/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

>Admittedly, weird pale girl and the magic system are interesting enough, in my opinion.
There's a standalone novel about a day in her life.
The Slow Regard of Silent Things

I just finished
>RingWorld Engineers
Larry Niven really fucking dropped.

>Listen to some Sanderson stuff by graphicaudio
>Holy shit 10/10 god tier
>Look at the rest of their catalog
>mfw

Man these guys need to expand their operations. Their stuff is so far ahead of regular audiobooks it's not even funny.

Kvothe reveals that he's just Rothfuss in disguise and an attempt to be the most pretentious Gary Stue ever. Then he kills himself.

i hate graphic audio personally.
all the shit in the background and the sound effects are distracting.
i listen to audiobooks so i can actually do other things like playing a game or working on something. i seriously hope there isnt going to be more graphic audio novels.

>ever listening to audiobooks
>literally too stupid to read

nowadays i prefer audiobooks to actual books.
i dont have the time to actually read a book anymore plus call me childish or a faggot. but i like it when narrators do the voices.

how can you have time for audiobooks and not actual books? if anything, audiobooks are read slower than if you read it yourself.

if you're just listening to audiobooks while you do other things, then I don't get the point either, as it quickly turns into background noise that you're not paying any attention to.

t. Brainlet incapable of multitasking

Audiobooks are top tier, shame your miniscule brain can't focus on two things.

>if you're just listening to audiobooks while you do other things, then I don't get the point either, as it quickly turns into background noise that you're not paying any attention to.

not my fault if you lack the brain capacity to do things while listening to something but yes thats actually how i do things.
i can listen to audiobooks while working and in transit or when i play videogames and because of that i have plenty of time for my family.

you should really start doing it. maybe initially it becomes background noise to you but after a while it actually helps you subconsciously to train the ability to multitask.

go forth and elevate yourself from brainlet status.

damn, I never knew listening to fantasy audiobooks while playing video games was the sign of an intellectual

Just finish Oathbringer, that was pretty fun but man Shallan went off the deep end in to crazy town holy shit.

Cool strawman, my condolences for your lack of thinking capacity.

Pic related, it's us trying to find your brain.

>the multimeme
When will they learn?

She's a particularly special case of a knight radiant. Her abilities are insane, literally summoned an army of illusions that even had weight to them, and made realistic sounds, blood splatter, everything, but so is she it seems.

Unfortunately when it comes to pretty much anyone and anything besides Dalinar's story, this book was mainly set up for the next one. We'll be getting lots of juicy scenes in, hopefully, 3 years.

>Man these feelings are really confusing. I better do some real self reflecting and figure out what I want from life
>Oh wait I can just shove those feelings into one of my alternate personalities :^)
Chick is completely fucking insane, Adolin deserves better.

So I just finished Mistborn and actually really liked it. I looked up the sequel and read the plot summary, and Vin ends up betraying Ellend for his insane brother. Something like she agreed to become his lover and escape with him.

What the actual fuck? Can someone explain that to me? Maybe it’s not as bad as it seems but it feels like a complete reversal of her characterization. I couldn’t imagine Vin from book 1 doing something so treachorus and cold.

Elend fell in love with Valette, Vin is afraid that he'll never understand and love her Skaa street urchin and assassin side. His secret Mistborn brother seems like a better match, and she's a confused 15 year old.
That's the setup, now go read the actual book. Not as good as first, but the third book makes up for it with even more ANIME.

Literally never posted in a general in my life so just popping in to say hi.

Anyone have tips of other book that WOT where the protag starts as a ordinary human and across the book he becomes a powerful being who has soldiers who praise him as a god on earth?

Hello, please stay and read a while :3

Someone talk about Oathbringer with me so I can keep prolonging the slippery slope that will be the forum trawls. Here's some random shit I noticed or have questions about because I'm an autist who took notes as I went through the book (won't include everything):

>another Southern Scadrian
>musicspren following Ryshadium
>Honor's Drop gem (why is this important and what even is it)
>is Heightening the most common form of Investiture?
>was that aluminum falling from the sky in ch. 1000?
>where does Investiture coalesce (regarding spren creation)
>can Kaladin access Fortune somehow?

Breaths are probably the most convenient to use. Allomancy and Feruchemy are lineage bound and highly specific, AonDor is region specific, Surgebinding hasn't happened in a long time and is location bound through spren, and Autonomy is severely autistc and doesn't let anyone into his system.
9/10 times you see someone walking around Invested they're using Breaths.

Literally the definition of Book of the New Sun.

Yeah, Breaths are kind of a given since most everyone (on Nalthis) is born with one.

