/lit/ - Literature

recs on massive worldbuilding sci-fi or fantasy novels/cycles? if sci-fi no space opera or starship stuff please...
> check the mega link
i am from phone and the link is 7 gb

>>19364095
You can open the folders and look at the individual images.

Stannisbros....

Author's book profile image
https://xiranjayzhao.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/20200415_165724_mh1586996383180.jpg

DEBUTED AT #1!
Iron Widow has been on the Indie & New York Times bestseller lists for 5 weeks in a row now and every week I think about how it was widely rejected because publishers thought YA sci-fi couldn't sell
https://twitter.com/XiranJayZhao/status/1453507929659772929

Author book self-description video
https://www.tiktok.com/@xiranjayzhao/video/7018690351598701829

Bonus Summary for Weebs (their term):
Under siege by monsters beyond the Great Wall like that shitty Matt Damon movie, except the monsters are Cybertronian-like sentient machines, a society that has the fashion, social customs, and beliefs of Ancient China but futuristic tech fights back by pulling a Neon Genesis Evangelion and rebuilding their very invaders into giant mecha. A boy-girl pair in their teens, because of course they have to be teens, pilot the mecha Darling in the Franxx style, except in a much more sensible position (he hugs her from behind). Under command of human pilots, these mecha take on forms inspired by East Asian myth creatures and transform like Transformers through Digimon-esque evolution lines that get more humanoid as you go on. The pilots physically embody them, so it’s more Attack on Titan rules than Gundam. Oh, and they blast qi attacks, so the battles honestly read like a bunch of furries engaged in a Dragon Ball Z fight, and that’s no one’s fault but mine.

>>19364274
disgusting

>>19364071
all /sffg/fags must hang

>>19364274
>publishers thought YA sci-fi couldn't sell
is every person involved in that industry retarded

>>19361794
>what they call the Infinity genre
Can you tell me more about this?

rereading horus rising and the prose is a lot worse than i remember, i expected better from dan abnett

>>19364483
Shorn of illusions
You cannot maintain your delusions

>>19364071
What book/series are you most interested in that seems like too it's much trouble to find out whether it's worthwhile?

>>19364217
its called noahpinion because it sounds like no opinion. get it. do you get it.

>>19364440
https://youtu.be/NlBjNmXvqIM

https://youtu.be/KZazEM8cgt0

Has their been anything interesting out of YA books in the past 20 years?

>>19364882
Bakker is alright.

>>19364475
It can either be a battle royale game or some kind of travel to other worlds, usually with attached missions or self-styled endgoals.
If it's battle royale it probably has some MMO-style trappings (but not necessarily being an actual MMO) and ignore the protags original world, if it's travel to other worlds there's usually a bunch of stuff in the original world.
If you start reading them you'll notice they almost always include a few of the popular ones for meme status/sales like Pirates of the Carribean and the Resident Evil movies/T-Virus.
The world's are either originals or based on other IPs like Harry Potter and even shittier stuff you wouldn't expect that the chinese might have taken a liking to. They don't usually spend a ton of time on each world either so even if it's something cringe you can usually weather through it.
Some litrpg trappings may or may not appear.

Decent examples include The Devil's Cage, Carefree Path of Dreams, Fantasy Simulator, 48 Hours a Day, Gate of Revelation, The Ultimate Evolution, Soul of Negary.

>>19364882
aren't these two contradicting each other

>>19364071
Is The Island of Dr. Moreau sci- horror?

any idea where to find a pdf of the BoTNS chapter guide by Michael andre driussi?

>>19364217
I thought xi was the winnie the pooh of chinese politics...

>>19364715
dune

>>19365553
oops, meant for >>19364513

>>19364217
china seems to be collapsing at the moment, so.

>>19365569
More like the entire world is.

King of Fantasy.

Simple as.

>>19364071
>Cathedral edition

What are the most kino Catholic fantasy books that aren't LotR?

>>19366309
wtf? he chad... I kneel

>>19366323
The Second Apocalypse by R. Scott Bakker, the King himself.

>>19366326
Unironically this.

>>19366326
>>19366339
Kill yourselves.

>>19366772
I shan't.

>>19365524
Sure

>>19366323
What are your criteria for "Catholic fantasy"? Books by a Catholic author? Books about Catholic spiritual themes and messages? Books concerning explicit Catholic theological dogma? Books with vague Catholic analogues in a fantasy setting? Historical fiction concerning Catholics?

Any thoughts on Theodor Sturgeon?

Reading Malazan, at Deadhouse, and one point kinda confuses me
Multiple times have characters stated that a shapeshifter ascending would be an especially big deal because it would grant them dominion over all the others shapeshifters. But Rake, a soletaken, already is an ascendant, so what gives?

>>19366950
sounds based

>>19364513
I've tried Cherryh like 3 times and never got enough into a book to be hooked
other than that it's pretty much any epic fantasy/scifi series, once it gets beyond like 4 books I just never seem to bother

Any good fantasy books based on mythology? Any kind is fine.

>>19367097
Mythology is too vague of a term.

>>19367097
Do you like xianxia?

>>19367097
Since basically anything in fantasy can fit this I'll stick to just recommending Thomas the Rhymer by Kushner which adapts a real world folk tale into a fantasy novel.

Check out these awards for some titles to look into, it's a little bit more myth focused than standard fantasy awards even if a lot of titles do overlap with mainstream awards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythopoeic_Awards

>>19367097
Which mythology? Greek/ Hindu? Chinese? Egyptian? Norse? Celtic? Aztec? Navajo? Bantu? Jewish? Slavic? Arabic? Australian? Wild West? Or do you mean the very act of mythologizing itself?

