/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

Anime is better than books.

Female warriors ruin books

Female warriors define anime.

Fine warriors de-female anime.

Sanderson is shit anime
GRRM is a hack
Rothfuss is a good writer and HAVE YOU DONATED
Female warriors ruin books
Women can't be good authors
Cats are fine too

>Ember War has a kinda interesting opening
>then uses two different timeskips within four chapters
oh ffs

>>9247075
Authors that use timeskips should kts desu

>>9246990
Females you want to fuck define anime.

They lake any sort of real character so they're safe.

Anybody have a top 10 list of novels with a girl protag?

I like grrm even though he's a cuck

r we getting a tuc xcerpt 2day

>>9247080
Wouldn't mind GRRM using it every now and then, tho.

FFXII is the BEST FF, plot- and writing-wise.

>>9247080
>>9247075

So what's your problem with time skips? I assume you just mean telling the story out of order so to speak? Or presenting seemingly unrelated parts of the story one after another?

I just take that shit as it comes and things usually work out.

Recently started sanderson's way of kings. All the first chapters seem barely related and I'm curious as to when, or if, things are going to move toward a more traditional story structure.

Not complaining though, I actually don't mind. The guy obviously has done a lot of world building he wants me to see and im patient enough to let him show me at whatever pace he likes.

The thing is, I get that there are other books I could be reading, but I have attention span issues due to my recovering from addiction. When I find a book that I can finish the first chapter of, I take what I can get.

>>9247537
Everyone meets up by the end of the second book

If you're looking for something fast paced you won't get that with Stormlight

>>9247544

I'm definitely not looking for fast paced, but I appreciate that heads up. I'm fine with reading any amount of "look at this cool stuff I made up" chapters

Hey /lit/ ive been reading a lot of sci fi and wanted to get into more fantasy. are there any fantasy books that do not involve several huge volumes so one self contained book, is not some shitty D&D ,tolkien rip off, has enough descriptions that do not involve autistic amount of detail, have an interesting setting.Ive read LOTR and some weird fiction authors like Clark Ashton Smith, a bit of Robert Howard and H.P Lovercraft.

>>9247629
Lud-in-the-Mist
Lions of Al-Rassan
The Buried Giant

>>9247080
But I liek timeskips...

Could anyone recommend some Mech-focused books? Looking into writing a mecha/mech novel and would like some references/inspiration.

Probably will look into some battletech or mechwarrior material, but I just wonder if you friends have read anything that really stuck out to you.

>>9247629
The original Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson is my offer. There's some interesting criticism against him but his original trilogy has great characters, unique magic and decent modern writing.

I just finished reading Hart's Hope, which was pretty disappointing.

>>9247629
Iron Dragon's Daughter.

It's very different from Tolkien
Stand alone
No D&D shit

>>9247667
>has great characters, unique magic and decent modern writing.
It doesn't have any of those. Especially retarded choice to rec when the guy explicitly asks for non-series.

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I read Jack Vance's short novel The Miracle Workers which is set on a world 1600 years after being settled by refugees from an intergalactic war. Much knowledge has been lost, and so the current rulers are a mixture of feudal/medieval and ancient tech; castles with crossbowmen on ramparts and mounted salvaged spaceship artillery.

The story follows a warlord's campaign to subjugate a rival warlord, and the reemergence of the planets' cunning and grudge-bearing autochthons. There is an interesting contrast of magical and scientific apparitions which thrash it out in several action set pieces. Overall it's a good genre bending entertainment that deserves a strong four out of five of your preferred units of measurement.

>>9247629
War of the Flowers by Tad Williams is a pretty nice stand alone story.

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tss brandon SANDerson, wut does he live in the fukkin desert or sumpthin?

fawkin killin it today Chippah

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Something got me reminiscing about Starship Troopers and it made me wonder:

Is there a book about humanity making peace with an alien race so profoundly different from itself? Like... a story where the humans and bugs from Heinlein's story make peace and the difficulty maintaining peace with something so alien drives the plot?

>>9248308
It's happening right now with niggers on earth.

>>9247629
It's nothing more than a good action book but Talion: Revenant stands out as a good one and done book.

Does as much as some entire trilogies in 400 pages.

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Is this worth 4 quid lads?

>>9248468
Only if you REALLY like the Ottoman Empire and are not adverse to autistic beta cuck mcs

>>9248468
No.

>>9248308
That's the entire plot to Ender's Game and it's sequels. The sequels in particular.

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>>9248552
>it's

>>9248568
Sorry. I'm drunk and a non-native speaker.

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What do you think of the novel Spin?

>>9248568
Don't do this here

>>9248308
I'd second Speaker for Dead. I hope you like portuguese and endless philosophy.

What's Wolfe's best work aside from New Sun?

>>9248790
Wizard Knight

>>9248790

The Fifth Head of Cerberus

>>9248536
>>9248537
fug already wasted 4 quid

Finally got around to reading BOTNS, I'm about 200 pages in and it's amazing. Everyone who complains about it is a fucking pleb, the end.

*hits blunt*

what if, like, there was percy jackson. But with gnosticism?

>>9247629
Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe, his writing is simplistic but deep if you have a decent understanding of mythology, religion and other famous fantasy literature

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>>9249012
>his writing is simplistic

Why do 95% of sci-fi/fantasy have such awful books covers?

I thought marketing was supposed to entice you to buy something not put you off

>>9249021
It is, it's not particularly challenging nor does it give gratuitous details, it's vague enough to start the mind's imagination but it keeps the story together, portrays the character's feelings well and still carries meaning and depth

It's simplistic

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GIVE ME MONEY

>>9249042
because they're marketing to plebs

>>9248790
The Fifth Head of Cerberus or Peace. But that's only counting novels. A lot of his shorter stuff could easily compete.

>>9248648
It was slow but I liked it. Hated how the Martians spent 20,000 years not colonizing the solar system before they got spin'd too, and the atheist vs christian argument actually happens the other way around, but at least he gave religion more credit than most modern SF authors.

Couldn't get into the sequel.

>>9248552
>>9248753

Not to be picky but... anything else?

I've given up on Speaker for the Dead twice now in the early pages... I loved Ender's game but Speaker's preable reads like a brutally extra long back-cover blurb.

>>9249256
just get past that to the actual story with ender deciding to fuck off to lusitania or whatever it was called.

>>9249230
Hate is a strong word. Hate how? Hate as in personally hate like "you jerks" or hate as in "that doesn't make sense"?

I'm reading the second book from Gaskun's space opera series.

It's...it's.. not bad.

>>9249296
ok but are you a pleb? what are your favorite books?

>>9249256
It is a slog, but matches what you needed. Personally, I've never been much of a fan of space jesus allegory series. But he can write.
You can try Cherryh never-ending series starting with Foreigner. Advanced Terran trapped on a foreign planet. Forced to coexist.

>>9249306
Ubik by PKD, dune by Herbert, Neromancer by Gibson

Gaskun knows how to write action sequences. It's the same tropes we all know bit he's got his own voice.

What you reading?

>>9249295
I didn't like how it didn't make sense that the Martians never picked up asteroid mining when Phobos and Deimos were right there, and that the story had a hole in it based on the idea that humans can only live on planets. I guess I'm judging it harshly, as that conceit is necessary for the story.

