/lit/ - Literature

>>17481950
Furry shitter.

>>17481950
Bad OP pic.

That one anon should've made a Bakker general after all.

I'm almost done with the elder series, give me another fantasy that isn't 8 tomes long. I don't want to read his cradle series right now, I like to mix it up before I read stuff by the same author

>>17481962
Should I...?

>>17481962
why a general
just make a thread and talk about the book

>>17481950
Shit picture.
Wrong Link to the Previous Thread.
Shit Thread.

>>17482000
Yes.

t. the guy who asked if there should be a general but currently I’m phoneposting

>>17481950
What fantasy books would land on a section of this chart?

/bakgen/ wouldn't work on its own because bakkerposters need other anons to hate them

>>17482645
/sffg/ wouldn’t work without bakkerbros

>>17482625
none

Just finished Soldier’s Live. Amazing series, and I cannot wait for a Pitiless Rain, if it ever comes out.
However I do have a major issue with this series. I cannot understand for the life of me the way Glen Cook handles deaths. The deaths of Murgen, pretty much his entire Nyueng Bao family, Sleepy, Mogaba, and a bunch of others I’m probably forgetting from the earlier books, just felt terribly handled. I can seen Sleepy and Murgen dying out of nowhere, war’s a bitch and soldiers live. But then they just say “Oh, Sleepy’s dead, oh, Murgen’s dead and pretty much move on, aside from maybe Tobo getting angry. And Mogaba gets his shit kicked in off screen by Tobo, without ever meeting Croaker? Fuck off, I’ve been waiting since the books of the south to see Mogaba and Croaker meet face to face again. Seems like the only deaths handled well in the series were One-Eye and Goblin’s.

>>17482625
sanderson in the middle, along with the kingkiller chronicles and red rising to balance it out with some sci-fi. and I say this as a certified 125 IQ midwit.
low IQ but still based would be Animorphs and Bionicle

So I read Way of Kings And Words of Radiance before covid

Getting around to reading Oathbringer and can't bear it, so much bs about voidbringers and "uniting" like i fucking get it okay why do you have to keep repeating it.

Its only the 3/10th book does it get any better in the 4th?

>>17482787
Literally dozens of people have made this post anon. And I'm not even joking.

After Words of Radiance, everything goes downhill. The 4th book was so bad that I couldn't finish it.

Are there any fantasy authors that still write like George MacDonald or has that style of comfy fairy-fable storytelling become obsolete in the wake of Tolkien?

>>17482787
I loved Stormlight, and I’m sorry to say I actually despised Rhythm of War. No spoilers but they just kept on repeating thoughts about stuff we already knew. I can only compare it to the massive amount of flashbacks in naruto shippuden. HOWEVER I was more than satisfied with the ending and will be reading the last book because fuck it, I’m invested too far in the Cosmere to back out now.

>>17482873
>I’m invested too far in the Cosmere to back out now.
Based Sandersoy Consoomer.

>>17482881
Oh fuck off. I liked Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, White Sand, and the first three books of Stormlight. I’m not giving up yet

Hello friends, I am writing a YA novel. One of the main characters (not the protagonist) is a young fairy girl. Should I make her a full-on fairy with weird skin and wings and such, or a half-fairy who's basically just a human with some things glued on? Thank you for reading :)

>>17482913
Personally I find there’s no point in making a character a different race if they’re just not-humans who never face any discrimination.

>jets across the snow

>>17482913
We are all tired of people with glued on wings/horns whatever. Also fuck off with any Mary Sue shit.

If you making a fairy, at least make it a real one, really alien

>>17482910
>>17482803
>>17482873
They're some of the longest books ive read as someone who doesn't read a lot.

I have big lists from /lit/ id like to get around to but feels like after ive spent so much time on the series there has to be a payoff

Are mistborn/elantris a lot better?

>>17482960
>Death came swirling down.

>>17482966
Yes

>>17482939
I have reasons for her being a(t least half-) fairy other than that. She and the protagonist are both outsiders of different sorts. Personally I think the discrimination thing is overdone, unless that's what your book is about.

>>17482962
I think most of them are that way because they're easier to put into any theoretical on-screen adaptation, which is generally more monetarily valuable than book sales.

>>17482873
sandk cost fallacy

>>17483013
>Personally I think the discrimination thing is overdone, unless that's what your book is about.
If you’re going to make your characters special snowflake outsiders WITHOUT any of the drawbacks of being special snowflake outsiders, then I am sorry to say you are writing schlock.

>>17482966
>Are mistborn/elantris a lot better?
They are as good as can be expected for YA. Not really worth the time.

Good short story/novella collections? Especially ones with atmosphere

How does Bakker rank next to the Gene Wolfe books?

is it back-her or bake-her?

>>17483115
The drawbacks can be in how they react to situations they don't understand, not how people treat them. I was mostly asking about what would be more appropriate for the genre since I do not read much YA.

>>17483182
Probably better than late Wolfe but not as good as early Wolfe.

>>17483182
He doesn't. Bakkar is the next step above Sanderson and Brent Weeks, but well below Rothfuss.

>>17483193
ba-ker

>>17483182
depends on your taste
i prefer bakker since i’m drawn to the extremity, inversion, and baroque qualities. others prefer wolfe for his comparatively patient, mysterious, and somewhat mystical approach.

>>17483196
lmao. filtered unbelievably hard
>Bakkar
the solitary hater returns again, still mad, still seething, still hasn’t read PoN. rothfuss is absolute garbage, this is widely agreed-upon ITT.

>>17483195
>late
?

Put it simply A book of the new sun or Prince of nothing? If i had to read one series

>>17483220
I vote Prince of Nothing. But suit yourself, they’ve both got their strengths.
>>17483203 is accurate.

>>17483212
Lmao what did I say that was so offensive? I said he's better than Sanderson and Weeks, but doesn't hold a candle compared to Rothfuss, what is so "hater" about that?

>>17483212
Anything but "BAKKAR IS GOD!" means you're a sanderfag hater. Imagine being such a retard.

>>17483246
>>17483235
Does it trouble you, samefag?

>Then the black man returned with bread and meat, and many tales told with his fingers of how he had stolen them.
Was that really necessary, Gene?

>1980 and 303 pages
>2003 and 604 pages
Exact same normie ratings what the fuck

>>17483220
Book of the New Sun (which is "early" Wolfe) is one of the greatest fantasy books of all time in both scope and quality. However, if you are not a Christian, you may find the philosophy uninteresting. (I am not a Christian, and I found it interesting, but it will depend on other things.) Bakker has a less-optimistic view, which you may find more interesting, but the mysteries and prose in Bakker's writing are, I think, less satisfying than Wolfe. Though I prefer Wolfe's work greatly to Bakker's, I would suggest reading Bakker first, simply because Wolfe is known to ruin people on scifi and fantasy - after you read his best books, it's harder to enjoy the works of others.

Could he feel fear?

Fuck. E William Brown better double publish this year.

>>17483193
You read it like you read baker

when I was a kid I read all the teen audience fantasy schlock I could find at the library. there was one I'm trying to remember but all I remember is that one of the antagonists was a princess that used magic to take off her chastity belt to fuck and one of the protagonists was a mercenary who became a simp for a prostitute. I think maybe it was a series with multiple books and I think it might have been a female author. does anyone have any clue what I'm talking about?

>>17483525
You probably want to forget this childhood folly of yours and instead read Bakker.

>>17483570
People were making this exact type of post about Malazan, and that was shit. Why would this be any different?
Flavor of the month, just another indicator of the low mean quality of this sad little genre

So are Lovecraft's cyclopean cities of unearthly geometry supposed to make me think of trance album covers or am I just a brainlet?

>>17482910
You're proving his point. Only a retard would fall into a DLC type universe.

>>17483591
>Why would this be any different?
By the same logic you should not read any genre fiction.

It is different because it is written by Bakker and is not based on author's personal DnD campaign as Malazan is.

