/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

What went so wrong with seven eves?

>>8592745
3 posts early just to shill your website and post that awful chart?

>>8592754

I couldn't sleep.

>not affiliated with The Bard Quarterly

>>8592745
Well, there's no real discussion topic to start this one off, but I'd like to bring up a series I think is underrated.

Anyone here tried Glen Cook's Instrumentalities of the Night? His Black Company series is pretty much required reading if you're in to fantasy with a lot of military and war stuff, but no one really talks about his other writing. I'm on the second book right now, and I'm pretty happy with it. It's got the same comfy, simplistic-in-a-good-way prose that Black Company has, but a little more detail and thought was put in to the background and how the rest of the world works aside from the wandering around of the main characters. I recommend it.

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Reposting, didn't know the last thread was dead:

What's a good long book that I can get with my audible credit that I won't find in torrents?

>>8592802
Can't you just make infinite audible trials and deDRM everything?

>>8592802
Holy fuck I'm not the only one. I pretty much exclusively read via pirated audiobooks. I'm the fag that just posted about Glen Cook, and the series I'm having the most trouble finding right now is his Dread Empire series which I'd like to try. It doesn't seem to exist on torrent sites anywhere.

>You wouldn't download a car
Everybody would if they could. Torrented cars might even become feasible in the next 20 years via 3D printing.

>>8592828
>pretty much exclusively read via pirated audiobooks
Me too.
John Lee best narrator.

>>8592868
I consume most fantasy and science fiction through audiobooks and reserve physical for philosophy and novels which fall into modernism (Joyce, Woolf, Wolfe) or Russian literature (because English translations suck ass).
Honestly, I can't say that there's any inherent difference, outside of attention one must pay, missing a sentence here and there for old pulp isn't that much of a problem, while missing one in contemporary thomism will kill the whole argument.

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>>8592745
Hey faggot redshitor, learn how 4chan, and /lit/ specifically, works before making a thread.
>>8592987 >>8592987 >>8592987

>>8592800
What about reap the east winds? You read it?

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The Remnants is a pretty okay series, bros. Still wish I had someone to discuss Attanasio with.

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>>8592828
>the series I'm having the most trouble finding right now is his Dread Empire series which I'd like to try. It doesn't seem to exist on torrent sites anywhere.

You mean the thing in red?
You need to get P R I V A T E
Mouse and demon is your friend.

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>>8593039
Why you bumping this attention whore's thread?
He is so autistic that he made the thread super early because he wants his name in the OP.

Don't bump this until the other thread starts to auto sage(reaches bump limit). unless you want the mods to get involved in our generals (aka deleting shit).

We've been doing this general for 14+ months without a problem from the mods(even with outer lit reporting us, nothing came of it). I'll be damned if some attention whore tripfag who is fresh off the reddit boat is gonna fuck up our general and attract mod attention.

>>8593063
Plebs such as yourself are far more disruptive.

>>8593090
Trips on donslut

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>>8593063
Please lurk more until you learn what the post limit before auto-saging on /lit/ is, dumb frogposter.

>>8593132
I have noticed a trend in these threads- idiots are characterised by usage of spoilers

>>8592767
Yeah remove me from the OP next time pls. I appreciate the enthusiasm but that kind of attention is usually negative.

>>8593003
>>8593063

If you want to make the next thread, just say so. I made the last one because it was at 330+ posts and autosaging on page 8. I made this one because it was at 297 and I happened to be up early. I haven't inserted any of my own content into the OP, other than posting The Bard Quarterly blurb which isn't mine but seemed like interesting information relevant to the thread. I'm not trying to block out anyone.

Do you want to make the next thread? I will deliberately avoid making it if so.

>>8593166
Who gives a shit on who is making the thread?

>>8593165

Certainly.

Why would posting it in the OP be negative attention?

Just talk about books you fucking shitters.

I'm really looking forward to the fourth book in the Gentleman Bastards but Scott Lynch really needs to get his shit together and release it already.

>>8593132
Its 310 fagget.
Donkey made this thread at 297.
The other thread is at 304 posts.

Dumb faggot sanderson poster. No wonder you're ass is so dense, all that anime in prose is rotting your brain.

>>8593217
>Why would posting it in the OP be negative attention?
Fucking reddit don't know shit about 4chins.

I started the first book in The Red Rising trilogy a few days, I happened to read a spoiler on the internet yesterday.

Could someone tell me if this is a major spoiler or even the ending? It's kind of vague but if it is true it kinda ruins the book for me to an extent

The main character infiltrates the rich society, he feels they're doing a good job and pretty much does nothing about it

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>>8593272
W H E N
H
E
N

Wait a minute, I just realized something. All the books start with 'b'.
Black prism, blinding knife, broken eye, blood mirror....

Black luxin confirmed.

>>8593290
Read the book and find out. I don't understand how yall faggets get turned off by spoilers.

If anything they make me want to read the book more.

>>8593040
Gib download plz

>>8593290
Yeah nah

>>8593276
>learning post limits when extensions do it for you
>being THIS technologically averse

>>8593290
That spoiler's totally false bro

It's actually the plot of a culture novel

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>>8593290
Be honest, /lit/, are there any books with a conclusion as purely pottery as 1984 and Traitor Baru Comorant?

I'd read RR but frankly it sounds like a crock of badly written YA shit.

>>8592800
I'm looking forward to getting there eventually, but I still have to finish the Garrett and Dread Empire books before I let myself start another of his series. I've tried to shill Passage at Arms and The Dragon Never Sleeps on occasion. Both fantastic books.

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Recommend me some fedora worthy speculative fiction novels.

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>>8593461
How does the latter book relate to 1984? I've only read 1984 once but your description makes perfect sense in its full-circle resolution.

>>8593772
Neuromancer
Snow Crash
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Ready Player One
Ctrl Alt Revolt
Old Man's War

>>8593781
>Ctrl Alt Revolt
That's something new, thanks.

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>>8593772
The king

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I finished Tower Of Glass by Robert Silverberg, which is a first-contact story as well as a book about androids, from 1970.

A billionaire constructs a thousand-metre communications tower in the arctic circle in order to communicate with extra-terrestrial intelligence in space. He uses a labour force of red-skinned androids, who he invented, and who worship him as a God in an underground religion.

