/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

I'm at the second book of Prince of Nothing.

I like it so far, lots of random namedrop but whatever.

Question, is there any other fantasy book with a perfect main character that pretty much wins every time, everyone loves him, is always the smartest and strongest and generally is simply godlike?

I love Kellhus desu and I'm not even gay.

>>8429427
>I love kellhus

Wew lad I am fucking triggered

>>8429332
Bashrag were mentioned often, but didnt show up until The Judging Eye

>>8429415
Last two threads have been nothing but genre trash, seems it will stay that way. Plebieans have overrun this place, OP being one of them.
For discussion on non-autistic, non-power fantasy we'll probably have to go back to specific threads.

>>8429578
Leave then. The less Wolfe autists the better.

i read Blindsight and i loved every aspect of it

any similar recommendations?

>>8429582
The sequel?

>>8429581
I stick around because it's a fast thread, every once in a while there is something that isn't completely autistic power fantasy discussion.
>>8429582
Solaris probably. It's also pretty short. The prose isn't very pretty, but the pseudo scientific theories and the unresolved nature of the work are quite compelling.

>>8429582
Seconding Solaris.
It features alot of similar themes and I enjoyed it.

The sequel is also nice but it is mostly unrelated to Blindsight and it's themes besides some very spoilery things.

>>8429652
Mostly unrelated? The overarching thems of Blindsight are consciousness and free will, while Echopraxia delves into faith and prophecy. I'd say the two are very related.

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>>8429578
>Invites Reddit with open arms
>Complains when threads have turned to shit
You dug your own grave

>been reading the Dune books in the past few weeks
>loved the first, thought Messiah was super mediocre
>pick up the third with lowered expectations
>it's super fucking good so far

Just finished the chapter where Alia reveals herself as being possessed by the Baron, holy shit that was a good chapter! How many more twists and turns am I going to experience, /lit/

And please remember spoilers

>>8429741
I was talking more about unrelated plot wise.
It is not a true sequel and doent really continue the events of Blindsight but rather put's a new spin on them.

The themes of both novels are complementary but Blindsight still works as a standalone novel.

>>8429793
She dies and resurrects as Paul.

>>8429578
>non-autistic, non-power fantasy
List 'em

So I made a mistake /sffg/. I decided I would revisit a YA series I read in the early 00s, Artemis Fowl. It was like being subjected to preachy self insert fan fiction. What's galling is I can't ever remember there being this much heavy handed environmentalism, to the extent that I almost feel like the entire series was written solely as a platform for it.

>>8429949
>I can't ever remember there being this much heavy handed environmentalism
No anon, you've just been indoctrinated to believe in alt-right "the liberals are coming" conspiracy theories since then.

>>8429959
You haven't read the books have you?

>>8429959
>Not content with ruining the last couple of threads Reddit returns for more.

>>8429961
Not since I was a kid. I seriously doubt they would hold up now. I'm just taken aback that "environmentalism" is now a bogeyman in this thread, of all places.

>>8429949
>>8429976
I can sort of see where anon is coming from, since there's an entire book about rescuing an endangered lemur, but to be fair he needs to harvest its brain fluid rather than just being an eco-crusader or something.

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I don't get bakker hate desu
prince of nothing was great

>tfw no nayu bf

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Not directly related to the thread, but does anyone else experience weird shit happening with Philip K. Dick books on Kindle Paperwhite? They sometimes disappear entirely, then they all reappear as first ones in queue after you restart or charge the device. This happens to all PKD books I have on mine (they're all non-Amazon "backups") and no other book with one exception of a title whose author is 'Platon'.

>>8430013
Get started on aspect emperor now senpai

>Tfw no skinspy gf

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>>8429415

someone's insecure

>>8430117
Maybe you downloaded a bunch of PKD de-DRM'd rips that were all processed in the same way into the same non-standard format. Maybe the other book coincidentally has the same issue. It just makes sense to me that it is more likely there is someone out there who likes PKD and uploads free epubs that cause a bug on your kindle model, than that somehow the kindle bugs out only when the author is named "Dick" or "Platon."

Deleted all the screwed up ones from your device, and try replacing them with some different "backups" to see if the problem persists. Make sure you don't just download the exact same file again--check the filesize and look for one that is different. Many free download sites have copies of the same rips, but they also often have multiple different rips of the same titles.

>>8430204
I got them all from different places, some being scans while others are from retail. It would be quite a coincidence if your hypothesis turned out to be true.

I'll try it anyway, though, and I'll also try making a fake book with PKD as author. Thanks.

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Any books with little girl protagonists?

>>8429949
>What's galling is I can't ever remember there being this much heavy handed environmentalism
He kind of piles it on man, even as a kid I noticed it.

Can anyone suggest similar stuff to Cordwainer Smith?

>>8430421
Non-children's? Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age." Madeline Ashby's "vN" had a little girl protag, but I can't remember how far into the story she ages up. NK Jemisin's "The Fifth Season"/"The Obelisk Gate" has a little girl protag for a third of the first book and half of the second.

Children's/YA: Narnia, Django Wexler's "The Forbidden Library," and Catherynne Valente's "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making" all have little girl protagonists as far as I can remember. I feel like I must be missing a Neil Gaiman book, too.

>>8430512
>I feel like I must be missing a Neil Gaiman book, too.
Coraline. And Mieville's Un Lun Dun is another one.

>>8429793
>thought Messiah was super mediocre
Well, seems that you unfortunately have pleb taste, but if you've come this far you should enjoy all six.

>>8430118
I haven't read this Bakker guy, but these skinspies seem to be a rip off of face dancers from Dune
Should I give it a shot? I really liked the face dancers..

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>>8429949
>reread the edge chronicles which I started at age 10
>even better the second time around

I feel bad for people who read trash like harry potter as kids.

>>8430539
Bakker's work is heavily inspired by dune.

Read it if you want Tolkien meets dune

>>8429415
>serving of sanderson not optional
>bring your own little girl protagonist
>gri welcomed
What is that shit by his leg?
>IJ
This general is nothing but memes

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>be kaladin
>19 years old in the prime of his youth
>been abstinent for over a year
>spren appears to him in the form of a young girl
>doesn't immediately strip her down and start rubbing her on his dick

explain

>>8430596
Spren are not for sexualization

>>8430578
>What is that shit by his leg?
Spaghetti

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>Straylian author
>Every five pages is someone getting tortured or murdered in a 'ritual' of getting power
>Every chapter of the book one particular character gets tortured, abused and he never actually gets any chance to heal if you read carefully because he gets fucked with so often. In the latter part, he ends up getting tortured to figure out why the other mages were torturing him
>I GET MY POWER FROM THE PAIN OF OTHERS
>protag pisses people off by acting as an anaesthetic
>protag also pisses people off by accidentally acting setting shit on fire and bringing down lightning
>The main villain doesn't appear but he does appear mentally and expresses how fucking done he is with his subvillain
>For some reason, the main villain is turbofaggot gay and rapes the subvillain and everyone else in the ass while the subvillain prefers women
>The ideal world of a good subsection of characters is a gigantic palace where you can fuck anyone who likes it and eat good food
>The subvillain is all 'she'll be right mate' (and seems perfectly fine despite the fact that his entire back is basically flayed open all he really experiences is the pain of a bad sunburn)
>they get attacked by bogans who have slaves and whose most defining feature is that they don't know how to torture people properly

>conclusion of the book
>the faggot with the magical books actually just puts them in stone to prevent people from photocopying them
>subvillain has achieved shit all and the villain hasn't appeared at all in 99999 pages and the subvillain and the protagonist both can't overthrow him
>protagonist spends the entire fucking book running away from the subvillain who essentially does shit all except counsel her crippled boyfriend on his life choices on the fact that euthanasia/suicide is immoral
>also subvillain isn't i-in love with the protagonist b-baka
>protagonist does a repeat of the bali-9 drug smuggles except with a communication devie

>>8430540
that pic looks magical af , I'm considering starting the series

>>8430754
I'm confused, are there multiple subvillians or is the main villain gay for raping a female in the ass?

