Recommended reading charts. (Look here before asking for vague recs)https://mega.nz/folder/kj5hWI6J#0cyw0-ZdvZKOJW3fPI6RfQ/folder/4rAmSZxb>Archive:https://warosu.org/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=sffg>Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1029811-sffg>Previous:>>24740180>Thread Question:For all of you who fell out of genre literature. What brought you back?
The Fisherman is one of the only books I’ve read in the past couple years. It was pretty good
>>24753638Unironically Sanderson. I fell out of reading for a bit and a friend recommended me Way of Kings. I enjoyed it and used it as a springboard into more fantasy and been reading constantly for 2 years
>>24753638SOON
>>24753650>unironicallythis word should be banned on /lit/
>>24753638I'm still on the outs. Modern fantasy doesn't agree with me at all.
>>24753673you can choose between>litrpg blatant power fantasyor>waste of time chill fantasy
Is Dan Simmons jewish? The name sounds jewish and he's a supporter of the Israeli regime. He's also the typical american (((conservative))) type (i.e. pro-jew, anti-arab, pro-fags) and a true right-wing conservative.
>>24753638I was on into literary writers like Tolstoy, DFW, etc. before reading the arguments in Tolkien's essay on fairy stories, CS Lewis on scifi, some stuff about the history of fantasy, and Tom Shipley's various essays you can find on Academia.edu and in his books (on Tolkien and his one on scifi called Hard Reading) and came to consider genre writing to be superior to literary writing in general.
>>24753821>and came to consider genre writing to be superior to literary writing in general.
>>24753238I've only read Between Two Fires but really liked it. He's good at creating sympathetic characters, good interactions and creepy situations.
>>24753787>a true right-wing conservativeHe was liberal before 9/11. I remember him kvetching about Reagan in Carrion Comfort.
after three years, Blood Crest finally updated at the beginning of this month. Happy days!
>>24753638>still no symbaroum fiction
>>24753926>>24753365
Booklet here, seen the recommendations>"dark" serious story >story for children>sandersonIs there any series like the manga/anime Dungeon Meshi? Pleas dont say Sandrrson. Ever since I heard someone say he wrote courting in one book and dating in the next one I decided to never read one of his books.
>>24753779Good. Anything else is offensive
>>24753779>>waste of time chill fantasyAuthors behind these novels always seem to have watched too much slice-of-life anime.
someone in the last thread called me "gross" for reading Stormlight Archives and ASOIAFthere's nothing gross about ASOIAF, i've read the whole thing and it's great, but maybe Sanderson counts as gross? (i just started him, i don't mind reading slop as long as it has some autistic magic system for me to think about thoughever)i'm reading Mistborn and it's decently yummy for Sanderslop. my autistic trans friend recommended Sanderson to me
>>24754369>my autistic trans friend recommended Sanderson to meand that didn't trip any alarm bells for you?
Death begets death begets death
>>24754371Sanderson is just very readable because his prose is simple. He goes too far with it in latter books, though.
Tried reading picrel, but it just wasn't doing it for me. Two chapters in and already someone is getting doused in human waste. I'm just not in the whole "dark and gritty and miserable" setting for fantasy.
>>24754386did he really have no editor or will no one simply countermand him anymore?
>>24753638>tqas sad as it might sound, /sffg/ did
>>24754386>>24754369I really don't understand why people want to read easy slop with shit prose. It's upsetting
>>24754522>doused in human wasteWe gotta get scat fetishists out of fantasy, man. I'm all for dark fantasy, I think it's importance to balance beauty with horror, but bathing everything in piss isn't gritty or scary, it's just nasty.
>>24754384Imagine thinking this is a problem. Apollonius au Rath WILL unite the solar system.
>>24754079Why a story for children? Are you planning to read it to kids or do you have the mental age of one?
>>24754736Only thing Apollonius wants is to hatefuck Darrow
>>24754736I'm only on book 5, but it took me an embarsssingly long time to figure out the "au" in the Golds' names was from the periodic table. Likewise with ag for Silver and ti for Gray.
>>24754792I was the exact same and only realised it in Lightbringer. I thought it was a fancy way of saying ‘of’ eg Cassius of Bellona.
>>24754799Ah, and xe for Blue is probably Xenon isn't it
>>24754805Yeah. I think reds are the only ones that don’t have it? I wonder what it would be. Maybe Fe for Iron?
>>24754609Most Americans have a 6th grade-level reading skill. Ponder on that.
>>24754841Yeah, if you subtract all the non whites I'm sure. Makes you wonder who's often posting slop in these threads.