The novel follows the construction of the tower as the androids begin to agitate for civil rights and political representation. There's a lot of religious allegory, as well as android sex. It's a fast read, and a worthwhile companion to something like PKD's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep.

>>8593772
What does that even mean anymore?

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Fucking thing is finaly here.

>>8593843
100% class.

>>8593860
The names look a tiny bit more german in this translation.(compared to the OVA at least)
I can get behind that.
Looks good so far.

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Jesus Christ, what a hot mess

>whatchu want?
>I like China Meiville but he isn't obnoxious enough in his writing
>say no more senpai

So I loved Hyperion Cantos (latter two books got uncomfortably stupid, but the world-building still carried me through)
Is Ilium/Olympos any good?

>>8592828
>I pretty much exclusively read via pirated audiobooks
>read via pirated audiobooks
>read
>audiobooks

u fucking wot m8

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I just read Gateway, that shit was depressing.

Any other good books that deal with time dilation and that sort of shit (not that Gateway did much but it put me in the mood for that sort of thing)?

>>8594081
Have you read the Forever War?

>>8594127
Nope, not yet.

>>8593843
It is rather good so far.
Read the first 30~ pages.
Expected worse from a japanese translation.
Hope they finish releasing the series.

Just read Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton. It has a fairly odd premise -- basically a Regency novel (apparently Victorian to be more accurate, but I can't tell the difference) but with dragons instead of people. It worked surprisingly well and it was a fun read. The only thing I didn't like was the conclusion tied everything up in a nice little bow, with ideal outcomes for every 'good' character. But I suppose that might just be a nod to how novels typical of that era usually conclude, I haven't read enough of them to know.

>>8593040
I'm kind of a torrent newbie. Care to elaborate? (or direct me to resources where I could find out more, if you're paranoid enough to think you will be b& for giving instructions to torrent books)

My knowledge of torrenting consists of big well-known torrent sites and Audiobook Bay, that's all I know how to use.

>>8593673
>>8593040
How is Dread Empire? In comparison to Black Company? and just in general as genre fantasy?

>>8594193

I think he's referring to private torrent trackers. /g/ has a general thread that should be enough to get you started if you decide it's a worthwhile quest.

>>>/g/56955604

>said quest requires stroking the ego of basement goblins

>>8592802
Nothing?

>>8593295

ARC anon already confirmed that...

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>>8594081
REDEMPTION
ARK

When I went back to read the main part of the book earlier this year while not sober, I enjoyed about the space chase, I realized it was a lot shorter than I thought and comprised a much smaller section of the book but I think its ability to outshine the sum of the encompassing content speaks for itself.

>>8594279
>>8593040
I looked in to that... I don't think I'm a dedicated enough torrenter to be able to maintain an account. I only need one audiobook a month or so when I finish the last one. Dread Empire is pretty much the only thing I haven't found on Audiobookbay.

>>8594063
Oh stop fucking quibbling. I'm not going to bother to make the distinction every time, it's quicker to just say "reading".

>>8593420
Nice rebuttal anime fag.

>>8594234
Black Company is better, I only read a few, got more depressing to push through to finish. I still have one more to read(got 4+ more to download, but not gonna download them).

I think the Malazan guy used the fat guy in dread empire as a frame for kruper.

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>>8593780
Anything else is spoilers. Although the author does push the /u/ agenda a lot.

>>8594976
The only two trackers /lit/ should worry about are Bibliotik and MAM. Bibliotik isn't good for audiobooks since it's difficult to maintain ratio (only really good for retail books), myanonamouse is very easy to get into and you don't actually need to upload in order to maintain ratio (just leave the random stuff in your torrent client and get bonus points which you convert into upload.) it also has quite a lot of audiobooks.

But if you can still get infinite audible trials you might as well do the ripping yourself.

Overdrive + Audible trials + Mobilism + ABB + MAM + TPB + KAT mirrors

Or for us who prefer epubs/azw3/pdfs
Overdrive + Mobilism + IRC + Bibliotik + MAM + TPB + KAT mirrors

>>8595340
*
also libgen

>>8593176
Tripfags need to be discouraged at every opportunity.

>>8593290
He gets major Stockholm syndrome without realizing it, and absolutely falls in love with Gold culture and accomplishments. He becomes as good of a Gold as he was a Red, e.g. a total prodigy that's good at everything, and that's part of what pushes him to go ahead and lead a major Gold civil war and smash Society anyway.

In the end he doesn't really concern himself with how the government's run as long as his people aren't getting gassed and hanged. There's indications that a lot of Society will be reformed but not necessarily that it becomes a universal-suffrage democracy.

That Silver ranting about how they could have colonized the stars by then if they hadn't been LARPing as Romans and building griffon castles was hilarious though.

>>8593827
It is a term that means one thing and its opposite, like "cleave." We typically refer to militant atheists as fedoras, but in /sffg/ the term can also refer to Catholic SFF author and Wolfe fan John C. Wright, who is often photographed tipping a fedora.

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>you will never write the kind of memorable mythology lovecraft did if you work at it every day for the rest of your life

>>8593843
Just finished reading that last night, and started volume 2 today. Only a couple of typos in the whole first volume, which is pretty good for a translation. About 75 pages in to volume 2 so far, and seems to follow the OVA really well.

>>8593876
I recall the wiki having names that sounded a lot more natural, Cazerne=Cazellnu, Minci=Mintz, and some that still seemed odd like Bewcock.

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What can I expect from Yggdrasil?

>>8592746
Nothing?

>>8595644
Part 2 should have been a supplement available on his website. Part 1 was practically perfect in every way right down to Hillary having her tongue stapled, Neil Degrasse Tyson dying of cancer, and Kurzweil being eaten by cannibals.

>>8595607

quick but not feature-rich distro
you might have trouble finding drivers for your CPU

>>8595748
That's a distro? I've never heard of it. Is it a derivative?

Anyway, manjaro is master race

>>8595556
>Follows the OVA well
You mean the OVA is faithfull to the book,since the books is the source material.

>>8595556
But how are you enjoying it, though? Is it decent space opera on its own?

I'm reading the Great Ordeal right now and I'm thinking it's truly the slog of slogs...am I retarded? or did the internet overhype me on this series? really liked the Prince of Nothing trilogy but at this point I'm feeling as violated as Proyas.