>>8429427
oh hey me too. except I'm doing the audiobooks. so far it's pretty good but I would've enjoyed an entire book from the perspective of Kellhus. I think the strongest part so far was the beginning of book one where he's out wandering in the forest.

>>8430540

What's beyond the deep woods?

>>8431010
A big library full of cp

>>8430754
which author?

New to /lit/
Currently writing a scifi time travel story
What do you anons like in scifi? In time travel? In stories in general?

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>Dancers Lament
Fucking incredible. It only took this hack seven books to make something worth a damn.

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Anybody read this? Worth reading?

>>8429415
What books are similar in world to Perdido Street Station?
That sort of grimy, and weird world.

>>8430850
Subvillain is a straight male
The villain behind everything is gay

>>8431148
Check last thread.
The book which I complained was edgy shit.

>>8430421
His Dark Material has a pre-teen main character.

>>8431238
I'm not reading the whole previous thread to satisfy an idle curiosity

not sure why you couldn't just say

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>>8430795
The first book was intended for quite young children so it focusses on weird creatures and doesnt have much of a plot, but still a fun read. After that the books improve in quality massively with every release and have a very strong sense of history and continuity.

I read the first one in early grade school and kept up with them until just before high school, then reread them and read the ones I hadn't after entering uni. I was seriously blown away by them after all that time, even discounting the nostalgia factor. The authors are clearly deeply in love with what they've made and want others to fall in love with it too. I could reccomend it for the drawings alone but the writing is just as fun.

Was anyone else really happy as a dog when they were reading The Dracula by Bram Stoker?

>>8431279

No, I was quite sad as a bat when I was reading it

>>8431279
I kinda was, yeah. Expected it to be boring due to the journal format and all, but was pleasantly surprised.

>>8430479
What did you like about Cordwainer Smith?

If you're chasing the dragon of "Scanners Live In Vain" then sorry, it's one of a kind.

If you liked "Crazy Adventures Around the Universe" try The Demon Princes by Jack Vance.

If you liked the "biopunk" aspects maybe Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling but I'd read a longer description first.

"Christianity Among The Alien" try CS Lewis' Space Trilogy.

If you're a furry maybe look into CJ Cherryh's Pride of Chanur.

>>8431184
>Esselmont books worth reading

Since when

Did Abercrombie copy GRRM here?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14S6gu2EWJKK85f9jRq9yjYvhHEfKgbJzcJoHUgtQCBo/edit?pref=2&pli=1

>>8431331

Did you write that document?

>>8431331
I doubt it. While GRRM does portray a lot of fantasy tropes through a unique frame, it is still just a collection of common tropes. Young girls wanting to become knights/warriors/heroes is super common. As is having her learn to use a sword (shields are for no name extras) in a style of fighting that emphasizes speed since that implies skill and avoids the problem of explaining why she doesn't have a broken nose yet. Also allows her to be cute and petite while still being dangerous in a fight.

Same thing with the blacksmith shit. The word choice itself is also pretty common to fantasy works in general, especially to works about young girls breaking the mold and blacksmiths.

Does Abercombie have any runaway magical princesses who must return to her homeland to reclaim her throne from the evil incestuous family of blondes and save her people from the encroaching armies of the dead who come from the frozen northern lands? It's just the same shit, different book. It's the details that matter, not the overarching ideas.

How long have these /sffg/ threads been going? I know there has always been threads on sci-fi and fantasy, but I didn't notice there being generals much in the past.

Coincidentally I've been buying a lot of sci-fi and fantasy books, before I noticed the generals. Bought 9 books and I'm slowly progressing through 2 of them right now (I'm a slow reader).

>>8431384
Theyve been going pretty consistently for quite a while

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>>8431247
He has multiple dark materials, not just one.

>>8431384
>Bought 9 books and I'm slowly progressing through 2 of them right now
What are they? Any good?

>>8431399
Mostly well known books...

Dune
Ringworld
The Forever War
Shadow & Claw
Destination: Void by Frank Herbert
Starhammer by Christopher B. Rowley
Children of the Dragon by Frank S. Robinson
Dark is the Sun by Philip Jose Farmer
Daystar and Shadow by James B. Johnson

Started with Destination: Void and Starhammer. So far, the premise is losing me in Destination and I've been consistently engaged in Starhammer, even though Starhammer's intro has some rough spots.

>>8431410
Drop Ringworld and pick up Rendezvouz with Rama instead

>>8431432
Appreciate it man. I'm willing to check out both. I'm pretty new to sci-fi and just want to read all kinds of books at this point.

>>8431272
>writing is just as fun.

Glad to hear it's a fun kind of series since I'm not the grimdark kind of guy for my fantasy, and yeah those drawings look amazing so I might pick it up. Question, would you recommend to read them in publication or chronological order?

>>8431250
I can't remember what it's called of the top of my head and also I'd feel bad spoiling the plot (either spoiler the whole thing or refer to it vaguely)

>>8431361
Found it on Joe's twitter

What are the best short stories by Harlan Ellison other than I Have No Mouth?

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>>8431551
Get the particular Harlan book in pic related, it has multiple stories.(his best)

>>8431165
I enjoy extremely complicated closed time loops, paradoxes, Blinovitch, alternate universe and Abusing the Kardashev Scale for Fun and Profit.

The most obvious examples of this are drawn from the Hyperion Cantos (Sol's story is excellent + the overarching plot) and Doctor Who (which has numerous examples, but I'll list my favourite stories here.

Audio plays: The Chimes of Midnight [mystery/horror], Night Thoughts [mystery/horror], Peri and Piscon Paradox [humour/tragedy], The Natural History of Fear [dystopian/mystery], The Tub Full of Cats [tragedy], The Holy Terror [dystopian/tragedy], Master [tragedy], Forty-Five (only the Word Lord), A Death in the Family [tragedy])

Books: (new books are awful compared to the old ones) Interference 1+2 (Miles Lawrence), Of the City of the Saved (Philip Purser-Hallard) - spinoff doesn't require knowledge of franchise, Alien Bodies (Lawrence Miles), Human Nature (Paul Cornell), The Ancestor Cell (Stephen Cole and Peter Anghelides), Father Time (Lance Parkins), Fear Itself (Nick Wallace)

TV: Heaven Sent, Blink, Father's Day, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, Midnight

Between them you've probably got a huge number of possible time travel plot points covered.

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>tfw no 43 year old murderous milf origin whose pussy is flowing something fierce for a good pumping
>tfw you will never make her bed rock and feel her shake the bedrock with orgasms
Why live?

>>8431614
What

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>>8431614

>>8431613
>Purser-Hallard
His Arthurian thing was surprisingly solid, didn't know he came from the tv spinoff ghetto.

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>ywn have a fan knit life-size versions of your monsters

>>8431627
If it's Arthurian that's probably not Doctor Who based.

But a whole bunch of random authors have written for the show at one point or the other.

