/an/imals Edition
>What are you reading?
>What's it about?
>Last book you read with weird animals/biology/fauna
FANTASY
Selected:
>imgoat.com
General:
>imgoat.com
Flowchart:
>imgoat.com
SCIENCE FICTION
Selected:
>imgoat.com
>imgoat.com
General:
>imgoat.com
>imgoat.com
NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Books:
>imgoat.com
SF&F author listing with ratings and summaries (incomplete, mostly pre-Millenium):
>greatsfandf.com/authors-full-list.php
Previously In Threads:
first post best post
The Decline and Fall of the Book Cover
newyorker.com
>I was a nerdy sci-fi-reading kid in the seventies. The so-called golden age of book and magazine illustration had died out some decades earlier, with the advent of color photography and improved print reproduction, but superb illustration was still thriving in the marginal niches of pulp and genre covers. Richard Powers, who illustrated the cover of what seemed like every science fiction paperback published in the nineteen-sixties, was influenced by surrealists like Roberto Matta and Yves Tanguy, and painted landscapes where monumental amorphous forms stood like alien architecture or colossal carcasses on indistinct plains. Ian Miller’s covers for Bantam’s editions of Ray Bradbury looked as though they were drawn by a lunatic imprisoned with only a straight edge and a compass—mechanical fantasias of girders and circuitry enclosing grotesque, half-molten faces. This was also a time when the aesthetics of psychedelia were filtering down into children’s pop culture, so that my editions of C. S. Lewis’s Christian allegories and John Christopher’s juvenile science fiction looked as if they were painted by Peter Max, every object seemingly sculpted out of foam. The blowing of minds was an artistic priority.
>Or you can be an angry autist and hate it because its not perfect, going through your life unable to understand why people like things and don't hate everything as much as you do.
wow, you had a good argument going until you started blatantly putting words in my mouth.
meant for
If that description doesn't apply to you, disregard.
I know too many of those latter types in meatspace. It's something of a sore point.
What's the worst recent sff cover? Bakker's angry dinner plate covers?
>start reading a new fantasy/science fiction book
>immediately get assaulted by terms, names and phrases which are meant to sound strange and new and fascinating, but it all becomes a meaningless word salad instead
Why do authors do this?
They haven't learned how to effectively deliver information without overwhelming the audience. It's something every SFF author has to learn sooner or later.
But there are some special headcases that think machinegunning all their wacky proper nouns is "immersive" or something.
...
Thinking of picking this up. Is it any good?
yes
Elaborate
no
Fuck you
maybe?
That's more like it
I just don't know anymore.
worth?
I think it is. Have you read Blood Song?
No. I should?
Yes, if you had already read Blood Song and didn't care for it I imagine you wouldn't like Waking Fire.
I found them very different desu
Blood Song is a great book whose sequels collapse because they clearly weren't planned for whilst Waking Fire is less blow you away but it sets up a series that so far is consistent in quality.
I've been very interested in the 40k universe lately, and I have yet to read any of the books. Should I start with the Horus Heresy? Also, is there anywhere I can get good audiobooks of them? They don't seem to be on audible
Anyone got some recommendations of rather hard sci-fi novels with interesting world building and concepts that weren't done to death already?
Pic related.
Read Eisenhorn first, Dan Abnett's probably the best writer they have and he has more creative freedom on that trilogy than on the big event stuff.
And look at Veeky Forums when I read Warhammer stuff I found it on there so if there's audiobooks they'll know/have them
>reading a bunch of goodreads pages to see blurbs of books that aren't on wikipedia
>getting genuinely angry at how bad the top review always is
I shouldn't care
the gif infested ones are a special type of cancer
The stories are different yes but the prose/writing style is similar.
I don't know
>Thee Body Trilogy - Liu Cixin
This one seems to be hit or miss, but feels genuinely fresh, if really "foreign" at times.
>Manifold trilogy, Xeelee Sequence, - Stephen Baxter
Also check out his official sequels to The Time Machine and War of the Worlds
>Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts.
