/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

First for Blindsight

There's literally no reason to be writing fantasy in 2017

Every conceivably good or mediocre idea has been done at least 12 times by now

I don't usually read much fantasy or sci-fi (read Forever War in high school and BotNS recently), but a guy I know is trying to lend me the Kingkiller Chronicle. He says its the best thing he's read but wouldn't tell me too much about what its about. Any of you guys know if its worth a read?

>>9844684
>a story is only as good as its surface symbols (genre)

yaaaaaawn

>>9844684
Science fantasy?

>>9844706
It's a book not a contract, read it. It'll only take a couple days.

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>>9844684
perhaps the same could be said of ALL fiction

>>9844642
>>9809824
>>9840658
>>9843805

I'm new to these threads please post all the dank Bakker memes I've missed.

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Saw this being memed before. What's the consensus?

>>9844730
I've got an exclusive look into the title of Bakker's next quintrilogy: DUN-YA-IN-the-ass: featuring Ache-in-my-end and the O-God

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NO MORMONS ALLOWED

hey chums

just started BotNS and I'm a little worried about how little I think I'm taking in. I good way past it, but when I read about the statue of the armoured man on the moon in the archives, and saw the section where it detailed how the moon wasn't green in the past, I was able to make the connection to Buzz Aldrin etc only because I read an anons post a few weeks back explaining this.

Should I just blitz through the book then go back and re-read, or take my time and think this all out. The dream sequence in the inn went right over my head, and I think there's a lot of little details I'm missing too. Plus I have to look up a damn word every page. Am I just dumb? I've only read genre fiction before, and only sci-fi at that

>>9844855
Finish the whole thing first. Shit makes sense much later. The first book in particular is filled to the brim with foreshadowing

>>9844855
Don't expect to understand what's happening during your first read.
It comes together in the final book, when it turns out literally everything in the first book was important.

>>9844739
I tried Dhalgren. Experimental work is beyond me.

>>9844739
is this /sffg/ or just pretentious wank like Ballard?

>>9844642
A question about Words of Radiance
How the fuck did Shallan get a Shardblade? They didn't explain it at all and Shallan wasn't even shocked to find out she had one.

>(...)Tell me many tales, but let them be of things that are past the lore of legend and of which there are no myths in our world or any world adjoining. Tell me, if you will, of the years when the moon was young, with siren-rippled seas and mountains that were zoned with flowers from base to summit; tell me of the planets gray with eld, of the worlds whereon no mortal astronomer has ever looked, and whose mystic heavens and horizons have given pause to visionaries. Tell me of the vaster blossoms within whose cradling chalices a woman could sleep; of the seas of fire that beat on strands of ever-during ice; of perfumes that can give eternal slumber in a breath; of eyeless titans that dwell in Uranus, and beings that wander in the green light of the twin suns of azure and orange. Tell me tales of inconceivable fear and unimaginable love, in orbs whereto our sun is a nameless star, or unto which its rays have never reached.

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I didn't get it.

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Where do you nerds get your textbooks when the usual spots (libgen, bibliotik, google, etc.) don't fucking have it? I'm frustrated.

>>9845264
>They didn't explain it at all
Do you know what Pattern is and what it can do?

>>9845375
>Do you know what Pattern is and what it can do?
Do they explain that later?
I get what he is, but so far they haven't explained the Shardblade part and why Shallan wasn't surprised.
So from what you are saying, they are gonna explain it later in the book?

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>>9845392
Bonding with Pattern is how she gained the ability to Surgebind and Pattern, like other spren, can manifest into a Shardblade. It's nothing crazy.

>>9845404
Yeah i know that. Except the Shardblade part.
I'm talking about how she wasn't surprised at all by it.
Also, do I need to read Edgedancer before Oathbringer?

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>reading through Judging Eye
>waiting for all of the weird sex shit I know Bakker has to have in store
>finally get to the period scene
Jesus, took you long enough.

>>9844706
meme shit

>>9845413
Judging Eye was a bold new direction for Bakker but he couldn't hold it. The Great Ordeal/Unholy Consult are pure guro.

>>9845243
fuck you homo, ballard is LEGIT

>>9844642
Just read the New Sun series.
What an unsatisfying mess.

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>>9845412
I don't remember. Keep reading. That may be a particular thing that only you care about to so you'll have to keep reading. It's inconsequential to me. Also yes. It covers shit Lift gets into and has some cameos of other important characters.

>>9845422
>The Great Ordeal/Unholy Consult are pure guro.
>Guro is bad

Anyone interested in characters storyline speculation for Oathbringer?

Adolin will get the Honorblade, he's the only candidate that makes sense. Shallan will uncover his murder of Saedeus and reveal it to Dalanar. Saedeus's late wife will tell Dalanar that her faction will break off from the Alethi and it will be civil war. If Dalanar doesn't prosecute his son he will break his oath to unite instead of dividing in order to protect a murderer. In the end: Dalanar won't break his oaths, but Adolin will escape by cutting his way out of his jail then flying away into a storm or something.

>>9845427
Close this tab right now
CLOSE IT

>>9845350
they all died in the explosion
just Runthorn less injured so able to help Chip find Ubik in Chip's half-life
as the book ends Runthorn's condition deteriorates and the then more powerful Chip has to help him find Ubik

I mean that's my theory take your pick

>>9845472
I didn't say that. I said Bakker tried a shift in presentation starting with the Judging Eye but eventually reverted back. Guro isn't really my think though. unless extreme forced tf counts

>>9845423
he's just weird for the sake weird, and tries too hard to be /lit/.
but he's universally loved so probably just me

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>>9845523
>extreme forced tf

Truly the most degenerate of fetishes.

>>9845375
>Where do you nerds get your textbooks
University bookstore or Amazon usually.

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>>9845560
say that to my face and not online and see what happens

I hate when authors name things in scifi in sch a tryhard manner. Like, let's say that there some kind of drug that makes you smarter or something, just an example but could be anything. Nine times out of ten the authors will call them some kind of really shitty forced neologism like 'Coggies'. This shit is so transparently just there to sound cool and nonchalant - of course something super advanced has a colloquial term, what are you from the past or something?! And on top of that I always get the sense that the author uses them to trick dumb people reading the book into thinking they're smart by being able to tell how the neologism came to be: cognitive enhancing drugs become 'coggies for short.

Such a fucking awful trope, when will it die out? Neologisms can be fine, but only if they're very sparse and seem natural, not unnecessarily capitalised gay pieces of slang that sound like slang from the 1980s not the 2080s.

Why can't authors just describe what they are using already existing words. They could just say 'drugs' and then tell us what those drugs do.

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>>9845609

>>9845609
>he doesn't understand neologs

>>9845622
fuck you
>>9845624
I do, but most authors use them in unbearably shitty ways

>>9845600
>all those spikes and ridges

ummm wrong

inchoroi are supposed to be smooth and sensual

you're literally supposed to get a whyboner just by looking at them

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>>9845609
It'll never die out so long as there are bargain bins to be filled.

The fantasy equivalent of this style seems to be making a shallow uninteresting world full of bullshit meaningless names for things that are literally just named weird to be different.

Both are related to prose in that it should be used as a needle and thread, but some authors use it as a hammer and nail.
Possibly a club and nail, now that I think of a few more egregious examples.

>>9845626
>you're literally supposed to get a whyboner just by looking at them
They're supposed to look like some pallid slimy thing dredged up from the deep ocean. The whyboner is only because of compulsions and pheromones. But yeah the artist gets it wrong, it's just the best pic I've got.

I'm sad there's not gonna be anymore scifi aliens in muh fantasy world after Unholy Consult

>>9845647
There's still Aurax. He a good boy.

>>9845672
Get off 4chan Aurax no one likes you here either

Is it just me or do recent fantasy books feel very "anime"?

>>9845609
Anon there's a reason my mum always laughs at the name "snapchat"
We can't chose what names take off, and even though usually snappier ones succeed, explain to me why we always say "double-u double-u double-u" instead of "world wide web" for www.
Shit catches on and it doesn't always make sense. A conversation between any young people about Instagram etc would confuse the hell out of any sci-fi writer 30+ years ago.

But I hate neologisms too so apparently I'm on the same side as you. I think Watts is an author who handles them alright

Just finished the Book of the Fallen, finally. Seemed like there were a lot of big characters who never got resolution.

>>9845375
Request it on Apollo and Redacted with substantial buffer generally gets it bought and uploaded.

>>9845708
80s-90s fags are getting published now

Guess what they grew up on

>>9845730
Wheel of Time was basically already a harem anime and it was huge in the 90's.

>>9845708
Like what?

>>9845510
>>9845510
No.

Wolfe seems a hack, in the most literal sense.
It seems he thinks can spew out snippets of philosophy and allegories without context and not be called out for being a pretentious sod, as long as he makes the context dubious enough and the meaning muddy enough, that his mud-castle will be forever unassailable.
It's a whole book series where there is only one core pillar: 2deep4u

Also, fucking bible similes and ancient roman/greek concepts and ideas being the extent of his "depth"? Really?

>>9845778
The Wheel of Time is one of the least "anime" fantasy series there is, m8

I suppose he's talking about nufantasy/"crossover" stuff, such as Spooks, City of Bones, Percy Jackson, Darren Shan, etc.

>>9845792
New Sun isnt even that hard of a read. Its just layered with details that pop in and out of relevance. As a whole its pretty consistent.