The red heifer storyline was actually pretty cool looking back.

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Anyone here read this yet? It's really good, and really comfy.

I see "His Dark Materials" trilogy get recommended a lot. Is it still enjoyable as an adult or is it people with nostalgia goggles looking back?

>>9249429
I've considered it, but I'm bored to death of traditional european fairy tales and am worried that being russian it's all too familiar and done to death

Is it at least set in some time in the past two centuries?

>>9249356
> I guess I'm judging it harshly, as that conceit is necessary for the story.
If I remember correctly the reason Martians resorted to extreme biological engineering was because Mars itself was very resource poor. They could barely afford to launch the one rocket to Earth, to say nothing of the time it took to establish a global civilization on a world humans didn't evolve for or acknowledge the threat of the aliens that covered Earth in that sheath rather than just forgetting about Earth and focussing on their own problems.

>The red heifer storyline was actually pretty cool looking back.
I don't recall what you are talking about.

>>9247629
Jonathan strange and Mr Norrell

>>9247656
Bv Larson. Enjoy.

>>9249462
>but I'm bored to death of traditional european fairy tales
May I ask what you've been reading? I didn't get the impression that they're common, at all. Anyhow the book is very unique and well written so I'd strongly recommend giving it a shot at least!

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>>9248316
Plz. Plz. Learn your history before you spout alternative facts. Blacks were here first.

>>9249465
That's the point, Mars is resource poor but the moons aren't, you'd think they'd invest a lot more resources into making themselves not resource poor anymore.

The red heifer storyline was where the sister's cult was trying to fulfill Biblical prophecy by getting a cow with pure red hair to sacrifice. The main guy has to help the cult deliver a calf, I think somebody gets shot, and in the end it's stillborn, like their hope, right? Because Earth is just going to spin off and die in everyone's lifetimes? But then the aliens set up the bridges and take down the barrier, it's like God really does care about us, or the aliens, or God through the aliens, because it's an actual complex picture of faith.

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Just finished Time Enough for Love, my first foray into science fiction. Enjoyed it. Wanna read more Heinlein. Which next; The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, or something else?

>>9249437
It's trash.

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>>9248468
IT'S SHIT STAY AWAY
RRRRRRREEEEEEEE

>>9249509
It's not that I read a lot of it so much as it's the only think most people are exposed to. Even if you avoid reading them like the plague you're exposed to them almost to the point of exclusivity through local and popular culture, and even if you seek out exceptions for long enough they still feel like exceptions

>>9249520
>That's the point, Mars is resource poor but the moons aren't, you'd think they'd invest a lot more resources into making themselves not resource poor anymore.
That's the scary thing about the exploration, exploitation, and colonization of space though. It's not just something that happens. It's a very costly long term investment that a lot of people won't necessarily care to make. They'd rather make things better for themselves and their kids than their great grand kids and beyond. That's why we aren't on Mars and why Martians didn't do much beyond engineer bacteria that turn comets into computers.

And I'm not seeing the god parallel. They were aliens. Aliens that humans like us created and were using us to evolve.

>>9249547
>And I'm not seeing the god parallel. They were aliens. Aliens that humans like us created and were using us to evolve.
They came in with salvation when we thought all hope was lost. You're thinking in terms of what God is instead of what God does.

>>9249523
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is good.

>>9249550
They caused the situation in the first place.

And god doesn't save so much as he creates, and the kuiper belt AIs were created by sapient species like us. I'm just not really buying into this supposed religious subtext.

>>9249021
that particular book is told from the viewpoint of a boy, so it's stylistically simple. if you want to read some more florid wolfe stuff, check out Peace.

anyone read Cordwainer Smith besides me?

>>9248648
About 20 pages of clever scifi.
The rest was all religious drama.

>>9249604
They caused the situation to save biological life from inevitable destruction.

>the kuiper belt AIs were created by sapient species like us.
That's speculated but not confirmed.

>I'm just not really buying into this supposed religious subtext.
Subtext? Half the novel is about sister's faith journey. It's openly drenched in religion.

>>9249641
>That's speculated but not confirmed.
As opposed to what? We saw the act of their creation recreated through humanity launching self replicating kuiper belt nanomachines.

The novel explores the insanity humans go through when dealing with the end of the world. I especially liked the short bit about how some people were getting violent while others were getting out of their cars to direct traffic. But unless you have something more that more explicitly relates the aliens to religion then I'm just not buying it. Not everything has to be "drenched in religion".

>>9249677
>Not everything has to be "drenched in religion".
You're right, Spin didn't have to be, but Wilson spent a huge part of the story following the girl the narrator likes through a series of cults as she tries to find God. She gets roasted in a theological debate with her brother, joins the sex cult, becomes a janitor, on and on, there were more exciting ways to show humanity dealing with the end of the world. The only physical action in the story aside from the quasi-chase in the framing story is the altercation with a cult.

Dealing with the end of the world is a small, small part of Spin. It's background noise. The brother is an atheist, but he finds a kind of being that he can believe in that is acting like a friendly but distant God, and dies for it, his body unable to handle the glory. The Von Neumann life are literally seeking the salvation of all beings. And if Wilson hadn't made that plain enough for you, he had the sister and the red heifer cult try to find salvation through another means and fail, paralleling the brother's discovery of real salvation when he wasn't really looking for it.

>>9249697
>Wilson spent a huge part of the story following the girl
The entire character arc was just padding to meat whatever page number the publisher wanted from him. Her joining the cult and being all touchy feely beyond merely padding the page count was the author trying to flex his writing muscles by wriginging not simply writing a dry story with nothing but autistic intellectuals debating the course of humanity (which we can all agree would have been a better book because the concepts are what we were reading Spin for).

Hey, if it allows you to enjoy the story more than I certainly won't tell you to do otherwise. However not every instance of X saves Y has to be a religious allegory, let alone one only rationalized by the mere presence of religious people in the story itself.

I mean, I'd get it if there was a few lines of some character supposing that the machines at the poles were created by God, but I don't remember a single character referring to the aliens as deities. I saw aliens, I saw humans being humans, and that's it.

>>9249778
>character is looking for God and doesn't find him
>other character isn't looking for God but finds alien machines that want to save us
it's not even hidden, that's right there if you look any depth at all.

>>9249788
As I said, that's one reading, but necessarily a prominent theme or even intended? I mean, even if the main story wasn't a contrivance to both contrast the brother's personality with an irrational bible thumping princess for the main character to save, the theme could just as easily be that "sister looks for god and finds nothing, brother looks for actual answers and find them". Not everything within a story has to be directly related to religion.

People force readings like that almost as much as they see phallic imagery for anything that is remotely elongated.

>>9249820
>>9249697
Holy shit boys we need more fucking discussion like this on this general
Jesus Christ the amount of civil argument this books raised is making me want to read it, gg

Anyone want to talk about Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, or the Mars trilogy? :3

What's steampunk supposed to be about thematically? Like why does it exist as a genre.

I've seen a couple of books using it to explore pollution/consumption themes but everything else just seems to be fantasy but with airships

>>9250001
Like, why was it concieved in the first place?