This one's a bit reddit-y at times. Blindsight fucking has a line that reads "from Plato to
Descartes to Dawkins" but they're a solid read and can get fucking disturbing.
It's near future but Infomacracy is pretty unique
The downward trajectory of Dawkins' respectability is fucking hilarious
rose tinted glasses on there. for every interesting cover art there were a thousand that wouldn't be doing the book justice. it's exactly like today, except that back then the bad covers were incredibly camp, and now they just look cheap
...
Campy covers are still better than photographs of brooding guys.
>doesn't like the brooding male
I don't like it when it's a photograph/ultra realism photoshop style.
I kinda disagree. At least as a child I'd have been more turned off by something utra camp than something ultra commercial like that. And while adults might not like shitty covers, we know better than to decide our books on it
>pc crashes whilst books are moving to kindle
>upon restart plugging in kindle causes pc to crash
>have to factory reset kindle and repair it for it to work when plugged in again
I wanted to read for like an hour before bed and I've spent like 70 minutes on this shit, fuck near future we're living in a dystopia now
Can you repeat the question?
How can "Elves are vegetarians" and "Elves are excellent archers" archetypes be reconciled in fantasy? What do the average elves need to have excellent archery skills for if not to shoot animals to eat?
I'll second the Three Body Problem series. It can be hard to get into at the start, the early translation is stiff and the characters are seldom more than two dimensional, but it deals with some genuinely interesting takes on first contact and the coexistence of interstellar societies.
who says elves are vegetarian?
Scared of dying but live forever so they want a distance weapon that can be mastered over time.
Live in woods so it's a natural ranging weapon, they don't hunt for hood but do scare off predators
At the end of the day there's people irl who are good at fishing but don't eat fish
Tolkien
There's two tropes since then, either vegetarian or cannibalistic, imo the more animalistic take is more interesting
>What are you reading?
Malazan of the Fallen, book two: Deadhouse gates
>What's it about?
I'm about 250 pages in, and so far I know there's a reverse holy grail quest that got a lady killed, but turned her spirit into a whirlwind. Also a girl who became a drug addicted whore. I'm quite frankly surprised that a PoV character became as such. Not that it's enjoyable to see, but from a detached view it's impressive the author was able to make a character as such sympathetic.
>>Last book you read with weird animals/biology/fauna
This current book, kind of. There are D'ivers and Soletaken, which haven't really been elaborated on too well, so I looked it up, and basically D'ivers (notice the plural) are shapeshifters who can turn their one being into many animals, and soletaken turn their one being into one animal. Is pretty neat.
>posting /v/ nudes in /sffg/
Please don't do this. Find some racy book covers if you must. At least it will be topical.
do vegetarian elves still use materials like leather, bone, and sinew?
What did you like about the book you posted? I've never even heard of it.
Tolkien's elves weren't vegetarian, the association with bows is because they hunted game in the woods.
Elven vegetarianism is a minor but illustrative example of presentism. In reality they would view the harvesting of wild animals as no different than the harvesting of mushrooms or tree bark, something to be done with a correct degree of respect for nature/Yavanna/forest spirits. However that viewpoint is so alien to unread moderns who associate meat consumption with (probably) factory farming, (maybe) Hindoo taboos, or (comedy option) kashrut, Oy Vey! that "close to nature" gets translated into "they don't eat meat".
Isn't this highly accurate though? I read a synopsis of the plot (after watching The Dark Tower and wondering what in the ever loving fuck was going on) and in this book the protags are attacked by warriors that have Dr.Doom-like helmets and wield lightsabers and use quidditch balls (yes, this is not a joke)
I think Dark Tower just goes batshit crazy at some point with weirdo references to other literature and pop culture and it even has Stephen King as himself in the books at some point, its just crazyness.
So yeah, accurate cover.
>accurate
Who cares if it is or isn't, it has shit-tier animation that doesn't even looked it finished properly rendering.
>ywn read Lilith for the first time again
>making me want to fuck sonic
You faggots go to no lengths to turn e everyone a fagget.
Are their any sci fi authors who talk about the folly of uptopian futures?
