/sffg/ - SciFi and Fantasy General

Bakker's Prince of Nothing series.

this guy knows exactly what i need

If you like Berserk then the Witcher books are your cup of tea, it doesn't get any more Berserk than that.

Malazan. First book is confusing and not that dark, but you'll be hooked by the time you're halfway through the second (the second book was written almost 10 years after the first, so his writing improves dramatically).

The Broken Sword, by Poul Anderson.

Viking fantasy literally set in the dark ages, with Elves and troll fighting for control of faerie britain.

Hmm, will really consider checking that out.
will look into it

Why is fantasy so sexist, racist, colonialist and totally gross?

because you're not reading the right fantasy works

Has anyone used this site for used books?
You can get used books for as cheap as £0.70p.

alibris.co.uk/

Anyone wanna share chapter one of Peace Talks by Jim Butcher pretty please. I don't want to give that greedy jew my shekels.

Can't you go to libgen?

I would echo the recommendation for Prince of Nothing, although there's a good bit of discussion about philosophy and the world's magic system that a dumb prole like me had to re-read a few times to understand. Really interesting world in my opinion.

I actually stopped reading the second book of Malazan because it got a little heavy for me. It's definitely a strong series of books, I just have to be in a certain mind-set to stomach chapters and chapters of horrible shit happening and I was not at the time. I'll pick it back up eventually.

Witcher short stories are really good. The Last Wish is my favorite collection of them.

If you want something with very little substance and lots of action, try The Blade Itself and the First Law trilogy. I feel like I am violating some rule of this thread by suggesting it, but they're super easy reads and lots of fun.

I don't know what that is. Jim Butcher shared it six days ago via cuckstarter for a card game based on the book. You had to donate to read it.

Are they worth it?

Actually it's the action that i bore in fantasy, im more in for the heavy world-building stuff, logic and maybe add in a lil bit of a political situation going on. I dunno if im makin sense or

I mean stuff like in Final Fantasy XII and Vagrant Story was my shit, although those are videogames.

Read Lord of the Rings then.

but i loathe epic/high fantasy

Doesn't matter.

I asked GRRM on his blog and he said the books are terrific. Make of that what you will.

Prince of Nothing for sure then. Possibly Malazan, I've not read enough of the series to give you a verdict on it. First Law has some political machinations and such, my favorite character is a crippled, disfigured noble who works as a torturer after being captured and tortured himself, but the world-building stuff is a lot thinner than PoN.

>heavy world-building stuff, logic and maybe add in a lil bit of a political situation going on.

Wheel Of Time. It has literally nothing except the things you listed for eleven thousand pages.

I listened to the first one and found it very entertaining. Started the second and it didn't capture my interest for very long.

Ooh you're lucky!

why is that? He replies to literally anyone as long as it's not a game of thrones question.

I never went to his blog. He' so famous nowadays just because of the TV show.

he said that because he is close with the authors

he's shilling

that pretty much the whole world is watching

>It has literally nothing...for eleven thousand pages.

ftfy

This, they're literally his assistants.

Prince of Thorns

As far as I can tell he only edited an anthology in which they had a short story. Hardly "his assistants", but whatever.

I thought the books were good anyway.

Yes but on his blog the show is never discussed and he shitposts 24/7 about football, other books, his movie theater and whatever else that is not game of thrones.

he's there all day, and replies to most of the comments. Not like he has anything better to do.

I see, I would find it annoying too if it's the only thing I'm known for.

is it berserk-like?

Is there anything similar to the witcher, with elves, dwarves, knights, monsters and all that shit but more focused on politics. The politics between the Northern Kingdoms the mages and the empire was by far and away the best thing about the witcher for me.

To be honest I don't know, and if there is then I'm interested in it too.

glad to know im not the only autist who likes the political focus on fantasy works

Any fantasy with a little girl protagonist?

rerequesting

I need some Malazan help.

I can't remember which book - maybe Reaper's Gale - but there was a character thinking back to when the Army was fighting the Mott Irregulars and the Crimson Guard in the Mott Wood. I think the character had the memory of Whiskeyjack seeing a conflagration (or something) and sneering "Cole". He made a point that this sneering man rarely showed emotions.

I just really want to read the part again, but can't find it through Google Books or anything.

Maybe look at the Red Knight series of books. I would not really classify them as literature, they're just fun light reading, but they have a good bit of politicking and also a lot of information about the conduct of war during the high Middle Ages/early renaissance: tactics, armament, troop organization, etc. The world is a very lazy allegory of our own, justified with an apparent tie-in to some sort of multiverse theory, but I didn't mind it. Fun series. Second book is heavier on the intrigue than the first.

Also not a fantasy books but you could look at I, Claudius and Claudius the God (sequel). Highly, highly recommend them. They're told from the point of view of the Emperor Claudius, and span the end of the reign of Augustus to Claudius' own accession to the throne after Caligula is murdered. The sequel picks up after that. Also in the historical fiction category, Pillars of the Earth.

>fun light reading
Oh boy

Is that some sort of meme here? I am new.

Just finished reading the dread wyrm the other day a few things about them annoyed me but it was bretty good, of the 3 the Red knight was my favourite.