>>24754841Sure, but subtract the browns and it's probably a 10th grade level, competitive with anywhere
I genuinely kneelKinda mad at myself for putting it off for so long
>>24754736Critically under-discussed character, Apollonius second best boy
>>24755353The first book is the weakest of the 4(/5)
>>24755353it's ok bro. And all those that dismiss it know not what they do. Down with slop/ai/sanderson/litrpgs. Praise be to Christ and Wolfe.
>if the book follows the "A Box of Mac & Cheese" title format, it's garbage
>>24753638Just finished WoT. I do not expect this character ranking to be unique, but fuck it
>>24755457The second half of the first book is the weakest part of the series, the first half is great.
>>24755537>egwene>s tierI assume, going by her position as last in the tier, you moved her there from F tier at the last minute to bait (You)'s.
>>24755606No, I liked her. She was really only annoying to me in Towers of Midnight. I understand why people hate her though.
Also. Gathering Storm is at the top of my rankings because the ending is essentially this.
>>24755575I dnf'd after Severian got exiled, does it pick up after that? The stuff with Thecla was pretty great.
>>24753787he went down the modest republican to raging islamaphobe far right pipeline. he's super old so it's typical for someone like him who has hundreds of millions of book sales.
>>24755353I read the first two books earlier this year and kinda been putting off the latter two. That part in the Shadow of the Torturer where they're in the tree museum was kinda cool and it's stuck in my head since.
>>24754792It took me a while to realize it too but I was also listening to the audiobooks so at least I can use that as an excuse
>>24754079>Dungeon MeshiLiterally Sanderson. They both target the same audience of quirky redditors.
>>24755606I dont mind egwene because I never expect her to be rational. there are entire books where jordan uses dramatic irony to make her look stupid and self-assured and personally I found it hilarious. later on, some of that fades, and she gets into a position of power, but by that point I was rooting for her like a participant in the special olympics, or my little sister at a spelling bee against like four asians who were bullying her
*yanks braid*
>>24755909best girl. It took me far too long to see it, but she won me over.
>55 postsdang i gotta be faster next time. i have a surprise
>>24755849The second half is brutal and why Shadow and Claw should be read back to back or as one volume. Claw of the Conciliator is great and serves as an actual climax to Shadow of the Torturer.
>>24755537why did you whitewash the cast?
>>24756242do you think I drew all of this fanart, anon
>>24756288ok, why did the artist whitewash the cast?
>>24755353Who is Bygene Wolfe?
>>24756312who is whitewashed
>>24756312There are more blackwashed characters than whitewashed characters in that picture.
>>24756328ninaeve and perrin for exemple
>>24756343both white in the books
>>24756345This is not a nazi bar. Leave.
>>24756325
>>24756343Not this shit again.
>>24756356what is this
>>24756346It does not make sense to have random people of color in the secluded fantasy village, anon. especialy not when one is mixed, another is indian, another is white, etc
>>24756356>>24756373watch wot on prime, you both are ignorant
>>24756373>fantasy village>fantasy
>>24754148And are too cheap to hire a full time artist to make a webcomic apparently.
>>24756397>watch wot on primeno thank you
>>24753638Dresden Files got me back into genre fiction around two years ago. Need the new book to drop already
>>24755537Aviendha best girl
>>24755353>>24755457>>24755460>Overall, I found nothing unique in Wolfe. Perhaps it's because I've read quite a bit of odd fantasy; if all I read was mainstream stuff, then I'd surely find Wolfe unpredictable, since he is a step above them. But compared to Leiber, Howard, Dunsany, Eddison, Kipling, Haggard, Peake, Mieville, or Moorcock, Wolfe is nothing special.>Perhaps I just got my hopes up too high. I imagined something that might evoke Peake or Leiber (at his best), perhaps with a complexity and depth gesturing toward Milton or Ariosto. I could hardly imagine a better book than that, but even a book half that good would be a delight--or a book that was nothing like that, but was unpredictable and seductive in some other way.>I kept waiting for something to happen, but it never really did. It all plods along without much rise or fall, just the constant moving action to make us think something interesting is happening. I did find some promise, some moments that I would have loved to see the author explore, particularly those odd moments where Silver Age Sci Fi crept in, but each time he touched upon these, he would return immediately to the smallness of his plot and his annoying prick of a narrator. I never found the book to be difficult or complex, merely tiring. the unusual parts were evasive and vague, and the dull parts constant and repetitive.>The whole structure (or lack of it) does leave things up to interpretation, and perhaps that's what some readers find appealing: that they can superimpose their own thoughts and values onto the narrator, and onto the plot itself. But at that point, they don't like the book Wolfe wrote, they like the book they are writing between his lines.
