Sanderson editionHere we discuss any kind of science fiction and fantasy.>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
I drew my lips to a line
>>25192488>Sanderson edition
>be me>havent read will of battle in daysits tough, trying to force yourself to get through a book which your subconscious has already decided is less engaging than youtube theory videos on tenet.
People kept hyping up the supposedly included Catholic aspects of The New Sun books but, after having finished the quadrology, I genuinely don't see it. Severin has an artifact that lets him heal like Christ did but...that's it. Healing people wasn't exclusive to Jesus. I suppose there's also nuns which is more Catholic but they appear very little. Here and there, Severin talks about the woman he executed that he now thinks was actually innocent (forgot her name) and at some point he starts becoming more sensitive to human suffering, but he never truly regrets what he's done and never reflects upon his deeds and repents. Most of the time he just whines about how he misses sex. All in all I really don't see the Catholicism, or Christianity in general. Oh and there's also the whole flesh consumption bit, which sounds very Catholic, but it's anything but Christian if you ask me. The result of him eating his lover's corpse is intrusive thoughts and transgender-adjacent behavior. Very overrated.
>>25192527What part of the bible was the part with the guy with two heads a big dong referring to?
The Unholy Consult book is really really REALLY grim and arguably too grim. There ought to be some light at the end of the tunnel, but no.
FUCK he is good
>>25192550>Terrible Books
>>25192527based and appropriate criticism
>>25192541There were some very weird things happening in the last two books. the reveal of Jolenta and Dorca's lesbian relationship, Severin focusing on Typhon's penis on multiple occasions and Baldander having a fat child sex slave. There's also a part where Severin laments the death of the boy Severin and for some reason feels the need to clarify that he didn't want to have sex with him like he did with Dorca. Wonder if Wolfe was intoxicated while writing those parts, they feel so random and out of place.
>>25192574He was a pedophile struggling with his sexual urges like most catholics
>>25192575I see...NTA btw
>>25192621I'll add it to my list, anon, but the blurb does not look promising.
>>25192574I don't remember some of this..
>>25192628Now it makes me wonder if Reed did any blurbs. Given the sheer output of his bibliography, I suspect he's had to have done so but he never pierced into megapopularity either.
Required thread settings.
>>25192527I'm going to write a novel about a vigilante priest who fights demons and drug smugglers in between theological discussions with a junior priestess whom he rejects on God's account despite their mutual attraction.
>>25192527>Severin has an artifact that lets him heal like ChristStopped reading there. Wolfe is the great filterer
>>25192758>he can turn time back to when someone wasn't hurtBetter? The end result is miraculous healing one way or another.
Why does nobody here talk about Jade Legacy?
>>25192844Are we being deadass fr, my nigga?
FUCK he's good
>>25192488I'm 15% of my way into Way of Kings, and knowing nothing about the Stormlight Archive series, I'm conflicted because so far it's quite interesting but I can't get over the stupid shit like spren
>>25192859watchu mean?
Why has Bakker not been mentioned yet?
>>25192918You still sitting in your car and phoneposting all day, Bakkerbro?
>>25192879Damn, since when does he look like that? Aging was an insane glow up for him. He looks respectable now instead of a dork
Lads, I hate asking chatgpt and I need some book rec's. Feeling very sci-fi right meow. The following are a list of books I've read recently and enjoyed. I do not want a trilogy or a series, I just don't have the time. Blindsight by Peter WattsBrave New World by Aldous HuxleyThe Sirens of Titan by Kurt VonnegutThe Stars My Destination by Alfred BesterA Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. PeckOnly Forward by Michael Marshall SmithRendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. ClarkeThe Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le GuinRoadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris StrugatskyFlowers for Algernon by Daniel KeyesThe Last Question by Issac AsimovDune by Frank HerbertA Scanner Darkly by Philip K. DickDo Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. DickStar Maker by Olaf StapldonUbik by Philip K. DickThe Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. DickHard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki MurakamiDune: Messiah by Frank HerbertBeyond the Aqulia Rift by Alistair ReynoldsNeuromancer by William GibsonThree Body Problem by Cixin LiuThe Dark Forest by Cixin LiuDeath’s End by Cixin Liu
>>25192932Neuropath by Bakker
>>25192773Did Severian have the Claw when he found the dead dog and somehow nursed it back to health?It wasn't the claw. It was him.
>>25192940>It was himDude the dog was missing a leg afterwards. Severin performed surgery, using his knowledge of the human body he gained from his education as a torturer. If that wows you to the point that you'd compare him to Jesus, then you should seriously consider a career as a vet.
>>25192940>It wasn't the claw. It was him.Isn't this like explicitly spelled out at some point
>>25192955The dog was dead dude. Well, "dog," it's mentioned as being the size of a bear and having fangs the length of Sevarian's fingers. It was clearly dead when he found it.>>25192962Yes. He does it without the claw later. The important part though is that Sevarian is obviously more than just some guy even before he starts being cogizent of crazy shit happening.
>>25192962Not that I would've noticed it, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong. >>25192974Agree to disagree I guess. I think you're reading way too much into Severian performing a life saving surgery.
>>25192979It is certainly meant to seem that way in the beginning, but the entire pointt of the series is that almost nothing that happens is what it seems at first, and Sevarian repeatedly fails to notice important things that have happened because he has autism. If you have been reading through the books and not caught any of these you are missing out on large segments of the work's beauty.
>>25192962He takes a "claw" from a random rose
>>25192488First two were slop kino. Stopped at three or four bc it was total garbage.
>>25192932Starfish, Peter Watts Startide Rising, David BrinThe Shockwave Rider, John BrunnerThe Dragon Masters, Jack VanceEvolution, Stephen Baxter The Fifth Head of Cerberus, Gene Wolfe Barefoot in the Head, Brian Aldiss Fallen Dragon, Peter F Hamilton A Voyage to Arcturus, David LindsayA Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge Schismatrix, Bruce Sterling Solaris, Stanislaw LemBlood Music, Greg Bear The Ophiuchi Hotline, John VarleyThe Palace of Eternity, Bob ShawFeersum Endjinn, Iain M Banks
>>25193011Tell us about David Brin. A guy last thread made a post implying that he was a poor author but did not elaborate. Nobody brings this nigga up.
