/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

The sci-fi authors that spend pages upon pages explaining fake science and fake theories produce the worst works the genre has to offer, unless they're subverting that practice like Lem in Solaris.

>teacup
Heh, we're in a thread where somebody won a award writing horrible exposition about drinking tea.

Pls no.

Or like Verne in 20,000 Leagues.

Fake science and fake theories can be marvelous if they are done well, introduced in a mode appropriate to the story, and are in fact story-relevant.

How ILLITERATE do you think people on this LITERATURE board are? Typing like this makes you look RETARDED and you should probably FUCK OFF.

>More than one thing can be good at a time,
And unfortunately random shovelware LN #564842 translated from Chinese isn't one of those things.

Writers that use any method badly are by definition bad authors. If you describe stuff like an idiot you're a bad writer. Exposition isn't inherently bad it's just always done really badly.

>honestly giving a fucking shit
also ironic shitposting is still shitposting so checkmate

>random shovelware LN #564842
but it isn't

On the topic of science exposition; do yourself a favor and read Qualia no Purple. It's a manga, and only 18 chapters long. The first chapter seems uneventful but it turns into pretty crazy SciFi very very soon. Really interesting read.

kissmanga.com/Manga/Qualia-the-Purple/Ch-001--Episode-001?id=164690

I read that back when it was only half-translated. Quite a ride, ending could have been done better. I heard the novel it was based on was much better.

Yeah, not really a surprise considering how much freaking text the manga has. Though the novel is untranslated, so most people only have the manga.

On that note the Japanese have a lot of crazy untranslated Science Fiction, very different stylistically from the trope heavy stuff in the west. Shame most people will never get to experience it.

They are trope heavy, they just have different tropes that evolve differently.

Mordiggian is pretty based, doesn't get angry, recognizes his priests* duly fucked up and lets would-be heretics go.

Who themselves don't seem particularly bad.

Nigga definitely ain't a Great Old One Aniolowski.

No-god is best God

Who?

The No-God is the Savior of the Unholy Consult, the antithesis of human life and the hive mind for all the orcs, ogres and dragons of Bakker's Universe.

Huh, No-God > No-Name > Na-Nashi > Na-Kami > Vacuous/Spaceous God

>ywn give your soul over the to no-god as he protects you from damnation
>ywn be free from the arbitrary shackles of damnation the gods have imprisoned you with

just let a ciphrang feast on my soul already...

>ywn have a harem of skinspies to do unspeakable things to as they transform into the most beautiful women you can imagine, their feminine dicks throbbing in anticipation

What might have been...

>How much SCIENCE do you like in your science fiction?
ALL OF IT

>How much EXPOSITION and MADE UP THEORY do you want to read about
ALL OF IT

>when you're high and the author with an Astrophysics Ph.D and years of working experience explains how inertial dampeners function and work

Do you have any general hard sci-fi manga recs?

>What's your favorite work of Sci-Fi or Fantasy not written in your native language?
Solaris

>What foreign writers have captured your imagination?
In addition to Lem, Verne has been huge for me (esp Twenth Thousand Leagues). Zamyatin, Strugatskys. Omon Ra by Pelevin was pretty good.

Whom should I read next? Zajdel? Sorokin?

are any of the star wars books good?

Shadows of the Empire is great.

>Zajdel?
I didn't think he'd been translated to English. Unless you learned Polish despite not being from Poland, which would be cool.
I recommend The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya.

Second and last (for the time being) reminder that The Bard is looking to publish your work. The cliffnotes version:
>short stories of the fantastical or speculative, of about 750 words
>we pay (a pittance)
>we give feedback even if we say no
>it'll be distributed in free pdf format, for all to enjoy
The submission cut-off is August 15th, 2016, so you've still got almost two months to write your 750 word masterpiece and get it in. For more info find our cheap-ass website via our Facebook page:
>fb.com/thebardquarterly/

As always I'll return in a few hours to answer any questions. Thanks, and I promise not to spam your threads again until at least July 15th!

I submitted already, will you be looking at my work only after August 15?