>>24753638so when did hugo awards go to shit?
>>24756752Hugo was basically dominated by SF until 2000s when influx of fantasy happened. It also wasn't THAT strange for repeat offenders to win multiple times in a decade, like Bujold in the 90s, but in 2010s someone basically decided "let's give Jemisin the award three times in a row for her trilogy" and the rise of Chinese authors winning in the years to come.
>>24753659good mommy or bad mommy?
>>24754533It's a meme. He just started indulging in his worst tendencies as author. I find him difficult to dislike because he is prolific as fuck.
>>24756685Stop being a bitch and go back to reviewing, Keely.
>>24756773>>24753659are these the malazan sequel books? How are they?
>>24756880There's a LOT to Malazan beyond the core series.>novels written by Esslemont>Bauchelain and Korbal Broach novels>Path to Ascendancy prequels>Kharkanas trilogy, sequel to the main series>Tales of Witness series, sequel to the main series
>>24756886kharkanas trilogy is also prequel material
>>24756886I regret getting into the series late because I want to read them but the burnout is real. I've been on a 4 month break after finishing house of chains.
If a fantasy series has sentient, non-human creatures, it's shit. The only acceptable alternative is something like Bakker where they're basically completely homologous so it's likely just two races descending from the same, human ancestor, or shit like Witcher where the entire idea is mimicking every fairy tale trope possible. In all other cases, it's SHIT
>>24756926Despite being a big fan of Bakker I've never been entirely on board with Nonmen. Inchoroi, on the other hand, now those I can get behind.
what science fiction or fantasy series will make me a smarter person that can read welli feel like i'm illiterate
>>24757028Probably anything by Michael Cricthon. Crichton had a real knack for conveying complex ideas in easily understandable fashion. Helps that he was a legitimate gigabrain himself.Try reading the Jurassic Park novels.
>>24754148this screams gay poofter garbage
>>24757049Yes. It's sanitized slop for "Disney Adults".
>>24756351I liked his book of the new sun
>>247567522012ish, like everything else.I'm sure it has nothing to do with legalized domestic propaganda.
>>24757049I don't mind the comicbook artstyle on the bottom, but the way it's composed is what makes it faggy. If they were making dynamic action poses like the dudes on the top art, it'd be fine.
>>24757083i mind
Why does nearly every modern fantasy feature a female MC?
>>24757112Primary demographic buying traditionally published books is women. Women want to engage with something that's similar to themselves (lego study).
>>24757112Because the majority of modern fantasy readers are women.
>>24757112and why does it bother you?
>>24757049What sucks about it aren't so much the characters (they do suck) but the implication of attraction / sexual tension between literally all of them. Fuck this very gay shit.
>>24756764A straight white man won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the first time in 13 years, with picrel. Has anyone read it?
>>24757239To add to this, the characters are not turned outward toward the world they are supposed to do stuff in and explore, but toward faggety internal relationships and drama.
>>24757241No, but I'm reading his Divine City trilogy right now and really enjoying it. He's a good writer. I'll be checking out his other works after this.
aren’t you bored of still performatively announcing offense at the presence of women, minorities, and gays after over a decade of this culture war nonsense?
>>24757241https://www.goodreads.com/group/show_book/1029811-sffg?book_id=150247395https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6010066782
why do you guys shill red rising so much I'm halfway through it and it's not very good, seems like typical YA dystopia slop
>>24757305if you're on about the first book, it's very mid. It gets a lot better after that.
Anyone here have retail editions of Eriksons Malazan novels in epub that they could upload?I’ve found some online that are full of errors
>>24757321Mobilism
>>24757376I’ll take another look, that’s usually where I get my downloads from.The ones I got had lots of errors though.
>>24757401I think they all do sadly. I reported a few errors on my kindle but I think it's just shoddy scans that aren't being fixed. Just have to deal with it sadly.
>>24757175Kek
>>24757305Once again, the secon book is really where they let him go all out. It is a complete departure from the Hunger Games vibes of the first one while at the same time feeling like a logical progression that builds on what was set up in the first one.
>>24754522If this book is too gritty for you then you must usually read very fluffy and light-hearted stuff. This is about middle of the road. Not really all that grim, actually.
>>24755537Egwene does not belong anywhere near S tier.