>>25193011I should mention that while some of them are part of a series, they also work perfectly as standalone.
>>2519293NovelsHyperionA Maze of Death SpinPermutation City Engine SummerNovellas Planet of ExileElder Race
>>25193016His best works are Startide Rising, The Postman and Earth.Anything outside of that is pretty meh.
When do you think it's acceptable to quit a book and start a new one? I'm 250 pages into Carrion Comfort and find it quite boring. I have other books to read but don't want to be a quitter.
>>25193067Whenever you don't like it. Life's too short to read books you don't like.
>>25193067If you hadn't told us no one would know you quit.
>>25193067In Carl's new book, he was temporarily turned into a German Dashchund and the AI changed his name to Karlhehehehehehe
>>25192931>since when does he look like that?it's the post-divorce glow up
>>25192932Try Chasm City, it's quite good and a standalone. Or The Prefect by Reynolds, that one might be a little shorter. If you liked Blindsight, Neuromancer, and Three Body you will probably like those.
>>25193159prefect is a trilogy, baka
>>25192512>daysI'm stuck for weeks now. I have a mountain of other things to read, but I'd rather do actual work than finish my current book and I'm physically unable to move to another thing until I'm done, or I finally break and drop it.And it's fucking 200 pages.
>>25192512This is me with Sword of the Lictor right now except I've been enjoying my time with BOTNS (mostly) but I wish I were reading something more straight forward right now instead lmao
>>25192932Learning to be Me, by Greg Egan is a short story that you will almost certainly like based on your list. He has plenty of other stories and books worth reafing too. Permutation City is another good one if you want something longer.Robert Silverberg wrote a lot of new wave scifi in a similar stylistic vein to The Lathe of Heaven and PKD. I recommend Downward to the Earth and The Stochastic Man. (his best novel is Dying Inside, but it's barely scifi)Trouble on Triton by Delaney is a personal favorite of mine. I don't think I've convinced a single anon to read it over the years I've tried recommending it here, but I'll keep trying. Delaney is more famous in scifi circles for Dahlgren (which I found to be a pretentious slog) and on /lit/ for Hogg (edgy) but he also wrote a lot of more traditional scifi. Trouble on Triton lands somewhere in the middle. It's both a parody of space operas and a story about a modern man dissatisfied with his life in a post-scarcity, post-identity commie space utopia where he can have anything he wants. There's a lot of other things going on. The absurdly prescient climax of the story is: the chuddy, unreliable narrator protagonist, after being scathingly rejected by the theater girl of his dreams, deciding the only way to find a trad wife in a commie space utopia is to become the trad wife, jumping in a sex-change booth and becoming a woman, only to find that he is still unsatisfied.
>>25193159I've read Chasm City, I feel like it would benefit from reading other things in that universe before it, like I should care about some of the stuff getting revealed there but a lot of it just fell flat.
>>25193195>I'm physically unable to move to another thing until I'm done, or I finally break and drop it.Im able to do it, but it nags me in the back of my mind that I will have to return to it eventually, I can't let myself give it up.Its much easier for me to just stop playing a videogame. I think because the negative experience of a videogame is more visceral because of how much more interactive, and how much more "active" effort is required to engage with it. It's easier to rationalize abandonment.But with books? I just cant get myself to quit. I just stop reading, but tell myself I have to return.>>25193207I know that feeling. This is me with philosophy. Ironically I started reading fantasy and fiction to take a break from reading philosophy and have a more laid back engagement with philosophy through fiction. Because philosophy requires so much deliberate attention and focus to digest. I love it. I love reading philosophy, but my mind best digests philosophy when I believe everything is shallow and meaningless and I desperately need to turn to deep meaning (philosophy) inspite of the effort required to find meaning.
>>25193257>should care about some of the stuff getting revealed there but a lot of it just fell flat.Haha, that sounds exactly right. Those were my favorite parts, but I've been reading his books since forever.
Why don't you guys like Red Rising?
oh my fucking god Asimov is a snoozefest
>>25193380his short stories are generally better
>>25193357YA slop for manchildren that larp about being roman warriors
please tell me the woman has sex with these old dog men in the book. I bought this book for that reason only.
Any horror publications I should know about?
>>25192512This is me with A Game of Thrones. Some of those chapters and character povs are a slog to move through
>>25193357I'll prob finish it but it doesn't actually amount to anything interesting. anon's right it's a fairly shallow power fantasy that doesn't do anything to draw anybody in, just vaguely gestures at bad modes for leaders/social systems and then plays the amv of beating them up before appropriately torturing random characters to "make up" for the slop
Any good space fantasy? I don't mean The Expanse, I mean space wizards and space elves, in actual space with ships and shit.
>>25192574You guys can't be this fucking illiterate. I guess when you read nothing but Sanderson and Bakker you end up like this.
>>25193892star wars
>>25193917>>25193746Lol pretty much or Warhammer 40k
>>25192488Do good ratfics exist?
kellhus may be the least interesting fictional character in existence
>>25193115who's Carl?
>>25192542The light at the end of the tunnel is the consult's victory.
Pringles' fans are really fucking obnoxious
https://strawpoll.com/XOgOVq3Dan3
>>25193982Some fag in his underwear who crawls dungeons
>>25193975>kellhus may be the least interesting fictional character in existence"But as much as his Intellect balked, Malowebi’s Heart foundered upon what seemed an even more profound realization: *These were not Men*.<...>As the Inchoroi were versions of the Sranc, bred to believe *as they were wrought*, so too were these Thought-dancers—these *Dûnyain*—bred to the union of conquest and comprehension.<...>That poor wretch Drusas Achamian had said as much! All this time the Court had puzzled over the Aspect-Emperor, trying, again and again, to extract some kind of *reason* from his perplexing actions, attributing, again and again, crude motives belonging to their own souls. Had a demon possessed him? Was he the “Kucifra” that Fanayal and that Yatwerian monster had claimed? Not once had they considered the possibility that he embodied a *principle*, that he, *like the Sranc*, simply executed an imperative stamped into his soul’s foundation."