For example, Douglas Adams. 'Shada' contains characters he later reuses in other books, like Professor Chronotis gets put into Dirk Gently and he writes a character suspiciously like the Doctor in Hitchikers.

Anyway, most of the best work was produced during the 'wilderness years' where the show was cancelled and fans essentially wrote whatever they want which ended up with some excellent stories, some experimental stories and some awful stories. After the series returned to television, the BBC put its foot down and the quality of the books became shit thereafter with very poor prose seemingly written with an OCD YA audience in mind.

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>>8431637
Yeah, I meant the Pendragon book(s) - picked them up randomly from chart related expecting just your standard "Round Table + enemies in modern day" pulp, but he goes deep into all sorts of symbology/meme theory stuff with the various Knights' sigils. Time travel from him sounds neat.

>>8431632
Dammit anon, stop posting cute Mievilles at 3am

>>8431644
That's interesting.

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>>8431648
No.

>>8431632
>>8431651
Best arms in SFF

>>8431632
>tfw Mieville is finished as a writer unable to write anything above 200 pages
What happened between 2012 and 2016 to end his career?

>>8430421
>little girl protagonists
Most of those are going to skew heavily towards early teen YA or older kids books, but let me think for a second.

Black and White by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge is a superhero/supervillain dual protagonist book, with some of the chapters being set during their hero academy days.

A couple of the Demonata books by Darren Shan star a younger girl with magical abilities who fights the demonic forces plaguing the land

Eon: Dragoneye Reborn is about a reverse trap who disguises herself as a boy to become a dragon trainer

Anything else, you'd have to delve into manga or start reading Vladmir Nabokov AU fanfiction

>>8431493
Not the anon you were talking to, but I read the Edge Chronicles when I was younger (up to 8 or 9, however many were out at that time), and can say that it's your best bet to start with book 1 and proceed onward based on publication order.

Each book is set... well, a few of them are ordered chronologically back-to-back, like book 2 being directly set after book 1, but others jump forward or backward in time to flesh out backstory of given characters or the ultimate fates of previous protagonists, and the various plot elements and locales build on each other in different books. If you read in internal chronological order, there'd be precious little sense to most of the happenings, like "what the fuck? why are these rocks floating? who is THIS twat in the overcoat?" and most often "what the fuck is THAT?!"

It's an excellent series, man, just give it time and you'll be hooked. If you like that one and want a more adult-oriented yet similar feel, with the illustrations and exploration of a foreign, magical, faintly sinister land, try Clive Barker's "Abarat" series

There's an idea I want to try next. Tell me your opinion /sffg/

>in this world, war is everything. It solves everything, is settles all scores, resolves all disputes. Warfare is the greatest virtue, the greatest achievement of man, the holiest or actions. The whole world's definition is war and war defines everything, even geography.
>the main religion is war, people believe that war is what is spilled from the heaven onto world as war itself is a different world and to die in war is the ultimate honour
>just a side note though, to keep in mind
>in thus world of war craft (unironically) there are many types of unique magics and almost every society is magocratic. Thing is, every single type of magic has a hard counter, something that completely renders that type of magic useless, even counterproductive.
>for example A completely counters B, so if in a war a side has A and another side has B, A will always win.
>but throw C in the mix, which counters A itself
>in this case, side A must bring magic D to improve magic A and make it immune to C's influence.
>and when you add a hundred more types of magic, each buffing, countering and improving each other, you have a unique type of warfare that us ENTIRELY based on careful planning.
>war itself takes months, years to plan and set in motion, like a large-scale game of chess, info gathering, game of spies and influence, and when all is ready, it's all over in a matter of minutes when all magic and power gathered gets unleashed in an instant.

What do you guys think? I want to make this EXTREMELY complicated with entangled politics, warfare, tactics and unique magics.

>>8431890
The premise sounds really implausible
>every single type of magic has a hard counter
Magical rock paper scissors?

>>8431890

Warhammer 40k?

>>8431890
It isn't the 90's any more senpai.

>>8431902
Yes but not exactly.
Ok say magic A creates barriers that makes everyone immune to everything. It literally makes you invincible. But magic B summons otherworldly beasts that can pass through barriers like they don't even exist.
So now team A has to find a way to combat B's demons. A hires C that can enchant weapons to they cut through demons like butter. Now B is in disadvantage, and they hire D that can curse enemies with weakness so they won't be able to battle. But team A hires E that turns flesh into magically animated stone so the soldiers never tire and never get wounded, and so on for ever and ever.
War takes years, if particularly important, decades to prepare for.
There's combinations of magic too, and combinations that are not even known and discovered. A side wins or loses if they make even the slightest miscalculation possible.
After thousands of magics, counter-magics, curses, enchantments, spells, if even one man is left standing on a side, and with enough magic in him, that one man can literally destroy the whole fucking world.
Magic is overpowered nukes that's why every possibility imaginable must be taken into consideration.
Some armies take certain niche mages to fulfill one single apparently unimportant role that can eventually win the whole war. Like fucking, a mage summons a stone, nobody gives a fuck but that one stone can pass through barriers and a random soldier throws it and kills a key mage on the enemy side, the while war us won in that instant.

>>8430540
Literally JUST FUCK MY SHIT UP the series

Every generation skip between trilogies was depressing as fuck

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>>8430013

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>>8431985

>>8431192
Insufferable unless you really like femdom.

>>8431614
This is the last reaction I expected to The Broken Earth.

God, Branderson makes me sick. What an absolute trash bin refugee

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>>8431493
http://www.edgechronicles.co.uk/edge-chronicles-book-order/

The authors here reccomend chronological order but I don't think thats a great idea. The jump from the last book of Quint to the first book of Twig would be jarring I think. Publication order is rarely wrong and it works fine here. The trilogies were published slightly out of order so it would involve jumping around time.

Personally I'd reccomend Reading all the Twig books, then Quint, then Rook, then Lost Barkscrolls, then The Immortals, then Cade if you wish. That way each trilogy is chrono but you're not "spoiled" by the story itself ahead of time.
Barkscrolls has short stories set at various times during the first 3 trilogies. It's out of print but the stories are now printed with the newer editions of the books closest to each story. Immortals is a single book thats about the length and breadth of one trilogy. The Cade books have 2 out and the last one coming in the next year or so.

This guy >>8431968 is sort of right. I guess I should have said the books have more of a sense of adventure and general optimism. Tragic things happen, villains and friends meet gory deaths, but it never rubs it in your face. It's the sort of world where there are lots of people who will kick you when you're down but just as many who will help you up. Even at its most tragic it has an element of hope.

If you do give it a shot, I'd love to hear what you think, even if you don't like it. There's not much online presence to these books, and I usually skim every post in these threads, so I'll probably see it.

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Just finished The Shadow of What Was Lost

Liked it a ton. Was a little skeptical after reading the summary and the early pages, but I'm happy with what I got. I really like time travel stuff, so I hope the author doesn't muck it up in the sequels.

Also
>tfw adding another book to waiting-for-sequel list
ree

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>tfw kellhus will never be your dad
>he will never call you his little witch
>he will never dandle you on his lap and teach you how to resist torture
>you will never unleash his portion

>>8431384
Maybe 6 months or so.

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Ok so when I read Dune I thought Herbert invented the entire "space empire" and "star emperor" shit of space operas, but now I've finished Foundation and it seems Asimov got there first.

Who actually was the original inventor of the space opera level of stuff we see in 40k and like Star Wars etc? Is there a book?