>>9845804
*travels behind u*
*cuts ur head off with heron sword*
Nothin personnel...kid...
*goes home to tsundere waifu trio*

>>9845808
You are lying to yourself.
It's true it's not "hard to read", but it is a mess, and it seems designed to trick fans into inventing their own ludicrous theories about every little insignificant detail to fill the void of an actual context.
The point isn't the work itself, but to make people analyze it, thus giving it legitimacy as "high literature". It's a lazy cop-out dragged out over 4 books, and it's clear that for the most part, Wolfe just wrote whatever came to mind. Most of the grand plans and implications are just imaginary creatures of the readers' own minds.
In that respect, he has sort of succeeded in writing a "religious book" - one that is so self-contradictory and convoluted, and so far removed from a logical context, that everything is up for discussion, and every passage can be interpreted in a million ways.

It so fucking self-indulgent

>>9845840
I actually dont give a fuck about the theories, the book itself makes its own case pretty damn clear.

>>9845842
The only "clear" thing about it is the 'messiah of doom'-story, rewritten with "some ulterior motive, which we shan't explain".
Everything else is a jumble of random thoughts and ideas.

>>9845847
If you insist

>>9845852
I do.

What else were you able to extract from it?
Original world and nice world-building, I'll give it that. Beyond that it was trite as fuk.

>>9845859
Severian's tale is essentially how even the most lowly person can have a role in the divine plan. The world he lives in has fallen from grace and is consumed in stagnation, and as a result it needs a person with knowledge of both its past and future to change its inevitable fate. Severian, for the most part, is being groomed to do this over the course of the story, while dealing with his own ignorance and shortcomings.

BOTNS is a very Christian story, particularly Catholic, so some of its underlying ideas motifs may not resonate with you if youre not too familiar with it, but for the most part it made sense to me.

>>9845392
>Do they explain that later?
Ladies (male) and Gentlemen. This is prime example of someone who speed-reads / skips parts in books, then becomes confused later on, playing like what was revealed came out of no where.

>>9845902
>Severian's tale is essentially how even the most lowly person can have a role in the divine plan
Why?

Severian's position was never particularly low. He was in a fine guild and on track to become a master.

>The world he lives in has fallen from grace and is consumed in stagnation, and as a result it needs a person with knowledge of both its past and future to change its inevitable fate.
Because Severian is meant to become a master, he receives some basic education from the old master, but it is not about the ancient past. He "knows" that man has fallen, because he sees that Nessus once housed a lot more people, and because everyone knows they once travelled the stars, but now they don't know how any of the old tech works.
Severian is almost completely ignorant about Urth's past, and he only idolizes Vodalus as a revolutionary and a bringer of change (he doesn't even know what motivates Vodalus at all).

>BOTNS is a very Christian story, particularly Catholic, so some of its underlying ideas motifs may not resonate with you if youre not too familiar with it, but for the most part it made sense to me.
The Christian motifs, as I mentioned, are very obvious. So much so as to make it seem heavy-handed, which in turn makes his own little philosophical diversions seem even less valuable.

>>9845928
Torturers are not held in the highest regard on Urth, and are even seen as particularly malicious.

is sabriel good as an adult or is it too ya-ish?

>>9845931
Being seen as malicious isn't the same as being "low". He enjoyed a relatively high position in society, although people fear him.

>>9845938
Low in the moral and ethical sense.

So far as his education goes and his knowledge of Urth - the alzabo is a big part of the story for a reason.

>>9845950
>Low in the moral and ethical sense.
Severian goes out of his way (repeatedly) to explain why his destructive work was not evil, and why pain, suffering and death are necessary. That was kind of a main theme, Anon.
Now, some argue that that's just Severian trying to put himself in a prettier light, and that he's actually a villainous cunt.

>So far as his education goes and his knowledge of Urth - the alzabo is a big part of the story for a reason.
Literally anyone could have taken it, and indeed a lot of people did.

>>9845967
Alotta people did, but only the Autarch had taken it on a level that could be compared to a sort of global consciousness, which would allow him to fulfill the role of the New Sun, and to reach the Autarch there were quite a few trials to endure.

Sev definitely has a darker side to him thst he obscures throughout the text, but of course the story follows him on his path to betterment.

>>9846004
>of course the story follows him on his path to betterment.
Except he doesn't get better at all?
The rape is towards the end in the final book, isn't it?

>>9846030
Which one

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>>9845928
>The Christian motifs, as I mentioned, are very obvious. So much so as to make it seem heavy-handed

>>9844855
Don't think of Shadow of the Torturer as one book, Book of the New Sun is one book. A lot of the stuff you're reading now won't seem important for a fair while, but it's all important. I'd say read the whole thing, wait a while, then read the whole thing again. The second reading is amazing.

Read Urth of the New Sun any time after the second read, but I think reading it after just one go through of BotNS is doing yourself a disservice. Book of the Long Sun is also excellent, haven't read Short Sun.

>>9845718
who specifically are you thinking of? karsa?

>>9845840
I started trying to refute you point by point but I quickly realized you don't actually have any real criticisms and I'm not even sure you've read the book.

>>9845859
Even taken as a straight adventure story Book of the New Sun is fantastic. On my first reading I wasn't able to follow much beyond what was right in front of me but there are still plenty of interesting ideas and excellent writing to be appreciated even if you have no interest in the greater story.
>short stories told in different styles which reveal details about the tellers and the greater Urth universe
>crazy dying earth shit (alzabo, Typhon, a city which is more like a half-inhabited ultra-ruin, huge armies fighting with bizarre weapons for exotic causes, alien predators, mad astronauts)
>Christian theology delivered in a straightforward manner emerging naturally from the vents of the story to BTFO atheists and agnosticucks

>>9845928
>not immediately thinking about Severian's memory and the Alzabo's memory-stealing when being told about the significance of the past
I'm surprised a brainlet like you can even work a computer.
>Christian motifs
Did it occur to you that you only noticed the obvious ones? Did you pick up on the constant association drawn between water and both life and destruction?

>>9846030
>he doesn't get better at all
It takes a lot of strength of character to admit that you're a bad person and to strive to better yourself. He's still got glaring character flaws by the end of the story which endure into Urth but he certainly picks up a far more humanistic outlook.

and as for the rape, if you're talking about the initiation horse-taming and the lady mercenary that's not rape. They just kind of made a game out of it. Their interaction before the big battle makes it quite clear that they're on very good terms with each other.

>>9845935
still good

>>9846634
>>9845935
I like Sabriel a lot.

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>>9845720
Can you elaborate on these terms? I have genuinely no clue what you mean when you say Apollo and Redacted.

>>9846736
Oh they're private trackers right? Welp that's still entirely unhelpful but thanks for trying, I guess. They seem mostly related to music as well so I'm not sure how they would be relevant in any way to what I asked.

The only reason first time readers get a little confused when reading Gardens of the Moon is because Steven forgot to give a map letting people know where shit is happening in the first chapter.

Beyond that, its pretty standard and easy to follow.

>>9846736
>>9846763
The music trackers are very good for getting stuff bought for you, because they are very hard to get buffer on. Even 90 mb is enough to get most overdrive requests filled instantaneously.

>>9847211
*textbooks always require a whole bunch more because people actually have to buy those, however

R. Scott Bakker - Prince of Nothing Learned

Herbert Read, in The Meaning of Art:

>[...] [T]he function of art is not to transmit feeling so that others may experience the same feeling. That is only the function of the crudest forms of art—‘programme music,’ melodrama, sentimental fiction, and the like. The real function of art is to express feeling and transmit understanding. That is what the Greeks so perfectly realized and that is what, I think, Aristotle meant when he said that the purpose of drama was to purge our emotions. We already come to art charged with emotional complexes; we find in the genuine work of art, not an excitation of these emotions, but peace, repose, equanimity.


I suppose not everyone has been introduced to R. Scott Bakker’s Prince of Nothing novels by having the “black demon seed” scene quoted at them. This is the delightful sequence in the second part of the trilogy, where Bakker describes the horror of a man, his wife, and his child being raped by a demon and the setting’s resident subhuman scum (Orcs, but less talkative). The phrase “raper’s thrust” is used. The defences offered was, first, that Bakker’s writing is good outside of the creepy sex stuff, and second, that the rape by demon/orc was actually a brilliant philosophical counterpoint to the moral-ethical pretensions that drive conflicts in the story.

The latter defence is of course misses the point that Bakker’s writing is terrible.

The first defence comes from the fannish mindset where problems in the text are to be tolerated instead of confronted. It is also the same defence as afforded to Japanese visual novels.

It is a befitting introduction, because the overriding mode of Bakker’s narrative is perversion – of civilization, of humanity, of trust, of religion. There is nothing in The Darkness that Comes Before, first in an interminable saga, that is not overshadowed or at least overcast by dread. The thrill of this dread is what draws in the reader, and it is where Bakker’s meagre talent as a storyteller lies. Throughout the novel he displays a skill for catching the twinge of anxiety and dread within the reader, even with his amateurish prose. And being such an effective yet observably bad writer, Bakker’s novel is the very definition of hackwork. Much of the novel is concerned with a reimagining of the First Crusade, given a nihilistic bent and names that sound like somebody slurring through Tolkien’s elf-languages. Bakker likewise offers familiar genre clichés, just more vicious and with worse named.

>>9847222
>“I am a warrior of ages, Anasûrimbor... ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury.”