>>25193209>>Learning to be Me, by Greg Egan is a short story that you will almost certainly like based on your list. He has plenty of other stories and books worth reafing too. Permutation City is another good one if you want something longer.please stop shilling this retard
>>25194073kek
>>25194147>Egan bad>But a jew like Silverburg who describes an infant's vagina? A-OKlol
>>25194151>Egan badyes>Silverburgliterally who?
>>25194169The next person mentioned in his list. Go die for Israel :)
>>25194147Filtered
>>25193975Gr8 b8 m8 I r8 8/8
>>25193896Notice how this anon has no counterargument.
What are some chudcore Science Fiction & Fantasy?
>>25194287THE KING R. SCOTT BAKKER
Opinions on Sanderson? I have barely read any fantasy besides Tolkien and Wolfe, but the fact that my normie friends keep recommending it to me is already a red flag.
>>25194322He's great if you think marvel movies are the epitome of film. If you really wish to dabble, the first three Mistborn books are not as offensive as the rest of his schlock.
https://www.ha.com/information/david-aronovitz-collection.s?type=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ha.com%2FAronovitz>One of the lots is “A complete run of the books published by the Arkham House”
>>25193033If The Postman is one of his best then he must be quite a hack.
Should i get Passage Press's Omnibuses of Robert E. Howard's and Lovecraft's works?
>>25193067>I'm 250 pages into Carrion Comfort and find it quite boringQuit. If a writer can't entertain you in 250 pages or less, then he has failed.
>>25194322>He's great if you think marvel movies are the epitome of filmWell I think that settles it, thanks.
>>25193380He hasn't aged well, yeah.
Anyone here read will of the many and strength of the few?
>>25194037Fixed!
I want to buy hyperion but the new french edition is ugly
Did Howard actually wrote this letter
Reading about Scientific Documents then thinking how future civilizations would use them pretty blesses me
>>25193896Sanderson readers do not read Bakker... And if they do theres no fucking way they ever go back to Sanderson afterwards
>>25194322Its okay as pure slop. But there is no depth or any good prose to be found in any of his works. It is just fantasy Stehpen King but way less interesting concepts.
>>25194350Yes, several. It's a popular series.
>>25194206a charactrer without human emotions, vulnerabilities or relatability is just the opposite of a good character.
Greatest Author who has a last name starting with B?
>>25194715butcher ofc, author of the dresden files
>>25194045is prince of nothing really that good?
>>25194287The Sword of Truth
How do you guys feel about magic as coding? It's something I've seen for a bit now, where magic basically works on a bunch of statements and conditionals in some sequence.
>>25194727retard
>>25193500This book has been great. Half way through the author asks a very fundamental question I haven't seen answered.If a alien species biologically and socially matures at 12 years old, is it okay for a 36 year old human man to have sex and breed with her? Are humans beholden to their own social taboos and biology?This book answers no. It is perfectly fine for a human being at 36 to have sex with a 12 year old alien babe if alien woman's species matures at 12.
>>25192488More like Fags and women edition
what am I in for?
This is coming out next year.
>>25194354Add in:- A Canticle for Leibowitz- The Worm Ouroboros- The Night LandAnd you have perfect /sffg/ pseudcore
>>25194371Yeah, he did. You can find it in volume 1 of his Collected Letters book
>>25194715Borges :)
>>25194759I did nothing to deserve this treatment
>>25194979We have a disturbed user who believes anyone that even so much as acknowledges R. Scott Bakker is the same person that they've been feuding with since 2016.We don't know why this user thinks this.
>>25192928what does this say?
>>25194993I appreciate his dedication, but I have really never heard of it until now
After dropping 4 books in a row I'm ready to accept and admit I've lost interest in fantasy. It was nice posting here while it lasted. Guess I have to figure something else to get into now.See ya, lads.
>>25195263What books? Subgenre matters a lot, perhaps even moreso than individual authors, so if one branch isn't doing it for you just go to another
>>25194993>we
WEIRD ALIEN SPECIES:XEELEE SEQUENCE BY STEPHEN BAXTERGREAT SHIP BOOKS BY ROBERT REED
First couple pages of my short story, anons. Would this interest you to read more?
Any other "judge-the-book-by-its-cover" bros that decide what to read based on the cover art?
>>25195453I probably wouldn't, to be honest, like I would read maybe a few pages more, but nothing here has hooked me.
Ever read a book and just instantly hate the narration style?
>>25195453this is not writing gen and people will be harsh on you because of newfaggotry. you /might/ have a better reception in /wng/ but it is still not writing general.
>>25195355yes, there are multiple people who do not understand this deranged anon. in fact i'd say there is exactly one person who does understand them, and depending on their diagnosis that might not even be true
>>25192488FUCK it is good
>>25195480It's hard because it seems there is no place to post this in the literature board. /wgn/ is not the place because it's not litrpg or those anime-like stuff they like. /wg/ ignores genre fiction altogether. Maybe it's better to not post it.>>25195473Thanks for giving it a try.
>>25195453It's not bad. Is the perspective from a man or a woman?
>>25195456constantly. i know you're famously not meant to do it but you can actually derive an enormous amount of information from them, which is obviously the point and the reason publishers keep doing it.and before someone Baynes: exactly! i read that book not just because anon carries the torch but because it's so strange and unique
>>25195493Woman. Narrative device is a letter.>>25195480Also, it's scifi so it's not like a posted here at random.
>>25195484strange kerning on the author name. makes it look awkwardly unbalanced, particularly with the dead-center illustration.
