/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

RECAPS EDITION
>Thoughts on the trend of authors including a recap/the-story-so-far section at the beginning
of their books in a series?
>Do you prefer it or would you rather they worked the important bits from previous books directly into the story narration?
>Also, what are you currently reading and how do you feel about it?

Monthly Reading for May: There Are Doors by Gene Wolfe

Monthly Reading books: drive.google.com/drive/folders/15ZwgDZVXB-nLqjbgcqgntZDyTddd0eqP

Fantasy:
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imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21328.jpg
Flowchart:
imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21327.jpg

Science Fiction:
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General:
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NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books:
imgoat.com/uploads/6d767d2f8e/21333.jpg

SF&F author listing with ratings and summaries:
greatsfandf.com/authors-full-list.php


Previously:

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Other urls found in this thread:

pastebin.com/cPiyiLHD
thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/strategic-defense-initiative-reagan-star-wars-jerry-pournelle-larry-niven
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Masterworks
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks
sf.ersatzculture.com/award-charts/
goodreads.com/book/show/30169100-the-burning-white
goodreads.com/review/show/2555712255
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

first for sanderfag a hack

There has been this thing bothering me lately bros.
I know that most fantasy works are considered low culture and non-literature but is that always true? Is there really no merit, no deeper meaning to most fantasy works?
I haven't read much fantasy, but I enjoyed Tolkiens work and some of GRRM older books and I think that they are not low culture.

Still looking for more fantasy short story collections recs if anyone knows any good ones.

>he needs validation from the snotty faggots on Yea Forums
I have bad news for you bro

3 days left, get hype!

Here's a long ass analysis by some nerd that user posted a couple of threads ago: pastebin.com/cPiyiLHD

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Anyone read Doris Lessings: Canopus in Argos series? How is it?

Poul Anderson

>Poul Anderson
He looks promising enough but I suppose I'm looking for something with a range of authors to get some different styles and such

What's some good fantasy and scifi books with unusual or otherwise interesting premises?

I doubt GRRM will ever be considered high culture, and I don't think he deserve the label either. While some anti-genre fundamentalists might consider Tolkien low-brow he's generally praised for his prose and style and is considered one of the most accomplished writers of his time. If you're looking for more 'literary' fantasy I'd recommend Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany and Little, Big by John Crowley. Ignore the retard trying to push the idea that SF&F can't be good and should only be enjoyed for what it is.

Why can't you inbred shitstains just read what you like without caring about the literary merit of it? Fucking women.

I gotta tell you boys, the Chandrian are the best villains I've read in any fantasy story ever. God I can't wait to see Kvothe take on all seven of them! Book 3 is gonna shake the world's foundations!

I agree, this board is full of contrarians and i doubt there are many things people on here actually enjoy. I have a job where i can listen to audiobooks all day and lately im plowing through Abercrombies books. Im loving it, it felt fresh, highly recommended. also try the Ea-cycle by David Zindell, it's the only writer who succesfully brings me Tolkien-vibes. Call it shit-taste or maybe im just easy to please, but i prefer it that way.

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>thinking its wrong to do indulgent things
Do you cry sex too user. If you want to be more "cultured" or "intellectual" then push yourself to read challenging material
Theres nothing wrong with reading for fun, just make sure you do something productive when your not reading

>Why have the Chandrians in the story at all when you can instead have 1 ENTIRE BOOK OF WILD ELF SEX

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>and Prince of thorns was okayish-maybe.

That series wasn't okay-ish though, it was horrible and no I'm not bashing it blindly, I've read the books.
>The author's ONLY real purpose for setting the story in a post apocalyptic mediaeval world is because he is a hack and he likes to put the MC in impossible situations and bail him out at the last second with ancient technology that miraculously appear at the right time.
>For example, nobody knows anything about modern technology in the world but the MC somehow manages to discover the exact location of a hidden nuclear bunker from a fucking book, "convinces" the secure door panel to give him access and arms a fucking nuclear bomb and runs away to just the right distance to watch the explosion.
>In another instance when he's about to get his clock cleaned by an invading army, he calls for a parley, pulls out fucking gun that he dug up and shoots the enemy commander in the face and of course the enemy commanders troops all agree to follow him after that. I wish somebody shot me in the face before I had read this shit.
>The MC starts off as an evil edgelord teenager that rapes and kills babies, whatever it was cringy at times but at least it's not another do gooder coming off age story, or that's what I thought. Until the author pussies out, haha j/k the MC isn't actually evil he was only acting that way because some wizard fucked with his head, he's actually just edgy and has a heart of gold underneath.
It's one of the worst books I've ever read and I would be suspicious of any chart that recommends it.

>What about the rest of the books?
Of the ones I'v read and not mentioned previously..
>Emperor's Blades
Book 1 was okay but devolved into a convoluted and boring mess in book 2, dropped it after that. I liked the spin off novel though, Skullsworn
>Thousand Names
Thousand pages of troops moving from point A to point B. Nothing happens till the end.
>Shadow of what was lost
Shit version of WoT. The original cover was fire though, dunno why used the shit cover on the chart.
>Urban Fantasy
Urban Fantasy
>Ryria
Juvenile, convenient-idiot plot trash.

Get rid of these and all the authors I mentioned in my previous post and then the chart wouldn't be so shit albeit it would be a 60% lighter and better for it.

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What's shit taste about it? I read books for fun, not because I want to come off as some high brow man of taste. I'll fucking deck anyone who talks shit about reading books for fun.