Someone mentio ed biopunk in another thread. Funny thing. I've never seen ap biopunk book, that and steampunk

Anything good in those fields?

Seconding.
Malazan is really good if you want a long series with awesome worldbuilding.
And while the first book is confusing and not really "dark" it picks up alot with the second.
The third is where it gets really dark and really good.

Also, although the violence (and the other shit) is never the focus or exists only for the sake of having it, Malazan probably goes beyond everything else in terms of "dark".

I haven't read the third yet, just the first two. I think "bretty good" is an appropriate rating for them.

The Wind-Up Girl

Huh! will most likely try to check it out. Thanks guys.

The Iron Dragon's Daughter.

It's pretty dark and you won't find anything like it.
Very good and very strange.

Seconding this. Swanwick is criminally underrated.

You shill this quite a bit as of late eh.

They're not fantasy, but the The Accursed Kings series is pretty much just about politics and cunning schemes.

Thirding this.

Any good fairytale esque books?

Aye aye cap'n, i'll look more into it, thanks!

Literally all me

Do you think if i knew any dark fantasy books i would've asked in the first place.

>Calls Ice and Fire shallow pleb trash
>Nothing but praise for The First Law

Why do people like it so much? The writing is tedious and while the first book had some decent political intrigue going on, the second one deteriorated to just people obsessing over Kellhus all the time. Even the gay, rape and incest in it weren't very good.

I've read a few Terry Pratchett books for fun these last two weeks and I think he's quite nice.

Favorites, Anons?

I think the magic system and villains are awesome. Kellhus sucks, I hope he dies or fails in the latter series of books.

The first law has Glokta

GoT has Peter Dinkmeme

Glokta is literally a poor man's Tyrion

Nigga.

I know I'll sound retarded, but I really like Mass Effect and how they went out of their way to explain the science behind everything they have including psychic powers, and I'm looking for a novel or series of novels, sci fi of course, that do this same thing. I'd also like if it had psychics as a prevalent part of the story because I'm slightly autistic.
Anybody got any reccs?

Any stories set worlds unrelated to earth, with a comparable technology level, but no magic or impossible sci-fi bullshit?
I've seen this countless times in visual media, but hardly ever in literature.

Book of the New Sun

GoT is a mediocre work and First Law is a shitty derivative of it.

>no magic
>world unrelated to Earth
>no impossible sci fi bullshit

nigger have you even read BOTNS?

I feel like hard sci-fi and psychic powers are mutually exclusive.

Anyone read Pounded In The Butt By My Hugo Award Nomination, by Chuck Tingle?

Is it any good?

Usually, but all Mass Effect did was add in a fantasy particle that allowed for some for impossible shit. I'm of the party that, if you follow the latest quantum studies, who's to say that can't happen?

I should probably make it clear that I don't believe it will, but fantasy is fantasy.

It's not set on Earth, there is no magic and most of the stuff is at least plausible.
Did you get it?

I've already read it. I've read Long, and Short Sun too. But thank you.

It's a slippery slope and probably a shitty label for a genre. Is Jurassic Park hard sci-fi? Because I am pretty sure you can't get usable DNA from grinding up dinosaur bones. Does the label encompass books that make a scientific leap but are otherwise fairly realistic, or can they only contain elements that we know are possible now?

Well not really though (not that guy) I've sort of thought about this for a possible project of my own. You expend energy of your own through heat, mechanical motion and manipulation of objects, even when you expel your breath. So imagine a sense or simply passive exertion, if you will, that we don't quite know about, and populations unconsciously selecting sexually for an ability to sense that over hundreds of generations. The ability to sense this would give a very small benefit, and be very weak at first, but as more and more people have it, it grows.

Then, instead of only being able to passively detect this "thing" coming from a brain, you can move energy through space, seemingly without an impetus but actually driven by these brain waves (remember, in reality our brains create very weak waves).

Now this ain't no psychic bullshit (though I admit freely that it is pseudoscience), so to even manipulate a small amount of energy around you using this brainpower requires an enormous expenditure of energy, probably following the inverse square law. So you'd have to eat a whole fucking lot.

And that's where I'm at now. I've thought of having people end up being able to absorb energy from their surroundings too, to be stored in their bodies or objects and used later by the brain, but that idea sounds like shit to me.

>grinding up dinosaur bones
Confirmed for never having watched the goddamn movie, let alone read the book.

They are set on Earth.

I read that book about 20 years ago and there is a reference to grinding up bones in it, I just checked. I thought the Amber extraction was only in the movies, but apparently not.

They are not. Wolfe even confirmed this.

Carnivores of Light and Darkness.

Link it, I can't find it.

That's what Vox Day writes when he does fiction. I've never read him, but he used to be high up in SFWA so there's a chance he's not a hack.

i was being sarcastic my dude

I can only think of the His Dark Materials series and the So You Want To Be A Wizard series, but that might be a bit juvenile for you.

I don't remember where I've found it, Marc will probably know.

Could Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser together take down Conan?

Could either of them take him on solo?

>comparing power levels
inb4 shitstorm
Yes, either of them would have a fair chance against him, and the two of them would wreck him.

I venture that ur mum could take all three of them at once m8