>>25195494Baen Books had a Trotskyist Communist as one of their founders… what leads to such autism?
>>25195496It felt feminine but the "could almost forget he was human" threw me a bit.
>>25195504It's because grammatically "one" demands "he.">It felt feminineI'm not a woman so it's great this came through.
>>25195490>Maybe it's better to not post it.I feel bad for people like you, the effort posters actually trying to create and say something that are not rewarded and appreciated because theres easier slop to create and parade around that garners more attention like tung tung tung sahur.In a world of my values. Less slop garbage human beings would exist with any power or capacity to "appreciate" garbage. Theres no guarantee your effort would be rewarded, but atleast you could be content knowing that your effort is competing with genuine great works of equal or greater effort. Not garbage.
>>25195453Too Romantasy coded. But it sounds fine and decent. Some awkward sentences here and there, but some nice descriptions here and there too.I don't care about raw writing, rather the meaning and value expressed, so I can't give you more critique than that based on a single page. I will say, the character comes across as too "typical" but I'm guessing that's the point.
Literary fiction pseuds should have to read 100 quality SFF books before making any declarative statements about the quality of the “literary ghetto” of speculative fiction. If they hold us to a high standard, in educational settings and on this board, then we should force them to read Wolfe, Dick, Ellison, LeGuin, Erikson, Bakker, Bujold, et al
>>25195528Here's my view: I could restrict my To Read pile to only the greatest books, stuff I'm guaranteed to like, and it'd take me at least a decade to get through the whole thing.My capacity for things I've never heard of is low. It's not nothing, and taking a chance on something new is a big reason I come to here and elsewhere. But it takes a lot to get my interest.So the idea that I'd have *any* interest whatsoever in an unfinished short story by a amateur writer in an anonymous setting is really unfathomable. I doubt I'm unique. In fact the number one issue facing books in general, and genre fic in specific, is that every book is competing not only with its contemporaries but everything else written in the last 120 years. Books don't really age out the same way movies, shows, and games do. Music has a similar ageless quality, but an entire album of songs is maybe 1-2 hours of your time at most, not the 5-20 hours demanded by one book of a series of books.I wish anon well because I want all anons to succeed. If they do make something worthwhile - or even if it sucks - I hope they post about it here and maybe I'll take a chance on it.But something that's unfinished, unedited, unpolished? Nah.
>>25195542It's a love story, but not a romance. Well, there's a twist with the romance. It's only a short story so my hope is that's it's interesting enough until the climax.
>>25195618>So the idea that I'd have *any* interest whatsoever in an unfinished short story by a amateur writer in an anonymous setting is really unfathomable. Thats not the problem. I guarantee you do not read a book every waking hour of the day. I guarantee you watch some slop youtube video, or listen to some slop music, or scroll on some slop social media site. Nobody said to give him money for his short story. I just think that a better enviroment would reward people with effort by engaging honestly and meaningfully with the fruits of their effort, whether giving them good feedback, or what
I just ended oathbringer and i would knock sanderson out clean, the motherfucker made me eat so much fucking slog in this 3rd book i just didnt give a fuck about the famous sanderlanch, he is a hack i am sure, i read mistborne era 1 and this 3 stormlight ones, does it just keep getting worse in the other 2 stormlight books?. I just cant continue if the deal is making the book feel like a chore and overall a bad book and just save it with the endingAnd the pacing is shit
>>25193007Should i do the same? The third made me so mad
>>25195618>Books don't really age out the same way movies, shows, and games do.So you think old movies, shows and games aren't worth experiencing? There are still plenty of people enjoying ones that were made decades ago.
>>25194751Sounds autistic, luckily people like autistic magic systems these days so it could work>>25195453I'll consider reading it if/when you post the finished story >>25195768Rhythm of War was the book that finally made me swear off Sanderson entirely, its easily one of the worst reading experiences I've had in the last 10 years. The pacing is even worse, not even exaggerating when I say you could lop off 300-400 pages and you'd lose nothing of value, and Sanderson rehases the same exact character arcs for Kaladin and Shallan AGIAN for 3 books in a row. Highly recommend just cutting your loses now, I sure as hell wish I didn't force myself through it about 2 years ago.
>>25195783>The pacing is even worse, not even exaggerating when I say you could lop off 300-400 pages and you'd lose nothing of valueThis is what i hate the most, nothing fucking happens, ill cut the loses here then
>>25194727well i have started reading it and it just might be cool so far
>>25195778>So you think old movies, shows and games aren't worth experiencing? There are still plenty of people enjoying ones that were made decades ago.they are more "of their age"/dated, I love older movies, music etc. but its just a fact that literature is more "timeless" by its abstract nature compared to visual mediums.
>Books don't really age out the same way movies, shows, and games do. Disagree. The only book older than a 100 years worth reading is The New Testament. People in the past had no idea what pacing was and just thought long=good.
>>25195881anon those media are not even 100 years old
Its more timeless cause paper and ink been the same since forever, movies went from no audio black and white to full hd 3d in like a couple decades, same with videogames went from 2d 8 bit to 3d which makes playing old games/movies feel inferior, compared to old book which at most have some lenguaje barriers or pacing issues like >>25195881 said
what is the meaning of the scene where Cnaiur fucked the hole? Or the scene where he raped Conphas?could any bakker experts explain these scenes for me
The Lions of Al-Rassan is actually quite nice.
>>25196028Its possible that he just likes tight holes or something, idk barely remembered that he fucked a hole. I also barely remembered that he fucked conphas, for some reason that scene stands out in peoples minds, but I was speedreading that boring ass incoherent "IM A DEMON!!! ARRRGHHH I AM NOTHING ARGGGGHHH FUCK VALUES THEY MAKE ME FEEL BAD ARGHHHH IM ALSO DELUSIONAL AND IN LOVE WITH A SKIN SPY BUT I ACTUALLY WONT FUCK SKIN SPY SERWE ARRRGHHH BUT ILL STILL HOLD ONTO HER ARRRGGHHH" filler arc, all that, just for Conphas to die like a character that just showed up in 1 book just so they could die
join my heckin xmpp serversffg@chat.xmpp.party
>>25196089whats that? and what purpose does it serve?
