/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

what did you think of the blade itself

>>9156405
I really want to visit Angland. Maybe visit Lundon where I can have a bit of fash and chops while watching Manty Pythun while sipping taa.

My point is it's dull and unimaginative, and I have no idea why /sffg/ recommends it so much.

>>9156349
>Fantasy
>Selected:
>>https://i.imgur.com/r688cPe.jpg
is the wheel of time /lit/ approved?

>>9156445
Nope. Too much padding, and the middle books are shit.

>>9156425
what to read instead

Any good fantasy with a little girl protag?

The way of king is shit, sorry, I tried to read, but after descover that the plot invovle somekind of shard and stuff, I dropped. Damn, Sanderson is not a good plot and character writter, but a give him his a good action writer.

has Alice in Wonderland but with quantum physics instead of math already been done

>>9156445
It's tugg and spank approved if you into those things.

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I'm really tired of world-ending threats, chosen ones, great wars with great empires and political drama.
Can you recommend me some good fantasy books focused on small scale where the protagonist has to deal with local problems rather than saving the world. Something like first two witcher novels. I want something more like hobbit novel and less like Lotr trilogy.

>>9156574
The Buried Giant is exactly what you're looking for.

>>9156445
If you think it looks interesting then read it.

Please, any good science fiction or fantasy book that involves a lot of politics. It can be about wars, clashing factions, debates, making of laws, revolution, anything

>>9156574
The golem and the jinni is a good one. Small-scale historical fantasy at its finest.

>>9156645
Grace of kings. Its about warring asian/pacific kingdoms and has lots of politics as well as military combat and technological development

>>9156645
The long price quartet
The coin and dagger series
Now leave so I can reeeeee about you triggering me

/sffg/ is deader than my sex drive

>>9156405
I liked it, twisted my expectations in a way I liked and I thought that most of the characters were cool.

But like >>9156425 said the world is really dull for a fantasy setting. Even the fantasy stuff in it feels like the author really had no idea what it was and just thought it might be cool.

>>9156645
ht45678tps://www.f0acebo0ok.com/NovelActivistPage
ht365tp://novelactivist.com/

Any recommendations for 'Robinsonade' novels? Any kind of stuff where man is trying to impose order and civilization on nature

Here's the stuff I can remember I've already read:
>Tunnel in the Sky by Heinlein
>Nation by Pratchett
>Lord of the Flies
>The Martian (kinda)
>a part of Red Rising had this

I usually don't browse /lit/. It seems like you guys in /sffg/ have a low opinion of Baen. Why?

>>9156645
Kim Stanely Robinsons stuff
Gold Coast trio
Mars trilogy
Science in the Capital
2312
Aurora

>>9157235
Baen publishes a lot of retrograde trash
It'll be endless series, by multiple authors
>volume xvii by Mercedes Leckie and X
And after a couple of them X will get a series
Cowrite that with others
And then THEY will get series
All churning out the same generic space opera

>>9156645
A promising new series is Luna: New Moon

>>9157267
In your opinion what good stuff have they put out? Do you like any of their authors? I get what you're saying about putting out retrograde stuff. It seems like they try to keep alive the brands of a lot of the big name authors from the past by publishing their stuff, but like you said it either ends up as just more trashy space operas or mediocre collabs.

>>9156349
Can someone recommend a high-fantasy series similar in length to WoT, but not a meme like GoT?

>>9157267
>>9157235
Its cover art will also make your eyes bleed

>>9157328
I really can't think of anything, I just don't read that sort of stuff
>keep alive the brands
>brands
Says it all

>>9157328
Maybe Lois McMaster Bujold? Her series have been nominated and won Nebulas and Hugos

>>9157333
WoT?
World of Tiers?

What's /sffg/'s opinion on starting with an expository fairy tale?

>>9157403
Exposition is bad.

>>9157409
I need some way to introduce who my character is and the situation she's stuck in. an every idea I've come up with so far sucks.

The story is fairy-tale fantasy so setting it up like a disney movie seems appropriate, but there's a reason I'm not a published writer so i dunno

>>9157501
Go to the writing critique thread for this.

>>9157363
He means Wheel of Time, friend.

>>9157512
are they okay with sff stuff?

What would you guys think of a series set in a fantasy world with contemporary technology+styles of warfare but otherwise traditional fantasy features? Assuming it's done well of course. Has anyone done anything like this before?

>>9157501
Disney-style fantasy has been dead for years. Nobody knows this better than Disney, themselves, which is why all their animated fantasy films get by on subverting and/or spoofing the conventions of their dead genre.

90% of ideas suck, and the other 10% can be easily ruined by poor execution. Just get your story down and beat as much suck out of it as you can through editing and revising.

>>9157576
>series set in a fantasy world with contemporary technology+styles of warfare but otherwise traditional fantasy features
You mean like Warhammer 40k?

>>9157576
The answer to this and EVERY OTHER IDEA is the fucking same: It depends on execution. If you can't write, it will be boring. If it's well written, people will like it.
And from experience, people who have to ask these kind of questions fall into the former category.

Is the polity universe by Neal asher gobshite

>>9157581
I'm pretty sure I've got a good idea here. It's held up past the realization that the idea that spawned it is awful. I just need to beat the shit out of the beginning because no matter how many times I write it it's still awful. I need to set up the premise and the main character at the same time and this is kind of the only way I can think of doing it, but even that isn't perfect, its just an improvement

>>9157576
what do you mean by traditional fantasy features?

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>>9157328
Don't listen to them. Everyone loves BAEN here :3
>>9149041
>>9151870

>>9157336
How dare you sir! Sure, there is the occasional physiological horror like pic related, but it's better than the photo garbage that's common now.

>>9157576
What, like guns and guerilla warfare but with dragons and shit?

I'm not sure I follow.

>>9157605
Here's how stories are typically structured.
-Hook
-Exposition
-Rising action
-Climax
-Falling action

Hook and exposition are two different things with two different objectives. The hook is meant to hit the ground running, and exposition is meant to slow things down to establish just what the hell is going on. Of course you're going to screw it up if you try to combine two fundamentally different phases of conventional story structure.

If your reader wants to know the premise, they will read the blurb on the back of the cover, or the description on the Amazon page. Don't worry about explaining your premise. Just worry about introducing your character and her conflict. If you establish the character and her trials as interesting enough to warrant following, then your beginning has done its job.

>>9157637
The beginning I have just doesn't do its job right. People seem to like it, and it establishes the main character and setting, but it's not right for the genre and honestly seems more like the opening scene to Batman Begins than to a fairy tale.

Different genres have different demands for how a story should open. I feel if I opened with the classic grimm's style narration before opening onto the scene I have now it would work better but I just don't know

>>9157581
>You mean like Warhammer 40k?
40k is more in the realm of sci-fi, but kinda. It would be like if a fantasy world underwent subsequent technological developments past the high middle ages but had little to no social or political change.

>>9157585
>It depends on execution. If you can't write, it will be boring. If it's well written, people will like it.
>And from experience, people who have to ask these kind of questions fall into the former category.
>>9157576
>Assuming it's done well of course

>>9157605
>what do you mean by traditional fantasy features?
Magic, religion/gods based on european or other pagan systems of belief, monsters, dungeons, etc.

>>9157624
>What, like guns and guerilla warfare but with dragons and shit?
Kinda. Like what I said in reply to >>9157581 , it would be like what's going on in the fantasy world post industrial (and maybe computer) revolution.

Like I stated, I'm asking because I'm wondering if anything like this has been done before.

>>9157683
The fairy tale is dead. If people get the inkling that it's a story about Chosen One #626 overthrowing Evil Empire #1945 from Big Bad #90210, they're going to drop it.

