/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

That's news to me. What books has he written in English?

After a little research, just Hear the Wind. Now that I think about it, I remember HBWATEOTW having some translation quirks.

Murakami doesn't write in English, he's just the greatest Westaboo to ever exist aside from maybe Kojima.

He wrote one novel in English and translated that into Japanese.

What is the best style of writing for an epic fantasy? Third-person limited (italicized or non-italicized internal monologue)? Third person omniscient (like LotR and Narnia)? A mix of the two? First person?

I am hesitant for omniscient because it doesn't seem like it would sell these days

Hm...

HELP

I prefer Third person limited.

Gor

Multiple POVs is all the rage right now. Think Asoiaf, Wot, Malazan.

He wrote it in English to get the rhythm right, translated it into Japanese, and had this guy translate it from Japanese into readable English.

Really makes you think.

I think it's it depends.

Yeah I read those. Galaxy of Fear. They were fun as fuck desu.

2nd person imperative

I used first person and found it very limiting for the genre of fantasy, as it's really hard to have stuff going on outside your character. Third person omniscient is only worthwhile if you're planning on some big political thriller or having lots of intrigue etc, I personally prefer third-person limited.

I'm reading bridge of birds, it's very good so far. It's set in a china that never was but can't understate how much I'm enjoying it.

How would this even work? Would it be instructions from the author to the reader?

The thriller voice seems like it would be very handy to use. Limited third-person for the (often several) heroes, every now and then an omniscient third-person to describe what the bad guys are doing, even chapters in first person from a character whose voice you like. And put the looming disaster in omniscient third at the beginning of every chapter.

I don't know why more hack fantasy writers don't do this.

Repost from previous thread.
>he hasn't read Bakker's short stories
Nope. Are they good? Is there some kind of omnibus or collection I can get?

>Limited third-person for the (often several) heroes, every now and then an omniscient third-person to describe what the bad guys are doing, even chapters in first person from a character whose voice you like.
I don't like swapping from third to first person unless you have a framing device, like in The Name of the Wind.

Otherwise this is how I'm writing my current story, third-person following the heroes and occasionally cutting to the bad guy. I think third person works particularly well for classic fantasy (like LotR) where the story is like a tale or a legend, and first person is better for really character-driven fantasy (like Hobb).

Is WoT the longest fantasy series?

The Vedas are longer

Yeah but those are like, the Hindu sacred texts, not exactly a "fantasy series".

Ha. All religion is fantasy.
*teleports away*

Yells at you*
"You forgot your katana, Hiro!"

I'm so fucking bored with multiple alternating POV, more often than not It's detrimental and adds absolutely nothing.

i don't see what the big ordeal is

Why the fuck do they have double faces anyway?

>this is my general and I will decide what you like and what you don't

I'm finishing up The Thousandfold Thought right now and I can't believe /sffg/ looks down on Bakker so much.

Prince of Nothing is one of the best fantasy series I've ever read. Can't wait to see what happens in Aspect-Emperor.

It's selected fantasy, not list of everything people like here.
First Law should also be removed and it's all good.

...

Hobb should be put back on. If you really hate the Farseer Trilogy that much (and I don't blame you), put Ship of Magic there instead.

I write first person short stories.
I find it really handy to write in first person because you can basically cut all exposition.

>expect us

You can always add another row.

Just like me. I write it in english to get the style and rhythm right, translate it into korean then translate THAT into higher quality english to make it sellable. I take part in the translation process to make sure stuff keeps its theme and ambiance. Too bad I don't trust my english enough to just fucking publish it the way I wrote it.

I'm not really interested in reading Hobb anymore, I gave her a fair shot in Farseer but it was just an underwhelming experience. The Ship trilogy seems to be 2500+ pages long too which makes me think she continued her filler trend of 'nothing happening' for hundreds of pages.

Perhaps, though I don't want it to get too bloated. The idea is people can read the wildly different stuff on the chart, figure out their taste and then go from there / ask for recs in the thread. And the other charts are already massive in size so yeah.