>>25196090it's a chatroom idk I guess I just want to talk with people who are into sci-fi like me
>>25196028>what is the meaning of the scene where Cnaiur fucked the hole?In books 4-7, the goddess Yatwer manifests through faces in the earth>>25196074>but I was speedreading that boring ass incoherent "IM A DEMON!!! ARRRGHHHHe is. He is one of the two avatars of the Ajokli. And Ajokli and Yatwer mutually hate each other.
>>25196164>He is. He is one of the two avatars of the Ajokli. And Ajokli and Yatwer mutually hate each other.kek wtf, i really am going to have to finish this shit fucking series arent i.
>>25194712>No vulnerabilitiesYet again like clockwork, Bakker's detractors prove themselves illiterate.
>>25195881"Pacing" is a psy-op. How can you read something like Moby-Dick and afterwards ever think pacing matters?
>>25196280no vulnerabilities in the mental sensehe can murder his own kids without batting an eye
>>25196284>"Pacing" is a psy-oponly if you have infinite time on your hand
>>25194923You forgot The Reverie by Peter Fehervari.Maybe we need a Manchild Core 3.0>>25195456Absolutely, which is why I read almost nothing from the past decade or so. Sick of going to the bookstore and not being able to know what to read because all the covers are boring garbage.
>>25196028The fucking the ground scene is, if I recall, mixed in with him losing his shit and acting like a total psychopath and rampaging through random homes like a demon (at one point he "passes over" the homes with lamb's blood spread over them). I'm not really sure what this is for except to show that he is going crazy or to insinuate that in some strange way he really is connected to a demon/the Outside. Otherwise it is massively over the top and makes his character implausible. It's one thing to have PTSD and be violent, it's another to go on full on solo serial killer runs night after night raping and killing for no reason, and makes the character completely unlikable, except it is passed over to quickly you forget about it.Conphas gets raped because early in the first book before the battle he has captives raped to bait the Scilvendi into attacking. He jokes about this in front of Cnauir to bait him and Cnauir just loses his shit and gets tired of the cat and mouse drama and rapes him.If there is any point it is that Cnauir is pure will/appetite and beyond all custom. Moenghus really did lead him onto trackless ground, it's just that this drove him insane.
>>25196430>going crazy or to insinuate that in some strange way he really is connected to a demon>or"The Inrithi, he knew, thought insanity the work of demons.One night during the infancy of the Holy War—and for reasons Cnaiür could no longer recall—the sorcerer had taken a crude parchment map of the Three Seas and pressed it flat over a copper laver filled with water. He had poked holes of varying sizes throughout the parchment, and when he held his oil lantern high to complement the firelight, little beads of water glinted across the tanned landscape. Each man, he explained, was a kind of *hole* in existence, a point where the Outside penetrated the world. He tapped one of the beads with his finger. It broke, staining the surrounding parchment. When the trials of the world broke men, he explained, the Outside leaked into the world.This, he had said, was madness.At the time, Cnaiür had been less than impressed. He had despised the sorcerer, thinking him one of those mewling souls who forever groaned beneath burdens of their own manufacture. He had dismissed all things *him* out of hand. But now, the force of his demonstration seemed indisputable. Something *other* inhabited him.It was peculiar. Sometimes it seemed that each of his eyes answered to a different master, that his every look involved war and loss. Sometimes it seemed he possessed *two* faces, an honest outer expression, which he sunned beneath the open sky, and a more devious inner countenance. If he concentrated, he could almost feel its muscles—deep, twitching webs of them—beneath the musculature that stretched his skin. But it was elusive, like the presentiment of hate in a brother’s glance. And it was profound, sealed like marrow within living bone. There was no distance! No way to frame it within his comprehension. And how could there be? When it *thought*, he was …""The problem, of course, was the Dûnyain.He contradicted all of it.<...>The Dûnyain, Cnaiür realized, acted as though *there were no holes* in the sorcerer’s parchment map, no beads to signify souls, no water to mark the Outside. He assumed a world where the branching actions of one man could become the roots of another. And with this elementary assumption he had conquered the acts of thousands.He had conquered the Holy War.This insight sent Cnaiür reeling, for it suddenly seemed that he rode through *two different worlds*, one open, where the roots of men anchored them to something beyond, and another closed, where those selfsame roots were entirely *contained*. What would it mean to be mad in such a closed world? But such a world could not be! Ingrown and insensate. Cold and soulless.There had to be more."
>>25196466>and a more devious inner countenance>like the presentiment of hate in a brother’s glanceThis is the key telling phrase, foreshadowing who the fuck inhabits him.
About to start this. What am I in for?
>>25196411Okay I didn't expect you to double down on your illiteracy.
>>25196555braidpulling
>>25196555Is that Rand?
>>25196413So then go read the spark notes for every book? Are you trying to actually experience the work...?Or do you just want to complete it for the sake of having read it like some performative booktok bimbo?
>>25195881Don Quixote is the first novel and is over 400 years old and it STILL holds up, dramatically so. More than just being good, it actually *feels* like something that could be created today.In any creative work there's a gap between what the creator was trying to do and what you get out of it. Books are uniquely able to bridge that gap because there are so few obstacles in between. There are no visuals that can look outdated, or tech that now seems clunky and uninspired or overdone. There's no risk of a character stepping into the frame and us going "oh yeah, that's the guy that raped and murdered his mom" or w/e.>>25196555Comfy kino.