>>8431890
>>8431915
Basically.

>>8432193
Doc Smith

I thought Dune was a year earlier than Foundation.

>>8432202
Dune was 65, Foundation was 51

>>8432202
>Foundation was originally a series of eight short stories published in Astounding Magazine between May 1942 and January 1950.

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>>8432201
Any recommendations?

>>8432193
>Who actually was the original inventor of the space opera level of stuff we see in 40k and like Star Wars etc? Is there a book?

Religion, 500~ BCE.

>>8432207

Oh, huh. That does actually make sense based on the writing style I guess.

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>>8432210
Lensman series. Be prepared for high cheese, though. Very fun, but high cheese.

>>8432212
That seems a little late friendo, that's pretty much when Rome became a republic, hardly a time of religious emboldening.

>>8431384
At least a year. We had them up last year August.

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>>8432222
>that pic
jesus christ the cheese
I really like the name Triplanetary though, [/spoiler]I may have to steal it[/spoiler]

>>8432223
That's around the time Hinduism got their collective shit together and decided to start writing their shit down.

>>8432226
Select and hit ctrl + s

Since that other guy was spitballing about something he wanted to write, would anyone want to hear about a concept I've been working on? It probably sucks but at least you'll tell me that.

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>>8432222
>>8432193
It isn't a stretch to say Flash Gordon.

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>tfw so many people are reading your recs and enjoying them
I'm glad I could help famms

>looking for fantasy recs on goodreads
>Harry Potter and YA for girls dominates every list

>>8432252
>looking for fantasy recs on goodreads
don't do this
read books from the OP, then just make a post saying which you liked, which you didn't and what you're looking for and get recs

>>8432257
Yeah, I kind of get that it's the smart thing to do but I was still curious

>>8432307
>The Coldfire Trilogy: The character arc of the two main characters is one of the most thought out of all of the books I have ever written.
>I
Do we have another Bakker here at hands boys?

>>8432309
Typo, sorry, it's past midnight.

>>8432312
It's cool Friedman. I find it a bit sad that your books since then haven't been as good though.

I've shitposted over this before, but: eternally glad to the thread and rec chart fampais for these beautiful books that I otherwise would not have read or thought of reading:
>The Shadow of What Was Lost: A diamond in the rough. Like another anon stated, the author needs to amend the summary. The book could also use some editing and better prose but the plot twists, characterisation and the plight of the characters cannot be faulted
>Amber: The series that starts off with a shit first book and surprisingly gets extremely good. Corwin is a competent protagonist intent on unravelling a fascinating and suspenseful character driven plot
>The Coldfire Trilogy: The character arc of the two main characters is one of the most thought out of all of the books I have ever read. Emotionally moving, slick prose with the perfect amount of description. I also found the plot twists enthralling. These books will be with me forever.
>The Fifth Season (and by extension the sequel): The prose is much more direct and less descriptive, but I feel that this enhances the narrative rather than detracting from it. There are many moments of wonderful emotion, suffering and reconciliation tempered by tragedy. I wish that the prose was more meaty if only to experience the story for longer.
>Tales of the Dying Earth: Vance writes most beautifully, and none moreso than the story of Liane the Wayfarer. It gave me genuine shudders, that one.
>The Hyperion Cantos: From Sol's story about Rachel which genuinely moved me to tears to the exquisitely macabre Priest's Tale, Hyperion is utterly unforgettable. The prose is excellent and greatly enhances the reading experience. It's not so heavy that the plot is dragged down and not so sparse that one is left on the doorstep wanting. Conversely, Endymion reads like a fanfic. A shiny lovely fanfic with beautiful prose and plot that sounds like someone tried to cram too much UNDERSTANDING from Gundam into it
>Tigana: I still have a love/hate relationship with this book because of the ending. Such exquisite prose and Brandin and Dianora's story wouldn't fail to melt the hardest of hearts. I shed tears, fampai. The confession Brandin makes to the drowning Dianora searching for the ring is one of the saddest passages that I have ever read in fiction. Goodnight sweet Brandin. ;-;

>>8432314
My true identity Bill Gates.
But it is indeed sad that Friedman's subsequent books such as Magister are subpar.

>>8432315
Half of what you liked is what chart anon was shilling from the beginning of these general (in a text format)
>shadow
>coldfire
>fifth season
>tigana
Yet you all still hate on my charts and call it troll.

Also try iron dragon's daughter, the thousand names and the quantum thief(4chan the novel).

What has /sffg/ done for you, anon? What are you grateful for?

>Book of the New Sun
>Banker
I considered myself well versed in sff but BotNS and Bakker's Prince of Nothing showed me how much cooler and deep can sff get.

No meme replies please.

>>8432228
whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

fugg i've been here for like 6 years as well lol

>>8432336
/sffg/ tricked me into reading The Firth Season, The Name of the Wind and Chronicles of Ancient Darkness.

All fucking terrible beyond belief and have the complexity of a romance flick.

>>8432235
THE THING ITSELF

ADAM ROBERTS

>>8432336
Hyperion and Metro 2033

>>8432158
Remove Dunyain

Dunyain genocide best day of my life.

>>8432309
>reading guns of empire
>someone gets called a fossil
Does wexler lurk here too?

How many authors are sneaking into our discussion and we don't even know it?

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>>8432355
Also pic related, when does this get good? I better not have fell for another troll.

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>>8432362
>How many authors are sneaking into our discussion and we don't even know it?

We know Vox Day, Scalzi and Mieville post here.

>>8432357
What is it about again? The last time you shilled me I wasn't really interested.. but red rising, iron dragon daughter, shades of grey, hull zero three and a few others weren't really interesting until I read them .

>>8432370
>We know Vox Day, Scalzi and Mieville post here.
Proof or get out

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>>8432371
It's pretty bizarre, I've not read anything like it.
The chapters bounce between random historical and future short stories (which tie with the main stories conclusion), and a set narrative which is kind of the main story of the novel.
It's really hard to describe and is heavy on philosophy, and I really don't want to explain too much. Basically it's a thriller involving Kant's theory of "The Thing Itself". Basically justifying all superpowers ever I guess.

Fuck I'm doing an awful job here. All I could recommend is for you to sit down and read the first chapter in a bookshop before you buy, as I think it's the an incredibly strong start to a book.

>>8432376
>Being this fucking new
Take responsibility Chartfag.

Read their blog/ask/metafilter etc.

>>8431165
make sure you're extremely well versed in the actual physics of it all. making stuff up without reality to draw from puts you at 'magic and elves' fantasy tier and that shit can stay as far away from sci fi as possible.

once you set up the rules of your world, all exploration of those subjects in your book should pass rigorous peer review by physicists of your imagined world.

>>8432379
>basically
>basically

Also the protagonist is a major fuck up which I can related too on several levels.

>>8432193
putting space opera and "40k and like star wars etc?" is basically sacrilege. I don't even know what to call that steaming turd pile of lore that is 40k, and star wars is basically a space-fantasy, it only has extremely superficial sci fi elements, let alone space opera elements. sci fi !== space opera and star wars !== sci fi

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>Scalzi's Redshirts had a television adaptation

>come up with good fantasy story
>get to names

just cut my life into pieces.

>>8432393
you know the shit I mean, just like old style fantasy tales of knights and kings and emperors and shit

but like in space ya know?

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I've been reading some of the well known 1950's sci fi for the first time this summer. Body Snatchers by Jack Finney is among the most best these.

