/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

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my question from the previous bread
Are there any worth while fantasy books that are like Dark Souls? Meaning the main appeal of the world is that everything in it is hateful, dangerous and wants to kill you. Basically like being in Mordor all the time

>>9832837
Pls recommend near future scifi like rainbow's end

What you fags reading?

>>9833232
Listening to Seveneves, finally got to the 5,000 year time skip and I couldn't care less. I don't know if I should bother. I fucking hate how it got set up so there would be SEVEN EVES DURRR.

Not at all what I wanted.

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>>9833242
>told them it was shit
>hurr durr what you know gonna read just to spite you
>I couldn't care less
>I don't know if I should bother
>I fucking hate
>Not at all what I wanted

>>9833286
I promise to listen now. Best scifi on that list?

>>9833351
Dhalgren

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>>9833375

Is Forever War gay as fuck?

Comics really are better than books

>>9833463
>Comics really are better than books
Not really, not at all in fact.

Is there any fantasy that involves knights/wizards/whatever typical fantasy characters fighting against Lovecraftian/Eldritch horrors?

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>>9832837
Let's see how this goes.

>UK editions have way worse cover art
>US editions have way worse binding and paper

Why this

>>9833441
It's pretty gay, but not graphic. I kinda liked it.

>>9833521
>Japan has best everything

>>9833463
Books>>>>Manga>>>>>>>>>>Comic "Books"
Granted my experience with comic books was buying a big stack at random, but they were pretty boring.

>>9833531
Wish they would share their secret of thin yet nice paper with the US

>>9833242
It definitely goes off the rails at the end, but if you pretend you're just reading a different book after that it is tolerable. It gets a bit interesting when things start to go down on the planet.

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>>9832837
I finally got around to finishing Neuromancer guys. It was amazing. It was better than I imagined it was going to be, and I knew it was at least going to be pretty good.

>>9833537
By "comics" he probably means like graphic novels, as opposed to serial "comic books."

>>9833232
A Player of Games
Not enjoying it as much as Use of Weapons, or Consider Phlebas, but it's still good. Got AADB and Excession on deck.

>>9833562
Oh, I thought those were mostly just collections of the serials.

After reading Book of the New Sun, I really feel like its a pity that human history isn't longer and richer, going far into the obscured antiquity with many lost civilizations yet unknown. Imagine the world with so much ancient knowledge and literature that despite technological advancements and modern education, centuries could pass before humanity uncovers and interprets all of it, let alone grasps it.

>>9833582
But human history is insanely long and rich. People just don't give a shit. Start reading Cambridge ancient history on archive.org if you don't believe me, and also read the golden bough.

>>9833591
I'm classical archaeologist though, I know. It's not as long or rich as you'd think. I mean, I respect it and love it, it's what it is, I'm just sort of fantasizing here a little bit.
If you specialize in, lets say, Greece and Rome, there's isn't a name or event you couldn't recall and tell about it a little bit, especially actual historians. Someone will study ancient Middle East or Egypt and do the same. Later periods are basically recent history compared to the scope of histories in fantastic universes. Knowing detailed history of medieval houses and their affairs is going in depth, not in width, so to speak.

Not to mention that cultural groups, religions and customs of groups of humanity overall aren't plentiful in comparison and many have very limited number of origins. Ideas are recycled throughout history over and over. In fact, I believe that a typical archetype of a fanatsy sage who devotes his life to studying history of the Earth, could as well attain great knowledge that is almost all-encompassing, even having enough time to critically turn back to it and get some valuable insights, interpret some historical processes and even wisely apply that knowledge on the modern world and nature of humanity overall. For many reasons it is much better however to specialize in narrower branches and be able to conduct research with precision, so that many others later on can have a legacy.

>>9833351
"Best" is subjective.
But:
>roadside picnic
>metro 2033
>shades of grey
>library at mount char
>lord of light
>undying mercenaries (modern pulp)
>red rising (read past the hunger games finger in the air/hand on chest start, it gets better I swear, you will hate it, but it's worth it)
>rendezvous with rama (first contact)
>out of the dark by weber (I found it to be a comedy after "HE" showed himself)
>hull zero three (kinda like a side scrolling video game in novel form, entertaining)
>wind up girl (you're on 4chan, so you like traps, it's a biopunk novel about qt Japanese gf being genetically made to order, and liking all the weird shit you see in Japanese hentai)

Enjoy. As always, read blurbs and reviews to see if they are what you want. I personally like scifi that hints more to the technology of the future, than the politics. So take that as you may.

>>9833555
They use rice to make their paper over in Nipponville, America uses trees and recycled materials.

>>9833650
What about prehistory? Human beings were running around talking to each other and making up stories for tens of thousands of years before there was any such thing as a civilization. But as I understand it tiny nuggets of their culture are still embedded in our language (and probably in the fabric of all the oldest known myths and legends too), and there are many techniques we can use to actually make inferences about them.

>>9833711
I don't think that's possible because you need the cellulose from wood fibre to strengthen it

>>9833696
>>undying mercenaries (modern pulp)
Just finished Home World. Great series so far. Thanks to the anon who recommended this series when I asked for something similar to Fear Agent.

>>9833232
The Deep by Mickey Spillane.
It's an old gangster thriller or something.

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Amazon publishing was a mistake.

>>9833232
Year's Best Science Fiction 34
I read these every year.
So far hit and miss. Nothing mindblowing.

A first this year and a new low is the inclusion of literal gay fanfiction of John Carpenter's The Thing.

MacReady was taken over by the Thing but keeps his memories, he returns to his black gay lover in NYC and helps bomb all the police precincts in the city.

>>9833818
Eerily realistic

>>9833812
What the fuck

>>9833582
The orthodox view is that homo sapiens appeared approx 200,000 years ago. There is a massive gap between the Neolithic era, and the emergence of Sumeria and settled civilisations about 4000BC.

But we're still excavating Gobekli Tepe, which would seem to predate the Sumerians (10,000 years ago), and suggests the Neolithic era may have had more advanced groups than thought previously.

And of course there is the niggling suspicion that some of the Egyptian archeology is much older than is accepted by academia. The sphinx, for example, whose head I suspect was remodeled by later Egyptians.

There is also the matter of earthquakes and flooding, so that very little could survive longer than 10,000 years even with an advanced society existing.

My own belief is that homo sapiens have existed in advanced and literate groups over a million years, rising and collapsing, with next to nothing left after the rising seas, moving glaciers, earthquakes, and the disintergration of material. If anything remains it's in Antarctica (where John Kerry, Buzz Aldrin, and the patriarch of the Orthodox church have visited, along with various heads of state and royalty...)

>>9833232
Warlock of the magus world.

Currently looking for a series to start, maybe something about a knight because I'm pretty burned out on wizards.

>>9833812
is this the western equivalent of shitty japanese light novels?

>>9833839
All the spinoff stuff includes shit like fantasy novels by other authors too. It's a literal expanded universe of shit.

And holy hell the descriptions.
>Some forget why she was called the Queen Bitch.

>Not Anymore.

>Bethany Anne is going stir crazy after more than a decade of having to be 'The Empress.' Now, her advisors have to deal with an Empress who is determined to be on the front line.

>The Ixtali's come to the Etheric Empire, hat in hand.

>Nathan decides that the best way to handle soft intelligence, is to create a new company. What they name the new company should give a clue what it is about.

>The Skaine are able to finally get Ranger Tabitha's group right were their missiles can attack. The problem is, who is sucking whom into a trap?

>Strap back in, because Bethany Anne is putting the Queen's crown back on.

>>9833799
Well I'm the Bv Larson shill. I was in the thread when one of my converts recommended you Undying Mercenaries in regards to fear agent.
You might also like Neal Asher's Shadow of the scorpion.

>>9833855
A large group of us should offer to write for it and slowly steer it into becoming a self aware parody of itself

>>9833845
Neanderthal is suspected to be almost as intelligent as early man and he was around for two hundred thousand years, in the end breeding with humans, possibly influencing humans in some way at the time. And what about all the other races before? We'll never know the true process of verbal knowledge evolution and culture preservation in prehistoric world without writing and records of any kind but stone tools. Its safe to say that 'culture' started anew with humanity turning to cattle, inventing thunder gods and all the other ones, then agriculture and all the beliefs connected with observation of the sky and the cycle of things.