Am I the only one that thinks dividing sff into new and old instead of good and bad is utterly retarded?

How do you write a journey? Do you describe every tree they pass by, or invent random encounters to keep the reader with the attention span of a goldfish interested?

>Am I the only one that thinks
I love how when someone starts their sentence like this 100% of the time they follow up with something everyone agrees with.

I know what you mean, I want to like red knight, but it's so shit. It borrows a bunch of tropes and makes all with them. Story is not engaging, nor interesting.

I would say fuck sffg, but hull 3 zero and iron dragon daughter was great.

>I'm not really interested in reading Hobb anymore, I gave her a fair shot in Farseer but it was just an underwhelming experience. The Ship trilogy seems to be 2500+ pages long too which makes me think she continued her filler trend of 'nothing happening' for hundreds of pages.
It's a bit slow compared to other authors, but not Farseer slow. She follows a lot more characters rather than having just one protagonist, so there's usually interesting stuff happening around the place. It does take a bit of setting up, but that's the nature of stories in fantasy worlds with complex character relationships that require establishing.

>I love how
Am I the only one that thinks that anyone who starts their sentence like this is 100% of the time an insufferable cunt?

Write it as it would happen in real life. Say you lived in Kansas all your life, then you went on a road trip from there to europe, with small spurts of air travel. Your eyes will be filled with wonder, because you are experiencing things you never experienced before.

Same shit in fantasy, have the protagonist / what-ever-gonist have open eyes as they travel, because they never saw shit like that. It doesn't have to be a bumpkin, but where you're transporting them through has a different culture.

Say ear lobes are sexual, but not breast, breast are just globes of fat cor feeding the young. They wear these nun hats (can't remember the spelling) but they cover the ear, but all women, even grannies have shirts with their breasts just out there.

You make the places alien to the main traveller's point of origin as possible.

You don't, very rarely do people care about the actual travelling, they care about the destinations in-between.

>Do you describe every tree they pass by, or invent random encounters to keep the reader with the attention span of a goldfish interested?
Don't include anything that doesn't further the characters or the plot.

>How do you write a journey?
The level of detail should be equal to the relevance to the story. So if they wander a road that doesn't matter and they won't come across again, simply use a sentence or two to say that it's paved and bordered by trees or whatever, and use your word count elsewhere. Conversely, if they reach a city they're going to spend a while in, take the time to describe what stands out about it to the characters.

>anything the chart user dislikes is great for the selected chart
>throws in red knight
Why not add Dhalgren and Hogg to that list? Maybe story of the eye?

>Taldain currently inaccessible to the Cosmere
oOoOoOoOoOo

*trips on your fedora*

The fuck are you talking about faggot? There's plenty of Bakker fans here.

That guy's supposed to be Japanese? lol
I guess the guy thought making his eyes look Japanese would offend people or some shit.

That was my thought also.

First Law is the greatest work of post-modern fantasy that exists

It's the work which cannot be made sense of unless the person plays video games.

Well the person who accuses everyone of not liking the new stuff because it's new is the only one around doing that and he's a mental cripple.

Elaborate

Because he's an alien flesh crafting sorcerer

Is Jack Vance someone you should aspire to emulate in your writing? Why or why not?

It has no descriptions.
It is incapable of creating the mental image in the reader by its own prose and relies on him being into things his mind can combine into an image.
It's extremely poor writing.
The reason why older novels, especially realism had so many descriptions is because people didn't have movies or video games so they strived to help them in recreating the scenery.
In comparison, First Law has none because everyone who reads it already has the layout prepared by other works, mostly video games.

If this is your biggest complain then it sounds like a pretty good book to me.

Well if the complete garbage for prose isn't big, don't know what is.
But other than that, it's too long, has bad characters and there's only one thing good about it, which is Glokta. Everything else is straight out bad, bland, lacks imagination, generic etc.
The novel has almost nothing good about itself.