>“Then why,” Kellhus asked, “raise arms now, against a lone man?”

>Laughter. The free hand gestured to the dread Sranc. “A pittance, I agree, but still you would be memorable.”

In The Darkness that Comes Before, Anälsybarite Killhöuse receives telepathic summons bidding him to join his exiled father. Killhöuse comes from an isolated monastic community whose members are rendered superhuman by their postgraduate philosophy degrees, and upon reaching civilization finds himself a godlike manipulator among so many sheeple. In the meantime, great conflict brews between the great religions of the Mediterranean. The Pope preaches a Crusade against the Muslim conquerors of the Holy Land, while nobles and wizards intrigue, barbarians roam, and minions of the Dark Lord lurk in the shadows and fringes of the world.

While this sounds eventful, this introductory part of a multivolume chronicle is occupied mostly with extended political and geographical manoeuvres: a disquieting amount of time is spent on the cast getting somewhere. Add in Conan the Bisexual Barbarian, the prose stylistics of Guy Gavriel Kay, the horror sensibilities of Clive Barker, just a little bit of rape and other atrocities, and you have something like RSB’s hodgepodge. Despite these diverse elements, Bakker’s writing is characteristically flat in the manner of countless genre authors. Usually he is content with an unremarkable half-realist mode that genre authors shotgun wed to the imaginative potential of fantasy and science-fiction. Central to this is the imposition of modern psychological realism on a world that is neither modern nor realist, and emphasis on extended dialogues of short exchanges that are intercut with brief, lifeless descriptions and snatches of internal monologue. This is ubiquitous to genre writing, and one can hardly differentiate authors in this mode save for the style of their silly names:

>>9847227
>“I actually missed you, Xinemus,” Proyas said. “What do you make of that?”

>The burly, thick-bearded man at the forefront stood. Not for the first time, Proyas was struck by how much he resembled Achamian.

>“I’m afraid, my Lord Prince,” Xinemus replied, “that your sentiment will be short-lived...” He hesitated. “That is, once you hear the news I bear you.”

>Already it begins.

>Months ago, before he’d returned to Conriya t raise his army, Maithanet had warned him that House Ikurei would likely cause the Holy War grief. But Xinemus’s demeanour told him something far more dramatic than mere politicking had transpired in his absence.

>“I’ve never been one to begrudge the messenger, Xinemus. You know that.” He momentarily studied the faces of the Marshal’s retinue. “Where’s that ass Calmemunis?”

>The dread in Xinemus’s eyes could scarcely be concealed. “Dead, my Lord Prince.”

>“Dead?” he asked sharply. Please don’t let it begin like this! He prused his lips and ask more evenly, “What has happened?”

Bakker is also fond of a sardonically understated “chronicling” style familiar from Guy Gavriel Kay, where the prose bops and bounces in a self-contented manner:

>Confusion and tragedy, rather than fanfare, had characterized the departure of the Vulgar Holy War from Momemn. Since only a minority of those gathered were affiliated with one of the Great Names, the host possessed no clear leader—no organization at all, in effect. As a result, several riots broke out when the Nansur soldiery began distributing soldiers, and anywhere from four to five hundred of the faithful were killed.
>[...]
>The citizens of Momemn swamped the city walls to watch the Men of the Tusk depart. Many jeered at the pilgrims, who had long ago earned the contempt of their hosts. Most, however, remained silent, watching the endless fields of humanity trudge towards the southern horizon. They saw innumerable carts heaped with belongings, women and children walking dull-eyed through the dust, dogs prancing around countless feet, and endless thousands of impoverished low-caste men, hard-faced but carrying only hammers, picks, and hoes. The Emperor himself watched the spectacle from the enamelled heights of the southern gates. According to rumour, he was overheard remarking that the sight of so many hermits, beggars, and whores made him want to retch, but he’d “already given the vulgar filth this dinner.”

These dull stylistics are all the more condemnable for the fact that Bakker is perfectly capable of reaching beyond this: a brief prelude, set two thousand years before the events of the novel, actually manages to capture some bleak grandeur, after which the book quickly begins to deflate. It would be even good if it were not for too many silly fantasy names. Bakker is apparently working under a quota when it comes to diacritics.

>>9847230
>But the boy clutched his father’s sword, crying “So long as men live, there are crimes!”

>The man’s eyes filled with wonder. “No, child,” he said. “Only as long as men are deceived.”

>For a moment, the young Anasûrimbor could only stare at him. Then solemnly, he set aside his father’s sword and took the stranger’s hand. “I was a prince,” he mumbled.

>The stranger brought him to others, and together they celebrated their strange fortune. They cried out—not to the Gods they had repudiate but to one another—that here was evident a great correspondence of cause. Here awareness most holy could be tended. In Ishuäl, they had found shelter against the end of the world.

>Still emaciated but wearing the furs of kings, the Dûnyain chiselled the sorcerous runes from the walls and burned the Grand Vizier’s books. The jewels, the chalcedony, the silk and cloth-of-gold, they buried with the corpses of a dynasty.

>And the world forgot them for two thousand years.

>The Kay connection deserves elaboration: any knowledgeable reader who grabs the introductory part of the Prince of Nothing saga will notice that Bakker’s perhaps closest literary relation is bestselling fantasist and world-class hack Guy Gavriel Kay. This is not because they both write historically-inspired fantasy, but because they write in a strikingly similar manner. Kay has a certain set of “Kayisms” that he recycles in all of his novels. One has already been mentioned above), and another is philosophizing about certain classes or types of people. At times one suspects that principal characters such as the sad wizard Drusus Achaemenes and his prostitute lover Esmeralda (‘whore’ is a word of marked prolificacy in the novel) were ghost-written by Kay. The first chapters of Kay’s The Last Light of the Sun and Bakker’s novel make for an illuminating comparison:

>>9847234
Kay, in The Last Light of the Sun:

>Firaz ibn Bakir, merchant of Fezana, deliberately embodying in his brightly coloured silks (not nearly warm enough in the cutting wind) the glorious Khalifate of Al-Rassan, could not help but see this delay as yet another trial imposed upon him for transgressions in a less than virtuous life.

>It was hard for a merchant to live virtuously. Partners demanded profit, and profit was difficult to come by if one piously ignored the needs—and opportunities—of the world of the flesh. The asceticism of a desert zealot was not, ibn Bakir had long since decided, for him.
>[...]
>Here in the remote, pagan north, at this windscoured island market of Rabady, he was anxious to begin trading his leather and cloth and spices and bladed weapons for furs and amber and salt and heavy barrels of dried cod (to sell in Ferrieres on the way home)—and to take immediate leave of these barbarian Erlings, who stank of fish and beer and bear grease, who could kill a man in a bargaining over prices, and who burned their leaders—savages that they were—on ships among their belongings when they died.

Bakker, in The Darkness that Comes Before, posted:

>All spies obsessed over their information. It was a game they played in the moments before sleep or even during nervous gaps in conversation. A spy would look at his informant, as Achamian looked at Geshrunni now, and ask himself, How much does he know?
>[...]
>Until coming to the Holy Leper, Achamian had never liked the Ainoni, especially those from Carythusal. Like most in the Three Seas, he thought them vain and effeminate: too much oil in their beards, too fond of irony and cosmetics, too reckless in sexual habits. But this estimation had changed after the endless hours he’d spent waiting for Geshrunni to arrive. The subtlety of character and taste that afflicted only the highest castes of other nations, he realized, was a rampant fever among these people, infecting even low-caste freemen and slaves. He had always thought High Ainon a nation of libertines and petty conspirators; that this made them a nation of kindred spirits was something he never had imagined.

>>9847239
Here one can observe the genre preoccupation with “world-building,” and making it feel “natural”. Even Kay defaults to it, despite ostensibly writing about real cultures under different names! Yet another Kayism not foreign to Bakker is the need to underline the meaning and significance of events and portents, which always conveys a sense of desperation on the author’s part:

Kay, in The Last Light of the Sun:

>In all of us, fear and memory interweave in complex, changing ways. Sometimes it is the thing unseen that will linger and appall long afterwards. Sliding into dreams from the blurred borders of awareness, or emerging, perhaps, when we stand alone, on first waking, at the fence of a farmyard or the perimeter of an encampment in that misty hour when the idea of morning is not quite incarnate in the east. Or it can assail us like a blow in the bright shimmer of a crowded market at midday. We do not ever move entirely beyond what has brought us mortal terror.

>Prince Alun would never know it, for it was not a thing that could be shared in words, but the image, the aura he had in his mind as he sank to his knees, was exactly what Thorkell Einarson apprehended within himself [...].


Bakker, in The Darkness that Comes Before:

>Some events mark us so deeply that they find more force of presence in their aftermath than in their occurrence. They are moments that rankle at becoming past, and so remain contemporaries of our beating hearts. Some events are not remembered–they are relived.

>The death of Cnaiür’s father, Skiöthe, was such an event.

Both Bakker and Kay are admittedly absorbing writers in spite of their faults, or perhaps because of them. They have their differences, and the deciding one is that Kay acts out the role of pop historian with many of his novels – fascinated by the peculiarity and vitality of the past and its inhabitants – while Bakker writes like a sadist and nihilist. Kay’s adoration of common people and lionization of Great Men is offensive for its patronizing nature, but there are worse things. Kay writes badly but not unpleasantly. Bakker writes badly and unpleasantly. The bleakness of his story does not make it more truthful or insightful. His exploration of the fanatical vainglory of the First Crusade is rather perfunctory, despite occupying so much time.