Frankly I don't believe that someone growing crops in prehistoric Europe 2500 BC could even conceive of the concept of humans living as hunters gatherers or even anything 200 years ago with some precision, let alone other races ever existing or even big cities in the east or pyramids being built even in their own time. Equally I don't believe anything of that is still left in any of those languages. Oldest words in the world are words such as mother, father, earth (ground), milk, sun etc. and are mostly Indoeuropean generally in origin.

Those nuggets of extremely old past seem to be saved in those earliest places of civilization in the form of very vague myths. As far as I know, myth of Eden, Kain, Abel becoming shepards and farmers has origin in Sumeria, but interpretating it in such a way might be a stretch.

Only in the 19th century humans realized that not only they once lived as hunters gatherers, but the fact there were other races before them. That is profound. They lived in the dark for...well, actually since forever because nobody could tell what the hell happened 100 years ago before they were born and they tend to turn into myths people their great grandfathers might've known. Imagine the might of the name Caesar in the middle ages. Imagine what would the name Hitler mean to Europeans 100 years after 1945 if we had no media, internet and informations were spreading slowly along the few dangerous roads. This sort of reminds me of the way my great-great-granparents lived, possibly without ever seeing a book other than the Bible which they couldn't read anyway. They spent their lives in the field and dirt, yet they and their illiterate parents knew the names of Napoleon, Charlemagne, Alexander etc.

Roman records were re-discovered in the monasteries during the reinnissance which slowly started the era of questioning because it gave us that grasp on our past.

Without records, we literally wouldn't be able to know anything. Everything before the Sumerian tablets is pure speculation, but that's not history, nothing is left from it. They rely on contemporary interpretations instead of hard evidence. Reconstruction of the myths from 5000 BC years ago based on the way people constructed mythology 3000 BC is NOT evidence, its contemporary interpretation people in 2600 AD might do differently.

>>9833846
The wizard knight?

>>9833845
>>9833866
I also genuinely believe the human history is deeper and stranger than we know right now. So much knowledge was passed on orally I don't just mean little tidbits, but thousands and thousands of lines were memorized by sages and singers.
Also recent evidence human remains in North America have been discovered that predate the date humans were supposed to have migrated by thousands of years.

>>9833845
Not impossible at all. The more you dig about this, you're definitely going to find many inconsistencies in history of humanity. Its easy to say that nothing happened between some period of 1000 years in this or that part of the world, but 1000 years is a damn long period of time for human society thats left in peace to grow their food in abundance, now imagine that being 2-3000 years. Nobody says its impossible, but there are no direct links.

>>9833788
It's strengthened by Japanese Will you stupid gaijin.

>>9834019
maybe ya'll should be using that will to strengthen your economy instead of paper.

>>9833894
>>9833898
Human history is as ancient as it is mysterious. We all know how for the vast majority of recorded history secret societies and cults have hidden important knowledge from the uninitiated. Everything from pottery, to geometry, to how to make nuclear bombs. Combine intense secrecy with oral transmission of information, and periodic horrific disasters natural and manmade, and it's easy to see how civilization and industry could stretch back millions of years leaving very little if any evidence. Hell, even Chimps can teach each other about simple hand tools! Human history could extend so far back we weren't even humans yet!

Just look at the Great Pyramid, that thing was built like a nuclear bunker combined with a bank vault, composed of almost solid stone, covered in layers of granite armor plating, shaped for maximum stability and strength, even buried underground for hundred of years in a desert! And look at it now, partially destroyed, multiple entire layers missing, falling apart, stripped bare on the inside. Anything built of lesser stuff is nothing but dust on the wind by now, deep underground, buried in miles of silt at the bottom of the ocean, or frozen deep in a glacier. Nothing on the surface could last 10,000 years, let along 100,000. In 100,000 years there will be nothing left of what we've built but rich iron deposits and methane wells. And for all we know that's what we're tapping right now.

I just finished Shadow of the Torturer

what the fuck is. things seem to happen at random for no fucking reason

>>9834128
Get used to it, the other books are like that too.
It's intentionally nonsensical, reminds me of dreaming. One thing flows into another in a way where each individual action makes sense but the whole is incomprehensible.
If you enjoy the taste, keep eating, otherwise stop now because you're wasting your time.
Don't let anyone in this thread know I told you that though, they're all fanatics.

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>>9834138
>implying I'm a fanatic

>>9834138
I mean, it's super interesting, but the way the story is told is really strange. It's feels a lot of unrelated events happening rapid-fire one after the other

It doesn't give you much time to fully process what's happening until an idea is replaced with something new and equally confusing

>>9834118
>Human history is as ancient as it is mysterious.

I've long wished we had better historic information about Native American cultures, like the mound builders or the various groups around the Inca. Basically all we know is that around the year 800-900, North and Central America were hit by a 300 year long drought that caused the near total collapse of the cultures of the time and plunged the contents into a Mad Max-esque landscape, complete with bizzare death cults in Central America. By the time Europeans arrived they'd apparently started to recover but everything was still really fucked up.

>Just look at the Great Pyramid

A lot of other pyramids are even worse off, little more than big mounds or vaguely pyramid shaped outcroppings.

What's also interesting is about 600 years after the last major pyramids were built you have the bronze age collapse, which again results in a Mad Max-esque hellscape where 90% of Greece is depopulated and a wave of humanity sweeps down through Turkey and the Levant before breaking on the Egyptian defenses at the mouth of the Nile.

>>9834147
That's what I meant, he's doing it intentionally. It's too perfectly coordinated. That bleary, confused state of mind is what he's aiming for. it's like being put into a trance. From there he's hoping to jack into your emotions easier. Unfortunately for him, I go into that trance state when I read ANYTHING, so his books just seem bland and flavorless to me by comparison. To someone who doesn't do that, and needs an aid it's probably a very different experience. In other words, every book aims to induce a certain novel sensation/state of mind/emotion in the reader. For The Book of New Sun series, this sensation is "trance". For people who are experienced with "trance" and feel it often it's not very interesting. It's like a prostitute watching porn, or a soldier watching a war documentary. At best it's just a depiction of something you already know about and do every day, at worst it's an frustratingly inaccurate farce.

>>9834168
Also some stuff straight up doesn't make sense. details will directly contradict each other. Is that intentional too?

>>9834167
Oh, another "secret knowledge" thing I just remembered. Apparently Basque whalers may have discovered North America decades or centuries before Columbus, but the captains kept quiet because it was a secret place to get whales that nobody else was exploiting.

>>9834183
Different anon here, I've read BotNS a few times. What contradictory details are you talking about? I'll try and help if the answer doesn't spoil the rest of the book for you.

>>9833580
In theory the paper backs are just collections (with exceptions) but here's a big difference between comics written to sell many "floppies" and comics written for paper backs. Comics is an amazing medium with great potential for story telling but 90% or more of what's released is shit. But books are kinda the same, if you'd just buy a stack of books at random you'd probably end up with Twilight, Harry Potter and 50 Shades.

t. /co/

>>9834190
There are maps of the coast of Antarctica that are made using methods invented centuries AFTER they were created, which are accurate the surface BELOW the ice!

>>9834184
That's probably why there are no whales left alive in the continent of North America today.

>>9832837
Found a pretty cool edition of Alice's adventures in wonderland illustrated by Mervyn Peake, it's significantly more unnerving but I like his schizophrenic style of drawing.

>>9833569
I think Player of games is the worst science fiction Banks wrote. So it's all uphill in my opinion. But not all the way up, because I think use of weapons was his peak.

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Reposting from last thread.
What was that ending?
Will there ever be a sequel?

>>9833232
Orb Sceptre Throne, started book 2 last night.

>>9834118
>And for all we know that's what we're tapping right now.
Geology is the science of ancient civilizations' leftovers, then?

is the 'elves who want to live in isolation' too much of a meme that should be avoided in one's writing?