This was good entertainment, a fast-paced tale of suburban paranoia about body consuming spores from outer space. It holds up very well for a weekend or holiday read, and has some interesting observations about the way the mind can be deceived.

>guns of empire
>now remember the immortal virgin loli with wn intact hymen
>tfw every time she gets fucked she will be a virgin

Wexler a cunt, all I'm getting is loli yuri sex, I want benis in vagoo sex.

What does /lit/ think of Peter Watts? I'm reading blindsight and I find his sci Fi ideas kind of uninspired (vampires, bio-ship, facehugger-esque aliens)

>>8432848
Pretty much unanimously positive here. Definitely one of the best scifi of the 21st century

>>8432848
Unbearably bad prose, It lacked any aesthetic identity, the author clearly suffers from high-functioning autism.

>>8432848
>I find his sci Fi ideas kind of uninspired
You must be mentally retarded then.
>>8432901
The prose could be better but you sir are definitely a faggot.

>>8431632
Do you think he drank that whole bottle of Kraken rum himself?

>>8432914
What about it was inspired?

>>8432936
And by uninspired I mean uninteresting/cliche

>>8432365
The Black Company is very good but Glen Cook's writing style isn't for everybody

>>8432638
Bad news senpai

you need to wait till next book to see her fuck marcus

This year's Clark Award shortlist looks underwhelming.
http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2016/08/the_2016_arthur.shtml
http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2016/08/the_arthur_c_cl.shtml

>>8432936
Okay, so I'll assume you are not trolling me. First of all, vampires are nothing new, but the justification for vampires in Blindsight is something totally new. There's a distinctive biology fleshed out for them, and when have you ever seen vampires in a sci-fi setting before?
Also, is Rorschach what you mean when you say bio-ship? Does it even make sense to distinguish between machine and biological life in its case? And when do we ever see bio-ships anyway? There's like a couple of games and one Star Trek episode.
And there are no facehugger-esque aliens, you just made that up.
These aren't even the important themes either. The important themes are consciousness and free will, which I don't think many other sci-fi novels have dealt with in a manner such as this.

>>8433236
>This year's Clark Award shortlist looks underwhelming
t. every year since the 80's

>>8433247
This comment made more sense when I confused the Clark Award with the Locus Award.

>>8433239
>and when have you ever seen vampires in a sci-fi setting before?
>And when do we ever see bio-ships anyway?
A-are you serious senpai?

>>8429427
I don't care that I'm replying to this post on Wednesday afternoon but I can't believe you love kellhus he is fucking trash, scum I despise him. I have only read up to the judging eye but I hope he gets tortured by the Inchoroi and raped to death by sranc that would be what he deserves

>>8432365
It takes a bit to get used to his writing, and you may not like it. The series is quite good though

>>8433236
>Children of Time
>It's a "There are cool and interesting aliens, but half the book is about humans moping about human things" book

Europe at Midnight seems like the strongest of them, but really sounds like more of a thriller than a scifi book.

Has anyone read the water knife? If so, thoughts?

>>8431644
>Castleview
>No Wizard Knight
??

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>>8432638
WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT AND IS IT GOOD?

According to the author herself in her Hugo acceptance speech, the Fifth Season is about "a big boned, deadlocked, 40 something year old woman of color battling against the forces of oppression"

Is it worth reading?

>>8433578
Flintlock Demon magic Napoleon
Aka the thousand names

Not really a loli just that she's frozen at 18

She doesn't show up till the second book

>>8433598
>reading Jeminsin

Not even once

>>8432235
Are the Witchers books actually good; I've only played the games.

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The more I read of The Last Legends of Earth, the better and more engrossing it becomes.
>you'll never have someone to discuss Attanasio with

>>8433598
It's ambitious but not perfectly written (as opposed to this year's Nebula winner, Uprooted, which was well written but fell into the been there, done that of quasi-Russian fairy tales). Its selling points are its casually murderous middle-aged lady narrator and its worldbuilding about people adapting to live on a thoroughly broken planet. If you can handle second person chatty-casual narration, and don't get jarred out of a novel by Jemisin's cannibalism fetish or random SJW asides, then it's worth reading. The "forces of oppression" Jemisin is talking about is really people being racist against earth mages, not being racist against brown people. Plus, it's a short and easy read, what the fuck do you have to lose.

>>8433578
It's fantastic piece of flintlock fantasy. It's about Lieutenant Reverse Trap, Captain Nice Guy, and Eternaloli Princess navigating pseudo-Napoleonic politics and military maneuvers against the backdrop of a long-running battle between religious fanatics who harness demons to wreck shit. Along the way they're helped by a Sherlock Holmesian autist.

>>8432638
>not Janus giving critical commentary and an educational lecture while fucking Marcus because Janus's study of military sociology indicates that homosexual behavior is qualitatively beneficial to unit cohesion

>>8433661
>Janus being a top

Wew lad

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>>8433598
>not the book about lolis
But anon, the lolis are headpattingly cute.

>>8433678
Go back to bed, Scaffa.

>>8432328
But I like your charts fampai ;_;

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Is this good?
I like Baxter but he always writes the same book.

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>>8433619
Well that's disappointing.

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>>8433686
>you will never get told by Schaffa that he loves you
>you will never get to an hero in the most spectacular manner possible and kill people you fucking hate with you

>>8431780
>>8432098
Publication order it is then!

Although it will be maybe a week or a little bit more before I touch one of these because I'm in the middle of Guards!Guards! and after that I feel Watership Down is calling me.

>>8431712
>Eon

shit nigga I just read that, it's not about a "dragon trainer", it's of a dragoneye who is like a co-partner to dragons

>book starts branching into more perspectives per chapter as it goes on
>I only care about the protag
ffs

>>8434125
75% of manga

and people wonder why I speedread

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>>8434125
>do you like the mercenary soldier or the banker girl? well too bad because you're getting like 3 more PoVs including a fat autistic man in a leather cape who is the bad guy

I can't bring myself to start the fourth book.

>>8434186
It'd be a load better if the girl was the only PoV

Having Dawson starting off as a villain and Geder becoming one was too much

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>>8434125
>tfw no Arya chapter

>>8434212
I gave up at the second book because Theon was so annoying to read

>>8431197
Haven't read Perdido Street Station yet but The City & The City had a very weird and somewhat grimy world.

>>8434125
WoT has to be the biggest offender with this

>>8432098

You've interested me anon.

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So are these reddit tier around here? I found them last year literally googling space opera (not my finest moment). Then I found out about the GoT connect and the shit tv show and realized I can never talk about them with anyone, despite how much I enjoyed them.

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I had an idea for a story.

>SF, group of university students traveling to a resort planet for a holiday
>they arrive in orbit and suddenly their shuttle's systems go haywire, lose communications and visuals, all they can do is trust the autopilot
>shuttle manages to land at the resort spaceport, but when they get out the place is abandoned, signs of sudden evacuation everywhere
>suddenly get a transmission from space from the planetary authority, tells them that there's a massive radiation wave coming from the system's sun and it'll cook their cells
>the authority claims the only chance the group has to survive is to head to a cybernetic prosthetic clinic and get a full body conversion to shield their vital organs and brains
>naturally they don't want to but they're panicked and confused and are told repeatedly there's no time, so the group heads to the clinic and puts themselves under
>they wake up in a set of identical cyborg bodies, and begin to wait for rescue

The structure of the story would be broken up into parts covering specific events as the group wander around the abandoned resort and keep themselves busy. At first they'd try to have fun at the resort to keep their spirits up, like trying on clothes, playing sports, having talent shows and watching movies but gradually the soulless synthetic bodies would begin to weigh on them as the lack of communication with the outside world makes them doubt if anyone is even going to come. Then things about the situation start to stick out (shuttle shows signs of tampering, dead body that died before the wave, inaccessible underground parts of the structure) and the characters begin to suspect each other. The idea is that since they all look the same if they see another person being suspicious they can't actually be sure who it is, or even if they're talking to who they think they are- everyone has the same body and the same voice. They start losing it one by one and eventually it's down to the last sane character to figure out what's going on and how to escape their prison.