Yeah that made me mad, the second half of book 2 was full of useless shit like hunting common bandits and sucking Felurian's cock. It was a total, absolute waste. Stupid Fatfuss

I liked the first two books in the Red Queen's War, by the Thorn-guy
>Not-Norseman and Cowardly MC both get fucked by magic
>Norseman ends up with a Norse-themed demon in his head that urges him to be a dickhole (which he handily resists, being a chill guy), while the MC gets a modern Christian angel
>book two has them swapping head-mates, and it isn't as good as the first
but yeah, it went to shit after that

Crap I'm not gonna make it for the monthly reading even though I love Gene Wolfe. Fuck work. Fuck these horrible hours.

We agree then. There's a time for "high-brow" stuff, i've read my classics and like that too. Just seems like every little thread on here is beset by psueds who can't take pleasure in simple reads. These threads seems nicer though. I remember lurking Yea Forums and seeing a guy ask for fantasy recs, only to be bashed and the only rec he got was for stuff like Homer and Dante. oooh Yea Forums

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Reading as a way of self improvement is wasted when you talk about it because it proves what you took away from the experience was self satisfaction and nothing else
If your truly reading challenging material to be more cultured keep your mouth shut about it

I enjoyed the gri in the warded man series. Especially daddy telling daughter dearest that she has to contribute.

>listening to my first audiobook

Why don't they higher multiple narrators this is ridiculous.

Typically audiobooks are done by a single guy and submitted to a sort of publisher
Theres dedicated groups where they have all the nice doo dads like multiple people voicing and sound effects but generally its just some guy

typically good narrators regardless of genders can voice multiple characters, do different inflecitons and accents.
some are fancy and do multiple people for different characters but usually its just one person.
most narrators are actually good enough to do multiple genders and you wont notice it. podium for example has a lot of very talented people on their payroll.
theres also a lot of solo narrators that actually livestream their recording sessions on twitch or youtube for behind the scenes looks.

I usually give bad recommendations (Homer as babys first book) to people asking for fantasy or sci-fi in outer Yea Forums. It's bad form to post without at least having looked in the catalogue and if they had done that they would have asked in this thread.

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Seeing the Kingkiller subreddit just infuriates me, everyone's jerking off to Fatfuss' health and acting like his garbage side projects matter more than his main books. Fucking wankers the whole lot of them, useless sods.

Jeff Hayes (litrpg only) and Graphic audio uses different people and sound effects.

Sffg was only around since 2013/2014. Before that you had to ask in outer lit and get shat upon. This general was a god send.

Agreed, I spend almost all of my time on Yea Forums in this thread.

I sked in the dying thread, and I'll ask in the new: what the hell is gri?

>muh shit taste
Abercrombie, Sanderson, Butcher, Jordan, Rothfuss, Erikson, Weeks, Gemmell and others that often get shit around here are kinda like McDonald's. Most people that are not pretentious assholes have nothing against enjoying it occasionally but if you spend all your time there and insult everyone who enjoy more elaborate food you will look like a retard.

GRI (especially R) are the interests of the thinking Man.

I feel like I missed the age where I could write shitty fiction
Is there a wattpad for under performing adults. I dont want to feel like a clown among kids

It's a seal of approval.

Royal Road.

The seal of approval used on only the highest of quality works.

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How can these two be so based?
>Niven and Pournelle advised Ronald Reagan on the creation of the Strategic Defense Initiative antimissile policy, as part of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy – as covered in the BBC documentary Pandora's Box by Adam Curtis.[17] The council also convinced Vice President Dan Quayle to support the single-stage-to-orbit concept for a reusable space ship that led to the building of the DC-X.

>In 2007, Niven, in conjunction with a group of science fiction writers known as SIGMA, led by Pournelle, began advising the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as to future trends affecting terror policy and other topics.[18] Among those topics was financial losses for hospitals, which Niven proposed to solve by spreading rumors in Latino communities that organs were being harvested illegally in hospitals.

thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/strategic-defense-initiative-reagan-star-wars-jerry-pournelle-larry-niven

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i've never read any sci-fi and i've got Dune and Foundation, which do i start with?

>rumors in Latino communities that organs were being harvested illegally in hospitals.
fucking genius

take erikson off that list

>foundation

don't bother, most scifi published before 1980 is trash, all scifi pre 1960 is

Dune obviously.
Skip Foundation, the only people who praise that piece of shit series are the ones who have't read it and think it's like Asimov's short stories.

Is the Malazan series really worth it ?
I've heard that it is a fantasy "masterpiece" but the fact that it is ten books (all of which are 500-700) pages long is kinda overwhelming.
The main appeal for me would be the characterisation of the individuals in it.
Apparently their meant to have some very introspective moments in them, which is the shit I love in books.
Any anons who read them, are they really that good ?

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read it and form your own opinion.

Erikson spent so much time on worldbuilding that he forgot characterization. The worldbuilding is quite impressive however so if you like that you should read the series.

Read through the first one and then either quit or continue, if you are unsure read the second one and decide after that.

There is no magic rule that you have to read 10 book of a series you don't like, just because you started the first one.

>(all of which are 500-700) pages
user, I ...

Fuck you faggot, Gemmell isn't McDonald's he's Chick-fil-A at the very least.

What, he hate the gays too? Based.

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Anyone can tell me how FR books are now?
I've ended on the Salvatore's The Hunter's Blades Trilogy. Wonder how my fav nyga-elf story ended.