>>9834523
Everything is a meme anon. The only thing that matters is your writing skill.

>>9833232
Currently reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History, will move onto Brom's The Child Thief.

Anyone else read Too Like the Lightning while I've been on holiday?

>>9834578
I've thought about picking it up multiple times but it's significantly more expensive than other books in my local shop, is it with the extra money?

There's also the matter of the speculated upon secret expeditions a little before Columbus, perhaps by Rosicrucians bankrolled by Venice; the idea being to grab a lot of gold for banking securities.

>>9834536
all memes aside, that's great advice, thanks

>>9834740
That should read Knights Templar instead of Rosicrucians. Next time I will finish my first coffee before going off on pre-Columbus exploration.

But on that topic, I recall reading Gene Wolfe believes the Egyptians made it across the Pacific to the New World.

>>9833696
Thanks dude!

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>>9834578
>Too Like the Lightning
>author
No thanks.

>>9834578
>>9834601
...You do realise that every book is uploaded on the internet in a retail quality ebook copy within 24 hours of it hitting overdrive, right? Until they patch the deDRMing tools permanently, at least.

I will fucking cry if I can't download The Will to Battle within an hour of it being released. (requested, put on autodownload and held on my overdrive account)

>>9834810
Nigga I haven't bought a book in months.
Having said that I picked up a TLtL soft cover for cheap second hand to pop it on my bookshelf.
Did the same with Three Body, sometimes you just want your favourites on show

Any alt-history with USR fighting the USSA? Kind of an ideological reverse Cold War?

Had the idea this morning but I can't believe it hasn't been done already.

>>9834853
I want physical copies too, but I keep moving places and lugging around 75 of my favourite books doesn't seem feasible.

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>>9834306
>it's significantly more unnerving
It should be.

>>9833582
I kind of feel that since the creation of the internet the opposite is a problem. There's more information in existence right now than anybody could comprehend, just 99.9999% of it is complete garbage, like /sffg/. Will historians remember /sffg/ in the year 50 000? It is a cool thought though.

You ever read Anatoly Fomenko? I always wonder what historians/archeologists think of his work.

>>9834128
>>9834147
>>9834183
Wolfe has a master plan for absolutely every last autistic and nonsensical detail. At the end of Citadel of the Autarch about 40% of it will make sense, but your second complete reading will blow your mind and possibly turn you Catholic.

>>9834759
He did say that, and I think that it's perfectly possible that they did. Australia was known to Asian sailors long before the English ever showed up, they just didn't give a shit and considered it too remote and barren to be of any use to anybody. Stuff like that could easily fall out of cultural memory.

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>gestalt
>precog
>ersatz
>distant strong female characters who the protag fancies
>BOMBS

once you've had one dick you've had them all

>>9835079
>young, beardless Dick
tentative boner alert

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Anything else like this out there? Robot just trying to lie low and not have anybody find out it's slipped it's leash?

>>9834147
>>9834168
If you read BOTNS as a series of episodes instead of gunning through chapters you'll have an easier time. It's really a book to be sipped, not inhaled.

>>9834866
>Any alt-history with USR fighting the USSA?
>USSA

Surely you meant something like UASR? The R in USSR stands for Republics, not Russia. USSA doesn't make any sense

>>9835310
>USSA doesn't make any sense

United Socialist States of America.

Alternatives are United Communist States of America, Socialist Sates of America, or if you want to mess with people like the Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkreig developers: Communist States of America.

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>It's the twenty-fourth century. Humanity has spread throughout the solar system--but for most of us, life is as precarious as it was in Dickensian England. Brothers Achille, Marcantonio, and Nore have been raised rich, but after their father spends the family fortune and puts a laser to his head, they're forced to face facts. The wealthy Luke Bailey is willing to pay top dollar for what's left of their estate, enough to buy Achille a commission in the space Navy. But only if Marcantonio and Nore will both become female--Marcantonio to marry Luke, and Nore to be their spinster housekeeper, for as long as Luke lives.

>Over the next two decades, the now-female Marcantonio and Nore struggle to make lives for themselves in the service of their wealthy keeper. Then the alien invasion arrives.

"i'm just buying the book for a friend" I insist to the confused clerk who could care less.

>>9835323

Okay thanks, that makes sense. I was assuming just a substitution of that one word

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>>9835367
>But only if Marcantonio and Nore will both become female--Marcantonio to marry Luke, and Nore to be their spinster housekeeper, for as long as Luke lives.

wew...

>>9835367
lmao the fuck is this shit

Western sff really has become anime

>>9835367
I'm going to withhold judgement until it's published - or at least until arc reviews start circulating- but is this blurb setting off warning flags for anyone else? I hope that JW makes a point of getting some trans people to preview/beta read/SR/etc this one before it hits the shelves. A premise like this has the potential to go really badly/hurtfully, even with the best of intentions.

>>9835402
It dosent sound like a book meant to be taken seriously

Lads, how can Jo Walton win a Hugo but not Gene Wolfe?

>>9835416
Gene Wolfe is a writer's writer. Your average reader dosent know about him but most established SFF writers will suck his dick on sight: Niel Gaiman, GRRM, LeGuin, etc.

>>9835416
>>9835430
>sorry sir but your books are too literary for the genere fiction awards, consider adding more star trek references next time

>>9835435
The dude has been around since the fucking 70s, he's had his time and has collected many awards. There's nothing he needs to prove.

>>9835382
Here's a YA one that sounds even stupider:
>HarperTeen has acquired The Cerulean and an untitled sequel, a YA fantasy duology by Amy Ewing. The Cerulean tells the story of Sera, who lives in a Sapphic utopia where all women have three mothers and a young woman is chosen every 100 years to be abandoned on the planet below as a sacrifice.

>>9835473
Dear God.

>>9835473
I would read that if it wasn't YA.

>>9835547
Scratch that. I'd read it if it wasn't YA and had been written 40 years ago.

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what the fuck did I just read

Almost every interesting character is dead and nothing makes sense. The most climactic anticlimax I ever read. I still don't know if I liked this book or hate it. help?

>>9835728
>The man in the plate was sustained by a kiln fueled rage. A rage that would soon subside entirely, and him with it.

>>9835762
You're not helping.

>>9835771
>Now, fit only to serve tepid morsels, the plate is stacked neatly in a cabinet and lost to time and cooks' memory.

Just finished Too Like The Lightning. The author is pretty full of herself, I think it's a good book that could have been great if the author was content to let the story speak for itself rather take pages at a time to bash us over the head about how many philosophers they've read.

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>>9836175
of the three novels which get hard-ones for other authors, TLtL isn't the worst. Palmer is a bloody show-off and makes me feel stupid but at least it's readable and pretty fun at times

Hyperion is obviously a masterpiece despite the Keat-wank, but tTI is an example of authorwank done sort of badly, if that other anon's read it is interested I'll explain

>>9834138
The whole is perfectly comprehensible.
Wolfe creates master patterns of meaning. Scenes can be parsed with thought, too. Confused about dorcas showing up? Maybe pick up a Bible and read about tabitha dorcas, then notice her name ends in -cas. Start looking at chapter titles, start paying attention to visions of miraculous flambeaus etc. Notice metaphors about the heliocentric universe, how urth rises to meet the sun etc.

>>9834183
What contradicts itself? It makes sense in retrospect.

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Has anyone read the Codex Alera series? Is it any good?

Too much cuck shit in fantasy these days

>>9836335
you're in the wrong thread son

>>9836335
t. Achamian

Is there gritty fantasy?

>>9836335
>>9836412
Is there anyone more JUST than Achamian?

>>9836610
He got laid though.

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>>9836610
Aurax.

>>9836628
Dunyain'd

>>9836502
Try 'The Blade Itself' by Joe Abercrombie.
It's positively gravelly.

How the fuck do you even torture an Inchoroi? What can you do to them that won't just get them off? It's like trying to rape /d/.

So I just finished Neuromancer and it was pretty alright, nothing amazing. I can see why it became a canon text but at the same time the book has aged quite a bit. Is this Gibson's best work?