What do you think, could it work or a bit too trashy? I was thinking of having all the bodies be female-styled because it was a women's clinic but that might be a bit too magical realm. Androgynous, maybe?

>>8434294
Theyre comfy fun

Just take them at face value

Any recommendations for sci-fi horror?

I especially enjoy big spooky ships like in Revelation Space and Unto Leviathan.

>>8431924
That is exactly rps.

>>8434337
If you can actually write convincing paranoia, I think this could be fun. It's a bit YA, or like something out of a Futurama episode, but that's OK if you aren't pretentious.

>I was thinking of having all the bodies be female-styled because it was a women's clinic but that might be a bit too magical realm. Androgynous, maybe?
Try something like "cybernetic bodies are usually styled with physical modification to fit the preferences of the user after installation, but in this situation it isn't possible to do so, leaving the students stuck in androgynous, featureless, default bodies."

>>8434412

Yeah, I was thinking that might work both ways. They could put on wigs or clothes or whatever to help them appear how they wanted to, but then if they remove that then it's basically impossible to tell them apart unless you study their words and mannerisms and even then that might not be possible if you're in a bad state mentally.

>>8434294
They're good
It's solid sci-fi that doesn't rely on shit like hyperspace so the scale's believable.
And Abraham is a fast writer so there's no massive wait for new books
Also the tv show is decent

>>8432235
Not to burst your bubble, but your chart recs over sixty books, many of which are mainstream or were talked about in this general long before you made your chart, so I'm not sure how much credit you actually get.

Man every single book about assassins is edgy as fuck

Shame because I like the concept as it does intrigue and power plays without everything being war

>>8434475
Yeah I'd like to see a series that's more down-to-earth like the Thief series of games, more of a "Fantasy home invasions" instead of "Broodlord Darkkiller seeks nothing more than the complete and total destruction of the corrupt nobility and society that orphaned him and murdered his true love."

"Cold war spy thriller with dragons" would also be acceptable.

>>8434524
Even when the protag isn't edgy you usually get a villain who is

Gave Brent Weeks a try, and what's the fucking point in creating this world of intrigue when an edgy teenager comes along and kills literally all the characters of note just so the mc has some adversity

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>>8430596
Is this neopets porn?

>>8433653
Hit and miss by some, I enjoyed them. But I have a thing for fairy tales... so there's that

what's your favorite audiobook. I'm thinking about downloading some so I can listen while running around the neighborhood. currently listening to Warrior Prophet (pretty good), just finished Book of the New Sun (REALLY good), and prefer books with less POV characters because >>8434125
is this worst

>>8434578
lord of the rings desu because the guy actually sang all the songs

it was well dench

>>8429427
>I love Kellhus desu and I'm not even gay.

You will be once he's done fucking you in the ass.

>>8434186
Chart anon warned your ass about Abraham, there is a reason he isn't on my list.

He promises a shit load of things in his book, but only delivers a whiff of the actual product.. but that is still delivering, so you can't say he cheated you.

What I'm talking about? He promises you magic and in 4 books(600 pages+ each) all the accumulated instances of magic probably fits in 5 pages(I'm stretching it here, it's less).

Fuck long price, fuck dagger and coin.

>>8434617
>go seeking religious enlightenment
>get raped

Comedy gold

>>8434623
Mate the books are called long price and dagger and coin

The titles of both flat out tell you they're about economics and politics not magic
There's no promise of anything else

>>8429415
Hey look I don't mind that you guys have this comfy ghetto for youselves but are you really gonna be all "normie get out ree" about it? Who does that help in fostering such attitudes?

>>8434365
The strain and hull zero three, metro 2033
>>8432235

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>>8434472
Read >>8432328 i used to shill using pic related or just posting the name of the book because pic related hasn't been updated in years... and I have 100+ books to sort out and my autism isn't up for it.

>>8434629
The premise with the poets says something else. I kept reading because he kept hinting that the NEXT book you will be rewarded.... nope

>>8434635
The spaghetti in the pocket triggered you didn't it?

>>8434216
Believe it or not if you kept reading you'd end up pitying him. Nobody really deserves what he went through.

>>8430596
The fuck is this?

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>>8434666
>not sorted by author

>>8434666
...are these audiobooks? do you have a megaupload of them?

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Okay, I've got a rec I've never run into in the /sffg/ thread before, more of a horror novel than a fantasy but it's got elements of both: "Bird Box" by Josh Malerman.

The idea is that this lady is locked in a house taking care of two babies by herself, following the Eldritch Horror Apocalypse where people start going insane out of nowhere. It flashes back and forth between the present, apocalyptic day where she's contemplating finding shelter elsewhere out in the dangerous outer world, and the past where she's trying not to go insane or get fucking murdered as she looks for safety somewhere in the metro Detroit area (kek)

Malerman has a good flair for suspense, and that sinister creeping feeling, the one as though someone or something is looking at you in an empty room. I met the author a while back during a live reading, and he even gave me a signed copy of the book after I told him it was one of my favorites--he was a cool dude. Pretty fast read, too.

>>8432098
I don't suppose you or someone else knows where I can find an audiobook copy of the series? Audible is a fucking rip off and I'm struggling to find anything that's not a virus.

I loved this series and would love to catch up a bunch of these books I missed, I just don't have heaps of time for books these days.

Audiobooks are GOAT, you can work all day and immerse yourself in a story, especially in a job with minimal customer interaction.

>>8430596
But are Spren actually corporeal? Can you touch them? I got the impression that most spren like Syl are sort of like pass-through and can't actually be touched. Then again, I can't think of an example that proves or disproves that.
tl;dr, idk, hugz

>>8434337
This sounds pretty cool. Outline it (if you're that kind of writer), write it out, and see how it goes. It's an intriguing idea for sure

Has anyone read "Wool" by Hugh Howey? I have about 100 pages left, and it's been quite enjoyable so far.

>>8432395
Is this a porn parody?

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So I started on pic related, and boy is it kind of not good? Could be a lot worse, and I do love the premise of ships being stranded and not having the supplies they need as they try to survive shit fucking them up.Anyone else read it and does the writing get better later on?

Ive been enjoying the Expanse series recently. How pleb am i?

>>8435061
I liked the first book but felt it was all downhill from there. Dropped it at book 3 I think.

>>8435061
I've heard a lot of people enjoy the first book but then feel it goes downhill from there. Most people drop it at book 3.

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>>8434365
Metro 2033. I avoided it due to the video game tie-in, but that was a mistake.

>>8435179

Is Metro 2034 worth reading? i enjoyed 2033 but never moved onto the sequel.

>>8435066
>>8435103

Yeah im enjoying it but its pretty telling that all the praise that they put on the cover of all the sequels was for the first book. They just call it 'Praise for the Expanse series'

>>8431184
Do I have to read the rest of his shit? I thought NoK was mediocre and RotCG was absolute garbage.