I'd consider writing a different kind of fantasy story, especially if your premise focuses on modern warfare/combat, one of the most grimdark things on this entire planet.

>>9157716
>underwent subsequent technological developments past the high middle ages
>had little to no social or political change
That can't happen. Social change always follows from technological change. Maybe not directly mirroring ours, but there does have to be logically sound change.

>>9157741
>That can't happen. Social change always follows from technological change. Maybe not directly mirroring ours, but there does have to be logically sound change.
I agree, but still I kinda thought it would be interesting leaving the state of politics and society pretty behind the technological development. Like what if constitutional monarchy or small merchant republics were the main forms of government but with modern technology, I just thought it would be fun to mess around with. Also assuming the right to govern is tied up with religious/magical things in this world could lead to a situation where there are countries led by hereditary monarchs or theocratic forms of govt. that are still pretty technologically advanced.

I just read the first 2 books of the traitor son cycle, and loved them. I'm looking for something to switch it up a little. I really like how realistic it feels(minus the magic of course). Any recommendations?

>>9157716
You're looking for the dresden files. I won't spoil the main books, but in a side story the main character chases a vampire into a shopping mall that's closed for rennovations. He ends up blinding it with a shaker of garlic powder he stole from a pizzaria and accidentally caving in the ceiling when he tries to use a spell to increase gravity in order to crush it

>>9157716
It doesn't matter if it's "done before". Every story ever written has been done before. What matters is a good author, because he makes those stories feel fresh and engaging. The best stories are the ones when an author writes for himself and simply puts what he loves to paper. Writing for an audience and asking beforehand if it's OK or original is the absolute opposite of this and shows a lack of confidence - if you weren't Anonymous you'd enter my "never read anything from this author" list.

>>9157770
Oh. I thought you were talking about maintaining feudalistic social structures in a world with the railroad and the telephone.

You could have monarchies in modern-style worlds. If Enlightenment-style movements crash and burn, or just don't appear for whatever reason, you can still have aristocratic political and social structure.

>>9157779
>You're looking for the dresden files. I won't spoil the main books, but in a side story the main character chases a vampire into a shopping mall that's closed for rennovations. He ends up blinding it with a shaker of garlic powder he stole from a pizzaria and accidentally caving in the ceiling when he tries to use a spell to increase gravity in order to crush it

I'm familiar with Dresden Files and urban fantasy in general (I like Larry Correia's Monster Hunter+Grimnoir books). This would be like an inversion of that though. Instead of our mundane world+magic doodads like in Dresden Files, it would be fantasy with the technological elements of our world thrown in.

>>9157741
>The fairy tale is dead. If people get the inkling that it's a story about Chosen One #626 overthrowing Evil Empire #1945 from Big Bad #90210, they're going to drop it.

That's not a fairy tale, that's a legend. Legends are epic-scale and deal with wars, dark lords and great heroes. Fairy tales are usually only on the scale of the individual characters.

What I'm doing is more Pan's Labyrinth but the heroine is an oracle and not a princess

>>9157809
honestly, all I can think of are Shrek and Order Of The Stick

>>9157815
Oh, so something like 'Hansel and Gretel', or 'the three pigs and the big bad wolf'.

Still a dead genre. Shrek was spoofing them over a decade ago. And it's still not compatible with modern warfare.

>>9157827
They still have commercial viability. Neil Gaiman is pretty damn popular

>>9157827
>Still a dead genre.
No such thing, only dead authors.

>>9157809
I had a look at one of Correias books back in the puppy thing, it was dreadful
>he smiled ruefully to himself as he thought of...
Fuck mate not even battletech novels are that bad

Maybe you don't sell more or win awards because you write garbage? Is that so much incredible than a vast conspiracy to hijack sf awards?

>>9157792
>Writing for an audience and asking beforehand if it's OK or original is the absolute opposite of this and shows a lack of confidence - if you weren't Anonymous you'd enter my "never read anything from this author" list.

I've never written anything book length before and have most certainly never been published. I get what you're saying. If I didn't feel like I could really write something good with this idea I wouldn't be pursuing it and asking questions here. I just thought that seeing as /sffg/ seems to bash on what's "retrograde" or just a re-hashing of old stuff a lot, I was wondering if I had the opportunity to really do something new here.

>>9157805
>Oh. I thought you were talking about maintaining feudalistic social structures in a world with the railroad and the telephone.
>You could have monarchies in modern-style worlds. If Enlightenment-style movements crash and burn, or just don't appear for whatever reason, you can still have aristocratic political and social structure.
Yeah anon this is stuff I'd have to all figure out.

>>9157815
>honestly, all I can think of are Shrek and Order Of The Stick
Technologically past both. OOtS is kinda like a mix of traditional fantasy levels of tech and Warcraft black powder+airships. Imagine following a fantasy realm through time going past it's analogues to the renaissance, enlightenment, industrial revolution, Victorian age, etc. ending up roughly somewhere around where we are today in terms of technology and somewhat but less so in terms of societal change. The party of adventurers is basically a small mercenary fire-team with a wizard or alchemist or engineer tacked on. Dragons aren't as much of a problem any more because we have heavy artillery, Dwarves run steel mills, and so on. I hope that's conveying the kind of vibe I'm trying to give off.

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Fritz Leibers was the first and still the best contemporary or urban set fantasy

>>9157881
>Yeah anon this is stuff I'd have to all figure out.
This is the kind of thing you need in your worldbuilding notes beforehand. If you don't think things through, then the inherent illogic of your setting will reflect that, and your story will be worse for it.

>>9157827
Faggot
>time can be measured, so it's manipulatable
>some dimensional being that travels the time stream forgets his gun in the knights era (what ever pre technological civ you want)
>the gun runs on some infinite power source, it uses pressurized carbon atoms that travel in a vacuum envelope (w/e mumbo jumbo you want)
>some homeless waif picks it up and discovers how to use it by accident
>fast forward 20 years
>subjugated the entire continent
>is looking to expand to the other 4
>hi-jinx ensue
>w/e
If you good you can write a story with that. Great writers can turn any topic into a story.

>>9157867
Which book? The first two monster hunter books were pretty horribly clunky. He's a lot better now. Also IIRC the puppy thing started when he got nominated for a Hugo and people in the blogosphere said not to vote for him based on his political beliefs.

>>9157892
>This is the kind of thing you need in your worldbuilding notes beforehand. If you don't think things through, then the inherent illogic of your setting will reflect that, and your story will be worse for it.
I've got 30+pages of outline already and few books on things like medieval and renaissance law I was going to read to try and help me figure this stuff out. I appreciate your feedback anon.

All urban fantasy is shit prove me wrong

TUC excerpt FUCKING WHEN

I very recently got into hard sci-fi. In fact, all I've read so far is the Rifters trilogy and Blindsight, both by Peter Watts. Do most authors show their work with citations at the end of their books like Watts does? If not, can someone name a few authors that do?

>>9156349
FUCK NPR

>>9157984
Except for Car Talk reruns and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

>>9157988
This.

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>>9157988
What's with the obsession with Car Talk that people who don't even care about cars have? The guys where pretty charismatic, but it's about fucking cars. Why would you care?

Don't tell me is smug garbage.

>>9158003
>What's with the obsession with Car Talk that people who don't even care about cars have? The guys where pretty charismatic, but it's about fucking cars. Why would you care?
They were funnier basically improving stuff about their jobs and each other than many professional stand up comedians are.

I read another Conan story by Howard, The Queen Of The Black Coast from 1934. This is a slightly saucy (she likes rough sex) tale of a supple pirate queen, her crew of naked black sailors, and a quest to find ancient city full of treasure down a dangerous jungle river.

