/lit/ - Literature

Making proud-warrior orcs who are anything other than congenitally evil is a species-wide "I can save her," simping on a grand scale.

How come nobody gives a flying fuck about science fiction and just shit that takes place in outer space in general anymore?

>>14868770
>cigar-shaped interstellar object hurtles into solar system at solar escape velocity+
>swings very close to earth
>moves on out
>nobody cares
I don't even know. Bad marketing?

>>14868770
The Space Race hasn't been a thing for about 50 years, anon

>>14868770
But I do care, anon.
Looks like you need some Alastair Reynolds.

>>14868709
IF you want to "romance" a female orc, a real female orc not just ones that are essentially green skinned humans you have to be aware of a few things. She'll probably try to kill you at one point or another just to make sure you're worthy, you try any lovey dovey shit with her and she's probably going to try to snap your neck and she's probably going to rape some helpless dude while she's out raiding because it's in her nature so don't expect monogamy because just as regular orcs stick their dicks in everything they can willing or not, she's going to take as many dicks as she can willing or not.

So basically you're resigning yourself to what will most likely be a short life of uncertain danger and cuckoldry. Have fun waifufags.

>>14868770
I am a blue collar worker writing a sci-fi novel from a blue collar perspective where the work is the majority of the conflict for the first half

Nobody said space construction would be easy

>>14868770
bc you can't admit to yourself that marvel movies are technically sci fi

>>14868883
Nah, they're just fantasy.

>>14868770
Why write space opera if you can just watch le mandolorian and play Halo?

>>14867655
Current book club selection is from 2019 (Gideon the Ninth).

>>14868770
Greg Egan recently released a new collection of short stories. I would bet that you've never heard of him.

>>14868969
Greg Egan's entire goal is to suck every last bit of fun from SF

>>14868974
Guy I'm responding to obviously doesn't like fun, so that's a good thing.

>>14868736
Agreed.
>>14868770
Progress is a dead meme so technical and futuristic speculative fiction doesn't resonate with people anymore.

>>14868709
So I finished the first book, Shadow of the Torturer, I liked it but I was expecting something more with all the praising here
Are the genius elements coming later in the serie ?

>>14869195
Progress toward Syd Mead Glass Utopia is a dead meme, progress toward destruction is the new hotness. Zombie apocalypses were an early step toward perfection of this genre.

>>14869456
Progress in the ideological and philosophical sense. I would say the dissolution of progress as a genre has already been perfected with the dying earth subgenre. It is in a way the ultimate rebuttal of it while still staying within the realm of modernity. For me at least, this is one of the reasons the most popular stories by Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, M. John Harrison and others are so compelling.

>>14869292
Basically all the things that seem random and inexplicable that happen along the way get tied together.

>>14869518
The realm of modernity itself is what needs deconstructed - not the pansy "interrogation" of the post-modernists but the feral, noncommunicative deconstruction of the unnameable ur-genre that is now often expressed as cultivation power-fantasy and as self-published harem smut

>>14869526
>The realm of modernity itself is what needs deconstructed
Deconstruction itself is of modernity, even if it is 'post'-modern. No, all of modernity needs to be rejected entirely, every aspect, and in its place a new mode of authenticity must be found stemming from Dasein. A new confidence to build upon the traditionalist structure that modernity crushed, while at the same time looking forward into the future. A reigniting of creative vitality and a reassertion of the solar.

>>14869602
The word "deconstruction" is purely descriptive. It is a natural process, entirely pre-rational, unplanned and unplannable. Awareness of modernity in any form is modernity. The future must be acknowledged as a monster and driven off, and man's right and natural state of delirium and religious intoxication restored.

>>14868816

That sounds like most Western women in general. Pick your poison, an orc bitch or a thot.

>>14869610
I won't entirely disagree with you on the second part but I will object to the first. Obviously the underlying thing is far older than modernity and you are right that it is a label, but in the context of things needing to be deconstructed, how this is applied, this is purely in the modernist mode, the conceptualization of it. You're approaching this from a too rationalist a standpoint. I think it would be poignant to instead go back to go forward, perhaps a dose of occultism and mysticism, maybe something else. To slightly get your head out of the muck.

From where I'm at you're not really talking about 'deconstruction' but an effect of chaos, the unraveling of things. This by itself isn't useful though, I'm interested in chaos as the mother of creation. But this is a thread about genre fiction, so I digress.

>>14868770
Cyberspace>Outerspace

>>14869690
At least an orc girl won't invite invaders into your home and give the things she's pillaged to people who want to kill you. Even at their worst orc women don't sound so bad compared to modern western women. When you think about it even the most cruel and sadistic orc would be a step up actually.

>tfw no hefty pigsnout orcbride for dungeon survivalmaxxing

Has this general always been this coomer-ey?

>>14869748
Congrats on achieving such a level of delusion.

>>14869760
yes

>a real female orc
>here let me limit your creativity to my specific concept of orc grils

>>14869777
>because words don't mean anything

Does it suck blood?
No.
Can it transform?
No.
Does it dislike certain stuff?
No.
Can it be outside in daylight?
Yes.
Can it see itself in a mirror?
Yes.
Is it immortal?
No.

>What do you mean this isn't a vampire? I'm not limited by your specific concept of vampires!

>>14869775
You're saying the incredibly malignant and savage orc women would do that too? Fuck.

come home hu-man

>>14868969
>Greg Egan recently released a new collection of short stories
A disappointment, overall.

Thanks to those who gave their advice before. I'm still just up to 2000 words but that's 2000 more than yesterday. The problem seems to be just sitting down, clearing distractions, and getting started. I realize I've messed myself up bad with my attention span and this website when I do nothing but constantly shift between tabs. Some advice I got:

>Broad details like that are the easiest part of the story, the low-hanging fruit, putting it into words is labor and you need to forget about nice paragraphs dropping fully-formed from your imagination until you put the work and practice into learning the trade. Write a bunch of trash, figure out what about it made it trash, take notes while you're reading other things of what worked and what didn't. I'm talking surface-level stuff, what they start their paragraphs with, how often they use characters' names rather than pronouns. Respect writing, it's a different thing than plotting and you need to give to get.
>Besides outlining you also need to stop fucking around with minor characters and shit to focus on a main character and their desire/goal. A strong first chapter will start with a good opening line, a strong image, or conflict. Don't begin with backstory or weather. There's lots of resources for beginning writers: books, podcasts, classes. The ones about screenwriting have the same principals as those on novels.
>>/sffg/, i keep feeling like im not writing my characters correctly, like im either ignoring their personality traits or apeing them. how do I write them better? “Write out a fictional interview for them: what they want, why they want it etc etc “
>Its also important to keep in mind that you are telling a story, not info dumping so even if you have every aspect of the world planed out its better to show bits of it in appropriate places or if all else fails add a world bible along with the text, instead of killing pacing by going on long or clumsy info dumps. If characters feelings or thinking can be shown in a dialogue (for example would X be willing to open up to Y about this, if yes write a dialogue) in other words avoid internal monologue as much as possible

>real vampire
>make sure to be 100% cliche

>>14869760
Have you always been thus retarded?

>>14869927
Maybe but nobody will tell me

>>14869839
where did you find this amazing photograph?

>>14869959
innernet

>>14868770
>How come nobody
I bet if someone actually did a survey (somehow) and counted (somehow) there are probably a record number of people who give a shit about both those things. They're just in their little facebook group now and you're not a part of it. Instead, you're here.

How do I write something without using humor as a crutch

>>14868849
So, Planetes? Sounds comfy

>>14870139
>So, Planetes?
Exactly so, I'm glad I have a potential market

>>14869839
>i keep feeling like im not writing my characters correctly, like im either ignoring their personality traits or apeing them. how do I write them better?
Here's some good advice from a very useful book I have that is to be applied to central characters. It needn't be done of course, but it's a good exercise if something doesn't feel right about your character. If they're too much cardboard or if their personality doesn't show and needs fleshing out.