When you read fantasy how do you rank the following components in terms of relevance to your enjoyment?

Plot
World Building
Characterization
Dialogue
Thematic Allegory
Page Count
Readability

>There is no magic rule that you have to read 10 book of a series you don't like, just because you started the first one.
I know, but I don't want to miss out if the first novel is just world building and the rest have the stuff I want in a series.
See, the people telling me its good all stressed how human the characters were. Thanks for the additional insight.

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>I know, but I don't want to miss out if the first novel is just world building and the rest have the stuff I want in a series.
Then read to the middle (or end) of the second, if that doesn't have what you are looking for, the rest won't either.
The first one is already quite representative of the rest though.

I read fantasy for fun so
Readability
Plot
Characterization
Dialogue
World Building

>Thematic Allegory
If its not the purpose of the story why should it be rated. Seems out of place with your other categories

Dialogue
Plot
Characters
Word building
Readability
Page count
Thematic

Characterization and dialogue are the only relevant ones for me. I can enjoy pretty much anything as long as i like the characters and how they interact with each other.

I feel that page count and readability should be least important.
Arguably the characters, plot and world building should be the most key aspects to nail.
Thematic overtones are nice but you can get them from lots of other genre's outside of fantasy so they aren't really critical either.

plot
characterisation
world building
dialogue
thematic allegory
readability
page count

>everyone rating readability low
If you trying to convey a certain tone and atmosphere readability is super important, you wouldn't want your readers to feel like reading your book was chore would you?
You do write, dont you user?

Characterization
Dialogue
Plot
World Building
Readability
Thematic Allegory
Page Count

Okay, thanks for the advice.

Frankly, all the things listed are crucial to a good fantasy novel (perhaps barring thematic allegory) but some like good dialogue are just a product of other aspects such as thought out characterization.

>Thoughts on the trend of authors including a recap/the-story-so-far section at the beginning of their books in a series?
i love it. extremely helpful when it takes a couple of years or more to bring a book out, because i've usually forgotten what's going on in minor storylines by that point

they're pretty good but the thing with malazan is that for some reason it draws the most rabid of fanboys who do proclaim it to be a 10/10 masterpiece.
it's really highly flawed and badly in need of an editor, but there are some really good parts, usually in the last 100-200 pages.

1. characters
2. dialogue
3. plot
4. prose
5. world building
6. themes
7. page count

>Thoughts on the trend of authors including a recap/the-story-so-far section at the beginning
Waste of paper. Recaps can (almost) always be found online.

>Children of Earth and Sky
I liked it, despite it being a meme. Why am I the worst thing since Stephanie Meyer, /sffg/?

Any high fantasy based on pre-medieval societies? Like classical, early civ or even prehistoric

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I've been reading a bit of Irish mythology lately and I really love the idea of the Stone of Destiny. A man who is chosen to be king must lay his hand upon it and the stone will roar declaring you king.
Just a cool concept desu

The “Hyborian Age” setting of Conan of Cimmeria is what you might be looking for, user. There’s medieval-ish aspects in the stories that involve Aquilonia, but I like to see it as an Antedeluvian Iron Age. You’ll know when Howard is kowtowing to the editor of Weird Tales with certain stories, because he needs the money that a cover story got.

Bumping this, nobody read them?

>new and improved
>still the same amount of useless bloat as every other stagnated general ever

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Insulting people who only read Yea Forums-worthy stuff is just stupid, i agree. Im just saying /sffg/ threads are a step in the right direction.

>Abercrombie is like buying 10 mc-cheeseburgers and gorging yourself

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>Yea Forums-worthy
outer Yea Forums is full of pretentious faggots that dont even read any books. its an incessant circlejerk of holier than thou retards who spout group mentality nonsense all the damn time.

We agree then.

To be fair, when I said improved I meant and hoped that you'd left the general and we could finally have a thread without you whinging and moaning about god knows what.
But here we are, guess it wasn't improvement after all.

Anyone has read leviathan? Any good?

>Jorg has a heart of gold
You are either retarded or we both read different books.

pretty excited to discuss this one

Who are the Greeks of fantasy and sci-fi respectively? Who should I read first?

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Tolkien

Mervyn Peake and Jack Vance.
Ignore the brainlet who said Tolkien.

>Anyone can tell me how FR books are now?
Half dead,Wizards of the Coast only publishes like 2 novels every few years.
As for the Drizzt books they have an okay happy ending.but salvatore is already writing a new trilogy.
also Zaknafein is brought back to life by jarlaxe

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Masterworks
>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SF_Masterworks

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Why this looks like female salvatore.

tbf the only ones who don't sound like total tools are bohr and einstein.

>Erikson spent so much time on worldbuilding that he forgot characterization.
I think you're confusing Erikson with Sanderson user.

Still waiting for the sequel co-written by Steven erikson where the mc gets fat

Characterization
World Building
Plot
Dialogue
Readability
Page Count
Thematic Allegory

I finally finished a scanner darkly about two weeks ago lads.

I didnt want it to end, I weeped a bit at the end

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Readability
Plot
Tgematic Allegory
Characterization
World Building
Page Count
Dialogue

You forgot to add descriptive prowess but oh well

add Prose to this

What do you guys think of Terry Goodkind?

overall great author.
sword of truth was weird with all the bdsm nun bullshit. i think hes a closed masochist or something and projected that into the series.
non-the-less a great author, pretty much one of the greats at this point.

There's also Imaro by Charles R. Saunders, which is basically sword and sorcery in pre-colonial Africa. It's pretty good for S&S.