As well as a high body count there's a lot of lore and worldbuilding, with a theological discussion as well a Lovecraftian account of a degenerated ancient race: ''they who had been winged gods had become pinioned demons.'

Solidly entertaining pulp if you like seafaring, pirates, jungles, and monsters. I give it four 'ivory globes' out of five

>>9156645
The Book Of The Fallen Mazalan series by Steven Erikson

>>9157779
I recently started the Dresden files and I honestly can't stand the supposed "witty dialogue" and especially the way the main character acts towards women in general, or how the women react towards him.

It's 15 year old tier "comebacks" and dialogue. Not to mention the characterizations are annoying as shit. Especially interactions between characters.

Does it get any better?

>>9158024
>as well a Lovecraftian account of a degenerated ancient race
Conan exists in the Lovecraft universe. It's Conan canon.

>>9158024
How much sex is there? If it's over 1/3 of the book I will consider. Also there have to be orgies where she takes advantage of her crew.

>>9158338
It does get much better but the series might not be for you. The witty dialogue is what it is, and while it becomes very clear that dresden does in fact deeply respect the women he's fought beside and against he never really grows out of that attitude entirely

>>9158363
Queen of the Black Coast is a short story not a book
>>9158024
I don't remember there being any sex, what are you talking about?

>>9158338
Not really. The plots get better, and threads start coming together, but it maintains pretty much the same "voice" throughout

>>9158376
It's not so much respecting them, I have no problem with someone wanting be a gentleman.

But I've already read the first book and in one scene, this woman supposedly ropes him into having dinner with her by her looks/charm/wit while he's telling himself "oh i really shouldn't go" yet somehow she talks him into it? All he had to do was say no.

Just that exchange sticks out and annoys the shit out of me.

>>9158363
>>9158378

It's not porn, but there is at least two suggestions of Conan and Belite's sexual preferences, as well as other innuendos. Quite saucy stuff for the time.

>"Look at me, Conan!" She threw wide her arms. "I am Belit, queen of the black coast. Oh, tiger of the North, you are cold as the snowy mountains which bred you. Take me and crush me with your fierce love!

Even further:

>"There is life beyond death, I know, and I know this, too, Conan of Cimmeria—" she rose lithely to her knees and caught him in a pantherish embrace—"my love is stronger than any death! I have lain in your arms, panting with the violence of our love; you have held and crushed and conquered me, drawing my soul to your lips with the fierceness of your bruising kisses. My heart is welded to your heart, my soul is part of your soul!

Remember it's the thirties.

looking for more BLACK PILL genre fiction. Stuff like Watts's ouvre or Neuropath is getting there but theyd never mention race and iq, for example. Its amazing Watts even gets away with his K/R selector references.

>>9158415
bakker

not even memeing

>>9158338
Do you have links to somewhere I could try it out/get it for free? I wanna see if the series is good enough before I actually pay for it.

>>9156645
Dune series frank herbert, issac asimov foundation books
>>9157333
Mazalan series by Steven Erikson
>>9158456
Nigga get yourself a kindle, but just go on piratebay pretty much and dl the series. I've saved so much money on series I would have hated.
>>9157956
neal stephenson

>>9156645
The unincorporated man series

Found the first 3 books of the Eragon series in my basement lads, read through the first half of one in an afternoon and man, I can't believe I liked this as a youngin
Eragon's a dickhead
How did this get published

>>9158532
D'aw eragon was a comfy series for me when I was around 13.

But I feel the same way about the Sword Of Truth series.

At least Eragon was a lot more bearable.

>>9158548
Now that I recall so much of this story, it just reminded me how cool Roran's chapters were, have no idea how he became a better character than Eragon over the course of 1 book
Eragon is some all powerful dragon asshole and Roran is an all too human hammerweilding self trained warrior

But holy fuck did this series just copy from LotR and Star Wars

>>9156349
What sci fi book takes place farthest in the future? Im talking thousands and thousands of years

>>9158571
The last Dune novel?

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>>9156349
What makes Use of Weapons post-cyberpunk? I may have misunderstood what post-cyberpunk is supposed to be, I took it to mean more modern takes on cyberpunk than Necromancer or Snow Crash. Cyberpunk without the 80s aesthetics and maybe a better understanding of technology, but retaining the megacorps and noir-ish elements.

I only recently read Use of Weapons and it seems to be well beyond cyberpunk, like all the Culture novels I've read so far.

Permutation City seems like a better candidate for the post-cyberpunk title. It has the virtual world which is kind of cyberpunk, but from what I recall it was more of a metaphysical look at uploading consciousness. Same themes but without the action adventure elements or goggles.

>>9158560
Same, though. As much as I don't remember Eragon well, what made him such an asshole? It's been a couple of years.

Roran though, ngl. I thought it was very mature and sweet the way the relationship between him and Katrina was portrayed.

I really wish the series had continued into a spin off about some spin off characters.

I know people bash on it but the author had decent characters desu. Then again, I read it when I was really young.

>>9158560
I just looked up if there's anything by Christopher, and turns out he'll be writing about angela the herbalists backstory apparently.

I might just read it for nostalgia sake. She was one of the more interesting and likeable characters.

>>9158615
Even as far as typical monomyth stories go, where hero starts from small beginnings, learns to fight/other, goes through growth as a person to match their martial abilities, etc
Eragon touches on all the headstones of those but never really does anything with it, like after he learns the Ra'zac who did kill his uncle in the first book are a dying race in the 2nd, he's still fine with killing them off entirely in the 3rd book.
Now there's more to this and the more I talk about the books the more I remember and i'd be fine with him being focused on vengeance, killing, etc if this was BEFORE he spent time with the elves and became "one" with nature and life and junk

I mean, you could argue that this is signs of a flawed and complex character but we all know he isn't that deep of a character

I might re-read this more later with time but I might also find a way to recycle these books too, so maybe not
It has been a long time though so I don't blame you for your opinions from almost a decade ago

>>9158705
Just to point out something, if I'm wrong then disregard this.

But when he was with the elves, he did not become "one" with them exactly. The purpose of him being there was just to hurry up his training/change his body. He did talk about feeling odd and out of place, because he did not fit in with the elves and neither with humans.

The whole not eating meat I think wasn't a big factor of "one with nature" it just meant he became too sensitive due to having done the work outs with his mind but other than that he never really did state he had become completely into the elves religion.

As for the Ra'zac, you could argue that they had no redeeming qualities in the first place but again, my knowledge is rusty.

>>9158829
You might be right there anon, I'm probably rustier than you are
I might have to re-read more because I am doing most of this from memory

REMOVE SRANC remove sranc.
you are worst tekne. you are the sranc abomination you are the sranc smell. return to agongorea. to our kyranean cousins you may come our false men mansion. you may live in the mediel screw….ahahahaha ,golgoterath we will never forgeve you. rascal FUck but fuck asshole sranc stink bashrag consult consult..sranc genocide best day of my life. take a bath of dead sranc..ahahahahah CONSULT WE WILL GET YOU!! do not forget apocalypse .cil-aujas we kill the king , nonmen return to your precious mansions….hahahahaha idiot sranc and nonmen smell so bad..wow i can smell it. REMOVE SRANC FROM THE PREMISES. you will get caught. Kunuiri+Aorsi+Eamnor+Meori+Kyraneas=kill consult…we will ordeal, titirga alive in cil-aujas, titrga gnosis in cil-aujas.. . deep gnosis titrga meorn. we are in mansion and have nimil now hahahaha ha because of gin'yursis… you are evil stink sranc… you live in a arc hahahaha, you live in a horn

titirga alive numbr one #1 in meorn….fuck the kuniuri ,..FUCKk ashol srancs no good i spit in the mouth eye of ur arc and no-god. titrga aliv and real strong sohonc kill all the sranc farm aminal with gnosis magic now we the meori rule . leader of the mangaecca shauriatus fukc aurang and lay egg this egg hatch and no-god wa;s born. stupid baby form the eggn give bak our clay we will crush u lik a skull of sranc. meorn greattst nation

>>9158571

Jack Vance's Dying Earth setting.

