Dick edish>Archive:https://warosu.org/lit/?task=search2&search_subject=sffg >Banned Authors:Joe AbercrombieA.A. AttanasioR. Scott BakkerC.J. CherryhGlen CookSteven EriksonR.A. LaffertyMark LawrenceGeorge R.R. MartinPatrick RothfussGene Wolfe>Goodreads:https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1029811-sffgPrevious:>>25583236
These threads ain't the same no mo'...
>>25596399you bitch, it was only on page 7
>last book you read>current book you're reading>next book you plan to read
>>25596626Between Two FiresThe Complete Book of the New SunThe Ring of the Nibelung
>>25596626The Man who Folded HimselfRoadside PicnicNot decided, probably either Rumo, Piranesi, I will be Invincible, or Shards of Earth
you guys notice the ban list changes every thread? Whole thing feels kinda arbitrary
>>25596680it's determined dynamically based on a whole series of factors and updated regularly. the powers that be that calculate the ban list are wise and benevolent and you should not question it.
>>25596738this.
>>25596680Trust the algorithm.
Finished this book and with it the whole Lord of Dûs tetralogyit was enjoyable enough to keep me invested til the end; the worldbuilding was solid, and the mystery of the yellow kind and bheleu's schemes got me intriguedthis wasn't without its flaws: Lawrence really like to ramble on with useless details; streams of thoughts that add nothing and unnecessary descriptions of the environment. Really, the book would have been like 1/5 to 1/4 shorter if he measured out on people's thoughtsthe mc, Garth, also likes to make a change of whims with each book, and many of his enemies seemed way too incompetent to take serious. For instance, the monster in the cover opposed no challenge at all and added nothing to the storyThen there was the end, with I'dn't say it's meh or anything less but if everybody deemed competent weren't as vague many of the problems shouldn't have existed to begin withStill, the books are short and a decent read for old-school sword and sorcery fans. 6.5/10
>>25596626>The Secret History>Shadows Upon Time>Legacies of Betrayal or Splintered SunI'm spoiled for choice on that last one, a Malazan book and an Osten Ard book in the same month like hot diggity daffodils
>>25596738Well, Brandon Sanderson's unbanned now so I'd like to say that Words of Radiance is pretty good so far. I just finished part 1 and am about to start the interludes.I read Mistborn 1-3.5 so I'm pretty sure Jasnah is alive in the cognitive realm and I've been aware of Shallan's Shardblade since the first book>>25596626The HobbitWords of Radiance, The Abolition of Man, and Fellowship of the Ring (I'm in a LotR book club)Probably Dune Messiah. I want to read it before the 3rd movie comes out
>>25596626>the Gods Themswelves>Revelation Space>idk, probably Gateway by Pohl
>>25596812Are you enjoying Sun Eater? I might read it next year after I read Book of the New Sun.
>>25596825>the Gods Themswelvesuwu
>>25596626Biological War: A ScenarioHouse of LeavesOff the Reservation
>>25596626>lastAmerican Gods>currentThe Wood Wife >nextThe Mask of the Sorcerer
>>25596840I wouldn't have read to the end if I didn't enjoy it. It's pretty fun shlocky sci-fi action written by someone with delusions of having some profundity to his thinking and every time he tries to be deep it comes off as the MC being a pretentious moron which serves the narrative of Hadrian being overly dramatic Great action scenes and occasionally very impactful horror shit
>>25596626>Morgawr>Marlfox>maybe Light, I need to build up my immediate backlog
>>25596680
>>25595427Sandman is pretty overrated too
>>25596626Sea of GlassNeuromancerCount Zero
Should I actually invest the time in reading Sun Eater? I don't expect it to be as good as Wolfe but is it at least decent.
>>25597617No. Its garbage. Pagespammer proved it already.
>>25597676>trusting pagespammer https://www.goodreads.com/group/show_book/1029811-sffg?book_id=36454667
>>25597691What is your point with that link?
>>25597617It is long, more than anything else. Every book could be 20% shorter without losing much, and there's a few recurring gags that annoyed me a lot.>"idiotic comment">oh wait that was me huhuhThe books don't really get going until #3, but they're decent after that.
>>25597617It felt extremely mediocre to me. Hundreds of pages of animesque filler per book. Just get to the fucking point.
Have you guys exported your goodreads data to chatgpt or Claude and asked it what to read next?
>>25597826What is the political orientation of state-mandated gynoids? To your question: Yes, No.
>>25597846what'd you upload it to gpt/claude for?
>>25596626>shameless plug at data mining
>>25597873My mistake. That was a three part question. I exported it. Nothing more.
>>25597878For what purpose? Don't act as if anything here has any value.
>>25597846Entirely up to the user
>>25597910I phrased that incorrectly. What sort of government would provide such a service?
>>25597916One that cares
>>25596634I really liked Between Two Fires. My dad complained about it a bit (he enjoyed it regardless) saying that it was confusing as he didn't know what was actually real half the time. Cracked me up, that was the damn point.>>25596626Between Two FiresExodus The Helium Sea The Thrice-bound fool
is there a shill campaign for the two fires book going on right now? because the amount of posts it's gotten over the last month is ridiculous
>>25597967It's probably just one or maybe two anons who are currently excited about it. I think it's benign.
>>25597967is it always shilling when two or more posters talk about the same book?
>>25597967how do you shill when every single book is free in the big 2026>inb4 I don't piratekys
>>25596399the exegesis is the best primer for malleable young minds to be receptive to the prometheanism, hermeticism, gnosticism, kabbalah, alchemy, neo-platonism etc. that you want to push on Western youths with the help of Jason Reza Jorjani, Thomas Sewell and so on as they won't be able to mount an intellectual defense against all those sophisticated ideas, it's funny how Dick lamented homosexuals in the church and how the editors had to say it was an 'unfortunate' stance shaped by the times in which he lived
>>25597957nta I've wondered what it would be like to have family that reads. Literally no one in my extended family ever has.
>>25597938Cares about who and what? Must be useful for the government to have a 24/7 surveillance device that can also kill you in your sleep or otherwise and make it seem entirely natural.
>>25598060Every member of my family reads
>>25598060>I've wondered what it would be like to have family that reads. Literally no one in my extended family ever has.Glue one page of a book on the back of their cereal boxes everyday.
>>25596626Name of the WindFrankensteinI think I might finally read Neuromancer.
>>25598110Book is shit ngl don't bother
Reading picrel right now. I'm liking it.
>>25596626Urth of the New SunLexicon Urthus and the Chapter GuideStill deciding between more Wolfe (probably Long Sun), Earthsea, or Mona Lisa Overdrive
i finished shadow of the torturer and claw of the conciliator months ago and really enjoyed them but for some reason i've been putting off reading the second half of botns.
Either Rendezvous With Rama didn't age well or has been overrated this whole time. Might've been cool when O'Neil cylinders weren't yet big shit, dunno.
>>25598250It is cool, but it is overrated. 2001 & Childhood's End are so much harder-hitting it's insane.
>>25598250A lot of Clarke novels have interesting an interesting premise but a dull plot
>>25596626Dune messiah. Currently reading Children of Dune. Not sure if I will finish the rest of the series or take a break and read something else
>>25598261Son you are replying to wumao.