>>19366960
it's not just ascending in general but ascending to a specific throne. can't say more because MoI and HoC will explain a bit more.

Ending to the UnHoly Consult was fucking garbage. Don't @ me.

My greatest disappointment for a very long time now is that there so very much that I ought to enjoy but I'm unable to do so. In theory I should like much more than I do in practice. It's very aggravating, frustrating, and irritating.

>>19365176
Where can I read them? I'm not that anon, I just mean xianxia and wuxia in general. Most of the actual Chinese ones are online, right?

>>19367307
It was really fucking retarded
>300iq superfast human previously known for calculating his decisions extremely carefully as well as freely teleporting around finds himself in badly disadvantageous situation but instead of fucking off attempts some insane daimotic shit that on one attempted before and jobs like a complete retard when one of countless things that can go wrong goes wrong
>Consult has audacity to launch Mog without trinkets and literal hundreds of sorcerers including numerous proxies of Seswatha who was waiting for this 2 thousand years just watch him go and do nothing
It's like he wanted to set up particular outcome of events but wasn't able to come up with anything more consistent leading to it.

>>19364071
I'm going to write an urban fantasy e-book where a human dude gets himself a harem of hot orc babes AND NONE OF YOU CAN STOP ME!

>>19367291
Ah I see, thanks anon!

>>19367585
>harem
>not monogamous relationship
cringe

>>19367585
cringe
>>19367626
this guy gets it

Hey, /sffg/. What's that one book with the cover of the jester looking fella atop of a huge looking space station type thing? I forgot the book's name, but I saw the cover here a lot, so I know you know what I'm talking about.

>>19367683
Foundation and Empire, aka the only good Foundation book of the trilogy

>>19367687
Friendly reminder that the Mule did nothing wrong.

>>19367569
The worst part is the entire novel up until that point was kino af

>>19367569
I liked the general thrust of the ending and the way he describes it through Mim and Akka’s eyes. But yeah that shit with Ajokli, the skinspies, Kellhus being salted, and trinket-free Mog going up were absolutely retarded and unsatisfying.

>>19367687
That's the one. Thanks. I guess I won't read it then if the other two books suck.
And besides, I didn't realize it was a boomer book from the 50s.

>>19367307
Why? Unironically asking. It's clearly not the end of the series, even if he doesn't write another book.

>>19367569
>>19367729
Kellhus died on purpose. There's your red-pill. Thank me later.

>>19367585
dangerously based

>>19367560
Webnovel aka Qidian (and pirate groups who share all the stuff of said site) is the main site for new stuff, there's also Wuxiaworld and Novelupdates for finding all the random blogs doing translations.
Fair warning. If you see the tag "Original" on the cover of a Webnovel release it means it's not a translated work but by a westerner with all the issues that brings.
Once you get really addicted, yet don't want to put in the effort of learning chinese, then there's tiers of MTL that are bearable to read for which there's two decent MTL sites, MTLNovel and LNMTL.

>protag finds a catgirl lolita (real age: 100)

And dropped

>>19364071
looks like a Sophiaic white fire ritual

>>19368636
basde

>>19364274
>Under siege by monsters beyond the Great Wall like that shitty Matt Damon movie, excepn Ball Z fight, and....

Yeah I stopped reading right there. Female Chinks are really trying to assert themselves in that degenerate genre called YA.

>>19366323
The Solar cycle series by Gene Wolfe. There's also Robert Benson's The Lord of the World, a really old sci-fi novel about the anti-christ.

The Last Physicist A GamelitPortal Fantasy Adventure By Domonic Stal:
A young and affluent, African American physicist gets sent to another dimension due to failing to prevent an experiment going wrong. He is wise yet inquisitive. Ruthless but tender. Kind though commanding. He has a white female A.I whose his slave that he gave emancipation but rejects it because it has sworn eternal servitude to him because. He likes to say 'Holyee shiet!" and other such phrases like "Damn". Read this exciting and groundbreaking book by a gifted your African American auther Dominic Stal today!

>>19364274
Imma read this next

I'm about 1/3 of the way through The Darkness That Comes Before, and... I'm not really feelin' it. I don't dislike it, just... y'know.

/great post

>>19368890
Nah.

>>19369041
it's a meme, it's not that great honestly

>>19369070
I started it because it's seems so recommended on here. (even askied "is it actually good, or is it just a meme?"). There's a lot of backlash on here as well, but that seems an inevitable response to popularity.

I'll probably read the whole trilogy, but so far I don't see what the big fuss is about.

What an acid trip. Even more off the rails than The Library at Mount Char. Right off the bat you can see what compelled the thin-skinned troons and women to give it a 1 star on Gayreads.

>>19367734
I may have talked shit about the other two but I think Foundation is worth trudging through to get to Empire.

>1/3
> feelin'
>just... y'know.
>/great post

>>19367585
>AND NONE OF YOU CAN STOP ME!
Why would I stop you when publishers are already doing that?

>>19367569
>when one of countless things
Pretty much the only thing possible that could have stopped him did. Remember he's facing his equals here and there are multiple of them. He needed to pull off something massive and completely unexpected.
Also, Kellhus seemed to be losing his mind and acting irrational due to Ajokli's influence and there are hints that this may all be part of his plan.

>>19369217
There's a high chance that Kellhus was tapping into Cishaurim sorcery as well. Hence the reason why he was "going insane". Did you ever wonder why he started caring about Esmi all of a sudden?