>>9836175
>>9836267
>Too Like the Memes
Voltaire/Humanities wank.
>Hyperion
Keats/"I can build a million worlds" wank
>Blindopraxia
Biology wank
>Ninefox Gambit
Maths wank. Too bad the second book shat itself.

>>9836988
Ninefox is a fake math wank it is just gibberish.
Badly plotted and unlikable/unrelatable characters.

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>>9833582
Read Against A Dark Background. It's set in a solar system where tens of thousands of years of history has resulted in everything being a complete mess of intermeshing historical and architectural oddities. The plot is a treasure hunt across the solar system to find a lost ancient weapon, so that fanatic cultists will stop hunting the protagonist due to a centuries long vendetta. It's not so much "lost" civilization as 10 used up civilizations clogging the workings of your current one.

>>9836290
That's yet more proof that the point is the "dreamy" feeling. Confusing, complicated, incomprehensible episodes that can be picked apart to uncover deep hidden meanings, associations, and plots is what dreams are. Initially sensible, on further thought insane, opon focussed introspection profound.
The STRUCTURE is what matters, all the plot/characters/setting/etc is just there to form that structure. And I'm intimately familiar with it and hav no need or want to read about it.

>>9836302
I liked it. Simultaneously cliched and original.

>>9837003
This. Book had a strange potential but the more I read the odder and less sense it got. Just ramming the word "calendar" into everything doesn't make it smart.

>>9836988
Hyperion is a pretty well respected novel, but glad I've found another -wank shamer

>>9837042
>The STRUCTURE is what matters, all the plot/characters/setting/etc is just there to form that structure.

It really isnt.

>>9832950
An old one, the first book of the Deathworld trilogy (Harry Harrison) is alright. It is sci-fi, but the rest is what you are looking for. Basically, these people settle on a planet and planet organisms doesn't like it, so everything evolves in order to kill the settlers.

The sad part is, as soon as you finish the first, you've basically read the trilogy, cause they are almost 100% copy/paste, but on a new planet.

If you want to go the non-traditional route, the manga "Berserk" is exactly what you are looking for.

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For real, I'm 500 pages in and still slow and painful to read, where does start be good? No trolly anwser please. It is my or this book is somewhat... boring.

Up until now I've only ever read western fantasy, so I want to try something different.

What are the best Fantasy books from the east?

>>9837546
>expecting anything else from an autist in a cult

does sabriel still hold up?

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>>9837578

>>9837599
Looks like YA.. is it?

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I've been puzzling out a somewhat ambitious project recently, and I Was wondering what you guys think.
>House of Leaves design of stories within stories
>fantasy adventure narrative is interspersed with personal journals and campaign notes from the "DM" who is also dramatizing the game as it progresses
>fantasy narrative is nuanced by the DM's personal grudges and loosening grip on reality
It's a fucking nightmare coordinating everything, but it feels like a rewarding premise if I can get past the corniness.

>>9837530
Thanks man. And yeah, I've read Berserk. Looking for something similar to read while Kentaro Miura takes an eternity to finish it, I guess

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>>9836302
Meh. Interesting premise but Tavi Alwaysright is too much of a Gary.

>>9837546
Pacing issues, especially around the middle, are officially acknowledged. Gotta power through.

>>9837595
yes

>>9837645
It sounds like you're pretty young and not well read and don't write a lot.

>>9837645
Like Heroes of the Flame, except with a DM narrator?

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What do you like better?

>story closely follows one character, and 90%+ events are introduced to the reader through that character's eyes

or

>story jumps around between multiple characters and even different places or time settings in the world, and occasionally has a narrator for other events or backstory

Assuming you can't choose "a little of both," which would you pick?

>>9838131
It depends on the story. I've read an liked both, but they're used for different purposes. It's like asking "What's better, hammers or screwdrivers?"

>>9837546
Honestly it doesn't really get great til near the end. I wasn't that interested in Kaladin or Shallan at first but I was curious about the world building and I kept reading to learn more, and then toward the end Kaladin's story started getting really good and I became invested in him.

>>9838131
The first, because Cherryh writes almost exclusively in that style.

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>>9838151
>tfw you will never figure out what the fuck Giraud and Denys was thinking
>tfw forever blueballed
JUST

I'm 75% into Words of Radiance by Brian Sanderson, and I cannot believe how amazing the series is. Fastest I've ever read a book.

How are his other books? Namely Mistborn, but I'm eager to get more into his work as way of Kings and Words of Radiance are the first of his I've read.

>>9837546
I powered through, and the end of Way of Kings and then most of the next book is incredible.

>>9838229
it's all pretty good anon, read anything set in the cosmere for starters

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

>>9836302
Fairly predictable, but if the idea of combining Pokemon with a lost Roman Legion together interests you then read it. I read the series years ago since I liked the Dresden Files and thought it was perfectly acceptable fantasy fare, but I doubt I'll ever read it again.

>>9836502
There's grimdark fantasy, which mostly sucks. Then there's stuff like Sword and Sorcery and Heroic Fantasy which features plenty of grit, but still remembers it's supposed to be fantasy and not some depressing, dreary, nihilistic hunk of shit.

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Is there any good sci-fi/fantasy written in German? I want something to read for language practice.

What other of B.V. Larson's stuff is worth reading besides Undying Mercenaries?

>>9838452
Germans love the Shadowrun roleplaying game and IIRC they got some original German-language novels.

Only German fantasy I know of is that The Dwarves series which has been translated into English, and The Dark Eye/Realms of Arkania roleplaying game which has some spinoff novels.

Guys, how does a retard recognize good prose. This is for a friend.

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Any of you guys read Raphael Ordonez? He doesn't have too much published--just two (self-published?) novels and a handful of short stories. From what I can tell, he's a pretty capable imitator of Jack Vance and Clark Ashton Smith. I'm astonished that he isn't better known, since his prose and imagination are on point.

Plus he illustrates his own stuff, and he's kinda okay at it.

http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-scale-tree/

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Can anyone here recommend any good short story collections, or just good short stories in general. If possible I'd prefer more "literary" type sci-fi and fantasy or "speculative fiction", that sort of thing. I appreciate any help you would give.

>>9838567
>If possible I'd prefer more "literary" type sci-fi and fantasy or "speculative fiction"

Gene Wolfe is the best "literary" sff author out there imo. He has written some excellent short stories. I recommend:

The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories
Endangered Species

FYI: Wolfe's short stories occasionally veer into horror territory

>>9837546
>No trolly anwser please
About halfway through the second part. Same with WoR.

>>9838579
Thanks anon, I'll check those out.

>>9837546
When you get to the climax of the 2nd book and realize you're reading medieval Bleach.

>>9838620
Holy shit my eyes are open

>>9838567
Ted Chiang's short stuff is pretty good.

>>9836302
It was alright then he decided to make alien bugs the villains and I just couldn't care

>>9838505
By reading whatever you want and not giving a fuck about what anyone else thinks.

Did anyone read The Unholy Consult.

Laughed my ass off when it turned out The Dunyain took over the Consult so easily, should be expected I guess

Regarding Kellus, I like that we get to see his motivations a lot more in this book and the part where the Consult shows Kellus the inverse fire hoping he will join them after seeing his damnation but Kellhus is just like Nope actually I made a deal with a god and am going to rule in hell was great. I guess it was poetic justice with Kellus saying esmenet is his one weakness, his one "darkness" and then it turns out she ends up killing him by freeing Kelmomas. So I guess things are looking pretty grimm in the third series with Kelomas becoming the No-God, but I dont think there is any way Kellhus is actually gone for good. He is either in hell/the outside where he himself said he was going to take over, or as the glossary hints at he might transferred himself to the Decapitent he always wears.

>>9839194
Kellhus is dead dead dead but he'll hang out being mini-satan in the Outside so mission accomplished I guess, he escaped damnation.

I like that he didn't learn anything from his father and ended up being killed by his insane progeny just like Moenghus Sr.