>>17483637
By all accounts Bakker is an autistic little boy, so it being written by him doesn't inspire confidence

>>17483687
Read Bakker.

I remember often going to /printsf, just went there to see how things are going and I see this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/lc2h4j/i_sexually_identify_as_an_attack_helicopter_one/

Fuck me, but what a world we live in, when a chinese anime board filled with bakker schizo's is more sane then most of the western hemisphere.

I’m a Bakker shill and I am certifiably insane. I have several profound mental illnesses including OCD, depression, trauma, and antisocial tendencies, as well as being left-handed and 150 IQ. I like his books because they somehow still the madness in my soul.

Any books with concepts similar to the zones of thought in Fire Upon the Deep

>>17482827
Quick search found George MacDonald inspired W.H. Auden, G.K. Chesterton and Charles Williams

>>17483182
Well below, on average,

>>17482723
Prove it.

>>17483822
can you explain it more?

>>17483744
>getting filtered by literal copypasta riffs
Peak reddit.

>>17483879
Im interested in the universe having layers that are part of a single essence. Similar to pantheism or Brahman in Hinduism.

>>17483924
interesting but I can't think of any suggestions for you.

Okay /sffg/, I've decided that because he's one of the most popular genre authors of the modern era, I'm going to read some Sanderson. I don't expect I'll like it very much, but I hope to be pleasantly surprised. Given that I'm only going to read one volume and not a whole series of his, at least to start, would you recommend The Way of Kings or The Final Empire? If he has any good standalone works I'd also be potentially interested.

>>17483365
No, dude was just a organic super computer.

>>17484055
Sanderson is literally YA, with clunky over explained magic system. His stories are character driven and anything and everything the characters do, you will have to read it.

Read Bakker.

>>17483603

Non-euclidian geometry just means that the thing is so big that is has to take into account the curvature of the Earth. So you cant make a rectangle an actual rectangle but bend it a little. Everything would be slightly curved to compensate the curvature of the planet.

>>17482827
Peter Beagle?

>>17484432
that doesn't make sense to me
why does a big thing have to "compensate for the curvature?"
just make it straight

>>17484485
Because it would be a. too big and expensive, and b. not as stable, because it does not account for the curvature of the Earth.

>>17483525
This sounds like something out of the Xanth series but I'm not sure

>>17484496
what does that have to do with geometry? nothing at all
geometry is not about what you make something out of and how expensive that would be

>>17484324
>Read Bakker
I've already done that (his books are not very good). Now I'm looking for a recommendation related to Sanderson.

>>17484534
What did you not like about Bakker?

>>17484485
>>17484432
Euclidean geometry is the geometry of space with no curvature, one example of non-euclidean geometry is the surface of a sphere, but that's still 2d. To extend it into 3d, imagine space was bent in such a way that you can walk a straight line and go in a circle, or a squiggle, or wind up making a 180. You can also imagine it as embedding higher dimensions into lower dimensions, like how the surface of a cylinder is 2d, yet because of it's 3d shape it loops. Likewise you could wrap 3d space around a 4d shape to create strange effects. Or more simply, just having wormholes would let you do crazy MC Escher shit like folding staircases back on themselves so you can infinitely fall down them.

In other words, it means space itself is fucked, and you can have impossible geometry.

>>17484534
I'm considering falling from the Bakker meme, even if all the posts me have kind of turned me off of him.
Why did you think his book was bad, how does it compare to Malazan (I didn't like that) if you've read that?

>>17484509
i dont know what that guy is talking about, non euclidean geometry is just any geometry that doesnt have parallel lines. They have to curve away or towards in some way. This is used in optical illusions

I want your best military sci-fi and I want it now! Tactics, strategy, space combat, ground combat, big ships, nasty aliens, well-developed characters[/spoilers], political intrigue, bureaucratic governments!

>>17484509
>>17484485
>>17483603

>>17484545
>>17484566
I have not read Malazan. To briefly summarize why I don't like Bakker, I read the entire Prince of Nothing trilogy and it doesn't manage to tell a complete story, despite its length, it's just the prologue to his next series. Despite what people say, the setting is cliche generic fantasy, with some more interesting things from the setting's history hinted at but these things aren't actually explored in the 1,800 pages of this trilogy. The idea of a fantasy crusades story is undermined in execution by Bakker failing to properly create stakes or investment in the holy war at hand. That war also doesn't make sense based on what its stated purpose is at the end of the trilogy (quite the opposite, in fact). Kellhus is a terrible character for a large number of reasons so much so that the series is worse the more it focuses on him, and he gradually becomes the main character of the trilogy. If you think the writing is good your reading is probably limited to very mediocre genre works. There are other reasons but that's my nutshell take.

So, any Sanderson recommendations from anyone?

>>17484692
I don't think you would like Sanderson

>>17484692
>muh resolution
>muh kellhus
>muh tropes
peak sandersoy take. don’t read bakker if you’re a smoothbrained rationalityfag like this anon. clearly, cleanly filtered. enjoy your spren and coomstorms.

>>17484730
Like I said in my original post, I don't think so either, but he's pretty much the poster-child for modern fantasy (give or take a GRRM) so I'd like to give one volume of his a try.

>>17484734
It's entirely possible I'll read Sanderson and conclude that anyone that really likes him are simpletons with bad taste, but I've already figured that out for Bakkerfags even before your post reinforced that fact so eloquently.

>>17484055
You can read the first Mistborn as a standalone. It's one of his better works, and if you enjoy it the sequels are equally as good. And if you hate it, you can just pretend it's a shitty standalone and forget about it.

>>17484802
Thanks very much, this is the type of info I was looking for.

>>17483151
The Last Wish

:)

>>17483924
Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe

>>17484842
Is that a joke? Asking because that book gets recommended alot.

Why do you read SFF? Real answers only and not 'escape to another world' thanks

>>17484692
Based

>>17484845
Not a joke, it's accurate, though the structure is more of a reference to Norse mythology than any Eastern religion if I'm remembering correctly.

>>17484822
For sure. It's a toss-up really between WoK and Final Empire if you're only looking to try one (and most of his actual standalones, outside short stories, are significantly worse written than either of those), but WoK doesn't work as well as a one-off. Too many loose plot threads.

>>17484845
No. It's literally the central conceit of the book that the main character goes to another universe where worlds are layered on top of one another. If I was going to joke I'd tell you BotNS, because that one only kind of fits (with the stuff in Urth.) Anyways, Wizard Knight definitely does fit.

>>17481950
>tfw no wolf barbarian dommy mommy gf
why even live

>>17484848
Because I enjoy it and love a good story.

>>17483195
The better question is why are you writing a book in a genre you don't read?

>>17484848
Non genre-fiction sucks dick. It's my honest opinion, fight me. The value of a written work depends entirely on the mettle of the man writing it, and scifi/fantasy gives the deepest look into the author by forcing him to create the entire universe. You get the distilled essence of an entire human, and from that you know everything there is to be learned from him.

Does anyone else stop reading once they read "the abyss"? It's the ultimate sign you're reading garbage, desu.

I know that Conan the Cimmerian is absolute must reads, but never really hear about Solomon Kane. How do the two compare in quality? Are they worth a read?

Read House of Blades.
>>17482873
>I'm sorry to say
Many people, arguably most, disliked it.
>>17482910
>White Sand
The comic or the prose? The comic was bland.

>>17485001
That’s my favorite kind of cheese

>>17485021
Bump for interest

>>17484956
Well, I used to read it, but my memory of it is mostly gone. I'm writing it for kids who are now like who I was then. Does that make sense? I mostly ask questions here out of curiosity for what one would expect out of the genre.

>>17484975
You should try some more absurdist or comedic literary fiction like American Psycho. There are plenty of good fiction books outside of the genre, but you might find those especially interesting.

Guys help I’m writing a sci-fi that starts out ridiculous and comedic but progressively gets more serious as the mystery of the character plot unfolds. The problem is it feels so painfully slow to write that I don’t even know if it reads slowly. Thoughts on what to do?