>>25598253The only ACC novel I had read was CE which is why I was a little shocked at how dryly this thing handled. Kept thinking "whoa-ho-ho, the payoff is gonna be AWESOME after this literary session of light water aerobics!" But no, nothing. It's Clarke but its like Clarke testing his typewriter. Even his short stories have way more wonder fuel per square inch.
>>25598250I liked it because of how well things were described and thought out. A lot of little details on how the whole situation was handled and how they proceeded with the exploration, etc. All felt very immersive, seemed believable. But yeah in the end not much happened and that was disappointing. The exploration was in a hurry and without much equipment because of the plot.I really liked The Andromeda Strain as well for similar reasons I think. Smart authors in both cases that wrote about things that they knew about (even if the whole thing is not entirely scientifically accurate/possible (I'm not even sure)).Is that enough to make a good novel by itself? I guess not. Not for most people. I liked them but they were lacking in certain ways I guess.Rama had sequels that I started reading but I gave up on it. I don't even think it was poorly written, but it was just too much god damn drama before anything interesting even got started. I'll probably read them someday because I still wonder where they were going with this.
>>25598256i can't remember a single ACC character, perhaps just karellen vaguely
>>25598261How is Children of Dune? I stopped after Messiah because Paul dying felt like a good place to end the story but I know some of the later Dune books get really wild>>25598271Underage
>>25598322I probably just made the mistake of reading Eternity by Greg Bear first, which is this story 1:1 until it goes fucking bananas, which is why its considered space opera. I mean I knew Clarke wasn't going THERE but still, my imagination was all blown out.
>>25598324>i can't remember a single ACC characternta, but same.They all blend together. They're not real characters, they're just accessories. Usually I was glad he didn't waste too much time trying to make his characters interesting because he's not good at it. They serve a purpose. They don't get in the way. They're forgettable.The character I remember most vividly from Rama is the captain of a ship that had to be rerouted to intercept with the ship of the main characters to transfer his fuel and supplies. And then he'd have to slowly drift back to Earth (or some other ship or space station WHO CARES) on an inefficient trajectory that would take him months IIRC. Months of boredom with low supplies. He described him as being pretty pissed as they docked and did the transfer. He barely even described him. Just a few lines. Might not even have had a name. It's the only character I remember kek. Because I had imagined him, not because Clarke wrote him so well or anything.
>>25598333I meant Eon. Eternity was the sequel. Never finished that.
Also I had assumed the Russian Space Church of Space Christ had some bearing later on, but no, just turns out that guy can defuse bombs. It almost feels like a purposefully dropped point.
Does historical fiction fall under the /sffg/ umbrella?
>>25598333>>25598337Yeah makes sense.Rama is hard to recommend nowadays I would say. I liked how realistic/immersive it was. The idea of the completely indifferent aliens isn't as surprising nowadays too.. It's more interesting if it's one of the first sci-fi novels you read. But should it be one of the first sci-fi novels you read? I dunno. "Oh you want to get into sci-fi? Well you gotta start with this, this and this from the 50s, then this and this from the 60s, and this from the 70s..." get out of here geeze.
>>25598347maybe
>>25598347Does it have fantastic or speculative scientific elements?
>>25598352Fuck.
>>25598349Well I just phoned the Clarke estate about possible restitution (that paperback cost me a quarter!) and they said to "get in line behind like a thousand Sri Lankan men," whatever that means.
>>25598060It's interesting if your tastes coincide. Unfortunately for me dad reads Dan Brown and spy books, so I'm not interested. Fortunately mum reads history books so we can discuss things.
>>25598060I'm the opposite, everyone reads. For the past 10 years my dad has pretty much exclusively read books I curate for him because our tastes are so close he thinks it's easier to let me pick the books. My mom, my sister and my brother only read detective fiction or thrillers though, that's kind of boring.
>>25598361>menI think you mean boys
>>25598420Funny, it's the exact opposite here. Mom likes pulpy murder mysteries and Dad loves historical stuff.
>>25598347Speculative fiction is often based on actual historical settings, btw.>>25598352What if the speculative elements are only hinted at, or are just part of the characters’ beliefs?
>>25597691>think dune mixed with 40kSo... 40k?But seriously start with book 2. Book 1 is pretty shit.
>>25597967It's spooky season, retard.
>>25596626Wheel of time part 12Wheel of time part 13Wheel of time part 14
>>25598349I really liked Rama when I read it last year. I've probably read 500 fantasy or SciFi books prior to it, it wasn't a new concept but it executed "indifferent, inscrutable ayys" better than most others I've read.
>>25598709Rama is great, just don't read the sequels. They are dogshit.
Turns out Achamian can wear armor just fine.What’s stopping other schoolmen from putting some on and never getting sniped by an arrow again
>>25598709Rama is great (if you like detached polyrelationships!)
>>25599007Not that Rama you double nigger
>>25596626RontelNotes from UndergroundEye of the Chickenhawk
>they never released picrel as an ebook>I'll have to DL the three books separatelyBros. My autism. Bros...
any sci fi that is cozy but isnt gay as fuck like becky chambers or murderbot redditcore? doesnt have to be an overly positive story but some moments of reprieve or a crew of pals would be greatthanks
>>25599057> https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/13498241-the-revelation-space-collectionNot strictly true. It's all 7 books rather than the trilogy.
>>25599075I saw this collection but it's pretty shit. They included The Prefect, which is only the first book in the spinoff series.Diamond Dogs and Turquoise Days aren't slotted where they should, chronologically speaking. And Chasm City ends the same year Revelation Space starts, but they've placed the latter before the former. Even Reynolds advises to read his "trilogy" in one go.That's why it would have been nice if there was an ebook containing only the trilogy. But you know, no bid deal.
>>25598347Not really. Historical fantasy does.
>>25599067I've seen Quarter Share by Nathan Lowell mentioned in this context but I haven't read it.
Spiky anus.
>>25598456Its 2026, his youngest victims are now adults, hopefully.
why sff is looked down/low quality literature?
>>25599366pagespammer ranted about this explaining it
>>25599366most of it gets lost in trying to create a complex world and leaves characters being quite one-dimensional caricatures that make non-sensical choices. that's why a novel that's just about some guy going on walks and jerking off in his apartment is always going to mogg sff literature because there's actualy psychological depth even tho the world is banal.
>>25599366No fun allowed in my literature. We are serious and shit.
>>25599366If only it were written in greek...
>>25599366because it objectively is
>>25599533name one book better than all of those
>>25599533FUCK I ONLY HAVE 2/12I read Dune and Blindsight. What should I read next? I already had Hyperion in my backlog.
>>25599549You haven't read LotR?
>>25599549Read LotR and the Hobbit and then hunker down for all the Old English Beowulf type shit.If you are familiar with the Canterbury Tales you could read the Hyperion Cantos.