Peter Watts

>>9847242
>“But prayers,” Proyas continued, “are never enough, are they? Something will happen, some treachery or small atrocity, and my heart will cry, ‘Fie on this! Damn them all!’ And do you know what, Achamian? It’s a possibility that saves me, that drives me to continue. What if? I ask myself. What if this Holy War was in fact divine, a good in and of itself? [...] Is that so hard to believe`?—that despite men and their rutting ambition, this one thing, this Holy War, could be good for its own sake? If it is impossible, Achamian, then my life has as little meaning as yours...”

>“No,” Achamian said, unable to muzzle his anger, “it’s not impossible.”

Some might defend Bakker on the basis of his academic credentials, but Bakker does not write The Darkness that Comes Before like a philosopher. Philosophy is to Prince of Nothing much like science is to speculative fiction: not a tool for understanding, but an aesthetic. Aristotle, among others, is repurposed and renamed for “world-building” purposes. Bakker does not have any philosophical treatise or thesis to propose, and covers for a lack of profundity in his novel with sheer volume. In the 600-page long first part of what will at least be a septology, Bakker introduces an army of figures, factions, metaphysical concepts, and faux-Tolkien names, yet has very little of interest to say. Clevin. Mostly he offers observations of stereotypes (“Whores sell themselves,” the wizard says, nodding sagely, “and you must be the whore when the time comes”), and rebrands medieval history while genre bullshit works at the margins (“A memorable challenge!” the villain of the prologue croaks, channelling the spirits of a thousand stock baddies).

Bakker has one trick as a writer: overwhelming readers with a sense of doom and gloom. The dread of his world has superficial appeal that does not stand up to a critical eye. It is a psychologically and aesthetically sterile domain, and one seen begins to long for the levity of a postcolonial novel. His “philosophical” fiction does not teach. Umberto Eco immediately comes to mind as a legitimate alternative in the field of fiction – the abbey of The Name of the Rose is small compared to the Three Seas, but is at the centre of a vast mental universe. It is also written as to imitate pre-modern literature, despite its many compromises with the demands of modern novels, in contrast to Bakker’s banal and patronizing prose. Bakker’s novel cannot reach the expansive, speculative reaches of philosophy – even Kay breezes past him. The Darkness that Comes Before sinks for its baggage.

That comparison to visual novels is more felicitous than it seems: R. Scott Bakker’s Darkness that Comes Before is on the level of a Type-Moon production.

>>9847250
This was random, but okay. It seems like the author has a problem with genre fiction in general.

>>9845718
I also felt that the convergence should've included more players (gods/ascendants, maybe the Skinner's Crimson Guard fellas or Kallor, though their absence may indicate betrayal I suppose), or that DOD+TCG should've included a couple of more storylines, but in retrospect I don't know which I'm missing.

Any obscure sci-fi series you'd recommend to someone who likes sci-fi with focus on military and/or politics/diplomacy? I think i've read most of the usual suspects so looking for something off the beaten patch.

>>9847807
Diplomacy -- Maybe the Retief novels by Keith Laumer? I haven't read them but they're what he's best known for and they were popular back in the day.

>>9847824
Thanks, tho it appears a bit more comedic than I like I'll check it out.

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>>9847249

>>9847950
If anon mentions that they are a pleb:
Lightbringers, The Stormlight Archive, Gentlemen Bastard, The Shadow of What Was Once Lost

If anon mentions they like classics:
PKD, Asimov, Zelazny, Vance, Wolfe, Wilde, Orwell, (Gibson)

If anon mentions they like humorous things:
Hitchiker's Guide to Everything

If anon wants poetry:
Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost

If anon is /pol/shit:
Heinlein, Harlan Ellison

If anon is assumed to be a person of good taste
Watts, Dan Simmons, Strugatskys, Stanislaw Lem, Guy Gavriel Kay, Daniel Abraham (Long Price Quartet, Dagger and Coin), Kurt Vonnegut, Cixin Liu, Ada Palmer

Free space (Fantasy): The Broken Earth, Coldfire Trilogy, Fevre Dream (vampires)

If anon mentions looking for 'unknown books': Tide Lords, Bradley P. Beaulieu

Free space (Science Fiction): Aldiss short stories, Flowers for Algernon, Clarke short stories, Shades of Grey (Fforde), The Stars My Destination, Dangerous Visions + sequel, The Forever War

If anon has no more books to read: /lit/erally bindipping on goodreads

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HAVE YOU WORSHIPPED YOUR LORD AND SAVIOUR TODAY?

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>>9848009
it's unironically a beautiful thing sharing this general with you anon

god bless you

>>9848009
>The Shadow of What Was Once Lost
cheers for the recc

>>9848023
I still need more good books ;_;

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>>9848009
>good taste
>Simmons
>that entire Hyperion Cantos
NANOMACHINES, SON

>>9848058
Fuck off. I was reccing that on my chart for years and you still didn't read it. Kys

>>9848009
>Watts, Dan Simmons, Guy Gavriel Kay, Daniel Abraham (Long Price Quartet, Dagger and Coin), Cixin Liu, Ada Palmer
>putting the Strugatskys brothers, Stanislaw Lem, and Kurt Vonnegut with those hacks
Get rekt'd

>>9848011
See
>>9845350
>>9845521

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>It's a Lovecraft meets a strange man episode

The Picture In The House, Cool Air, The Music Of Erich Zann, Pickman's Model, all comfy.

>>9845412
She has repressed memories of interacting with Pattern from her youth and using his shardblade form to kill her mother in self defense. Perhaps the necessity of the moment allowed these memories to, in part, return to her as if it had always been there, and therefor summoning her shardblade felt familiar

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I get that this has probably been asked a billion times, but after reading The Stormlight Archive and proceeding to learn online about the Cosmere and the Sandersonverse I now want to get into his other books. But where do I start?

>>9847222
>>9847227
>>9847230
>>9847234
>>9847239
>>9847242
>>9847250
Shit nigga this anal-lysis is longer than Unholy Consult

What makes prose bad?

>>9848009
I put the second book of Dagger and Coin down and never finished the series. I found the characters to be either totally unsympathetic and/or trite, and the plot didn't really grip me.

Is that other series of his better?

>>9848009
why are there only jewish authors in your good taste section, plus one token asian

>>9844739
I got about halfway through Delany's Triton, some parts were cool but it was a little too weird for me.

>>9848603
Ashkenazi Jews excel at language.

t. race realist

>>9845375
>Edgedancers

Heh

I just bought The Lions of Al-Rassan. Did I make a mistake or is the book actually good?

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>>9848009
> The Stormlight Archive, Gentlemen Bastard
Is they really THAT bad? We have cool editions in Russia that cost like $6 and wanted to pick up them some day.

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>>9848793
> Is
Are

>>9848793
they are just fine chuvak

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Bakker

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read this after it was mentioned a few threads ago
might be the worst fantasy book I've ever read

>nonexistent plot
>protagonist is literally autistic, rest of characters are forgettable cliches
>magic school used only as exposition for shitty magic system
>3/4 of the book is an info dump
>"twists" that make zero sense

felt like i was reading a half-assed fanfic

>>9848984
good summation anon

my favourite bit was when the protag invented a device to measure magic levels so that the rest of the novel had constant asides where you were told he had 22/48 magic left, or that he had levelled up and now had a max magic of 54

>>9849012
so its basically a videogame

>>9849025
yeah with a touch of anime

>>9849012
expected it to be a lit version of an rpg going in so that wasn't too much of a surprise

was just amazed at how poorly done everything was

give me a fantasy with detailed sex scenes /lit/

>>9848878

Maithanet's a big guy

>>9848984
I read Forging Divinity a while back and thought it was pretty decent for self-published fantasy, seems that lightning didn't strike twice for this author.

>>9844642
> https://imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21326.jpg
> Ursula K. Le Guin – Lathe of Heaven

I picked up A Wizard of Earthsea on a whim because it is fairly archetypical for the genre and I like familiarising myself with the classics of science fiction and fantasy, but the prose of Ursula K. Le Guin struck me as overly dry and matter-of-factly. Now I know that this work was intended as young adult literature, so that might skew things somewhat, but is all her prose like that?

i want to get into Robert A. Heinlein what is a good start?

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>>9847227
>Anälsybarite Killhöuse

>>9849285
If you 15 or older just don't start at all.

>>9849310
wow thanks buddy, really helped me, now fuck off

>>9849285
Why not start with any of his so-named 'Juvenile' novels (i.e., some of his earlier work) such as Starship Troopers, Space Cadet, Starman Jones, etc. These are nice to get a feel for science fiction typical of that era. Easy to get into as well (but be keep in mind that they were written some six decades ago). Also, any short story collection.

Two novels that most Heinlein fans consider 'must-reads' are The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land. Be sure to get these at some point if you enjoy his early work.

>>9849325
wiki says that The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and The Rolling Stones share some characters, do i have to read The Rolling Stones first ?

>>9849340
Not at all, it stands very well on its own. Some of the characters show up in his later Future Worlds series as well, but whether you like these later works or not is very personal; they lack the broad appeal his other work enjoys.

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>>9849364
thanks, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress it is.

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Who would you want to finish ASOIAF?
Erikson imho, though I haven't really read any other fantasy authors.
Please don't sperg out about authors.