>>19369082
You fell for a meme, if youre a third in the first book you might as well just drop it.

>>19369276
>if youre
>a third in

>>19369425
It writes itself at this point.

>>19369217
>due to Ajokli's influence
Moe said he's insane back when they meet. If you look at it like that he's was already losing it when he started to believe all that shit he was initially telling others to make them do what he wants during holy war. Super high functioning minds tend to be delicate ones, and he just wasn't able to handle everything he went through in the large world after sitting in one fortress and flipping coins for 30 years. The very beginning of first book when he just departed Ishual already describes how much of an overload he has just by traveling through unfamiliar forest.

>>19369202
How would publishers stop him from writing an E-book?

Out today faggets

>>19369654
Not my problem.

>>19367917
>Kellhus died on purpose.
I seriously doubt it. By the end of TUC it was obvious that he no longer has firm grip on events. He'd have been killed by narindar in two separate occasions if not for Kelmomas disrupting gods' grip on causality and wasn't even aware of that. Neither he expected anything going wrong when he tried that wild Ajokil stunt. Unless he had some ultra sick contingency plan in case of accidental physical death, he likely has his ass chewed by ciphrang in some pit on the outside, since earlier he wasn't coming apart because his heart was still beating, and it doesn't anymore.

What are 3 things that make a fantasy book good/readable/memorable? Help an aspiring author out guys

>>19368890
>A young and affluent, African American physicist gets sent to another dimension
If you'd just wrote
>A young physicist gets sent to another dimension
I'd be more inclined to read it. Really can't be doing with needless American race fixation in my fantasy

>>19369730
I'll tell you why you're wrong: The True War can only be fought in the Outside. That's where the enemy lies. He had planned for this, why else expose everything the way he did by the end of The Unholy Consult? He needs the No-God to weaken the Ciphrang. The material world is of no consequence anymore when his plan is to conquer the Outside.
Also: You (and I) have no idea how deep Ajokli could actually see, and if he could see the future as well

Sweet Sejenus, I love this fucking series so much. The series is not over, even if he refuses to continue writing.

>>19369681
Looks gay. Does it have stronk wymyns, social justice and LGBTQ representation?

>>19369736
if there was one simple answer everybody would be out there writing good books

>>19369736
1) When the author clearly read something other than all the sff garbage I've already read
2) Characters who change / have sometimes ambiguous motivations
3) Quality lewds

>>19370131
The answer is simple, but implementation's a bitch.

>>19369811
God. I hope not.

>>19369736
Something that isn't just the standard orc/elf/dwarf/human.

>>19366950
>swallowing
is this the most considerate rapist ever?

>>19369736
I think the way a story is structured is very important. It's all about creating moments of suspense. And you want to sort of layer the suspended matters over each other like an onion. Here, I drew a quick and dirty chart to visualize what I mean. Sometimes moments of suspense are large and only pay off at the very end. Sometimes moments of suspense are small and pay off within a chapter. Sometimes they're smaller still, and pay off within sentences.

If you can keep the reader in suspense, then you can keep them hooked. This is why a mystery works so well in most stories. If you have a mystery, then you have suspense.

2. Set the stakes early. Inform me what the character is risking, so I care about what they do next. Don't just have things happening to happen. If I don't understand the risk, then I won't have anything to "root for", so to speak. That doesn't mean you need to info dumb the whole plot right away. The risk can be something as small as a character stealing a loaf of bread. If he gets caught, then he'll get whipped and get thrown in a dungeon. If he doesn't get caught then he gets to eat. Simple as that. Of course, you want to unravel the larger risks as the story progresses, so we know the big issues and the small issues.

3. I don't fucking know. Surprise me with something I haven't read before.

>>19370144
The answer is not simple, because I wholeheartedly disagree with the lewds. A lewd scene has never enhanced a book. Only made it more awkward.

Man I finished Hyperion and I'm depressed

>>19369189
comply
be like me
le redpill le based le le cringe le le le

>>19369736
credible characters
a novel statement on the human condition
immersive setting

in order of importance

>>19364071
why would she be naked that is major disrespect.
It breaks immersion.

>>19369189
I would take 100 of him over 1 of you.
Wojack posters are the worst. And I know it's a mistake even replying to the likes of you. Because you'll probably take this opportunity to spam more wojacks. But if any of what I'm saying can penetrate that cro-magnon brain of yours, then you need to know how much you're hated here. You are unloved. You are unlovable. And you will never find happiness in life. Now, I'm not telling you to go kill yourself. All I'm saying is that no one would miss you if you were gone. So you don't have anything to lose.

>>19371230

>>19371230
stop giving the zoomer attention and he will go back to discord

>>19364071
Why did we stop doing book of the month?

>>19364274
Can someone tell me what YA means?

>>19371295
young adult

After two weeks of putting off The Dark Forest, I have to admit that I'm just not interested in reading it. I'm skipping it.

Moving on to The Wisdom of Crowds. The finale to the Age of Madness trilogy. Praying it's good.

I'm about halfway through The Worm Ouroboros. I'm not really liking it. Prose from the KJV meets an epic like Beowulf or something, where things feel like they just happen. Please tell me what I'm supposed to be thinking about while I read it, or is it just 20s pulp trash pretending to be high minded?
Also the edition I've got is edited like shit, with no line breaks between different characters speaking, and there's loads of out of place punctuation and typos. Also the pages are really shiny, which sounds autistic but my desk lamp is pretty harsh so it's literally hard to read.