As a fan of the games I've heard a lot of polarizing opinions on the books. Is it worth reading /sffg/?

>tfw no dryad gf

Why is kokor hekkus an arab?

>Book of the New Sun.
FUCK OFF Veeky Forums

Mad Rand/Lewis Therin was the best part of WoT

BREAK ITBREAK ITBREAK IT NOW

Kneel
or be kneelt

I'm still sad that Jordan never got to write Veins of Gold.

Best part of the whole series. Fuck Aes Sedai, seeing them btfo was dank as fuck.

>tfw reading his last interview about plans for new series and side stories for WoT

The better question is what could have been improved in Oathbringer.
> Decrease the time spent in the city,
so much of it was filler, Shallan's stint as Veil literally did nothing, Kaladin just stormed the palace anyway with Azure
> More interludes about Teft. Definitely needed at least one to two more chapters,
because goddamn the addiction to firemoss was introduced so suddenly it's insane
> Wanted more training interludes with Szeth and Skybreakers. Not really needed,
but I wanted more wargames damn it
> Sanderson introduced Rock's family and never went back to them, should have had more chapters with them

the good die young

What the fuck is with the skybreakers anyway? The way they're written it seems like I could just walk up and say journey before destination and become a goddamn anime wizard.

Szeth went from 0-max in like six days

Yeah, city had a lot of filler in it. Teft, of all people, becoming the Windrunner was bizarre in itself.
I wonder what will happen with Rock. His family should have been consoling him in his end scene.

Szeth wasn't green either, baka. They specifically mention how they expect him to go faster.

You can't escape the middle child syndrome. I think despite everything Sanderson did a good job expanding the scope, setting up for a finale and still providing a good self-contained story.
>tfw Rock won Amaram's shards and is now king of the Peaks

Speaking of, I can't wait to see Kaladinville next book.

Oh yeah. Did anyone else notice an obscene overusage of italics? Almost one word a page or two pages was italicized then it got heavy as hell toward the end, almost as if I'm having my hand held and being forced to pay attention to that specific bit. I mean, I'm okay with them but this is too much.

Sure, but... It just seemed so underdeveloped compared to everything else. Like... dalinar seems pretty good, hey nale, mind if I swear this oath? Yeah go for it famalam.
Cool
Hey now I have super duper magic

>that pic
HOLY SHIT What the stormfather said makes sense. Lift's spren is cultivation herself. That was how she was able to steal gawx from Dalinar's vision.
Cultivation is growing things.

I'm really not sure how to feel about Wise Man's Fear. I think the 300 pages of tracking the bandits followed by copious banal sex with Felurian put the nail in the coffin for me. Which is a shame, because I actually enjoyed the part in the first book where Kvothe and Denna were in the forest with the dragon, as well as all the money managing and poverty at the university. But now I'm bored as hell. If this is Rothfuss writring for adults it misses the mark.

I kind of liked how straightforward they were, not pussyfooting around like all the other orders. Here is the list of oaths you can take, do 'em in your own time. In the meantime you can hang out and do mini challenges.

Unless Cultivation is a super good actor I think Wyndles a normal spren. Lift's weird powers probably come from whatever the Nightmother did to her.

where is CASfag? did you guys drive him away with all your Sanderson talk?

Keep reading Wolfe familiar.

Probably lurking. He was re-reading BotNS last time I saw him.

>ATTN: VIEbro
Today we have three works by K. J. Parker, which is a nom de plume of one Tom Holt who hails from the least bonny part of the isles. I'll sandwich the novellas around the novel. The applicable genre is the same for all works but which subgenre it should be is less clear to me. The settings are consistently medieval but not Earth history, so fantasy would seem to be the filter that catches them all.
>"Purple and Black" (2009)
This novella is formatted as a series of dispatches between an emperor and a governor, reminiscent of the design of "The Screwtape Letters". In broad strokes, the plot consists of a group of college chums, one of whom inherits the purple by fluke and subsequently recruits the rest of the gang into acting as his ministers with the aim of setting matters aright, where the right is what they can remember from haranguing each other over beer and homework.
The dispatches open with a humorous tone before taking an ominous turn. The format worked quite well for a short novella with perhaps only a bit of a stumble at the end as the paradigm constrains the story.
Readable but not much to specifically recommend here: it's not detailed enough for military fiction fans and the setting is too generic and non-magical for a general fantasy recommendation. (I suppose I could make a specious argument that the wish fulfillment inherent to the plot is ideal for Sanderson/a/v/ fans.)