>>25599582manchild comparing works of english literature to manchild sff trash
>>25599554>>25599582OK. Hmm. I read a lot of sci-fi but not fantasy.I considered giving LotR a try before. But I read that there was like 30 pages describing the folkloric dances of elves and I NOPED out of it. It was probably exaggerated but still. Now I read a bit more about it and I like the framing I think. How the story is mostly just a small slice of a much bigger world. Dealing with remnants of much bigger events that had happened in the past. It's a different mindset, how the past is actually much more impressive, more glorious than the present. As opposed to sci-fi where everything cool is in the future. It's probably well written. I assume Tolkien deserves his reputation. I should probably read it just because of how much stuff it has inspired.Generally I don't like fantasy though. Can't stand the "anything goes" lore. Magic this and wizards that deities this. It just makes me think "sure why not, whatever". I'm sure there are authors that do it well though.
>>25599623>Magic this and wizards thatfor what its worth, you only meet two "wizards" in LotR and neither one is throwing fireballs aroundGandalf in particular is more of a dispenser of wisdom and lore than he is dispensing lightning boltswhat "magic" he does do is mostly pretty subtle and I can only really think of two or three instanceswhere his magic has much of an overt effect on a battle he's involved in
>>25599366Ego, nothing more. Originally, SF was written by autists who wrote with lots of scientific detail. Then it morphed more into space opera. Finally, it became normal literature, just set in the future, and is now properly called "speculative fiction". Having said that, I prefer mind-bending psychological fiction like PKD (which is what I thought this thread would be about).
>>25599366Because it's genre fiction. All genre fiction is held in low esteem by literary scholars because by its definition it is dependent on cliche, and therefore less intellectually interesting than something that defies convention or easy description.
>>25599366The fart sniffers abhor plot, and genre fiction is plot centric.
>>25599623Your fundamental misapprehension with Tolkien is that you project a pessimistic outlook onto his work. The story ends with the triumph of man over the last remnant of an ancient evil that had haunted Middle Earth for millennia. With the death of Sauron (and one errant Balrog) nothing remains of the long struggle against Morgoth, and Men can inherit their legacy.
>>25599871A better way of saying it is that academics care very little about the literal meaning of a text and more about the possible interpretations of it. Writing that is very explicit and clear about what happened and why is anathema to literary analysis, it has no ambiguity to investigate. You could certainly try to dig into genre fiction with your full suite of critical theory tools but you'll find the resulting excavation pathetically shallow and thwarted by constant cliches and tropes like so many rocks among the clay. Eventually you hit the hard bedrock of "it was written this way to conform to the genre" and no further exhumation of meaning is possible from the text.
>>25599258cool book
>>25596862>Biological War: A Scenario>House of LeavesMegabased.
>>25599887Gotta be b8
>>25598284>Even his short stories have way more wonder fuel per square inch.I've got the omnibus collection of all his short stories. It's massive. I've read a dozen or so of the ones I recognized (and not) and yeah Rendezvous with Rama is so sterile in comparison to virtually all of them. Don't get me wrong though, Rama IS a good book.
I've got Dick on my mind.
>>25599910>Writing that is very explicit and clear about what happened and why is anathema to literary analysis, it has no ambiguity to investigateIs this why everyone loves Wolfe?
>>25599910>"it was written this way to conform to the genre"Means it was written like shit
>>25600055That's how all genre fiction is written, though. That's what it means to write genre fiction. If you're not conforming to the genre, you're writing original fiction. All genre fiction capitulates at some point to the conventions of their genre, it's what defines genre.
>>25600032It's why Wolfe gets a little more attention from the literary community than most of his peers, he's not really a best-selling author in terms of popularity. He is lavished with praise by the people who do read him though, and his use of unreliable narrator does provide a smidgen of ambiguity that gives his fans more to talk about than just summarizing the plot and saying which parts you liked the best. It doesn't really rise to the level of literary scholarship, but it's notably more subtle than standard genre fare, which usually sticks to highly literal description of events as I mentioned earlier.
>>25600123Retarded take. Genres are descriptive not prescriptive, and speculative fiction is particularly varied.
>>25600139"Speculative fiction" isn't really a genre, it's more like a broad umbrella family of related genres. Genres are defined by their conventions. Go ahead and try to define a genre without resorting to describing its cliches.
Literary fiction is a genre with its own conventions, cliches, and tropes.
Finished with BotNS+Urth, and I've got a few lingering questions of varying importance. Obviously some things were meant to remain unclear but some feel like I might've just overlooked them.>Why do Erebus and Abaia oppose the coming of the New Sun when it'll flood the world?>What was the massive creature in the mines near Saltus?>What was Juturna's deal? She clearly liked Severian, but how did she pop up in the post-Flood world at what seems to be part of the Corridors of Time that Severian slipped into on accident?>Who put the black hole in the sun? The machines? The Hierogrammates?>What was the deal with Master Ash? From what I can tell, he ceased to exist because the frozen future would never come, but how did leading him out of his house cause that? Is this an "uncertainty principle" sort of thing where the future becomes more fluid when it stops having an observer?>Why did Tzadkiel change gender? For that matter, what was with their rapid evolution on the Ship? And was the "fairy" Tzadkiel in the Corridors meant to have shades of Lucifer?>What killed Hildegrin and why did he have it out for Apu-Punchau?>Why was the mausoleum for Severian built? He might've drowned in Gyoll but if so the corpse stayed there, and none of his other deaths were near Nessus.Also, less a question and more theory. Miles resembled Jonas, whose entire human appearance is scavenged from some other unlucky guy. It's at one point mentioned (iirc when Severian's observing the Ascians from above) that a lot of the Commonwealth's soldiers have very similar appearances, like they're siblings. Was it possible that Miles is a clone/khaibit, and Jonas scavenged either that man or another one? The one thing that bothers me there is that Miles was upset by Jolenta's death when he shouldn't have known about her.
Something i've been thinking about lately regarding Fantasy that pisses me off, especially with the recent fantasy I have been reading that is so disgustingly obsessed with the concept of "highborn" inherently more "nobler" races. Is part of the problem that has made me understand another fundamental flaw against Fantasy: It is fundamentally too uncomplicated to ever consider or factor the notion that the "foreign barbarians" could conquer and usurp the civilized.Have a cursory reading of Chinese history and you will learn how many times the "barbarians" either acclimated to chinese culture, allied with them against fellow barbarians, threatened them enough to have nobles literally marry their daughters into the barbarian families, and most of all, ended up conquering the dynasties themselves. This happened with almost every large civilization. The more modern you get, the easier it is for nation states to oppress the "barbarians" on the border of their nations, I mean look at the irish. But before then, and before england was called england. It got so royally fucked by the anglo saxons, that they more strongly define what is now the area they conquered than the people who lived there before, then those guys in a turn of events actually got conquered by the more "noble" normans, led by a bastard.Fantasy seems almost fundamentally allergic to this idea. That the "lesser" civilization can ever grow to a point where it becomes and usurps the familar civilization. The other civilization is always either made to be a literal other race of unthinking raiders, or so pathetic a collection of humans that you wonder how they survived this long.That mere fact alone almost distills the fundamental problem with fantasy, and why it is always garbage and why its worldbuilding is disappointing. It doesn't have the depth to accommodate for how human civilizations actually change and develop. And when you don't understand how civilization develops, you can never craft one that makes sense besides the surface level presentation of fluff information and technicalities like what they uselessly name their 7 ranks of soldiers, to mimic what a retard thinks authenticity is.