Anasurimbor Serwa is the waifu to end all waifus

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I NEED RECOMMENDATIONS, RECOMMENDATIONS OF DECENT NEAR FUTURE SCIFI OTHER THAN BLINDSIGHT!

Reminder that Kellhus did nothing wrong

>>9839222
Terra Ignota

>>9839222
Echopraxia :^)

>>9839224
He literally made a deal with Satan and chose to escape damnation by becoming a Prince of Hell. Also he fucked up and got himself killed.

Cnaiür urs Skiötha is the only one in Earwa who literally did nothing wrong. Which is proved by him becoming an incarnate god.

Halfway through Book of The New Sun, fucking great. Dorcas is QT though I presume this is only a temporary state of affairs. Thinking about writing to Gene Wolfe.

What are some good Sci-Fi/Fantasy magazines? Are there any good or relevant ones being released today in terms of short story collections, or is the time for that pretty much passed?

>>9839245
>25th century
bit too far in the future for me desu, plus a lot of these reviews and articles are making me cringe - too many people harping on about how it's so progressive and feminist, not really my cup of tea
cheers for the effort though

>>9839251
>echopraxia
nice meme lad, but I've already read it

>>9839251

>Did nothing wrong
>Rapes my Waifu constantly.
>Was gay for Kellhus and his Dad
>Is a weeping faggot
>Gets possessed by god of hate

Ikurei Conphas was the most redpilled in the series.

>>9839269
Fair. I'm pretty politically absent and I enjoyed the novel for it's sci-fi and stylistic elements rather than the supposed "progressive" themes
the message of the second book is essentially DON'T eliminate gender, jesus how dense are these fuckers.

You could try Watt's Rifters books, they take place in essentially the same universe as BS but without aliens.

So I just finished book 2/3 of the Magicians.
is Quentin just the universe's bitch? Am I reading cuck porn?
Does Lev Grossman get off on blueballing his readers?
God I was so happy when those stuckup internet nerds got trolled to death, it's the one totally positive scene so far. though I think I was supposed to like them so I guess it was unintentional

>>9837751
>>9837530
>>9832950
Never played dark souls. But what that anon described sounds like worlds where organisms evolve to destroy humanity? Try the Coldfire Trilogy.

>>9838505
If you have to ask then the answer is you don't care about prose and shouldn't try to act like you do.

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>>9836267
Glad that shill never succeeded in making any converts.

>>9839395
But I need help. I don't see how having to ask means that. If someone asks what's good cinematography do they not care about it? I'm sorry, but what you said was a contradictory statement. A common kerfuffle in an attempt at a quick jab. So please, anon, how does a retard recognize what makes good prose?

>>9839396
suck my dick buddy, it's still a good book. At least it proclaims its philosphy openly, instead of letting it seep in like in Palmer's Wild Ride: The Mycroft Chronicles

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Right can somebody break down to me what's so great about Reynolds.

I just finished and Revelation Space and have started Redemption Ark but I don't think I'm going to go further than the first chapter.

It's BORING.

The characters are TV-show cutouts defined by nothing but their roguish traits and edgy backstories, and that's essentially every character in the book. There's no warmth, enjoyable interactions or joy to be found in these people. They're all just different shards of a mirror facing the token "badass" from any spaceship crew.

The plot is dull, and while I truly do respect that he's making a story out of what is essentially long space-journeys and hence not much can occur, the various characters moving around trying to out-manouver each other all while the ship/some old bird nigger tries to kill them was just so unpleasing. I just found it totally not engaging. Plus my god that ending was just so pointlessly anime, with them suddenly living in a blackhole with almost no consequences. Also the "action" scenes if anything lowered my heartbeat.

Is this like the first book a lot of people read back in the day? Does rev-space suffer from the Seinfeld effect? Am I just too accustomed to these ideas in scifi?

Perhaps I just didn't enjoy the prose or style or whatever I don't know. What else is good by him? Anything short I can blitz through and re-gain confidence.

>>9833232
Chains of Command by Marko Kloos

>>9839280
>>Rapes my Waifu constantly.
Serwe? Your waifu a shit senpai.

>Gets possessed by god of hate
He IS the God of Hate, and always was. He just didn't know it until later. Cnaiür reached across time to conquer Kellhus and destroy the last of the Dunyain but because of his new nature became blind to the No-God

>>9838505
>>9839402
Hard to answer in a way that isn't overly technical (not that I'd be able to give a technical explanation). The gist is that good prose is exceptionally sharp and skillful use of language to convey an idea. It doesn't really matter much what you're writing about, it's how well you get it across using words.

For written examples that might help, a hack writer like Patrick Rothfuss haphazardly throws big words into sentences where smaller ones would suffice and forces contrived metaphors all over the place for the sake of sounding poetic (to his retard brain). The result is that his writing is padded (too many descriptions of cut-flower sounds to get to the point) and ugly to read (pick literally any of Kvothfuss' god-tier masterpieces of lyric, try reading aloud without gagging). A good writer like Jack Vance in his Dying Earth series uses at times absurdly convoluted word-choices to convey a sense of weirdness and writes unnaturally florid and eloquent dialogue for absolutely everybody, giving his world a sense of grandeur while at the same time being funny and setting a tone that's both ridiculous and humbling (look at any exchange of dialogue in Dying Earth, it's all fantastic. Doesn't get really funny until Cugel though).

>>9838567
The other anon already recommended Wolfe, R.A. Lafferty is the other super-patrician short science-fiction writer.

>>9839445
>what's so great about Reynolds
Nothing.

Anyone else Snow Crash's ending felt too abrupt? I'm kind of torn between it making the whole feel story feel like 'just one of those days' which does suit the tone of the story, but on the other hand I felt a lot of stuff ended up being under-explored like Mr. Lee's and Bob Rife's overall presence in the story.

The sudden exposition dumps about Sumerian culture and linguistics, albeit interesting, felt rather dry in terms of delivery and pacing when compared to other worldbuilding tidbits.

I still liked it overall and will probably get The Diamond Age and The Necronomicon later, but I get the feeling that Stephenson's other books might suffer from the same aforementioned problems after reading his Wikipedia page about his boner for a large variety of unrelated scientific subjects.

>>9839568
>sudden exposition dumps about Sumerian culture and linguistics
Yeah I agree with you there bud.

>>9839568
>I get the feeling that Stephenson's other books might suffer from the same aforementioned problems
I like Stephenson, but sudden info dumps about related topis and difficult endings are kinda his hallmark.

>>9838131
One character for sure.

>>9839194
>Did anyone read The Unholy Consult.
> Laughed my ass off when it turned out The Dunyain took over the Consult so easily, should be expected I guess
Post yfw the Dunyain are actually just Shauriatas's shiny new body.

>>9838169
Which is probably just how Ari feels. That's the point.

>>9839701
D E L T A V'S
E
L
T
A

V'S

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>>9839807

>>9839701
>mediocre endings

FTFY.

>>9839222
Read The Three Body Problem yet? It's more or less modern day, though. I also unironically liked Lock In, which is a short and easy read that takes place 20-30 years from now iirc.

>>9839841
RIP Aurang, you were best rape angel

>>9839848
>near future
>last book literally deal with the end of the universe

>>9839926
Yeah I didn't recommend the entire series did I? If he likes it, he can read on (and further into the future).

>>9839807
>>9839841
>>9839853
Stopped reading the series a while ago, but are the The Consult really gone? That's lame. They were my favorite thing about the setting, and far more interesting than Bakker's stand-in philosopher-warrior-mastermind monks.

>>9839933
Well, I guess that's true.

>>9839935
>Stopped reading the series a while ago, but are the The Consult really gone?
No, just a change in management. Maybe.

>They were my favorite thing about the setting, and far more interesting than Bakker's stand-in philosopher-warrior-mastermind monks.
If it makes you feel better Kellhus is now a pillar of salt, the Consult resurrected the No-God using his son, and the Great Ordeal is destroyed. Almost everything Kellhus worked for is gone. The Consult won. Minus Aurang and Mekeretrig at least, who got killed for sure.

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So how many of you are working on your own scifi or fantasy stories?

