Two Weeks Left Edition>Old:>>24936611>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
>>24948206>Two Weeks Left Editionuntil what anon??
I need hot dominant muscular barbarian mommies (preferably futa)
>>24948215Malazan has one who goes around harassing soldiers for sex
I just learned about Samuel Delany's support for NAMBLA after being a massive fan of his work, particularly Dhalgren, for years. He made statements from the 1990s where he described their bulletin as promoting "sane thinking" on the age of consent and positioned them as a dissenting voice in the gay rights movement. I'm so disappointed.
>look for fantasy book with a 'wintery' vibe>get nothing but woman shit
>>24948309Maybe if you described what you wanted in non feminine terms, anon. Wintery vibe, he says.
>>24948309Icewind Dale.
>>24948319What better way is there to put it? Something that conveys the cold and contrast of warmth?
What are the best Heinlein books?Just added starship troopers to my queue.
love it when fantasy characters come across an ancient ruin but it is not really an ancient ruin but an extremely advanced futuristic mechanism
I fucking hate science fiction and fantasy.
>>24948431You’re in good company in this thread then
>>24948397SameRead Broken EmpireThe setting is interesting and unique but you have to deal with the edge which is fun
Need a recommendation for a gift for my father in law. He's exhausted my list and is still chugging through books. Military and post apocalyptic science fiction is what he's into. Preferably looking for older often overlooked stuff
Any novels set in coastal gloomy setting, like The Shadow over Innsmouth or Sunless Sea (any epoch and any setting, not only the Earth)?
>>24948579It's got some iffy twists and a "it's still going?" final act to it, but I enjoyed S.A Tholin's Iron Truth. I've only just recently(as in a few hours ago) got my hands on the sequel and I'm hoping the series as a whole is a good one but it may be a good choice for your dad.
>>24948711also I clearly can't read and glazed over the "in law part".
>>24948221I thought he was black?>>24948391His 1970s and 1980s books are absolute masterworks.
>>24948206it's an observation many have made but it seems like people who don't read much have a limited idea of what is good writing or seem to latch onto one writer or style or genrethis goes for all sorts of readers, but i see it most in "serious literary" types who only read to have read important works, or sci fi people who just don't like to read outside their preferred genre because of autism
>>24948759problem is you can't read JUST the greats because it you don't really develop standards if you don't read some bad books as well
>>24948206The Affinities - Robert Charles Wilson (2016)The Affinities is a social science fiction novel in the sense that it was inspired by the author reading a book on teleodynamics and wildly extrapolating from its insights. An Affinity is sort of like if the admission process to joining a co-ed Greek letter organization was a battery of psychometric and biometric tests. There's no way to know whether someone has the same Affinity as you unless they've undergone testing. That means a person's assignation isn't in any way decided by them. It also means there's no way to be certain that someone has the same affinity, at least until a mobile testing device is developed. The whole thing is basically a shared group delusion where once a person has been determined to be part of the ingroup, their empathy instantly reaches a maximum level for others in their ingroup and near zero for those in the outgroup. This requires almost as much of a suspension of disbelief for the reader as it does for the characters. These sort of groups exist, but nowhere to the extent described in this book. Some examples are: sports teams; ideological groups; website fans; corporate supporters; entertainment fans; stan culture; parasocial members; religious institutions. Basically any grouping where a shared identity makes the people predisposed to liking you more. The Affinities take it to the extreme where they're meant to be a replacement for literally everything and everyone else in your life. This may superficially seem like the found family trope, but it'd be more accurate to call it an arranged family.Unfortunately, its premise is also its greatest failing. Because it relies so much on the suspension of disbelief, the narrative tries to minimize the strain on credulity by mostly only having situations where ingroup members are involved. The first person protagonist is very passive. He's very happy to have somewhere to belong and just goes with the flow. He's not a true believer, but he can get caught up in the fervor at times in wanting to believe he's one. Ultimately this is more his story than anything else, especially as it comes to an end. I'm conflicted about that because while I would've like to Affinities to be used in a far greater way, it also probably would've been too ridiculous to do any serious way. Too Like The Lightning, which came out the next year, is somewhat similar with its Hives, though it sidesteps these problems by being in a far future setting where society has been entirely rearranged already.Despite all these problems and limitations, I liked it. This is the first book that I've been interested enough to finish by the author since Spin, which I rated 5 stars. I tried reading a lot of Wilson's other novels, but none of them drew me in. The sympathy I felt for the protagonist and my agreement with the resolution went a long way with me. Those who prefer the opposite will probably feel the opposite.Rating: 3.5/5 (4)
>>24948206Version Control - Dexter Palmer (2016)Version Control is a literary alternate history hard science fiction novel. By that I mean it's a meandering exploration of the contemporary human condition that occasionally remembers that it has a science fiction plot. The alternate history is that the book's title is literal. For hard science fiction there are many monologues about whatever and digressions into science. The most frequent mode is criticism. There's so much of it on so many topics. A very limited selection includes: race; gender; dating; science; academia; politics; religion; nostalgia; conspiracy; and philosophy.In the beginning, there are seemingly endless possibilities. As progress is made, the possibilities dwindle, until eventually only the singular outcome remains. So it was with my reading. I was very pleased with all the possibilities I imagined that the story could go. For a brief moment there was a chance that this could be my book of the year. Any possibility of that was eliminated over time as the wrong decisions for my enjoyment were made. I feel like I was misdirected. Of all the possible ways this book could have been written, Palmer chose No Fun Allowed Morose Realism. This novel could also be described as Anti-Escapist Science Fiction or The Deconstruction of Wonder. Maybe I'm being uncharitable. If nothing else, the story does follow through on the theoretical idea on which everything is based. Saying which one it is though would spoil the ending.In terms of its overall content this is a nonlinear story about a failing marriage. The protagonist, the wife of the scientist who has invented a Causality Violation Device, is usually the viewpoint character. The reader sees her go through a nonlinear life from her post-college years to being almost 40. All of the characters are dysfunctional in their own ways, and at least one is actively dislikeable. The speculative elements are mostly in the background or incidental. They aren't given focus, because they aren't of interest. They're mundane. This is How The World Has Always Been. As with much, how radically different this world is from our own is played down and minimized.If you're reading this for science fiction, then unless you're greatly interested in being teased, neglected, and denied, you're going to feel greatly frustrated. If you're reading this for literary fiction, then you're going to be even more annoyed by all the lecturing probably. The ideal reader is someone who wants their book to be literary and scientifically-oriented but anything science fictional should decorative and nothing more.I wish this had gone differently. The versions I imagined were so much better. This isn't a book about time travel, as you might believe from its synopsis. It's a deconstruction of time travel and it's all the worse for it. It'd be admirable if it weren't such a killjoy. The ending is eminently reasonable and utterly miserable.Rating: 3.5/5 (3)
>>24948786>>24948781your """reviews""" are SHITFUCK OFF
>>24948759>latch onto one writer or style or genrewelcome to /sffg/. this gets reinforced by the boring normalfags here in every fucking thread.
Reminder to report and ignore newfags like >>24948799 who have been spamming off-topic for literal years.>https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21311319#p21323327
>>24948881You missed your calling as a janny
>>24948309The Anvil of Ice?