>>25600231Doesn't GRRM do this in asoiaf? Idk you sound retarded.
>>25600154Literary fiction is just the "drama" genre.
>>25600247Are you retarded? The Dothraki are irrelevant and basically destroyed save for the few that Daenrys tard wrangled, and the Wildlings arent numerous enough, united enough, and pose no real threat to the dominant civilization, and only continue to exist barely because of one 16 year old boy magically becoming Commander of the wall or something.
>>25600231>why dont the barbarians just win brohttps://youtu.be/tVY1fSBUL3Q?is=Ys73bnsJzwTAhR04
>>25600231your "page reviews" are SHIT
>>25600247NTA but where? If you're referring to Daenerys' conquests with the low-tech Dothraki I don't think that's what he means. I believe it's more regarding events like the way the Goths and other "barbarian" tribes usurped large amounts of Roman territory by essentially integrating into its military and slowly exercising authority over areas Rome didn't have the coherent power to control, which is functionally the origin of most Western European nations. Or for that matter how Rome began as a shitty little city-state and eventually assimilated enough of the small Latin tribes to conquer the region's previous dominant powers like Etruria.
>>25600271Actually cool video based on the description that I might watch later, but I dont know why youre posting it when it seems to be supporting my point
>>25600279It kinda disagrees by saying that roaming barbarian empires thrive on, you know, pillaging and raiding. They're like parasites that need other surrounding civilizations to actually attack. They can win fights but they can not usurp because then they would have nothing to pillage and raid. If the barbarian empire ever settles down, they lose whatever edge they had by roaming and the empire crumbles
>>25600273I'm surprised but glad some in here seem to understand what I'm talking about thats missing in fantasy. It always has this incredibly superficial air of medieval history that I am never able to quite disagree with sometimes, just because it deals with such specificities that I am not familar with by virtue of simply not being a historian, but I can extrapolate from more macro mistakes, like how it understands borders, states, military etc. Sometimes I feel like when people disagree with me, they only do so because they are genuine retards that don't understand just how rich and complicated the human story of development is. Because theyre stupid retards that exist in a the world from a narrow perspective they barely understand, but is so familar, that theyre mind tricks them into understanding, they can't appreciate just how complicated that world is, and why. So they engage with fiction the same way their retarded brains engage with the real world, with immediacy, with simply highschool tier class distinctions, popularity distinctions, good and evil distinctions, ingrouo vs outgroup distinctions, not understanding how much of history demonstrates the fluidity and vastness of the human experience of all those categories, how they came to be, how they changed, how they manifested.It pisses me off when retards justify the mediocrity of a genre that could be so interesting just because they are dumbasses with no care or interest to actually understand the world they exist in, and themselves.
>>25600286You sound like an insufferable midwit without an ounce of humility
>>25600284Well thats just objectively wrong because first of all steppe societies werent, empires, second of all dozens of barbarian societies usurped prior empires and civilizations, and finally its just stupid and betrays an understanding of how societies work. Steppe societies raid empires because theyre stable, usually they usurp it when one leader of those nomad societies starts starts getting tired of the instability of raiding, usually pushed towards that tiredness by particularly bad weather conditions, and finally, when barbarian societies conquer, they usually don't completely wipe out the former civilization, like all societies, they integrate, combine, take what they need from those empires and abandon what they dont, they use the people in high positions from the conquered society, to formulate their new society. You and that video is retarded and doesn't understand history if you say otherwise. Just stupid. None of this happens cleanly, but it happens.
>>25600292
>>25600299What was said that is inaccurate?
>>25600284"Barbarian" doesn't necessarily mean nomadic or even heavily militarized. It's often used that way in modern casual context but the term's most widespread usage originally just meant someone outside of a Roman-controlled culture. The Gothic peoples were your archetypal western barbarians but they weren't simply a bunch of roving pillagers; they had economies and cultures and land that, even if not recognized as sovereign by other governments, they still functionally controlled. All that was well before Alaric sacked Rome which is where the whole connotation of "barbarian = warlord" comes from.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goths#Co-existence_with_the_Roman_Empire_(300%E2%80%93375)>>25600286In fairness it's extremely difficult to write that kind of setup for a constructed world, and depending on the kind of story it may be hard to justify the effort. It's the whole "Aragorn's tax policy" thing where past a certain point more worldbuilding stops aiding the narrative. Magic makes it even more complicated, especially if it would affect logistics since being able to teleport food and shoes to an army IRL would autowin nearly any war before the 20th century.I do get what you're saying though, that fantasy authors have a tendency to set up their societies like they're cleanly striated out of the box and things like class/caste systems are simply There without any visible consideration for how those systems might've evolved. Am I reading you right?
>>25600308I say 'kinda', you say 'none of this happens cleanly but it happens' and you somehow find this disagreeable? You say steppe societies weren't empires and I'm thinking about the Mongolian Empire? You sperg out at some perceived slight and call the video retarded without even watching it even though it agrees with you?I dunno bro, you can have this one, I surrender
>>25600137For me Dr. Talos's play cements Wolfe as genuinely literary
>>25600382Do elaborate
>>25600356dumbass
>>25600434don't be mean man, he just thinks a youtube video is history, lots of people like that in this day and age
Pagespammer will never accept that fictional works can't be the same as real life.
>because first of all steppe societies werent, empiresOh look, a fucking retard.
Uh-oh! I just up and went and acquired a copy of The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard and I'm gonna read it! Oh NOES!! Kill all Goodreadstrannies btw.
its rather unfortunate that fantasy gets the brunt of the history autism while sci-fi just gets completely ignored>fictional world, but what if society developed with magic and monsters and shitree it looks like the past why isnt it like the past>fictional world, but in the futurewe simply dont know, there is no precedent for the future. my suspension of belief is infinite.
>>25600490That's the fault of the author being lazy with world building. If you don't properly explain your setting and how it works, people are forced to make assumptions based on what they are familiar with (i.e. real historical societies that resemble the one in your story). And when you go out of your way to imitate historical cultures, you cannot fault people for expecting them to function the same way in absence of any specifically stated difference. Basically, if you don't want people to assume your vaguely feudal European society works like a feudal European society, take the time to lay out how it actually works. But this requires effort and research, something a lot of lazy modern authors cannot be bothered with.
>>25600571Most readers simply don't care about this at all.
>>25600597I dunno You don't have to neurotically explain every detail about your fictional society and usually don't need to, yeah. But if you're going to make a Stock European Fantasy Setting(tm) and intend to use it for a serious story involving politics and shit, it would be beneficial to at least understand some history of the things you're basing your setting on, along with considering how your setting's unique cultures and history and supernatural aspects factor into it.European-styled fantasy tends to get a pass for it since everyone is used to the standard tropes and accepts the presence of kings and castles and such to some extent and thus won't think too much about it, but it's still helpful for the author to do so even if it won't be in the text itself. Monarchies didn't just spring up out of the ground, after all. Since they've already been brought up a bit in this discussion, compare the Mongols. You wouldn't write a story about fantasy-Genghis Khan and then set it in Appalachia and expect all the nomadic lifestyle and horseback archery elements of his culture to translate 1:1, would you?also "most people do X" is a retarded argument
>>25600597The ones who care are the ones who write lengthy posts online complaining about it, hence our current discussion.