Gene Wolfe's "The Book of the New Sun" tetralogy.

Douglas Adams's "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe".

>>9157792
>The best stories are the ones when an author writes for himself and simply puts what he loves to paper.
>Writing for an audience and asking beforehand if it's OK or original is the absolute opposite of this and shows a lack of confidence

This anon has it right, I think, at least if your definition of success as a writer is work you are proud of. If your definition is sales, then the Sanderson seminar on how to pander to a genre audience might well be a better approach. I doubt it myself as I think Sanderson was simply the right hack at the right time; he was cheap, proven in terms of production against a deadline, and available when Jordan died.

How much has Sanderson made? Does anyone know or have a good guess?

Jack Vance could be an example of both types of writing. He wrote to magazine editor spec when he first started back in the Golden Age and his output then was fairly abysmal; it didn't stand out from the surrounding pulp. Eventually he developed his characteristic style and began writing novels of his own ideas. From interviews I've listened to, he wrote to maximize revenue; as he explained it, novels simply paid better per hour than short stories. It's difficult to determine if he's being honest or flippant. He seemed to despise interviews and promotion.

I don't know how large his estate grew to but the royalties did pay enough for the Vances to travel and I think beginning in the Sixties, to replace salary. That represents more than a decade of printed work but in terms of novels and his style, probably half that time. He also worked off and on as a union carpenter during that development period.

I think the point I'm staggering to reach is that the evidence says you're going to have to put in quite a lot of time in terms of writing, whether it's to develop a Sanderson-like reputation for reliable output or to develop a unique style like Vance.

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>Hey you know the plot about the alien goo and the gates and all that interesting shit?
>Yeah we're going to sideline that in favor of some ridiculous mary sue dyke nun preaching about progressive morality and about how everyone is worth saving in a story where a corporation was literally manufacturing psychopaths to conduct biological experiments on sick children

Has there ever been a series that shit the bed this hard?

I want to die /sffg/, I genuniely do.

I just wanted to create a new opening scene for my fantasy novel but I ended up re-writing hohenheim's flashback from FMA pretty much word for word. The worst part is, I literally can't think of any other way to write this scene, or anything to replace it with

>>9159122
I don't think confidence is the defining quality of great writing. Granted, I'm clearly not one to talk but a writer who thinks everything them make is gold is bound to be a shit writer

>>9157792
>Writing for an audience and asking beforehand if it's OK or original is the absolute opposite of this and shows a lack of confidence
>>9159162
>I don't think confidence is the defining quality of great writing. Granted, I'm clearly not one to talk but a writer who thinks everything them make is gold is bound to be a shit writer

I can't speak for 792 but what I took him to mean there is that if you're continually asking your audience what they want, you aren't developing your own tastes or style. My take on the bit about confidence might differ from his: I see it as--well, flaw might be too harsh--a characteristic of the Web 2.0 generation. There seems to be a paradox taking shape where no one wants to take the risk of failing during development because everyone wants to broadcast the process to maximize social capital. In that environment, it's pointless to ask the audience what they want from you that will earn you their approbation because they'll instinctively despise your weakness evident in the need to ask and therefore discount even work made to their bespoke specification.

>>9159153
I liked the first two books, they were entertaining enough, but I hated this one. "Oh yeah, lets take this space opera series with somewhat interesting world building and have an entire book take place in an isolated bubble of space with unmoving ships! Great idea!"

>>9159153
There was one book I read a while back that I remember being actively mad at after finishing it, but I can't remember the name right now.

I'd nominate the Ancillary Justice series. The first book is great but it writes a cheque the other two can't cash, though the third makes a attempt. (The second is literally: "hold my tea and watch this" *ruins teenage girl's life*)

>>9159250
>if you're continually asking your audience what they want, you aren't developing your own tastes or style
Let me attempt to illustrate this more clearly with the Vance example. When he began writing, the accepted entry to the field was to submit stories to magazine editors. Once you had a story or three printed, the editors might begin coming to you, often with critiques of your earlier submissions and requests for specific subject matter.

Although this could be considered success of a sort, there were limits: a particular writer could only have so many stories printed in a given time interval before their market would be considered saturated, making subterfuges like nom de plumes necessary. The way around this was to publish novels but the writer's audience was in effect the editors and their requirements were not what made for successful novels. In Vance's case, you can tell the marked difference between his short stories and his novels.

At some point he must have realized that the editors to whom he was pandering were not developing his ability (and therefore income) so for his novels he wrote what interested him. In fact, I think an argument could be made that Vance was infected by this earlier abortive career arc: one editor, John Campbell, had a weakness for stories that included telepathy. Throughout Vance's novels, long after his time in magazines was over, you will come across almost jarring telepathic inclusions in his stories that I would guess are the fingerprints of Campbell's earlier influence. Your experience shapes you; letting your audience develop you may well lead you where you would rather not go.

>>9159441
>John Campbell, had a weakness for stories that included telepathy
It must be great to be an editor if you can infect the author into making your fanfic coming true.

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>>9159482
My goal is to marry an ugly and fat fantasy/sci-fi author who no one else will and have her insert all the weird shit I do to her into her novels.

Which novels have the most mindfuck/symbolism?

Is there any author that does as many plot twists as Asimov?

>>9157363
World of Tanks*

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ANYONE READ Baxter's Proxima? The blurb and the dude at Waterstones made it sound bretty gud but I'm a few chapters in and it's not going well.

Just unsalted pretzel levels of boredom and cliche, with some awful fucking names. I guess the prose is fine but actual content is lacking. Does it pick up at all?

>>9159153
Honestly that series shit the bed half-way through book one.

>hard sci-fi done well
>interesting system-wide conspiracy
>likable, if slightly bland, characters
Then
>alien virus
>mutant zombie things
>Miller's a ghost now?

Massive waste of potential.

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>>9159839
Just one.

>>9157907
It was in the new release section
He and the rest of that clique weren't nominated until they started stuffing the ballots
Your misunderstanding shows how much misinformation they spread to hide their true motives

>>9157931
>I want recs but can't ask like a normal person
Do you think we in this general are 14 like you? Do you feel reverse psychology is gonna work on us?

No recs for you, continue with that world view that Urban Fantasy is shit.

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>>9158400
Its talking of holding and laying
>remember its the thirties
You should see the covers Margaret Brundage produced for the magazine

>>9159381
I found the ancillary series to be very plain, very baen tier
I don't get why people loved it
Or got triggered by it

>>9159725
John C. Wright is already married

>>9158415
>BLACK PILL genre fiction
What does that mean Mr. Pol?

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>>9158968
Trying to hype us up Bakker?

>>9159122
>How much has Sanderson made?
He got a multi-million deal a few years ago, 13 big ones if I recall correctly.

He also got that tv deal where they bought the rights© to his Cosmere® series. So he is probably over 20?
Hollywood is buying books left right and center. T_B_H I would rather a shitty book than a remake, of a remake.

Just finished Memories of Ice. Fuck me, I was not expecting whiskeyjack dying, I had expected dujek to bite it instead. RIP.

Sffg is dying, need to make more memes to draw in fresh blood.