>>251966191953Did you ever read what they call Science Fiction? It's a scream. It is written like this: "I checked out with K19 on Adabaran III, and stepped out through the crummaliote hatch on my 22 Model Sirus Hardtop. I cocked the timejector in secondary and waded through the bright blue manda grass. My breath froze into pink pretzels. I flicked on the heat bars and the Bryllis ran swiftly on five legs using their other two to send out crylon vibrations. The pressure was almost unbearable, but I caught the range on my wrist computer through the transparent cysicites. I pressed the trigger. The thin violet glow was ice-cold against the rust-colored mountains. The Bryllis shrank to half an inch long and I worked fast stepping on them with the poltex. But it wasn't enough. The sudden brightness swung me around and the Fourth Moon had already risen. I had exactly four seconds to hot up the disintegrator and Google had told me it wasn't enough. He was right."They pay brisk money for this crap?Letter to agent H.N Swanson
Dong Quixote.
Are there any western fantasy series like this other than Gotrek & Felix?
>>25196723i dont think westerns are capable of such vile slop
>>25196727I've read some western yuri and some with incest and age gaps so western authors aren't completely hopeless.
>>25196723Left was so awesome I wish more of it had been adapted
>>25196723Stinky Steve series by PT Evans
>>25196640Sci-fi bros? Our response?
>>25196723Westerners don't have the honesty and pure-heart to write stuff like this.
>>25193892I'm working on a setting like that but I don't know what to do for the actual story.
>>25194838Greatness.
>>25196466>This, he had said, was madness.>At the time, Cnaiür had been less than impressed. He had despised the sorcerer, thinking him one of those mewling souls who forever groaned beneath burdens of their own manufacture. He had dismissed all things *him* out of hand. But now, the force of his demonstration seemed indisputable. Something *other* inhabited him.I think the funniest thing about this writing, is that things are sometimes as literal and substanceless as written. Theres no argument or exploration to be had with Achamians suddenly random inserted analogy which we were never privy to. Its true because the story demanded it must be true suddenly to validate and "foreshadow" an idea.
>>25196768Have you read The Story Grid or listened to the podcast. It might help you with figuring out a story for your setting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrb2bhnneYg
>(4) “WHO IS THIS GUY?” [Item by Dann.] John Scalzi is Brandon Sanderson’s evil nemesis… but Brandon Sanderson is not John Scalzi’s evil nemesis. Sanderson tells the story in this Facebook video.
>>25196640Based if true
>>25194371Funny to think that people thought this way for centuries until about a hundred years ago. Now, a hundred years into propaganda and you have easily the worst media output in history
>>25196831He wasn't wrong though. A lot of SF used to be like that (and still is).
>>25192488So we just stopped linking to the previous thread or something?
>>25194751I like how it's done in Unsounded, the magic system has very rigid rules but it still feels magical/mystical, it's basically fantasy math/physics
>>25196711By Miguel de Vergantes
>>25192488I recently finished Way of Kings. The worldbuilding feels kinda shallow. Like there are quirks and aspects of the world but their origins aren't clear. Safehands are weird, but he doesn't take time to explain where they came from. Spren are also weird, but at least they (as well as Shardplates/Shardblades, as I read mistborn and know the relevance of the word 'shard') seem relevant to the mystery of the story and have some modicum of promise of being explained. Only women read and write. Ok... but why? Even men who are surgeons are illiterate? Why? There's glyphpairs, which are sort of hieroglyphs, but somehow those are ok for men to know how to read. But again... why? Does this get explained in a future book?Anyway my other main complaint with the book is ironically overexplaining other things and removing any vagueness or ambiguity to a character's actions or intentions.
I'm thinking of starting Kingdoms of Death.
>>25196905What made you stop reading Sun Eater?Asking as someone who has it on my TBR list
>>25196905That one's my favorite in the series
>>25196902>I read mistborn and know the relevance of the word 'shard') seem relevant to the mystery of the story and have some modicum of promise of being explained. Only women read and write. Ok... but why? Even men who are surgeons are illiterate? Why? There's glyphpairs, which are sort of hieroglyphs, but somehow those are ok for men to know how to read. But again... why? Does this get explained in a future book?>>Anyway my other main complaint with the book is ironically overexplaining other things and removing any vagueness or ambiguity to a character's actions or intentions.If this was that one Bakker anon (no not "Bakkerfag" pretty sure this is a different guy) he'd quote an entire page that explains all your problems with the worldbuilding, missing the broader point. Fortunately, Sanderson doesn't have fans like Bakker does here.
>>25196914>What made you stop reading Sun Eater?Having lots of other books to read, I guess? But now I'm ready to get back in the saddle. Each Sun Eater book has gaps in between them so reading other stuff before starting a new one feels fitting.
>>25196781>Theres no argument or exploration to be had with Achamians suddenly random inserted analogy which we were never privy to. Its true because the story demanded it must be true suddenly to validate and "foreshadow" an idea.>>When the trials of the world broke men, he explained, the Outside leaked into the world.In the 2nd book, Achamian already gave a speech on suffering leading to a leakage from Hell:" “You know the way you can see far from heights,” the sorcerer was saying, “like towers or mountain summits?”“I’m not a fool. Don’t deal with me as one.”Pained smile. “Topoi are like heights, places where one can see far . . . But where heights are built with mounds of stone and earth, topoi are built with mounds of trauma and suffering. They are heights that let us see farther than this world . . . some say into the Outside. That’s why this ground troubles you—you stand perilously high . . . This is the Battleplain. What you feel isn’t so different from vertigo.” "Also, the analogy with holes is also reminiscent of Cnaiur's gnostic beliefs from the 1st book:"Moved by a peculiar melancholy, he looked to the stars. Scylvendi children were told that the sky was a yaksh, impossibly vast and pricked by innumerable holes. He remembered his father pointing skyward once. “See, Nayu?” he had said, “see the thousand thousand lights peeking through the leather of night? This is how we know that a greater sun burns beyond this world. This is how we know that when it’s night, it is truly day, and that when it’s day, it is truly night. This is how we know, Nayu, that the World is a lie.” ">analogy which we were never privy toWe were also privy to Kellhus' butthurt that future determines the past>Theres no argument or exploration to be hadA connection between suffering and kenosis as access to the divineGnosticismGoal-driven intentionalism (world as intentional, meaningful -> future determines the past)Mentalizing vs mechanistic cognition in the world where intentionalism actually does trump materialism
>>25196935I'm kind of jealous you get to read through KoD and AoM for the first time lol
>>25196956Always a first time.
