw the protagonist out. burnt-face dies thanking the horse god that she had a brief bit of happiness in her short and horrible life, and demon boy captures his former colleagues and confronts the humans. The whole magic blood thing comes out and the protag decides to sacrifice herself to take the evil blood curse or whatever into her and save the demons, which is clearly stated to kill her/drive her mad. Of course she comes out perfectly fine, the demons are saved and the people let her marry her gargoyle.

Meanwhile the brother is depressed as fuck and leaves after burying his waifu. Protag watches him go and literally I shit you not says she hopes he finds someone new and gets over it.

The book's called Elphame's Choice by PC Cast who also wrote a centaur book but like fuck I'm reading that. Jesus. I mean really, why make a character to completely shit on like that and pair her with a character that has only good shit happen to them? Is it some sort of subtle criticism of her daughter's relationships? I'm honestly hoping that it's something like that because it was too cruel at face value. The only good parts in the book are about the brother and the burnt girl's relationship.

>>8428353
Sort of. I'm usually reading a new book when I can have eyes on the page, and listening to an audiobook of something I've read previously while commuting, running errands, doing chores, etc.

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So much aimless edgy drivel is contained in this book.
Absolutely awful.

Damn The Fifth Season seems to have a lot of hype around it. I wonder if it's really that good, gotta check it out soon

>>8428867
I read Fifth Season/The Obelisk Gate and it was so good that now every other book I see looks like complete shit.

Post book depression.

>>8428867
I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not perfect.

It pushes the envelope in terms of its subject and its perspective/structure. In terms of subject, it takes place in a future where humanity fucked up the planet on a tectonic level and was stuck on the planet getting fucked over by constant volcanoes and tsunamis and shit, which is an interesting change from the more common sci-fi themes of "oops we fucked up the planet, time to emigrate to space" or even just "woo space exploration let's get off this boring rock." This whole world is focused on the ground, not on space. It's Mad Max-ish. Plus it has a crotchety murderous middle-aged-lady protagonist, which is fun.

But it's also littered with Jemisin-isms. Someone upthread complained about her casual narration, which is a thing she's been doing since her debut novel, and if it jars you then you're going to be frustrated by it for the whole book. She has a social justice boner the size of the sun, and there are these occasional moments of "btw this person is trans" or "btw this person is a lesbian" that jar you out of the book for a minute and then are never relevant again. They're few and far between, but they are there, like nails sticking out of a board. And the first book is essentially three novellas, which you might like because it gives you an expanded perspective on this weird setting, or might dislike because you want to go back to to the crotchety middle-aged lady protagonist but the next chapter is about the loli protagonist.

In the end? Compared to Hugo-nominee and Nebula-winner "Uprooted," "The Fifth Season" is much less polished but also much more fresh and ambitious. Worth reading, but imperfect.

>>8428867
Warning you will attract shitposts once /pol/ posters get out of bed

Traitor Baru is really enjoyable

More books should try for fantasy that isn't about war/assassination, it's fun. Daniel Abraham's the only other author I can think of who does economic fantasy.

>>8428909
Damn that /pol/ bogeyman, always posting things I degree with!

>>8428909

I probably shouldn't bring up the book I'm currently reading with the alternate history where enlightened africans travel to europe and merge with the tribes there to fight the roman empire then.

>>8428937
What's it called?

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>>8428867
>Damn The Fifth Season seems to have a lot of hype around it

Where? Sometimes I swear half of /lit/ lives in an alternative dimension, I barely see any discussion of anything post-1990 or the popular three.

>>8428944
That's because you only come here. It just won a Hugo and I'm reading several comments like "best book I've read in years".

>>8428944
It gets brought up at least once every thread since 5 weeks ago I haven't shut up about it once.

>>8428947
Oh, your talking about Reddit.

Charts were a mistake.

>>8428940

Spirit Walker trilogy.

>>8428956
That's the book I picked up when I was a kid and ended up permanently scarred after reading it and with a whole ton of nightmares because it was so weird.

>Hi, I'm from Reddit, I'm reading [Insert book written my a minority], It's the best! you should get it out
>15 cent has been deposited into your account

>>8428961
*unless I appear to be mixing it up with another book

>>8428953
>>8428962
le reddit boogeyman

>>8428944
There's almost nothing in this thread that's pre-1990 you fucking mongoloid

>>8428965

You might be, I think this one is pretty recent. It's by a chick named Kate Elliot.

>>8428969
>When you get linked to a comment but your to lazy to read anything above it
God dammit /co/

>>8428953
>Charts were a mistake.
No? How else am I going to find my books? Stop scaring me anon.

>>8428972
Yeah I don't think I read that.

>>8428965
Probably Spirit Walker by Michelle Paver

That's mystical cavemen adventures with acid trips

>>8428978
>acid trips
Yes, that's the novel.

>>8428937
Why are you reading children's fiction Anon?

It's literally below the level of YA.

>>8428985

The romans are evil anon! They conquered and gave a bunch of nations false names! only with the help of the magical blacks can we reclaim them and refer to the lands by their true names!

I'm not kidding, incidentally:

>Uncle’s exasperation was as sharp as a fire being extinguished by a blast of damp wind, but my curiosity was aflame. “Aren’t those the words being said by the radicals’ poet, the one who declaims every evening on Northgate Road? I say, we should fear the end of the orderly world we know. We should fear being swallowed by storm and flood until we are drowned in a watery abyss of our own making.”

>“Spoken like a Phoenician,” said the visitor with a low laugh that made me pinch my lips together in anger.

>“We are called Kena’ani, not Phoenician,” retorted my uncle stiffly.

The book is full of this.

So I recently finished the Farseer Trilogy and I found it enjoyable, but the ending seemed pretty weak. Has anyone read any of the other Elderlings trilogies and if so were they worth reading?

>>8429075
Her fitz stuff is of about that quality through every series

Liveships isn't that well received but I liked it, it's different.

>>8429104
Are all the series endings unsatisfying as well?

>>8429111
Liveship ending's almost a direct reaction to people not liking assassin trilogy's ending but it almost goes too far the other way.

I think I made it to like the third Fitz book and I just didn't want to continue. Everything that happened to that guy felt horribly unfair.

>>8429119
Would you say the journey is good enough to justify the ending?

>>8429124
I think I was in the second when I stopped

The tone was so dour that I wasn't really enjoying it

>>8429138
It's quite padded, give the first book a go and drop it if you don't like it