Giant machinery sci-fi? Stories that involve big, man/alienmade things
So far I've read several Ringworld novels, Captive Universe, Rendezvous with Rama, and Spin

>>8596085
Just make your mind up on whether you like it or not.

>>8596105
Pushing Ice has big alien structures, but it's as dry as Rama.

The Golden Age has a solar particle accelerator used to synthesize 118+ stable elements. You can swap into a high-gravity body to visit but it's forbidden to wear evening dress on the Sun. tfw you have to take the stairs down the space elevator or you will violate the NAP and be lobotomized with a precision laser strike through the Earth's crust There's a skyhook in the same author's Count to the Eschaton books, as well as a planet where a space elevator collapsed and made a great wall around the equator.

Quantum Thief has Earth-sized plates in Saturn's atmosphere, and solarstats. The second Uplift trilogy has a really neat fractal Dyson sphere but it only shows up as background. The Culture books have tons of superstructures. Some anons have mentioned Legend of Galactic Heroes, there's a space fortress inside a sphere of liquid metal. Seveneves' part 2 has a skyhook with a hole for geostationary colonies - I guess you'd like the starship in Anathem, too.

Has anyone here read something by Catherynne M. Valente?

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>>8596216
Oh god yes. She is everything I want to be as a writer. I flipped when I found out she mixed quantum physics and mythology in this book becuase I've been working on a setting like that for the better part of a year

>>8595830
>can't follow a wiki to install arch

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>>8596142
Thank you kind anon

>>8592800
Instrumentalities of the Night is very good, but also ends very abruptly because apparently while he was writing the 4th book the publisher said they didn't want to continue the series so he ended up having to wrap everything up very quickly.

>>8596250
Wrong board m8

>>8596258
If I may interject for a moment, what you refer to as board is actually 4chan/board.

>>8596235
What books of hers have you read / would you recommend?

>>8596261
I assent gladly, but I doubt you are to find particularly technolo/g/ical minds here.

>>8596262
the In The Night Garden duology is good. that book of short stories I posted is good too. You might like Radiance though it's too stylized for me

>>8596277
I was interested in Night Garden (Orphan Tales) but people seem to say it gets really convoluted with a story within a story within a story etc. Do you agree? Also what do you think of Deathless and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland (is this YA?)?

>>8596085
>>8596085
While I thought there were a few nitpicks, I also felt TGO was a return to form, and I was really happy about it.

No sobbers on the slog!

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Is Ian Tregillis any good? Both the Milkweed Triptych and Alchemy Wars stuff he's done sounds interesting.

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Just finished reading this

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23675858-departure?ac=1&from_search=true

About to start pic related

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22859850-dark-intelligence?from_search=true#bookDetails

>>8596316
Transformation fetish - the book

>>8596307

I liked what he did in the Wild Card series, and aside from stuff I got into as a pre-teen like Wild Cards, most of the fiction that I read is "literary fiction" or whatever, so he has passed at least one decent bullshit detector.

>>8596105
Summertide, Charles Sheffield.

I find the prose in Shades of Grey kind of annoying, I guess kind of overdone? Only read the first 8 pages or so. Anyone else had the problem and is it worth sitting through?

>>8596654
Oh it's worth it but next book never.

This is a fucking stupid request, but do you guys know any novels similar to Space Rangers 2? I would love to read a space adventure in a wacky world like that.

>>8595880
>since the books is the source material

Yeah, I know. Some people might have thought otherwise.

>>8595950
Oh, I'm really enjoying it. The world-building is fantastic, the characters are fleshed out extremely well, tons of attention to detail. So, yes, it's a decent space opera.

>>8595055
Better how? Can you get any more specific?

>>8595950
Not him,but it's decent enough.
It's very easy to read.It's my easy book of the week.
But I might only say that because I might be a germanophile (Is there even such a thing?)

>>8596085
Don't scare me like that. I love the series so far but I haven't gotten my hands on TGO yet. I'm that audiobook fag

>>8596316
Glad my neal asher shilling fell on welcomed ears.
Have you tried BV Larson yet?

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Fuck everyone who has ever mentioned this series, it was terrible.

Dorian deserved better.

>>8596845
Dread empire is kinda boring, and they rely too heavily on prophecy. People trying to circumvent prophecies, and it coming back to haunt them still.

Black Company to me is more fleshed out, and less annoying. That fat fuck in dread empire talks circles just like kruper from Malazan... and he is one of the main characters.

>>8597030
It was GRI APPROVED though.
Did you walk away with any sick fetishes?
... I know I did.. fucking mute scarred face girls who just lie there and take it.


Also fuck the anon who suggested the black and gold empire. Fucking shit.
Thicc beetle gives up the pussy and gets M O T H ' D, and friendzones the guy that likes her.
Also the insects as people was shit too. Read like YA.

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>>8597030
How are authors OK with having such painfully bad, 2 dollar cosplay tier covers? I know that "you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover" but it is LITERALLY the first thing you see about it. It's the thing that yells out "pick me up" in the store. The thing that has to grab your interest. How do these conversations go? "Hey Brent should we get and Artist to make a cool cover for your trilogy?" "Nah, just use some stock images of Ninja/Assassins. That'll do" Have they no pride in their work? Do they simply not care? Or do they actually think those are amazingly cool pictures that capture the spirit of the book?

>>8597094
Modern covers are a bugbear of mine. The trashiest genre fiction, printed in the lousiest mass market paperback, had better covers than modern trade paperbacks, where I suspect something is dashed off in an hour on photoshop.

>judging a book by its cover

I want the underage to leave

>>8597153
If reading fantasy has taught me anything, it is that judging based on cover is extremely effective.
The same also most often works for people.

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>>8597153
not preferring the likes of Frank Frazetta on your books

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>written by <first initial middle initial last name>
>please don't be a fantasy author
>it's a fantasy author

>>8597195
the best is when they have two middle initials

>>8597222
Triple points if it's R.R

>>8597195
>>8597222
Often not even their decision how the name appears on the book. Look at rowling. It is well known that she wanted to put "joanne rowling" on her books and the publisher went "Nah m8. Young boys don't want to read books written by girls. Put two initials there".