GRRM wrote recently that
>No publication date has been set yet, but it's likely that we will get the first volume of FIRE AND BLOOD out in late 2018 or early 2019. The second volume, which will carry the history from Aegon III up to Robert's Rebellion, is largely unwritten, so that one will be a few more years in coming.

>And, yes, I know you all want to know about THE WINDS OF WINTER too. I've seen some truly weird reports about WOW on the internet of late, by 'journalists' who make their stories up out of whole cloth. I don't know which story is more absurd, the one that says the book is finished and I've been sitting on it for some nefarious reason, or the one that says I have no pages. Both 'reports' are equally false and equally moronic. I am still working on it, I am still months away (how many? good question), I still have good days and bad days, and that's all I care to say. Whether WINDS or the first volume of FIRE AND BLOOD will be the first to hit the bookstores is hard to say at this juncture, but I do think you will have a Westeros book from me in 2018... and who knows, maybe two. A boy can dream...

>>9848009
This is actually a quite nice list.

>/pol/shit
>heinlein
Does this imply that he's a nazi or that he writes politically?

>>9849377
>rocket
>launched towards earth
>it's literally a plot point that there's no space ship on the moon

>>9848878
>the Russian cover art is a thousand times better than the generic shit the original version gets
why?

>>9849183
Was killing Inrilatas part of his plan?

>>9848984
>>protagonist is literally autistic,
You know in the hands of a good author that could actually be interesting.

>>9849089
A Dance With Dragons. Have fun.

>>9849538
>Who would you want to finish ASOIAF?
No one. Let it rot as a monument to the fat man's hubris.

>>9848009
>>9849633
>/pol/
Heinlein is a libertarian and it definitely shows in his work, even his YA stuff.

I'm far less familiar with Harlan Ellison's writing but I'm not surprised he's in the /pol/ category.

>>9849785
>Heinlein is a libertarian
Yeah I know. But since when is /pol/ associated with libertarianism?

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>>9849815
In the early days it had a strong libertarian contingent, thus the Doom Paul memes. Those days are long past though.

>>9848009
>If anon is /pol/shit:
>Heinlein

Heinlein is a meme, Starship Troopers isn't even really reactionary and his autistic obsession with nudism becomes grating very quickly. Only plebs think he is /pol/-tier.

/pol/tricians read Lovecraft.

>>9849633
No he's not necessarily /pol/, but I think his writing is more likely to be inoffensive to /pol/ so it's in that category.

>>9849633

Farnham's Freehold is literally We Wuz Kangz in da Future Nigga. The protag desperately tries to sell his daughter to their negro manservant before they even come into contact with the Negusian Empire and are forced to join the ranks of the white slave population in a scene reminiscent of Planet of the Apes. Heinlein was really ahead of his time.

Frank Herbert, Aldous Huxley, Phillip K. Dick, and Tolkien have more to offer the discerning /pol/ack.

>>9850049

Generally just going further back chronologically will necessarily result in less Bakkerian degeneracy, 70s/80s/90s milscifi radical feminism, 50s/60s pomo nihilist secularism, etc. The Island of Dr. Moreau is probably the most /pol/ sffg story I can think of, outside Lovecraft or Howard. Reactionaries generally seem less inclined to use art as a medium for hamfisted political preaching, so literary political incorrectness is most often accidental or just expressing views that were taken for granted in the author's time and place.

Even ASoIaF was less degenerate in GoT (mid 90s) than DwD (2010?). Gurm started out being edgy and now has to play catch up with how far the show has pushed the degeneracy he gave them to play with. I feel like all these dumb torture and gay-rape-centric fantasy series I see memed in here are really a response to ASoIaF, a phenomenon witnessed in it's purest form within Cuck Lawrence's Prince of Edges

>>9850128
>tfw Bakker pissed off the feminists and turned into a bitter husk due the to rejection of his own kind
How does /pol/ feel about that?

>>9850128
>Generally just going further back chronologically
Exactly

>>9848009
>If anon is /pol/shit:
>Harlan Ellison
I thought /pol/ hated leftys?

>>9850159

It's a pretty common phenomenon across all media of entertainment, actually, so it doesn't surprise me. Pushing against the extant boundaries of morality while simultaneously enforcing your own new ones is an inherently contradictory impulse, which inevitably results in friction and conflict turned inward. It's almost impossible to satisfy everyone or even a majority in such a fractious group, which is why the smartest move is not to try.

>>9849785
Ellison is a walking Jewish stereotype, I don't see how that's /pol/ except ironically.

>>9849538
>I don't know which story is more absurd, the one that says the book is finished and I've been sitting on it for some nefarious reason, or the one that says I have no pages. Both 'reports' are equally false and equally moronic.
the actual reason is that he's written himself into a corner and has too many plot threads to resolve in two books, and he doesn't actually know how to proceed or tie up those threads satisfactorily.

>>9849538
>I do think you will have a Westeros book from me in 2018... and who knows, maybe two. A boy can dream...

FUCK YOU, FAT MAN

FUCK YOOOUUUUUUUUUU

Lord of the Ice Garden is incredible Sci-Fi but it'll never be translated into English because Polish publishers cannot into money (until a studio starts making video games out of the books 20 years later).

>>9848580
Bad according to who?

>Suddenly we abandon all the old characters and spend an entire book in Lether, in a place so remote to the rest of the series it might as well be set in another world
>It's the best book so far
Is this the pinnacle of Malazan or does it keep getting better?

>>9850246
Ellison is black pill.

>>9850392
Also, Tehol Beddict is the best.
He's going to die, isn't he?

>>9850360
Is there not an objective measure of quality?

>>9848580
Contradictions, tautologies, excessive repetition, cliches, clumsy syntax, spelling errors, bad punctuation, overly frequent perspective shifts, tonal inconsistencies, plot holes, dead ends.

Worst prose I've read by a published writer is Night Land by W.H. Hodgson, and then Frank Herbert's Dune.

The best prose writers in SFFG - sometimes I think JG Ballard (his icily detached narrators can pull a reader in) Jack Vance (wry, picturesque, sometimes witty like Wodehouse) and Clark Ashton Smith (weird and morbid as fuck while still being intriguing and exotic.)

>>9850471
>aesthetics
>objective
Are you perhaps autistic?

>>9850588
>cliches
Pretty much the only correct thing in your post. And even then I would only say in 99% of cases only. Everything else depends on the case. Great writers frequently break almost every rule you posted, with the exception of cliches which are one of the few near-universal things good writers avoid.

>>9850588
>Contradictions, tautologies, excessive repetition, cliches, clumsy syntax, spelling errors, bad punctuation, overly frequent perspective shifts, tonal inconsistencies, plot holes, dead ends.
A bunch of those do not have anything to do with prose and the remainder are not necessarily bad.

>>9850635
>>9850640
Ah, here we have a couple of anons who would seem to know better than me. >>9848580 Please have the floor now, and come up with a better list of bad prose elements. Apparently things like word order and redundancy aren't in there.

>>9850588
I agree with Night Land but I don't understand the incredible hate for Dune's prose. What was so bad about it? This is a serious question; I read it years ago as a teenager so maybe I just had bad taste but it really did not leave a strong negative impression the way Night Land or some other books did.

>>9850657
It's entirely a matter of opinion. Aesthetics is not objective, anyone who claims to tell you "objectively" what is good or bad prose is full of shit. Great writing is writing that is suited perfectly to its task. If a writer needs to repeat something excessively or misspell words or use broken grammar to get the point across, he will. If that's what it takes. Saying that these things categorically mean bad prose just shows your ignorance.

You can only at best claim that some things are generally indicative of bad prose for most people. Grammatical errors and misspellings are technical and conventional flaws that need a good reason to exist in someone's writing, but at a professional level it's pretty rare to see conventional and technical flaws of that kind be at all prevalent. Usually if you have a professionally edited and published work of fiction and it is riddled with broken grammar and misspelled words, it was made that way intentionally by everyone involved in the book's creation.

>>9850622
People keep telling me stuff is objectively bad what am I supposed to think

>>9850657
I do agree that cliche is the cardinal sin of prose. In fact I don't think there's much question.

The other elements I think are the prosaic equivalent of poetic meter. A good poet doesn't have to adhere strictly to his meter, but when he departs from it he should be doing so deliberately to create a specific effect and the manner in which he does it should demonstrate his mastery of the form.

Note that overdone subversions of convention are themselves cliches.

>>9850662

Dune's frequent perspective shifts and internal thoughts during dialogues is jarring. The rest of the prose has a leaden feeling. I found the whole book unexciting - for a book about betrayal, coming of age, and divine actualisation, I think it's ho-hum and nor earthy or transcendental enough.

To an extent it's a matter of taste. Good and enjoyable books can also have unremarkable or bad prose if the plotting and imagination is good, and WH Hodgson is a case of this, PKD as well.

>>9848580
Just read and practice more to develop your own sensibilites. People will say literally anything about the topic of prose.

>>9850675
>>9850682
Yes, I'm working on a 'more often than not' basis with my suggested aspects of bad prose. Good writers can break the rules just like good musicians can subvert music theory - the key is to only commit these writing sins mindfully, for a deliberate effect in service of an intended tone/rhythm. I stand by my list >>9850588 as a set of guidelines for a matter which is quite nebulous.