Any good novel that's so bleak, already at the beginning you will realize it won't end well for the protagonist?

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>>9160372
>fantasy
>sci-fi
>good

Pick one.

>>9160321
trying to make memes is killing this general

Is mercedes lackey the best literary genius of our time?

>>9160084
Thanks for ruining my day faggot

>>9156500
What the retard are you on about

>>9157883
E-Eva Green?

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>>9160408
I agree with you good chap you making new memes are killing the general.
That anon has it wrong, we need to use all our existing memes to fruition. These memes spawned countless argumen- I mean discussions over the many months of this general's existence.

>>9160393
I pick good

>>9160487
Kek. Get gud scrub. Stop whining about not being able to write shit when you don't do shit at all in the first place. You just shit post here all day instead of actually going and write.

People gave your ass so much advice yet you come back whining (I now see why that autist made those word art macros) instead of following the advice. People gave you books on writing, instead of reading them you come to start your woe is me shit in the new thread.
Fuck off and man up.

>>9160321
It's dead because unlike the other reaches of lit, we actually read books. We can't read and shit post at the same time.

>>9160084

Thank you.

>$13-20M
Beats truck driving.

>You’ve been looking a little ragged lately. Ragged isn’t the right word, really.”

>“Weary?” I guessed.

>“Yes. Weary.” He eyed me speculatively, smoothing his beard with a hand. “You have a gift for words.

huh

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I want to read something that goes balls DEEP with warfare on all levels, from both a strategic and tactical perspective, including any logistic challenges the characters might face.

Is it too much?

>>9160764
Y
I
K
E
S
both on and off bikes

What do you guys think of the borribles?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/585265.The_Borribles

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGOl9IDA3zk

>>9161052
Dawkins was a stupendous evolutionary biologist, it's a shame he's only remembered for his crazy atheist-arsehole stuff

>>9161051
until goodreads populace bumps blindsight up from a 3.5 to at least a 4, i refuse to use that site

>>9161094
Anyway, I am a newbie and the new weird genre took my interest.

Borribles seems to be new weird (or at least proto-new weird), thought maybe people would know more about it.

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>The next LoGH book isn't out yet

Is the Xanth novel Demons Don't Dream basically like those Nippon anime where a guy gets transported into a video game but good?

>>9156468

I'm not done writing it yet

>>9161023
The Art of War.

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>>9161117
Soon™

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Any fantasy/scifi with traps?

>>9161102
it's YA
if you want weird, just read ballard

>>9161283

Thought you lads might want to check out my Discworld reading group.

>>9160027
>Or got triggered by it

It's because the evil space empire uses a single gender when referring to people (not something original in scifi) and it's the female one.

Literally just manchildren getting triggered by girl cooties.

>>9156645
Hyperion

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Any good cyberpunk or postcyberpunk works you can recommend?

>>9161156
You realize you can just imagine that any female character is a trap

What do you guys think of Stephen King?

>>9161878
He's shit.

>>9161513
malazan book of the fallen

>>9161951
:^)

>>9160281
Wew lad, strap in. It's gonna get worse.

Is there a discord for sffg?

>>9162085
no, but I'm very open to the idea
any idea about setting one up?

>>9162106
I might. Though, I'm not entirely sure how run one.

Might as well, I'll post link in a bit.

>>9162120
Cool, I'll be here.

Guess we could pop the link in the pasta every thread

>>9162124
Should there be different channels for different types of fiction?

I'm very new to this tbqh so I have no idea where to start other than just starting a basic discord.

Is the magicians worth reading?

>>9162142
No.

https://discord.gg/Hk7PayC

Here's a sffg discord I quickly made for any anons. I probably will hand it over to someone else who's more interested in it in terms of running.

>>9162142
Depends, you might be the sort of person who would possibly be entertained by it. If you are intrigued by the premise you might get/pirate the book and read a few chapters, until the main character is enrolled in the school and started studies, and see how it goes for you from there. It is a little different from the TV series.

Any good sci-fi which uses cryogenically frozen people well?

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>>9157947
I hope it's going to be a Shaeönanra POV chapter.
Because he did nothing wrong.

>all the fantasy being written lately is shit
>including mine

Why did everything get so bad?

>>9162565

Tolkien ruined everything

>>9161156
Give me 4 - 10 years and I'll have one finished

>>9161878
The Gunslinger is fantastic but everything after in the Dark Tower series sucks dick

>>9161513
ware tetralogy by Rudy rucker

>>9162162
Whose gonna be the first faggot to join

>>9162718
>https://discord.gg/Hk7PayC
There's already a couple of people here

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>>9161156
Just look for "language:english male:tomgirl" on sadpanda

>>9161156
There was a short story in a Playboy magazine about a biological hermaphrodite that time traveled and was their own parents.

Is there anything better than the Dune series or the Book of the New Sun? I doubt it...

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>>9160745
I just googled his net worth and it says 6 million. That anon is right that he got 2 multi-million dollar deals over the years. Can't remember how much they were worth though.

Cosmerefag could have answered but I think he dead.

female warriors ruin books

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I can't do this /sffg/ my writing just keeps getting worse and worse and worse every day. I just want to be a good fantasy writer, to create something, anything, worth publishing. The fact that I've fallen so far is making my physically ill and I just want to an hero

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>>9162831
Keep complaining I'm almost there.

>>9162775
Mazalan

>>9157809
You're looking for _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_ by Michael Swanwick.

>>9161878
The running man was fucking awesome

Are there any good scifi/fantasy novels that meet any of these criteria?

>biopunk other than the Windup Girl (I already read it)
>fantasy that focuses on science and technology rather than magic or politics
>optimistic future with no space stuff at all. period.

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>protagonist doesn't hook up with the alien

what a waste

>>9163023
malazan book of the fallen # 4

>>9163037
>protagonist fucks the alien
>alien gives him a really nasty disease from gut flora
>totally harmless to her species but horrifying and incurable when placed in the human body
>protagonist loses his dick and 60% of his intestinal tract

Are there any books that do this well?

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>>9163045
still worth it

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>>9162861
Neck yourself

>>9163045
Name of book please.

>>9158335
After I read this series, nothing has made me feel the same.

>>9156349
sffg rec please recommend me some good sf shit

ive read (rating x/5)

>Neuromancer (1)
>The Martian Chronicles (3)
>Childhood's End (3)
>Fahrenheit 451 (2)
>1984 (2)
>Rendezvous with Rama (4)
>The City and the Stars (3)
>Lord of Light (3)
>The Stars My Destination (4)
>The Fountains of Paradise (4)
>The Demolished Man (3)
>City (3, cozy af)
>Hell is the Absence of God (1)
>Hard to Be a God (4)
>The Left Hand of Darkness (4)
>Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (4)
>Dune (1)
>Solaris (4)
>Roadside Picnic (4)

im going crazy here searching for something to read

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>>9160281
It gets more devastating, great story.

>>9162927
Is Malazan a meme on /lit/?

>>9163203
I want to, I really do

>>9163230
Asimov

>>9163253
It's a popular series here, it's not bad.

/sffg/, almost all the fantasy out there just looks bad to me, especially the old stuff. Either it's cringeworthy bad or it's just plain dull. I can't find anything I want to read right now.

What do?

>>9163228
Same. Has one of the best characters out there plus the fact there are so many different angles and storylines going on.

>>9163287
How about you read through the thread and see through the mentions of any books you see that look interesting you spoonfeeding fuck

>>9163287
List three fantasies and three non-fantasies you like so people can get a sense of your taste.

You mong.

>>9163310
Fantasy:
>The Orphan's Tales
>Fevre Dream
>The Night Circus

Non-fantasy
>The Windup Girl
>The Shadow of the Wind
>The Three-Body Problem

>>9163287
Try something outside the box, maybe some New Weird books?