>>8597094
>Have they no pride in their work? Do they simply not care? Or do they actually think those are amazingly cool pictures that capture the spirit of the book?
Dude, the author has little to no control over the cover. That decision is entirely made by the publishing house.

>>8597269
That's funny because I make a conscious effort to not read fantasy by men

>>8597269
good call by the publisher tbH

>>8597094
the romantic fantasy ones have it bad, many of them still unabashedly use the 80's Fabio type covers

>>8597094
Brent weeks was the guy in the night angel covers I think, not stock assassin stills.

Also if you read the book that is exactly how wetboys look.

>>8597351
>Brent weeks was the guy in the night angel covers
wut

>>8597351
Of course I'm not saying it literally is stock photos. I'm saying it looks like a god damn stock photo.

>>8592746
It's fine. Some people who were expecting a purely hard-sf "reality fanfic" tier story were baited and switched, but everybody else knows that Stephenson doesn't write that kind of thing anyway.

>>8593166
I don't like it when tripfags post generals. In this case, it feels a little like you are trying to take ownership of the thread. If you want to hang around re-posting the thread all the time, I wish you would at least turn your trip off for the OP post.

>>8597439

17 days

>>8597493
What

>>8597503
Till the Great Purge.

>>8597516
But 16.10.16 is in 8 days

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>This triggers the leftist

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Release date when?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30747539-mass-effect

>>8597546
Is that guy actually good at writing? Never read anything from him. Only know him from that puppies thing.

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>This triggers the /pol/tard

>>8597572

>Reading video game shit

What happened, did you run out of Star Wars novels?

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>>8597617
Why

>>8597618
Sophisticated books for sophisticated people amirite m8?

>>8597615

His earlier short stories can be hit or miss but that one is pretty good.

God, how long are we going to have to wait for Peace Talks? Has Butcher even given us a first chapter yet?

>>8596283
Sorry for the late response. It's not all that convoluted, all though I'm a homestuck fan so my baseline for convoluted may be a bit skewed. I haven't read deathless or the girl who circumnavigated fairyland (it's children's I think, not YA) but they are well reviewed so give them a shot

>>8596307
I love Tregillis. His best work in my opinion is Something More Than Night, if only becuase it is the most seamless blend of science fiction and fantasy I ever read.

I didn't like Milkweed, but Alchemy Wars is incredibly damn exciting

Anyone here read Metro 2033? Anyone maybe read Metro 2035? I'm curious how the new one (2035) is like when compared to the first one. Didn't like 2034, for whatever that's worth.

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Can his books be safely classified as literature?

>>8597726
Stop being a pretensious faggot

>>8597726
No. There's nothing literary about his novels.

>>8597726

>I smoke weed

>>8597770

Bakker never said that. Besides he's a very talented author.

>>8597777
If he is, he is hiding the talent extremely well.

What fantasy should I read if I want big titty elves

>>8597798

The Magicians

>>8597798
There is hands down no good lit where elves are explicitely stated to have big tits.

>>8597617

Not a /pol/tard but it's interesting how her politics manage to be inconsistent even within the narrow scope of the world she created herself.

But politics aside, the first book was surprisingly good. If only the second and the third weren't literally about how everyone feels about their favorite tea set.

>>8597726

If literature is synonymous for purple prose, then yes.

>>8597777
However he did say:
>Well first off, you should know that I don’t write fantasy – only hacks write fantasy. My books are about the triumph of the human spirit which just happen to have everything you would find in The Wheel of Time

>>8597726
>Death came swirling down

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>>8597094
I have no idea why they got rid of the old covers for these. I own the originals and even if they're kinda dated I still prefer the striking colors to the sterile white.

>>8597814
Fill this niche

Hey /sffg/ how do you go about naming extradimentional planes?

>>8598791
Mix a bunch of places from asia together.
Iraq + China = Irina, a realm of deserts
Sudan + Mnt Fuji = Suji

>>8598989
>Sudan
>in Asia

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>>8599018
The Sudanese Empire ruled Asia

>>8598424
Wow those covers are way better.

Sometimes I wonder if stuff like that happens because the publisher doesn't want to pay royalties for the art any more, or doesn't want to pay for the better covers from the original publishing house. (eg, the really bad Terry Pratchett covers for the US editions.)

>>8599082
Fastest way to trigger a Chinese nationalist is to point out that Egyptian and Jewish history goes back far further than the 5000 years of Chinese history.

>>8598131
>AND EVERYTHING IS FUCKING "HOARY"

>>8599173
least it aint whorey desu

>>8598424
See? Even though they are pretty much "generic fantasy 101" they are SO MUCH better than the one I posted earlier.

Any notable scifi recent releases or upcoming stuff?

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>>8599429
This drops next month.
>mfw the artist didn't make the Moon battle-scarred, covered in graffiti, and a nun

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>>8599453
>posting the inane shit from mr. fedora tipper

>>8599455
>getting this triggered every time

>>8599459
He's more dedicated than dinoposter.

>>8599453
I said notable not papist propaganda.

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>>8599468
This might be more your speed.

>>8599459
Huh, I posted this for the first time. Maybe everybody hates him and for good reasons

>>8599453
>Del Azarchel casually mentions that gravity control is possible at galactic scales way back in Count to a Trillion
>we are rapidly approaching galactic scales
This is going to be really fun.

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>>8599472
>Huh, I posted this for the first time
Right.

>>8599453
He is actually getting a decent cover, that's good. They aren't marketing it to retarded manchildren.
>>8599429
New Gene Wolfe, Interlibrary Loan. But I don't think I'll read it, it's just him writing pulp for himself.
>>8599471
Papist propaganda makes for the absolute best science fiction and fantasy.

>>8598424
To this day I have no idea what the fuck is going on in the cover of Novice. There is never any kind of flaming bat-winged horse in the series, it's like the artist just drew whatever he wanted.

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guys, do i skip The Wee Free Men and the next one?

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>>8599667
Updated guide. Wee Free Men and it's sequels are more young adult.

>>8599589
Yeah i was thinking the same thing when I saw that imagine: "Am I misremembering? I don't recall a horse with wings. Am I turning senile?"

>>8599667
>>8599682
Fuck read order guides
release date > everything else.

>>8599711
>stories make more sense by reading books in order events and dates in the books
>hur you are only allowed to read in order of release date

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What a strange novel. On thematic/emotional level, it's one of the most touching things I've read, but the science involved was so fucking retarded, hard sci-fi autist in me was struggling to turn the pages. Is Way Station any good?