>>19370873
>The answer is not simple, because I wholeheartedly disagree with the lewds. A lewd scene has never enhanced a book. Only made it more awkward.
That's because you're damaged inside.

Also if you think of it as a 'scene' the author already fucked it up. It's just another expression of the characters' personality. Everyone who read BotNS remembers the 'rape' incident and Thecla's reaction, or old Gaiman stuff like Sandman and Smoke and Mirrors. Even Bakker's weird gay molestation stuff makes his books more entertaining if not in a totally respectable way.

>>19371345
Missing out. The ending is fantastic.

>>19371295
this >>19371314

It's basically a marketing demographic invented by booksellers which is why the definition of what makes something YA usually just boils down to "a bunch of booksellers and marketing people decided to market it as YA". It's not really a genre, because YA books are found in a smattering of genres and there's even such a thing as "literary" YA fiction.

While it's hard to make axiomatic statements about what story elements are definitively YA, there are some plots and themes that are seen very frequently in YA-marketed books. Most usually have young protagonists, often most of the core characters are young, and coming of age plots are consequently very common, usually rife with conflicts about the changes inherent in transitioning into adulthood. There's also a common strain of adolescent rebellion, where teenagers are asked to conform to the social norms and traditions of the adult world that they had no part in shaping and often see as arbitrary, ridiculous, or hypocritical. Of course there's tons of cliched YA material as well, where slews of books will simply ape recent popular series that got a movie deal, or which exist as power fantasies.

However when people on /lit/ or /sffg/ use the term YA it's mostly a pejorative, insinuating the worst aspects of books marketed as YA are inherent in what they're talking about: petulant, angsty characters, contrived melodrama, mary sue characters, power fantasies, vapid romances, extremely simplistic moralizing, etc. Again, these are stereotypes about YA. There are more than a few YA books that have some or even all these characteristics, but remember YA is just a marketing label that booksellers are free to slap on anything, there's no official ruling body that decides what is YA, there's no official litmus test for determining it either. There are probably series you can say definitely are YA because they are so steeped in the conventions of books aimed at teenagers, but here people definitely over-use the term.

>>19371345
what a shame, the second half of the book is peak science fiction

>>19371650
damn i hope so i just got half way through and just not as into it as the first one

i tried to get on the Malazan hype train lads, i really did but fourth time picking it up i had to drop it again.
>all that flowery shakespearian dialogue
>all those similes to nowhere
>all those short chapters with too many different PoV's
the action was basically the only good thing

>>19371345
Missing out anon

>>19371295
its a marketing demographic

Why does Urban Fantacy suck?
You would think that such a setting, of magic and the supernatural coexisting with modern technological societies, would offer interesting perspectives on modernity and past societies, or tensions between different ways of life, but I have not found a single example of it that has any real ideas that extend beyond the world building.

>>19371735
keep going bro, the ending it's amazing and the third book it's even better

Which is worse
>(the) X of Y
>The (adjective)(noun)

>>19371868
I feel like the easy answer is that the worldbuilding is pretty much impossible, but I think you'd agree with me in thinking it's something more than that

>>19371868
Because it's the lowest effort form of writing and attracts hack writers. In traditional SF you craft everything about the setting to converge on the themes you want to explore, but then you have to spend time and effort getting the reader invested in the setting. In literary fiction you carefully select the characters and setting from the real world to do the same but without asking the reader to suspend disbelief. Urban fantasy is literary fiction with an Easy Mode button you can smash whenever things get difficult.

Jim Butcher of all people had a pretty good jag about this in the afterword of one of his Dresden Files books, but can't find it atm.

>>19372072
(the) X of Y and it isn't even close.

>>19371289
Never did. The guy who did it in the thread gave up years ago because no one participated. It lives on elsewhere.

>>19371627
Too bad your effortpost is wasted.

>>19371618
>>19371826
>>19371650
The tulpa chapter broke me. But not only that. I just wasn't connecting with any of the characters. I can't even pinpoint exactly went wrong. I just wasn't feeling it.

Should Wheel of Time get more credit for its analysis of matriarchal societies considering the current state of the west?

>>19371868
Ash vs Evil Dead is actually decent urban fantasy imo

>>19372462
Damn, the middle-right green has some fat tits.

>>19372474
who's the author?

>>19366323
I'm loving The Book of the New Sun. I haven't tried them but I've also heard good things about A Canticle for Leibowitz and The High Crusade.

>>19371868
Nerds hate it because urban fantasy writers are not spending hundreds of hours autistically imagining some second-tier world from D&D, but just interesting characters and situations .

>>19369736
Good prose
Good characters
Good plot

>>19371868
Urban fantasy is basically proto-isekai, and it attracts a similar standard of readers and writers as isekai (read: shit)

>>19372462
Yes. But people will miss the entire point just to praise the surface level "women in power wowzers" aspect. 100% that is what is going to happen in the show.

holy fuck i just finished Unsouled (Cradle Book 1) and I burst out laughing with the last 2-3 pages, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book a lot, but when I understood that his suffering was all for nothing for the simple fact that they live in a completely IGNORANT place, basically in the same way that some have suffered and still suffer from the ignorance of others today, it made me laugh so much, 10/10

>>19372752
Glad you're having fun with it. I wish I could read Cradle for the first time again.

>>19371793
Malazan is extremely overrated.