>"The Company" (2008)
This novel opens with a good punch: dry gallows humor and a promising plot consisting of a famous general coming home to put the band back together. Unfortunately the story wanders off-tempo thereafter, muddling about far too long in humdrum verses about arranged marriages and ideal republic colonies. There's panning for gold afterwards so it's not all bad news.
This book would likely appeal most to a medieval warfare fan with the descriptions of pike battles or so I imagine, not being one myself. I'm not too sure what to make of it otherwise: it shares the group of schoolchums theme with "Purple and Black" along with the outcome, which makes for depressing repetition.

>"Blue and Gold" (2010)
This time the novella is in first-person narrative with a dash of unreliability. Correlating nicely with the chronological timeline of the three works, I found this to be the most interesting read in both style and substance (excepting the first chapter of "The Company"). This time our allstar alchemist hero is solo, only this time he's trying to escape the college buddies. I found the alchemy descriptions entertaining. The ending hasn't changed much for 2010 though; Parker must have some deep-seated grudges against his college bros.

Parker uses a modern informal voice in all of these works, perhaps somewhat less so in "The Company". Given the medieval settings, it seems a little odd at first but I didn't find it jarring. There is profanity scattered throughout but--sadly for our resident vicarious degenerates--no GRI.
Overall the sense I get is that Parker is chronicling the misadventures of his college libertarian Warhammer 40k group. That sounds sillier than I mean though as his writing is pleasant with flashes of excellence at times. I could do with less of the bland philosophy and more detail, whether it's pre-Industrial warfare, alchemy, or colonisation. Perhaps that will come with time.

HURP DE DURP IF THESE POORLY WRITTEN BOOKS OF FICTION TURN OUT TO BE FICTION WITHIN FICTION, IT'LL BE GOOD

Rothfuss apologists, everyone.

I liked that novella quite a lot. Didn't like Lift in WoR, but she grew in Edgedancer.

As for what the Nightmother did to Lift... I'm really starting to think she is an Eternal Child. Like her age was regressed and locked that way by her wish or something.

It's outright stated that she is stuck at that age thanks to the Nightmother.

Yeah, she wished "not to change", which is a strange thing to ask of a god who's main thing is exactly the opposite. She's obviously got some weird stuff going with her powers as a result, but similarly to how Dalinar's regained his memories, she's starting to lose her wish too.

Remember that their Order didn't die during the gap between the last Desolation (or the past Desolations?) so they'll be a bit more streamlined too.

I'm interested in what Lift's connection with Cultivation is, overall, since she could tamper with Odium's visions. Her metabolism of Stormlight is definitely unique and from the Nightwatcher.

OP you forgot to randomize the capitalization in /sffg/ to get around that one guy's thread filter.

Someone went to sprentown and fucked cultivation. Lift is the end result.

Shhhhhheeiiittt

parker is one of my favorites
but I don't like the trilogies that much (except two of swords)
sharps and savages are probably the best books he's published

I know licensed books are a mark of plebhood but I'm reading the Darth Bane trilogy at the moment and really enjoying it.

>dalinar away from 4 years
>has a baby less than 2 years old
KEKOLD

>"Sharps" (2012)
>"Savages" (2015)
Dovetails nicely with my theory that he is getting better with time. I'll test it; thanks.

Any books with sympathetic female nonhuman characters?

Just read the four in this series.
Wish it would have ended a bit stronger

Swordfuckers Archive: He Fucks His Sword

I'm confused. That sounds like some Xenoblade 2 shit.

I'm re-reading Sword Of The Lictor, which could be finished by the weekend. Frankly, it has a slower start than Shadow + Claw. After that, I have HG Wells' The Time Machine on the pile, a big gap in my reading that I'd like to correct, no excuses at 120 pages; alternatively, a volume of Robert E Howard's Solomon Kane short stories to begin reading between CAS. I think I will prefer it to Conan. Other reading choices; a Poul Anderson/Fritz Leiber TOR double (No Truce With Kings/Ship Of Shadows) , a bunch of Moorcock's Elric novels, Inferno by Jerry Pournelle. I only became aware of the last book by Brandon Sanderson's gushing recommendation and it promises to be at least diverting, a whimsical-sounding story about a science fiction author who lands in Dante's Inferno.

>oathbringer has another autistic digression to explain illogical world building

It's like Brandon was reading forums and writing explanations in response questions and criticism into the narrative. True autism

>oathbringer
>had since release
>just finished part 2
>one week later
>not even halfway through the book
Just kill me now

i don't even give a shit about this series anymore, and fuck Rothfuss, he's going to pull the doublecross and rake in a shitton of money from TV/film before he ever considers releasing book 3, and he's already raking it in with the 10th anniersay NOTW
i won't pretend i'm not gonna read it when it finally does come out, but who cares anymore.
Lightning Tree was a satisfying enough conclusion for me, Bast is cooler than Kvothe anyway

Just downloaded pic related. What can I expect? Is it as dank as his other stuff?