>>17485229
Just Write

You might benefit from doing a chapter-by-chapter outline. Know how every chapter's going to end, write it down, and stick to it. Fix it up after you've got a draft out, if you need to. But if you can break it up into chunks that you know flow together well, you should just worry about getting the words out while sticking to the tone you want, and just follow the pacing rails you've laid down. I like Scrivener for organizing this sort of thing, personally.

>>17485262
incredibly based advice, thank you

>>17485284
You're welcome. There's /wg/ for such questions in the future if what you're asking about isn't a specifically /sffg/ concept.

>>17485229

From that broadest of descriptions, that sounds similar to Nuklear Age by Brian Clevinger, which wasn't very good. Not saying the concept can't work, but maybe read that to see what not to do. In terms of writing speed, is it coming slower than previous things you've written? Even if it is, this doesn't speak to quality. The only thing I'll add to this good advice >>17485262 is that after you've written a few rough chapters read it back and determine for yourself if it's working or not. If it's not then don't feel bad about scrapping it.

>>17484692
>That war also doesn't make sense based on what its stated purpose is at the end of the trilogy
This was a very well crafted anti Bakker post. You got me until I read that part. I hope that you enjoy Sanderson. But who am I kidding? You certainly will, if you don’t already.

>>17485021
>The Legendary Puritan Swordsman
Holy fucking wut?

>>17485453
I think that it's best not to worry much about what's been written before you find your stride in the novel; you can come back later. If every chapter in the novel flows logically in the outline and you're still excited about the story, pretty much any issue can be fixed in revisions. This is especially true of /sffg/ novels, where you might invent some new magic mechanic while writing chapter 15 that would have an effect on how chapter 7 played out. Don't worry about it; just write on. Rewrite old stuff at the end, once you've actually put everything to the page and you're aware of all the bullshit details you came up with.

Also, don't be too afraid to spend time outlining. Work through points where you're not sure how to keep a chapter's ending connected to your novel's overall theme with a pen and paper, writing and crossing out potential solutions. And know your protagonist very well, because everything else should reflect him in some way. I spent a few days just reflecting on what my protagonist's key need and desire were before I even started outlining, then spent probably a week on that before I started writing. A solid outline with cliffhangers (or at least dramatic moments) at the end of every chapter is well worth the extra investment, just for how easy it makes it to pump out a chapter every couple days while you're actually writing.

>>17485532
It's been seven years since I read The Prince of Nothing trilogy, so I may well be misremembering, but wasn't the purpose of the Holy War in Kellhus's mind as it was stated in the third volume of that trilogy to unite the humans against the coming evil forces? If I'm wrong then that line of my critique is wrong and discount my opinion accordingly, but if I'm right then the idea that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people based on religious and ethnic differences is very stupid, even if Kellhus is using it as a way to gain power.

>>17485567
>ethnic differences*
"will lead to unity," to clarify.

>>17485453
>Nuklear Age by Brian Clevinger
Never heard of it but I’ll check it out. This is typically what I do though in my works.
>In terms of writing speed, is it coming slower than previous things you've written? Even if it is, this doesn't speak to quality
I’d say so. I do want the pacing to be slow in the beginning, it’s just that it’s taking me so long to write it that I can’t tell if it’s actually slow or that it just feels slow since I’m writing it. I’ve re-written the intro a few times, know not going to give up because I know I’ll get it eventually.
>>17485546
See the more I write the more I realize it’s okay to go back and fix things based I knew resolutions or wherever the characters have taken things. Sometimes it happens that way, writing a story can have a mind of it’s own and letting it take you there can come out with a much cleaner product. Thank you again for the advice.

>>17485567
It was to make kellhus a god king. To seize the reigns of power for himself.

>>17485623
Yep, real stupid. Considering the (incredibly poorly written) way that Kellhus is a master manipulator, him having to engineer the death of hundreds of thousands of soldiers who could have fought for the forces of humanity is a dumb way for him to gain power, especially considering his relation to Maithanet.

>>17483292
What about these numbers am I supposed to be find noteworthy? I'm confused.

I want to talk about this book. What is sentience good for? Is there any reason for sentience to be selected for? What makes humans more biologically successful than ants that outnumber us both in sheer numbers and in biomass? Is evolution 'working towards' intelligence? Would a non-sentient species be able to develop space travel?

At what point does high fantasy and science fiction intersect?

>>17485771
>What is sentience good for? Is there any reason for sentience to be selected for?
The understanding of cause and effect, as well as other elements of sentience, are certainly factors in the technological development of humankind, which is a significant power multiplier.
>What makes humans more biologically successful than ants that outnumber us both in sheer numbers and in biomass?
I believe it's misinformation that ant biomass surpasses human biomass. I think there are a thousand ants for every human, but you'd need hundreds of thousands to match biomass. A single human with no tools could kill a thousand ants easily, and one human with a flamethrower could kill millions upon millions.
>Is evolution 'working towards' intelligence? Would a non-sentient species be able to develop space travel?
Human intelligence might have been favored by evolution on Earth, but there's no reason to believe that intelligence is necessary or desirable for non-Earth life. We are not able to comprehend non-sentient intelligence very well at all, so it's hard to go down this intellectual rabbit hole. Solaris is a good book for exploring this topic.

>>17485810
[spoilers]Book of the New Sun[/spoilers]

>>17485854
how the fuck did that not work?

>>17485857
It's not "spoilers", newfriend. It's "spoiler"

>>17484055
anon, most of sanserson's books are weak, character-, plot- and structure-wise. With his plan of writing a 36-book long interconnected world, 13(?) of which he has completed, you have a lot of options to choose from. If you are attempting to read his works for the first time, i recommend reading in this pattern:
1) The emperor's soul-hugo 2013 for best novella, deserved, probably his best work to-date.
2) Shadows for silence in forest of hell - is comparable to the first in terms of quality, also good.
3) Mistborn era 2 - "fun" and light-reading; though the structure can be tightened
4) Stormlight archive 1 - good setting, awful secondary female character, imaginative
5) Stormlight archive 2 - good in sections, at this point you are invested in the story
6) Warbreaker - one of his earliest works, some characters play a larger role in the extended universe.
7) Stormlight archives 3 and 4 - poor writing for most parts, clunky and overlong
8) Mistborn era 1 - amateur prose, some interesting characters
9) Elantris - overlong, poor characterisation, soporific

>>17485771
I presume you mean counsciousness. The scramblers have senses. I can't imagine any inteligence without senses.

Counsciousness highlights bits of information that come to it from "lower" levels and feeds those highlights back for further uncounscious processing. Because there is much information comming in through your senses but your processing capacity is comparativelly low, it pays to be selective. Brains are pretty expensive so a scrambler-like being isn't very likely to evolve naturally, specially because they expire relativelly fast (they are born with all the ATP they'll ever have) which caps the utility of learning a lot.

Evolution isn't working towards anything but survival. It's not working towards space travel in particular either. Pondering the heavens isn't very conductive to living longer or breeding more often so the capacity for it should only be a byproduct of some other trait that did have some utility in the organism's natural environment - like curiosity.