So do you want leftist drivel or actually thoughtful speculative fiction?

I see you don't have too many likes, do you think you'll in time become relatively widely read? Or are you a second scam magazine Veeky Forums is seeing?

>Do you have any general hard sci-fi manga recs?
Well, Qualia. Other than that it's a pretty sparse selection or very soft. You could try 'Planetes' which is about a team collecting debris in space and is pretty hard at times.

has anyone read clash of kings? thoughts?

We'll be reading all throughout the submission window. After that, we'll get together and make our final decisions on August 15th, and we'll be emailing out feedback/acceptance letters en masse on August 17th. I know this seems like a long wait, but the team is small and we don't want to half-ass or rush anything. Try and put it on your mental backburner and keep on writing.

And thanks for submitting!
Heh, you say that like there are only two kinds of stories in the world: leftist drivel or thoughtful speculative fiction. There's no ideological slant to the magazine, if your story is interesting, engaging and well written, and not gratuitous in putting forward a political ideology on either end of the spectrum, you'll probably be accepted.
I thought 140 likes in a single weekend wasn't too shabby! We'll have to try harder. We'll strive to maintain a level of professionalism and quality which, hopefully, will see people who've never even heard of Veeky Forums reading. Everyone starts somewhere, and while the goal is always to grow, it's still early days, and far too soon to say whether we'll ever become 'widely read.'

Thanks everyone for your interest!

Japanese pleb lit has this thing where they have totally hard, well-considered science, really crunchy things like O'Neill cylinders and near-future directed energy artillery coexisting with giant robots, conspicuously talented cute girls, and/or otherworldly horrors. I wouldn't even say Qualia's hard SF, really. Closest thing to Leviathan Wakes would be Gundam, closest to Larry Niven's stuff would be... Space Dandy? I'm really drawing a blank.

It looks like Zajdel hasn't been translated into English yet. I would love to pick up Polish, but that wouldn't be practical for me. Thanks for the mention of Tolstaya, that looks good.

>How much SCIENCE do you like in your science fiction?
Zero

>How much EXPOSITION and MADE UP THEORY do you want to read about
12

>as they transform into the most beautiful women you can imagine
>their feminine dicks throbbing in anticipation
>beautiful women
>feminine dick
...what?

grad student of physics here
very little, but not so little that it feels like they're too lazy to write about it

going on, page after page, explaining how some warp-drive works is irrelevant to the plot and is frankly a waste of time
but just casually saying 'oh i forgot the ship has a warp drive and now, in this chase scene, they use it to get away' is equally frustrating

Shill user answer my fucking questions. You made me read it, now take responsibility.

Red Knight is shit so far. All they can talk about is God and "her" Jeezus , the wild, "but it's a golden bear", "a GOLDEN BEAR", old priestess' and their stunningly youthful wanton cunnys, and too many POVs.

Fuck you who suggested this tripe to me.

It takes a bit to get rolling, and it's one of those where every consecutive book gets better than the one before.

Could also be a case of shit taste from your side though.

Did I just finish the second Malazan book?
If so, what did I think about it?
Did I like it if I finished it?

The answer to your interrogations is YES you are a cuck

If I subit a story do you get all the rights to it or whatever?

You better not be... what I think you are..
My tastes are fine thank you very much.

I've read 700+ books between 2010 and now, and I'm getting really tired of seeing authors just throw in Christianity, change up some shit, and call it high fantasy.

That is lazy ass work.

>Did I just finish the second Malazan book?
No, you did not.

>If so, what did I think about it?
You will never know, because you didn't finish it .

>Did I like it if I finished it?
You would really like this question answered, but seeing as you didn't finish it you will never know, and this frustrates you.

Duh, hence why the "we pay you", I didn't even read their TOS, and i could figure that out.

Probably be like those pulp books back in the day, they compile a bunch of stories and sell it.

Thank you.

Why in the world would you read so much fantasy?

Why would 'getting tired' be a factor of anything? You should judge the work on its own merit and whether it does the things good / better than other books.

And having read that much speaks against your taste, not for it.