>1. Write a brief biographical sketch. Where were they born, who were their parents? Are they educated, illiterate? What's their job? Don't just pick these at random, get a feel for where you're going with it as a whole.
>2. Write a description of the character as seen by another character in the story. It's useful to describe them from the viewpoint of two other characters at least. This will sharpen both your view of the character and their relation to one another. What does one see that the other doesn't in the same person?
>3. Write a scene in which the character comes home and does whatever he routinely does at that time of day. What does he do? Feed a pet? Light up a pipe? Fuck his wife? This will both tell you something about the state of normalcy of your character and something about him.
>4. Write an incident in the character's life which you will not use in the story, but which reveals something about him as a person.
>5. Invent a second character who is just like the first in a general way, the same stereotype, and write a scene between this new one and the original one. If you have come up with a crusty old sailor then make another one. You need to be able to differentiate between the two besides their names, in how they talk, their attitudes, how they act. If they are too much the same then you need to do something about it, maybe the second character grows some more personality than the first as you write, then use him in your story instead.

The interview method is also a good one, but Knight recommends less of a friendly chat and more that you torture your characters a little to find out their deepest secrets. Twist their arm a bit, waterboard them until they reveal their motivations and desires. The stuff you find out if you ask them nicely is bound to be less interesting.

>>14870125
Try writing about something deeply unfunny and, if possible, that you find a painful subject.

Does anyone have any suggestions for fantasy with a brutal barbarian female MC? Like a Red Sonja type who is small on wardrobe and big on brutality? Not looking for sexual / erotic stuff. In fact I hate sex in fantasy fiction. Just kind of that female Conan style that isn't afraid to just make her hard core and bad ass. Seems most things like this are comics which I hate.

>>14870400
I've not read them myself, but you may try the Sword and Sorceress anthologies, they might feature stories like that.

>>14870400
I'm writing something like this at the moment. I don't like sex in fantasy either but I do like metal bikinis. In the end I had to take matters into my own hands because what I found was all at least pseudo-erotica. The one I found most enjoyable though was Silverglass by J.F. Rifkin.

>>14870429
See that's the problem. I love that aesthetic and mood, but hate the stuff that turns into erotica. I just want a brutally bad ass female warrior type that is ok in next to nothing. In fact I imagine her instantly killing anyone that tries to make jokes or make it sexual. She just has her look and likes it.

>>14870400
Snowbrother by S.M Stirling but it does have a little bit of sex and rape

>>14870420
You mean the pedo anthologies

What's the general opinion on the ending to the First Law trilogy?

>>14870857
it was okay but there was so many unresolved questions. I suppose part of it was 'oh Bayaz is actually the bad guy all along wow what a twist' but I kind of felt that already. I also hated Bayaz as a character anyway, just preferred every scene he was not in a lot more than the ones he was in. It's been a couple years since I last read the original trilogy anyway and San dan Glokta is the only character that left any lasting impressions on me anyway. I do chuckle at the idea of Jezel fucking that unwilling blonde italian dyke though.

>>14869839
What dumb advice. True chads follow none of these.
Imagine needing a warm-up and bothering about the characters "motivations" when you can simply decide what's the cooler action they can take anytime.
Worse offense would be botching the character's true feelings through dialogue.

>>14870893
I really liked Bayaz coming out with as a villain, but that his ending was just walking away with the Seed felt incredibly anti-climactic in the worst sort of way. I get there was this whole "it's about the journey" message it was trying for with the ending, but mostly I felt that the lack of any resolution made the whole thing a waste of time. Everyone just kinda fucks off back to where they were and most of the development is undone.

Glokta's the closest to get an actual ending, which is part of why he sticks out the most, I think

>>14870857

I didnt even made it to the end. I dropped somewhere in the third. Couldnt handle the cliches anymore.

Besides Wolfe and to a lesser extent Bakker, are there any fantasy authors that write about Gnosticism?

>>14871318
M John Harrison does, especially in his later work. The fantasy part of Umberto Eco's Baudolino has a whole lecture on it.

>>14868770
There's still all the market there ever was, there's just way more market and SF didn't keep up

Any recomendations like pic related?
Preferably without a trash ending.

>>14870857
I loved it. What doesn't get talked about much is the action, the final multi-scene battle was some of the best I've ever read, really edge of my seat through the whole thing.

>>14870915
The 'message' is that everyone thinks they're the hero, even the villains.

>>14871495
I’m pretty sure the message was:
>Dude subverting fantasy tropes lmao.

>>14868770
The idea of space is absurd. The rockets can't break through the firmament. It was fun reading science fiction back in the day, but I'm happy we can all admit that it was all fantasy all along.

>>14869839
>The problem seems to be just sitting down, clearing distractions, and getting started.
You got it figured out anon. I wish you the best.

>>14870906
>Imagine needing a warm-up and bothering about the characters "motivations" when you can simply decide what's the cooler action they can take anytime.
Y'know, there's something to be said for pulp writing. Due to how simple it is things are harder to fuck up and it's much faster to write. Just making the hero a driven, intelligent and strong man who is good at fighting, giving him a companion that is more normal and can make the comments the heroic leading man can't and then tagging the villain with some gimmick like being fat, only having one leg or whatever is a formula that works. The hero is thrown headfirst into a heap of trouble that he doesn't want any part of as close to page one as possible and at the end he has given the villain an atomic wedgie and fucked his daughter. I wouldn't recommend simply writing what you find cool beyond simple structures like that though, then you might end up as Rothfuss.

Here's what Lester Dent has to say about creating characters, you'll notice that it's less about making them spring to life which Knight's exercises are about, but more about making them functional and memorable. Their archetype and their general motivation is already there in the format, which do vary slightly depending on the pulp genre.
>It seems likely that “character” rates as one of the principal story-making materials. Many a yarn comes back with“Inadequate Characterization”pencilled on a rejection slip, and a scribbler works up a headache trying to figure out what the hell that meant. It might help to glance over some barn door variety characterization gags that most professionals use.
>A fair idea is to make out a list of characters before starting a yarn. Then it’s conceivably a better idea to try to get along with half the list.
>For a detective yarn, several characters may be handy, to wit:Onehero. One villain. Various persons to murder. It may not be a sure-fire thing to murder women, some editors being finicky that way. Somebody for the hero to rescue is often handy, too. Female. Not female, though, if the editor has what he is wont to quaintly call a “no woman interest” mag.
>Characterizing a story actor consists of giving him some things which make him stick in the reader’s mind. Tag him. A tag may be described as something to recognize somebody by. Haile Selassie’s sheet and drawers might be called an appearance tag. So might Old John Silver’s wooden leg inTreasure Island. And movie comic Joe Brown’s big mouth. The idea is to show the tag to the reader so that he may thereby recognize the actor in the story. Instead of marching the character in only by name, parade the tag.
>Mannerism tags may cover absent-minded gestures. Perhaps the villain (villainy at this point unknown) is often noted rubbing his eyes when in private or when thinking himself unobserved. At end of yarn, it turns out the color of his eyes has been disguised by the new style glass opticians’ cap which fits directly on the eyeball, and cap was irritating his eyes.
>It’s nice to have tags take a definite bearing on the story. Not all can, however.
>Disposition tags should not be overlooked. Is the character a hard guy? Does he love his women and leave ‘em—and later help them over the rough spots? This tagging might go on and on and become more and more subtle.
>Characters usually have names. Occasionally an author is a literary Argus who writes a yarn carrying the actors through by their tags alone, then goes back and names them. This procedure is not necessarily to be advised, except a time or two for practice.

>>14863502
>try Guy Gavriel Key
Thanks anon, will check
Any particular book you reccomend?

>>14871896
TIGANA

>>14870857
I liked some parts of it but some other parts I feel like Abercrombie was trying too hard to do the whole "subversion" meme along with the over the top grim dark stuff that bordered on the point of unintentional comedy at times. His more recent works are a little better in that regards so at least he's evolving as a writer.