>>19364071
I'm working on my own work of fiction and man, India is such a great inspiration for me. So many powerful empires have moved in and out of there and combined with their own rich history have resulted in a giant mixed bag of religion and architecture and culture. I think it provides a great template for a story like BOTNS where you push the timescale forward and write a story about multiple alien or inter-solarian species leaving their mark on a lesser planet.

Has anyone looked into them? I'm only just scratching the surface. Maybe I'll go see if /his/ has anything to pick over too.

>>19371230
>t.

Are there any other books similar in feel to the cradle books? I tried mother of learning but it was a slog, I had to stop 12 chapters in because the plot development was happening at a snail's pace.
Is buryoku any good?

>>19373839
It’s ok. So dangerously similar to cradle it might as well be plagiarism though.

>>19372752
>reads Cradle
>YA shit
You need to be 18 to post here, anon.

>It's an Achamian chapter

>it was like something out of a bad holofilm
>he had played enough 'sims to tell the components' subtle differences apart

>>19371002
Read Fall, and embrace the dread.

>>19371627
should i remove swearing from my story to cater to the YA market?

>>19372204
I didn't care at all about the characters but I still loved the book. The characters aren't really the point.

>>19374519
Yeah, dont be part of the (((decline))) of Western civilisation. Kids shouldnt swear. Also, if you have a setting for a story but cannot write in a prose that is suitable for adults you can always target YA. It worked out well for Brian Jacques (Redwall) and Hugh Howey (Wool).

>>19370873
I like this description. Brent Weeks did a phenomenal job of layered suspense in Lightbringer. I was in multiple layers of suspense all the way through, and was repeatedly impressed by some of the larger arcs.

Sanderson has some great payoffs, but the suspense arcs are gigantic.

>>19374531
>I just read Hugh Howey's bio
i am now jelly
>remove the swears for more money
But how the fuck am i supposed to put Australians in my bloody fucking scifi-fantasy story ?

>>19371230
Didn't ask.

How does the witcher English translations fare against the original? I've just finished both the short story books and I prefer French's translation over Stock's. The books are great but I want to know what I'm missing out by not reading it in polish.

>>19373971
anon, crade is one of the more commonly talked about series in these threads. Give it up already; you've lost your crusade.

>>19374553
> Brent Weeks
Ugh..I couldnt even complete the first book of his lightbringer series, a garbage-tier writer that isnt even good enough to write YA.
Even Sanderson is better.

>>19374876
> crade is one of the more commonly talked about series
Dont underestimate the dedication of one autist poster to spam a book series on a slow board.

>>19374890
>everyone doing things I don't like is just one person sockpuppetting

>>19374898
2/10 gaslighting

>>19366323
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

>>19371345
>barack osama
Is he a literary critic or something now? If not then why would I give a shit that he liked a book?

>>19375178
Uh he's the heckin Black presidentino you know? If he says something then it's true. Are you racist bro?

>>19375222
>Are you racist bro
Just a little bit, sometimes. I have no problem with him being black or the president of the USA, I just don't understand how that's relevant to a chinese sci-fi novel lmao
I care more about your opinion, is the book good/fun? I need something to read right now, just finished DUNE and don't want to jump straight into Messiah.

>>19375234
I was being sarcastic if you couldn't tell. I haven't read the book, sorry.

>>19375234
>just finished DUNE and don't want to jump straight into Messiah.
I did. I ended up liking Messiah a LOT more then Dune itself, and Children of Dune.

>mfw reading Galaxy in Flames
Boy, that sure escalated quickly.

>>19374679
Bilingual Poles seem to consider the English translation to be an abortion

>>19375238
I got it anon, I just wanted to give a legitimate answer to further the conversation kek
>>19375239
Man, I assume it'll be good but was just not in the mood for more sand. It's coarse, rough, and irritating. And it gets everywhere.

>>19374679
Read them in English and european Portuguese and I preferred English. I just couldn't stand that they translated the word "witcher" to "bruxo", it's probably the accurate translation but it just felt silly everytime I heard Geralt referred to as "he-witch"

>>19371230
Absolutely based. Go ahead, t. me or ignore me you ignoble children, but soijak posters are what they make fun of.

>Absolutely based. Go ahead, t. me or ignore me you ignoble children, but soijak posters are what they make fun of.

>>19369082
I personally think that the middle of the first book is the worst part of the first trilogy.

Anyone read anything by Stephan Grundy?

>>19375266
saul tarvitz is my nigga

>>19369082
there's just one guy who hates it really hard here, or maybe two, one is the esl and the other is a sanderson fan

I want fantasy with good magic. Pls give me book. Preferably 300-400 pages with one and done.

>>19376231
sabriel trilogy is YA but has cool magic

what is your top three immortal core stories?
anon recommended the first 15 lives of harry august and turning out to be my book of the year
before that i had only read ringworld somewhat touching the subject

LitRpg is has a higher degree of difficulty in successful execution than traditional science fiction and fantasy.

Can you recommend me books that more like The Hobbit than The Lord of the Rings? Just fun adventures, without autistic worldbuilding or complex magic or whatever

>>19376434
not really

>>19376467
chronicles of thomas covenant has that vibe

>>19376485
>Strolling in the crisp wintry air, Popidum had an epiphany as the dappled sunlight festooned his balls. Gareth was a tripedal quagmirian hiding in plain sight and no one suspected a thing! Flipping his desert spoon that he constructed from antimatter he tore the universe asunder in a vain attempt to vex his foe.

or

>As he felt his strength pass 100, bands of muscle constructed themselves on top of each other to knit in a hither too unknown network within his body. Seeing that his health had also increased to a minor degree, he idly noted the minor relation of the attribute to that of his vitality.