>>24757553I love her
>>24755353seems kinda edgelordy
>>24756896Midnight Tides has Brys Beddict tho
>>24757405Damn, I may have to shell out for paperbacks.It’s too off-putting when errors creep into digital books.Thanks anyway
>>24757721Midnight Tides is the peak of the series
>>24757269>>24757239you got it
>two books into WoT>two books into Stormlight>two books into Bas Lag>two books into the Expanse>one book into Malazan>one book into Culture>one book into Takeshi Kovacs>one book into BotNS>beginning to eye starting Dandelion DynastyI have committment issues
>>24758092Congrats on reading the worst culture book
>read such an engaging book on the shitter>legs go numbThank you Brandon Sanderson.
>>24758133>read [...] on the shitterdon't do that, you'll get hemorrhoids
Tell it to me straight, how is mistborn? Is it about black slaves fighting against whitey?
Is this a good list for space horror?https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/17148.Space_HorrorAnything in this list that you would reccomend for an October read?
>>24755353I read the first three and it's not good.
>>24756880Worth reading if you like Malazan >>24756896I read everything except Kharkanas (hated all the Tiste chapters) last year, it can be punishing. I recommend reading some of the Esslemont books or Path to Ascendancy if you're struggling with the core series, they tend to be a bit easier to get through in my opinion.
>>24758092none of those are even worth reading further
>>24758293Culture and botns are
>no author has a fetish about licking belly buttons
any good novels that are basically just long vore stories?
>>24758527Just wait until I get published
>>24758230The first arc is pretty badThe second arc is pretty good
>>24758668The only good part is the weird monster
>>24758527made me think. Are there fantasy books with descriptions of female armpits?
>>24758230>Is it about black slaves fighting against whitey?where the fuck did you even get this from
>Demandred waiting to fight Rand at Merrilor
>>24757278Nothing performative about it. Read the worm ouroborous for a proper depiction of powerful women, minorities have their place, but they should be just that. Minorities. Fags can take a hike, they do not exist in an idyllic fantastic world.
>>24759237>they do not exist in an idyllic fantastic world.they do not exist in YOUR idyllic fantastic world. Create your own stories and worlds chud instead of crying about what other people have created.
>>24756896Take your time. Books aren't going anywhere. I would love to get my hands on those Czech editions, though.
>>24759237The most important minority in this case being a goblin who's considered a turncloak by everyone? The rest are demons, fairies, literally all-red creatures and various gods. Agreed about the women, but honestly you should have picked a better example.
>>24758290the problem with the esslemont books is that the first two are actually horrible. and then stonewielder is exceptionally a slog. It's insane to me that some people getting into malazan try to fit his books in during their read of book of the fallen. Orb Sceptre Throne and Blood and Bone were kino too. Kharkanas is peak fantasy for me. I'm not enjoying the Witness trilogy all that much but this next one is set in Seven Cities so I'm hyped for it.
>>24754522I'll never forget the Dark Souls art director verbally bitch slapping the dude who handed him the art concept for the blighted dead dragons. It was reportedly covered in puss and generaly gross, and his rebute was "even in death, all thing have a majesty to them". His words have stuck to me ever since. Its very easy to stop authors who have no grasp of this concept. Its also immediately apparent on people who use death of faceless guards as such for spectacle (like Sanderson). It always betrays a really immature mind.
>>24755887So like you?
I'm looking for some fantasy I can listen to at work. Any recs? I just went through the WoT series.
as someone who never ever read a book since high schoolI finished an audio book of the hail mary cause of gosling movie wont come out soon enoughthen just finished the book1 of bobiverse I guess audio books arent too bad
>>24753638I haven't been to /sffg/ in over a year. What have I missed? Are you still pretending to read Bakker and pretending to like Mieville?
>>24759985This is a Red Rising general now with occasional bakkerfag screeching
>>24759988Why did Red Rising take over? Wasn't it some space opera published over a decade ago?
>>24759992Sequel series is ongoing (better than the main series), word of mouth recommendation/shilling and the final book should be out next year.
>>24759992forced shilling retardation
>>24758527you've never read my diary desu
>>24757285If Yev likes the book, then it must be good.
>>24753638I'm writing a book when ais fight eachothers in a fantasy setting what do you think?
>>24760163Let us know when you publish it, I'll have an ai write a 2 star review
>>24754609I don't mind cozy/easy but shit prose? That's like a movie having shit cinematography. You're not even supposed to notice the prose. If you notice the prose, the book is bad. Good prose is invisible but for some reason you cannot put the book down.
>>24757112I always thought of fantasy as feminine and scifi as masculine. Not that this says anything about what the sex of the MC should be or even the themes a given book. But it's fantasy's "mystical" vs scifi's "practical", it seems to be an classical feminine/masculine dichotomy.