>>25600639Let me rephrase then: It's often counterproductive and doing so usually benefits no one.
>>25600660I think caring about the setting you write is a worthwhile endeavor in and of itself.
>>25600666You can have as much of it as you in your own personal materials.
>>25600676this nigga doesn't actually respect art, perfect microcosm of the modern day consumer ape, no actual engagement with the world because there is nothing actually in the automaton to produce and facilitate the creation of values. It is perfectly apt that AI would take off and become so widespread and influential in such a society of genuine worthless retards like this that don't understand or appreciate that art isnt about being "rewarded" or "compensated" keep appealing to the generic status quo as if anything needs to be expounded about the obvious while missing the point retard, nice addition to the conversation, its amazing that the majority of people who occupy space exist like you so that AI can continue to mimic your empty of characterness and perpetually continue to be dumb and mistakennta.
>>25600689"ART FOR ART'S SAKE" is for self-absorbed idiots who are either pretending or doomed to obscurity and irrelevance. Enjoy your solipism.
>>25600689If it makes you feel any better I'm pretty sure he's just baiting
>>25600778You wouldn't know a sincerely held belief.
I think Nova by Delany is quite good even though he is gay and black. I love that the spaceships are sailboats that you have to cybernetically attach yourself to. I love how well Delany writes these cacophonous conversations. It's a shame he's fat and gay and black and a pedophile.
>>25599623>But I read that there was like 30 pages describing the folkloric dances of elves and I NOPED out of it. It was probably exaggerated but still.It's literally a couple of lines, how about you stop reading shitting "reviews" that exaggerate everything for the sake of popularity?
>>25600639I feel that typically fantasy writers prefer to use the "settled" Western European societies of, say, the 13th century, coupled with the various invaders of the 4th-10th century, so they can have the classical barbarian menace of ancestral Euro memory in addition to the typical wars between kingdoms/states/whatever. Basically this kind of fantasy is limited to whatever the writer knows about English or French history during the High Middle Ages plus whatever they heard about the invasions of the "barbarians", a term which can mean anything.
>25600263>25600231You never read the books. The khalasars are so powerful that even the Free Cities constantly pay them tribute so they'd leave them alone. They could evolve into a more centralized force (and they were in the past), but their current belief system keeps preventing it. Daenerys' Dothraki are her guard and a handful of women, old men and children who stayed behind when Drogo's khalasar dumped her like a bad habit after Drogo died.Anyway, the Andals and the First Men/Children of the Forest are a better example of what you're talking about. The Andals were technically less civilised and completely unversed in magic, but they were more militarily accomplished and had better metallurgy, so they conquered Westeros, intermarried, and absorbed the First Men into their culture. Similarly, the Rhoynar were a mighty civilisation back when the Valyrians were still poor goat herders, but over the centuries this balance changed and gradually Valyria evolved into a huge empire and completely wrecked the Rhoynar.
>>25599623>I read that there was like 30 pages describing the folkloric dances of elvesThis didn't happen. They got confused with 30 pages of Tolkien describing a chase.
>>25600231Why the fuck do you keep reading fantasy if you hate it so much?
>>25600286Because fantasy is fundamendally not based on history, but on mythology and folklore. >>25600460I would think he's trolling, but he puts to much effort in his posts. So I can only conclude he is stupid.
>>25596399>read that novel>fucking love it>Robert Silverberg says it's a bad book because it's not very science fictional>read Silverberg's A Time of Changes and "The Feats of St. Dyonisus">conclude that Silverberg is a jealous faggot
>>25599366Have you taken a look at SF fans?
>>25601054Have you taken a look at litfic fans?
>>25596399I was told this has a few giantess scenes in it. Is it any good?
>>25601144They unironically look fine; normal, you might say. Except for the one guy with the bowtie, but that's hardly an extreme outlier from normal relative to the shit we see everywhere else these days. He looks less retarded than the pinkhairs you see everywhere. If anything, these people look better than normal; not a single high-category obeselord among them. Like, look at this fucking guy: >>25601054. Genuinely an abomination. You can wear as many bowties as you want man, you'll still never look worse than that guy.
>>25600801Well, you're fat and gay and white and a paedophile and no one has complained so far.
>>25601416You just did...
>>25596399I'm reading empire of silence when it get good? I'm ch 10
I'm reading /sffg/ when it get good? I'm on year 10
>>25601453When you start skipping the 200 or so pages of filler the author likes to cram into each book of the series.
can we say sff books are description stories?
>>25601559Just like the rest of literary genres? Or unlike them?
>>25601603some books have no description
How is it?
>>25601609Give examples.
>>25601616blindness by josé saramago
>>25601614I swear these covers make me want to never open this book
>>25601628So it's not SF.
>>25598250Its extremely bland, might be fertile soil for someone with a 9-to-5 and no other exposure to world of scify. If you want some insane prescient books try fixup novels like "the game of the rat & the dragon" or "galaxies like grains of sand".
>>25601635>galaxies like grains of sandI liked this book, but how is it prescient?
>>25601638Have you never seen one of those videos when multiple AI models talk about X,Y,Z or play Salem / Mafia? Its usually a very heterogeneous mix between free and highgrade expensive ones, and its basically a one-to-one with the conversations between the different farming machines in the short story about the millenium of robots. Lower grade AIs submiting and being used by to the more sophisticated ones.
>>25600263>The Dothraki are irrelevant and basically destroyed save for the few that Daenrys tard wrangledSomething tells me you didn't read the books.
>>25601661OK, but that was virtually the only prescience in the whole collection.
>>25600482He created an empire when he left the steppe. It also fell apart quickly.
>>25601614Based on the cover it's YA shit, so I'm gonna guess it isn't very good.
>>25601318I'm pretty sure that's the point of the picture
Can a book be too emotionally charged?There's a certain point where I don't enjoy feeling so much
>>25601825Yes, that's why I avoid tearjerkers.
I'm writing a middle age fantasy book about a mercenary company squire gradually revealing himself to be that world's future version of Hannibal Barca/Scipio Africanus mixed with Julius Caesar and Alexander of Makadon. Lot of mid-high medieval age stuff. I autistically went into an overly long sentence about what he's wearing in a paragraph about troops and their armor. I know I shouldn't write out the setting before the plot, but I'm having so many ideas making up my own classical inspired fantasy. People have been fucking up the middle ages and using it as a playground for their grimderp slop for too long. I'm leaning on an old pantheon and cult religious structure with everyone referring to Hell as Hel, the actual origin of the word, with wizards and mages being more priests, who were the original scholars really and the source of the word magic through magi to begin with. I just fucking love this time period.
>>25601825Do you mean like exhausting soap opera emotional or actually gets under your skin emotional?
>>25601853Under your skin
>>25601846Are there by any chance 5'8 female bunny knights in this story?