Somebody on here was shilling some Egyptian and ancient Greek stuff a while back too but I can't remember the titles. David Drake wrote a fantasy series based off of Sumerian mythology, and co-authored a series where the Romans and Persians team up against evil time traveling cyborgs that've taken over India, but I haven't read either of them.

Any books like this?

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reverse sluttyification is an incredibly niche fetish user. its only found in hentai.

Bakker unironically

Fantasy: George MacDonald, Lord Dunsany, E.R. Eddison

SF: Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Stanley Weinbaum

Both: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Allen Poe

I can barely find it in hentai even :(

Somebody made a interesting tool that charts SFF book awards vs number of goodreads ratings.
sf.ersatzculture.com/award-charts/

Thanks for the suggestion user, I’ll look into that.

is the wheel of time worth reading?

Pretty good. However his books seemed very formulaic the more of them I read. Also lots of wierd fetish shit.

Lol. You made a thread in outer lit expecting help from people who don't even read? LOL

yes

I just want some thoughts but nobody seems to have read the damn thing. Going to end up just buying the first one.

>buying

fuck books

Why the fucks are these threads still allowed? Do the mods do their fucking job? This is a literature board and this thread is not literature, not hard.

>close down the only place on lit where literature is actually discussed

What do you guys think on mark lawrence?

I think he is pretty good, he can make a lot of stuff happen really fast and it doesnt seem that much asspulley or that it came out of nowhere, the build up is good enough and he spares you endless pages of aftermaths.

Though his secondary characters could use some work, they lack agency. Also his endings are meh at best.

No

Enjoy the ban pseud, you can come back to the board after a week of not reading to not discuss any literature.

Yeah fucking right, let's have some more thinly veiled /pol/ threads and circlejerk a bit more about some meme books no one actually is stupid enough to read.

I've never read any myself but I'm curious; is there a reason why I've never seen Elric or just Moorcock in general recommended?

Rent-free

No, in fact not.
I haven't even thought about outer Yea Forums in a couple of days until you mentioned it.

Should I read Malazan in my own language (portuguese), or am I missing too much?

I read the first couple of books in German and that translation had some, translation inherent, problems, specifically with character names and such which literally didn't make any sense.
In general I try to avoid translations, bit that is just my personal preference.
But on the other hand I don't think there is much risk on actually missing out on the actual plot.

Did any of you read Morwenna by Jo Walton? I saw that people were really divided about this book and I wanted to know Yea Forums's opinion

honestly I liked it

Well, I know the plot would be fine. I was asking about the writing or prose, sometimes it loses some of the essence during translation. That might not be a problem if there's nothing to lose in the first place

seems like every fantasy book i read has the same cliche plot of a lowly peasant who doesn't know his identity that slowly becomes something huge and crucially important

I would consider sampling the first few pages and looking how well the translation holds up.
Personally, the German translation lost a bit of writing quality, but I have no clue about how well the Portuguese translation holds up.

I often attempt to read books in their original languages like i read Malazan in English.
The problem with Malazan and my own language however is, that it has never been translated to Finnish and frankly i don't think it can be done.
For example, there is no conceivable way to translate the words "ascendant" and "warren" to finnish without them sounding clumsy and stupid.

>turning a hoe into housewife
Sluts never make good partner / waifu material.

We should never have made the poors literate

This, sanderson is a mass market hack who drank the leftist koolaid recently. You can’t watch any of his newer lectures without getting preached to about diversity

Go back to your wallowing pit.

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What recently? He was always about leftist ideals

That's actually a surprise considering he's Mormon. Reminder that Sanderson removed anything remotely sexual in The Wheel of Time. Interestingly enough, the people that praise Sanderson also like to routinely shit on ASOIAF and Malazan. Which in my opinion are two of the very few series that get Worldbuilding and Characterization right.

What did you expect from a morm*n

This is the same Sanderson that doesn't think gays should get married, right? I guess it's possible, in modern society you have to either have to lie or omit any political opinion that isn't far left or white picket conservative if you don't want to be socially executed.

>who drank the leftist koolaid recently
He is being forced by his publishers (the ones who holds his purse strings) to include faggots, disables and queers. If he doesn't comply he could be dropped.

He's already a known name now though which is the biggest part of marketing genre fiction; so what's stopping him from self publishing if that's the case.

You seem infinitely butthurt. Maybe you should be less of a whiny little bitch and write something better

I'm reading Gardens of the Moon, but the poems at the start of chapters make zero sense to me. Am I just too much of a brainlet?

No. GotM is garbage.

Just wait, they’ll start making sense eventually

I need a break from swords and fantasy, should I read Dune, Hyperion, or The Forever War? Have never read any of them, am pleb

Read all three.

low iq post

FW but skip the squeals but read starship troopers. also read rendezvous with rama, lucifers hammer, mote in god's eye & moon is a harsh mistress. only read dune if you're also going to read up to and through God emperor

Book of the new sun is a great way to shift from fantasy to scifi imo.

Retarded and plebshit

I guess the mods did do their jobs.

>so what's stopping him from self publishing if that's the case.
Breaking a contract and having to give back the millions that he earned.

Yeah I think I'm going to do FW first since it'll be quick. Thanks for the recs.
Thanks lad I'll add it to my list.

What are some tolerable/borderline-decent litRPG?

Followed by most of a decade of social media posturing and not writing.

Looks like it's happening in October(Maybe)
goodreads.com/book/show/30169100-the-burning-white

Everybody loves large chests.