>>17485826
>The understanding of cause and effect
Is sentience required for that, though? The spider understands that it needs a web to catch food and it does so without a sense of self and without understand anything, really. This is all just ingrained into the spider's genes and instinct. In fact, I think spiders are one of the biggest arguments against sentience we have on earth. Spiders are the only animals that manufacture their own weapons other than man, for instance. What would a goliath spider do if its net failed? Nothing. It doesn't need to. It would simply wait for the next chance, and its metabolic rate is such that it can miss hundreds before it becomes a problem. And speaking of ants, there are entire species of ant-mimics. The herbivorous spider Bagheera kiplingi does not consciously pretend to be an ant, it is simply programmed to do so and is programmed to steal the ants' food.
>A single human with no tools could kill a thousand ants easily, and one human with a flamethrower could kill millions upon millions.
But we don't. And in fact, there are quite a few humans (myself included) that consider it our prerogative to protect other species instead of eradicate them. Evolutionarily speaking, eliminating competition is always preferable. Why would nature select for individuals that put other species' well being on par with our own? Altruism in other animals is incredibly rare and arguably doesn't exist at all. The chimpanzee returning a favor is only doing so to ensure someone might help him later, and the duck fostering orphans is only doing so to decrease the chance that her own offspring are fed upon. Altruism just doesn't make any sense from an evolutionary standpoint.
>there's no reason to believe that intelligence is necessary or desirable for non-Earth life.
What makes it necessary or desirable even on earth? Was it just accidental? Were humans just lucky in the evolution arms race and sentience was just a side effect of that? Like Watts said, sentience is expensive. It has to be good for something right? Well, what's it good for? How much time did you just spend thinking today. Why? What benefit came from that?

>>17485898
>The emperor's soul
Thanks for pointing that one out to me, and I appreciate your writeup of his other work as well. Can I ask why you've read so much of him given your statement that most of his books are so weak? No pressure to answer if you don't want to, just curious, and thanks again.

>>17483836
those authors are all long dead anon

>>17485906
Humans are only altruistic because we can afford to be and consider most of the planet to be our possessions. "preserving the ecosystem" is just as selfish a motivation as any other.
As for consciousness, firstly we can't know that we're the only ones with it. It's totally possible that many other animals possess either consciousness or something similar.
If they don't, we also have a claim on being by far the smartest creatures on earth, that we know of, so consciousness could be either a cause or effect of that.
Assuming even that isn't true, you could say it's just a quirk of ours, we're so ecologically dominant that there's almost no selective pressure against us besides each other, and it's a level playing field.
It's also distinctly possible that we aren't actually sapient at all, we just think we are. Much like most of our senses are piecemeal illusions, it's possible our sense of self is just a fabrication.
Or maybe only some of us are sapient, how would we know?

>>17485906
>Why would nature select for individuals that put other species' well being on par with our own?
Specie is only one level on which evolution plays out. There are systems working within systems for their own sake where they might sometimes benefit together with systems nested inside them or with systems they are nested inside of, sometimes not. An individual might make a choice that hurts the specie as a whole while benefiting it's own reproduction chances, and at the same time traits shared across species might trigger nurturing responses in one specie's member towards a different specie's member which benefits a natural grouping, likely to be somewhat related, greater than the species. The contradictions extend to intra-individual levels as what is good for some of your genes might not be good for other genes of yours and even to non-biological systems like human cultures and computer-generated algorythms. Every behavior can be seen as "selfish" behavior by one system but be seen as altruistic when you zoom in or out because these systems can and do contradict each other.

>>17485901
>Brains are pretty expensive so a scrambler-like being isn't very likely to evolve naturally, specially because they expire relativelly fast (they are born with all the ATP they'll ever have) which caps the utility of learning a lot.
You say that, but it's all on a comparative scale, isn't it? Sexual reproduction is incredibly expensive compared to mitosis, but it has other benefits. I was picturing the scramblers as being white blood cells to Rorschach's being. If you're the size of Jupiter, you wouldn't even notice an entire race of humans living and dying on your shoulder. There are entire ecosystems of bacteria living in your gut. Red blood cells can't reproduce on their own either.

>>17485906
In terms of whether sentience is required for understanding of cause and effect, through behavioral tests like whether animals are capable of using tools and problem solving we've gathered a good amount of evidence to establish that there are very few species that understand cause and effect, maybe not even gorillas understand it. Spiders are capable of acting on instinct, but not in a novel environment requiring understanding of cause and effect. At least, that's what the science suggests so far. Your example is perfect for this: given an infinite amount of time, the goliath spider will not create new tools other than the ones it creates instinctually. In an infinite amount of time a chimp might invent a rocket ship if it were convinced that there were bananas on the moon; the chances of a spider doing the same are effectively zero.

In terms of your altruism/empathy point, I'm not sure you understood what I was saying. I wasn't saying that people are trying to exterminate ants, just that people outweigh ants in biomass and can eliminate them through technology. I'm not saying we're in a war for survival with ants, obviously. I don't disagree with your points about altruism. In practice, the percentage of humans that care for animals outside of a narrow set is negligible, otherwise we'd all be vegan when in fact very few people are. I don't think there's any evidence that nature selects in favor of altruism.

For your last point, I didn't say that intelligence was necessary on Earth, quite the opposite. It's just proved advantageous so far in our environment, which is why we're at the top of the food chain. I'm not making a value judgment or saying anything about a universal constant, humanity being lucky compared to all other forms of life on the planet is a fair statement, though I think that sentience gives more adaptability for facing challenges compared to many other forms of biological advantage (though I'm saying this only being aware of the biological expressions of life forms on Earth). I understand why you're asking about my personal experience today, but I don't think it's actually relevant.

>>17486007
>>17485906
Also examine the situation the other way around. Intelligence is obviously very useful and important, for us. But how useful would it actually be for a spider to be sentient? Could it build tools? Form societies? Probably not. At best it could design more elaborate webs, but the non-sentient spider can do the same thing through genetic instinct at a vastly lower metabolic cost. In fact, most animals would benefit very little from human-level intellect. What's the point in being able to invent tools if you don't have the strength or dexterity to use them? What's the point in understand cause and effect if you don't have the longevity to learn it?
Basically, without hands, there's no point in being smarter than an animal.

>>17486001
>Sexual reproduction is incredibly expensive compared to mitosis
Not really? Sexual reproduction usually takes less than half your mass. It takes more time, sure, but not more energy.

My point with the scramblers was that they have a lot of brain but and a very hard cap on how much brain their work can get done: so you'd expect them to have an advanced admin for their cognitive economy. This would include monitoring and parsing through internal stimulii, being somewaht aware of their own sensations.

I'm reading Damásio, right now, coincidentally. I agree with his counsciousness gradient general vibe.

>>17486043

In terms of your post, the first spiders to gain sentience would probably be pretty fucked in terms of intellectual satisfaction, but their superior ability to think about problems would probably lead to a better survival rate. And long term, they could in fact develop a society. I see no reason why a sentient spider wouldn't be able to develop species-appropriate tools. You say that without hands sentience would be pointless, but I think spiders would be the rare exception to that idea, compared to animals with hooves or paws or whatever.

Since we keep looping back to spiders, let me say that Children of Time is actually a pretty on-point book considering this discussion and this thread.

>>17485931
Apologies to the other readers for the blogpost.
I now read Sanderson primarily because i am interested in the story, it is akin to Vance's SF or GRRM's thousand worlds setting, or the scope is at least, with a fair bit of modern day superhero and anime thrown in, a trope common now as was the lone-ranger / drifter in the 60s-70s that gave rise to much cherished media. Besides, his tomes are a form of contemplation, i read them in one-go forsaking any nourishment for around 1 and half days; the prose does not offer much but the act of reading constantly a media of consistent quality for so long is pleasant.

I read most of them when i was younger, and did not know that far superior books existed, i had just finished reading a dance with dragons and wanted to read something similar, not even aware at that point about "high fantasy". Searches in google about related works inevitably led to the greatest fictions ever published, or must-read or some such and got me hooked. Started with the black company, read a fair bit, got bored, then read malazan till book 3, dropped because of the similarity to cook's work. It was during this time i discovered Sanderson and read TWoK and WoR in quick succession; but even to my amateurish outlook, the prose was just bland and in many instances childish. It was, as has been described many times before, a fast-food feast for the literary mind, scrumptious but not nourishing for the soul. After that, I stopped reading about 99% of the modern published works, and started focussing on classical books (anything after 1900s-mid 2000s), which was exactly what i was after and so it is a self-fulfilling loop.