How's it going? What's the synopsis of your story? What cool gimmicks are you working in? Any particularly good scenes planned out?

>>9839935
>but are the The Consult really gone?
This is the initial implication but there are some hints in the book (plus Bakker being suspiciously evasive) that indicate that the Dunyain attempted this but instead ended up possessed by Shauriatas.

What is the best fantasy book/series to come out in the last 5 years?

Anybody else read Kings of the Wyld? I fucking loved it.

>>9840037
Just tell us yours and be on your way

>>9840052
Aspect Emperor. But it doesn't have much high quality competition.

>>9840076
Oh I can't write for shit. I'm curious what others are writing about.

>>9832837
Anything good with vampires in it? Other than Dracula please.

>>9840134
blindsight my dudde

>>9840134
If you want vampire-centric stuff try Anne Rice. I wouldn't call them great books, maybe not even good books, but they are quite entertaining.

>>9840134
echopraxia

>>9840148
>>9840155
>>9840217

Thanks lads. I appreciate the help.

>>9840134
You really should read Dracula though.

>>9840015
Well, that's a shame about Auran and Mekeretrig. The Inchoroi were my favorite concept of that setting. Is the No-God neat, or is it essentially a force of nature?

>>9840049
I wouldn't be surprised if Bakker continues to suggest without saying one way or another.

>>9840037
If "roughly sketched out on a bar napkin" counts as working on, I was mulling over an outline for a story taking place aboard a decaying colony ship with political intrigue based on plageri- borrowing and updating aspects of Chinese court history combining that with a shallow veneer of mysticism like Li as relating to divining the correct action from the moment of the heavens, and adding in a splash of paranoia, treachery and clusterfuck just to liven up the mix.

Of course I'll probably never actually write the damn thing, and even if I did it would be schlock since I'm a talentless hack. Such is life.

>>9840037
For the last year I've been working on a collection of fantasy 'short stories'. I have three 100% complete at around 60,000 words, which is the length of a short novel. And that's my problem. These aren't long enough to constitute novellas, but they're too long to be considered by most magazines.

I spent a year writing unpublishable fantasy experiments essentially. Oh well. At least it taught me some self-discipline.

>>9840289
>Well, that's a shame about Auran and Mekeretrig. The Inchoroi were my favorite concept of that setting. I
Aurang at least went out fighting. Though it was an unfair match up because Kellhus was channeling a hell-god at that point. Aurax is still alive as far as we know but he's not had a fun time of it.

>Is the No-God neat, or is it essentially a force of nature?
We don't know yet. Still lots of unanswered questions about the No-God. But we do now know that the last one was born from Nau-Cayuti, and this one from Kelmomas.

It is a pretty nasty force of nature though, especially now, with so many sranc to possess. It uses them like part of its body. It killed an assload of gnostic sorcerers by just passing thousands of chorae along the horde in perfect coordination and showering them with them.

>I wouldn't be surprised if Bakker continues to suggest without saying one way or another.
I hope you're wrong but I fear you're right.

>>9840289
>Well, that's a shame about Auran and Mekeretrig.
Oh and technically speaking we only actually see Mekeretrig die. Aurang is presumed dead but we never saw his body. Shauriatas is absent physically, maybe. But it's up in the air as was said.

>>9840463
>>9840289

The No-God is a p-zombie, not self-aware but enacts the Will of the Ark. This makes the Consult its slaves. If those Dunyain brains can make the Ark's proper AI live again they'll get self-aware master.

>>9833232
The Killing Star. Took me a few years of searching to finally find a copy, and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

>>9840134
Fevre Dream

>>9840375
Any you wouldn't mind us reading? I'm not that anon but I'll have a go

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>>9839807
>>9840049
SHAEÖNANRA DID NOTHING WRONG

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>>9839445
>What else is good by him?
Chasm City and The Prefect were my favorites of his novels.

>Anything short
Check out Beyond the Aquila Rift, it's probably his best collection/anthology of short stories.

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>>9839222
Revelation Space, my dude

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>>9840644
Well neither them or Kellhus did. They just approach the same problem (Escaping Damnation) from opposite angles.

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>>9840645
>Beyond the Aquila Rift
>$450

who the fuck do I look like, Robinette Broadhead?

>>9840674
>lettered edition
The new edition's £7 on amazon and the like

Anyone got any recommendations for stuff about future/fantastical games or sport?

Could be stuff like Player of Games or just deathmatches like Red Rising.

>>9840658

t.four-horned brother

The US Army had a science fiction writing contest and released an anthology of short stories.
https://community.apan.org/wg/tradoc-g2/mad-scientist/m/science-fiction-writing-contest-documents/200204

>>9837546
I got to pg. 950 and it was still boring. Kaladin was still dicking around the bridge camp, and nothing happened.

>>9840658
but Kellhus got BTFO

>>9840890
post yfw future-Cnaiür was manipulating Kellhus since the beginning of time.

>>9840727
The Running Man

>>9841266
post yfw Kellhus cucks him anyway

>>9841047
Interesting, I'll report back

who has the coolest name in Fantasy?

>That end to the Sorweel storyline

What the fuck was even the point. Atleast he got some top tier waifu cunny

>>9841536
To further establish kelmomas as the no-god and create senseless tragedy for us to indulge

>>9833232
Re-read Starship Troopers fairly recently. Honestly, I find the politics that Heinlein asserts to be more interesting than the story being told. I suppose that was intentional?

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How anime will Jemisin go? Will Schaffa fuck the loli?

>>9841636
Pretty much. Starship Troopers isn't great for action, but rather for understanding why people found fascism (and specifically the fascism in the book has more parallels to Italian fascism and Falangism than the Nazis IMO)

Though the thing people tend to overlook/forget, especially the rah-rah military boosters, is that anybody can join government service (the example in the book is a blind paraplegic counting caterpillars by feel) and that a social worker, DMV clerk, etc, have the same voting power as a soldier.

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>>9841266
>>9841334
>tfw the Second Apoclypse is just one massive game of D4, nonlinear, abstract benjuka to see who can cuck who harder
Makes you think.

>>9841607
>>9841536

>Serwa becomes a ciphrang postmortem as seen by the JE and still can't have her boy because mommy Yatwer took him

>have to hang out with Cnaiur and Gin'yursis forever

Indeed a tragedy across ages.

>reading Iron Druid series on recommendation from a (female) friend
This.. This is just American Gods + Naruto isn't it?
I mean.. it's not TERRIBLE and I feel like I'm learning a bit on the side since I actually have no clue about Irish mythology.
But I feel like for a 2.1k year old druid he is a bit modern-leftist. There are parts where it is mentioned that he has a different set of morals embedded deep from his early days in old Ireland, but then what he actually does for most of the books seems like a very modern man.

>>9841904
If you want to see a good druid, see Merlin from the Warlord Chronicles (Bernard Cornwell). He's pretty much the best character in the books.

>>9841923
To be honest I was just looking for good "urban fantasy" There are not enough good books about slinging spells and spending your time in modern days (anywhere from 1920 to now). Wizards and the like would be preferred but druid was close enough.
Also: Not enough Fantasy books with Wizards as the main focus in general. Maybe it's because it's hard to come up with a decent conflict when your MC can do fucking magic.

>>9841837
Hmm, benjuka is all about changing the rules of the game so you go from the bring of defeat to winning. Does that mean that that's what Kellhus is going to do? Change the rules of the game? He's a master of the Daimos, which allows travel to the Outside, and the No-God s missing it's chorae. Could he be planning to kill the gods and conquer hell just like he said?

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>>9841743
Schaffa x Nassun is probably going to be pushed up to eleven and be even more moe in The Stone Sky, but I doubt she's going to go anywhere beyond implying implications or the book equivalent of headpats. People looking for progressive books probably aren't going to approve of Schaffa x Nassun, unless she wants to get slaughtered.

Then again, Jemisin likes Darker than Black. Which is the most obvious anime loli shipperfaggotry produced in ages, not to mention Nassun is about to go full Izanami in the Stone Sky.