>>14870857
Reddit-tier

Any books where they have animal characters and are serious? No stupid coomer furry shit, but since degenerates ruing everything they touch, you can NOT have anthropomorphic animals.
A shame, wince they are fucking awesome.

>>14871953
They do have sex though.

>>14871953
Animal characters?

>>14871990
animals or humanoid animals. Most fantasy doesn't have them, at least what I've been reading, but I'd like to see a story where one of the characters or a main character is an animal, not simply not-human.

>>14871709
>His first book doesn't have at least three principal plots
>doesn't have multiple MC's
>doesn't have at least 4 major twists
>doesn't have at least 20 secondary characters
>doesn't partly subvert the genre, while fully embracing it in it's own way
>has villains instead of nuance
>has normal companions
>is simple due to the sheer lack of ambition and the limited brain scale of it's writer

>>14872013
Quozl perhaps.

It's 20 years later and I still have my original copies of ASoIaF. I am reading them now back to back for the 8th time. And I haven't read any of the side stories or worldbuilding books even once.
I am not sure what to feel.

>>14872086
Like a degenerate weeb with bad taste in books apparently.

>>14868770
>no space elevator
>no space station with centrifugal gravity
>no moon or mars colony
>no asteroid mines

>>14872099
>weeb
Not a weeb, I just love ass. Girl ass. Boy ass. Tranny ass. All ass. Though I haven't read anything from this general I've ever liked besides what I knew already: Tolkien and Martin. The other fantasy books just don't compare.

>>14871953
Lives of the Monster Dogs

>>14872086
>I am not sure what to feel.
Like a coomer and a pedo

I started reading The Way of Kings but im starting to regret it since based on goodreads it has a lot large female fanbase.

>>14872086
I still haven't managed to make my way through the first book in Gurm's series. What's the appeal?

>>14872024
You forgot the best part.
>he doesnt aim to die before finishing the last book in the series after building up to an ending for decades, leaving his readers forever blueballed
>not writing whatever cool shit that pops into your head until you're stuck in a corner and just stop writing and go on conventions and take up other projects instead

Is the Alvin Maker series good? Have read the first four Ender books and want more Card.

Could anyone recommend me some decent books based around Indian or other (non-Japanese/Chinese) Asian myths and religions?

>>14872342
I like his style of writing third person limited, he makes each character unique without going into cringy meme territory as something like Black Company does. Another thing I enjoyed is how understated the magic is and how simple the world they inhabit is. Sure, you have Daenerys going around in other lands, but that's largely irrelevant to the core which is centered around Westeros. I would probably like it even more if it was just a single city, as I like contained stories as opposed to sprawling and shallow ones like Malazan where you go to a thousand different places but all of them are presented like you're reading the wikia to a shitty RPG.
And, of course, the story was great reading it for the first time. I've actually seen faggots now saying how predictable the story is, which is total bullshit - nobody I know that read them as they released had any idea of what was going to happen.
It's simple, personable, and exciting.
But this isn't a case of Martin being such an extraordinary writer, so much as all fantasy published being complete and utter garbage. Martin doesn't know all that much about history, but he at least had the decency to fake it. Every fantasy book I've read in the last 10 years is basically a video game being told in the form of the book, and it's fucking disgusting.
>>14872420
Dreams of a Red Chamber

Can someone rate the intro to my fantasy novel?

I want to tell you a story. One where you walk on every word like an old path that leads to the twilight of its end. The trail is long and winds toward far off lands and people. I don’t know what you’ll find on your journey, be it of forbidden love, crownless kings, or finding joy in the little things. But when the last page comes and goes, I’ll be there waiting, and hope that you'll have heard a tale of the endless horizon and what lies beyond our simple lives.

>>14872616
I'll be able to rate it after I read it in retrospect with the other 1000p in mind.

>>14872616
Don't assume the lives of your readers are simple and don't admit to being a pantser in your intro.

Fuck E William Brown

>>14872669
But as it is, is it a good beginning?

I bounced off this hard the first time I tried it but I'm really enjoying it now.
Don't usually like multiple pov books and yet this is handling something like 7 povs effortlessly, my only real question so far is if I'll still be enjoying it once the heavily foreshadowed bad shit starts happening.

>>14871953

>>14872391
Alvin Maker's definitely closer to the Ender's Game Card than either the messed-up New Wave Hart's Hope Card or the boring boomer Empire Card. Too bad it'll never be finished.

>>14870857
3rd book goes to shit once the guy becomes a domestic abuser just to signal that his character has changed
The omg what a tweest part of the ending barely registers after that

Still not sure if I'll ever give anything else by him a try, I was considering it but then saw he's going back to first law in his new series so I'm not sure he learnt much from it.

>>14872812
As it is it's just a sentence, beginnings begin things.

>>14872861
L-lewd

>>14870857
Let me suck my gums on it a while....

>>14872616
Sounds like a fucking Hallmark card.

>>14872534
What did you think of the HBO ending which is the only resolution you're going to get?

>>14872420
Bhagavad Gita

What are the main aspects of sword and sorcery? What is it that makes sword and sorcery enjoyable, and if not enjoyable, what makes it not?
I'm researching the genre and reading whatever I can. What are the essentials? I started with Elric and will continue with Conan.
>But Elric is not sword and sorcery
Why?
>because it's dark fantasy
And can't sword and sorcery be dark fantasy? Or are they mutually exclusive in the genre?

>>14872420
Lord of Light

>>14872103
Niggaz just underestimated how hard setting up any of those would be.

>>14873048
>What are the main aspects of sword and sorcery?
What differentiates it from epic fantasy or traditional fantasy is the focus of it. It's not about matters that concern the entire world or even grand struggles, but the immediate and personal heroism of the individual.
>What is it that makes sword and sorcery enjoyable, and if not enjoyable, what makes it not?
It's very raw and the action has high impact, the undiluted high adventure of the stories is what makes them enjoyable. It's all very unpretentious and masculine. Due to their structure they're also almost incapable of being bloated unless the writer is truly terrible.

This is also why you might not like them, in a way they are often simple and if you're used to ten doorstoppers telling one continuous tale then their more compact format might not be very appealing.

>>14873305
>It's not about matters that concern the entire world or even grand struggles
fafhrd and mouser end like 3 apocalyptic threats before the first two books are over

>>14873330
because they feel morally compelled to, or by accident when they're after some booty?

also the presence of 3 apocalyptic threats immediately makes them less of a focus than like WoT where there's one for the whole series

>>14871990
Begone cuckold

>>14868709
Revolt on Alpha C - Robert Silverberg (1955)
This novella was Silverberg's first published work that wasn't a short story. He was 19 years old. As you can tell from the image it was targeted at young teens. Many of the characters are similarly named after people he knew and was friends with or admired. The books themes and morals are explicitly discussed, though while not quite in a sermonizing manner, it veers dangerously close. A character presents a little book to the protagonist and tells him to read it because it contains all the ideals that he needs to know to understand their cause.
In 2363, a faster-than-light military ship is on a training mission to Alpha Centauri IV, where it discovers that the planet is in revolt and has declared its independence. Our naïve protagonist, Larry Stark, has to decide where his loyalties lie. Does he choose the planet, Earth, and nation, The United States, where has always lived and has pledged his loyalty to, or does he choose a people and land he has never known to fight for ideals and principles he has never before considered, forsaking family, home, and everything he's ever known to live out the rest of his life here, fighting with them for their cause? Ending Spoiler: I think it ought to be obvious, but he chooses the latter.
It somewhat bothered me that there was a mining colony on Jupiter since there isn't any solid ground there, but maybe that wasn't really known in 1955 or he simply didn't know.
I was amused that the American Revolution was studied as part of Medieval History, which is what their own revolt is based on, even going so far as to chant "No taxation without representation!"
The planet is described as a primitive dinosaur planet, and considering Silverberg's later works, I think he must have been rather fascinated by dinosaurs. In this case, they are mostly there as background. A short chase scene from a t-rex being the only notable inclusion.
I don't know why it is, but there's something about works that include dinosaurs that just irritates me, which doesn't mean I necessarily avoid them, though I have avoided works for specifically for their inclusion.