By the by, I like the way Brandon Sanderson conceives as prose as a 'box' for the plot.

dune was absolutely shit

On that note, is there any good SF poetry? I liked this https://davidcollard.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/the-retired-spaceman/

I've also heard of Aniara, although it's in Swedish and I don't know whether the translation is any good.

Anybody else here /drug/

Currently smashed offmy tits with K and I am loving Book of rhe New Sun

>>9850681
They are probably just snobs/pseuds.

>>9850720
>I stand by my list >>9850588 as a set of guidelines for a matter which is quite nebulous.
It still stands that some of that list have nothing to do with prose. Specifically
>contradictions, tautologies, plot holes, dead ends
Are structural problems, not prose problems. A person could have immaculate, inventive prose and still have these problems with his story. Prose is the medium in which an author works, while those things I pointed out are more on the content side.

>>9849538
The amount of time he's taken to write a series that peaks at 'pretty good' is astonishing. You'd think he was writing the Neo Testament or something.

>>9845804
>The Wheel of Time is one of the least "anime" fantasy series there is, m8'

>eastern weapons
>eastern symbols
>harems
>everyone in love with the MC for no reason
uhhh anon

>>9850392
Reaper's Gale and Toll the Hounds are arguably the best books in the series, but then it starts getting slow as hell in Dust of Dreams and The Crippled God.

>>9850329
Tell your publishers to translate the Moon Trilogy. I saw On the Silver Globe and now I want to read them.

>>9850588
>W.H. Hodgson
“This to be Love, that your spirit to live in a natural holiness with the Beloved, and your bodies to be a sweet and natural delight that shall be never lost of a lovely mystery… And shame to be unborn, and all things to go wholesome and proper, out of an utter greatness of understanding; and the Man to be an Hero and a Child before the Woman; and the Woman to be an Holy Light of the Spirit and an Utter Companion and in the same time a glad Possession unto the Man… And this doth be Human Love…”

I like it.

Should I read the Horus Heresy books?

>read one web novel
>can't stop
>fuck.jpg

>>9848984
Sounds like something I'd be interested in.

>>9849815
/pol/ has a pretty large libertarian user base anon.

>>9849815
It used to be, back when the board first got revived from /new/. The two most outspoken groups on /pol/ were the libertarians and the neo nazis, but most people didn't take the neo nazis very seriously. Fast forward several years and now /pol/ is basically just a campaign site for Donald Trump.

>>9849815
>But since when is /pol/ associated with libertarianism?
So you came here what, 2014 or later?

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>>9849706
Abercrombie

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>>9850329
We got russian translation in july this year ;^)
Pan-Slavism desu

>>9850727
>Aniara
Can't tell you about the translation but the original is literally amazing.

>>9850755
I felt that being drunk made BotNS more enjoyable.

What are some books that are basically just litfic in the future?

>>9851298
Fuck don't remind me man, it hurts, I genuinely miss it. But that's why this website is so great, cause it changes I guess. No one misses trollface and pedobear.

What do you think of Jack Vance?
What should I read by him? I read tales of a dying earth.

>>9851302
So you're saying that it's not accurate anymore?

>>9850755
Try The Mirrored Heavens series by David J. Williams. It's got some stuff about ayahuasca in it.

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Tell me /sffg/, if Peter Watts is so good, should I read Crysis: Legion?

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>>9851863
>NK Jemisin - Mass Effect: Initiation
>Peter Watts - Crysis: Legion
>Brandon Sanderson - Infinity Blade: Awakening and Infinity Blade: Redemption
I'm guessing that his sales aren't doing too hot.

>>9850755
>uses krocodile as a recreational drug

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>>9851521
>No one misses trollface and pedobear.
>implying
Speak for yourself newfag. When they are used people call you a newfag for using old memes. Aka new reddites call oldfags new for using old memes.

>>9844706
It's bad. Even for Abercrombie. But it's also short and the language is accessible (I feel like it was written with 12-15 year olds in mind), so it won't kill you to give it a shot.

When's the next Mistborn gonna land?

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>>9852326
I too miss the old memes. I'm going to post a .jpg of Pedobear right now in your honor.

>>9848878
>>9851415
who is this artist?

>>9851501
define 'litfic'. People tend to mean different things when they say that.

>>9851525
The followup stories are some of my favourites. Rather than being separate shorter stories Vance moves to the longer adventures of Cugel the Clever, my favourite pulp /sffg/ character by far.

>>9851415
>>9848793
>>9848878
This beats the generic book art of most British books, which are now mostly stock digital art and lettering. Of course, the land of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and long, cold tea-drinking nights would lavish detail on physical books. I bet their Strugatsky Bros books look good.

>>9852412
It included those. It was independent chapters, eyes of the overworld, cugel's saga, and rhialto.
Cugel's such an asshole.

>>9851443
I'm happy for you anon-blyat, but I still don't understand why those fuckers won't translate it to such a niche and limited language as English.

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Moorcock!

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Robert Heinlein

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...and Sapkowski haha. Yes, this is Dandelion.

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>>9852439

>>9852377
Not sure about first. Here's the second.
https://www.artstation.com/artist/artmage

>>9851863
They did the best they could with the story.
It's not Watts-core though

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>>9852446

>>9852425
>Cugel's such an asshole
But I still ended up rooting for him. Vance is cool like that. Cugel gets shit on so often and has to go so far but never stops driving towards that faggot Iucounu. 90% of the people on the Dying Earth also being assholes, only not always as clever as Cugel makes him easier to sympathize with too.

>>9852432
slav covers are lit-kino. Nobody in the US or Bongistan seems to remember how to draw, so all we get is minimalist hackwork or edgelords wearing black cloaks put together with Photoshop.

WHat is a better read the dune series or book of a new sun?

I want to get into a series

>>9852465
>minimalist hackwork
sometimes less is more, friend
plus they want you to buy entire collections like masterworks and thus by marketing a nice uniformity in the covers hope to induce further purchases

>>9852512
dune is a nice entry level book, rest of the series meanders
BotNS is a god-tier but pretty heavy stuff

>>9851143
Yes. they are pretty much fantasy in space the books. Prospero Burns is my favorite.

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>>9852439
Nearly every face here could be a reaction image.

So I decided to start reading the Culture series and I just finished Consider Phlebas. I didn't really like it. I found the world building and certain scenes to be quite good, but I felt the overarching plot and characters was a bit of a mess. Does the series pick up any after this book?

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>>9852577
>>9852439

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>>9852577
>>9852591

>>9851525
I've read Demon Princes (pulpier but still good) and Lyonesse (epic fantasy) as well as some of his short stories. All good.

I've heard good things about Araminra Station, Languages of Pao, To Live Forever, and Little Big Planet.

Heard Planet of Adventure is OK but second rate. Not sure about other works at all.

>>9852589
If you liked the world them definitely try another. Characters never really improve but the plotting and exposition of the setting do.

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>>9852366

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>>9851521
>>9852326
reminder that this is just the evolution of pedobear through meme magic

>>9852456
>dem Crinfrid Reavers

>>9852456
somebody needs to free those puppies

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>>9852761
Here's the original lest we forget

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if we're posting covers somebody needs to explain this monstrosity

>>9852761
There is literally no logical reason not to want the Consult to win in this series so why are they the bad guys again?

>>9852819

They're conspiring against the Gods behind their backs to avoid righteous judgment.

>>9852813
I think that thing is meant to be Mr Million but wow it's such a silly interpretation of what he/it is meant to look like

>>9852855
Yeah but it also saves all the people the Gods are damning just for shits and giggles.

>>9852855
>>9852876
Also some of the people in the Consult (Shauriatas, Mekeretrig) are only doing horrible things that lead to them being damned because they saw themselves being damned in the Inverse Fire. They were born to be damned. This is some fucked up Calvinist shit.

>>9852876

We don't know if it saves those who need to be removed to get to the magic number though. Nothing indicates it would.

>>9852888
"Those who meet Him go no further".
The Outside isn't permanently closed now but I do think it's at least cluttered.

>>9852859
>>9852813
At some point in the early 2000 it seems like everybody in scifi publishing decided that CGI poser art = science fiction, in part likely because it's cheaper than paying real artists to make actual paintings. And the author can have whatever they want on the cover which leads to stuff like John Ringo having Baen put 00s webcomic memes on the covers of his early books.

>>9852349
Response?

>>9852819
What book are you talking about?

>>9853081
Cannibal Holocaust by Rape Scott Bakker.

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Is Titus Groan really worth it?I'm about halfway through the first book and i gotta say its boring as shit.

Also i have never seen so many unlikable characters together in a book. Everyone is either half retarded or some supreme genius.

When does it get good?

>>9852326
Is that what really happened in Lolita? Or am I being memed?

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>>9853323
>Is Titus Groan really worth it?
>When does it get good?
Kek

>>9853323

Once Titus starts conspiring it becomes pretty fun but I found Gormenghast a little boring only because I fucking hated how much of a cunt Titus himself was.

>>9853509

Fuck I meant Steerpike.

I'm nearly done re-reading The Shadow of the Torturer, who was your favourite BOTNS waifu?

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>>9853524
>looking for (you)s
>here

>>9852349

We're all waiting bruh. I'm guessing after Oathbringer.

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>>9853600
>>9852349
>>9852948
When he released his two YA novels. MAYBE after that.

>>9852819
What book are you guy stalking about?

>>9853619
Boku no Gnosis

So I finished reading Neuromancer (no bully).