The Broken Earth = Shinsekai Yori + Darker than Black (Hei and Yin) + ???

>>9841993
She could get away with it assuming Schaffa dies painfully, and heavy implications is enough IMO.

>>9842028
Well it's been pushed enough in Obelisk that I've picked up on it.

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Yo, I need sci-fi with detailed sex scenes in low or zero G

>>9841536
Yeah that felt anticlimactic after all that time and development. plus he and Serwa were actually good together.

>>9841607
Could have been handled better imho. It was so unceremonious I almost expect him to come back somehow.

>>9841334
Cnaiür gave him that cuck to cuck him even harder later. He cucks before Kellhus.

>>9841957
Kellhus is dead. It's over. He got outplayed. The books create the expectation of perfection but at the same time subtly leave hints that Kellhus is indeed fallible. You should have picked up on it by now.

>>9839402
>If someone asks what's good cinematography do they not care about it?
Yes, usually. Because it's an opinion, not objective fact. "good prose" is an aesthetic evaluation, it depends largely on taste and the judgment of the individual. There are some traits that are commonly agreed upon by people as being very important to making good prose, but these aren't absolutes. In fact these things go in and out of style, so there is no real litmus test for identifying it. The best you can do is saying "this prose adheres to so-and-so's style guide really well" as far as objective evaluation goes.

So to go back to my original point: if you have to ask what "good prose" means then it means you have not for even one second considered the aesthetics of what you read. What am I supposed to think about that except that you don't care?

>>9842196
>So to go back to my original point: if you have to ask what "good prose" means then it means you have not for even one second considered the aesthetics of what you read. What am I supposed to think about that except that you don't care?
Or he's just listened to lots of literary snobs and thinks what he enjoys has no merit and wants to know why.

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>>9842127
Well, apparently in zero G your testosterone levels decrease so they might not even feel a big urge to fuck, but if they do they would run into a whole bunch of problems: Firstly: Low blood pressure. You might run into problems getting hard (not impossible) but if you do get hard it would certainly be smaller. you might end up only having a "semi"
Then there is that pesky thing with Newton's third law: "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" On earth with gravity pushing you onto your bed you can pound away. In zero G, every shove you give will send your partner away from you, if your partner is already static against something, it will send you away from her. and you'll possible end up injured. So to actually fuck somebody, you'd have to do something very restrictive like tethering both partners together and to a safe area like a bigger bed or a padded wall. Or you'd both have to crawl into some sort of sleeping bag that is fixated somewhere and make sure that during the act, you don't wiggle out the top of it (which would be quite easy as you would constantly push her towards the exit of the bag)
and lastly the fluids, both sweat and her vaginal fluids. Under G, sweat would just drip down your body and onto the floor, and her vagina neatly lubricate itself to make fucking possible, but in zero G fluids just kinda stay and start to build a film over whatever era they're coming from. If you work up a sweat it would just stick on your body, while all her vaginal fluids would more or less pull at one place instead of neatly lubricating her.
In short: Sex in space would kinda suck.

>>9842215
Well that's a whole other can of worms I wasn't going to touch. The short answer to that is that they are evaluating genre fiction by the standards of literary fiction, essentially attempting to use whatever the accepted conventions are for literary fiction as some kind of "universal standard" that should apply to any and all fiction. In case it's not being clear, I'm implying that this notion is utterly preposterous and the people who engage in this type of snobbery just want a reason to look down on others.

I don't hold literary fiction in any special low esteem, it has its own conventions that just like with genre fiction go in and out of style. But the people who read and write literary fiction tend to treat their own conventions as objectively superior on the basis that they are much more interesting to have debates about their books in academic settings. Which if you're an academic is certainly true, but what if you're not an academic? Then it hardly matters does it?

>>9840134
I already answered your fucking ass here >>9834935

>>9839396
>>9839407
If I like Kant, Too Like the Memes and Hyperion will I like the Thing Itself? Does the Thing Itself have a good plot?

>>9842239
>genre fiction
>literary fiction
this meme needs to die

>>9842248
Hi, Reddit

>>9842196
>>9842239

I see. It always seemed like I was missing out on something vital. Now I don't feel as stupid, or bad.

Reddit just LOVES Name of the Wind. Is it good?

>>9842180
Kellhus is just a head, one which can be put on any body. ANYONE could be Kellhus! EVEN YOU!

How far in the future is Wolfe's Urth in your opinion?

>>9842255
Discussing prose aesthetics is interesting and fun in my experience, provided you're in good company that's willing to accept others' viewpoints. So basically not 4chan. My best discussions of prose all happened in college.

>>9842248
It is a useful distinction in that people know instantly what I am talking about when I use those terms, forgive me for not being up to speed on whatever new standard the eternal crusade against the establishment has cooked up.

>>9842259
Kellhus is NaCl

>>9842269
It's an arbitrary distinction created by and perpetuated by literary snob academics.

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>>9841935
>>9841904

>>9842277
Yes you already made that clear and I already said I don't really care that you object because there's no suitable replacement for the terms as yet.

>>9842282
Or you could just refer to the genre you're talking about.

>>9842256
No, but it's fun. Fast food-tier

>>9842279
So many of these are outright terrible, I have no faith that the ones I don't know are any good.

>>9842308
May I recommend Blindsight then?

>>9842311
No, I've been in enough of these threads to recognize you

>>9842306
Good enough lol. lately kinda struggling finding something enjoyable in the first place

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Who else is hyped?

>>9842308
which ones do you like?

>>9842353
Sabriel is good

>>9842356
Sounds like we might have similar tastes. I'm reading His Majesty's Dragon and it's pretty good so far. The Lies of Locke Lamora has started out decently.

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>>9842259
>>9842273
>Kellhus is a head
>Malowebi is a head
>Kellhus's body is salt
>where's Malowebi's body?
>Kellhus's head gets put on Malowebi's body
>Kellhus literally Black'd
>tfw the series turns into a buddy cop movie where Kellhus and Malowebi have to save the world sharing the same body
Do it Bakker. I dare you.

>>9842366
The first book of Locke Lamora is pretty good, but the next two devolve very quickly into absolute schlock. I was disappointed.

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>>9835367

Teaching women to read and write was a mistake

>>9841743
>>9841993
>broken earth trilogy is a rehash of geomancer

>>9842311
>want urban fantasy
>recs space vampires

>>9842308
You are supposed to look at male urban fantasy

>>9842499
He's a stupid fag who recs it to everyone regardless of the question

>>9842352
>reamde - read me
>anathem - anathema / anthem
>seventh decimate - seventh decimal

>>9842261
>how far in the future
Haven't read Short Sun yet but the ending to New Sun suggests that It could potentially exist beyond or before the death of our universe while Urth suggests that we could be in another dimension, who the hell knows where black holes lead? And then Long Sun contains what appear to be direct references to our time, suggesting that they're only so far ahead that French and Latin are considered old languages but still understood. Unless Short Sun contains some kind of direct reference I think that it isn't meant to be clear, but then lots of things in Wolfe's work appear that way but actually have perfectly sensible explanations if you look closely enough, like where the abos went in The Fifth Head of Cerberus.

>>9842256
The Name of the Wind is actually not bad. I would go so far as to say that if you generally like fantasy, you will like NOTW.

However, the sequel Wise Man's Fear is embarrassingly bad, and the final book in the trilogy is massively delayed amid rumors of a rejected manuscript while the author acts insufferable online and at fan conventions. I wouldn't recommend reading it.

>>9842352
I hope it's good but the Final Chronicles were pretty bad so I don't have much hope.

>>9842721
tell us about how he's been acting up

>>9842721
>rejected manuscript
It's hard to imagine that the people behind the publishing of Wise Man's Fear are capable of rejecting anything. Maybe they learned from the amount of people who aggressively shit on Rothfuss since then.

>>9842222
Nice digits.

>blood pressure and semi erections
Cocks rings where invented for a reason.

>Newton's Third
This is an interesting problem. Some kind of elastic harness or a tight bag, like you mentioned, that help you with the fucking would be the obvious solution. But that would be boring, reading about a believable solution for a zero-g sex position would be really interesting.