How logic, industry and science arent a wellspring for humanity?
watch Texhnolyze
It just seems to me that utopian futures read like the soviet union. I have to wonder how many dead bodies they are hiding.
I'm assuming you don't mean straight-out dystopias.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Aurora comes to mind. The message is you can't escape, so make the best of what you've been given.
What's some realistic space sci-fi you've read? I don't even care about good story or characters I just want to masturbate over cool realistic spaceships. I don't think somebody has ever made space combat without cheating on the propulsion and I'd be extremely happy to find something that uses only plausible propulsion (no self-sustaining fusion or antimatter).
Also the idea that if you take away the base emotions, needs and impulses of man, that suddenly he will become enlightened. As if there were no logic in evil.
>What are you reading?
Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E Feist
>What's it about?
A magician's apprentice.
>Last book you read with weird animals/biology/fauna
Words of Radiance
Weird Flora/Fauna?
Area X for sure
The moon is a harsh mistress got pretty fucking boring. Fucker quoted Malthus, shit is dated as fug.
Tolkien's elves were not vegetarian. I strongly suspect you have never read Tolkien.
Thanks for reminding about this album-I have almost forgotten how shit most covers of that period back then were.Christ what was wrong with people in early 2000s?!I get that digital art was the hot new thing, but come the fuck on.
Fuck even proggy-piston garbage like pic-related looks gorgeous to this day.
>Ella Enchanted
>A girl who has to obey every order
>There are dragons in Dragon Flight
I kind of assumed they were just biologically herbivorous, and not hippies
Hello tv tropes
Hey guys, figured I'd post this here. Been trying to find the names of some books I read when I was younger for quite some time now. Some of which are scifi.
1.) Vampire book. Read this book in 7th grade so the details might be fuzzy but it was about a vampire living in England(?) who didn't know he was a vampire until he turned 18. His mother was one but didn't tell him for reasons I don't remember. After he finds out he is, she introduces him to some vampire group that try and get him to join in killings and such (could be wrong on this). He disagrees with them and runs away to New York and they kill his mom or something. The vampire head chases after him. Pretty sure it was new york because I do remember Hells Kitchen oddly enough. The book then ends with his girlfriend becoming a vampire too and both running away I think. Anyone know the name? I'm pretty it was directed for children although I could be wrong.
I could be wrong on some details, but any help would be appreciated. Also, I don't come to Veeky Forums much but is it okay to ask for help on remembering old books here? Not all the books I'm trying to remember are scifi so I was wondering if it was okay to make threads asking for help on remembering the name of books.
that sounds maddeningly familiar actually, but I can't place it. Also I assume it's not against the rules to start a thread on that subject, I would confine it to one "anons post books they're trying to remember, others name them" thread instead of a different thread for each book
Elves are highly spiritual beings that live in pseudoheaven. Don't be a fag and break it into biological factors you nerd
Thanks, I'll make a thread like that when I have a good description for all the books I'm trying to remember. It's a long list sadly.
Another book, this one a children's story I'm sure.
I read the third part of a trilogy cause I couldn't find the first two books. This book was about an alien species that had a head that looked like a bicycle helmet. They had conquered earth and at the time of the third book the MC was living underground for years after becoming trapped. He was living with some new intelligent species underground I think. He finally escapes and by accident stares at the sun on his way out and becomes completely blind. There was also another water like species that had been interbreeding with the remnants of humanity. MC joins a rebellion made of humans, the water species, and their mixed offspring to fight off the alien species. They succeed and at the end he meets up with his girlfriend who had been captured and tortured by the alien species years ago. That's all I remember.
reread the feast scenes agains fuckboy
there's no meat there
Aldoux Huxley's Brave New World, Walter Tevis' The Man Who Fell To Earth, and Mockingbird
Not SF but there's a lengthy part of Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground on this topic. Here, utopia isn't achievable because it assumes that man will act in his best interests; man has free well, including a will to act spitefully and destructively against his own interests; and man wouldn't be happy if he could just live comfortably and eat cake. Walter Tevis Mockingbird, in articular, is written along these lines. He depicts a future where automation has created comfortable lives and instant gratification, where robots govern and work for us, but people become sloth, illiterate and unhappy.