Rating: 2.5/5
Mostly for how basic and hamfisted it was with cardboard cutout characters. However, if I had read this as a child, particularly if I were on at the time it was written, I would probably have given it a 5/5.

lmao goodreads is recommending me terry goodkind because I read Earthsea

Starhaven - Robert Silverberg (1958)
The protagonist, John Mantell, was a bum for seven years. When he accidentally kills someone it's time to leave the planet, for if he stays he'd have to undergo Rehabilitation, where the authorities erase your personality and substitute it with one more acceptable. His only option is Starhaven, a planet fully enclosed in a metal sphere, whose almost twenty million residents are all criminals who have sought sanctuary from Space Patrol. Here they can find refuge as both its offensive and defensive capabilities are unmatched making its planetary defenses nigh invincible.
To ensure there aren't any spies that come inside, all entrants must be psychoprobed, which reveals their life history and all their personality traits. The protagonist immediately catches the eye of the founder and tyrant as well his fiancée, Myra Butler, with whom he immediately becomes infatuated with. She's described as: "..a girl with hair the color of Thurdan's shirt [dramatic purple] and eyes the color of blue-white diamonds or blue-white suns." See the image in the next post to see what came to mind for me. Being that they are a society of criminals, the only real laws can be summed up as: Don't do unto others what you can't afford them doing unto you and The Founder Must Always Be Obeyed Without Hesitation Upon Pain Of Death. The currency is gambling chips. Thurdan warns Martell that he will be killed instantly if he even thinks of cucking him.
Reminded me a lot in general of The Las Vegas Strip in Fallout: New Vegas. Also reminded me a bit of Harlan's World from Altered Carbon, but I doubt this was any influence on it. Myra reminded me somewhat of Ramona Flowers and Art3mis (Samantha Cook) in various ways.
Plot spoilers: Mantell has intense headaches and flashes of memories that he doesn't understand. Myra Butler, the fiancée,is part of a conspiracy to assassinate Thurdan so that they can have a democracy instead, with Mantell being the first leader because he's new and because she became instantly infatuated with him as well. At the end it's revealed that Myra isn't a criminal. She came here voluntarily to be Thurdan's fiancée. Thurdan is assassinated, but the events leading up to that is a complete derailment to me. Mantell is a secret undercover agent, but it worked too well and he's unable to remember his "real life", which was the cause of the headaches. Mantell now faces the same choice that the protagonist from the previous post and novella faced. Does he chose differently? No, of course he doesn't. Turns out it's better to rule criminals with your waifu who failed at using a knaifu, for your entire laifu, than it is to serve in Space Patrol. The main thing that bothered me is that he had the same name as both identities.

Rating: 3
A fun wish-fulfillment story in an interesting society that was hampered by the events leading up to its ending as well as other noted detractions.

>>14873397
Stop self-inserting as the wrong character retard :3

>>14873422
Except with the blue-white eyes as noted.

The Plot Against Earth - Robert Silverberg (1959)
Image is from a Google search.
In 2304, Lloyd Catton is the special investigator for the Terran World Government sent to the Interworld Commission on Crime to discover who is behind The Plot Against Earth. He is able to speak the local Morilaru dialect through a hundred hours of intensive hypnotraining, which I've always found to be silly. Three other major races are in attendance concerned with a threat that imperils them all. The threat being hypno-jewels. Merely gazing at these jewels gives the beholder unlimited pleasure, but after a mere hour, it also brings death. It is suspected that the non-humanoid races are conspiring against the humanoid races as they are not affected by the hypno-jewels.
Catton later meets Estil, the 18 year-old daughter of Earth's ambassador, who is "GRAVELY ATTRACTIVE" confides in him that she's secretly in love with her older music teacher, and he's an alien. SCANDALOUS! But he may be in the hypno-jewel trade and needs to be investigated because she can't be with a criminal alien.
"We will have it coded for your retinal pattern" for documents, which brings a different meaning to the phrase "for your eyes only". It seems the idea for retinal scans were put forward in 1935.
The first 50% of the novel is the investigation phase. 15% is uneventful primitive planet survival. 35% is the apprehension.
Estil is later met again and she says that after eloping with him they had sex but after a few weeks he grows bored of her and leaves her on an alien planet where she lives in penury for some time until Catton meets her again.
The actual thread turns out to be matter duplicators, which are banned by all the humanoid races because apparently becoming post-scarcity will destroy civilization. This is something that I entirely disagree with.
Receptionist met soon as the novella starts:
She wore the green crest of an unmarried woman twined in her hair. Her skin was a soft purplish hue; her eyes, light crimson, stood out brilliantly against that background. The clinging blouse she wore left her shoulders bare, revealing the three little inch-high nubbins of bone on each shoulder that marked the chief external anatomical difference between Terran and Morilaru.
Plot Spoiler:
Pouin Beryall's, who he meets as soon as the novella starts, name looks so much like betrayal and burial that I instantly knew that he was going to be the mastermind behind everything, which he was. I don't know if this was intended, but it made it rather predictable, but whatever.

Rating: 3.5/5
A perfectly functional and fun story of an investigation.

you know I could kind of get behind the all books from the 50s are by Robert Silverberg meme

>>14873457
Here's a list of 57 names he used for publishing.
http://majipoor.com/works/pseudonyms

>>14873503
that list is a little incomplete
here's the real one
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?author

>>14873518
I acknowledge your joke.

>>14873330
In terms of focus and scale, you can absolutely write a S&S story about someone stumbling into some serious shit, but it will either just have to be another threat they face or something in the background that the story is not directly about. Again, direct heroics.

>>14873419
They're trying to counterbalance the feminist agitprop with some femdom and rape.

>>14871953
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

>>14873415
Jupiter having solid ground was also in City by Clifford D Simak which was from 1952.
I wonder when it was widely know that Jupiter is a gas giant?

>>14873693
For all I know, the average person may still think it has a surface to land on.

>>14872790

>>14872616
Rewrite it faster. Do this a few dozen times. Then pick the best one.

>>14872616
too flowery and it doesn't make a lot of sense. if the speaker is telling the story, why doesn't he know what's in it like crownless kings etc?

>>14872868
I'll give it a shot, thanks anon.

Why did Agia save Severian and let him go at the end of Citadel?

>>14868849
There needs to be more of this.

>>14869292
I really felt the same. I mean it was enjoyable and good. But fuck all happened in it.

I am learning how to talk like a xianxia character
Practicing Chinese expressions too

>>14874086
>>14872790
Who hurt you?
Where did they ouch you?

>>14874987
I would assume E William Brown

>>14874348
I dont know I just read the passage and a few summaries. Sounds like like the green man obviously wouldn't let her and he could probably deal with her worm she got from hethor so no point trying.
"Now I will let you go free—because I have some inkling of where you will go—and in the end you will come into my hands again, as you did when our pteriopes took you from the evzones."
and she figured she could catch him later when the green man was gone but I dont really know agia is a fucking nutcase

>tfw I got my inspiration back
>tfw I lost it two days later when the weather changed

>>14875170
Stop relying on mystic forces and write.

>>14875246
He didn't say he didn't write, just that he lost his inspiration. As writing doesn't require inspiration but is enhanced by it I at least hope he doesn't wait for it before starting to write.

>>14875246
I've actually kept up my writing for the past three days, so I think I'm back on the wagon. I just ran out of excitement really quickly

For our pandemic times and relevant to us personally.

https://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.html

>>14872616
I'm already bored

sfi-fi bros I have been looking for a story that may or may not exist (I either read it a long long time ago or it was some crazy vivid fever dream) about a guy either trying to escape or get inside a futuristic city that was always growing by itself. I barely remember anything other than he did accomplish his goal at some point and it had a depressing ending, related to the city either growing too much or the passing of time or some shit like that. It may also have been in french. I don't even know if it was a book or a comic.
Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

>>14873180
Looks pretty cool, thanks anon

>>14870400
>>14870429
>>14870438
I'd second Silverglass.