Fluids flying all over the place is only sexy, keeping the woman lubricated would have to be done manually but once she's wet on the inside it should stay there. Especially if she's filled up with something.

>>9842247
Thing Itself has a good punchy overarching plot about government conspiracies, AI and the Fermi Paradox (but not in a cliche way at all). If you're a britcuck you'll enjoy it more as Roberts is too he really shows it. Where the books goes a bit haywire is the alternating chapters, which are essentially short stories set in historical then eventually futuristic settings, with a writing style to back it up (there's a 18/19th century chapter which is written less legibly than TLtL), BUT they are radially enjoyable to read and all tie up the plot at the end.

Kant gets memed a lot through the book but there's only one or two really verbose sections.

I'd check it out anon, I really enjoyed it. It's underlying ideas and themes are as weird as something as odd as Three Body

>>9843163
Thankyou for the detailed answer, anon, I'll put it on my to read.

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Seriously, what the FUCK was Mishra's problem?

>>9840037
Yeah, finished a novella earlier this year, have another novella and a short story in the works.

Progress is really slow, but I don't care much, I have no schedule.

>>9842263
I accept your viewpoint

>>9835367
>>9835402
this is deviant porn disguised as a book. I wonder if it's hot.

>>9841764
>He thinks book Starship Troopers is Fascism

Have you ever heard of Switzerland

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Guys, what series did you enjoy more: The Witcher or ASOIAF?
Who build the better world?

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>>9842127

Marsbound has a quick, one paragraph sex scene in zero g.

>>9842222

Pretty sure he was asking for books, not a lecture, nerd

>>9843497

>Implying the nation that refused to stand up to HITLER isn't Fascists

You poor, poor fool

>>9840037
In the middle/final third of a novel (or possibly two shorter novels, since it's currently hovering around 77,000 words and still has more to go after the revelation I had this morning). I am pretty excited about it, it is Book of the New Sun meets Vampire Hunter D with a psychedelic emphasis. This will be my third publishable novel and it's the most 'mainstream' so far (first one was transgressive and second one was straight psychedelic literary fiction with fantasy elements, neither one of those are very saleable for a debut author), so I'm confident it will get an agent. Hoping to be finished by the end of August; I started this one around May of this year, and I was hoping to be finished by the end of July, but I'm a little behind. Still, the work takes the time it takes. Like this morning, I figured out finally what I was waiting for (in part because of a great psychedelic band I found in a /mu/ sharethread, "Black Mountain", whose guitar chords seem to be better than acid), so now I'm probably ready to jam out the next 10,000 to 15,000 words before I have to slow to work out the next hurdle.

Anyway, synopsis is, roughly 2,000 years in the future, a genetically altered race of cannibalistic humans called 'Martyrs' are in almost total control of the planet, themselves the brainwashed members of a massive cult headed by the Protomartyr: a man who calls himself The Heirophant. With the wealthy having escaped to terraformed Mars and the less so either left behind or confined to living in the regions between The Middle States and the Empire of the Risen Sun, where Martyrs have more difficulty maintaining a presence due to issues like climate and sun exposure. But when the Disgraced Governess of The United Front, the Martyr Dominia di Mephitoli, loses her dearest companion upon her lover's learning of The Heirophant's rumored plan to blacken the sun, she begins to see through the cult so ubiquitous among Western Martyrs and humans alike, and makes good her escape in pursuit of a rumor--that in the Middle States, there hides a man who can raise the dead. She just has to believe it's the truth.

All kinds of good shit in there. First scene is very intense and I've surprised myself by managing to maintain the pace. Opening line:

>The hounds were closing in, and the Disgraced Governess of the United Front still had fourteen miles to go before she'd reach the ship that would whisk her away, far away, across the Western Sea and safe to the ports of the Risen Sun.

All in all it's a promising first draft and I'm very excited. Have it done in another month, tighten it with some edits and by the end of the year I'll be harassing agents with yet another manuscript.

>>9843593
Please link to your goodreads page when it's published.

>>9843593

Might want to work on that opening...

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>>9843596
Thank you! I probably will, but I try to avoid shilling outside of 'whatcha writing, /lit/' type threads. I'm just really excited this morning about the progress I've made and wanted to share. I get up at 4:00 every day to write, and last night I couldn't sleep and was tempted to sleep in this morning, but boy am I glad I didn't.

>>9843598
g8 feedback m8

>>9843624
- long sentence
- aggressive namedrops
+ hounds

>>9843515
Can't say, I've never read the entire ASOIAF series and never will because the fat fuck won't write. I guess The Witcher wins by default.

>>9843624
Keep trucking anon!

>>9843515
>Who build the better world?
Oh and for this, probably Sapkowski. It's more plausible and less bloated. But GRRM might secretly have the better world, we'll just never know because he'll never get around to showing the important parts of it.

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Who's your favorite author that you also think you couldn't stand five minutes in the same room with irl?

Mine's Bakker. I'd probably want to slap the pretentious motherfucker inside a minute. I also suspect the Gurm probably really smells, but not sure that counts.

>>9843712
>-
>+
Is this some new type of reddite speak?

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Any "tropes", for lack of a better term, that are so overused that it kills a story?
Just drafting up a possible novel and just trying to to kneecap myself before i start

>>9833286
Roadside Picnic certainly isn't post-apocalyptic.

>>9844142
Magic was gone but now it's BACK!

>>9844142
Fantasy, sf, or what?

>>9844173
I was actaully talking in general, but my novel will be (Epic?)Fantasy.

>>9844154
wew i was toying with something like that initally, thanks

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>>9833286
Fixed

>>9844183
You'd better have an incredibly original idea, otherwise I can't see how you could write "epic fantasy" without building the entire thing out of overused tropes.

>>9844183
>wew i was toying with something like that initally, thanks
Well I mean, don't let me stop you, but if it's not a minor plot point then you better have a really unique spin on it if you're gonna do it.

>>9844142
The small craft man and the lumbering giant
the "whore who can handle herself"
the villain actually being morally grey (when done right sure but sometimes it's just lazy)
inns

>>9844207
I was initally going to have something like "elemental realms rotate in a cycle around the mortal world, causing the seasons, but when one gets stuck bad shit goes down - this is the time of Water's resurgence"

>>9844203
Still getting the story down, but i've already got a basic map and races

>>9833286
stop fucking recommending Seveneves
are you American?

>>9844197
right listen here you cheeky fucker

>>9844218
Seveneves was good. If you can't handle a genre shift you might have autism.

>>9844142
Good writing will save you. Have you ever written before? If not, don't start a novel, just get a feel for actually writing. And all of the tropes which are shit should be self-evident. Don't write stronk womyn, don't deliberately do a 180 on everything traditional to show how wise and worldly you are and don't write your sexual fantasies or retarded politics into it.

>>9844220
I hated the nauseatingly "science!!!" Americanised feel of it. Right at the start, where they were going to name of the parts of the fractured moon "Mr Potato head". Jesus fucking christ that shit makes my blood boil.

The genre shift wasn't terrible but I agree with >>9833242 that SEVEN EVES DURRR was pretty classless

The secret of tropes is that tropes are actually fine, you just have to be good enough at writing that it doesn't seem like a trope.

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>>9844142

>>9844142
>Any "tropes", for lack of a better term, that are so overused that it kills a story?
no, execution is king. if you wrote, say, gritty medieval fantasy then you'll probably get negatively to aSoIaF and intially written off as generic, but if you've got chops then they should shine through.

>>9844218
>stop fucking recommending Seveneves
>are you American?
Are you American? Because it seems that you can't read. Seveneves is under shit, Maximum ride is under trash.

>>9844308
>>9844218
>two butthurt yuropoors accusing the other of being American in broken English

Too busy ruling the world to get upset about it, desu

>>9843515
>Guys, what series did you enjoy more: The Witcher or ASOIAF?
The Witcher. ASOIAF's being forever unfinished sure as hell isn't very enjoyable.
>Who build the better world?
Sapkowski. The setting of ASOIAF is huge, but still pretty cardboard.