It's 2016 come on

Women can have dicks you shitlord

Anyone read this? Seems like every female character has at one point talked about how superior their gender is.

Aside from that its decent.

Horror fiction thread in /x/:

Messed up

I'm not opening yet another tab. Just tell them to come here, their thread is dead anyways.

>fb.com/thebardquarterly/
Hi, hope you're reading this. The link to your website from the Facebook page isnt working, am I a fool?

Isn't that only the Mother Superior?

Nah, senpai. You've also got the Queen, the Queen's nurse, the Queen's lady, Blanche, Mag, Alceus' mum, Ghause, Sukey and probably a few others too.

I'm counting the sequels too.

>sukey thinking she's better than anyone

U wot

>military sci-fi story about a civil war between different ethnic and political groups of a planet loosely based on the Spanish Civil War, Balkan Wars and Syrian Civil War

Would you guys read it?

works for me

too depressing

why can't we live in peace? we're all human... so sick of this

You have failed to grasp the entirety of the human experience. We must do violence upon one another, it is both a psychic and biological imperative.

is Leviathan wakes any good?

asking for a friend.

Redshit and tumbgay is that way.

Woman comes from womb, they can have dicks if they are hermaphrodite, because they still have a womb, if not they not women.

Do what you want, its a free world, but it's that same free world that allows me to not agree with you.

Fuck off.

>falling for such easy bait

I thought Veeky Forums would be able to to tell I was being sarcastic.

>expecting Alt-Right people to comprehend sarcasm

Just finished pic related. HardSF about a damaged seed/embryo type ship. Fast-paced first person perspective that leaves you just as confused as the protag. Quick read, but quite enjoyable.

>reddit
>not /pol2/

Can I have some of your favorite SFF novella / short stories?

...

>not realizing that was actually meta-trolling

>not mentioning the boob lamia

Not to mention the boob lamia.

Which are your numbers sffg?

>Can I have some of your favorite SFF novella / short stories?
The Machine Stops for Novella, The Last Question and Nightfall by Asimov for short stories.

None of the above. I want to cuddle you and make eye contact.

...

4, 6, 7, maybe 14.

That's super lewd

...This is actually making me freak out a little bit. I match everything except 5 and 11. I could have sworn I was a functioning 24 year old but maybe I am slightly autistic? I was told it was ADHD and anxiety though. God dammit user.

That chart taught me we are all autistic, that is why we are on 4chens, because deep down, subconsciously, we know this to be true.

And we flock together for comfort.

2, 6, 7, and 13

>likes to do barrel rolls
>laughs out loud at other misfortune irl
Oh shi-

>1
is it inappropriate to laugh when someone gets hurt? ie hit by a car
>3
like when you cut your hand and dont notice it until you see the cut?
>13
oh come on everyone spins on those office chairs
>14
other people suck

Definitely 1 (I'm that guy who laughs at a horror movie), and a bit of 6 and 14 but I can pull it together and be social if I really want to. Not quite sure what 9 means, is it just liking to collect stuff, or more like those guys who wank onto figurines?

Yes.

>9
Maybe hoarding, or you see objects as a person

I just finished The Fires Of Heaven and boy am I fucking mad.

>hype up Couladin for 1200 pages
>killed offscreen
>Moiraine and Asmodean arguably the most interesting characters
>LEL THEY DIE
>Plotfire away Rahvin without even some background, motivations, hell he doesn't even fucking speak

FUCK YOU JORDAN, BY GOD, FUCK YOU

Why the fuck do people read him when everyone knows his writing is utter garbage?
Read the wiki page, it's like putting yourself through torture of reading 40k novels instead of just going to Lexicanum.

For every five of us that see that the series is crap and try to warn people away from it there's one person who defends it as a cliche series that has its ups and downs but is ultimately worth reading. I think it's a form of Stockholm syndrome.

Nah, it's close to buyer's remorse, they spent all that time (money) on it and now that it turned out to be complete shit, they have to justify it, so they delude themselves into thinking yeaaaaaaaah it has its down BUT ALSO THE UPS!!!

But how can one know it's crap without reading it first?