>>25195042It's in Dutch.Roughly, 'My /job/ is to sit in this car in this /heat/.'Baan can also mean road (for cars).
>>25193007It doesn't get better imo and it's too long to waste. I could read an actual literary achievement in the same time.
>>25196902Its all explained latter, expect the women write men fight that one sanderson answered on a interview, basically if there were female warriors it means more people capable of using shardblades which means more competition for themEnjoy wok and wor because oathbringer is shit its so shit
>>25196926lol trueI think Sanderson has some good and bad qualities. In the high highs and low lows sense, that is. He's certainly the publishing industry's wet dream, but I'm curious what his legacy will actually be on fantasy and I worry it will be a negative one. It's bad because I'm as equally interested in how Wind and Truth became a trainwreck as I am in where the story/setting is going. There was a chapter in The Way of Kings that was so bad it actually stood out (Ch. 33) and it was just baffling how retarded Shallan's internal monologue got in that chapter for a 'smart' character. In contrast, the Kaladin bridge run chapters are excellent. Kaladin's depression is annoying, idc if it's 'realistic.'
>>25194350Will of the Many I'm very ambivalent towards. It's your standard Young Adult affair. Wronged yet very talented main character with a hidden past who hates [society] gets the chance to be the adopted son of a very high ranking member of [society], inducted into [not-hogwarts] and asked to ascend to its highest rankings and do some secret mission before the end of the year. He makes his friends and his enemies and eventually there's a hunger-games-ish tournament to determine class champion of some sort. The ending ends on a fairly interesting cliffhanger, where Vis loses his arm, and also is apparently cloned into two alternate realities. The society is basically Rome, except the plebs can give their life force/strength to the people above them in class, and the ones above them in class give their strength to the ones above them and so on until the majority of power is consolidated in the elite. This strength can also be imbued into items to make them stronger or connect them to one another. and it's an equal society for men and women because the not-hogwarts part needs its love interests. Honestly I had to force myself to finish the book since I had no others on that one trip where I packed it and lots of time to kill. The dynamics of Rome with literal and political consolidated power feels very lightly touched on and outside of the sappers(basically being forced to cede your will to people for being a criminal political or otherwise) the idea of the class structure also feels very lightly touched upon.The sequel I enjoyed a lot more. Lots of spoilers because it directly follows the spoiler heavy finale of the first. It follows the three copies of Vis each in their own dimension, each chapter dedicated to its own copy. Vis in the original world struggles with having lost an arm and one of his buddies, realizing how his mentor more or less sent him to his death and how the headmaster of not-Warts may not be such an evil schemer after all and may have had his reasons. It explores a bit of the society in more detail and builds up Vis as a bit of a populist reformer who may end up to be the book's version of Julius, pre ides of march that is. There's a lot of intrigue in this third and I enjoy it.Vis' second copy ends up in not-Gaul. This part of the book is all about him finally coming to terms in a society that he comes to love after years of being on the run and wanting to protect and fight for them, but struggling with it because he's lost an arm. Lots of themes of family and community in this one. I'm mixed on this one because it takes a while to get going but once a certain character shows up it really hit hard. While I felt it was the weakest of the bunch I still quite enjoyed the Act 3 bits of it.
>>25197069>Wronged yet very talented main character with a hidden past who hates [society]woah he is LITERALLY me
>>25197069Vis' last version is in a desolate desert and the city of Duat, basically not-Egypt. Despite being post apocalyptic this third felt like the most humourous of the bunch because otherwise it would be extremely depressing. Vis figures out some new powers and works up a plan to kill/fight the big bad. I enjoyed the character work in this third a lot, and I think this is mainly because I am egyptian but the way Duat and Qabr were described felt very vivid and well done. The society in this reality is a very interesting take on death, the afterlife and excess that I felt wouldn't feel out of place in some eras of ancient egypt and I quite liked all the characters in this part, with the exception of maybe Ahmose pre-dance arc.The book ends on a load of big twists that honestly have gotten me really interested in the third. It may be YA but it's an itch I really want to scratch now.
is there a website like goodreads but with genre and tag selection so I can search like >fantasy>magic>adventure >sibling love>politics>dramaetc?
People will just watch 7 hour summaries of books instead of reading it themselvesAlso has the AI boogeyman really gotten that bad?
is there a website like 4chan but with good fantasy and sci-fi discussion?
>>25197236>PeopleWouldn't really call them that. More like soulless bugmen
>>25197236Why's he looking at me like I'm tied up in his basement and he's telling me how he's going to torture me?
>>25197236>Also has the AI boogeyman really gotten that bad?Some of the earliest forms of AIslop on youtube was text to speech summaries of popular movies and stuff, so yeah it's pretty bad.
>>25197236>ai boogeymanThere are definitely AI narration summary channels out there but putting NO AI in the title is very virtue signally lol no one is going to look at a 7 hour video from a channel with 600K subs and think its AI slop especially when he didn't do it for his mega Wheel of Time summary video from a few months back.
>>25197197>>25197197https://www.goodreads.com/genres/listhttps://www.goodreads.com/genres/fantasyhttps://www.goodreads.com/genres/magichttps://www.goodreads.com/genres/adventurehttps://www.goodreads.com/genres/sibling-lovehttps://www.goodreads.com/genres/politicshttps://www.goodreads.com/genres/drama
>>25197349i want those things combined though
Has anyone else found themselves paradoxically less interested in modern published works, but reading fucking fanfic to compensate since there's so much of it?
I really enjoyed Vita Nostra, but I've heard the 'sequel' is just awful, on the order of the old Night Watch books. Anyone read it?
>>25195881>The New TestamentRight thread for it
>>25197236Might as well read the books in that time.