Aside from that the other Babebarian stuff I can think of off the top of my head is Raven: Swordsmistress Of Chaos by Richard Kirk, decent but not very well written, and the Chicks In Chainmail short stories series (titled with puns such as Chicks and Chained Males, The Chick is in the Mail, and so on) from Baen and edited by Esther Friesner.

There's also the Amazon series by Sarah Hawke but that's (well written) erotica.

>>14871953
The Chanur series by C. J. Cherryh, a crew of lion-aliens find a human stowaway on their cargo ship, and get dragged into increasingly dangerous plots by other aliens.

>>14872420
Aliette de Bodard's Xuya novels have a bunch of Vietnamese and Aztec derived stuff in them and are pretty good SF. In the Vanishers’ Palace is Vietnamese-derived too but I haven't read it.

>>14872534
>Every fantasy book I've read in the last 10 years is basically a video game being told in the form of the book, and it's fucking disgusting.

Or movies. I tried reading the Riyria Revelations series because apparently everybody loves it but it just felt like some generic medieval pastiche by somebody who'd maybe seen a couple Robin Hood movies. Likewise for the Greatcoats series, everybody seems to love it but it's just dreck, reads like a bad TV series that has Rothfuss as a contributing writer.

>>14872851
>The monarchies of God
Why are series' names often so fucking retarded

>>14876017
The Swords of A'Pos'Tro"Phy: Book IX of XV in the Overwrought Fantasy Name Cycle, Part 2 of 3 in the Chronicles of the Editor Phoning It In.

>>14876017
It's about kingdoms going to war over a religious schism, name's fine

Looking for suggestions
pic related are the things I read recently
Big fan of Vance, really liked the slav sci-fi as well, not so much Ray Bradbury, it was fine when I was younger but the writing feels a bit childish now.
I'm kind of a pleb when it comes to finding good stuff by myself.

>>14876273
Gene Wolfe

>>14871953
Blacksad, it's a comic though

>>14875733
It could be BLAME!, but I recall that the ending is ambiguous rather than sad

>>14876273
Gene Wolfe!

>>14876281
>>14876400
Alright, alright, any title in particular?

>>14874348
>tfw read this accidentally
Damn, and I wanted to read the book of the new sun too.

Oh well, spoiled or not it'll probably be good anyway.

>>14876403
Book of the New Sun

>>14876403
Book of the New Sun is arguably his best work. But you may also start with The Wizard Knight, The Devil in a Forest or The Fifth Head of Cerberus. Pretty much everything written by the walrus king was excellent.

>>14876410
It's a really mild spoiler though, I spoiled myself much more and I loved it anyway.

It's very tempting to look for discussion and information about the books while you are reading them, but I would recommend you to be really careful or not do it at all

>>14876273
The Viriconium series by M. John Harrison might be up your alley.

>>14876414
>>14876427
>>14876713
thanks

>>14868770
Because at the genre's peak people genuinely thought that in the upcoming decades humanity would get closer to space shenanigans, but then reality kicked in and they realized just how difficult it'd be in terms of technology, recourses, etc.

>>14876781
To be fair we could be a spacefaring civilization by now if we were just white people

>>14876781
>realized just how difficult it'd be in terms of technology, recourses,
its not actually. priorities shifted from furthering humanity as a whole to more profit oriented ventures. And people dont seem to care for space travel. just more modern conveniences and entertainment.

>>14876849
I can't believe the average person still believes the bullshit they've been fed about outer space. How many obviously faked videos does NASA have to show you before you realize you've been lied to. I guess if you make the lie big enough, people just roll over and accept it.

>>14876921
4chan is full of crazies so I can never tell what is or isn't bait. I'm giving away this (You) either way so you can keep enlightening us in case you're one of them.

>>14877018
So you think people have actually been on the moon? I bet you think lizard people don't exist either. What a joke.

>>14877208

Dont know about space reptile jews, but i do wonder where all the moon mission tapes went.

>>14876822

Cmon man dont give me the feels

G-guys. Im giving up on malazan.
Apprently memories of ice is rated the best of the series, but the book sucks so hard i cant seem to finish it 3/4rd through.

>>14876822
I thought it was whites who started the Dark Ages and destroyed any attempts at technological advancement in the name of preserving a waning power which set us back on medicine, and machinery for a couple hundred years.

>>14877291
No that's just you being a retarded atheist sheep who fell for the memegraph of 'muh supertech if no religion' abloo bloo

>>14877237
It's autistic /tg/ shit and not worth reading. I hope you have learned your lesson on these bloated narratives that take up a multitude of doorstoppers.

>>14877291
>Dark Ages
What is a brainlet like you even doing on /lit/?

>>14872616
cliche as fuck

>>14868770
I prefer knights fighting for their faith, damsels in distress, castles, moats, drawbridges, taverns, scheming barons and dukes, crises of succession, maps of land to conquer, swords, lances, axes, armors, shields.

Does anybody have good medieval fantasy?

>>14877391
What if this all happened on a giant colony ship lost in space for hundreds of years?

>>14877391
The Darkover Series has both. Giant lost colony ships, and a pseudo-medieval style.
>>14877401

>>14877423
Shit that was going to be my original idea, I try to read as little as possible so I can't be accused of plagiarism

>>14877462
That doesn't work

>>14877291
Any destruction caused by Germanics is relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

>>14877462
If you don't read you just come up with what others have and it will look like a copy. Read as much as you can, even if it is just summaries (not all books are worth your time), so that you know that nobody has nabbed your idea. If they did then either come up with something else or do it better.

>>14877462
That's a dumb mindset. Whatever you think of or write there's always going to be something out there similar enough to you idea. Don't fall into the trap of trying to go out of your way to be "subversive" just for the sake of being different. A story full of well written cliche is a hundred times better than a story full of cheap subversion of expectations.

>>14877831
>>>14877462 (You)
>That's a dumb mindset. Whatever you think of or write there's always going to be something out there similar enough to you idea.
But that's exactly my point, if there aren't any original ideas anymore all reading other books would do is potentially infect my writing with subconscious copy

>>14876822
Yeah I'm sure a bunch of inbred hillbillies running the world would really be a positive.

>>14878134
As opposed to chang with his bat soup, abdul with his little boy harem and wabba dabba in his mud hut?

>>14878134
>the choice is between autogenocide and inbreeding
>implying the kikes that now run the world aren't inbred as fuck

Read Memory Sorrow and Thorn recently, It's been a while since I've utterly hated a character as much as Miriamele. Even worse is she's the protagonist's love interest from start to finish despite the shit she says after she cucks him. Yeah she was forced but then she twists the knife by telling the hero how good it was and she loved it.

>>14878134
white people invented not marrying cousins

>>14878152
This tbqfh.

>>14878134
As opposed to a bunch of braindead apes who have yet to run a single functional and prosperous society in all their years of existence on this planet?

>>14878162
It's like you've never heard of European royalty having genetic diseases like haemophilia because they all married their cousins.

>>14878134
Why yes i love Heinlein

>>14878208
>Europeans were all royalty
WE

>>14878161
>heroine is an annoying cunt
>gets dicked by one of the antagonists
>rubs the fact that she was happily riding said antagonist's cock every night and enjoying it in the protagonist's face
>still gets a happy ending and becomes his queen
based and cuckpilled, wish more stories did this

>>14878208
In their case they simply ran out of royalty to marry, the laws made practical sense at the time. It is also limited to the royals as they were not only the smallest percentage of the population but also the most strict when it came to marrying.

Kikes on the other hand have managed to become inbred as a group, as have arabs. Niggers don't have that excuse, but the Lord knows their family trees are all sorts of fucked up. Honestly the inbreeding meme is just jews projecting on rural American farmers and workers who often look unappealing due to their poverty and living conditions and are scary to the short goblinoid and effeminate urban city jews.