I found the portrayal of the cyberspace quite confusing. Previously I read Burning Chrome and the matrix there was described as something geometrical, bearing no lifelike form. The abstractness was easy to grasp. In Neuromancer however there seems to be a mix of everything, physical and abstract representation. The storytelling when both are in play is absolutely chaotic, hard to follow. Things I was imagining as abstract blobs turn out to be in physical shape of sorts in other parts.

3Janes' motivation seems very dubious, I would say badly written even. She is familiar with the characters for several hours at best, her compassion seems unfound, moreso foolish as she fails to see how her willing cooperation leads to an apparent downfall. She takes no step to verify the claims of eminent destruction. Everyone else is always on their toes, except this girl.

Wikipedia article says Gibson rewrote the first two-thirds of Neuromancer after seeing Bladerunner. Well he should've rewrote the rest too.

>>9852349
He's said October 2018 and Sanderson is usually pretty good at sticking to deadlines.

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Why did I read this? I picked it up when it was bored and I thought it couldn't be worse than Old Man's War but somehow Scalzi manages to be at his absolute worst here. How did this even get published?

>>9844642
Any books out there where the church is a super power and MC is either a deus vult crusader for the church or fighting against a corrupt church as a sort of freedom fighter

Or maybe just a heretic trying to live a peaceful life away from the church. Just anything where the church impacts the story greatly.

>>9853988
Read some Undying Mercenaries or Galaxy's Edge instead, bruh.

>>9854112
Second half of Hyperion Cantos

>>9844667
I hate you

>>9852326
The fuck are you talking about? Old memes are dog shit, thank god the 9fag army appropriated them and they made their way to your mom's facebook feed. been here since '09, it's not oldfag tier but I'd wager longer than 70% of the faggots currently on. And older than 95% of /pol/.

Been on an urban fantasy kick lately, Read sandman slim. dresden, and iron druid. Any recommendations in the similar vein?

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Does it improve? Just finished the sixth book.

It's pretty much the most recommended "Military fantasy" whenever I see someone asking for something like that..

Despite this is the battles are incredibly lacking in tactics and they feel poorly written.

I also dislike immensely how nonchalantly battles/main character deaths are handled. We basically had a guy built up for 3 books only to die in the most lackluster fight I have ever read.

I do like the main characters though. Well book six was based on Darling/Raven which I am not a fan off but the other side story of Smeds/Fish kept me going, they were incredibly ballsy.

>>9853524
>your favourite BOTNS waifu?

Has to be Dorcas 2bh

>>9854112
Book of the Long Sun, gotta read New Sun first but it's fantastic stuff.

>>9854480
Different anon, reading Long Sun now for the first time. The prose is so gorgeous. I love this:

>The first fury of the storm had passed off quickly, but it was still raining, a gentle pattering that settled like a benediction upon her struggling beds of kitchen herbs.
>We meet like lovers, Silk thought as he regained his balance and pushed aside the dripping foliage, and wondered for an instant whether she did not think the same.

>>9853726
I don't even think about character motivation with Gibson books and just drink in the aesthetic. He's a better painter than dramatist.

>>9854112
The Riyria books.

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>>9854390
Check male urban fantasy. I was just like you a few years ago.

>>9844667
>blindsight meme again
So is this 2017's House of Leaves? I mean I've read that thing and while it's good, it's not that damn good.

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>>9844855

After reading each book I read the relevant Wikipedia summary which clarified a lot for me.

Lastly I started taking brief notes which really augmented my comprehension of the books.

BotNS is gotta be my favorite book I've read Tbh.

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>>9845792

This seems far more contrarian than a strong argument anon.

The master of the universe is telling you a story of how he got there, the books are written as such.

When traveling I love hearing spoken stories and Wolfe does a great job of writing a character that is telling a story about how his life came to be as amazing as it is.

This 'too deep' shit your spouting is such shallow criticism in my opinion. It's not like Wolfe is preaching or even comes off as scornful in how dense his writing is.

You're put in the deep end of the world and just like Severian's exile into such a strange world. You have to swim through mixed understandings, adversity and find your own fulfillment.

I wholeheartedly disagree with what you're saying.

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>>9854966

>>9854390
Benedict Jacka, Alex Verus series, it has the best portrayal of a diviner/oracle/precog I've ever seen, as the MC no less.
Ben Aaronovich Rivers of London. Focuses more on the police side of stuff.
Simon R Greens Nightside and Secret Histories. Both series are in the same universe and the hidden world in both of those is much deeper and weirder than normal.
Steve McHugh Hellequin series is cool, having a powerful mage who had most of his power locked instead of a newwer mage getting into the big leagues like a lot of other UF protags.
Nicholas Olivo Caulborn series has a literal god as the MC. It starts rough but later he actually explains why the MC was so bloody stupid.
Charless Stross Laundry Files, mixes it up with spy work, which consists of 90% bureaucracy, and some of the most eldritch and horrific eldritch horror in the genre.
Larry Correia Monster Hunter International is about the mecenary company the government hies to go and kill mosnters. It's pure undiluted badassery and gun porn. /k/ would love this series. Butcher just wrote a short story on this verse.
Kate Griffin Matthew Swift series, is all about urban magic and symbols and stuff. It kinda reminds me a bit of how Gaiman usually writes magic.
This are my current cream of the crop along with Dresden and Sandman Slim. Haven't read Iron Druid but it's on my list.
If you've read those, or they don't interest you I can think of another dozen or two series that I could recommend.
I read an unhealty amount of UF.

>>9844684
This is what people who lack imagination say. I can think of so many things that can still be done and are still left unexplored in fantasy. By 2019, you'll see. I'm getting my shit published.

>>9844739

you'll either adore it or hate it. beware: violates one of the central tenets of a lot of sci-fi (i imagine Delany did this consciously), namely that it doesn't really have a plot. like, sure, you could define an arc around the Kid's book of poems getting published, but like a lot of the events it just sorta happens around him and he struggles to even slightly influence it.

i love it because of how it uses its setting (a city formerly of 2 million people stripped to 2 thousand, plus weird shit going on like street signs changing and inexplicable astronomical and weather events) to examine social interactions, from the mundane to the sexual to the political (to a point).

i say read the first part (about 55 pages), if that interested you keep at it. for a first time reader the third part, House of the Ax, will be the most difficult slog, but it gets more fun imo after that once the Kid joins the scorpions

Dahak by Weber or Troy Rising by Ringo?

If neither, I'd welcome alternative recommendations.

>>9850451
In the MBOTF world, everyone and anyone can die.
>>9850392
It keeps getting better, though I felt the ending was slightly underwhelming, for some reason.

Just read The Forever War. It was "meh". Best part was the hilarious ultra-degenerate Judge Dredd future Earth.
Are free-love, hippy commune, mixed sex soldiers a THING in scifi? Because I thought that was just Heinlein. Honestly, can anyone convince me that this WASN'T just Heinlein rewriting Starship Troopers under a pseudonym?

>>9855780
>Are free-love, hippy commune, mixed sex soldiers a THING in scifi?
Pretty common, yes. The explanation goes like this:

1. Humans gonna want to fuck
2. You can't fuck alien locals like you could human ones on long deployment on earth.
3. Ergo they are gonna fuck each other.
4. Better to provide rules on what not to do when doing so than trying to outlaw/prohibit it.

>>9855797
>1. Humans gonna want to fuck
fucking normies

What are some fantasy series with a non-normalfag protagonist

>>9855797
>2. You can't fuck alien locals like you could human ones on long deployment on earth.
try and stop me

any books where peaceful aliums sell their planet for trinkets to humans

red indians in space

>>9855780
>Best part was the hilarious ultra-degenerate Judge Dredd future Earth
This is true. Hard to believe that they cut it from the initial release. Coming back from Vietnam must have been the shittiest feeling in the world.

>>9854614
The presentaiton of low life high tech is really good, though I don't appreciate going too far into the future with outer space colonies, as at that point the cyberpunk aspect takes a nosedive. That's why I liked Burning Chrome more, it's more minimal, less ambitious or unrecognizable.

I think a somewhat missed out point about Neuromancer is how everything is interconnected and how that might hurt those who follow the naive wiredness. Society and even the people or machines that utilize the weaknesses of extreme wiredness don't seem to express any estimation of how they are sucessful thanks to that, everything seems so complacent. Maybe that's why the interpretations are muted when it comes to interconnectness, it's not signaled anyhow, probably except for that one microsoft vendor in the Memory Lane asking Molly to turn her remote viewing implants off.
Anyhow, the relevance and risks have a strong current day foothold as companies rush out products with internet connectivity without properly investigating how the devices might be utilized to remotely intrude upon owners or how said devices with little or no protection might be used for attacks large enough to cripple even the biggest internet providers.

How does one write a decent song in Fantasy?

>>9856463
learn poetry

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do you think if suddenly a massive archaeological discovery was made, I can't think of an example but let's say we always though the Romans worshipped Greek gods but then realised it was their own deities (a bad example but merely picture a revelation huge), it would significantly change fantasy?

Just like how the idea of humans living on Venus from the golden age disappeared as our knowledge of the planet grew, would discoveries into history alter our imagination and perception of fantasy? Or is fantasy too distant from the past, and instead a self-correct autonomous genre of fiction.

>>9856484
I think it's kinda both. That is to say that any such discover will sooner or later read to a number of fantasy books on the subject, quality, popularity and applicability of those works will then determine what, if any, influence it will have on the genre as a whole.