I would say it's simply the following of a technological trend that in reality shifted in a different direction, towards electronics and internal combustion engines. Take away internal combustion and electronics and presume something as useful was developed for steam power instead. Also pretend that Victorian fashion doesn't change much because people love Victorian fashion.

>>9250001
it's a fashion statement

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>>9250001

I honestly think Arcanum is one of the only fictional works to get steampunk "right."

Tolkien wrote fantasy books that idealized nature and rural life and resisted industrialization.

Arcanum had a setting where a traditional, magical fantasy world had to deal with the emergence of a science fiction/Victorian/industrial society and gets to explore both sides of the issue.

Basically, I think the best use of steampunk is to explore the dichotomies of traditionalism vs. modernism and fantasy vs. science fiction.

Of course, 99.99999999% of all steampunk stories in any medium are terrible. China Mieville's Bas Lag trilogy, Arcanum, and Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle are about the only worthwhile things in the genre.

>>9250001
It's fantasy without the walking and with "cool" stuff

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>female MC/heroine becomes a immoral turboslut over the course of the work
>parallel universe from the pov of her husband makes her a pure saint with the depth of a piss puddle

>>9249523
Stranger in a Strange land is OK but overrated imo, and thematically has a lot in common with Time Enough.

Starship Troopers is a faster read, and more different in tone from Time Enough than Mistress. I say read that.

If you actually liked Time Enough for Love though, you'll probably like most things Heinlein wrote.

>>9249820
>main story
>a contrivance
Sure, you can ignore the entire book except for the cool tech parts, that's a valid reading I guess. They are pretty cool. And you can even read the religious main plot in a strictly materialistic way, it is ambiguous, as the author intended. And indeed, some people look at a dick and see a banana. It's not a banana though.

>>9250188
>female MC/heroine becomes a immoral turboslut over the course of the work

Misread that as "immortal."
>starring asa akira as The Bonelander

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>>9249620
I read the whole thing.

I don't think he ever decisively topped Scanners Live in Vain, although there were many great stories.

His wife was completely talentless, you could immediately tell if she touched a story, which fortunately only happened like three times IIRC.

He was obviously getting ready to write an amazing Christian SF novel, too bad he died. At least he invented(? introduced to the West?) catgirls.

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>>9250001
Purely aesthetic. Gears are cool because you can watch them work and sort of act like you can understand them, and they're also associated with people playing dress-up every day. You can see the connection with cyberpunk.

These philistines, these utter sows don't understand that true punk is 1970s campout in short shortspunk.

>>9250206
It's a science fiction novel. It didn't win a Hugo Award for it's painfully mediocre story. It won it for the interesting idea of Earth being stuck out of time, colonizing other worlds using that time slippage, and Von Neumann intelligences cultivating terrestrial civilizations like crops. But instead of packing that all into a dry short story he shoved in that mediocre plot about three kids growing up together in to make a full fledged novel out of it.

And I'd hardly describe that plot as wholly "religious" just because the story involves a cult near the end.

If Cyberpunk was written like Steampunk, it would be stories about Heroic, Brave and Handsome CEOs of the Silicon Valley nobility jetting around in supersonic bizjets and battling the evil data rights activists, software pirates, government regulators, and Chinese slave laborers via TECH DISRUPTION and apps. (see: that APB tv show on Fox)

And the fans would glue IC chips and Arduinos onto vinyl trenchcoats and gut Apple IIs to turn into lamps.

>>9250270
Hugos pretty much turned to shit participation prizes by this point.

>>9250391
Hello, Theodore.

steampunk can be an actual sci-fi/fantasy style (see the Gibson/Sterling collab The Difference Engine) but it was co-opted into a Tumblr aesthetic years ago

Any writers with weird gnostic/occult stuff, apart from PKD?

>>9249437
I enjoyed the first one very much. I re-read it because I found a beautiful edition I had to have- but just like when I was in grade school, the second one bored me and I never made it to the third one.

>>9249641
>They caused the situation to save biological life from inevitable destruction.
Yeah, but that's what god does too, right?

>>9250044
Arcanum was great. The social and political consequences of the industrial revolution were handled well.

Thief and Thief II did steampunk nicely too. Way less derivative than usual.

>>9250454
Robert Anton Wilson, David Lindsay (maybe).

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"I've been reading Gene Wolfe since I was 18"

>>9250673
>only starting at 18
Pleb. I read Peace in high school.

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>>9250680
ME: That was the fawkin' BIT, you DOPE

>>9250689
Do I need to know about Opie & Anthony to understand this post?

>>9250700
ME: little taste of the Opie and Anthony, just a peek

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I just finished reading Death's End and now I'm angry at China.

>>9250713
For a moment there, I thought you were mad at China Mieville

>>9250713
I finished Three Body problem, and while I really liked the ideas and the setting, especially the flashback, the rest of the book felt a bit, 'meh'. Could tell it was translated, and bluntly some of the characters were just too cliche even for me.

Would you say I should press on, or do these problems just get worse?

>>9250342
Now I want to see not only the idea you just described, full irony and all, but the reverse, a steampunk tail of freedom fighters in a pseudo-London subculture battling against the big corporations like the Crown or Royal Society

Whats some good lesser known military sci-fi? I've read all the commonly recommended shit.

>>9250828
Death's End has a little more characterization for its main character (unlike Wang Miao who is basically a piece of cardboard). The ideas get a lot grander in scope, and there is a clearer sense of the plot from earlier on. Although there is a part that drags pretty hard where the main character starts reminiscing about his fictional waifu. I'd say go for it, the last thirty pages are worth the entire rest of the book.

>>9250923
*The Dark Forest has a little more

>>9250044
>my word is law where steampunk is concerned
>what I say is good, is good

>>9250841
>I've read all the commonly recommended shit
You sure you read Bv Larson and Neal Asher? Because they don't have 1 book each...

>>9250270
>near the end.
And the beginning and the middle.

>painfully mediocre
It was a great story, you're just a trash reader.

>>9250270
>It won it for the interesting idea
No, it won because it had an interesting idea and it also felt literary.

>>9250460
Yeah. Pretty transparent metaphor.

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>>9251217
>No, it won because it felt literary.
You smell of dfw

>>9251217
No, and no u.

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Does /sffg/ approve of this book?

>>9251289
>if the vocal majority of a bunch of anonymous genre lovers don't approve of a work I will not read it
How about you read it and decide if it should be shilled or not?

Is Inherent Vice good? I disliked the pages of Lot49 and Gravitys Rainbow I read but this seems to be written in an actually coherent manner.

>>9251289
Depends. Did Gene Wolfe write it?

>>9251230
I didn't say it was literary. You're obviously not familiar with the Hugos.

>>9251322
I.V. is basically a detective novel that goes nowhere, it's simpler in style but overall it's the same Pynchon stuff.

Mason and Dixon has a deliberately verbose opening but it's probably the most accessible of his books.

Also you're in the wrong thread

>>9251457
>that goes nowhere
Why is every "literary" novel like this. Instantly interest lost.

>>9251464
>Inherent Vice
>literary
kekerooni

Finished The Forever War. Didn't care particularly much for it. Just started listening to Old Man's War which I've seen recommended along with it and I like it a lot more so far.