>I don't even care about good story or character
Just play flight and space sims
I didn't like The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress at all, and I like Heinein's simpler juveniles more.
>Just play flight and space sims
this, but with the addition of kill yourself
Is it good?
What do you think?
>this fucking book
I once tried to skimread this because I was writing a fanfic about pirates and didn't know anything about sailing. It is the most overly verbose and plotless book I've ever read, only read it if you want to know exactly how sailing works in the most minute detail, the landscape described to you at a sluggish pace and more about religion and its role in a fantasy history in an excruciatingly slow process.
Pic related (basically the entire novel)
That actually seems interesting, I like boats and nautical trivia! Though I read ACTUAL nautical journals for fun so I'm kindof an outlier.
You don't really know what parts they've made up and what parts are fictional.
I also downloaded John H. Harland Seamanship in the Age of Sail.pdf
Benerson Little-How History's Greatest Pirates Pillaged, Plundered, and Got Away with It_ The Stories, Techniques, and Tactics of the Most Feared Sea Rovers from 1500-1800-Fair Winds (2010).pdf
to find out a bit more about it
seems a lot of effort for fanfic
I didn't end up publishing the fanfic so I'm going to reuse bits of it for my original novel.
Forgive me if I'm wrong (I wonder if they go into further depth in the children of hurin) but I've gotten to the part in the silmarillion where Mîm and his sons were ambushed by túrin and he mentions the banished dwarves from the east who he descends from were hunted by elves (sindar)
>Before the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost came west over the mountains the Elves of Beleriand knew not what these others were, and they hunted them, and slew them; but afterwards they let them alone, and they were called Noegyth Nibin, the Petty-Dwarves, in the Sindarin tongue.
They weren't exactly the model naugrim you read about learning from the noldor or like those that fought glaurung, they're described as only caring for themselves and distrusting others but its strange how the elves went out of their way to hunt them.
imagine releasing a 10th anniversary edition of a novel when you haven't even completed the third book in the series
even more baffling is that some people will presumably buy this
barnesandnoble.com
Is Rothfuss even alive any more or is his death being hushed up to keep rereleasing Name of the Wind?
it doesn't even fucking work as a standalone
Modern fantasy authors never cease to amaze me, every fucking forum has a bunch of "Tor published authors" that speaks like their the next Tolkien, then you go to their goodreads page and they have one published novella with half the reviews (
This book kicks ass.
[] Nobles plotting each other's downfalls in endless feuds and imperial ambitions
[] Beautiful ladies who actually have sex with dudes instead of primping demurely
[] Wizardry that feels like wizardry instead of "I cast magic missile at the darkness"
[] Weird monsters
[] Wrastling
[] Sympathetic villains whose plans actually make sense
[] Consequences when the heroes do the wrong things
[] Bad ass songs about how salted beef is the best shit of all time
[] Awesome Jacobean repartee and puns
[] Inexorable cycles of fate
Tolkien's elves are definitely not all vegetarian, hunting is a major pastime of theirs and is not treated as wrong or bad at all. There are words for "vegetarian" in some vocab lists, and the green-elves of Ossiriand in the first age did not kill living things, but the mere fact that Tolkien mentions this shows that it was not usual for elves. From The Hobbit, when the dwarves stumble upon the elves feasting in the wood:
>There was a fire in their midst and there were torches fastened to some of the trees round about; but most splendid sight of all: they were eating and drinking and laughing merrily. The smell of the roast meats was so enchanting...
This really isn't that bad at all, never read Aubrey-Maturin books or you will melt away like the wicked witch of the west
>tfw no nienor sister gf
>tfw no idril cousin gf
>tfw no aredhel mummy gf
>tfw no haleth dom gf
Hobbit isn't canon
Are you retarded?
1) It's a bedtime story
2) Bilbao is a totally unreliable narrator
Read annihilation. It's not really that good, didn't scratch the STALKER itch. What should I read next?
That doesn't mean it isn't canon. Do you know what canon means?
tips about cyberpunk?