/sffg/, I don't know how I did it, but despite being dead inside for two years straight, I'm 150k words into writing this stupid fucking book. Also, I never used any of the superpower related stuff I talked about

>>17486043
intelligence isn't really something you can just quantify. Even IQ tests are just approximations of a much more complicated system. You ever seen a chimpanzee play a memory game? Those things can breeze through round after round at a pace that would vastly outperform humans.

different forms of intelligence benefit different evolutionary niches. For all we know, many of the creatures we dismiss could have as much self-awareness as we do, they just don't say it out loud. It doesn't help that our "tests" for sentience and self-awareness mostly just amount to "does it understand what reflections are?"

>>17486091
>i read them in one-go forsaking any nourishment for around 1 and half days; the prose does not offer much but the act of reading constantly a media of consistent quality for so long is pleasant.

This, along with the rest of your overwrought post, makes me unironically fucking love you.

>>17486098
congrats on your work ethic anon. please post excerpts

>>17486089
The first intelligent spiders would be fucked, period. They'd all starve to death since spider's hunting strategies don't work with increased metabolic rates. Assuming that wasn't an issue and they had a surplus of food, how would they outbreed the non-sentient spiders? Assuming THAT wasn't a problem and we just have a large group of intelligent spiders with no competition and unlimited resources, what tools exactly could they use? They'd have to drastically change shape and size to be capable of anything significant. At which point we now need enough space and resources for a group of GIANT intelligent spiders to evolve.

There's a hard size limit on intellect, below a certain measurement there's just no point to it. And spiders ARE actually one of the better-suited for intelligence. What about intelligent fish? They're just fucked aren't they? Honestly most sealife is fucked, you need a tremendous amount of inherent biological capability before you can afford being intelligent.

I guess what I'm saying is that, while theoretically intelligence lets you move to the top of the food chain and dominate the region, you practically have to have ALREADY DONE THAT for intelligence to be worth anything!

>>17486153
Octopodes are pretty intelligent-acting despite having a distributed nervous system. I wonder how that would work, with the central "brain" and each tentacle having consciousness.

>>17486117
:) , much appreciated, anon. What types of books do you generally prefer reading?

>>17486179
They're very capable animals, but once again screwed by longevity. They have a very high potential, but only live 3 years on average. A major limitation is also that they're almost TOO capable, not many tools they'd be capable of making would have any use for them. The sea is a bad place for technology. Lack of resources, wide empty spaces, projectiles mostly useless, fire impossible. I guess they could figure out how to make shivs and clothing, and maybe build structures. But all that would take far too long for them to manage it in a single lifetime, and they'd have to be even smarter to be able to plan that kind of thing out multigenerationally.

>>17486153
>spider's hunting strategies don't work with increased metabolic rates
Not sure why you're equating sentience with increased metabolic rates. That might be causally linked, but might not be.
>how would they outbreed the non-sentient spiders?
If you're just rejecting out of hand the possibility that sentience confers some evolutionary advantage, then a) that assumes your conclusion, b) that is contrary to the evidence of sentient creatures on Earth, and c) there's nothing really to discuss after that rejection. Of course a development that gives no advantage wouldn't last over multiple generations except if it was a neutral factor and it won through the lottery of random evolutionary chance.
>what tools exactly could they use?
I think you're thinking of this in terms of human tools, right? No reason a sentient spider couldn't craft a spider-sized spear, or maybe it could pelt other insects with rocks from high up in its web, or lots of other possibilities.

I don't accept any of your assumptions in your second paragraph, and therefore reject your third paragraph as well. But I would like to make clear that this is an interesting conversation.

>>17486140
at this point it's not so much work ethic as it is pushing myself past my limit in a desperate attempt to prove to myself that I'm still a writer because if I lose that my life becomes meaningless and I have no excuse not to an hero

>>17486332
A true artist, then.

>>17486265
Can spiders even see well enough to use projectile weapons?
Anyway, what I'm saying is that intelligence gives no DEFACTO benefit, only detriments due to increase complexity. Only when that intelligence can actually be effectively utilized does it become useful. In an extreme case, imagine a sentient immobile cube. Not doing much good. Or perhaps highly intelligent mayflies that only live for 24 hours and have to spend 100% of their effort on breeding and avoiding being eaten. Not much tool building going on there.

You need keen senses, mobility, strength, opportunity, and a certain degree of longevity for intelligence to have any visible effect at all. And in many cases you'd be better off just being slightly bigger, or having to eat less.

Arguing from another direction, what about creature's who are highly intelligent, but whose behavior and strategies are impenetrable to use, rendering them undetectable? Like a sentient tree, how would you even tell? Or even my example of a sentient fish. What method would we even have to come into contact with one, let alone recognize it? Alien intellects could appear to us as a lack of intelligence as well. We all know many human desires are irrational and counterproductive, what about a highly intelligent cat whose only physical desires are to act exactly like ordinary house cats? If it has no ambition beyond that, how would we notice anything different about it? For all we know, everything on earth is highly intelligent.

Hell, what if we're just total idiots and this whole "technology" thing is an obvious waste of time that everything else has figured out already?

>>17486214
Well, not sure that my preferences will endear me to you as much as your eccentricities have endeared you to me, but here it goes. I've tracked my reading habits for just over nine years now so I know that I have a preference in favor of shorter books, often in the 150-250 pages range, though there is the occasional much longer book that I love as well. I know that I'm a sucker for good setting, and as I've gotten older I've started caring more about characters and prose and less about plots, though I still like a good plot and hate a poor conclusion. Usually only 1/4 to 1/3 of the books I read in a year fall into /sffg/, otherwise I read other things. I'm much more on the sci-fi rather than the fantasy side. There are certain subgenres I like, for example cyberpunk, that I keep reading despite the large majority of books in that subgenre being sub-par. In terms of how I rate things it tends to be a bell curve, most things I think the good aspects and bad aspects more or less balance out, it's the exception that is notably better or notably worse than normal. Always on the look out for the next sff book to be disappointed by.

>>17485891
i've been coming here ten years now (fuck me right?).. brain fart.

>>17486349
It's possible we're discussing sentience in different ways. I'm envisioning it as an animal as we understand it today, whether a lizard or a fish or a bird or what have you, with sentience added. If there's any detriment that that addition necessitates I'm unaware of it. Yes, a sentient immobile cube wouldn't be advantaged by sentience. But neither would that cube doubling in size, or having to eat half as much, or whatever else; it's an immobile cube, it's fucked from its very inception. A sentient mayfly over the course of 24 hours would probably do better than a non-sentient mayfly, is my contention.

I'm not sure what qualities you need as a prerequisite for sentience to be an advantage, but I'm far from convinced that all the qualities you listed are necessary for sentience to confer an advantage. They likely do speak to the magnitude of that advantage, however.

A sentient tree is an interesting example, similar to the immobile cube. I can envision a sentient tree having a minor efficiency advantage in moving its leaves to collect sunlight and a couple of other things, but you're right that lower mobility. probably lowers the advantage that sentience gives an entity. In terms of sentient fish, isn't that just dolphins? They have been quire successful evolutionarily. I agree with your point about alien intelligences, thus my earlier Solaris example. I acknowledge that it wouldn't always be possible to test intelligence in the wild given certain assumptions, but if you put an animal in a life-or-death situation then their intelligence would presumably reveal itself unless the animal had no preservation instinct, and I agree that without a preservation instinct sentience would be immaterial.

I really loved Waylander, Waylander II, Legend was good. Is there more beautiful different author that is similar to these?

I tried Theft of Swords recently and it felt childish and predictable.

>>17486374
Don't take it so badly. I've done this before too. But if you've been around for a while, then you should have been able to figure out how you fucked up. It only takes a second to check your work.

>>17486412
Looking at things abstractly, an unintelligent animal can be seen as a machine, and adding intellect attaches an electronic control box to it. In some machines, the control box drastically improves performance, or is even required to perform it's function at all. In other cases, the control box is superfluous, as the base machinery accomplishes all it needs to, or even counterproductive as additional points of failure and complexity are added. I don't think it's possible to divorce intellect from form.