Ascend Online
Awaken Online
The Divine Dungeon
The Gam3
The Stork Tower

All examples of litrpg if you want RPG elements with not completely shit writing and decent stories. There's countless terrible examples if all you want is smut and harems.

Otherland - It's borderline but certainly has many elements of what is now classed as litrpg

I've looked at some of these before and I have a question, primarily regarding Divine Dungeon. Someone becoming a "dungeon core"... what exactly does that signify in litRPG terminology?

Peak autism

Read Niven's take on Dante's Inferno, he makes sure to shittalk everyone he disagrees with

A dungeon core is the "mind" of the dungeon that controls how it grows, its design, the creatures and traps inside etc. Usually it's some magic stone that gains partial sentience or comes from the soul of some animal. It's a common litrtg trope and there are several series where some human gets trapped inside a core for "plot reasons" and levels up as a dungeon rather than as a character.

>levels up as a dungeon rather than as a character
That's about what I was looking for. Sounds pretty fuckin' gay.

hows forever fantasy online ?

No idea, never read it. I haven't read any litRPG for a while as the vast majority was utterly terrible self-publishing at it's worst, it's put me off the whole genre for a while. Those I mentioned are some of the rare exceptions.

Ringworld had interesting concepts but I thought it was poorly written.

>whining about people telling you as a writer what they would like to read

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it's important you read them as they often give very important information, like one of the very first poems reveals shit about shadowthrone and cotillion

How would you like people telling you how to do your job?

>writing the opening chapter for one of my characters
>he and a bunch of other priest bros gotta run naked through an ice field carrying palisades
>they gotta do holy flexing waist deep in a frozen lake
BRUH

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>it's not about what sells or what publishers want

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In all seriousness, while one should be open to criticism one should never compromise their vision. Readers are swine and publishers are rats. Write your vision at all costs.

He has a point; he's just not getting it across very well. Yes you should write what you, the author, want to write and fans who think you should write what THEY want you to write are the absolute worst, BUT at the end of the day you if your intention is to actually have people read your work then of course you HAVE to write something they'll want to read. He's also completely correct on retarded readers who want more world-building.

If your goal as a writer is to write for others you are truly a disgusting creature.

Look up Stanislaw Lem's essay "Science Fiction: A hopeless case - with exceptions", it (and PKD thinking that Lem was actually a committee of Polish communists) got him kicked out of the SFWA.

>in the same way as in high society women do not permit themselves to be called 'prostitutes' although they indulge in open promiscuity... Sad to relate, the authors of science-fiction are quite similar in behavior to those 'ladies'

You are very retarded and should probably die soon.

Good post

Is Paradise Lost fantasy? Are the Homer epics fantasy?

No. Historical, fantasy-like, works are generally meant to be at least in part believed, unlike present-day fantasy that is entirely fictitious. For the modern reader the difference is negligible however.

Is that red thing negative upvotes?

that user has downvoted MarkLawrence 24 times, so you can tell they are easily ass blasted

Yes, but not for that post. It's the screenshot user's personal score for up or down voting Mark Lawrence in general.

God, is there a single series out there that doesn't have a shit ending? I swear to god, it's so hard to find anything that even ends DECENTLY. At best you'll have stuff that peaks at the 2nd or 3rd book and it's all downhill from there. Just today I was remembering how I waited for years to read Bakker's shitty Aspect-Emperor and what a fucking ABYSMAL ending that was. Truly A B Y S M AL.
I'm starting to wonder if this is just a problem with current writing culture. Like, I was at this workshop the other week, and the guy there was asking me about this fantasy series I'm working on, and why I've stopped. And I tell him I'm not quite sure what the ending will be, so it's impossible to continue without figuring that out first. And his IMMEDIATE kneejerk response was something along the line of "Well, you know, the ending will come to you, just write something, an ending is still an ending." LIKE WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT? And apparently this is a super common thing if I go by what I've heard from others and even books on writing. They just give zero fucks about how it ends compared to how it begins, because by then you've already bought the book so fuck you.

what crawled up your ass?

Its the journey, not the destination that makes a book.

This is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard. Most people's "vision" amounts to nothing but the lamest piece of shit fan service with different names. Essentially a bootleg of a different story with a different ending or character, at best. Like, 0,001% of writers should follow their "vision." You are retarded.

>I write for myself XD
Is Reddit down?

>because by then you've already bought the book so fuck you.
This applies to the beginning and the middle too user, you sound like you're on your period.

Seriously though, just write something. Sure it won't be perfect the first time you write it but what is? You can stew for years thinking about that perfect ending or you can write some crap and tweak and tweak till it resembles something you're comfortable with. Writing a bad ending won't stop you thinking about a better one, if anything it'll give you a head start on the problem.

Literally not true. It's both. Look at Game of Thrones. Or fucking Dexter. Or the Second-Apocalypse. How many examples do you want? Endings do matter. And if you can't do a good ending - fuck, don't do any ending AT ALL. I would rather the story just STOP than to get some shitty ending that spoils the rest of the story.

The bad parts dont invalidate the good parts.