>>8599667
Read in release date order and skip the youngens

>>8599682
thanks

>>8599719
>implying Terry Pratchett wrote and published books that wouldn't make sense until he subsequently wrote and published future books

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>>8599755
You fucking hard sci-fi nuts. Can't you read a book set in the future that is theoretically possible?

Why does everything have to be grounded in 100% peer reviewed science?

A photon weapon is possible if we have a compact, yet powerful battery.
Nanotechnology is possible.
Human augmentation is possible.

Why the fuck does everything have to be conventional equipment, in space?

Sci-fi is, and always has been, science fantasy, i.e the futuristic what-ifs capabilities of technology.

You hard sci cunts just want delta v's, and the movie gravity in prose.

Fuck I hate you cunts.

>>8599682
Isn't the entire Discworld series YA?

>>8592745
Wait, Kurt Vonnegut is considered sci-fi? What the fuck? That doesn't make any sense, he was way too good to be lumped in with science fiction writers

>>8600194
He's bottom tier.

>>8600194
Vonnegut is worse than most science fiction I've read and easily so.

>>8597615
It's a guy who thinks it's clever to have "Vox Day" as his pen name. Of course he can't write for shit.

>>8600158
Yes, essentially.

>>8599577
>He is actually getting a decent cover, that's good. They aren't marketing it to retarded manchildren.
That series is still contracted with Tor and I believe the cover was actually drawn by Irene "neo-nazi" Gallo. I agree the Castalia covers suck really bad.

>>8599755
Way station's very similar, sentimental but not hard SF in the slightest. Was Epilog included in City? See if you can track it down, it's a really good final chapter.

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You know this thing is a piece of shit when the only defense the fans have for it is that the narrator might be unreliable so the main character may not be such an unlikable Gary Stu.

>>8600296

What's wrong with that and why would that mean his writing is shit?

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I recently read this book and enjoyed it a lot, but jesus christ this edition is addled with typos and errors. I checked, and of course it's a woman who translated it. Didn't anyone proofread this shit? Some of it was extremely bad and distracting.

>>8600439
Why do protagonists need to be likable? There are plenty of reasons to hate Name of the Wind, but Kvothe being a dickhead is not one of them

>>8600444
now play the game

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>>8600194
Sirens Of Titan, Player Piano, Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse 5. These are books of futuristic dystopias, apocalypses, aliens, speculative technology, books which made the Hugos lists. I don't know about his short stories, but I would guess he ran off a few SF stories there, too.

Vonnegut was a 'soft' SF writer for half of his career (the better half.) People who are new to science fiction could do a lot worse than pick up a copy of Cat's Cradle.

He just isn't regarded as science fiction because the literary establishment accepted him, and he appears to have distanced himself from it.

>>8600440
If you really need either of those things explained to you, you're one of the people making this general worse. Guy's twitter handle is Supreme Dark Lord for crying out loud.

>>8600536

So?
What's wrong with it?
>inb4 no explanations only more buzzwords

>>8600542
Autism or still in high school (or both)?

>>8600545

Nailed the inb4

>>8600536

I don't think your capable of explaining it because your positions are irrational, so now you're trying to pass it off like you shouldn't even have to explain the things you believe.

>>8600453
They don't need to be, but if a protagonist is unlikable it should be for a reason. Just like having an unreliable narrator should exist for a reason. "I've been telling this story in a way that makes me look better than the truth does" isn't an interesting use for an unreliable narrator, and so far that looks like it might be exactly where Rothfuss is going.

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>>8600536
So you are judging someones ability to write based on a name he uses on twitter instead of the writing in one of his books?

Stop trying to fit in anon, you look like a complete fucking idiot and it is embarrassing.

>>8600558
The ability to write decently is predicated on a number of things, for instance understanding grammar and the connotation of words. Certain things, like word connotation, aren't things that are strictly defined and which one can look up, but rather are dependent on an author's grasp of the intangibles surrounding the written word (e.g. aroma vs. scent vs. smell vs. odor). From what an author identifies as desirable words with which to represent himself, for instance a slight modification of a latin phrase that suggests that the second-tier science fiction author sees himself as the voice of God, a non-autistic person can extrapolate how well an author grasps such intangibles. A feeble grasp of such things is incompatible with being a writer that isn't shit.
>>8600574
Post a passage of any of Vox Day's work that shows he's a good writer. Go on, I'll wait.

>>8600604
>Post a passage of any of Vox Day's work that shows he's a good writer. Go on, I'll wait.
You haven't even read anything by him, you are judging him based on nothing other than a name he uses on twitter.

You are a fucking idiot who thinks that he has some sort of superior knowledge than everyone else. You are nothing but an idiot.

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>it's another "author spent all their time playing Civ instead of writing so the book got delayed and is basically a themed Civ lets play" book

>>8600604
>author sees himself as the voice of God

For somebody that talks a lot of other people being autistic you don't seem to be picking up that the author is being cheeky with that name. He doesn't actually see himself as the voice of god or as a dark lord.

>>8600616
>>it's another "author spent all their time playing Civ instead of writing so the book got delayed and is basically a themed Civ lets play" book
excession is one of the culture books that conveys its message and themes way better if you have read 2-3 other culture novels. If you have, then it is excellent; if you have not, it might read a bit weird.
Same goes for Inversions and possibly the hydrogen sonata

I fucking love the culture

>>8600626
Just ignore him, he is one of those fags that thinks he knows better than everyone else.

He is so retarded that he judges someones ability to writ be a name he uses on social media.

>>8600612
>>8600633
You're assuming I haven't read any Vox Day, but that isn't true. I read a bit of A Throne of Bones and found it to be complete crap.

Still waiting for you to post something showing that he's not a shit writer.

>>8600626
He's not, though, with the Vox Day name. He has a very inflated view of his own importance.

>>8600642
You haven't read anything by him. You are nothing but an idiot, please fuck off.

>>8600646
Seriously, just kill yourself.

>>8600642

We have to assume you haven't read him at all because when you're asked why you think he's a bad writer all you've said is you don't like his name. That's retarded.

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>theodore beale fanboy flips out when asked to post a excerpt of the author's supposed "good writing"

kek, they're all the same.