>>25601858sure, they're expensive prostitutes who use wooden swords and wearing select armor partsthe entire gimmick is attacking a lord, being disarmed, and surrendering to be used at their pleasurethe bunny motif is actually a fertility goddess homageI think I will include that unironically. Mention it in passing at some point. I've had ideas of the protagonist getting wrapped up in a harvest ritual where he's possessed by an Elk god of war and rape, representing masculine youthfulness, to despoil the eternal virgin Doe goddess retaining her status and bringing about the harvest by possessing a virgin maiden for the act. The possessed woman goes insane, as gods are more powerful concepts in spirit and essence. Proving himself to the priests and heretics (it's a long story), he retains himself with no downsides whatsoever. It's partly because he practically is that god through his actions but more because there's an over-arching narrative of him not being normal in any way whatsoever to the point even slumbering dragons (again, a lot to explain) don't think he's human.
>>25601846No matter how much you do, you'll be told that you're doing it wrong, it's not true to life, and your changes are neither earned or grounded. Posters in this very thread have already done that.
>>25601903I don't care what anyone else says. I just want to create something beautiful from something I love. As long as it's not slop, I'll be happy.
>>25601858Viera huh
>>25601907It may not be slop to you, though for many others it will be.
>>25601909i genuinely do not see how i can do worse than people who do not understand morality trying to do moral ambiguity in a time most people don't understand to hide how horrible they are at it
>>25601877Sounds very fun, I look forward to reading your story
>>25601913That's a problem then. Best of luck.
>>25601846>my original character do not steal self-insert power fantasy where I get to be self-righteous and tell everyone how it is Okay Terry Goodkind.
Fires of December, Sandersons latest that he insists came from a spark so powerful he cleared his entire schedule for months, is out. I have read about 1/3rd of the book. Sanderson insists and I agree that it lands best without the premise laid bare, short of the idea that a massive demon corpse lays slumped dead, rivers of blood pouring from it's endlessly regenerating but staked-dead body, with a capital city built around it as they mine the petrifying substance of its flesh. HOWEVERI will say that the narrator of the story is the most self indulgent reddit faggot character Sanderson has ever written, and that's saying something. Why the fuck do I keep reading this hack's words? I'll be looking to kill myself soon out of shame.
>>25601930I couldn't stomach any of his books. He sucks.
>>25601914thank you>>25601921okay?>>25601925Oh god, no. The last thing I want to do is have a character with a modern perspective. That's the fucking worst shit in every piece of dogshit media today. If anything, the little bastard is going to go from a lovable, if impudent, stab-happy prodigy to an absolute fucking monster who arranges the era equivalent of a world war out of boredom and seeing an opportunity. Completely incapable of understanding the wrong in it from years of waging war and profiting off it. To the point one of his long known acquaintances and prominent side-characters vainly challenges him to a duel to death (basically Holmgang). Initially, he denies it and asks why. It's only after he lays out how our little bastard comes across as a death-worshipping and misery spreader everyone is following out of fear they'll die without his military brilliance and leadership does he accept the next one. He only realizes what he's done wrong after a council of cults devoted to the gods with tolerance and amnesty given to heretics who come to decide how to restore order to the world give his company a divine mandate to do whatever they want. He poisons the acting captain, everyone next in line, and himself to make it look like an outside hit. When he comes to, he is the most powerful man in the continent at the expense of the people who raised him. Even he can't deny what he is at that point, but it's far too late. He won.
>>25601945Grimderp slop
>>25601965hurtful
>>25601965>>25601969I mean, I plan on having the story, a trilogy really, end on a heroic act and optimistically. An acceptance of what he's done but incapable of reversing or restoring the world as it was. He's in charge from then on. The king of many kingdoms. King of Kings (because Emperor comes from Imperator which is completely meaningless without Roman historical context). Even then. I want him to be "saved" through grace, realization and understanding, than some grand purifying work.
>>25601930Premise sounded cool. Shame.
>>25601930>>25601981Sounds like he ripped off some manga, honestly.
>>25601974So it's Christian fiction?
>>25601983It's medieval fantasy. Emphasis on medieval. The fantasy being a hodgepodge of different mythological elements and folklore from Western Europe to the Eastern Steppe with sprinkles of my own autism. My morals are just heavily Christianized due to a complicated religious upbringing and recent semi-reawakening in face of absolute insanity masquerading as morals. Being here, I am still a degenerate. I just haven't completely lost base, or I think I haven't.
There's so many iterations of King Arthur where do I start? Someone recommended I should read the Penguin edition but which one?
>>25602036You can try Cornwell, I guess. But that's a semi "realistic" try at it. Like a lot of Cornwell's historical fiction work, it beggar's belief.
>>25602036Le Morte de Arthur is the most complete in the sense that it has basically every important story for every member of the Round Table, however it is poorly written with very repetitive prose, and it is also fucking enormous.Chretien de Troyes is a very accessible entry point despite being from the middle ages, since his stories are very modern in their narrative structure and he uses a lot of tropes which modern fantasy has heavily borrowed fromParzival is by far the most "literary" Arthurian literature in the sense that it has difficult prose and is heavily allegorical and allusive, but it is the greatest work of art on the subjectIdylls of the King is a great alternative to Le Morte de Arthur with the caveat that is basically a poetical "best of"
Dick popped my mind's cherry when I was a wee lad.
>>25602090An intellectual catamite, you were.
>>25601680Lasted for 162 years. "Fell apart fast" is bullshit. Kill yourself.
>>25602107The Khanate was less an empire and more a confederation of Mongol states. Yuan Chinese to the East, the Chagatai Khanate of the South, the Ilkhanate of Persia, and the Golden Horde of the West.Calling that an empire is extremely contrary to the basis of the word: the supreme power of Rome
>>25602119Oh, you still believe words have set meanings and their origin matters. How quaint.
>>25602124Yes, I believe in objective fucking reality over endlessly arguing over semantics and context placed with no inherent meaning and thus render all discourse pointless.
>>25602045>>25602042>>25602036Why would you start with anything else?
>>25602146Cornwell has a certain style about him. Drops into the modern perspective from time to time for a man who should fucking know better. And his protagonists accomplish a ridiculous amount of things to the point it reads like a novel version of a manga, not a light novel, where everyone is waiting for the protag to show up for anything to be done.
>>25602146>>25602152I did not read the author byline of that image.could he have named it literally anything less arthurianly generic
>>25602128Objective reality. How childlike.
>>25602159GRRM, you're banned from these threads. Post-modernism was a mistake.
I love Cixin Liu because he's like Clarke + Asimov with a little Dick.
>>25602164We're well beyond that now.
>>25602176Talking about GRRM?I assume everyone here has already beaten him and tax policy to death. Then beaten the corpse into oblivion.
>>25602119Spamtranny once again pointing out that he's the dumbest motherfucker to ever infest this general.
>>25602119>Erm.... it doesn't count because it fractured Bet you still think West & East Roman Empires still count though. Dumb cocksucker.
i have no idea what retarded drama is happening nowis it one butthurt mongolian or something?
>>25602209Saying The Mongol Empire wasn't REALLY an dmpire because its territories were divided among Genghis's descendants is peak retard hours type shit.
>>25602208No? They were still huge states but two entirely separate empires, in spirit one but really not. That illusion was obliterated quickly. It was just outright disproven after the west fell. The Byzantines were worn away over the course of centuries and could hardly be called an empire long before it finally fell. >>25602216do you consider the split kingdoms of france, germany, and lotharingia the Carolingian Empire after karl died?