>Seriously though, just write something
First of all, I've written many things, which is why I know this advice is retarded. I could've followed what others have said and just written "an ending" instead of waiting to figure out the right one, which completed the work.
>You can stew for years thinking about that perfect ending or you can write some crap and tweak and tweak till it resembles something you're comfortable with.
Except it doesn't take years. Maybe a couple of weeks, but certainly not years, and that's just a shitty hyperbole meant to excuse bad writing. Do you know how many Stephen King books could go from 1/10 garbage to 5/10 decent if he at least GAVE HALF AN HOUR'S THOUGHT to the fucking ending?
>Writing a bad ending won't stop you thinking about a better one
Just not true either, and I speak from experience here. Writing a bad ending can get you thinking about ways to fix it, until you feel completely bogged down and aren't even sure how far back you want to go and cut back. It's better to just stop, work on something else, and go back once you've figured it out.
My problem isn't to do with my writing, my problem is the attitude that endings are somehow the least important part of the novel. Sure, that might be true for getting a new reader, since they'll read the prologue and go on HOPING you aren't going to deliver some poop like Name of the Wind's ending or whatever. But in terms of actual storytelling and the salt of the author, of course the ending is important.

It's an issue with serial fiction, and has been forever. If none of it is published yet you're better off writing a shit ending you can revise rather than just having nothing.

Depends. I can pick out a scene from Lost and show you how well done it was. But is everything else invalidated by the bad ending? Yes, it is, because it means they are useless parts.
To be honest, there's a reason so many of the most popular stories in history come from an oral tradition. It means they passed through many people before they arrived at the ultimate version, which is exactly what should happen to something like Song of Ice and Fire, but unfortunately copyright laws ruin that.

I pity him, his career died with Robert Jordan.

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you have five seconds to name ONE fantasy series with a good ending

Isn't this the retard that just wrote trite garbage but filled it up with his fetishes? He shouldn't even be allowed to publish on Kindle.

A Song of Ice and Fire

>palisades
I don't think that means what you think it means.

yeah thats what we need, more distilled fantasy that has passed through so many authors that it does nothing original

So he mad Lawrence doesn't want to write about the builders?

>yeah thats what we need, more distilled fantasy that has passed through so many authors that it does nothing original
What does this have to do with originality you braindead fucking loser? If the idea isn't original and good to begin with, people won't pick up on it. This is literally a bigger problem in fantasy RIGHT NOW since everyone is writing the same anime tier trash and presenting it as the next big thing even though they're all the same. Kids are being trained to read people like Sanderson and Rothfuss and think it's good. Yeah, I've seen fucking /tg/ greentexts more compelling than anything I've read of either - I think I'll stick to the masses.

Nobody has a better story than Bran the Broken.

Probably but you can't downvote one post 24 times, you can only do it once. He's downvoted other posts by made by ML in the past, for a net of 24 times, likely he just has a hate boner for him.

Authors these days are masochists. They want to deny happy endings as much as possible. They will rub you down with the intro, stroke you with the middle, and walk away before the end. This leaves you hard and thinking of nothing but cumming. Now that you are thinking of nothing but release, they hope that you will go rushing back when their next session of massages (book) comes around, and blueballed, you will give them the benefit of the doubt that they will not leave you climax starved again.

go have sex, youre embarrassing yourself

Oh. So Tom Doherty owns TOR.

I already did yesterday. This is my sex satisfied brain.

Yep, under Macmillan Publishers.

>rendezvous with rama
Absolute kino.

(you)

I doubt "must contain gays" is included in the contract.
If he stops doing t and they don't like it, they're the ones who have to break it off.

anybody able to run down all these books?

The self-published ones?
>Scourge of the Betrayer
Decent, nerd thrown into a merc group to write shit about them.

Currently reading Dangerous Visions. Would highly recommend.

I'm sure it's worded under diverse characters.
Don't you see all mainstream books recently has at least one literal faggot in the story?
A lot of them are female protags who want to carpet munch. When it's lesbian you don't really register, but when it's ass water buggering gays it stands out.

>I'm sure it's worded under diverse characters.
No, i can't really imagine a company making a point of including a "diverse characters" clause.

Don't listen to He's deep in denial and keeps repeating this unsubstantiated bullshit that Sanderson is only writing fags and trannies into his stories because he's being "forced" to.
No single individual possibly with the exception of grum has as much pull as Sanderson does in today's fantasy market, it's laughable to imagine that he's being forced to do anything he doesn't want to.
user just can't live with the fact that his favorite anime writer is a fag lover so he keeps creating elaborate theories to explain it away.

What is the Cowboy Bebop of sci fi/fantasy books?

>Group of loner drifters who don't get along with most people
>Overall pessimistic view of the world but try to stay upbeat and busy
>Go on lots of adventures and meet tons of weirdo's through their line of work

sanderson doesn't even have fags and trannies in his stories.

In stormlight there is people of different races but that's standard in fantasy, there's one guy who has kind of epileptic fits but that's hardly a nigga in a wheelchair or forced diversity.

I don't think there are any gays or trannies in it either, if there are they are so minor I've managed to miss them all

Black Company probably, although I don't really like it (Cowboy Bebop is GOAT).

Have you gotten to PKD's story yet?

Reading Wheel of Time makes me hate women

What a coincidence, reading Wheel of Time made me hate being alive.

Black Company

name one (1) gay character in any sanderson book.
And I mean really gay, not just "expresses some feelings to a male friend" gay.
The guy is literally against gay mariage bro

What a coincidence, i want to die.

Why do you non readers always open your mouths and out yourselves? Sanderson do not write anime, that's Will Wight.
Also if you weren't such a newfag you would have seen the piece from a few years ago where Sanderson got pressure from the queers to be "more inclusive", and ic you actually read you would see that publishers are forcing their authors to put in gay shit, or use a female protag.