However, upon further consideration, I've changed my mind. A hyper intellect, not just a slightly "smarter" animal, could indeed make massive progress. All due to the simple concept, not of tool use, but of domestication! Expanding the scope of tool use until it encompasses the entire world, it's probably possible to construct some sort of chain of cause and effect, moving through organic, inorganic, and biological processes, could form a feedback loop and lead to infinite control. For example, it's entirely possible to imagine how an intelligent spider could successfully communicate with a human and manipulate him through some method to do it's bidding. So, in the limit at least, intelligence leads to success.

Though that depends on what you mean by intelligence, because in this scenario, the main useful ability would just be knowledge. So theoretically a spider that was just extremely good at memorization and communication could form an efficient super-organism through writing, perhaps by using webs.

>>17485771
>What is sentience good for?
ABSOLUTELY NUFFIN

>>17486412
>>17486563
Guys like you two need to be writing stories and novels. I'm sick of Tolkienesque and anime shit, and I've read everything by Jack Vance and Fredric Brown already. The topics you've discussed and almost-ideas made up (spider communicating and computing with webs) are more interesting than any book brought up in the thread.

>>17486563
>the main useful ability would just be knowledge. So theoretically a spider that was just extremely good at memorization and communication could form an efficient super-organism through writing

I guess I don't think of knowledge as we humans understand it as capable of being divorced from sentience, though I admit that I haven't thought enough about the topic and I'm too drunk to do so now. I agree that a spider or any other animal that is capable of synthesizing the output of intelligence through memorization and ersatz communication (and all the other outgrowths of intelligence) could probably reap the same benefits as an animal with actual intelligence, though this again seems to speak to the value of intelligence since it's easier to envision a life form having an advantage because it has a certain quality rather than it somehow managing to perfectly replicate the effects of having a certain quality without actually having it.

>>17486666
What are instincts but exactly that?
Though this is getting back into the sentience/sapience argument. Theoretically a specific pattern of rocks on a hill could become the planet's dominant organism if it happened to form the correct program. Kinda like the butterfly effect applied to intelligence I guess. Likewise I guess it's entirely possible for random chance to CREATE an intelligent program. I mean, we're the best example aren't we? All the way back at the beginning, we're the consequence of subatomic particles colliding with each other in a certain pattern. Though if you take it that far, you might as well say that the universe itself is a hyperintelligent superorganism that created itself by fiat just through the nature of it's own existence.

>>17486658
Like I'm sure is the case with half the other poor souls that post in this general, I've got a couple books "in the works" in the sense that I've planned them out I've but not undertaken the hard work of actually writing them out. In terms of actual published books that explore the ideas we've been discussing, Children of Time actually features sentient spiders and isn't terrible, and although I can't vouch for it the Uplift series by David Brin explores the idea of sentience as commodity (is my understanding).

>>17486658
Too lazy to write, shitting out ideas is easy and requires little to no effort.

>>17486705
I agree that chance is what led to our own intelligence, and I agree that such a chance can recur. Not sure that I agree with the idea that the universe has some intentionality in creating intelligent thought, though. Instead I am open to the possibility that in a universe like ours, increasing in entropy, intelligence arising is a natural counter to that entropy as it provides a source for the creation of order in contrast to naturally occurring chaos. I think that there is a significant distinction between an intelligent universe that creates this situation and an uncaring one where such a situation naturally arises and I think the latter is more likely, but obviously this is pure speculation on my part.

>>17486751
I mean if you consider the cause of an effect to be it's originator, like the spider controlling the man to do it's bidding, then the ultimate cause is also the ultimate master. You entire life and all your actions have been determined by the mere EXISTENCE of the universe. It's an abstract notion of intelligence, but it makes sense. Just like how it's impossible to tell you're not being manipulated by hyperintelligent aliens, or spiders I guess.

Everything is part of SOME system, it's impossible to know the goals of non-human-operated systems, the ultimate cause and originator of a system is typically the point with the most leverage and control, etc... Just like the tree, or the cube, how would you even tell the difference between an intelligent and unintelligent universe?

And what about unintentional intelligence? For want of a nail and whatnot. It's possible for an intelligent creature to perform an intelligent act that benefits itself without intending to or being aware of it!

Taken as a whole, it sort of makes the entire concept less interesting, as you'd have to either accept a total inability to make any conclusion, or impose entirely arbitrary constraints until you could.

>>17486808
>Taken as a whole, it sort of makes the entire concept less interesting, as you'd have to either accept a total inability to make any conclusion, or impose entirely arbitrary constraints until you could.

I think you reached or at least approached the ultimate point with this and the rest of your post, what we've gotten to in this back and forth regarding sentience and its advantages is determinism on the one hand and some form of free will on the other. If we're assuming that systems determine outcome, or that we lack the ability to determine if we're being manipulated such that we have to assume we are being manipulated, or that we perform unintentional "intelligent" acts based on instinct, well either way that's determinism. I'm not saying that determinism is antithetical to meaningful sentience, but as we've framed it in our discussion so far a determinist perspective certainly undercuts much of the advantages I assumed sentience would provide.

But that raises perhaps the fundamental question of whether sentience equates to free will (or vice-versa). If our concept of sentience is just some sort of more developed instinct, justified as autonomously arrived at in an ex-post-facto fashion, then of course sentience doesn't garner a life form an advantage. It's free will compared to non-sentience that has some form of innate problem solving ability that matches the problem solving ability exhibited by humans and a small number of other creatures that we would describe as having "free will." But I'm not sure what evidence we have for that in reality, so far. Regardless, this is more of a philosophical question than anything else, and I doubt we're going to come up with any convincing answers about sentience on this message board.

>>17486711
>was like you for years
>decided to learn how to actually make it happen
>have now written 10k words this week
Go pirate Story Genius anon. Writing it all down in prose should be the easy part.

>>17486968
Cool, have you published anything yet?

>>17486359
Ah, that is something we share then, an appreciation of characters, prose and settings, though I fear that I do not have overmuch exposure of the sci-fi genre, and none particularly in that of cyberpunk. For someone who is completely new to this genre, which 3 books would you recommend? I have heard mention of neuromancer several times, so it would probably be one, but which others would you suggest?
With regards to /sffg/ recommendations, i have found some relatively obscure gems, such as the mask of the sorcerer and thune's vision, though it may be perhaps due to the vast portfolio of fantasy as compared to that of sci-fi.

Also, you are too kind, anon; there are not many polite online discourses anywhere, thank you.

>>17487076
Nothing /sffg/ yet. But soon, anon. It's a fairly short book, so I want to be submitting it by April.

What are your favorite single short stories?

Greg Egan - Seeing
Ted Chiang - Stories of Your Life
Arthur C Clarke - Wall of Darkness
Arthur C Clarke - Jupiter 5
Daniel C Dennett - Where Am I?

>pick up fantasy book
>read
>90% of it is terminology
>throw it away
anyone know this feel?

>>17487174
The Last Question and Hell is the Absence of God are the only two that really stand out in my mind.

>>17487174
Fredric Brown - The Arena
Second Google result is a free University of Louisiana pdf of the story

>>17487174
Bloodchild - Octavia E Butler
Liking What You See: A Documentary - Ted Chiang
The Death of Doctor Island - Gene Wolfe
Aye, and Gomorrah - Samuel Delany

>>17487210
Hell is the Absence of God didn't really click with me. What made it stand out to you?

>>17487269
>bloodchild
based. one of my favorite short stories as well, in any genre.

>>17484692
It wasn’t that you didn’t like Bakker.

You just got filtered. I think you would love Sanderson a lot. Try Mistborn ;)

>>17487311
why are you people so insecure about (((him)))?

>>17487314
You know how there are some actually good TV shows and then there are the popular TV shows?

>>17487311
When someone lists reasons why they didn't like a book, and some other anon responds with "filtered," or "you just didn't get it," or some equivalent response, that's as close as you're going to get on the internet to an admission by the other anon that the book in question is bad and they can't articulate any reasons why it isn't.