>>25601825People keep saying Robin Hobb is good but I don't want to slog through a long book much less series that's full of misery
>25602226Quit (You)ing me, retard cocksucker.
>>256014634chan was never good and it never will be
>>25602233Maybe after being here for 20+ years it gets better.
>>25602228>a long bookSpeaking of these, how much is too long?I think the 200,000+ 400 pages shit is already like two goddamn books in one.
>>25602238I assure you, it doesn't.
>>25600007>girls with booba pics thumbtacked to his wall
>>25602241I guess the only way to know for sure is to spend your entire life here, from the site's beginning to its end, to know.for sure. If the site outlives you then you'll never be able to make a proper judgment.
>>25602247He had 5 wives.
If pagespammer was killed the thread would improve vastly.
>>25602264who
>>25602268(You)
>>25602240I'm reading Jonathan Strange and making good progress but I dropped it the first time because I wasn't in the mood for something slow and 1k pages. Now I am. My other two books are Vineland and Downbelow Station which are long but they're good so I don't mind
>>25602250that's a lot of booba
>>25602238I've been here almost that long and it somehow manages to keep sinking to new depths
>>25602314Does it though? You may have it backwards. It's ever more emerging from the depths and you don't like the people who have come in at the ground level. There's much less transgressive and illegal content than there was in the early years. Certainly there's more moderation. Definitely been a lot of changes.
>>25602334I thought the Scientology raids were so dumb but now there's so much shilling going on. I don't mean in the conspiracy theory way of paid posters although there might be that but in terms of people pushing agendas
i want to have sex with Stehlen
>>25601672I disagree, one of the ending chapters is also extremely prescient, the one about the 3d motion picture obout the hedonistic city were more and more people silently become disillusioned with society and start retreating onto themselves, it also felt right on the money. This books was what, written 70 years ago? You need to understand there were no the even traces of this cultural shift back then, no doordash riders, no streamer culture, no transparent failure of democracy, people at large belived "we put a man on the moon, whats next?" It takes a real scify writter to see past the bullshit an into the human soul like that.Even the first story... Are you telling me that if you opened a dreamery when people dreamed of being the mc in a lit rpg a la DDC or sololeveling 24/7 you woudnt become a millionare over night? Our world is briming with people salivating just waiting for an excuse to permanently drop off society like that.
>>25601930>I will say that the narrator of the story is the most self indulgent reddit faggot character Sanderson has ever written, and that's saying somethingIsn't the narrator Hoid? I read this is a 'spiritual sequel to Tress of the Emerald Sea"
>>25602226You're not necessarily wrong, but not right either. Your folly was playing the definition game with this >>25602231 retard in the first place. The notion of an "empire" is completely incoherent once you know enough about history. Places called Kingdoms have fit the traditional definition of empires, and places called empires, the traditional definition of kingdoms. Then theres Chinese Dynasties which some people only consider select dynasties empires, despite later dynasties actually holding more territory than the Han Dynasty.The right thing to do is not play the definition game. I guarantee the retard youre replying to does not understand enough history to even have this discussion, so he hides between the normative power of the "empire" definition and constantly appeals to it while not having to demonstrate any actually significant understanding of what an "Empire" is.
>a classic fairytale world, with heroic Arthurian characters>suddenly a force that doesnt belong in this world appears, everything about it is wrong, and the characters are tasked with defeating something that doesnt even follow the rules of the settingDo you guys have any reccomendations for something in that vein? The setting HAS to be very much high fantasy fairytale dreamlike for me to be interested in it however
>>25599067much like anne leckie, becky chambers has done untold damage to science fiction, we may well never recover
>>25599067The Conquest of Earth by Greenanon
>>25602544"Excession" by Iain Banks. In the distant future, where the problems of humanity have been all but solved, something arrives that's beyond their understanding, disturbing their orderly, predictable lives.
>>25602544so the yuuzhan vong invasion line of star wars eu books
>>25602544Deltora Quest (but it's for children so your mileage may vary)
>>25602948Don't.
>>25602948This always sounded like kino to me, is it actually good?
>>25603132It's lengthy, anon. I liked it when I was a teenager, but haven't read it since.You need prior knowledge to fully enjoy it IIRC. It includes the widely mocked death of Chewbacca. Mocked because retards who've never read it make it sound dumb, but it's actually a great scene.
>>25603132I liked it as a teen. Not because it was edgy, but because it was cool to see the galactic total war that was theoretically possible in the universe. You only get a small glimpse of it in the movies with the Death Star.
>>25602544Aenerion and Caledor facing the initial Daemonic Invasion of the Old World in Warhammer Fantasy. The book that actually delves into it is slop though.
>straight up lying to the reader about a character's thoughts and mental state so you can shock them with a twist the character was in on the whole timeKinda gay and bullshit. Why does pierce brown keep doing this?
>>25603298If you're talking about the very end of a certain book, it's the last time he does it to my recollection.
Anyone know any fantasy with good combat, ones that actually have magic being utilized; I've been reading too many character-pieces lately and wish for some action>INB4 SandersonYeah, someone else
>>25603366I can't imagine a sane person would ever recommend sanderson for good combat. I still cringe when I think back on the DBZ dream battle he stuck at the end of WoT, a series noted for its realistic battles written by a combat veteran.
>>25603366yes but he's on the banned list
I need a book that is like elden ring
>>25603405you mean a book that after you finish reading it you have no idea what happened or what it was about?
>>25603412yes, please
>>25603405https://comic-walker.com/detail/KC_005312_S?episodeType=first
>>25603366there is The Paladins by David Dalglish, although these books display more paladins in action rather than wizardsother novels of the same setting, written by the same author, show wizards, like The Half-Orcs (although I dropped this one after the second book cuz the mc was damn stupid and made me angry)
>>25603420Beyond Apollo it is!
Words of Radiance is still good. Really curious when Sanderson went to shit.
>>25603452The only way to truly know is to find out for yourself.
>>25596399what should I expect from Red Rising?
>>25603513YA male power fantasy schlock filled with tropes and eye rolling plot twists. The writing and dialogue in the first trilogy has some awful and cringe moments, but the author notably refines his writing as the series progresses. If you want to give it a generous attempt, finish book 2 and see if you want to continue.
>>25603529So why is everyone here constantly talking about it?
>>25603544because its obviously one of the most popular recent scifi series
>>25603544Because the author is secretly a chud that inadvertently promotes eugenics.
>>25602544you know where arthurian mythos comes from right? there is plenty of arthurian literature you can actually read.anyway beyond two fires is written for dark souls fans who have never read anything other than the berserk manga so i always suggest that
>>25603555does MC have sex?Either way, I told gemini I liked LOGH and give me recommendation, so it gave Red Rising, not sure how that computes
>>25603544>hurr durr why does everyone discuss this incredibly popular book seriesit's bro-lit made for the lowest common denominator male that doesn't read but wants to pull a reader gf, in the same vein as dungeon crawler carl.