>>19367707
His mistake was failing to modify his own emotions.

Sanderson is now considered a good writer? Need high IQ to enjoy his works?

>>19376467
Belgariad maybe? Terry Brooks' Landover novels possibly. There's always L. Frank Baum's innumerable Oz books.

>>19376343
>20th century tech.
>Knowledge of magic denied.
'ate non generic fantasy desu.

>>19376660
Ignoring the fact that 4chan is constantly getting worse I've noticed a serious nosedive over the last 10 days or so.

>>19376730
This site has been getting worse sine 2008 yet i can't leave.

>>19376660
Sanderson is literally as good as the MCU.

Take that for what you will.

Why do people call Bakker unfriendly to women? One of major plot conflicts in Prince of Nothing ends up being about powerful sorcerer who dedicated his life to protecting humanity from monster rape and galaxy brain omni-savant who played everyone including himself getting into prolonged antagonism towards each other over aged and worn out literal who prostitute. Meanwhile cute young girl of just the type to piss the feminists off, who never did anything wrong, gets nothing but suffering and getting cynically killed by author midway through story. Methinks Twilight has nothing on this as far as female fantasies go.

>>19376986
Spoilers faggot

>>19376660
>Sanderson takes great pains to explain what powers his magic systems, what their limitations are, and how characters need to be smart to work around those limitations

To me the difference between "soft" and "hard" magic systems is the difference in catholicism and mormonism. e.g. a catholic writer is fine with a mysticism and mystery in how the magic works. A mormon, forging his own world's in fiction looking towards his ascension to godhood, needs to have everything be explained concretely, as if inventing a new science.

Reading Tau Zero.

If the speed of light is the upper limit for the Bussard Ramjet, why can the ship travel distances of throusands of light years in no time?

t. Brainlet

>>19377016
WTF I love Mormonism now and wish to platonicaly soak in my girlfriend!

>>19377205
you need a jump humper?

>>19377213
first i need a friend.

>>19377205
>tfw soakless virigin

>>19372204
If your enjoyment of a sci fi book is entirely dependent on the likability of the characters, you're not reading sci fi for the right reasons.

>>19377147
The time it takes for it to reach those distances does not really change, just that the time experienced by the crew shortens to a factor approaching infinity. As tau approaches zero, time dilation approaches infinity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Zero#Origin_of_the_title

There's a lot of science in that book that's been debunked so I encourage you to look into it on your own.

I hate "soft" and "smooth" magic systems, I only like "hard" and "hunky" magic systems

>>19377806
based hunk enjoyer

Name one (1) story described as having a smooth or hunky magic system

>>19376231
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel

I must not fear
Fear is the mind-killer
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration
I will face my fear
I will permit it to pass over me and through me
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing
Only I will remain

>>19378081
>pic
I must not homolust.
Homolust is the dignity-killer.

>>19378081
based

>>19378096
Unironically watching dune has filled me with strange feelings and it's been a struggle over the last few days
It's scary and I'm not sure what's going to happen to me

>>19378096
Kyle Maclachlan is the far superior twink

>>19378081
I must not post Sneed
Sneed is the thread-killer
Sneed is the little-death that brings total fucktion and suction
I will face the Sneedpost
I will permit it to feed me and seed me
And when it has gone past, I will plant the gummi bears to grow its tomacco
Where the Sneed has gone there will be nothing
Only Chuck's will remain

What do you think of the Amber series

>>19376587
these words make me want to die

Any fantasy/sci-fi novels with ridiculous high-scale warfare? Besides 40k novels. (ground warfare only, no space-battles, please)

>>19376467
>implying LOTR doesn't have autistic worldbuilding

>>19374898
It’s prolly more like 3 guys

>>19378490
The Ring by Baxter involves warfare of truly ridiculous scale, although it's not the main focus of the story.

>>19378326
Never read it. A minority of people here seem to love it, the rest just who speak about it simply say they don't care.

>>19378508
?

>>19378490
Cradle

>>19376660
>Sanderson takes great pains to explain what powers his magic systems, what their limitations are, and how characters need to be smart to work around those limitations
That's cool and all, but how do people think that makes a book itself good?

>>19364071
I'm new to sci-fi but I'm reading pic related, did I do good?

>>19379124
>did I do good?
Why do you care about the opinion of anonymous people?

>>19379235
Why do you care if people talk about a book on a literature board. Shut up.

>>19379235
>Why do you care about the opinion of anonymous people?
Why do you discount the opinions of anonymous people?

>>19379275
Except he ain't talking about it, he just wants to know if he did something right, which is pathetic as fuck.

>>19379412
No way that's more pathetic than crying about it also anonymously

To everyone who hasn't fallen for the Bakker meme yet, here's a sample of his "deep" prose
>Whores are mummers—you must understand that. We perform …” She hesitated, searched his eyes as though they held the proper words. “I know the Tusk says we degrade ourselves, that we abuse the divinity of our sex and sometimes it feels that way. But not always… Often, very often, I have these men upon me, these men who gasp like fish, thinking they’ve mastered me, notched me, and I feel pity for them—for them, not me. I become more more thief than whore. Fooling, duping, watching myself as though reflected across silver… It feels like… like…
>“Like being free,” Kellhus said.
>Esmenet both smiled and frowned, troubled by the intimacy of the details she’d revealed, shocked by the poetry of her own insight, and somehow curiously relieved, as though she’d discharged a great burden. She almost trembled. And Kellhus seemed so… near.
>“Yes…” She tried to swallow away the quaver in her voice. “But how—”
>“So we’ve learned about holy pemembis,” Achamian said, joining them with Serwe‘. “What have you learned?” He shot Esmenet a significant glance.
>“What it’s like to be who we are,” Kellhus said.