>>8600667

It would be a pointless exercise because you're just going to quibble over everything. If I said that Tolkien was a hack because I don't like his name then there wouldn't be any part of his book that would change my mind, because I would acting irrational. You can't reason somebody out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into.

>>8600651
I was just saying that, from the name alone, you could tell he was a shit writer. This answered the poster's question. Additional information wasn't necessary at that time.
>>8600692
Different anon, buddy.

>>8600842
>from the name alone, you could tell he was a shit writer.

Yeah that's retarded.

>>8600849
Sorry that you're the type that actually needs to read Ass Goblins of Auschwitz in order to know it's terrible.

>>8600667
I don't even like him, but it's a fool's errand to respond to that sort of thing. In the history of /lit/ there has never been a case where an anon changed his mind based on a paragraph sample. Requests for samples are invariably invitations to provide material for mockery, because all paragraphs can be mocked.

>>8600910

You could say something might be shit based on the name but if you were to tell somebody that it is in fact shit then you would need to come up with something better. You would need an actual reason that isn't just based on superficial bullshit. If you were to just come out and say that you think he's a bad writer because you disagree with his politics I would actually respect that more.

>>8600957
>If you were to just come out and say that you think he's a bad writer because you disagree with his politics I would actually respect that more.
No you wouldn't.

>>8600604
>Post a passage of any of Vox Day's work that shows he's a good writer. Go on, I'll wait

If you were being honest I would recommend reading the last battle in A Throne of Bones where the chapter starts out from the perspective of the crow and changes with the action. It was very creative and well done and that's something you could probably appreciate without knowing the story that led up to it. I know you're just being a fag though.

>>8600967
ok

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Is this a worthy sequel to The Time Machine?

>>8601121
Don't know about Baxter, but The Night Land certainly is.

>>8601253
The Time Ships is the official sequel to The Time Machine and continues exactly where it left off.

I haven't read it yet though, just wondering if it lives up to H. G. Well's work.

>>8601261
Didn't know Wells lived that long. Anyway, The Time Machine doesn't need a sequel. It's complete. We know how life continues, we know how it ends. Except I guess the Morlocks build a Dyson sphere or something? Was Baxter trying to say the Eloi are completely useless? I haven't read it either.

>>8601270
>Didn't know Wells lived that long
Well obviously he didn', Baxter got the rights to write an official sequel to TTM.

>>8601276
So it's more of a Star Wars tie-in then.

When are the blood mirror audiobook coming out

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>>8597726
>currently reading The Judging Eye
>reach the part where they must travel through The Black Halls aka Khazad Dum to avoid a fucking blizzard .
I know he does a lot of blatant rip-offs, but this one had me pic related .
Still, I'm gonna keep reading, because I am deeply in love with the Tleilaxu from Dune and The Consult is the best substitute I can get.

>>8592745
What was that short story where the old couple go to some sort of commercial medical facility to upload their minds onto androids and live forever because the husband is sick?

I wanna say it was written around 1940. Basically the whole story is them talking to the salesman about the philosophy of immortality and what constitutes a human mind and then at least the man does it at the end

>>8600560
>ppl lying to make themselves look better isn't an interesting use of lying

>I'm the embodiment of literary merit, no book shall be accepted by the masses unless through me

>>8601960
That sounds very similar to this Twilight Zone episode.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trade-Ins

>>8601530
Ask arc anon.

>>8592745
Whats a good fantasy novel that isn't a part of a series.

I've been trying to build up my ability to read. I usually can't concentrate but have gotten the hang of just short stories. I think I'm ready for an actual book but don't know where to begin.

>>8602250
Elantris or Warbreaker

I've just watched The Expanse in a day, care to rec me something similar? Are the books well written (really a break point)? If not, something else about conspiracy and politicking in space apart from the Eclipse Phase rulebook?

Also Blindsight is the best first contact book ever written, though I'd like to be proven wrong and read something even more incredible.

>>8599429
Gaskun has a few books out but its pretty much for middle school kids desu.

>>8602253
I've been considering Elantris for a while now. Although after two to three months of lurking here I always see people shitting on Sanderson and it has made me a bit hesitant to purchase his works.

>>8602250
The Broken Sword.

>>8602275
This is 4chan. Don't get memed.

Of course you can find something wrong with Elantris -- it's fantasy. But it builds a complete world and tells a complete story in it in one volume, which is rare given the economics of modern fantasy.

And it's a good read. Brought me back to the genre after GRRM kicked me out.

>>8602275
I got it from the library a few weeks ago and read it over a weekend. I thought it was perfectly fine, if a bit generic and predictable.

Plus it's only a single volume, so that's nice. Far too many authors decide to go "Book V of XIV in the Overwrought Fantasy Name Sequence - The Legend of A'Pos'tro'phy" instead of standalone stories, or unconnected stories in the same setting.

>>8602275
I haven't read Elantris, but I liked Mistborn and Stormlight archives. I also read his ending to the wheel of time series. I think he is a very talented author, well worth reading if you like epic fantasy series.

>>8602250

Read the Hobbit.

>>8602275

I've read Elantris quite recently. I've also read Mistborn. Has others have said, it was nice largely because it's a single volume. Some things will perhaps annoy you, but overall you get a good fantasy story with some interesting ideas and events.

Sanderson's "Stormlight Archive" is miles ahead though. I love the two books that are current out, and can't wait for the next one. Mistborn is also decent, but the ending was a disappointment for me personally.

>>8602250
Any stand alone fantasy novels with more of a morbid or macabre feel to it. I love a gloomy and grim atmospheric feeling

>>8602425
Broken Sword for this, too.
>that moment where they drag the brothers and father from their grave and they tell him he's been screwing his sister

>>8602425
The Night Land.

>>8593795
Oh god. I remember loving this series when I was younger, the first book was fine. I had wished there was more fantasy aspect to it etc.

Then I went back reread the series later on.

God. I couldn't stomach it.

>>8602460
Sword of Truth, in which the hero carves a statue of himself and his wife that's so great it makes everybody who sees it convert to capitalism and exchange their fiat gold coins for bitcoins.

>>8602425
American Gods maybe? I didn't like most of it but the parts where he's swinging on Yggdrasil and his wife comes back to help him are really good.