Read any of China Meiville's Bas Lang series (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council, etc) and report back.

Senlin Ascends is also a shockingly good self-published novel along the same lines.

>>9163253
nan, its great

>>9163039
what does this mean?

I love villains, they are the best part of fiction.
What are some great books for villains?

>>9162861
What have you been reading lately?

>>9163253
I only read Gardens of the Moon and it was okay, no where near the quality of Dune or BotNS

>>9163579
barely anything DESU. I've been running low on inspiration sources and my new job doesn't give me a lot of time to read. I basically wrapped up on His Dark Materials a few weeks ago along with Sleeping Giants, Neither of them really did much for me. I think I reread The Grace of Kings about a month or two ago.

Point is, nothing that really gets the juices flowing

I need some brain fodder to make up a story for my game. So far some themes I want to incorporate are:

>Seven Samurai (recruiting a bunch of people)
>Lord of Light (god-like powers that stem from hyper-advanced technology, possibly reincarnation)
>Roadside Picnic (alien artifacts possibly the source of hyper advanced technology)

I'm lookin for some brainstorming fuel and ideas to rip off of. Please hit me with some themes and books you feel represent some of the cooler shit in Science Fiction and Fantasy ty

>>9161156

Windup Girl has some old scientist dude who has a pet ladyboy.

>>9163620
>>9163620
windup girl was great

>>9163610
Make your gameplay first, champ. Story comes last.

Oh shit, you guys talk about scifi/fantasy writing?

I think I'll have to lurk here a bunch.

I've always written stuff, mostly fluff and nonsense, but I recently took a rather steep dive into writing... something. A novella or novel or short story, I dunno.

Right now I'm broiling over minutae that are important to the world because I'm autistic or something, but it's far more substantial and coherent than anything I've tried before.

But how do people write novels. Holy shit.

>>9163624
workin on the engine rn but I like to work on something else in my downtime

story and the imagery is what keeps me motivated when im working on the technical stuff

Thats why Im just looking for books, stuff I read in my downtime to farm for ideas and stuff

>>9163623

It was; I picked it up at random and really enjoyed the world and story. Glad I did.

>>9163228
Black Company by Glen Cook? Malazan are based on his books.

>>9163636
dat rape scene tho :[

>>9163230
Hull zero three
Library at mount char

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>>9163330
Are you a degenerate?

>>9163646

It got a little intense, yeah. And a little crazy.

I also thought the ending came up like a brick wall but it was a fun ride overall.

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>>9163529
Pic related *tugs god braids*

>>9163663
our boy hock-seng made it out
sequel when

>>9163662
probably. I just want to read unique fantasy

>>9163663
Fuck that chink. He fucked up everything. My boy the Gaijin would have gotten tight pussy for life if it wasn't for him.

>>9163608
Righto. Pretext to prevent confusion: I like to read fantasy. I like what it does for my imagination, and actively seek out good fantasy stories. However, without invoking meme opinions, I still believe that fantasy/scifi authors are, unfortunately, by literary standards quite poor artists. Probably one of the reasons is that fantasy authors read fantasy authors. Low quality writing fuels low quality writing. do yourself a favor and read something critically acclaimed instead, if you haven't already. If you have, then keep doing that. I have to keep reminding myself that the Meme Trilogy (ulysses/GR/IJ) is memed for a very good reason; there is something to be said for the artistic magnitude and impact of each work in the meme trilogy. What did each author do differently from fantasy/scifi authors? They read *other* things. Your juices aren't flowing because you aren't getting any juice to begin with. Am I correct in guessing that your world-building/imagination juices are flowing fine, but your *writing* juices aren't? If so, that would be because fantasy/scifi provides imagination juices only, because that's what it sells itself on, and the authors influence each other within their exclusive circle of each other, building into a feedback loop of imagination exclusivity -- but it doesn't seem like they are able to influence each other in the area of prose, thematic structure, or any of those things that more wanky-so-to-speak literature has to offer, because the well is quite figuratively dry.

Just think of the distinction between sff and literary fiction the same way you'd think about the disctinction between two separate Discourses, and it should become clear why: both have different things going on within them. The real job of the sff author who wants to write something good is to be diverse and unforgiving in their attempts to take the imaginative power of the sff genre, then do something for its lack of prosaic/thematic/literary power by using what the literary genre has taught us for 3000+ years.

After all, bad literature imo comes from a lack of boundary-pushing, resulting in a lack of ambition, leaving cliches, and ultimately stagnation.

What I'm saying is: Be diverse. Read something that's memed here outside of sff. You might get lucky.

>>9163634
Library at mount char has all 3 of those actually (not even memeing)

>>9163671

lmao

I'd love more stories in the world since it's a pretty fascinating concept; don't think he's going to, though.

>>9163683

>he just fucking dies

I mean, he was so close.

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>>9163630
No more please. Please.

>>9163692
I think Pat Rothfuss (love him or hate him) puts it pretty well - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFI30pcv4sM

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>>9163694
AND THE CHINK SURVIVED AND LEFT WITH GRADE A PRIME LOLI CUNNY

>>9163253
It's a meme in the sense that fantasy readers say it's "hard" because they're fucking ingrates who expect everything to be spelled out for them in infodumps.

>>9163711
I don't hate him, but I don't think he's a great writer, either. What can be said in his favor, though, is at least he gave it a shot. The video is proof that he recognizes the things that come about from the difference between the two genres -- ie: distinctionism, lowest denominator bias, exclusivity. That said, I think the core of the criticism he's received is the idea (among some others) that his writing is pretentious. Buzzphrase version of that word aside, rewinding now to its roots -- that to be pretentious is to have the pretense of meaning -- I think the criticism is valid. His prose, by itself, is nice to read. But it has little meaning. It's just nice prose, and that's it. I'm hoping that the reason he's taking so long with the third book is that he realized this (because he seems like the kind of person to have the capacity to recognize it), and that he is working on fixing it. <-- That's speculation, tho.

But regarding the video, I think he missed something. I get the feeling that he didn't want to admit that most contemporary sff is, by literary standards, pretty damned poor. I get that feeling because the only "great" fantasy works he could cite are all held within the western literary canon/genre -- not the fantasy genre. And that there is something he either was thinking and didn't say, or has missed completely.

By standards of sound argumentation, it's not a great idea to claim that the fantasy genre contains "great" works by citing works which are not exactly held within the fantasy genre as opposed to a) having *created* the genre itself, and b) ultimately being held within the western canon instead.

I mean, you could object by saying, well if that was the case, then you could never have any hope of a "great" work being written within the fantasy genre, because it'd be sucked into the canon as soon as it was seen as being "great".

But it would still have originated from the fantasy genre, so the genre would have a complete right to claim that new "great" fantasy work as its own. And viola, we'd have a work from the sff genre which is by literary standards "great". These cases are pretty rare. Rothfuss wants to claim things like the Bible, the Greeks and Shakespeare qualify for this. But it seems to me that while you can claim the sff genre's roots as being part of the genre, they weren't written *within it* in the way we want them to be. Same goes for Tolkien. As far as my reading goes, he is the only author who comes to mind who comes even close to having written from *within* the sff genre, who is also sort of in the canon -- but even then, he pretty much created the genre for real as we know it, solidified it into what it is now. You could say he started the genre discourse (since the lowest denominator does nothing much but rip off rip-offs of him (postmodernism might be to blame for this, since the dogma is always barking: "There is no such thing as originality, only skillful execution.").

>>9163711
>>9163804
cont.