>>8432235
>tfw ive already read 2 books on this list
truly, theres no better feeling than having already done something that someone else recommends.

>>8433691
bumping for interest. ive considered picking this up before but i have such a big fucking backlog.

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Opinions on Ancillary Justice? the plot summary sounds like that 'I identify as an attack helicopter' shit desu. Seems fun though

>>8433442
Okay Akka.

>>8434578
My absolute favorite are The Magicians audiobooks (narrated by Mark Bramhall). One POV in the first book, two POV in the second book, and I think three POV in the third book. Beautiful reading, well differentiated voices, fits the series perfectly.

Temeraire (narrated by Simon Vance) and The Thousand Names (narrated by Richard Poe) also got fantastic audiobooks. Recent Star Wars books (narrated by Marc Thompson) are also uniformly fantastic in terms of audiobook production, no matter how shitty the actual content gets. Redshirts (narrated by Wil Wheaton) and Year Zero (narrated by John Hodgman) are a small step down from those in terms of audiobook production just because the authors aren't as steeped in the conventions of audiobook reading, but still very good and getting if you're interested in the books.

One of the worst audiobooks I've ever listened to is A Gathering of Shadows. There are two POV protagonists, one male and one female, so the book has a male narrator for the male protagonist's POV chapters and a female narrators for the female protagonist's POV chapters. But the POV characters show up in each others' chapters a fair amount, and there are a bunch of non-POV characters who show up in both characters' chapters, and the narrators didn't even attempt to make the pitch/accent/etc. of these characters sound the same between the chapters. To make the whole situation weirder, the first book in the series had a single narrator.

But the absolute worst audiobook I've ever listened to is Cassandra Freeman's reading of the Inheritance Trilogy, which is the only audiobook so bad that I had to stop listening to it. I like those books otherwise, too.

If you're planning on buying any of these legitimately, remember that it's often cheaper to buy a Kindle copy and an Audible audiobook copy than to just buy the audiobook. For example, The Thousand Names is something like $35 on Audible. But if you buy the Kindle book ($8), you can get the Audible audiobook for $5. I don't know why.

>>8435246
breddy gud

don't read the sequel tho

Just finished "The dog said bow-wow" by Michael Swanwick, superb collection, especially Darger and Surplus stories. The story from "Rogues" happen before or after " Dancing with bears" ?

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Any works of fiction that depict something similar to Hindu/Jain/Buddhist cosmology as being literally real?

>>8435298
Think the fourth realm trilogy by John twelve Hawks did something like that. The first book was pretty good but the went downhill after that.

>>8435298
"A Dirty Job" has driving plot contingent on quasi-Buddhist ideas about reincarnation, but it's mostly an urban fantasy black comedy.

>>8434762
She is disgusting looking, I agree.

>>8434768
200+Gbs.. no I do not have a megaupload.

>>8435298
iirc long price is budhist but as the guy above whined it's not about the magic at all

>>8434578
Jasper Fordes "Shades of Grey" was a good listen, as read by John Lee. He's my favorite narrator, so anything by him. For example, another good book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrPJX0s8j4g
Also Sandersons Cosmere books are well narrated.

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>>8435298
Closest I can think of is Lord of Light.

Or pic related... but it was Mary Sue shit, still insightful delving into the Hindu religion. So it was educational.

>>8434578
You want to walk around with a boner?
Lolita by Jeromy Irons (w/e).

Read about how you tore something inside her, and how you did it 2 times before leaving.

>>8434294
worst scifi book ever

What did you guys thought of the Whipping Star?

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>Fforde will never pen another Shades of Grey novel in your lifetime
>the next book is slated for 2018 and it's a prequel
Sticks and stones may break my bones but prevarication will always hurt me.

>>8435424
At least there will be something, someday.
Might even come before the end of ASOIAF.

>>8435444
So never?
Because asoiaf will never end....

>>8435477
Somewhere before never. I want to have a little hope dammit.

>>8434937

I did. I liked it, too. I'm not a fan of the marketing format of five books where one would do but luckily I came across it after the "series" was finished and bought the omnibus ebook.

Good news Bakkerfags your cuckery is getting a TV show https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2016/08/25/still-idiosyncratic-yet-verging-on-mainstream/

>>8435908
Oh god. It's gonna be a low budget mess I'm sure.

At least this should motivate him to get Unholy consult out on time

>>8434337
Id read that

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>>8429415
Are these books any good?

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

>>8436475
Listening to them now, they are a bit YA but bretty gud, especially as you get further into the series.

>>8432901
wew lad, never seen a post plummet in quality so quickly.

post started decently, went to pretentious at the start of the second setencen, then just went full retard by the end.

at least it was concise. your books would probably be pretty easy reads.

>>8434294
medium quality sci fi

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>>8432235
>unironically recommending genre trash
>the painted man

I read the first witcher book and I liked it, but onyl for it's short stories, they were just comfy as fuck. But going the novel route was just a mistake. You do get bored of Geralt and whatever his friends name is after the first book. I really enjoyed the story where Geralt stumbles onto a house and a monster lives there turns out he was cursed for raping a girl
And the one where he joins up with a huge party to fight a dragon and the bard friend tells stories around a camp fire.

I can't remember specific details since i read it a year ago.

>>8434337
if you write it please have good prose and don't be pretentious.

>>8435246
I'm about a third of the way through it IIRC, seemed pretty good, a space ship's AI gets stuck in a human body and is out for revenge.

>>8436523
Agreed. Series is pretty YA at times but overall it's good and readable.

>>8435246
Seconding this: >>8435295

>>8434911
Spren can not be touched in the Physical Realm.

>>8436475
Better than The Dresden Files.

>>8436475
I didn't like them way too much about shitty bugs

Also the inherently bad concept loses it's cuteness quickly

>>8435298
PKD wrote a cringey short story set on Red China-ruled earth where Hindu-style reincarnation is real. The protagonist has dishonored himself and knows he'll be reincarnated as a grasshopper or some shit, then finds an illegal settlement of white people who preserve ancient Western medicine who can extend his life long enough to save face.

What should my reading list look like for fantasy that doesn't have any focus on war?

I want to read about intrigue and stuff but a hell of a lot of books with that concept end in a war wiping out all the plot issues

>>8436784
The Buried Giant

Did Severian rape Jolenta? Or was it semi-consensual like surprise sex? Severian recalls he fucked her multiple times on the boat. Also Baldanders, Talos and Dorcas knew he fucked her but its not clear how. Did they simply hear them have sex?

Its such an odd thing to have in the book. It feels to ambiguous to strongly taint Severian's character if that was the goal.

>>8436848
Severian tells us that Jolenta was rubbing herself, and otherwise being obviously gross, on Severian, as they approached back at the camp. Doesn't take much to put two and two together, and it made Dorcas cry out of jealousy.

Jolenta probably allowed herself to be drugged/sleepfucked. She just had to play hard to get at first, because that's half of the spiciness of sex.

>>8436848
It's as grey area. In Severian's account, Jolenta is sleepy and drugged, and he takes the initiative. There's no account of her saying no, but, a rapist would omit that detail. My impression is that she neither enthusiastically consented or denied, and that in her predicament (her strange relationship with Dr Talos), she is a woman who freely engaged in sex.

Severian loves meaty women.

>>8436998
At the risk of saying she was a whore anyway, Jolenta boasts about converting women into lesbians ('tribadists') which is suggestive of her carnal appetites.