>>9252308
Post what you think of it at the end

I really lost interest with the final stretch of OMW
Never bothered with the sequels because of it

>>9250713
The interesting thing about China, outside of JG Ballard's observations and their economic imperialism, is that they are big science fiction readers. I recall that their biggest magazine has a circulation of a million readers.

I'm out of touch with this scene, but the odds are that they must be producing some very good short stories and novels, if they can be translated well.

>>9250841
PKD's short story Second Variety is more than tenuously a piece of military SF.

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Okay so I enjoyed it, but I'm a real dumb-dumb, can any of you goys help me out?

So Rorschach wanted to destroy humanity because it saw it as a virus right?
If it was so immensely intelligent and powerful why not just send tens of thousands of meteors at Earth? And why not just use those meteors to destroy Theseus when it wanted to attack them?
Why didn't it do that when it read their minds? Surely it would've been able to figure out that they would kamikaze Rorschach in the end to save Earth right?
Why exactly did Sarasti tear open Siri's hand?
Sarasti was being controlled by Theseus the whole time right?
What was up with that 'mutiny' at the end, and why did Sarasti/Theseus let it happen?

Any of this addressed in echopraxia?
Thanks in advance.

>>9249429
I was interested until I got to the real world setting and immediately lost interest.

I read Frank M Robinson's 1958 short novel of sixty pages, The Oceans Are Wide; an SF story set on board a generation starship. Five hundred years after embarking for a habitable planet its hereditary ruler dies, with his timid young son being the sole heir. However, rivals seek to murder him and usurp the throne. The story follows his exile and growth among the ordinary families of the starship, and his mentoring by a mysterious figure named Joseph Smith.

This is a structurally traditional coming-of-age story with many of its usual tropes, but it's written in a slickly modern style that wouldn't feel out of place forty years later. It's also a dark story, full of murder, political scheming, compulsory euthanasia, bloodsports, and public executions - but it is also simply written, and this along with its blatantly didactic asides make me believe this was written for the YA/juvenile market.

Robinson is mainly preoccupied with what qualities it takes to be a leader, and what is required for the prosperity of a large group of people. He writes with a lot of literary allusions, with epigrams and references from the Psalms, T.S. Eliot, Pope, Coleridge - and, more importantly, Machiavelli. Most interestingly, the novel's mentor figure shares his name with the founder of Mormonism. Overall I enjoyed this take on the exiled prince tale, a curious hodgepodge of YA, space opera and dystopia: it deserves 3/5 dinos from me.

>>9253384
my man, good job plodding through through

1. Pretty much, the 'virus' idea is explored a lot more in Echo
2. I think it was more subterfuge, asteroids can be stopped if a planet rallies together. It kept Theseus alive for its own reasons, primarily to study humans
3. Mind reading =/= telling the future. Also, it didn't read the captain/sarasti's mind, and it was their decision to scuttle Thesius.
4. Shock therapy. And give him lots of thinking time whilst it recovered.
5. Very debatable. I personally think either the captain killed him immediately, or the two had a semi-symbiotic relationship for a short time before the captain acted.
6. The captain didn't let the mutiny happen, it was a play by Rorschach to try and derail Thesius by manipulation Jame's personalities.

While only the first point is really directly addressed, you really should read Echo especially if you enjoyed BS. Echo raises some really interesting questions about the events that occurred in BS, as well as raising several new ideas and exploring other aspects of the world.


I love talking about Blindsight, any other theories or questions etc?

>>9253695
Having said this, Echopraxia is a little incomprehensible at times. Watt's style is on my wavelength, but Echo really needs a re-read or two. There are entire passages I couldn't even digest after reading ten times.

There's also a character who speaks without commas or full stops and it makes their speech sections weirdly oblong

>>9253384




> So Rorschach wanted to destroy humanity because it saw it as a virus right?

More or less

> If it was so immensely intelligent and powerful why not just send tens of thousands of meteors at Earth? And why not just use those meteors to destroy Theseus when it wanted to attack them?

Dunno lol. But it can be said that Rorschach and its inhabitants are not exactly conscious, at least in the way we think of conscious, so they don't care if they sacrifice themselves.

> Why didn't it do that when it read their minds? Surely it would've been able to figure out that they would kamikaze Rorschach in the end to save Earth right?

I don't think Rorschach could read minds exactly, it could hide by exploiting simple tricks, it could plant another person in gang's head, It could predict the crew's moves as long as they are rational, but not sure about reading minds. With us being so different than them I don't think they'd get much of what they were seeing.

> Why exactly did Sarasti tear open Siri's hand?

This part I don't really understand myself, it was hinted he wanted Siri to develop empathy, but I'm not sure how that would help.

> Sarasti was being controlled by Theseus the whole time right?

I don't think we know that. It is a possibility.

> What was up with that 'mutiny' at the end, and why did Sarasti/Theseus let it happen?

You mean a persona planted by Rorschach in gang's head taking over? I don't think Sarasti or Theseus saw it coming.

Anyway it's confusing and I think it's meant to be.

been good getting back into /sffg/ I've read a lot of the classics but they're just too tryhard for me, I like comfy fantasy stories

>>9254253
see
>>9249429

What are you guys reading?

>>9254328
The Chronicles of Prydain

Easy reading... but it's a children's novel. Almost done with book 1. Probably going to get a set for my Nephew since it seems to be age appropriate for him.

What is some good necromancer/dark magick core lads? Ideally somewhere in between the two pictured here >>9254077 (OP) . On one hand you have a bit too much focus on romance and other shit in Abhorsen, while with Alan Moore he goes so off the rails with all the Lovecraft.

>>9254328
Laid up with fever. Seemed the proper mood to begin the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

>>9254328
Brian Lumley's The Burrowers Beneath.

Before that, in reverse chronological order:
>The Compleat Crow
>first two books in The Black Company series
>The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
>The entirety of the Dresden Files

>>9254549

How do you like Ellroy? I'm interesting in the topics he writes about but does he have decent prose?

Just finished 'The Red Knight' and loved it! Are the rest of the books worth reading?

Does Miles Cameron have any other good books besides the red knight series?

>>9254328
'The Camp of the Saints.' Yes, I am racist.

>>9254328
Just finished something that I'm not that interested in continuing the series with (first book of Lotus War, which felt like YA despite not being YA)

Ember War hasn't grabbed me and the three other books I've loaded up (Grim Company, Too Like the Lightning and Luna: New Moon) are all not leaping to me for various reasons.

Knowing my reading I'll probably start luna, switch to the fantasy and power through it and then remember the other book months later and massively prefer it to the first two.

>>9254994
Or I could just carry on reading Felix Castor which is Mike Carey basically carrying on writing about his best comic book characters but with some slight name changes so DC don't sue him.

It's probably the only good urban fantasy out there

someone recommend me a fantasy novel with a good amount of cuckoldry involved

>>9255066
Jurgen

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made a thread to ask this before i noticed this thread

why arent there more fantasies based on asian cultures? compared to european cultures its a lot more diverse and varied from region to region

>>9255088
because I read English writers who obviously are more influenced by European history and mythology

>>9255088
How many English writers have the necessary knowledge along with the desire to write these stories? Why would they have it?