So I guess my gripe about Rothfuss's reasoning is that

Remember: what we're looking for is a work to be written from within the sff genre, after the point of its creation, meaning we have to exclude the bible, greeks, shakespeare and sadly even Tolkien.

Actually, an after-thought just crossed my mind. Maybe the only way to do this is to be so radical from within the sff genre and without the literary genre, that a new discourse emerges. Take a Zizekian mindset and pull a fast-one on current paradigms and expectations for both genres. I mean, what do all the most famous works have in common? Ambition, I guess.

Just have some goddamned authorial spine and fuck shit up without being inaccessible.

>>9163804
>>9163810
Donkey. Even if you drop the trip we still know it's you....

>>9163840
who?

>>9163600
>is series great
>i didn't read it and it's not that great
Fuck off.

I'm going to write a book, /sffg/
:)

>>9163945
I didn't want to read the series based off my experience with the first book. I've no idea if it gets better or not but that's not usually the case with a book series that goes beyond 4 or 5 books.

>>9163962
I'm writing my second one atm, I have an idea for a third which will be a fantasy book and I'm very excited to start it - has some subjects and concepts I really want to try out.

>>9163975
How are you planning to approach POV in yours
I know which characters I want to write and the story I want to tell but I'm not sure whether my desire to tell it from multiple POVs comes from a subconscious desire to try to subvert the monomyth or from legitimately thinking it will make my book better

>>9163972
In my opinion, the second book is far, far superior and one of my favorites in the entire series.

I didn't initially like the first book either.

>>9163978
The book I'm doing now focuses on a third-person perspective of my protagonist/main character, who then goes to read other people's stories - so the perspective jumps into their perspectives for their story. Basically like Hyperion or the Canterbury Tales, with an overarching narrative connect a series of small independent narratives.

In the fantasy one, the main character will convey himself through a series of letters/emails/messages in-between the chapters. The protagonist will write entries as though writing a diary, in first-person - this was inspired by my reading Gene Wolfe's Latro in the Mist and Soldier of Sidon.

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Is there actually any more decent fantasy out there where dragons feature prominently in the book/series? Just got done with pic related and it left me wanting similar series. Dragons don't need to be the main focus of the books, just having them relatively involved in the plot is fine, but anything where dragons are billed as a main attraction is almost always garbage.

>>9163986
I tried to do one like your current thing a while back but it was too boring trying to establish the setting through the stories and between them. Felt like it should have been interesting but it wasn't to me, somehow. Probably would have been a better experience if it hadn't been fantasy too. Chaucer didn't really need to do much to establish England itself and was able to focus more on the characters and their places in life.

I've only read BotNS from Wolfe, but Severain does make me like the idea of following one person and telling a story through their eyes. I do feel like that style has sort of been taken over by the Rothfuss sort of crowd, I guess, but that seems probably like a flimsy excuse on my part to try to be GRRM anyways. I dunno. What makes a narrator-character good?

>>9164036
>What makes a narrator-character good?

It's a mix of things, personally I like reading first-person narrators that convey their experience without fully showing what's there, as well as reflecting on events of experiences in a way that lets the reader gauge their own input. Sometime it's done through an unreliable narrator like BotNS, or it can even be as simple giving the narrator character quirks.

>>9164040
"What makes one bad?" is a more interesting question, I guess. I love books like American Psycho and BotNS like that, but something about first person narratives still has a generally negative connotation in my mind and I'm not sure why. Am I alone in that, or do other people also expect the worst when looking at a first-person book? Maybe it's because I spent too much time writing erotica and first-person erotica is the default for awful erotica.

>>9164052
Personally I think self-indulgence or fantasy-esque self-insertion makes for horrible first person narratives. And when I mean self-indulgent, I don't mean in a semantics kind of way like you would read in a novel like Wuthering Heights, but more in the way of intent. I suppose The Name of the Wind is a low-hanging fruit, but there was something terribly self-absorbed from the author's end when it came to reading that book - I felt like I was fighting with his ego reading it.

>>9164058
I guess it's hard for me to imagine a narrator that will be easy to step into the shoes of and not be the self-insert of someone who wears roughly the same size shoe as mine. Thinking back, I'm not sure what made Severaint, the raping roaming autist savant, easy to read, other than "Wolfe is a good author." Maybe I should write third person until I'm more confident in my ability to make one character sufficiently interesting - without making them too "interesting."

>>9163975
You ever fucked a gaspump, gaskun?
Ding!

>>9164145
Nah I ain't gaskun, I don't post on here often.

>>9164145
>>9164151

Supposedly gaskun an hero'd a few months back, can anyone confirm/deny?

>>9164175
Nah some anon told me he went to the Writer's Farm. Supposedly it's a place where writers go when they can't be bothered dealing with the normal world, sounds cool desu

>>9164213
;_;

>>9164500
He's in a better place now.

>>9164213
You know when your parents kill your dog, and then they tell you it went to the farm?

Gaskun has gone to the farm.

he was a hack and a namefag. nothing of value was lost

>>9164175
>>9164213
>>9164500
>>9164525
>>9164540
He tried to pull DFW/Cobain? An hero and your works become super popular and near immortal?

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should i even preorder it? is there any chance it will be completely sold out on release date?

>>9163639
Inspired by, rather.

>>9164671
ur wrogn

>>9164671
Same difference. He read Black Company and his creative juices got flowing. He wrote about a band of rag tag soldiers fighting against impossible odds.some of them become gods along the way

>>9164701
>>9164911
Based on D&D, inspired by Black Company.
Inspired in the same way the separation of the Starks are to the separation of the Fellowship.

>>9158338
>>9158376
>>>/t/umblr

>>9160764
What's that from?

>>9156574
Tales of a Dying Earth.

>>9165201
>i'm so redshit
>i must fit in with the "le 4chensers"
>i will tell ppl to go to tumbshit
>doesn't know Dresden was discussed regularly on lit when a new release was coming out years and years ago
>you are "lel tumlber" if you like dresden

kys

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How is Patricia A. McKillip received on /lit/? I went on a bing of 4-5 of her novels last summer. I think she has one of the most unique systems of magic put in text yet - Ombria in Shadow being my favorite of hers.

>>9162927

I'm going to order the first book. Thanks.

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>>9165480
>woman author

>>9162861
STOP and I mean it. Stop editing.

Just write the damn story and STOP FUCKING EDITING GOD DAMN YOU. My writing and everything about my novel has improved DRAMATICALLY once I stopped editing.l There's enough time for that shit AFTER I've 100% completed it.

Wish I knew this earlier in life.

Someone should write fantasy with no conflict. Just rad elves having fun all day.

>b-but m-human spirit
>b-but conflict is essential to plot
>plot
>lmao

>>9165480
Hell, I'm into autistic magic. Can you describe what she's done and maybe I'll give it a try and talk to you about her. Desu I only even heard about Sanderson because I heard somewhere about his magic system in Mistborn.

is it worth reading past the first dune book

>>9163978
Hey, I like POVs as much as the next guy, but what's wrong with a damn story that has a protagonist and the story is centered around the protagonist?
I feel like POVs are a low hanging fruit to grab for 99% of fantasy writers who just want to write a lot of stories in one go, but won't / can't be arsed to write 7 fucking different novels.
So you have protag 1 who is bound by revenge in a dramatic story of death and suffering, protag 2 who has found something important within the universe and somehow in some way related to protag 1 at the end, protag 3 who only has 3 chapters, is really charming but is secretly the villain and protag 4 who is a girl.

Sorry, I think I'm too tired of Sanderson.

>>9165563
This. Reposting my advice from last thread.

>>9162861
Faggot. Stop asking what is cool and just write, write something till your stumped then move onto the other ideas.