Looking for good sci-fi/spec-fic with elements of mental illness, artificial worlds interacting with the real world, general """""dream-like"""" qualities. Have read Valis, Ubik, Lathe of Heaven, Slaughter House Five. Less related but halfway though Handmaid's Tale.

Any thoughts? Is this a specific subgenre? Nature of reality kind of thing.

>>8436998
Yes, Severian led Jolenta to a garden known as a place for lovers to frequent. She knew her way around the world, and willingly followed. So basically, Jolenta a slut.

Severian believed that Talos never tapped it.

Every time I hear about Severian's imagination about Jolenta's thighs and a hatched chick, I imagine Wolfe, in between them, staring back at me, instead.

>>8436797
I'll give it a go but I don't really like the author

>>8437080
What don't you like about him?

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>>8437042
Try the two books in pic related.

>>8437088
Just don't enjoy reading his style

Found Never Let Me Go pretty tedious to read

>>8436475
I liked them a lot. Dresden is getting too byzantine for me so it was cool to read a complete story.

>>8436475
Absolutely hated the plot focus of the second book

First one's all about a political play, second is about gay ass bugs

Never tried Dresden maybe that's more my style

>>8437091
>Sanderson
>Scalzi
>in one post
Nice Troll

>>8429427
The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Ruthfoss

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>>8436475
No, not really. It can be argued that the main character is a bit of a Gary Stu with his ability to always be right and talk his way out of any situation. It becomes incredibly grating early on.

so my first foray into fantasy was the wizard knight by wolfe and i really enjoyed it, and i was wondering if you guys got any more stuff like that

>write up a two page greentext summary of the fairy tale I'm working on
>start fleshing it out
>get up to the fifth arrow
>goodbye interest, I'm bored now

Fuck! Not again!

>>8429949
I have a friend who loves this series (despite being an adult now). He's explained the stories to me (against my will but I let him blurt out his autism every now and again), and the self-insert bit seems really apparent. The character seems like a perfect little marty sue.

>>8436646

Do you mean pretentious in the theme of the story or in the language used?

>>8434919

Yeah I'd have to outline it in serious detail and plan it all out, maybe even make a map of the location for myself. I can't even think about starting writing unless I have a clear idea of what happens in every chapter. Though it's not like my writing hasn't changed before.

With this one though I'm not sure how to conclude it. I've come up with a contrived scenario so the answer to why things are happening needs to be satisfying. The obvious one is that it's some sort of military experiment, and there's actually a war going on that the civilian population knows nothing about as it's fought in the darkness entirely by drones. The "enemy" develops some sort of people-destroying superweapon and that's the source of the wave, so the country the protagonists belong to develop the cyborg shells to ensure survival. It could either be the first use of the system after an attack or the government testing them after acquiring a copy of the weapon system, maybe.

I dunno if that works though.

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>>8430198
How does it feel to be nothing more than a meme?

>>8437568
>>8437568
Think of it like bakker

the protag is perfect little cunt but the books are built around people responding to that

new bread desu

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>>8435908
>Trump ad on his site
Jej

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>>8437484
Jack Vance was a big influence on Wolfe. Try Lyonesse. It's lighter than Wizard Knight, without all of the metaphysical resonances, but very engaging.

I really hate Kelsier. He's a megalomaniac serial killer but because he "believes in hope" we're supposed to like him

>>8437726
You're not actually supposed to like him

The whole point of the third act is "he was a petty cunt but..."

>>8437726
>we're supposed to like him
>implying

>>8437726
Kelsier is literally the one good character Sanderson has ever created

>>8435908
>cuckery
FFS man, a noun form of "cuckold" exists, and it's "cuckoldry."

>>8437042
Isn't this exactly what Blindsight is?

Also pretty much all Thomas Pynchon. The Crying of Lot 49 is short and accessible as a starting place.

>>8437042
Peace by Gene Wolfe

>>8437568
>the self-insert bit seems really apparent
Yeah, this is the thing that bothered me most about those books when I read them. It felt bizarre to be pandered to so directly from such a young age. "Hi, I'm a 12 year old super genius who loves computers and hates people!"

I would say that was much more egregious literary sin than any "environmentalism" agenda. After all, what kind of sci-fi or fantasy book doesn't have some kind of "moral"?

Inda
>called Inda
>about Inda
>Inda is protag
>author uses about 15 perspectives in the first 100 pages

well this is new, quite like the style desu

>>8432229
Sure

>>8437842
It's not like the actual term cuckoldry had anything to do with what he's talking about. It's just the pejorative du jour, eventually they'll find some other word to parrot mindlessly.

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>>8437726
He's canonically sociopathic although I don't personally agree. There's a WoB that mentions how in another story, Kelsier & Friends would easily be seen as villains.

>>8437760
>forgetting Wayne, the Best Character of the Cosmere

>you will never find the manly wade wellman books ever again

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What's the most unreadable scifi/fantasy book you've ever tried to give a chance and read?

>>8433598
I read it and enjoyed it as a quick read with minimal depth. I was amazed it got a hugo nod and then won.

>>8438168
Fifth Season seems like perfect essay/theme material for teachers to get students to write on.

>>8438168
The competitors were:
>Naomi Novik does a by-the-numbers "girl becomes a sorcerer" in a pseudo-Slavic setting
>Rip Van Butcher wakes up after sleeping the last half decade and decides we needed more steampunk *steam-powered cowbell*
>Neal Stephenson wrote another giant infodump without a real ending
>the third Ancillary book, the first one already got a Hugo and I'm personally against giving awards to sequels

So basically her only competition was Novik. I read Uprooted a while back and thought it was good but unambitious fantasy novel where, in the end, most of the people get saved, the asshole wizard learns to be nice/love again, and the main character stops the magical Zone of Exclusion from killing everybody.

I haven't read Fifth Season but it sounds far more ambitious and interesting than Uprooted.

Sort of Sci Fi question I guess. is there any audiobooks available for the animorphs series?

I've had a pretty good look around but it seems only a handful of autists started to crowdsource it on leddit and some other places but never got off the ground.

>>8438264
I got bored by Uprooted in the end. I liked Novik's Temeraire series more but I don't think I ever got round to finishing them all.

>>8438278
>animorphs audiobooks
No, afraid not, anon. They never had the kind of push or popularity to warrant diversification of formats like that, and didn't get the official audiobook treatment. Those lengthy kinds of children's serials rarely did, like the Jonathan Rand books or most of the RL Stine series. Although some RL Stine audiobooks do exist, everywhere I've looked (including several exclusive library databases I have access to as an employee) has turned up absolutely nothing.

Sorry, anon. You'll have to scavenge an unofficial reader to make do with, perhaps through a youtube or /lit/ request some other time?

>>8438279
I really liked Temeraire too, but I haven't read farther than the 5th book for various reasons, mainly the 6th wasn't out yet and I forgot about the series. It felt like it was getting away from the original Napoleonic War setting, and I see that apparently the books after it are more adventure themed too.

>>8438298
Fugg. I thought that might be the case. It's a shame about that, I really would have liked to listen to it properly. Oh well.

“Akka,” she whispered. “I carry his child.”

Whore after all.

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>see interesting book
>it's written in first-person present-tense

>>8438439
>after all
I'm paraphrasing from memory but:
>Wow who is that wimpering beta I see hanging around here?
>He's nobody, how bout you fuck me with that big cock again, free of charge
>Say no more senpai
Meanwhile Akka cries inside his cuckshed

>>8438835
>>8438835
>>8438835
>>8438835

New Bread