>>14878161
>Yeah she was forced but then she twists the knife by telling the hero how good it was and she loved it.
Realistic desu, girls love being forced, abused and raped. If she had told him she didn't enjoy it that would have been a lie.

>>14878232
Maybe you'll like Kingkiller Chronicles.

>>14878279
>I might not even have kissed her
>you may have fucked her brains out
>she might never walk the same again
>her womb might even be pregnant with your baby
>*smiles sideways*
>but you won't have her
>you won't be around to raise the child
>you will never wipe her buttocks clean of cum after a gangbang
>you won't put food on her table or pay her bills
>that's right...
>she's still mine and mine alone
>*tips magic ninja fedora and holsters katana after a couple of spins*

Anthology recommendations?

I liked Fire Watch by Connie Willis and I've read a good bit of Bradbury. Doesn't necessarily need to be a single author anthology.

>>14878432
Changing Planes by Le Guin
Nightfall and Other Stories by Asimov
Last Defender of Camelot by Zelazny
The Light Princess by MacDonald

truly the thinking man's fetish

>>14878488
What erotic fanfiction is this?

Here is a thing I've noticed: there is a clear relationship between an author's mastery of writing characters & their "depth of communication"

People who make simpler characters communicate ideas which are deeper, but communicate them poorly. People who make complicated characters communicate shallower ideas very clearly.
It's all very autistic... and dark!

Dammit, just as I got back into writing I froze up last night and only wrote half my daily word goal. I'm wasting too much time trying to write this scene perfectly

>>14878436
>Last Defender of Camelot by Zelazny
I second this

>>14878553
1984 - George Orwell

>>14868709
F&SF Mar/Apr 2020

Kikelomo Ultrasheen - Dare Segun Falowo
Hairdressing sure is magical.
Blah

The Million-Mile Sniper - SL Huang
An analysis of an omnidoc (movie) that informs the reader of the differences between the dramatization and actual events.
Meh

The Last Legend - Matthew Hughes
A promising young boy has dreams of greatness, but his parents die and he becomes a ward of his foul wastrel drunkard uncle, who spends all the family money and sells him into apprenticeship, for booze. In this wretched work he is bullied and one day strikes back. Thinking that he's killed the bully, he flees the town. Eventually he finds himself in the forbidden part of an ancient forest where he finds a wizard who is more than he seems. All very generic stuff, but that's to be expected for something that was meant to be in an anthology of legends.
Ok

Come the Revolution - Ian Tregillis
Maklobellathistrogantus, mab for short, is a mechanical of the guild of the Brasswork Throne. Set in roughly the 1700s or 1800s, by my estimation, Netherlands. A story of mechanical (robot) slavery. It's a prequel to his The Alchemy Wars trilogy. It's enjoyable, but I don't know if it's enough for me to read the novels. Reminded me a lot of Detroit: Become Human.
Enjoyable

Red Sword of the Celiac - John Possidente
A review of a fictional novel trilogy about an immortal monster protagonist that eats people.
Ok

Say You're Sorry - Amman Sabet
Our world as it is except that saying "Sorry" can cause immediate and inexplicable calamity.
Meh

A Solitary Crane Circles Cold Mountain - Gregor Hartmann
Lili is a sociophysicist developing the ideal society for a generation worldship that will take 400 years to reach its destination without any of the 18,000 passengers in stasis. The setting is China in maybe a century or two hence, with a world in chaos, and a culture ruled by what would currently be considered as social justice eco-terrorists.
Quite enjoyable

A Feast of Butterflies - Amanda Hollander
Strange modern fairy tale of a constable searching for a Judge's son and a girl who eats butterflies.
Blah

Hungry is the Earth - William Ledbetter
Alien berries infects their hosts so they can spread across the galaxy and be planted on every planet.
Blah

Hacksilver - Elizabeth Bear
A man who went a-viking returns after eight years to his family home, to find much has changed. This is much more legend than fantasy, which makes sense as it was meant for an anthology of legends. There arguably isn't anything fantastical about it at all.
Enjoyable

Death on the Nefertem Express - Brian Trent
The Nefertem Express is a treaded vehicle heading ever westward to avoid the dawn that incinerates everything. This is its first run. Five passengers are aboard and one of them intends to murder all the others, but who is it?
Ok

The Man I Love - James Patrick Kelly
The protagonist runs a bar he inherited from his uncle. It's only open on Mondays. All its patrons are ghosts.
Ok

>>14877291
I bet you also think that China still has a single child policy, you outdated fuck

>>14878731
James Patrick Kelly's still writing shorts? Crazy, I remember seeing his stuff in Gardner Dozois anthologies back in the 90s, Mr. Boy was a trip.

>It's a "modern progressive writer tries to """fix""" the works of an absolute titan she can't even hope to stand in the same ballpark with because his work was "problematic"" episode

>>14878906
>everyone tries to fix Lovecraft
>nobody fixes Ed Hamilton
>nobody fixes William Hope Hodgson
>nobody fixes George MacDonald

>>14878731
>A Solitary Crane Circles Cold Mountain
That sounds really fun
Do you think you could throw up a pastebin of just that?

>>14868770
>>14868849
I'm also writing a Sci-fi novel, just fixing it up at the moment. Trying to make it fun, but also explore how fucked up crazy an interstellar government could be. IE, Waco Massacre in space could be to tune of an entire mega city, and be blamed on "They were secessionists!" type thing. also piracy in retaliation.

>>14879013
This should work, probably.
https://mega.nz/#!EjBQDABK!YqwtSzEDXt-j_919glxeDC9mHuYe818ooKpDDtXTCuE

>>14878906
>Everyone wants to fix Lovecraft, even though the unspeakable adorableness that is Love-Crafted Exists
>Not wanting to experience Dreamers Tenta-Cuddlers

>>14879218
thanks bro

>>14879237
Dream-Quest was Lovecraft fixing Lovecraft.

Any actual good books about elves? Like Dragon age kind of elves

>>14878906
>it’s a modern progressive writer tries to aggressively style on lovecraft in her new book, deliberately mocking him as a poor author as she uses his works for personal financial gain episode.

>>14879503
>>14878906
way to get mad at something that authors have been doing to the lovecraft mythos for over a century guys

>>14879679
nobody cared about Lovecraft's work while he was alive except for his bros, and the Derleth-era folks were trying to expand on his legacy, not improve it

>>14879688
>his bros
At least his niggas supported him.

>>14879698
>sometimes it isn't all horrible

>>14879432
Vlad Taltos books are high elves but I haven't read enough to judge them, need to get back to it at some point actually.
Pratchett does good elves so Lords and Ladies
Thomas the Rhymer
Similiaron obvs

Outside of that there's a bunch of stuff that has interesting elves but they're almost always side characters so it's just stuff you'll discover yourself as you read more.

>>14879712
Thank you anon

>>14878436
>>14878657
Thanks mates

>>14879679
Not all heroes wear capes

>>14879698
>>14879708
Apparently he has a pretty big network of friends all around the country later into his life, people forget that there was a time Lovecraft was really coming out of his shell

Should my MC go through The Trial and get The Special Donut Steel Boon early in the first book or late in the first book?

>>14880002
Stop thinking in cliches.

>>14879679
And people have been deliberately 'mocking' other authors' works since forever. It's sort of what makes us human.

well /sffg/, I now have a sore throat and cough. looks like it's the end of the line for me. A shame, I was hoping to finish my book first

>>14880172
you can't read that slowly

>>14880162
It's the mocking combined with the riding of his coattails. If you hate him so much, why do you feel the need to rip him off?