Editing exists for the sole purpose of making coherent, your incoherent thoughts. You are not expected to write a coherent story from the get go with chapters and prose in descending order. You write then move on then come back. ONLY WHEN the story is finished you edit.

No wonder people tell you tosers to git. You just want attention. Here is your (you).

Also first story sounds cliche like Percy Jackson explaining world war 2.

Second story is avatar korra series, and scientists tapping into the spirit vines? You'll get brownie points and published if you write as a vagina protagonist.

Just checking to make sure this is better than mobsters:

>Fake fortune teller specializes in astrology
>her daughter is scientifically minded and studies astronomy
>through unrelated means the daughter ends up becoming a real fortune teller

is there any fantasy that takes place in a world like Avatar the last airbender?

>>9165753
pseudo china?

Stormlight archive DESU with pseudo brown chinamen in european powered armor killing giant crabs and smaller crabmen in what appears to be the Grand Canyon, Arizona, United States.

>>9165753
Broken Earth trilogy
House of blades
Codex Alera

>>9165753
Naruto

>>9163840
>ie: distinctionism, lowest denominator bias, exclusivity

Nope. I have no idea what those terms refer to. I don't think I have read any Pat Rothfuss.

>>9161127
Which manga is this from?

>>9165630
No

>>9161156
Foundation and Earth by Asimov had a succulent young hermaphrodite teen as one of the protags

Is it possible to write a book POWERFUL enough that it destroys the world? I want to write a novel that causes the human race to commit suicide.

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>>9158024
>>9165949

This strategy amuses me.

>>9165997
Probably, but that book wouldn't be /sff/

>>9165593
What, like Dubliners or Tristam Shandy in a fantasy world? Something showing off the good and bad of a simple life in a fictional setting? I'd read it.

>>9166001

y not

Is there any fantasy with an anti-hero girl protagonist?

>>9165997

Just right a book detailing modern life in its worst possible ways. That should make any decent person want to see the earth burn.

>>9166160

w-write..*

>>9165999
Trying to trick ppl into reading old books. All they will do is instill hate in these anons for those authors.

>>9166335

Another way to look at it is they might just interest some (degenerate) anon into something they would have never read.

No net loss if it doesn't work. It's also funny.

>>9156645
Daughter of the Empire trilogy is all about this.
The Red Rising trilogy is about realpolitik, guy who wrote it studied politics/economics.
The Expanse, to some degree, but it's mostly geopolitics (solpolitics?) and more in the background of the conflict.

>>9165999
It's not a very good strategy.
Terry Goodkind's books feature prominent S&M and we all know how that turned out.

>>9166365
If they hate it they will install hate in the anon... like they did with me. Anytime i see certain books mentioned I go crazy.

>>9166115
Try The Mechanical. The female protagonist disassembles robots who view the act as vivisection because she'd rather traumtize machines than lose a war in which they're being forced to fight her against their will

>>9165753
The grace of kings. Think asian game of thrones except sokka is the hero

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>ywn lewdly hold hands with Daneel R. Olivaw and declare him your husbando until the end of time
wtf I hate Asimov now

>>9166559
>>9166570
anon...

>>9166574
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MC0G-Lbuuk

>>9164584
>The Adventures of Ciri: The Girl Who Is the Best at Everything

>>9166570
Anon, it's R. Daneel Olivaw. Y-you do know what the R stands for r-right?

>>9166649
>tfw I finally understand how /m/ feels

>>9165646
Sanderson's a fucker in general
I feel like multiple POVs may help people suspend their disbelief that all this shit is happening to [guy] and that [guy] is naturally learning/revealing all these things that teach them about the world
That said people definitely do get too caught up in their shitty little characters
Fuck you it's fantasy write litfic if you care more about character arcs than the world
reee

/sffg/ is it just me or is any mention of the mafia a 100% certain sign that the book you are now reading is trash?

>>9165997
write a book that makes people proud of their most vile and selfish tendencies. Or better yet, run for president and make that your platform

>>9165646
Multiple PoVs is a mainstay in epic fantasy because it allows the writer to show off more of the setting. Which is a huge draw for the genre. I mainly read epic fantasy to explore those settings. I love maps and appendices. An epic fantasy without either to me is less interesting because it doesn't feel like the author has put much thought into their world, and if he doesn't care then why should I?

Sure having likable engaging characters is a plus and keeps you invested in the plot, but that's true for a lot of genres, I can get that from literary fiction or historical fiction. The reason I read epic fantasy is for the world building, and for that a diverse set of PoVs is good for giving you the broader picture so the reader can figure shit out.

>>9166795
>any mention of the mafia a 100% certain sign that the book you are now reading is trash?
Examples? I mostly read fantasy so the word "mafia" doesn't come up a lot.

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Thoughts?

>>9166859
I thought the prose was brilliant but I didn't end up finishing the book because I thought that the prose and plot was a bit dull.

I also disliked Mieville's books.

>>9166844
I'm talking about fantasy that involves the word "mafia". I assume normal crime novels have the same average quality as sff in general

>>9166877
>prose and plot
Sorry this should be 'characters and plot'

>>9166877
>I thought the prose was brilliant
>I thought that the prose was a bit dull.

???

>>9166885
Should be 'characters and plot'.

>>9166841
>he

>>9166883
>I'm talking about fantasy that involves the word "mafia"
Yeah that's why I asked for examples because I've never encountered this except in YA stuff.

Is there any scifi that does the whole typical fantasy thing of the protagonist starting out as some dweeb and powering up into something formidable?

I was asking myself this out of curiosity and Red rising is the only example I could really think of, and that's basically fantasy with some spaceships anyway.

>>9165593
I wanted to write a novella about an Elven Queen and a black-skinned ambassador from some foreign Empire playing a game of Chess - the two of them discuss the pros and cons of their homeland as well as lament on the everyday lives of its people. It'd be very slow burning though so I'd rather leave it until I know I could tackle the topic better.

>>9158024
Howard's Conan stories are pretty underrated desu. I think he's a fantastic pulp writer that is overlooked because people only experience Conan from the films, the games or pop-culture itself.

Sort of like everyone equating Lovecraft with underwater leviathan gods when that's but a tiny portion of his actual work.

The main characters in demon cycle are really starting to twist my tits.

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I want them sweet, sweet Patreon bux, /lit/. I'm a decent writer - can a web serial rake in the bux? Or is the digital world too autistic for anything that doesn't have pretty pictures?

>>9167266
The guy who did Worm doesn't even make $30k a year off Patreon. I mean, sure, you can get some nice side cash, but it's nothing to live off.

>>9167266
The only way you make serious green off Patreon is furry porn.

>>9167303
Even then, only if you're as good as like, Tokifuji, or as willing to pander as Fenoxo. Otherwise it's all a bit shit.

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I recently found this book stowed away in a box of old books in my attic. I have never read it before. Is it any good? I know nothing of fantasy beyond entry level stuff.

>>9167313
Xanth is literally just porn

Are there any fantasy books that focus on the 'Dark Lord' big bad and not the heroes fighting to stop him?

>>9161023
My novel

The ETA is anywhere between next week and never so keep an eye out

>>9165593
I'd say the Goblin Emperor comes close. It's basically just about a unwanted 4th son becoming emperor after the emperor and the other heirs die in a airship crash. Conflict is mainly limited to dealing with idiot courtiers and a couple coup attempts.

Can anyone recommend a book where someone just shows up out of nowhere and starts completely taking over the world singlehandedly by force? Like if Alexander or Napoleon had Supermans powers

ABANDON THREAD >>9168106
ABANDON THREAD >>9168106
ABANDON THREAD >>9168106