>>9254387
Please respond

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>>9254377
I read that as a kid but I've never been able to get myself to do a reread.

>>9255162
I read Tolkein and Redwall as a kid. I'm being retarded and reading everything thats on the suggested reading material in the back of the DND 5e Players Handbook.

I don't think I'll re-read Pyrdain someday. I'm not a fan of kids as the main characters.

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>>9255173
What else have you been reading?

How come sffg doesnt participate in bookshelf threads? I would really love to see some of your collections.

>>9255185
I never buy physical books.

>>9254328
Chindi by mcdevitt. Moving on in the series to omega. Loving it so far. Anyone else gotten into it?

>>9255179
The last three books I've read:
Guerrilla Warfare - Che Guevara
Storm of Steel - Ernst Jünger
Throne of the Crescent Moon - Saladin Ahmed

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>>9255194
Haven't even heard of those. Are they more YA like Prydain?

>>9255194
>Guerrilla Warfare - Che Guevara
You'd get better insight into the nature of warfare from a Warhammer 40k novelization.

>>9254328
right now I'm reading Deep Secrets by Diana Wynne Jones. Don't like it as much as Howl's Moving Castle. Kind of a bummer come down.

Afterwards I'm gonna read Warchild by Karen Lowachee

After THAT probably Ammonite by Nicola Griffith. Let's see how it goes.

>>9254328
Crossroads of Twilight. Feels like a filler. A boring filler.

>>9254437
For some reason reading with a fever is really fun.

>>9253695
>>9253721
>>9253731
Cheers for the insight lads, I'm gonna pick up echopraxia soon.

>>9254328
Currently reading
Outbound Flight by Zahn
Ender's Game

TBR pile:
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin
Sins of Empire by McClellan
Again, Dangerous Visions

There's really nothing worse than a lesbian protagonist
Or lesbian teasing.

>inb4 the next age of myth sequel will be even more feminazi and "progressive" and etc

>>9255878
Yet you're cuck enough to read it anyways.

>>9255185

Why would I buy books if I can just pirate them for free?

>>9255878

I will I just wish it wasn't filled with ideological propaganda because the author really needs to remind everyone that women in fact are completely useful in something other than childbirth and menial tasks during the time when technology hadn't advanced past agriculture

>>9255001
>Felix Castor
>shilling books for years
>finally put them in a chart
>"chart is snit lol kys pleb"
>they still read 90% of what's on my chart
....what?

>>9254387
>>9255135
Lit is slow chill.
Try Cabal the Necromancer. It's filled with British humour, so.. you are forewarned if that isn't your thing.

There is Felix Castor, which has the dead coming back to life. But Castor is the one that puts them back.

There is the Strain by del toro. More scifi than magic. The necromancer is Lucifer and he is a vampire

Maybe someone can help. I don't purposely look for necromancers, and this question has come up before.

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>>9254610
No.

>>9254610
Each book is better than the last so yes.

>>9255900
>Try Cabal the Necromancer

Don't do that.
It's complete shit and has barely anything to do with necromancy

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>>9255185
There that was my "bookshelf" as of early 2014. Too lazy and not autistic enough (yet) to update

>Want to add rape to my urban fantasy book
>Can't imagine a realistic scenario where the rapist would just get finish and run off without getting caught
It's for character development I swear

Hmm, considering during REM you are completely paralyzed, yet you can still breathe (like during sleep paralysis), would it make sense, that if someone cast a paralyzing spell on you, they could do whatever they wanted with you and you wouldn't die because you'd still be breathing?
You'd be conscious and would experience the full thing but you just couldn't move or speak or scream or anything

These threads dead recently. Was it really the redshitors keeping it up? Now that all of them are gone to be namefags and be censored, what will we discuss without redshit influence?

>>9255939

I'm discussing rape right now. Want to join me in that conversation?

>>9255911
>what is fun
>I'm American so I need guns and girls in bikinis
>fuck yeah
Kys. Why don't you recommend something instead of being a naysaying faggot?

>>9255953

The person SPECIFICALLY asked for necromancy
You recommended a book that has necromancy in 3 pages out of hundreds TOTAL.

>>9255925
Does Science Fiction and Fantasy relate to my shitty fanfiction? I don't know where I am!

>>9255960

Does Science Fiction and Fantasy relate to the Fantasy book that I'm writing?
Gee, I don't know, is it about fantasy? Hmm...

>>9255965
I don't know where I am!
>>9254613

>>9255960
>>9255970

I forgot to mention, you need to look up what fanfiction means by the way
>Original work
>Not work based on other's worlds
>Fanfic

>>9255972
Fanfiction is a pejorative term used to describe amateur inexperienced writers whose head is so far up there ass that they can't assess the quality of their own writing.

>>9255977

>Fan fiction or fanfiction (also abbreviated to fan fic, fanfic, or fic) is fiction about characters or settings from an original work of fiction, created by fans of that work rather than by its creator. It is a popular form of fan labor

>>9254598
I've read the entirety of his LA quartet before and really enjoy his prose, though it gets a little hectic in White Jazz.

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>>9255925
>urban fantasy book
There you go. That means magic is involved. Have the person "prepare the battlefield. Let them choose an alley and put up a shit load of obfuscation/ look away wards. Make the center of the warding area a container for sound (so no hears her scream).

It's not go to be "a couple words" bam. The dude would have to prepare this shit weeeeks in advance. Maybe have him getting rare shit because using an obfuscation ward in an urban center is flimsy at best because of the amount of people that occupy such a small area of land.

Have the dude have to get the anguish and pain and fear of being raped to work some greater, darker ritual. He stands in the alley way observing. When someone passes close enough that looks suitable, he leans out, snatches, trips the wards, drag her to the center, begins the ritual.

TWEST:
1. He gets the girl but she gets away while he is fumbling with his shorts.
2. The girl actually enjoys it and goes along with it.
Either way his weeks of preparation is shit and he has to start over again.

>>9255957
>still sees no recommendations

>>9256011

I don't know any good books about necromancy apart from the Abhorsen

>>9254387
Necroscope series by Brian Lumley. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and Re-Animator by Lovecraft.

TUC soon

>>9255088
There's quite a lot already (off the top of my head Grace of Kings, Empire Trilogy/almost all Feist books, Lotus War, A Long Price and Unsouled)

Thing is the ones of those not written by actual asians or good researchers are pretty fucking embarrassing to read if you know enough about asia to recognise the inaccuracies.

>That feel when getting an ARC to a book some people in this general have been waiting for for a year or so

Subtle hints, subtle, hints.

>>9256045
There was blood mirror arcanon, age of myth arcanon, and great ordeal arcanon.
Brent Weeks pissed off his readers with that tight pussy syndrome filler, Sullivan made the new series shit by forcing too many female shit (I used to shill and count down age of myth last year, never again). There was the great ordeal arcanon who gloated the fuck up.

So you must be the broken earth trilogy arcanon.

>when piracy websites ban asking for ARCs

>>9256096
Because they can be traced you fucking mook.