Think I might make a short story focused on a werewolf girl just because of the image OP

>>17487114
Right back at you. In terms of all of sci-fi, I'd recommend A Canticle for Leibowitz, the aforementioned Solaris, and the under-appreciated Aniara. There aren't many good cyberpunk books for me to recommend, and I'm not sure if you'll like this one, but give China Mountain Zhang a try if it sounds interesting to you.

>>17487389
cope

>>17487410
Thank you for the recommendations, anon; these are now in my next-to-read list.

>>17485657
>>17485567
> so I may well be misremembering

All of these, wrong.

Kellhus’s father was the one and only master mind behind the war. He knew that his son would seize it and March to Shimeh. The unification of the three seas was fundamental for future the war against the consult . You also clearly missed the whole point that the Dûnyai are Bakker’s version of the “Übermensch”.

But you don’t even know what I’m talking about. I’ll wait while you google it.
It seems to me that you got filtered pretty hard. Not that you will understand it anyway.

>>17482762
What about high IQ?

>>17487174
the willows algernon blackwood
the repairer of reputations robert w chambers
the damaged thing ambrose bierce

>>17487353
>and nothing popular is ever good because I'm a contrarian hipster twat
Yes, we're well aware.

>>17487564
Go ahead, enjoy your YA. Don’t come back afterwards telling how bad Sanderson really is.

>>17487587
Why do you care so much about low IQ retards enjoying trash?

It’s not like that can enjoy anything else.

>>17487177
>pick up book
>read
>its 100% words
I hate women

>>17485810
Michael Swanwick, "The Iron Dragon's Daughter". Or the Deathstalker series.

>>17487587
I enjoy YA, Sanderson, and my current re-read of Bakker. Eat my shit you joyless faggot.

>>17487174
Ripples in the Dirac Sea

>>17487946
Poor bait.

>>17485759
Exact same goodreads ratings and fantasybookreview ratings but the page count and release years differ so makes you think which one was a product of its time and which one is a less derivative story

>actual intelligent, engaging discussion of the ideas and themes of Blindsight
sensational work team

Bookstores are finally open again today. Shill me your best recent scifi books (no space shit). Going to pick it up this afternoon

>>17488044
Real life. Enjoying my shit friend?

>>17488224
Your shit bait? Not really.

Sanderson is fucking miles above Bakker.

>>17488323
Imagine fucking Miles Hundredlives

>>17488323
I didn't say he wasn't. I said I'm capable of enjoying both and you're incapable of enjoying anything.

>>17488101
>recent
Why would you do this to yourself?
>no space shit
Based fellow space doesn't exister.

>>17486359
Have you read futu.re by Dimitri Glukhovsky? It's not 100% cyberpunk, but it's getting close. Even though i didn't like where the ending went, it is still one of my favorite books of all time.

>>17488383
>muh philosophy
>muh grimdark

LMAO @ u incel.

>>17487946
>I enjoy YA, Sanderson, and my current re-read of Bakker. Eat my shit you joyless faggot.
Lol

>>17488383
>reading comprehension

Low IQ detected.

Your yearly reminder to avoid Brent Weeks like the plague

>>17488855
“Elene gasped and sat up. "Kylar Thaddeus Stern!"
Kylar giggled. "Thaddeus? That's a good one. I knew a Thaddeus once."
"So did I. He was a blind idiot."
"Really?" Kylar said, his eyes dancing. "The one I knew was famous for his gigantic-"
"Kylar!" Elene interrupted, motioning toward Uly.
"His gigantic what?" Uly asked.
"Now you did it." Elene said, "His gigantic what, Kyler?"
"Feet. And you know what they say about big feet." He winked lasciviously at Elene.
"What?" Uly asked.
"Big Shoes," Kylar said.”

>>17488855
What is wrong with fantasy authors?

>>17489173
They are not good. Good authors don’t need fantasy.

>>17488562
>EVERYTHING I DON'T LIKE IS BECAUSE YOU CAN'T READ
Unironically no u.

>>17488515
I haven't but maybe I'll check it out, thanks.

Imagine being an editor for Weeks and saying this >>17488855 >>17488877 is good shit.

>>17487493
>war based on religious differences = unification
This is stupid, which you'd know if you had any familiarity with the crusades outside of fantasy slop churned out for gormless brainlets. God bakkerfags are pathetic.

>>17488877
>(((Stern)))

>>17489419
>Being filtered this hard.

We accept your surrender.

>>17489439
I'm an assassin. I kill. The name's Kylar.

>>17485964
>It's also distinctly possible that we aren't actually sapient at all, we just think we are.
No sapient creature would humor this thought.

>>17489439
HE'S NOTHIN BUT A LOW-DOWN, DOUBLE-DEALIN, BACK-STABBIN, LARCENOUS, PERVERTED WORM!

>>17489507
One of only 5 or 10 good posts in the thread. Absolutely based.

>>17487724
keyed

>>17485229
>>17485262
Good advice, I'd only add that sometimes it's helpful to write out of order. I generally will write in order, but when I get stuck or bored, I'll work on a different chapter for a little while.

I love Joe Abercrombie, why didn't you wigwams tell me about him sooner instead of just whining about Sanderson and Bakker every thread?

What went wrong?

>>17487177
This is one of my biggest pet peeves in modern fantasy, especially when the terminology refers to some MaGiC sYsTeM. I'm 30 pages in, I don't care about magic in the slightest before I figure out if I like the characters or not.

>>17489769
It was written by Lynch.

>>17481950
Give me your best hero's journey, /sffg/
I've already read The Wizard Knight and Wizard of Earthsea so I'd prefer soemthing less English-fantasy, if that makes sense.

>>17489794
Have you considered Chronicles of Amber?

>>17484593
Neal Asher?

>>17484593
Legend of the Galactic Heroes has everything except aliens

>>17489419
Why do you so desperately try to speak about books that you haven’t read or know nothing about? I’m genuinely curious.

>>17489794
Try the Deathstalker series

Quick - list your favorite fantasy tropes

>>17489932
I hate all of them

>>17489932
The old absentminded wizard

>>17489932
Great empire in decline
Magic is weaker than it used to be
Fulfilment of ancient prophecy
Scheming court intrigue
Fucked up family

>>17489932
Labyrinth city that's all one big building.

>>17489958
>Fulfilment of ancient prophecy
This but in a way that nobody expected

How does this sound for a premise: Worn-torn Sorcerer or Warpriest war-hero retires to the country side or frontier and turns his village (or the one he moves to) into a powerhouse in order to fulfill some promise to his fallen commander.

>>17489932
Labyrinth city that's all one building.

>>17490018
Questionable logistics.

>>17489802
Awooga. That’s a good one

>>17489932
catgirls

>>17490033
Depending on the Sorcerer or Warpriest part I'll have the protag wanting to build a wizard tower in the frontier or a church in his village. Former will focus on the wilderness and conquering it for resources while the latter will focus more on politics and religion to get resources.

>>17490081
Well don't do the tower thing because that's what my book is going to be about

>>17489958
>prophecy is self fulfilling

Does anyone know the book where there's multiple magic systems in the setting? It could be a LN/WN/Manga and I'm just confused but I vaguely remember reading something where the MC uses jewish magic which operates in a very specific manner and some other magician could use magic but have to use it in a completely different way to achieve affects specific so that system.

Also does anyone know the book about the MC summoning some djin or creature and that creature took on the form of the previous master saying it only takes on the form of people it respects. At the end of the book/series the MC dies and he takes on their form.

>>17489932
I don't know if its my favorite trope but...

Is there any high fiction series that doesn't have world ending soon and the hero is trying to stop it?

>>17489932
Puppets. Preferably sentient and associated with magic somehow.