Been there bro. I been there.

this okay?

>kid MC
>villain attacks them on the street
>guy pulls up in a car and yells "I'm a wizard, no time to explain"
>character runs away from both of them
>10 pages later MC loses parents because they didn't get in the car and has to be rescued by the wizard
>200 pages later it turns out if they had gotten in the car in the first place they would have been killed in a botched kidnapping

No.

Expect a shit ton of police procedure and trying to figure out where that one car went. I'd say it's more focused and down to earth than Commonwealth Saga or The Reality Dysfunction (haven't read the other Night's Dawn books) and builds up into something like Predator meets The Thing. I liked it.

Also he uses WTF in his prose at one point, didn't see that one coming.

Demandred's adventures in Shara, finding love and almost release from his eternal obsession with Lewis Therin, is the best part and we did not even get to read about them.

kek..

anyway

The dragon's dogma map clearly leaves plenty to the imagination, you're aware there's an entire world outside the story that's basically irrelevant to it. This is what my story is like as well, it's all set in a beach town and none of the world building really matters for the story.

But in a few instances where I have to reference things, like history, other towns, the ruling king etc. I have to name things. I hate generic fantasy sperg names e.g. Kalthan, Zuhn, Xenross etc. etc. (I just made them up but seriously every book has them, just retarded "cool" sounding names). So anyway I'm just using normal names, but my problem comes down to cities, in a few instances I have had to reference certain cities and a one time a country. For now I am just using the real life names of cities and towns from country as placeholders and I'm thinking about keeping these just because fuck it but it could end up being super confusing and weird. How should I approach towns if they matter fuck all except to paint a picture?

The premise won't last for 20 pages, let alone 200. Add it to your ideas file and move on to better ideas.

goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-fantasy-books-2017

Are any of these books good? Maybe the Sanderson one?

>dragon's dogma
my nigga

>Schwab
I've read her Vicious books but not that one (the summary was offputting). The prose is actually not bad and the plot was pretty good but the characterisation was pretty juvenile in places. I may end up reading Conjuring if I really run out of books.

>Bear and Nightingale
Excellent prose, excellent worldbuilding but I hate fairy tales as they tend to feel thoroughly unoriginal in the ending. It's essentially an upgraded version of Uprooted with more bulletproof and interesting worldbuilding. Good but definitely by no means the best.

>Oathbringer
If you have read Sanderson's stuff before, it's more of the same - lots of plot, positive outlooks on life, fun worldbuilding but very bland prose. My pick.

>The Stone Sky
The first two books were great, Stone Sky is unfortunately quite predictable with no crazy plot twists and I thought it could have still used more of two characters. I also thought that the scifi sections were juvenile and spoiled the mystery due to the amount of spoonfeeding that the author thought that the audience needed. Fantasy sections were great, as always but predictable.

>Robin Hobb
In my opinion, I dropped the first book of the series because I felt that the protagonist did nothing except get bullied by the author.

My pick for the science fiction section was Thrawn. Zahn writes a lot like Sanderson (lots of plot twists, bland prose, characters who might be antagonists but also have enormous positivity.) I'm also disappointed that Pellaeon didn't appear in that Thrawn novel.

I'm going to say that my favourite 2017 books were With Blood Upon the Sand (fantasy) and Seven Surrenders (scifi). Both feel fairly mature in terms of ideas, prose, plot, characterisation and all the things that make great books tick, but ordinarily I won't read a huge number of books published in the current year if I'm not already following the series.

There are a lot of shit books that get high GR ratings without being good and you never know unless you choose to expose yourself to that shittery.

>Got spoiled about Kaladin dying
>Finish the book
>Kaladin doesn't actually die

Oathbringer could have honestly been condensed into a book half its size just by pruning all the totally irrelevant paragraphs like Dalinar checking his stupid watch and having a monologue about being early for meetings the umpteenth time.

You don't care about Veil feeding the poor, user?

You gotta put shit in that autists would go over religiously in hopes that it's a Easter egg about later books.
>tfw I can't type easter egg without thinking of ready player one

The third Farseer trilogy sucked. It really should have ended on that scene at the end of the second trilogy where Fitz has a private drink with Ketriken. It was a perfect place for it to end and she and Fitz had great chemistry.
The new trilogy was just melodramatic misery porn that ended on a massive downer.