>>25197393but not the Torah or Talmud, right rabbi?
>>25197405Both of those are written by pedophiles
>>25197197Librarything, specifically the tagmash bit
>>25197405The publishers of the NT preface it with the torah and it takes up like 2/3 of the pages lol
>>25197354That's possible to do on personal accounts, but doesn't seem possible to do for general searches. If someone has scraped it all it would be possible to search. I vaguely remember someone doing something like that and making a website for it. There are also downloadable datasets. I don't care to try to find any of it right now though.
>>25197413>>25197354I remembered one of things and didn't have to search. See if this works for your purposes https://www.book-filter.com/
>>25197405Everyone should read the bible and the koran. The bible because you mostly get the tanakh that way if you pick up an osb or noab or rsvce (and because holy balls the jews are awful), the ot and the nt are still culturally relevant. It's actually very interesting, though I might recommend only a section a day because the census stuff is dry and you can often spot where two very similar tales have been jammed in together.And the koran is actually pretty short and an absolute meme. The second (and longest) sura is about jews killing cows for god to solve a murder, and they preface it with three onomatopoeia words that nobody knows the meaning of. There's sections about I SAW A COMET and I HATE THIS GUY.
>>25197418you can search adventure fantasy and romance i guess that helps and i can just look for interesting titles and hope there's incest and it'll be like a surprise
>>25192527>doesn't even know the main character's name in the book he supposedly just readDisregarded.
the intro of the three body problem is so bad, I'd have dropped it for sure if I hadn't watched the series first.
>>25197427You can search for incest directly on Goodreads. The terms just can't be combined. It's all user defined so may have to try a a lot of terms. Here's an example https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/sibling-incest
>>25197397I typically can't finish a single book in 8 hours. I'm esl reading eng though.
>>25197449>search incest looking for swords and sorcery Aryan sibling love>get an autobiography from some sheboon getting molested
>>25197393You're like 10 years late for this shit.
>>25197477More punctual than Jesus's return then
>>25196956fuark i need to get on the sun eater train asap but ive got boring books to finish
>>25197489You have no idea how hard I'm having to restrain myself from posting a söyjak right now.
>>25196952>In the 2nd book, Achamian already gave a speech on suffering leading to a leakage from Hell:>Also, the analogy with holes is also reminiscent of Cnaiur's gnostic beliefs from the 1st book:The problem with both of these, is that these, just like the reveal that a skin spy can have a soul. Arent actually explanations, they are the effective equivalent to the vague and incoherent explanations a priest may give you of the interpretation of what the trinity means, where none of it actually makes any sense, because its appealing to a bunch of made up concepts, that never have to be proven or established, but simply appealed to, where intuition does the rest of the work of validating it. Just like intuition did the work to validate that mental illness meant you were possessed by demons, and humans lived through entire centuries of not solving mental problems, but coping that it was solved through prayer and exorcism despite the fact it objectively wasnt, because what matters for people is the framework of belief, that allows something to be interpreted, not the fact of the matter.I already talked about this when Kellhus went on that tangent with Achamian where he perfectly predicted how the Cishaurim get their power with zero basis or exploration.That is my problem. Bakker just randomly and spontaneously introduces a bunch of bullshit youre simply forced to take at face value because he said so, theres nothing interesting or deep to be explored there on a BASIS level. Instead, what happens, just like religion, is that desirable concepts are built (demons) and then without foundation, and entire framework is built upon that (youre cursed, youre mad because you didnt repent enough, you were sinful in your past life, your mother gave birth to you while sinning, your father was blasphemous against god).If youre just along for the ride (as ive said about bakker fans in the past) then I can understand just accepting this uncritically, because a cool, epic, special world is built around you in this mysterious way, where character randomly mention the outside with vague analogies and then never elaborate on what it all means. To some degree, I admit I will only read on to see what hes trying to do with these concepts. Not because I think they will be explored in any way that could possibly make Cnauir a suddenly deep non incoherent character (there are far more interesting way mental illness can be approached, even if we take the literal demon shit as a "metaphysical" manifestation of madness). Nor make the fictional metaphysics suddenly, a statement on real metaphysics, or the thing the fictional metaphysics is trying to capture: Abstract concepts manifested as things independent of the mind.
>>25197069>Wronged yet very talented main character with a hidden past who hates [society] gets the chance to be the adopted son of a very high ranking member of [society], inducted into [not-hogwarts] and asked to ascend to its highest rankings and do some secret mission before the end of the year. He makes his friends and his enemies and eventually there's a hunger-games-ish tournament to determine class champion of some sort.Hilarious how this is quite literally the exact plot of Red Rising, like to a T and people will try to cope and tell you that its totally not actually YA because some people get tortured and their limbs and eyes cut off/out or some shit. Lol.
>>25197076>It may be YA but it's an itch I really want to scratch now.I get it. I had that arc when I was younger where I wanted the cool battles and powers of a shonen anime/manga, with the deep introspective character writing, and thematic moral exploration of something like a Hunter x Hunter (which at my young age was the peak of those things).I never ended up finding it, sometimes I got close, but the worst parts of shonen always reeled its head.
>>25194181"no pictures of me exists on the internet so that make me LE COOL guy."
>>25194838painskip it
>>25196905>commies bad and aliens are demons: the bookI enjoyed it but KoD showed me that my tolerance for being pandered to does have a limit
>>25196780>>25197549So I can tell pretty quickly from how the author writes, the meandering, the tense scene at the bar, the vivid description of his cousin's fat tits that I like his style
>>25197617>that my tolerance for being pandered to does have a limithmmm...
Alright gonna try "Asking for recs based solely on a random character" againThis time Monica from Unicorn Overlord
>>25196089xmpp is gay. just use irc
>>25196555the start of a based series.
https://youtu.be/58cRKxJzcuQUnbelievably stupid gay, Hunger Games wannabe suffering to revolution fantasy
>>25197711xmpp is like IRC if it didn't suxx