>>17490146
I feel like “imminent apocalypse” is perhaps THE essential trope of high fantasy. I can’t think of a single series whose larger plot doesn’t revolve around this theme. Desu it goes all the way back to Mesopotamian myth....

>>17490198
Reading Bakker after reading Gardens of the Moon really hit me with the puppet trope.

Why are the Yatwerians so retarded?

>>17489932
Pursuit by supernatural assassins
Traveling into/through other planes of reality
Ancient creation myth conspiracies

>>17490330
Because they’re coomers

>>17490136
No idea on the specific book, but Bartimaeus series involves summoning demons and also demon magic.
Also unironically it's major plot pint in Name of the Wind that there's two seperate magic systems.

>>17489932
Demons fucking shit up
Specifically if they’re keyed to 7deadly sins.

>>17489419
How do you get filtered so hard without reading the books?

r/bakker sucks

>>17490447
Yes, every subreddit sucks because it is Reddit. What is your point?

>>17490492
No point. Just pure hate and heart-cracking fury.

>>17490526
>>17490492
And also to point out the sad fact that since the Second Apocalypse forum is completely dead and r/bakker is garbage, /sffg/ is the last remaining bastion of true Bakker fandom on the internet. Sad!

>>17481950
Threadly "Fuck bakker" drive-by coming through

>tfw no swayali peach for my little brother

Finished Rhythm of War. All the tower occupation shit was extremely boring, mental issues stuff with Kaladin was alright. Chadolin and Taravangian remained the most compelling, but unfortunately Szeth didn't get much interesting stuff here. Shame since he's my second favorite.
Overall 6/10, but the fifth book is looking a lot more promising with the Szeth focus and seeing where Taravangian's story is going.

>>17490447
What literature community doesn't suck?

>>17490591

>>17490609
Those are not contradictory (although I think Sanderson is alright)

Are there any books that capture the feeling that Far Cry 2 did?

>>17490609
that image better be satirical

>>17490591
Was it better than Oathbringer?

>>17490661
Why? Because they're both true?

>>17490664
Hard to say. They were book bad.

>>17490664
The character focus was less interesting; Venli's flashbacks (and chapters) were a complete borefest compared to Dalinar recovering his memory. The novel had much less momentum than Oathbringer, after the introductory sections all the characters remained in the same location. There were some interesting discoveries, but all the applications of these discoveries were left for the fifth novel and beyond. The climax of the novel was emotional compared to Oathbringer's more action-oriented climax, and I actually preferred it.
It really depends on what parts of Oathbringer you liked. If meeting the cultures and seeing their cities through the Oathgates was your primary draw, you'll probably have Rhythm of War. If you enjoyed the emotional development of characters, Rhythm of War was pretty similar to Oathbringer, but all the development was packed near the end instead of through the novel.

>>17490700
>If meeting the cultures and seeing their cities through the Oathgates was your primary draw, you'll probably have Rhythm of War.
Probably hate*

>>17487174
Ted Chiang - Understand
Charles Stross - A colder war
Greg Egan - Luminous
Ted Chiang - Seventy-Two Letters
Ted Chiang - Exhalation

Teddy is my favorite writer.

>finally reading Starship Troopers
Are you on the bounce, anon?

>>17490609
This is pretty accurate desu.

>>17483151
The Hugo Winners Volumes 1&2, 3, 4, and 5
The New Hugo Winners Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volumes 1, 2A and 2B
The Collected Stories of Arthur C Clarke
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

>>17490018
Sounds like the premise to a Kurosawa film. Not sure it's feasible to have the village get transformed within a few years. That's something that should take decades as it goes from backwater village to important town/city.

>>17484593
Try The Salvation War by Stuart Slade. It's basically Left Behind meets John Ringo.

http://www.tboverse.us/HPCAFORUM/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=8334&sid=d07f1fc8ab30495d065e32ad0e3fec81

>>17490700
Everything became predictable after WoR. Nothing's at stake. No one relevant dies. Except people that are inconvenient for the plot.

>>17487174
diamond dogs
traveler's rest
the castle of endless woe
axiomatic had several great stories within it, such as the infinite assassin, the cutie, into darkness, appropriate love, unstable orbits in the space of lies, and closer

>>17490609
Is having Stockholm Syndrome considered betraying though?

>>17490146
>>17490218
Depends on what you mean by apocalypse. The world being destroyed by the super evil death lord unless the protagonist and his friends stop him is really stale. But there's quite a few series out there where the antagonists are rival rulers vying for power without trying to destroy everything.

>>17487174
"Nightfall" & "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov
"Inconstant Moon" by Larry Niven
"The Tower of Babylon" by Ted Chiang
"Crystal Nights" by Greg Egan

>>17489932
Magic A is Magic A
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA

>>17487174
The Ziggurat - Wolfe
The Circular Ruins - Borges
Sword and the Idol - Dunsany

*tugs braids*
*smooths dress*

>the innkeeper is fat and bald

>>17444444

> S A N D E R S O N
> C O S M E R E
> R A D I A N T
> S H A R D S
> S P R E N
> W I N D S P R E N
> H O N N OR S P R E N
> C R E A T I O N S P R E N
> ...
> D E A T H S P R E N
> S H A R D P L A T E
> S H A R D B L A D E
> S T O R M L I G H T
> V O I D L I G H T
> T O W E R L I G H T
> W A R L I G H T
> P A T T E R N
> S H A L L A N
> L I F T
> K A L A D I N
> D A L I N A R
> B O N D S M I T H
> L A S H I N G
> G E M S T O N E S
> H E A L I N G
> F A B R I A L S
> I M M O R T A L W O R D S
> O A T H S
> D I A G R A M
> S A D E A S
> S A F E H A N D

>>17491496
whore after all

How do I find good smut aimed at a male audience if I don’t like the isekai or stat/leveling up based stuff in litrpgs?

>>17492239
Read Bakker.

>>17492239
Just look around? It’s out there and not in small qualities.

Anyone else feel like mental health issues are starting to be a detriment to the plot in Stormlight? Can't go one chapter without some new character having some obsessively researched condition
I read fantasy to escape from how fucked up life is

>>17492295
how did you make it through something like Evangelion?

>>17492295
>I read shit and complain on /sffg/.

>>17492295
You only had to read Bakker.

>>17489932
Talking cat is a major character. Talking animals in general.

>>17489769
Is it really GRRM coming up with these cover quotes himself? There's a lot of them

>>17492312
I didn't
should I?

>>17492525
What, Eva? Yes, my man. It's a real aesthetic pinnacle of its medium. Watch all of it and End Of Eva in like a week, I triple dog dare you

>>17492525
It's got the same dogshit dialogue every other anime has and has the additional step of having multiple versions released, each with varying degrees of dogshit dialogue.

Just read books.

>>17492525
>spoiler
No.

>>17485810
Star Wars

>>17492566
>It's a real aesthetic pinnacle of its medium.
watch more anime newfag

>still reeeeee'ing into the void because people like things you don't
>nobody responding to your shitty memes and copypasta
Does it trouble you schizo?

>>17492893
yes

>>17481950
Is Dunsayny good? I've read early HP Lovecraft and I've heard he is just edgy Dunsany and I liked it so I am wondering if I should buy some books about him, I am a world-building autist and I have also heard he is the pioneer of that style.
Also if you think he is could you recommend me a book to start with?

>>17492893
I think you posted on the wrong thread.

I’m enjoying the Judging eye so much bros. Even if it’s the worst one. I’m enjoying it a lot. Bakker is a genius.

>>17482762
Why is Sanderson in middle? You don't think his writing is simple enough for a twelve year-old child to grasp?

>>17493667
Ok, maybe 14.

>>17493667
I read The Shining when I was 8. A not-retarded 12 year old (and 8 year old for that matter) will understand written anime.

>>17493110
>reading comprehension

>>17493667
Every book is a children's book if the kid can read.

>>17493772
I accept your defeat.

>>17492893
Rent free.

>>17493858
>>17493874

>>17485021
The Solomon Kane stories are better than Conan