>>14880181
writing, not reading

>>14880172
can i have your xbox when you died

The genre is called FANTASY, why is this so called escapism full of cucks who do nothing but m'lady and make reddit jokes to get girls? I don't know about you guys but I've never had a fantasy that involved getting rewarded for being a simp

/sffg/, can I talk through a scene with you that I'm having trouble with? I need to figure out how a villain is supposed to approach this

>Main characters are arrested for a series of heinous crimes and put on trial by a local lord even though of the four, two were only guilty of self defense and one was just an innocent bystander
>the lord is a manchild who would be perfectly happy to have executed in a spectacular fashion as would the rest of the court, but his advisor – a cunning if conceited puppetmaster who is secretly trying to incite an apocalyptic war – wants to turn their situation to his advantage
>the main characters are on a quest to a legendary city that's deep in the territory of mutual enemy. That enemy has an army hidden in the mountains to the east and the MCs used this information to try to bargain for their lives
>The advisor already knows all this. He also knows that the city they seek is the enemy's stronghold, that answers they're looking for aren't there and that he has a traitor in his court who can be used to trigger the war he so desperately craves
>after revealing their bargaining chip, the advisor pulls them aside for a private conversation where he attempts to achieve his ends
>*this is where I'm stuck*
>the intended end goal is that the one guilty party member is dealt with in a fashion bloody enough to please the court (trial by combat is an option), the one innocent party member is sent home where she won't be a liability, and whatever party members remain are allowed to continue on their journey with the traitor as their guide

I can't decide what he'd say in this situation. The only thing I'm certain of is that he's extremely proud of his ability to manipulate people, and would prefer exact-words deception to threats or lies

>>14880455
>Main characters
stopped reading there

Make it a meme

Founder of the sffg discord filled the reading folder with tranny porn

>>14880455
Go to the critique thread.

>>14880964
>join discord
>be surprised by drama
thats why i dont even have a discord account.

I was curious about this book since I learned that it tied with Dune for the Hugo Award for Best Novel back in 1966. I really enjoyed Dune and it is a very important book still being talked a lot today. So why didn't the same thing happened with This Immortal? The book is phenomenal and yet it's probably not even Zelaznys best work.

>>14880964
that's why I prefer the Sffg discord

>>14880964
If you're going to be a faggot that uses discord recreationally at least be aware that any one which tolerates anime avatars will be a shithole filled with shit people

>>14871953
Have you tried Mouseguard?

>>14872420
The Windup Girl.

>>14870857
i generally loved how depressing it all was. long time since i read it though.

>>14871413
the rest of KJ parker's books, if you haven't read them already. engineer trilogy is a good start if you're into attacking/defending cities in particular.

>>14875890

>>14872420
I haven't read it but River of Gods by Ian McDonald seems highly regarded.

>>14881586
Wonderful book!

>>14880964
whocouldhavepredictedthis.jpg

Any fantasy books with a real focus on violence especially weapons fighting?
Also any books that focus on a lone sellsword protagonist instead of mercenary group?

>>14881692
KJ Parker Duelist trilogy

>>14868897
>>14868770
So star wars is scifi, but marvel is fantasy?
Kys.

>>14872420
Green by jaye wells

>>14880964
That’s what you get you stupid fat fuck

>>14872420
Green by Jay Lake

>>14881991
Based

>>14878134
>he says in whitey language on whitey computer over whitey internet

>>14882064
Cunnypilled

>>14880964
It's filled with boring webcam girl videos.

>>14868883
>>14881843
Aren't they both?

>>14881843
Star Wars is fantasy as well.

>>14882218
>whites invented everything
No wonder people laugh at you pollies.

>>14882652
I mean, he's not wrong. Like 80% of all human advancements came from whites(and kikes), and the other 19% came from east asians. The other races are literally just dead weight

>>14878906
>>14879503
You fags sound like women with all this passive aggressive whinging

>>14882763
You're not really setting a good case for your point with such absurdly incorrect numbers.

>>14882784
>it’s a reddit tourist balks at common 4chan memes episode.

>>14882798
Hi 3rd party here, you're not really providing any counter examples. Going 'nuh uh' might work on your home site where wrong think gets hidden though

>>14882880
Ok sweatie, let me educate you. Jazz music. I could go on.

>>14882889
Oh honey, tell him bout dat peanut butter

Maize and potatoes are also vital to modern prosperity but you could argue they're "east Asian" inventions too.

>>14882763
There are so many tech you are using right now that was invented by Blacks that still have the patent in their name, or was stolen by whites. I laugh at you ignorant basement pollies who think your infographs are accurate, or mean shit.

>>14877572
what about the Welsh-Mongol Star Pact?

>>14883018
That graph only charts the rise and fall of empires in the physical realm.

>>14882897
>>14882880
>>14882763
>>14882218
https://interestingengineering.com/the-a-z-list-of-black-inventors

>>14883053
>lawnmower
>typewriter
>lantern
These were patents for a lawnmower, for a typewriter, do you really think nobody had ever thought of a lantern until an African-American in 1920 came up with it? This is especially sick because it diminishes the impact these people had in their own communities by trying to make them into some kind of universal savior figures.

stop /pol/posting and talk about horny orc-girls

>>14883101
Never happening.

>>14883101
There's just nothing to say that hasn't been said.

>>14882312
Thirteen is way past cunny mate

>>14883053
Oh sweetie, this is real 'black kid invents a computer' tier retarded

How do you also explain away the whole being 56% of the murders in this country despite making up only 6.5% of the population?

>>14883101
>horny orc-girls
Got a reading list?

>pollie btfo by mods
Today was a good day

>>14881185
> person watches porn
oh god the drama!

>>14882905
Plants are not inventions.

>>14884368
Neither is iron, it's what you do with it that matters. Those plants were bred to be what they are.

Anyone know any Weird Fiction like pic related that isn't meant for children but doesn't leave out the childlike sense of wonder?

Please for the love of god nothing like Bas-Lag or City of Saints and Madmen. That shit is designed to leech the fun out of the setting

>>14884411
Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, no joke
>tfw an army of cats travels to the moon to save him
>tfw half-choked meep of cosmic fear
>tfw handsome nyaruko

>>14884460
Already read it.

In all honesty, I wasn't that impressed. Lovecraft had fascinating ideas, but I've always found that stories inspired by his works are better than his own

>>14884481
Dream-Quest was a Lovecraft story inspired by Lovecraft though.

>>14884411
I think you're looking for magical realism

>>14884732
That isn't it at all.

>>14884411
It isn't really that weird. It was originally going to be a pop-up picture book though. That would have been really different.

Recommend me something /sffg/ related that is pure incel wish fulfillment

Started reading pic rel. I have Prince Caspian but I started with this one since it has the recognisable title and they're the two from the series I have. It's definitely not as good as The Hobbit, which I read recently, although the both of them put together are getting me real tired of this narrator giving the reader asides shit. Also the fact that it's isekai is a harsh point against it, even if there's no way C.S. Lewis could have known what the Japs and their cartoons would get up to

>>14884760
A lot of self-published western works and Japanese works in general.

>>14884481
>always found that stories inspired by his works are better than his own
Current state of the world in Charlie Stross's Laundry Files:

Nyarlathotep is running the UK as Prime Minister.
Cthulhu has taken over the US's magical goon squad (The Black Chamber) and is running the country.
The elven invasion of Earth by Faerie only got stopped because their best spy fell in love with one of the Laundry's uber-nerds.
"Vampires Aren't Real" (haha hoho) turned out to be very very untrue.
Teapot is de^H^Hgone.

Still, at least the serial killer violin is dead, and the Deep Ones haven't risen to take over the surface world yet (although they must be getting very worried about the chronic mismanagement up here by now).

>>14884732
that's exactly the opposite of what I want and a completely different genre

Magical realism is realistic fiction with barely any fantasy. Weird fiction is fantastic fiction with barely any reality

>>14884822
just read Lovecraft ya pleb

>>14884760
name of the wind

>>14884740
No, I think weird fiction fits, though one could argue it's on the line between weird fiction and lovecraftian.

>>14884813
I stand corrected

>>14884827
I already told you, I've read it already. I've read most of his works.

What 'm looking for is fantasy that's surreal and silly, but not childish.

>>14884822
Latin american magical reallism is basically surrealism bro.

>>14884851
Napoleon of Notting Hill

>>14884851
read Lovecraft again

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912000840 'Do pigmentation and the melanocortin system modulate aggression and sexuality in humans as they do in other animals?'
>Studies find that darker pigmented people avg. higher levels of aggression and sexual activity and lower IQ.