>>9856484
>is fantasy too distant from the past, and instead a self-correct autonomous genre of fiction.
I think a more interesting question would be if you asked a person learned of history but without any knowledge of fantasy, not even LotR, to write a fantasy book and see what they come up.

>>9856523
If they were still a decent writer then likely something interesting.

SFFfags have gotten too caught up on trope counting instead of what a work is actually saying. Thats why you get all these Tolkien clones without even a faction of the same level of "soul" to them. It's an empty shell with vague content.

>>9856061
>Coming back from Vietnam must have been the shittiest feeling in the world.
Can confirm. Veteran grandpa bitched about it all the time

>fight in horrible war
>win
>congress cuts funding to South Vietnam after you leave so it's all for nothing, they get reconquered
>think you can finally relax back home
>can't get a job, everyone in Cali thinks you're a baby-murderer and hates you as soon as they find out you're a vet
>basically did all this to be the most overqualifed gas station attendant ever
Hippies are actually evil.

>>9856463
pls don't

>>9854409
Not every person dies in a grandiose fashion anon. I'd say it's definitely worth reading to the end. But if you find yourself hating the battles and deaths, then perhaps you should find other military fantasy. It's apparently greatly loved in the army due to the characters.

I also just finished Dune myself. I think that I love the universe Herbert sets up more than I do the characters. Specifically before and during Muad'Dib. I can definitely see why people think Paul is a Mary Sue, but I feel the Fremen are a bit worse in that regard.

I did enjoy the first real fight Paul got into and the emotional trauma he suffered as a result. I'm probably gonna continue with Messiah and may head up to God Emperor.

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what's a book which shows a real Star War

>>9856722
Blindsight

>>9856722
>Star War
Depends on what aspect of warfare you are interested in, fleet, land, politics, economics, espionage, mixed or something else entirely. If you'd like something generic Foundation is always there for your inconvenience, forever war/starship troopers too.

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>chronologically working my way through the entirety of Lovecraft
>hear The White Ship is one of his throwaway stuff you can skip
>read it anyway
>it's a beautiful depiction of tranquil yet flamboyant scenery where eternal life is alluring, and with a classic moral everyone can relate to

>realize I want more literary, cheesy, transcendent comfiness in my life

Everyone likes his monsters more, while I prefer his dream stuff. It's weirdly soothing. Even the racism is less offensive.

>>9856733
Sounds like a good start, thanks.

>>9855927
I'll be done with it in a decade. My magnum opus which consists of a cast of nothing but schizoid aromantics that will beg the question:

"Does it really matter if a race of hairless apes go extinct in the grand scheme of the universe?"

>>9857067
I would read that

Any fantasy novels with giant girls? I want to see it outside of fetish fanfics.

>>9857391
botns

I'm trying to quick buy The Three Body Problem on kindle while on vacation but it seems to be unavailable? Even though I downloaded the sample? Anybody know why?

>>9857454
Is that actually true?

>>9857487
very

>>9857498
How do I verify you aren't lying to me?

>>9857520
i have just finished Claw of Conciliator
I can't comment on how common big gals are in the next two but man there was certainly a big one in this one

>>9857525
Okay, I'll take your word for it. I've been meaning to read those books as it is. Thanks.

>>9857487
>>9857498
>>9857520
Can confirm it is true.

Actually it's worth bringing up as I just finished Claw of the Conc.

I'm fully aware that this is a story set millennia after the present day, but just how "futuristic" is the future which Wolfe imagines, that is the say, the past in the book. Is BotNS just telling of a future many millions of years after a "future" based off the sci-fi golden age etc? With many human-like aliens and cliche Asimov-esc Robots and laser pistols etc etc? Or should I think harder and try and guess of a future still to come very independent of sci-fi trends of Wolfe?

Am I thinking too hard?

I've been putting off reading Ender's Game for various reasons and I'm thinking of finally reading it, but what concerns me is that by now it can probably never live up to my expectations.

Is it good? Is it actually an interesting and pleasant read or is it just over hyped exercise in questionable parenting?

>>9857674
It's a good science fiction novel, and if nothing else you'll come out of it pretty satisfied by that.
Where it's strengths lie are in that it's a tremendous book on the young, their relationships, and general schoolyard politics. It's also phenomenal military leadership allegorical fiction. I read somewhere it was used by real drill sergents or leadership camps for instruction, and I believe it.

I read it admittedly when I was a little younger but I can't think of a reason it won't hold up if you're an older reader.

>>9857718
I guess I'll stop meandering and read it than, thanks for your input.

>>9857674
I liked it a lot but that's definitely the problem with popular books. You go in expecting too much so anything less than perfection disappoints you. Still, I think you should definitely give it a try.

If, at worst, you end up not liking it, you can still go on to Speaker for the Dead, which nobody ever talks about but IMO is even better (and thankfully will never be disgraced with a film adaptation). And then you might end up liking it more since you haven't overhyped it.

>>9857626
> Is BotNS just telling of a future many millions of years after a "future" based off the sci-fi golden age etc? With many human-like aliens and cliche Asimov-esc Robots and laser pistols etc etc? Or should I think harder and try and guess of a future still to come very independent of sci-fi trends of Wolfe?

Wolfe's "future" (which is the past for Severian) has its own structure and events. Some of the technologies are reminiscent of "golden age sci-fi" only in the broadest sense, they're very much Wolfean creations. You will meet more sci-fi ideas in the latter two volumes of BotNS and understand what I mean.

In any case, it's not spoiling anything to tell you that in Wolfe's "future", humanity was bold and space-faring. In Severian's time this is no longer the case, things have regressed. Why is that. You'll learn more about all this as you read more of the story.

It's fascinating but, reader, it is no easy road.

>>9857487
It's true but BotNS is not a giant girl book. A giant girl appear in a couple of chapters.

>>9854694
Any of them actually non shit?
Just finished the Dresden files entire series.
It was fucking garbage, i must have read it since i have some brain damage and couldnt stop. But to be fair it was good early on, but fuck me, the last few book reach some new levels of incoherent contradictionary world building that only the blindest of fanboys could swallow.

I happen to have finished the first Dresden Files book today. Overall quite underwhelming, not the earth shaker that a five star Goodreads rating from Mr Rothfuss might suggest. I'll elaborate when there is a new thread.

>>9857559
>>9857773
That's okay, I'll take what I can get and it's not like that's my sole interest in the book. Thanks for confirming. Although I have to ask, is she pretty?

>>9844706
Its derivative, 'babbys first fantasy' type shit and worst of all, it's overhyped

>>9857857
few later ones are pretty good, the first one has serious problems,but the series goes downhill quite fast
with 15 main entries and 14 short stories it would be hard to imagine that its case of quantity over quality, which it is

the last few books make almost completely no sense, with Dresden actually being killed off, permanently, in what must have been a moment of self awareness by the author, only until his editor must have called and he brought him back to life.. as a ghost... and then just as a normal person and every side character pretends it never happened
quite sad actually to see in what state the series is now

>>9844706
Kingkiller Chronicle is one of the books people always shit on in this thread, how can you seriously have missed that?

I haven't read it but from what I've seen it has good prose but not so good plot decisions.

>>9857867
She's mesmerizing.

>>9857899
This reminds me of the situation with Judge Dredd and 2000AD comics. The publisher would never allow the creator to kill his creation because he's the golden goose. Also Conan Doyle having to revive Sherlock Holmes.

>>9857907
If anything it lacks a premise.
It starts off in this apocalyptic horror like setting, ten it promises you a epic story of a killer of angels/gods or what ever, a legendary man know everywhere, and then it suddenly its a Harry Potter rip off.
Like unapologetic shameless rip off with Hogwarts the magic school 1to1 clone, Dumbledore 1to1 clone, tackled on 2 friends and our chosen one boy, Harry, i mean Kvothe.

And im, actually fine with that, thats until the sequel.
First pages in it goes " ok fuck Hogwarts, its an porn book now and its about how Kvothe fucks everything he can and kills what he cant. the last like 1/5 of the book is just him forgetting about his previous life and having sex every day, then it ends.
I guess its one way to please the fans, but who the fuck changes the genre in middle of the trilogy and bums up the series few ratings up.

>>9857974
>I guess its one way to please the fans, but who the fuck changes the genre in middle of the trilogy and bums up the series few ratings up.
Nisio Isin did that with Medaka Box and that saved it from failing so sometimes it works.

>>9857974
The thing about those books is that they're incredibly dense with foreshadowing and allusions. Seroiusly, it's ridiculous how much backstory/setting details/futere events/etc he crams in without ever directly saying anything. It's one of those "all about the payoff" stories. If the final books slots neatly into all the cracks, and all the puzzles, riddles, insinuations, and hints line up and become important, it'll be a masterpiece. On the other hand, if the third book is shit it retoractively makes the other two kinda shit because most of them is basically hype for the ending.
Basically, read the first two books like the first two acts in a greek tragedy. They're about why the MC is about to get royally, massively, unavoidably cocked due to his own faults. It'll be probably my top fantasy series bar none if it manages to stick the landing, and just another dissapointment in the pile if it doesn't.

Btw, that's why it's taking so long. Rothfuss know that he's on the line right now. He could become the next BIG THING, or he could crash and burn, and it all depends on the last book. There's no helping that he's hesitating to risk his current semi-popularity.

>>9853323
Yes, absolutely. The ending is literally some of the most kino shit I have ever read.

>that prose