>>8600439
I found the way the author wrote relationships to be extremely irritating.

Kvothe himself wasn't so horrible, it was pretty much everything else.

>>8602472
mfw this was my favorite book in the series.

Regret.

>>8602474
>American Gods
This is going to sound nitpicky so don't take it so seriously but "Shadow" sounds like one cheesy ass name. Like what a 10 year old might name his rogue while playing an rpg

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>>8602546

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>>8602561
THIS... IS MY CURSE

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Alternate history is /sffg/ r-right?
What do you think of How Few Remain? I was doubtful at first, but now I think its a masterpiece, Mark Twain and George Custer sex scenes not withstanding.

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Is there any book about a fantasy creature in a normal world where the plot is centered around it being the only unusual creature to ever exist?

>>8602567
>Time is the fire in which we burn
He got that from Star Trek Insurrection

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>>8602425
Pic related is a sort of nightmare landscape with art coming to life and Nazi daemons and shit, I'd rec it.

>>8602589
The last unicorn, and it's shit desu.

>>8602614
>Beagle-sama is shit
I bet you like Sanderson

>>8602589
Frankenstein

>>8602614
There are other creatures so I don't see how that fits.

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>>8602546
Gaiman is not a good writer. He is able to generate a good macabre atmosphere, though.

>>8602586
It is, but Turtledove is a major-league hack. *rubs sunscreen*

/sffg/ I'm finding that my ability to write fantasy is limited by the need to take my writing seriously, and because of that I can't write the kind of cartoony stories that I would actually enjoy reading or watching.

What do?

>>8602670
Seconding this. I've read cartoony fantasy that I've enjoyed but when I try it it comes out as pretentious magic realism crap.

>>8602673
It's not that mine comes out like that. It's that when I DO write it, I look at it and feel like I just humiliated myself on paper. It just "feels" bad. I can't even do the slightest references to modern pop culture.

>>8602679
>I can't even do the slightest references to modern pop culture.
That's good because you shouldn't. It should be funny because it's funny, not because someone picked up your reference. Look at Discworld - you can laugh all the way through it without picking up a single modern reference because what the characters are doing is funny. Discworld is going to stay funny.

>>8602684
humor and references to pop culture are separate things and I can't do either one of them without being ashamed of it

>>8602692
Practice, I guess. Are you funny around people? Without making references?
>tfw I was genuinely funny when I had friends

>>8602662
>Gaiman is not a good writer
Disagree desu, he's certainly got some poorer works in the catalogue but when he hits on a good character like Nobody Owens or Anansi it's always a comfy read. And he likes Wolfe so he can't be all bad.

>>8602696
Generally the jokes I write are just shit like this

>...though I should have been starting high school next month, I was washing dishes in a diner to bring home the bread and butter. The pay wasn't good, seeing as I was literally paid in bread and butter, but there's no law saying you have to pay child laborers money, and our landlady Mrs. Finnegan is willing to let us live in the basement of her townhouse in exchange for menial services. Generally most of these tasks were things that involved avoiding traffic, risking the sudden ionization of your colon, or standing on a rickety ladder that no sane person would ever climb if they wanted to keep their vertebrae attached to each other: liking changing the bulbs in the string lights that zig-zagged across the street from tree to shining tree.
>I was just coming home from work with my pockets stuffed with toast (I was docked a day's butter for “attitude”)...

In retrospect though, that one was bad because it shouldn't have been funny, but I'm to embarassed to write a version where the mood is right

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>>8602666
Interesting alternate history is necessarily somewhat schlocky. What with well known people from our world popping up in an alternate world, with lots of "being like poetry because it rhymes" going on. And characters unnaturally indulging in tangents about world politics to fill the reader in. "Literary" alternate history is more often than not, just a vague gloss of uchronia draped over the author jacking himself off. Pic related.

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>>8602670
>>8602673
Just embrace the cheese guys, some readers actually prefer a ludicrous pulp premise

>>8602630
That's not fantasy.

>>8602710
I'm not saying he's bad, just that he's not good. I mean, Murder Mystery, Goliath, and a few of the Sandman storylines were great, and Graveyard Book was a lot of fun and that sort of thing should be done more often, but then there's his budget Arthur Dent Hero's Journey betamax MCs, there's The Problem of Susan, there's every other Sandman storyline. I definitely give him props for things like the numbered princes in Stardust, but I couldn't read the How Many Miles to Babylon scene without thinking of how much better Diana Wynne Jones did it in Deep Secret.

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>book is billed as being "a robot's-eye view of a robot revolt"
>100 pages in (it's 300 pages long) and most of it has been about the uploaded human consciousnesses being trained in a simulation to fight the robots, and boring ~worldbuilding~ about how they were soldiers/terrorists in a near-future non-state war between utopian/anti-utopian factions

skeletor_yelling.mp3

>>8602714
>>8602586
I can't stand his other books but Years of Rice and Salt is my very favorite alt-hist novel and one of my favorite novels. It very rarely focuses on famous people, mostly following the karmic journey of a group of friends as they're reincarnated through a world without Europeans. Apparently alt-hist is only good when you use it to spice up a story about Eastern esotericism.

>>8602727
The monster is made via alchemy.

>>8602712
That's actually not bad if you clean it up and smooth out the mood. Allow me:
>...though I should have been starting high school next month, I was washing dishes in a diner to bring home the bread and butter. The pay wasn't good, seeing as I was paid in bread and butter, but there's no law saying you have to pay child laborers money, and our landlady was willing to let us live in the basement of her townhouse in exchange for menial services. Generally these were things that involved avoiding traffic, risking the sudden ionization of a colon, or standing on a rickety ladder that no person would climb if they wanted to keep their vertebrae attached to each other.
>I was just coming home from work with my pockets stuffed with toast (I was docked a day's butter for “attitude”)...

This part
>changing the bulbs in the string lights that zig-zagged across the street from tree to shining tree
and the landlady's name could find another place. What do you think?

>>8602738
Is Ctrl-Alt-Revolt any good?

>>8602738
myah?