>>9255925
Faggot. I wrote all this >>9256008 for you instead of saying fuck off. The least your faggot ass can do is say thanks.

>>9256110

I was out getting alcohol from the store, and I do thank you, you gave me a very good idea to execute in my book (nothing to do with what you wrote but what your writing made me think of)

>>9256110
Kevin please calm down. It hasn't even been 30 minutes.

>>9256117
>(nothing to do with what you wrote but what your writing made me think of)

The mark of originality everyone.
You should take notes.

>>9254328
Malazan, The Crippled God.

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Reddit

>>9246955
I'm trying to find a complete pdf of The Winds of Winter. Will I have to wait a bit longer?

>>9256301
Will probably have to wait until it's published.

>>9256321
it's not out yet?
what's the book after dance of dragons?

>>9256348
The Winds of Winter.

>>9256353
shit, I remember watching daily show and Noah said the new game of thrones book is out. Maybe I miss heard it.

>>9256359
We're getting new editions and related books, but not WoW. Probably next year. Then A Dream of Spring in 2030 probably.

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I'm having a hard time figuring out whether this is the worst attempt at aping Gene Wolfe I've witnessed so far. I mean, Rothfuss is a dolt who does not understand that unreliable narrator is not a device with which to iron out all the narrative holes and poor characterization down the road, but Bakker - on the other hand - does not have an inkling of an thought as to how to actually build a world.

>Day of a Thousand Suns

Gee whiz Scott, I wonder what that might be, after you established with so much eloquence that characters such as "Jesu", Plutarch and Nietzche are still well known among those that actually read something in your post-apoc iteration of the Earth. Now if only you had some idea where do Necromancers, Shamans et al fit in with nuclear devices and why did the world go straight to grimdark ritter fantasy rather than actually harvesting some of the stuff? At least Wolfe's world only seemed that way to the reader and him being a Christfag covered some of the forays into the miraculous.

What's your excuse, Bakker?

Next up for me: Ubik.

Here's hoping it's not shit.

>>9256450
Whoops, it's Lawrence and the Prince of Thorns. Gotta keep paying more attention to actual names of these hacks.

>>9256119
What you reading Vince?

>>9256450
>shit talked bakker
>in sffg
>the book isn't even written by bakker
Batten down the hatches boys. A storm a brewing.

>>9256463
Way to give away that you never read either

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>>9256450
Boring.
No one cares.

>>9254328

Turquoise days and Causal angel.

>>9256463
It was obvious it was Lawrence even in the original post

Bakker is shit for entirely different reasons.

Also accrediting post-apoc fantasy to Wolfe is dumb, he's not the founder of the genre or the populariser of it

>>9256745
>Causal angel.
The series went to shit after book 1.

>>9256773
Wolfefags are the worst. They are what remains of christposters when hiro did the great purge a few years ago when creating /his/.

has anyone read The Crown of Stars by Kate Elliot?

>>9256776

Yeah, kind of feel the same. The second felt hurried up at some points.

Rereading asoiaf...im wasting my life

>>9256923
The prose is utterly shit. The plot can be interesting. I'd just read the in depth synopses on the wiki desu.

>>9257065
Yeah once you read them theirs not much to hold your attention
I meants rereading thousands of pages from a fiction fantasy book to get into the lore more

>>9256923
>>9257065
That's why the TV series is better. You get the hot content without having to subject yourself to the boring writing.

>>9257182
>That's why the TV series is better.
It's funny how saying this makes people rage so easily. Relative to other literature the books are pretty shit, but relative to other television series the show is pretty good.

I think.

>>9257182
The TV series is good for seasons 1 and 2, and then from 3 onwards it becomes so incredibly fucking awful that you actually have to give them a little credit for how bad they made it.

>the plot makes no sense
>there's no sense of scale or permanence to the world any more
>people teleport
>main characters always succeed at everything
>main characters become invulnerable to everything
>everyone acts completely irrationally
>sets and costumes look worse/cheaper
>CGI is atrocious
>acting actually becomes worse (in particular the woman that plays dany)
>entire story/character arcs are rewritten beyond recognition or simply don't exist
>action scenes are insultingly bad
>dialogue is first year undergrad screenwriter tier
>unresolved plots left hanging
>major characters die offscreen
>liberal ideology creeping in more and more

It's genuinely amazing how bad it has become, especially considering that the budget has increased dramatically since it began. You'd expect that putting more money into something would make it better quality, but hey, maybe we should ask (((D.B. Weiss))) and (((David Benioff))) where the money is going.

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what about this guy's stuff?

is it good?
is if tun?

>>9257231
Can't say I agree, I found it just as fun as the ones before. Pretty hyped for the next one too

>>9254387
I apologise in advance if it's against /sffg/ culture to shill your own stuff, but my book is about necromancy:

https://www.amazon DOT co.uk/Lexi-Necromancer-D-T-Slade-ebook/dp/B01DHXBL2M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489860275&sr=8-1&keywords=lexi+and+the+necromancer

>>9257231
>>9257182
>tfw I wanna fuck maisie Williams

>>9257345
>tfw I met Maisie Williams

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>>9257345
>>9257638

>>9257329
Post mega link.

>>9256387
>Probably next year.

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>>9256522
Vince is dead. I killed him and drank all his maple syrup.
This was in his hand

>>9256844
The meme gods were a neat idea but the execution was terrible. The Zoku were set up as mythic, epic, but turned out lame.

I read No Woman Born by C.L. Moore, which stands out like a sore thumb in Astounding Fiction in 1944 because of how good it is, and how much it anticipates future tastes; not just bring 'men with screwdrivers' hard SF but a keenly felt story about a beautiful dancer who is coming to terms with being resurrected with a robot body after a fire.

Her robotic appearance confuses others because it is human in a confusing way, blurring the perceptions, memories, and reality for her lover and her constructor. Moore explores these tensions in a way that anticipates PKD, Ballard, and the New Wave. What is essentially human, and what is real? However, it's not a cold speculation of inner landscapes or a disjointed story full of straw men in order to make a point; instead it is written in a way that emphasizes the human emotional conflicts of the situation. Easily among of the best short work and I have read, 5/5.

>>9257761
God, I'd kill for some maple syrup too.

>>9250713
Hey me too. Got pretty tired of it near the end, I'd say TBP is the best of the trilogy. Reasonable scope and not so much wild speculative fantastical stuff.

Finished Gantz as well which also got tiresome near the end! What is it about endings...

>>9257703
http://www.mediafire.com/file/qoyyy2lbd6lb92l/Lexi+and+the+Necromancer.docx

Although I will add that of the three, The Dark Forest probably has the best foundational concept behind it (it's namesake theory). Really changed the way I look at life in the universe.

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>>9257935
>mediafire
>docx

>>9257949
Fair enough.

Is there any martial arts based fantasy?

Just started The Mirror to Her Dreams. I'm hype because it's Donaldson but the pacing in the beginning so far....

>>9258052
avatar:tla

How do you guys feel about Light Novels? Also, >>9258063

>>9258075
Please go away.

>>9258077
:(

>>9258059
Holy crap that first chapter with Tarisa is BORING. I get he has to set up how non-existent she feels but cripes. I perked up when Geraden finally showed up

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>>9257796
That does sound pretty out there for 44. Have you read any other Moore? I've heard her pulp adventures were great.