I wouldn't recommend it, nobody got even close with Songs of the Dying Earth.

Let's do this again.
Match em all.

>Taldain
Wtf is that? I don't speak sandersonfag

...

5,6,7, and 14.

just a bit of banter those people couldn't handle

>the person who accuses everyone of not liking the new stuff because it's new is the only one around doing that
Shows what you faggot, I'm not the only one that call you guys out on the old books, I may have started using fossil fuels and dinosaurs, but I'm not the only one who uses it.

Also look at my list you faggot, I read new and old, it's the dinosaurs that say: "older books have withstood the tests of time, and are therefore better, nothing new is of literary value". They then go on to suggest Conan, Grey Mouser, etc.
Maybe you guys are trolling, and trying to waste people's time by suggesting old boring books, then samefagging about how great it was.

I see many people post how shit those books were, you all assume anyone calling your precious mold inspiring books is me and I just laugh.

Gfy, then kys.

Have you considered the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Gray Mouser and say, Way Of Kings are BOTH good, just in different ways?

1 sometimes
4 sometimes
5 arguably
6 but everyone does it
7 hahahahahaha
8
14 bc of course

That's just crazy talk user

Have you looked at that list? I read everyone, and enjoyed them. You think they are all published 2010 and up?

Yeah but you seem to have a bone to pick with Lieber since you consistently mention Fafhrd&GM as an example of "dinosaur book". So I'm asking you, have you even read it? And if so, what exactly did you find unlikable about it?

You clearly didn't read Gormenghast, yet you shittalk it every day with your dumb picture.

Besides K. J. Parker his books, what are some of the most depressing, sad novels?
No happy endings, just likeable characters who can't have anything good happen to them

Gormenghast has no superficial elements for his tiny brain to enjoy.
Most fantasy has 'cool' elements so even retards can enjoy them, but Gormenghast is pure modernism.

Stoner by John Williams
White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky
A lot of short stories by Chekhov and Flannery O'Connor

In SFF, I think Scanner Darkly might be close to what you're looking for.

>Stoner
>SFF
wat

The ending of Stoner might be categorized as "happy" depending on your interpretation. I understood it as W.S. finally coming to terms with himself and the world around him in his final moments, reconciling the conflicts in his life and taking solace in his admittedly small achievements before dying in peace. What more can a man ask for?

It's science fiction because in the real world there are no Katherines, only Ediths.

None of these are sff.
I don't know of any depressing sff stuff, aside A Scanner Darkly, which I forgot, but another user remembered it for me.

Well I didn't find it as sad as the others I recommend, but it's more the melancholy of the entire novel and mistake upon mistake upon mistake he keeps doing, especially with the way his daughter turned out, a slut and a drunkard, with no sense of responsibility or honor.

Baxter's stuff can get pretty downbeat, but more in an "inevitable heat death of the Universe" way than anything to do with individuals.

Well I've never read him, so there's that.

The daughter turning out like that was no fault of his, she was fine until his cunt wife took her away from him out of spite and basically ruined her.

I don't think Edith was self aware enough to do it. She had a pretty good husband, but was too stupid to realize it and try to work things out. She's almost a caricature of the most vapid type of women you can find.
And his resignation helped, after a while he didn't do anything with her or try to influence her. He just didn't fight for his daughter at all.

Edith was just another victim imo, raised like a nun in a gilded cage and with no idea of how to function in the real world. She wasn't even really evil, more like clueless and honestly thinking her actions were for the best. And to her credit, she tried to make the marriage work in the beginning and she never cheated on Stoner when she easily might have had. More than he can say.

Thanks guys.

Thank you too.

Also remember I haven't read all of Richard Adams yet.

Well she is a victim too, especially since you can read into her being raped by her father, not sure how well that theory stands, but it's interesting.
Edith is the perfect example of Hannah Ardent's banal evil lol

That story in Everything Which Rises Must Convergewhen the granpa in a rage kills his favorite granddaughter and in the confusing he walks into a river and drowns himself
Right in the heart