>>8602712
When I write jokes I write like this
>The sky above Compton was the color of a television set to a dark blue channel. It was nearly dusk, and most people were out enjoying the Dre Day Eve celebrations. Gerald Heller was not one of those people. His office was in the 14th floor of Cogswell Tower where he was allegedly giving his balance sheets a once over, but, truth be told, he hadn’t actually done any work for his company for the last two days. He’d received word, a single word actually, direct from the Most Worthy Hierophant himself, “Detach.” It was time to ascend. This was much sooner than expected, and much work had to be done to ensure he left no trail back to the New Order of the Eastern Star . He’d always been a bit of a loner, his co-workers normally preferred to pretend he wasn’t there, but when he insisted working his full shift on this of all days, it was nearly too much for his fellow CPAs to accept. Refusing to fraternize arose a great deal of suspicion, but keeping up appearances no longer mattered. Soon, all the masks could come off. But for the time being, every moment he spent among Earth-born scum brought with it greater and greater risk, and the last traces of his dirtlife had to be wiped clean tonight. Rumor was that the Earth Federation Government was systematically wiping out every NOES patron and matron they could corner. Gerald was the talkative type when among his own kind. If any one of his comrades broke under interrogation, E-Fed grubs would send someone around to ask him some questions, questions out of a gun, that is to say, hollowpoint questions; (bullets).
There's also DFW-tier footnotes peppered about in there.

>>8602736
Definitely agree that he's a mixed bag, I had a really hard time with how American Gods builds up this ponderous, apocalyptic tone for 350 pages and then reveals everything in a bad pun. But then the more subtle folk tale and bedtime-story type stuff like In Relig Odhrain or the one about the old lady who finds the Holy Grail are pure class.

Also nice to see someone else has read Wynne Jones, she's heavily underrated.

>>8602800
I don't think I've ever met a Wynne Jones fan in real life aside from brothers and sisters that read the same library books, and even they didn't read Deep Secret or her nonfiction. She's another of Gaiman's favorites, come to think of it.


Has anyone read Madeleine L'Engle's other books? They were based on this really neat left-Christianity philosophy that seems completely alien now. I seem to remember the one where Charles Wallace time-travels being pretty good. Many Waters was my first encounter with nephilim. I'm sure there was a lot of other esotericism I missed.

>>8602742
Years of Rice and Salt is great because the author has literary merit backed up with historical knowledge and doesn't let his story fall into the genre's worst cliches ie. Great Man in History garbage. The best of all worlds.

Usually with alternate history you have to settle for one or two of the three (or none)

>>8602762
Dunno. I see a lot of references to Ready Player One in the goodreads reviews, which is throwing up very large warning signs for me.

But the main reason I went with Dissidence is because the whole description painted it as being about autonomous robots becoming self-conscious and so on, but it seems to be far more about humans in a sim tank.

If you want Humans vs Robots/AI, I'd suggest checking out Daniel Saurez. Kill Decision is a pretty good action movie romp about a some Special Forces soldiers versus a conspiracy using drone swarms to carry out terrorist attacks.

Is it bad for the odds of a major conflict to be the inverse of what they appeared to be? An apparently unconquerable enemy who was doomed from the very beginning.

>>8602812
Alt-hist doesn't even use Great Man that often (when they do it's in the foreground which is annoying) but it does tend to have every little thing dependent on one event. I wouldn't have minded it in YORAS. We didn't really see much of their historiography, just the world as the characters saw it. They were the center of the story, and that was a very good story. I can feel K's longing and B's love right now just thinking about it.

Moorcock wrote alternate history that abused Great Man. It was wretched and put me off him for good.

>>8602819
That happens often in real life, so no.

>>8602819
Real life is full of examples of apparently invincible things getting dumpstered in humiliating ways. Titanic. Maginot Line. The New England Patriots. Etc.

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>>8602819
>An apparently unconquerable enemy who was doomed from the very beginning.

I'd like to introduce you to Nazi Germany.

>>8602811
It'd be interesting to work out all of Gaiman's influences, there's a weird fusion of Alan Moore, Terry Pratchett, R.A. Lafferty, and several others going on. (He's also got a really nice audiobook voice.)

People mostly seem to find Diana through the Ghibli adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle; I haven't even read a huge amount myself. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland is hilarious though, should be required reading for all of these GRRM/Sanderson clones who start up a series.

>>8602841
If you liked Tough Guide read the Dark Lord of Derkholm novels, they're about this innocuous fantasy dimension that was minding its own business until tourists from a world like ours conquered it and forced them to abide by Tough Guide-style cliches.

She wrote two fantasy novels for adults. Deep Secret was really good even though it had convention people in it, and I still haven't finished A Sudden Wild Magic (slutty witches corrupting a space monastery happened a bit too suddenly).

>>8602827
Really? I see great man nonsense all the time. There's mountains of stories about great men like Napoleon or Hitler who are compelled by fate (plot convenience) to always become a person of enormous importance even if they were born in another country, or or abducted by aliens, or converted to Islam, or became trans, or whatever other dumb point of divergence the author has cooked up.

>>8602864
Ah, you probably read more althist than I do. I read a lot of Turtledove back in the day, and his fantasy WWII was the first novel series I actually dropped.

I remember an anthology of alternate history shorts, big two-volume deal, and one of my favorites was one where researchers somehow communicate with Genghis Khan's thoughts in a timeline where he was kidnapped to Constantinople and converted to Christianity. One of the researchers convinces him he's actually a mighty conqueror and they lose the connection, having to speculate about what might happen. I like that style. I think alt-hist is inherently much more of a short story medium, unless you're doing something weird like YORAS or Man in the High Castle.

>>8602864
>if Hitler was a gay black woman from Queens, the Nazis would have surely won the war!

>>8602872
Fantasy ww2? Like with magic and dragons? That sounds terrible.

>>8602886
It had some neat points but he couldn't let it grow on its own, had to bend it to fit IRL history. There was a really neat bit where the fantasy Manhattan Project researchers convert an oak tree to a sprout, but after just one gee-whiz moment in four 400-page novels I couldn't even care about the next book.

It's even worse when he makes his own history, like the one where aliens invade during WWII. There's always a major disconnect between lightly borrowed real history and History As Turtledove Thinks It Should Happen.

I've heard his Byzantium stuff is really well-researched, though. He's just not a good author.

>>8602893
Well, he wrote his thesis on the Byzantines so I'm not surprised he knows his shit.

new thread

>>8603240
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>>8602622
Book read like shit. Why you so mad I don't like your favorite author?