Sort of reminds me of a more recent story about a girl who gets robot limbs so she can join these globe aliens in this centuries-long dance even though she'll be torn apart. Probably not really similar though.

Also C.L. Moore a QT.

>>9257940
>not having that concept introduced by that /tg/ screencap
pretty lame to be honest, most of the Dark Forest believers I mean. They have that Fermi Paradox pride, where they think they're wise because they think they know all the variables.

>>9258075
Some of them are pretty good, quality's all over the place but mostly bad, sometimes there's a fresh idea but it's never all fresh ideas except Kino's Journey when it's not ripping off Twilight Zone.

>>9258543
>Kino's Journey
More like flick's journey am I right or am I right?

>>9258543
Is there an Internet audience (besides myself) for those who don't mind a bit of not-freshness? I always find myself reading stuff and am like "man this would made me jizz if the author had thought to do it this way instead"

>>9258521
It's the first thing I read by Moore. I knew she was revered figure, part of the Weird Tales as well as Campbell's Astounding crowd. It was surprisingly modern. From my googling it looks like one of the earliest pieces of SF that explores android/cyborgs too, but it doesn't feel like a prototype but a slick and fully formed treatment of the concept.

It impressed me enough that I ordered a book of her Jiril Jory and Northwest Smith stories.

>>9257725
We're still early in 2017 and I need to hope.
probably have to reread the series after the final book comes out anyway so I don't really care too much when they come out as long as they come out

>>9258521
>>9257796
>He squinted at the screen, not seeing it, his face drawn into lines like the lines of a skull. All flesh seemed to have dissolved off his bones in the past year, and Harris thought almost jealously that even in that way he seemed to be drawing nearer Deirdre in her fleshless-ness with every passing week.

>“Sight,” Maltzer said, “is the most highly civilized of the senses. It was the last to come. The other senses tie us in closely with the very roots of life; I think we perceive with them more keenly than we know. The things we realize through taste and smell and feeling stimulate directly, without a detour through the
centers of conscious thought. You know how often a taste or odor will recall a memory to you so subtly you don’t know exactly what caused it? We need those primitive senses to tie us in with nature and the race. Through those ties Deirdre drew her vitality without realizing it. Sight is a cold, intellectual thing compared with the other senses. But it’s all she has to draw on now. She isn’t a human being any more,
and I think what humanity is left in her will drain out little by little and never be replaced. Abelard, in a way, was a prototype. But Deirdre’s loss is complete.”

>“She isn’t human,” Harris agreed slowly. “But she isn’t pure robot either. She’s something somewhere between the two, and I think it’s a mistake to try to guess just where, or what the outcome will be.”

>“I don’t have to guess,” Maltzer said in a grim voice. “I know. I wish I’d let her die. I’ve done something to her a thousand times worse than the fire ever could. I should have let her die in it.”

>“Wait,” said Harris. “Wait and see. I think you’re wrong.”

I have a large ebook collection. Reply to this thread and I will try to fulfill your wishes

>>9258763
All The Lost Prince novels?

>>9258763
Post 'em, fag.

>>9258851
http://pastebin.com/raw/Ha9bH9hT

>>9257679
She is hotter than that carla devine model chick that is shoehorned into every movie nowadays.

>>9257796
With how fast you read these books I have a feeling you're Sebastian.....

>>9258864
Wow Abercrombie AND Douglas? Where did you get those super rare books from that no one else can find on the internet?!

>>9258909
feel free to scroll down

>>9258906
These recent stories have been shorts, 40-50 pages max. I'm bored of novels right now, and I have at least three anthologies full of 40s/50s/60s-70s SF to look through. The novelette/novella form feels ideally suited to SF and matches my preferred way of reading atm, in one sitting, and finish one piece every evening by an author I'm curious in.

Tomorrow might be Gene Wolfe's The Death Of Dr Island because I haven't read anything from him outside of BOTNS, or Robert Silverberg's Sailing To Byzantium. But there is something by Eric Frank Russell somewhere and I heard he was good.

If I have an agenda it's to emphasize older ('dinosaur') works because they still have a life in them.

>>9258898
I'm the nigga that met her and absolutely not

>>9259089
U gay

>>9258553
Kino wa Kino desu

>>9258556
What do you mean? There's definitely room for that in Pulprev because their thing's mostly just based on "is this story fun."

>>9258957
Nobody said older books are bad. It's the dated ones (yes books can be dated) that people parade around as God's gift because of "muh nostalgia".

There are some pretty good sff books that were written in the 50's that could be enjoyed by some fag born in the 2000's. The problem is some of these fossil choose the shit ones.

>>9259089
Beauty is subjective. I would walk down the road and hold hands with a non famous looking maisie. I won't touch carla even if she rich and famous, much less average income.

>I need to start my fantasy novella over from scratch
>7 months of work just fucking unusable

kill me

>>9257940
maybe I'm just a brainlet but I didn't really understand the idea.

In a literal dark forest, it's a competition for resources combined with the threat of being exposed by proxy and proximity, but in the dark forest model wouldn't unpopulated, resource-rich planets and stars always be preferable to ones that are populated?

I mean, it might make sense to invade a society of known strength, but there's no invasion, just blowing up stars, stopping time and flattening the universe

Is Red Rising any good?

>>9258075
The creator of No Game No Life was from Brazil if i remember correctly

>>9259469
Red Rising is really good
Second book has some annoying moping but is generally good. Thematically it's probably the best of the series.
Third is pretty decent but the conclusion drags because it's predictable and like 300 pages long.

>>9259478
wasn't the creater of NGNL a woman?

Also, NGNL should win an award for the most cringeworthy prose relative to the enjoyability of the actual plot. I loved the anime enough to read shitty fan translations of the light novel and actually liked the fan translations better than the real ones because they were so duwang'ed up I couldn't tell how awful the style was

Been reading some Bujold and I really like their writing

The master bullshitter with fuckall actual threat is a fun character to read both in fantasy and SF stories. Too many writers (Lynch, Rothfuss, Canavan) fuck up by having their con men types turn out to have been capable of insane magic all along.

>>9255195
Storm of Steel is an account of World War 1 by a German veteran. not very YA.

>>9255194
>Throne of the Crescent Moon
mah nigga

>>9259537
Which specific book is this?

>>9259621
Anything with Miles in Vorkosigan Saga and to a lesser degree the Chalion books too

>>9259625
Thanks.

Without spoilers obviously, am I in for a ride with The Mirror to Her Dreams? How much can the general fantasy rec image be trusted? Because it hasn't failed me yet

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>>9256784
>a few years ago
It can't have been that long. Also /lit/ is christposter HQ. Atheists get out.

>>9259659
1. Donaldson is very marmite so I can't predict your reaction, although it's mainly Covenant that elicits the hate. Most of his other stuff is well liked.

2. Almost everything in there is solid, the one book which stands out as actually being bad is Brent Weeks' Way of The Shadows, and desu the biggest problems are with the sequels to it.

There's a few other books I dislike but those are for taste reasons rather than overall quality.