>>24759996Horse!
I intentionally stayed away from the show for the entire 5 month long journey it took me to finish WoT. It is absolutely baffling the people they cast. Its almost like they were casting the worst possible person for the characters on purpose. Min looks thirty and favors the leader of china. Aviendha is inexplicably light skinned with dreadlocs. blue eyed siuan is black with brown eyes. Nyneave and Egwene are people of color whom I cannot quite place without looking it up. perrin is black. They legitimately went out of their way to have characters that looked nothing like how they were described. Never watching that shitshow.
Hey so what's happening with Scott Lynch? He put out the Locke Lamora short story in Grimdark Magazine and since then it's been radio silence on new Gentlemen Bastards stuff, what happened to those novellas?
>>24760052I only put that because it didn't include mine in the group bookshelf for whatever reason. I don't know why it does that , for myself or others. It's annoying. Sometime during the past years they broke it and it has all sorts of issues, not only that. It's very disappointing.Whether I like something or not often doesn't have that much bearing on others, and I don't think it should. It's relatively common for me to see in my activity feed both ratings that are much lower than mine and also books that I rated lowly be added to their to-read list. There's nothing wrong with either.I certainly understand the appeal of trying to push an obscure book that no one is reading and it can be frustrating that no one, or only a couple do, but that's just how it is.
had been looking forward to it until i saw this
>>24757241was decent enough, there is a coming out scene that is really awkward though
I read this and now I understand women>I got everything I wanted in life as a successful new york socialite / megaslut (the megaslut thing comes up multiple times and is always portrayed as empowering)>I'm visiting my podunk hometown to help my homebody sister have her bastard child>I was flirting with my old highschool orbiter when suddenly I was attacked by a strange creature!>I will now regale you with detailed body horror that is a thinly veiled metaphor for femininity>I will also regale you with my childhood encounter with a sex predator that I blame my mother for>shocking reveal: my sister lied to me about her dirtbag ex leaving to get me out of the city>shocking reveal: my old best friend lied to me, she's the werewolf who bit me and trapped me here>I suppose I have no choice but to settle down and marry my orbiter in this cozy suburban existence, thanks to my thinly veiled menstruation metaphor, which I blame other women for.
>>24760427He's one of several trying to get on the trend.
>>24760427I'm still going to check it out. I feel like Correia is far-enough removed from the progression fantasy scene that it will come off as his spin on the concept. Most likely it will end up as a progression through higher and higher calibers of bullets.
>>24760439Wrong thread
>>24753638I want to read The Judging Eye but it's not translated I can't understand this level of English, only 4chan level... Fuck my life
>>24757731TrueI felt a bit like "What the fuck am i doing there and why the fuck am i reading it?" at the start but this book quickly became one of if not my favorite in the series.I guess it's just really well put together and all around great book. And all characters are pretty much one of the best in the series.
>>24753638I picked up this book at the library on a whim, am I about to have a bad time?
>>24760390he blew his load in the first book and doesnt know what to do
Writing here is like throwing stones to the void so I can get all the cringe stuff out.Finished Tehanu this morning. I wasn't very affected throughout the story by the horrors that little girl suffered. It seemed sensationalistic and dramatized and I feel like Le Guin is so didactic that it was just expected. Plus, it's not very realistic, who would do such things to a little girl (I mean, I guess people do but my mind can't even comprehend it so it's not scary).But then, at the very end, there's the stuff he does to Tenar. It's very short and dry. I don't know what it is that's so horrible. Of course, dehumanization is bad but I've read about so much worse. Jesus, I finished Blood Meridian this week. My mind keeps coming back to those scenes like touching a scar to ensure it's there, even though it hurts. Maybe it's my punishment, for enjoying being a powerless girl. It's a reminder that such a thing is not sexy or hot or comforting but so painful and ugly and does not end when you wish it. That I can never give up the control, must always stay strong and on my guard. I'm half afraid to sleep because I don't want it in my nightmares. I feel sick every time I think of it. Just want to understand why
>>24758287Agreed. Boring with an intolerable narrator
>>24760572Such is the affecting power of fiction and consequences of imagination.
>>24760572L O N D O NONDON
>>24758527is it better to lick innies or outies?
>>24759992some tiktok or youtuber likely mentioned it recently
>>24760521>Recently published book>By a woman author >An asian one to boot
sff lesbians
>>24759992>YA shit released over a decade ago>people who read it as kids are now discovering 4chan and claiming it was goated fr fr no cap on god