>>19379124
It’s okay, anon. Maybe one day, you’ll have the confidence to read books without seeking validation from here.

Is he based?
https://writingexcuses.com/2020/01/26/15-04-revision-with-patrick-rothfuss/

>>19379063
JRR Tolkien took worldbuilding to its most autistic level and arguably has never been surpassed. There's literal ages of history and genealogies. Tolkien doesn't even hide the fact that he wants to info dump you most of his world's history. It just seems weird to me that you're not looking for autistic world buidling yet wanted a LOTR-like story when Tolkien is THE man that made autistic worldbuilding a mainstream thing (as much as I love him).

>>19379577
Small snippet I heard was good advice.

>>19379581
He probably hasn't even read LOTR (I haven't either)

>>19379542
Reads like shit.

>>19379546
Fuck off nigger, I'm trying to get my balls wet and I'm looking for validation to see if I'm on the mark or not

>>19379862
>validation to see if I'm on the mark or not
Of what? That you're reading? You don't need /lit/ to read.

>>19379896
why are you so obsessed with me? why dont you count something you weirdo. dont you have some bitches to not fuck or something?

>>19379917
Not him, but ain’t no one obsessed with you. Just read whatever the fuck you want. It’s just pathetic that you need some validation from /sffg/.

>>19379932
validate my nutz faggot

>>19379937
Childish. Reddit is more your valley, go there.

>>19364217
except stannis is neither cruel or inflexible and is smart.

>>19364217
Dumb whore

>>19379985
based

>>19368890
>A young and affluent, African American physicist
LMAO.

>>19371230

>>19369041
It's not very good
this general just worships it because it's incredibly obtuse (throws hundreds of places, events and people without giving any context and you have to endure hundreds of pages to get an idea of what is going on)
so most people get bored and drop it, which makes people here feel like intellectuals for simply being part of the minority that sticked until the end. Basically hipsters
that's the reason why this general is obsessed with these books while everywhere else no one cares about them

>>19380105
Filtered

>>19380105
>this general just worships
Try 2 or 3 autist.

>>19369085
>the necromancer's a novel house

>>19379581
Ok?
And that anon is asking for a book that's more like the Hobbit than it is lord of the rings and one of those criteria's he's using for that is whether the worldbuilding is autistic or not
Are you stupid?

>>19380105
I enjoy sffg because it fills me with the compulsion to defend authors I don't even like from abjectly retarded criticism.

>>19364071
Why is "The name of the Wind" listed as God-tier in this one ranking in the mega?
He has his infallible self-projection of a protagonist literally refer to a peer as "my lady", after saving her from the unwanted advances of a mini-villain.
This is peak-fedora-tipping.

>>19380483
>one person made 1.2gb of infographics
>still has time to post
Must be Korean.

>>19379577
>29:04
I'm not listing to this.

>>19375266
I just found it hilarious how subtlety is not even in author's vocabulary. I get it, the audience already knows what's going on so why pretend, but Jesus. You don't have to blatantly spell out if they're good or bad every time a characters is shown. Lucius was probably the most hilarious example.

>>19380629
I disagree, it's refreshing.

>>19380105
>this general just worships
Try a small number of autist.

Any science-fiction novels that are of slice of life?

>>19380699
>slice of life?
I never understood the appeal of this genre. What’s so interesting about it that you just want to read the lives of people?

>>19380724
A long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers
A Close and Common Orbit
John Scalzi's Old Man's War series probably would work.

>>19380699
A long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers
A Close and Common Orbit
John Scalzi's Old Man's War series probably would work.

>>19379542
At the very least this just confirms my suspicion that it was shit after all.

how does someone like bakkar get published but I can't write

>>19380834
If it makes you feel any better, Bakker was dropped from his publisher.

>>19379993
You do know it wasn't the woman who wrote the opinion piece right?

>>19365176
Good taste, chinkbro. Besides Carefree Path of Dreams because that's complete shit.

are there any novels that take place after the collapse of a space faring civilization? on earth or not.
a post-high tech low(er) tech setting with some high tech stuff as antiques?

>>19380873
Wool might be up your alley, but the fact that its post-apocalyptic world from a space faring civilization humanity is obscure.

>>19380873
>are there any novels that take place after the collapse of a space faring civilization? on earth or not.
No, why would you even think that?

>Cyberpunk
>Muh evil corporations
Jesus Christ, why can’t cyberpunk be the deterioration of society? Why does it always focus on corporations? Fucking hell.

>>19380873
Book of the New Sun is the only series I've actually read that has that as a setting and it's pretty tucked behind everything else, but that really works for me. I'm curious for suggestions from other anons because I also really like that sort of setting, but maybe not when it's so in-your-face as >>19380903 Wool/Silo seems to be?

>>19380958
>Wool/Silo seems to be?
He did say humanity being a former space-faring civilization was obscure. Maybe he meant you had to read the lines to get it?

>>19380873
Wheel of time takes place after a post-apocalyptic modern world.

>>19380958
>Book of the New Sun is the only series
Is it really? With how unreliable the narrator is?

What went wrong?

>>19380985
You got filtered by it and instead of accepting it quietly, you come here.