Human intelligence up to 75% inheritable
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12061787/Intelligence-genes-discovered-by-scientists.html

Human intelligence is highly heritable.
http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v16/n10/abs/mp201185a.html

Scientific consensus is that IQ tests are not racially biased.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289608000305

Black children raised in White households have similar IQs to black children in black households.
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1977-07996-001

The avg. African IQ is estimated at 79.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912003741

The avg. African-American IQ is 85 compared to the avg White IQ of 100. IQ tests are not racially biased. IQ hereditability is 40-80%.
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997mainstream.pdf

Genes for large brains, linked to high IQ, are common everywhere except Africa.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB115040765329081636

Intelligence has at least a 40-50% genetic basis.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/10/news/la-heb-genetic-study-intelligence-20110809

The Black-White IQ gap is mostly genetic.
http://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOPSYJ/TOPSYJ-3-9.pdf

IQ is 75% heritable among whites.
https://files.osf.io/v1/resources/8a8jk/providers/osfstorage/58af3d929ad5a10200a40c05?action=download&version=1&direct

IQ is about 80% heritable.
https://archive.is/FTRTu

IQ is higher among asians and whites than among blacks. This difference owes 50-80% to genetics.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18656315

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912000852
>Mongoloids are the most K evolved, Caucasoids less, and Negroids the least.

>>14884885

>>14884382
Who claimed to invent iron?

>>14884885
look man I'm just as racist but let's not get the thread nuked

Any orc fiction recs for a non-coomer like me? Just want to read a lot about orcs being cool. Just no coomer perspectives, please, it makes no sense and it is fucking boring.

>>14885012
To explain the degree of my noncoomerdom: if I was a mighty orc warrior and I captured a female elf, I would unironically laugh at how weak and pathetic she looks and would just kill her and leave her body to rot in the dirt or something. Any books like this?

>soiboi pol will learn that his infographs are not welcomed in a board that actually read
Phew!

>>14884885
Don't forget that blacks don't feel pain, so you can do open heart surgery on them without anesthetics.

>>14884890
Don't forget that people aren't framed for shit they didn't do in America, all so the police chief looks like he is doing his job.

>>14885055
>It cannot be that my mainstream-media-gotten worldview is wrong

>It must be the decades worth of scientific consensus that is wrong instead

>>14884851
Borne by VanderMeer. The ending has a gigantic monster battle happening in the background, and it's very dreamlike overall, the feel of the book changes every few chapters. Plenty of people here dislike it, though.

How is Abercrombie's new novel, lads?

>>14870145
Make it like Planetes but without the Elliot Rodger crap

>>14874348
Because the series was almost over and Wolfe was getting tired of that character

>>14875933
>the Chicks In Chainmail short stories series
This or Esther Friesner's other books like the Majyk series. Although you are kind of kidding yourself if you say there's not a sexual dimension to this.

>>14878906
Brainstorm: a romance novel featuring Lavinia and Yog-Sothoth

is this shit ever getting released
this better be as good as the first book

>>14885556
the first book is particularly good so who cares

>>14885560
is not*

>>14884760
Anything Burroughs wrote

>>14885466
A little hatred?
It's schlock, if you've read one of his other books, you've read that one

>>14885556
I really enjoyed most of lies of locke lamora, but I felt like the ending was incredibly rushed and I didn't bother with the next two
are they worth reading?

>>14868784
Sometimes a cigar-shaped interstellar object is just a cigar-shaped interstellar object.

>>14885969
I don't think so, but I'll give you a summary of the next two books so you may decide for yourself.
>book 2: let's cash in on the contemporary pirate fads by setting a high seas adventure with no other redeeming trait.
>book 3: author was going through a messy divorce and decided to write a book on that.
If you are looking for a hacky slashy adventure involving a rakish rogue, why not try Use of Weapons?

I just want a world where one-eyed people live peacefully with dinosaurs, Astomi wage endless wars with men whose heads grow beneath their shoulders and sentient squid hunt eight-eyed eels. Is that really too much to ask for?

When do you guys think that the self published market is going to be over saturated?

>>14886893
2011

>>14886893
With digital distribution and print on demand it's always not at all or completely.

>>14872616
Have this paragraph like 30 pages in. To start you need a hook, and this ain't hooking shit

>>14873048
Read Conan you autist. Fafhrd too.

>>14872616
>One where you walk on every word like an old path that leads to the twilight of its end. T
If someone said this to me in a tavern I'd slap the drink out of their hand so they'd have to leave to go get another one.

>>14886010
Use of Weapons is on a whole other level compared to Locke, plebs will struggle with the jagged structure. one of my all time favourite sci fi books tho

>>14887152
This is how we upgrade plebs to patricians.

>>14887152
I definitely enjoyed it more the second time I read it, but I still prefer Player of Games.

>>14887188
hell yeah brother

>>14887194
second time was the charm for me, so many great little details to find.

Also Ian Banks played Civ 2 to the point of being addicted, he had to break his disk to keep writing when he wrote this and you can kind of see it glint through. Pretty based.

>>14887203
>Ian Banks played Civ 2
Didn't know this but that's exactly how I imagined an Azad board to look like.

Has anybody ever properly done a gunblade?

>one person is now trying to meme Banks to sffg

>>14887368
I think there are at least two, and who else is better than Banks in SF?

>>14887368
What's wrong with Banks?

>>14887203
>Also Ian Banks played Civ 2 to the point of being addicted, he had to break his disk to keep writing when he wrote this and you can kind of see it glint through. Pretty based.
oh man i loved map painting in 4x and grand strategy games

should I start from the beginning of the Culture series or just go straight to Use of Weapons

>>14887480
Consider Phlebus is not the greatest intro imo. It is long and kind of a drag and only teases the Culture as the main character is an agent working against them.

If you are into mil sci fi then Use of Weapons is a good start, just get ready for denser and more confusing writing then you would expect from typical sci fi. Many people recommend Player of Games or Look to the Windward as starting points, those are good too, easier reads as well. The Hydrogen Sonata was the last book he wrote before he passed and that is actually a pretty comfy way to get started as well as the main character is from outside the Culture and gets introduced to them and works with them.

Once you read a couple read Excessions if you are into the Minds, it is pretty crazy.

>>14887480
I'd start with Player of Games. Consider Phlebus is good but doesn't focus on the Culture and you're kind of left to figure out a lot of stuff. Use of Weapons has a weird structure that might not be fully appreciated until you've read it twice. I'd read PoG, UoW, then CP.

>>14868709
>Orc edition
wonder if I should go back to the grey bastards or not, it was alright but didn't keep me hooked but a lot of people seem to like the sequel/next book in the same universe

Actually now that I think of it The Unspoken Name just came out and that's also Orc protag, I liked what I've read but it's more personal journey than about Orcs.

>>14887531
>>14887554
This is correct. Consider Phlebas is also a grimmer read than the rest, and a two of my rl friends dropped the series after starting with that.
Player of Games is a nice starting point. Three or so books in, read Inversions.

>>14887665
Should also point out that Consider Phlebus isn't the best book in the series, but's quite important in the history of the Culture as it's the only time they've been to war against a foe who could actually beat them. And the war that takes place during the book is referenced many times in later books.

Who was in the wrong here? I thought it ended a bit too abruptly. Like it's missing an act.

Currently reading Princess of Mars. Anyone else read the series? What did you think of it, and what else would you reccomend?

>>14887790
Did the unicorn big her belly?

>>14887922
No, Lirazel is pure

>>14888019
Is that the unicorn's name?

>>14888037
that's the name of the Elf waifu

>>14888019
>Lirazel is pure
Who is that? The unicorn?
If it's the girl, is she the virgin Mary? She can't be pure and be pregnant by mating press at the same time.

When will the McGill creature fuck an actual alien? Like a squid., or a plant?

new thread time

>>14888196
>>14888196
>>14888196
>>14888196