The general chart is great and flowchart has a lot of good stuff otherwise unmentioned here. The other fantasy charts on here vary, the main guy who posts his own chart is kinda okay but you have to know what his taste is like to reliably use it.

>>9259703
Yeah he's seeming pretty marmite alright.

Why the vitriol for Covenant?

>>9259679
Go back

>>9259777
He's right. Christfags are the real patricians. Join us :)

heh... it's called manga kid...

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>>9259777
No.

>>9259791
Unless it's by Go Nagai get out.

Tolkien, Erikson, or Wolfe?

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>>9259798
Which one I'd fug? If we can pick any age Wolfe all the way.

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>>9259679
wolfe interpreters tend to over-stress the christianity aspect. They're like people who see virgin mary in every cloud and piece of toast. Love amano's illustrations for the jap translations, btw

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>>9259824
>amano
I knew these covers looked familiar but I thought I was just being retarded drawing a mental link between the Japanese interpretation of Severian and Vampire Hunter D/Final Fantasy. Were the books popular over there? It seems like an odd project for such a high-profile artist to work on. And what's stranger is that he did such a good job. The first two I could take or leave but Sword & Citadel are done so fantastically that I have to wonder if he actually read the books to get the style so down. The first two seem like generic Amano-sketches of a vaguely heroic pale dude in black but then in the last two you can clearly see the Christian/weird pulp-fiction influences. His Citadel of the Autarch is easily my favourite cover illustration of any release of Book of the New Sun.

And Wolfe is very Christian. I can't think of any examples of it being over-stressed in any interpretations I've seen on /lit/. The ending to Book of the New Sun felt like a very clear parallel to The Man Who Was Thursday when I read it.

question /sffg/, if a main character holds themselves responsible for someone else getting murdered, even though they aren't, does that excuse the narrative from addressing the looming threat of the murderer before the climax?

>>9258543
>>9258553
what the fuck even is kino's jorney. I watched the first two espisodes of the anime and saw nothing in them but boredom, but people told me it gets amazing later on

>>9259846
It beats the art on modern western paperbacks, which look like they were dashed off in an hour. Older paperback editions often look better, even the lowest grade genre fiction with painted artwork.

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>>9259882
I miss painted covers. All the sci-fi/fantasy crap I see now look like they had their covers thrown together in photoshop, it's incredibly off-putting.

>>9259385
Not sure what you mean. "If you can see them, they can conceivably see you" + "Spontaneous technological explosions" means it's an absolute necessity to destroy a civilization on the moment of detection if your ultimate goal is self-preservation.

Yeah I assume there's resource gathering at some level but the main goal with the dark forest strikes is to eliminate possible adversaries.

>>9259888
Many covers are still painted. Your issue is that they don't have shitty font design and papery-looking framing. Literally everything in the top two rows looks hideous

>>9259906
Oh, right, I forgot that the technology to broadcast to other solar systems suggests the technology to take images of other solar systems.

>>9259923
I'm not particularly fond of the Timescape covers but the rest I think are decent.

any good/well-written interactive fiction or CYOA books?

>>9259933
At least we can agree on that. The first three books in the second row would be fine if they just had better fonts, but the cover of Exodus From The Long Sun is completely ruined by that abortion of a spine

>>9259945
Problem Sleuth. That's literally it

I watched the Rogue One yesterday. And today:
>“Angela was one of the unsung heroines of the atom bomb, incidentally, and I don’t think the story has ever been told. Maybe you can use it. After the turtle incident, Father got so interested in turtles that he stopped working on the atom bomb. Some people from the Manhattan Project finally came out to the house to ask Angela what to do. She told them to take away Father’s turtles. So one night they went into his laboratory and stole the turtles and the aquarium. Father never said a word about the disappearance of the turtles. He just came to work the next day and looked for things to play with and think about, and everything there was to play with and think about had something to do with the bomb.

>I asked Dr. Breed how many people worked for the Research Laboratory. “Seven hundred,” he said, “but less than a hundred are actually doing research. The other six hundred are all housekeepers in one way or another, and I am the chiefest housekeeper of all.”

Good god it's a shame that Kurt Vonnegut never got to pen the Rogue One movie.
Fucking turtles, man. Fucking turtles.

>>9259762
>Why the vitriol for Covenant?
He's someone who spends most of his time in fantasy land insisting it's fake, insisting he's still a leper and raping people because he can

>>9259888
Seriously. If I ever tried to (self)publish a book, the first thing I'd spring for is a nice looking cover. You can judge a book by it.

>>9259992
>you will never even self-publish a book

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>>9259846
>Were the books popular over there?
I don't know, but the more recent editions have covers by the author of Death Note. (This is according to http://danbooru.donmai.us/wiki_pages/82907 ) So if cover artist prestige is a measure of popularity, it might be.
Pixiv has exactly one fan artwork for the series. Googling yields a few fan sites and several blog posts. About 500 people on Bookmeter have read Shadow of the Torturer, which is modest. Japanese Amazon reviews are generally positive.

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>>9260050
>I don't know, but the more recent editions have covers by the author of Death Note
Yamero

>>9255066
Prince of Nothing series.

How's The Magicians tv series? Is it worth watching?
From what I've heard they added a bunch of new stuff, and made it less about Quentin being emotionally retarded. Plus Penny is Indian or something

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>>9259762
>Why the vitriol for Covenant?
Because the book was repetitive as fuck and filled with whining. It was the first book to ever receive one star since I started goodreads.

>>9259703
>the main guy who posts his own chart is kinda okay
Daaaw. At least the people who used to hate on my chart just for hating sake has left the general. I haven't seen no concentrated posts of hate and disdain for my chart in months.

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>>9259846
>I can't think of any examples of it being over-stressed in any interpretations I've seen on /lit/.

Looking to try some anthologies

what are the GOAT anthologies, lads

Can someone give me the basic gestalt on Lovecraft? Best places to start?

>>9254328
Dust of Dreams. I heard this one gets really dark, but so far it's been pretty fun. Some weird disorienting parts with new characters, but I'm used to that in Malazan books by now. I was afraid Tehol becoming king would make him less interesting but him and Bugg are still hilarious. Also Pores and Kindly's bizarre rivalry has become one of the best parts of the series.

>>9260311
>you will never get to dick your teacher so good that she marries you

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>>9255173
>I'm being retarded and reading everything thats on the suggested reading material in the back of the DND 5e Players Handbook.
Taking a look at it, it's not a bad list really.

Any good romance fantasies with a girl protag?

>>9260325
Tehol gets a respectable amount of action for a man who wears a blanket.

Is The Red Knight series good or just a meme? Someone sell it to me pls

>>9260520
Sell it to yourself by reading it you twat. You already know it's popular and lots of people love it by simply googling and/or checking out the charts.

>>9260311
It does get pretty dark, and it continues into TCG. The theme (or whatever) lies in the title in the case of DoD, but it changes going into TCG.
I wasn't really aware of this thematic stuff earlier, but I noticed during TtH just how dark the books really are.

Anyone read the Mass Effect or Halo books? Or any other video game books for that matter.

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>>9260616
>reading video game books

NEW THREAD

>>9260860
>>9260860
>>9260860
>>9260860