Looking for SFF recommendations featuring slavery that doesn't feature the slaves revolting or modern views on slavery.

If you want fags read Bakker. Basically everyone's a fag, and the only one that isn't is a cuck.

I wish I could experience just how bad WoT really is. All I've heard from people is that it becomes unbearable and it's always used as an example of shitty female characters and purple prose. At the same time, everyone says the first book is great, but I found it pathetic and only got 20% in or so.
Is there any epic greentext of WoT I can read?

>Sanderson do not write anime

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>Bakker
>positive depiction of gays

L e l

Just because the MC has superpowers doesn't make it anime you halfwit.
Read some sanderson and watch some anime and you'll see how glaring the difference in writing style is.

The first book isn't very illustrative of the whole thing, much less the starting one fifth, it's just fellowship of the ring lite.

But most people who passionately complain about specific things (like the female characters) actually like the series.
The ones who actually think WoT is shit are mostly indifferent.

Seriously though Jordan's widow must be a fucking harpy to have inspired him to come up with most of these bitches.

Pretty sure he didn't mean it has anime tropes, you retarded weeb. He just meant it's shallow garbage, which it is. Call it anime or even video game writing (though there are better games and anime than anything Sanderson has written), the point is, it's irredeemable trash and people that read it should be gassed.
Though I'd read Mistborn 50 times before I read Name of the Wind again.

Can you please give me some WoT tales? Just awful characters or whatever. And, well, I am not sure I agree with the assessment but I get what you mean. Fellowship started really enjoyably, though, as did A Game of Thrones, or even stuff like Thomas Covenant. WoT was just boring and generic as fuck. Made me feel like it was the book version of one of those Wheel of the Worst movies RLM looks at.

Pretty sure he does mean anime tropes and themes.
And not writing style like the guy you're replying to suggesting.

He doesn't have a positive depiction of anything, except maybe rape. Bakker's prose is great, but he's fucking incapable of thinking like a human being or making characters likable. I am pretty sure he has autism. Literal autism.

>is on Yea Forums
>uses words with no clear meaning, just the intention of shitting on stuff just so he can be part of the bandwagon
You should rewatch some episodes of Richard and Mortimer instead of posting here.

What meaning is unclear to you, you troglodytic cunt? I'm pretty sure when one says VIDEO GAME WRITING the meaning is pretty fucking clear. Maybe you should go kill yourself but kill your retarded mother first for birthing you, dumb kulak.

Akka is a good boy. He just had a hard life. Sorweel did nothing wrong either.

Yes because obviously the writing in Europa Universalis is exactly the same as in Hellblade which is exactly the same as in Battlefield
hang yourself posthaste please. If not for yourself, for the world.

>Akka is a good boy
How is he a good boy? He betrayed his people because he went full homo for Kellhus.
Also
>spends his life in solitude instead of trying to do anything
>fucks a child he helped raise
Nah, bro, he definitely deserved it. Literally the only good person in these books is Proyas, and that's because Proyas is too stupid to know what's what. I kinda liked Maithanet but then Bakker realized he had no idea what to do with him, so, RIP. Not sure why he spends so much time building when he's incapable of spinning any kind of narrative that isn't THEY LEAVE AND GO TO B AND MAYBE STOP AT C ON THE WAY. It's all that he can do. Those chapters in the capital in Aspect-Emperor were fucking PAINFUL.

>Yes because obviously the writing in Europa Universalis is exactly the same as in Hellblade which is exactly the same as in Battlefield
hang yourself posthaste please
No, but if you weren't autistic you'd know what it refers to. Unfortunately, you are 100% an autistic nigger. Die.

How's pic related?

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I don't know about this particular work, but he's probably the most boring person I've ever read otherwise. Though I'm sure he prides himself on that, just like Erikson does on being unable to hold a narrative together, or give the reader the most basic spatial awareness. Good luck.

No, wait, never mind, this is the wrong guy.

>I'm gonna use vague words and then flee with my tail tucked between my legs when asked to provide some clarifications because I'm a robot incapable of tought
Nice conversation we had here lad, glad you widened my horizons.

I didn't flee, but yes, you are a retarded nigger that doesn't know what video game and anime writing means. Kys.

Because they are buzzwords devoid of meaning. Which coincidentally is exactly why, even were you several times more intelligent than you are, would be unable to define them in the framework you provided. Because you're a retarded cunt interested only in regurgitating pre-fabricated opinion about a popular author because you must hate what is popular as that is the only way you know how to fashion yourself an apparence of personality.

How much money has Sarah Maas made off the back of this image being posted in every /SFFG/ thread?

>proyas
>sold his teacher to the scarlet spires and caused every fuckup
Proyas got everything he deserved.

And Akka made the same mistake the unibomber made. He thought if he could just tell the truth in his book, people would rise up against Kellhus. So he spread that shit everywhere. Just people didn’t care.

World Building
Thematic Allegory
Plot
Characterization
Dialogue
Readability
Page Count

have sex

Currently stuck into Philip José Farmer’s story. I’m looking forward to it though

Literally the whole Scifi New Wave

I probably posted this order because I'm reading the Silmarillion. Does anyone have any other recommendations that fit this preference? I don't know of any other fantasy work that rises to that level of worldbuilding and mythic storytelling. And even though there are plenty of imitations and ripoffs of The Lord of the Rings, I don't know if I can name any that do the same with the Silmarillion.

Looking for SFF recommendations featuring slavery that doesn't feature the slaves revolting or modern views on slavery.