>>19380988
>take popular hard sci-fi book
>remove all the hard sci-fi
>add magic negros, anal beads and pedophilia.
I'm just not seeing the logical progression here. Did clarke go senile in the 16 years between books?

>>19381001
It was deliberate. Rama II has a distinctly different writing style than the first, with a more character-driven narrative and a closer-to-contemporary mindset, ambience and human relations than the first novel's more futuristic tones.

>>19380982
What? Have you not read it?

>>19381019
I have the book already, but I have two other books to read.

>>19381007
They probably could have done all that without basically yeeting the first book out the window
>Political fallout from mercury attempting to nuke rama I never mentioned, despite the fact highly independent mercury would have survived the age of chaos relatively unharmed.
>Rama apparently has gravity at the hub now
>All the other cities full of artifacts from the first book vanished, only new york remains
The 3rd book even partially ignores the 2nd. Wtf happened to the captured biot? Never even mentioned.
If you ignore the basic capabilities of the human spacecraft, technology and culture in 2200 seems to be equivalent to the 1900's. Cigarettes, drug abuse via syringes, people caring amount the amount of 'storage' in electronics, traditional bullet-shooting guns, television, no internet(!) etc.

>>19381052
I feel like the books were more of a novels taking in the same setting but otherwise different each time.

>Mfw there’s incest in my story and people think it’s some fetish
Is there anyway I can write it without it being viewed as a fetish? Like the character in question is having issues about it already, which for me should be enough to show it ain’t being taken lightly. But apparently it isn’t enough.

>>19381070
>Is there anyway I can write it without it being viewed as a fetish?
You lived in the past. But now? Impossible. Doesn't matter how you treat the subject seriously. People will just say its fetish bait.

>>19381103
What the fuck happened? Why are normies like this? God damn, not every sexual taboo is some fetish.

>>19381142
>What the fuck happened?
People can't handle dark subjects without it being sanitize

>>19381162
I think there’s a fine line between dark and edgy, and in some cases, it’s just edgy for the sake of edginess.

>>19381192
Honestly, I think its the people need to support the hero. We just can't have villain protagonist.

>>19364071
I know this might not be the right thread, but does anyone know if there’s a compilation book of Native American mythologies?

>>19381235
Myths of the Cherokee is decent, you might want to check that out.

Why couldn't they call Weird fiction, Lovecraftian? It makes way more sense and it pays homage to Lovecraft?

>>19381259
Because lovecraft was a racist. Besides, it doesn’t even matter. People still call it lovecraftian, so the name of the genre doesn’t matter anymore.

We have low fantasy, but do we have low cyberpunk?

>>19381291
What the fuck is low cyberpunk? I understand why Low fantasy exist, since it places less emphasis on elements typically associated with fantasy and sets a narrative in realistic environments with elements of the fantastical.

But low-cyberpunk? Wouldn't that just be our world?

>>19381301
>Wouldn't that just be our world?
No, our world isn’t even remotely close to being a cyberpunk dystopia. And what I mean by low-cyberpunk, is that we have technology from 2030’s to 2050’s instead of whatever fictional technology is made up.

>>19381306
>No, our world isn’t even remotely close to being a cyberpunk dystopia.
You can't be serious? Just take a look outside or on the news, we're in a cyberpunk dystopia, just a pretty mundane one.

anyone read Liu Cixin's series? I am just barely into Dark Forest or book two & finding it less compelling than the first so far

>>19381317
If you don't like it why don't you just drop it?

>>19381317
>Cixin's
Is his science fiction story good? I’m waiting for the veiled throne.

>>19381325
I'm interested, just seems the feel of the story has changed

>>19381330
I loved book one

>>19381342
>story has changed
In what way?

>>19381317
>anyone read Liu Cixin's series?
A few anons here read it and the opinion about it is mixed.

>>19364217
God, what a retarded take. Who comes up with these?

>>19381344
seems to have been a moodswing or tonal change that lacks the mystery of book one... so far in my opinion

>>19381366
Well, if you still interested, keep reading, who knows, maybe its a bait and switch.

I’m surprised that science fiction doesn’t touch upon religion all that much. It would make a nice theme on how technology has stripyman of its religious beliefs.

>>19381380
Now that you said it, It's weird that science fiction, a genre that prides itself in its exploratory medium, rarely explores religion in its setting.

>>19381387
Because most science-fiction authors aren’t religious or have some agnostic/atheist feeling.

>>19380849
I didn't even read what the link said that the dumb whore linked

>>19381398
Ah, an idiot.

>>19381398
>I didn't even read
You should and save yourself the embarrassment of being viewed as a moron.

>>19381401
>>19381402
The stupid bitch posted something wrong about Stannis
It's the only thing I should know

>>19381380
>It would make a nice theme on how technology has stripyman of its religious beliefs.
Do you mean "stripped man" here? Can you elaborate on it more?

>>19381408
>Can you elaborate on it more?
I feel like technology is stripping man of his community worship and togetherness with other people. While at the same time, making sure it questions his faith in his god.

>>19381406
Okay, but she didn’t make it.

>>19381411
Isn’t that how it’s always been? Religion has fallen to the wayside.

New thread
>>19381419

>>19381387
star wars is centered around religion, it's also a big thing in warhammer 40k, hyperion/endymion and of course there's that one meme book series

>>19380699
Honestly - Wheel of Time or The Hobbit.

>>19380629
lucius seemed arrogant but not exactly a bad guy

>>19371793
What you're seeing now only gets worse. I read it all and realized near the end I was only slogging through it due to pure stubbornness. Get out while you can; it's all setup and a shit payoff.