To-read list of game inspiration

We do a lot of fantasy and scifi lit echo chamber. But what's hot right now? What have you not read yet but know you have to?

Seveneves

The Dark Forest

Leviathan Wakes

Oryx and Crake

The Rhesus Chart
The Annihilation Score

The Winds of Winter (...)

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=WacguIyONoQ
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Edge Chronicles

Recently read "nevernight". It was probably a 4/10 honestly, felt a lot like YA fiction. I expected better from the presentation it had at the store

I've always wanted to get into the Culture.

The Golden Bough is outdated rubbish, but it's great for world building and inspiration.

I've been on and off trying to read "the grace of kings", has anyone read it? I wanna know if I should stick with it or pass it off to someone with more dead time

Best series

Which story is the best?

Winning the War, by Jaworski.

Help a lot to add multiple layers of plot within the plot of your plot and the nearby plots.
And how to burn down plots with plots.

Sharpes' Rifles.

It is entirely what Dan Abnett took Gaunts Ghosts from, except instead of a Chaos soldier being shopped with a power-sword of a Hive-City Lord it's a French soldier being bayonetted against a tree with a stolen cavalry saber.

Instead of Corbec you have a large angry drunken Irish feller named Harper who is like Rawne and Corbec rolled in to one.

Instead of Larkin you have Bagman who is otherwise literally the same.

You also have a tv series

youtube.com/watch?v=WacguIyONoQ

I actually have a setting based off of reading "Leviathan" by Hobbes

>A setting based off a political treatise


how?

No Machiavelli?

It's more of a literal setting involving "Bestowing all power to the head of the Leviathan". Has to do with an actual Leviathan rather than a metaphorical one.
I wouldn't even know where to begin as it would make the BBEG infallible

>an actual Leviathan
So it's more biblical than enlightened then?

A little of both. The Leviathan is actually the head of a country

S T O R M L I G H T A R C H I V E

>S T O R M L I G H T A R C H I V E

Kaladin the paladin

... from Taladin?

Disappointed not to see "Appendix N" here yet.

Brandon Sanderson . The Way of Kings
>Kaladin
- because of his innate honor and kindness in the face of the evil and betrayal that seem to surround him.

Kaladin the paladin

In particular Lord Dunsany. Dunsany practically WAS fantasy for thirty years before Tolkien, and then Burroughs (Tarzan, Pellucidar, Mars) was up there with Dunsany and Tolkien for the next thirty.

These days it's all "are we tolkien-clones, or are we inbred clone-of-clone incest-babies of tolkien-clones?"

Dresden Files

I really like his stuff on fae and other supernatural beings. Based on folklore.

More people need to read Gentleman Bastard. Who's hyped for Thorn of Emberlain?

Also, did anyone here read Shepherd's Crown? Pratchett gets a lot of love around here but I've never seen anyone talk about it. I started reading it but couldn't even get to whenever Tiffany appears. It was so bad. It didn't even feel like Discworld. I know it's commonly believed his daughter helped a lot on the last few books, but this is the first one where it straight up felt like it was written by someone else. I don't entirely understand why it was released in the first place. Raising Steam brought the number of a books to a nice, round 40, and the whole thing felt like an epilogue to the series. Was I being unfair to it? Is it worth giving another chance?

I'm finally getting around to the books right now (currently on the tail end of Dead Beat). I think more people here should study his worldbuilding, not because it's all that original or mindblowing, but because of how he uses familiar parts to build a fun, interesting world founded fairly robust rules without having to spend a huge amount of time explaining it all

...

bump

Isn't it funny how inspiration is the act of drawing upon others work?

Start with The Player of Games

Dalinar for President

Personally love this series, and I recommend it to just about anyone I know who likes books. That being said, I recognize that it's probably not for everyone and that it might be hit or miss.

Mandatory for anything industrial-era, or involving magitech

Malazan is really popular here.

I know is yokes but that series is actually pretty cool. One of the few that goes through generations of characters.

I really, really wanted to like it. I love weird fantasy stuff. But the plot just took far too long to get moving, there's only so far weird worldbuilding will take you.

Honestly, the plot is the weakest part of the book. Part of me thinks it would have been better as a weird fantasy slice-of-life sort of thing.
In any case The Scar is better

that said, the complete absence of any mention of de-salination does kinda stick out, once I had it pointed out to me

Yoooooooooooooooooo

It gets better near the end

The first three books in this series are pretty much my go-to inspiration for the perfect mix of hard and soft sci fi for casual games. Hard enough to not trigger my autism, but soft enough to not be overly restrictive.

Oh cool, I'll finish and start the second then

Any Mythos recommendations?

>The Lies of Locke Lamora
>Elric
>Gormenghast
>Dying Earth

>Burning Chrome
>Cryptonomicon
>The Water Knife
>City Come A Walkin'
>Islands in the Net

>Frontera
>Leviathan Wakes


Things I'm looking for:
>Anything even a little bit like Gormenghast
>more dark spacey cyberpunk stuff like Frontera
>general fantasy

I'm just about to start this now. Looks like a hefty read.

>Seveneves

Read most of it, and don't have a lot of urge to finish it sadly.

>Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse series)

This I'm just starting and looking forward to reading.

Might as well ask here instead of making a new thread. Which books are essential reading? I'm mostly interested in fantasy, but sci-fi and cyberpunk are alright too.

If I were going to give three series to start out with for fantasy as a roleplayer, assuming Lord of the Rings is already known and assumed, it'd probably be Dying Earth, Elric, and Conan.

This may or may not be related, but Dan Carlin's hardcore history podcast led me to a podcast called "the history of Rome," which has me obsessed with all things Rome. Currently starting Tacitus's Agricola and germanicus and after that it's Suetonius. I know that shit is gonna bleed into upcoming campaigns.

The Bible.