I only post in this general and a few others on Yea Forums. Rarely does a good banter thread catch my attention.

Character
Readability
Plot
World Building
Page Count
Too much of a STEMfag to appreciate thematic allegory.

honestly, i dont think he's wrong, at least not entirely. writing is a massive personal undertaking, you do need to know why you're writing and be honest with yourself or you'll waste months or years on something you feel bad about.

for personal reasons, a lot of why im writing is to win some approval so compared to someone who's making a statement im focusing more on story and characters than metaphor

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I'm reading it in Spanish and it has some obvious translation mistakes and weird choices (I'm not sure if this is part of Erikson's style but it tends to start sentences with the verb, which is clumsy as hell in Spanish). Still, it is pretty readable if you are not too picky.

>slavery that doesn't feature the slaves revolting or modern views on slavery
Doesn't exist outside of porn.

Characterization
World Building
Dialogue
Plot
Page Count
Readability

Thematic allegory i'd rather not have.

More like this? Does not have to be Scifi.
I like Alan Black's writing style. Basically its humorous adventures with a bit of romance.
Especially liked Metal Boxes and Larry Goes to Space.

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>there's a head on a pole behind you
I'm an actual, real brainlet and this flew right over me. What did Bakker mean by this? Not memeing, I genuinely have no idea what he implied there.

its kellhus’s soul backup, tucked away from the Outside, before he merged with Ajokli. Possibly the other head on his belt.

I just unironically heard someone saying how he quit halfway through A Game of Thrones because he didn't like it as much as the show then picked up The Wheel of Time and loved it.

make me

Drehy and Ranette.
Check and mate. I dare you to respond you bitch. I'll fuck you till you love me faggot.

I'm reading Tailchaser's Song, lads.

Good luck.

Why do shit writers like Tad Williams always find the best cover artists?

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That reminds me, we need a cover thread next, been too long. Get your covers ready boys.

no

Cover art is expensive. Good cover art even more so. So you are more likely find it with the major publishers on authors they want to sell.

Anyone recommend some good sci-fi with benevolent/good A.I.? A bit tired of reading about how evil they always are.

What is with this place's hateboner with Neal Stephenson? Snow Crash is better than what i've been led to believe.

I wish to join the celestial sect of wonders

Snow crash is less than a novel but less than a essay

I just finished Hyperion & Fall of Hyperion. I have heard that the next two books of The Cantos are dogshit and that I should avoid them. Is this true?

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have I got the series for you
some of them are real fuckers though.

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I like it. Yea Forums doesn't?

I tell people it's the best cyberpunk precisely because it doesn't take itself seriously, but they'd rather read Neuromancer instead for some reason.

this but if you want more focus on benevolent AI then you should read Look to Windward first... the books for the most part can be read in any order.

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>benevolent/good A.I.

Well some of them are perfectly happy to hang out and build pretty things while taking care of the billions of ants that live on them.

Of course, it's the Minds who laugh at the benevolent caretaker ones who are the most interesting.

I love Stephenson and I'm excited for his new book

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Snow Crash is a long-form rant against cyberpunk cliche but it never really decides whether to take itself seriously or not so it has a lot of moments of whiplash wherein the emotional impact of something is undermined by the fact that it's just not clear if it's supposed to be an elaborate joke or not. Cryptonomicon is probably the best Stephenson novel.

say what you want about Gibson but at least he knew the philosophical questions he was exploring when he wrote. His short stories are miles better though.

I'm reading it more like an homage that pokes fun and celebrates at once. Like an admittance of a goofy concept that can still be important and meaningful.

The idea that cyberpunk is a 'goofy concept' is something you'd get from watching bad movies and reading derivative shit from after the 90s. The core of the genre is too varied to connect to the cliches that Stephenson is mocking.

Not technically fantasy but Arthur Conan Doyle's White Company needs to be recommended here and added to some sort of chart.

Characterization
Dialogue
Readability
World Building
Plot
Page Count
Allegory

I apparently have no idea what makes for good readability, books that i have found engrossing and interesting are considered by most others to be too dull to read.

What are some good science fantasy books?

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Yes. Don’t read them. It’s not worth it.

>Tad Williams
>shit
He might do some generic stuff, but he's not bad.

Dune 1-6

The Dancers at the End of Time

Zelazny

read them and form your own opinion

Viriconium
goodreads.com/review/show/2555712255

Be serious. You know that's not the way /sffg/ works.

Every concept of genre fiction suspends disbelief and likewise has believable elements. Cyberpunk is no exception.

Cyberpunk's particular niche is in writing about the time in which it was written, rather than making predictions or hypotheticals about what could be true later on. Believability is more or less irrelevant to its impact.

Yes, they're shit. Imagine the level of quality of the last few pages of Fall of Hyperion but filled out into two books.

Dying Earth

What was the first SF and/or F book you read?

Can't find any books by that title.

That's an author

I know. I was making fun of him.

youre so clever

Pic related
Read it back when I was around 10 or 11. God tier writing and it has some awesome illustrations and shit too. I'm pretty firm on the stance that this is one of the best gifts to give any child.

If mythology doesn't count then my first strict SF/F book would be Harry Potter.

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Redwall.
>Looks like cutesy animals for kids
>It's actually astonishingly violent

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The ultimate end state of man seems to be right here.

Or is Someone in a hurry?

The junior novelization to Willow
Starring Yea Forums's darling, Warwick Davis

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It's that time again, yay!

>animals and kids
>not violent