>>25603571if you're so retarded you have to ask gemini for book recommendations you're already not gonna make it.>anime fanchecks out
>>25603576>>anime fan>he think LOGH is an anime original and not based on a massive novel seriesHow embarrassing for you
>>25603576shut the fuck up and stop being mean to a nigga that just wants to read something good, kill yourself bitch nigga>>25603571gemini failed you, even for anime slop, LOGH is leagues above what Red Rising offers.
>>25603571Red Rising is just Gundam but from the perspective of Char Aznable and the Gundam suits are replaced with genetic augmentation and power armor until actual gundams get developed. Blend in some Mao Zedong biography and Chinese history from 1937-1949 and that encapsulates the entire series.
Tanaka also wrote Tytania and some mad man translated it 4 months agohttps://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Tytania:Volume_1_Prologue
whats the best cyberpunk book you've ever read among those you've already read?
>>25603513The first book feels like Hunger Games for boys. But thankfully the plot pivots to a lot more interesting political and military stuff in book 2, Golden Son. It's a lot of mind games, intrigue, spying, backstabbing, and so on. The first trilogy is actually a fairly complete story on its own, but the later books continue it, and really drive home the suffering. Cause man there is a lot of suffering in these books.
>>25603582Should I watch gundam?I saw War In Pocket and two episodes of the OG Gundam. Had to stop watching after episide 2 after I realize is just going to battle of week-like show
>>25603571AI will provide the most popular recent novels written for or by women, lgbtqp+, and minorities. It should not be used for actual recommendations without very serious prompt engineering, and even then most will still give the same popular romantasy slop.
>>25603571Red Rising doesn't really get to LoGH's discourses on politics or war. It's a lot more Game of Thronesy in its tendency to pull shocking betrayals and twists out of a hat whenever things seem like they're settling down. And yes, I meant GoT the TV show not the books, because the books were not nearly as tawdry as the show in that regard. But Darrow, the MC for the first 3 books, does indeed have sex. He also has kids.
>>25603589I'm not a huge Gundam fan but I liked the Thunderbolt manga. There is an anime OVA which covers like 10% of the story and goes out of its way to make the protagonist look like a sociopath when he's more nuanced in actuality.
>>25603589Gundam is mostly a drama with not as much giant robot fighting as you'd expect for a franchise famous for its giant robots. I actually got into Gundam because of its political drama. I don't really get the appeal of giant robots. They're there, if you like them, but the characters and the politics are solid. The original series though has a weird tone because it was trying to do a fairly mature political conflict, while still having the trappings of daytime kid shows. So the bad guys dress up in colorful costumes and have an over the top cartoony bad guy aesthetic, and the overall structure of the show follows a familiar "bad guy of the week" formula, but the underlying conflict is surprisingly nuanced, and the characters are surprisingly deep. Even the supposedly stock bad guys have more going on than they seem.
guin saga
>>25603597>And yes, I meant GoT the TV show not the books, because the books were not nearly as tawdry as the show in that regardThe Books are even worse about the Dothraki making no sense than the show is, and thats not saying much because both are bad depictions of exactly what retarded white americans think any historical civilization that wasnt medieval europe is.
>>25603610>political dramaThat's the sauce of everything. GURM's slop about the dragons and ice zombie is slop compared to political drama.
>>25603620That has approximately nothing to do with the substance of my post but okay.
>>25602544This nigga has never heard of Sword & Sorcery lol
>>25603620GURM was so desperate to make sure his not-Mongols wouldn't be see as not-Mongols he replaced horsearchers with the retarded blade.I have no idea how Dothrakia could conquer most of essoss with that retarded blade
>>25603660He's an Egyptophile like Napoleon
>>25603660Which is exactly why when retarded GRRM fanboys with zero critical thinking skills go "But george wrote that the free cities are scared of the Dothraki and pay them tributes, so that means they totally make sense like real steppe societies!" GRRM fans are increasingly becoming as dumb as pop lit fans to me, the same crowd that is too stupid to realize that the text cannot serve as evidence because the text is circular. The textbis allowed to sayvthe dothraki have curved blades, while at the sane time pretending they pose a threat to any civilized kingdom or empire. The only retards that buy that kind of nonsense are those that don't know enough to question it in the first place,or those who have decided george can be retarded with his world building aslong as the vistas are described with enough detail and the mysteries remain.
Pagespammer doesn't read for entertainment.
>>25603752Originally, the purpose of books was to transmit information and understanding without needing to be repeated, and that could be stored abd revisited as originally laid down. But I guess sone will appeal to the "but camfire stories!!!" theory
>>25603589I've only seen Gundam Wing. Can't remember shit from it except that the opening was animekino.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNJ4aBoRipg>JUST WILD BEAT>COMMUNICATIOOON
>>25603769You remind me of Arthur Schopenhauer seething about his mom writing the literary equivalent of romantasy slop of his time period, except in your case it comes across as pathetic because you're probably 2-3 IQ standard deviations below him and haven't written anything of note.
>>25603769That was never the purpose of speculative fiction, or most fiction for that matter.
>>25603584>https://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Tytania:Volume_1_PrologueIt begins with a similar infodump as LOGH. Very Tanaka...>there was a unified Earth Government, but it became overextended, causing issueIn LOGH, the Galactic Federation became ineffective, allowing pirates to wreak havoc, which then let Rudolf Goldenbaum pull a Pompey and eliminate them. It made him popular, let him enter politics, and reform the Federation into the Galactic Empire.In Tytania, instead of pirates, the Earth Government just shattered into 10,000 city planets. That consolidated into 300 countries in the next century. And half of those countries formed the Interstellar City League.Haven't read the rest of the prologue, but I presume the Interstellar City League is another FPA, and non-members were conquered by an empire.
>>25603973The Tytania anime was meh.
>>25604000watching itI heard they changed a lot of from the novels to make it more conventional
>>25603420"Ubik" by PKD it is!
>>25603589Yes. It's definitely a product of its time and has trappings of it (the cheesy opening, Katz/Letz/Kikka) along with a shoestring budget, but there's a reason it basically created a genre. The writing is consistently solid and has more subtlety than it lets on. Bright's a good example - a lot of his behavior (like slapping Amuro for having a breakdown of his own) stems from him only being 19 and ending up in a command role in an extemely high-pressure scenario by pure coincidence, but the show doesn't constantly exposit about his inexperience.I won't call it super highbrow or anything but Tomino has his reputation for good reason. >>25603790Wing's fucking stupid but also extremely stylish
>>25604231I did notice it has a lot corpres and logistic, at least it seems to.Not really what I expected. The 70s anime had little censorship, it seems.
Test
What am I to expect?
>>25604452I thought it was like something Douglas Adams would write, if he were bitter and cynical. I enjoyed it greatly.
>>25596626Was on a Banks binge>The State of the Art>Excession>I don't know yet, a bit tired of Culture for now, perhaps I'll read Jurassic Park or Sanderson (Fires of December)
>>25604586
>>25604576>BanksI miss him bros
>>25604186You're still in it.
>>25604472So Mostly Harmless-era Adams?>enjoyed itWell now I'm confused because bitter and cynical Douglas Adams doesn't make for a great read.
>>25604576>ExcessionI tried reading this as I was told it's a good entry point into the Culture books, but I find all of the characters very annoying.
