/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

Oooh, Norse mythology! What an original idea, this is uncharted territory, no one has ever done Norse Mythology before!

Hey Neil, how about a Sci fi book set on... You're gonna love this... A spaceship? Or is that too daring and innovative?

SFF ist tot and we have killed it

Do you guys think that sci fi and fantasy can be as deep and powerful as literary fiction?

legit question, I'm not trying to be a dick.

Why couldn't it?

With the emergence of contemporary writing/writers, absolutely not. No fresh ideas and practically every story is a fan-fic of whatever the flagships of the genre.

Read Martin the Warrior, you don't need to read the other ones of the Redwall series.
It's a stand-alone.

I think the writer started it out as an audio book series for blind children so there's a lot of dialogue.
Any way, it's pretty depressing.

A lot of Redwall stories were incredibly sad.

Look up Tom Holt at kickass or piratebay.
Most of his stuff, read In Your Dreams and Song for Nero if you can't pick.

Why is it *always* children's novels that are the saddest?

Is it because children aren't yet corrupted by escapism?

Asked in the tail end of the last thread and came up empty so I'll try one more time:

Does Veeky Forums have an opinion on James Branch Cabell?

I'm reading pic related now and the style is really enjoyable but the humor is so dry I feel like I might be missing some of the more dated tropes

I really don't know. Maybe it's easy to write a happy story on the outside that's really full of despair if you look closer (or are old enough to catch on). Kind of like a lot of older cartoons had adult jokes that you don't ~get~ until you're an adult. It's a peculiar phenomenon though.

I don't think any fiction is all that deep or powerful but by definition genre fiction is inferior. I suppose that depends on how you define fantasy though, there is literary fiction that has fantastical elements. The crud most people recommend in these threads is however not very good.
Not going to watch that. Something awful happens to that cute critter, I'm sure. Fuck you for posting it.

I have questions, lads
I was reading the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and it made me curious about some of the books referenced

In particular i'm interested in Wells' "The Island of Dr. Moreau" and Burroughs' Barsoom series
Did said books age well? I know it can sound stupid, some things just don't age, but i'm kinda picky with books, because it could happen that the writing could bore me despite my interest in the premise. And i don't think i've ever read an old-timey adventure book, the closest thing i can think of is LotR but i have the feeling it's not exactly the same

DESU, norse mythology hasn't really been explored outside of vidya, where it's still mostly namedrops here and there, with few exceptions like TES and shit.

Just downloadd those oldies.
They're probably free and legal to get on gutenberg.

Instead of waiting up to a few hours you can easily read a dozen of pages and decide for yourself in less time.

I'm trying to help.

>not going to watch that

It's actually pretty hilarious/badass.

Can't speak for the Barsoom series but I've read The Island of Doctor Moreau and recommend it wholeheartedly. It's been a while since I had read it but it became a favourite. There are certain old mannerisms in his writing that are a given but the writing doesn't feel dated and keeps you interested.

Download The Martian Chronicles from Bradbury
Then read "There Will Come Soft Rains"

>Not going to watch that.
He's Martin the Warrior.
Do you really think he'll lose?

Literary fiction with fantastical elements is fantasy.
So it can be as good, of course most of fantasy/sci-fi will have people who write just for the big bucks and/or fame which is genre fiction which is *inferior*
Though there's also a whole lot "literary" fiction that's just as crap as any genre fiction book.

Uh, never thought of that, books are the last thing i'd think of pirating. Thanks for the advice

I guess i'll try that one out as soon as possible then. I just read Frankenstein so i guess i'm already in the mood for 18th century mad scientists

Wells is very readable but Island of Dr. Moreau is his most political and philosophical works despite its many silly genre adaptations so it might not be what you're expecting. Time Machine, Invisible Man and War of the Worlds have all aged better because the politics are more subtle.

Finished Malazan 2nd book
Did I like it?
What do I think about it?
Will I read the 3rd book?

(you)

I only read the first one (A Princess of Mars) years ago but I thought it was pretty good

Some dude online made it into a comic in the early 00s with literally every character nude

>pirating
It's literally not pirating because those books don't have copyrights any more.

If it's on Gutenberg it's legal to download and upload/share freely.

It's only piracy if it's illegal.

It was a bit of a drag to read
I don't think I will continue

Yeah yeah, you know what i meant
Plus i like my books in my hands

Noticed that. Made me wonder if the original works were as sexual

Yes.
You roil with unexamined emotion.
You are an incurable autist, of course you'll read the next one.

Get a Kindle

Probably the best purchase of my life for value/money ratio.

>Get a Kindle
Nah

Thank you

goodreads.com/book/show/17675462-the-raven-boys

Is this book enjoyable for non-teenage girls? I'm guessing no one here has read it.

>YA
No.

Wolves of Mercy Falls was shite

Just read Martin the Warrior

A lot of adults think sad books are good for kids, and kids will read anything.

Sorry man, I'm still working through Fletcher/de Camp.

Do the Powder Mage books get better? I'm halfway through the first one and all the characters seem uninteresting and the plot seems like shit.

>book one of...

into the trash it goes

B-But m-muh magic system

You're right, Kobo's are way better.

Yeah, one of the king's mages survives and spends a lot of the rest of the books wrecking things, and the detective and the savage girl get better.

>DESU, norse mythology hasn't really been explored outside of vidya
You know this guy was being sarcastic right? There are a bunch of Norse books outside of Vidya, it's just that You didn't read them.

Hell, Rick Riordan started a Norse series, so the normies will get their hands on it even more.

Look at his eyes, you can see the defeat.
Years of toil, and for what? One fanboy who calls in the middle of the night, when you just fell asleep after 3 days of insomnia to discuss some book you wrote decades ago.
You want to tell him to fuck off, but you don't have the heart. So you just sit there, with a dead glazed look in your eyes trying to weather his attention before you die

hey guys dino user here
give me some ideas of things to shoop i'm bored

marc is a QT

Your mom blowing a dinosaur.

Jurassic ___ movie poster shops.

mildly interesting digits

I see the steely gaze of a man who's seen Heaven and Hell.

Gormenghast trilogy

Me on the right

I wonder if Gene actually ever came here for some reason to read our stupid discussions about him.

When would you say the cut off date for innovative scifi/fantasy was?

Or what was the last "flagship"?

Because of it's limiting itself to a genre and usual lack of real depth. emphasis on usual. There are some really great ones like Dune or Foundation or Hyperion.

I mean they aren't Shakespeare, but they're pretty high tier for fiction, period.

>genre fiction limits itself to a genre
>literary fiction limits itself to real things happening to humans right now but doesn't limit itself to a genre

>I mean they aren't Shakespeare, but they're pretty high tier for fiction
*tips*
>all books listed are more than 30 years old
You are the true definition of a dinosaur elitist scum.
Back to the bookcover threads with you

How is fantasy/sci-fi together any more limited than non-fantasy?
Fantasy is extremely broad and anything with fantastical elements (on the foreground) is technically fantasy.*
I don't see how it's limiting at all.

>usual
Most "literary" fiction is also bad to shit.
Usual is not an argument whether or not something can or can't reach a certain height or depth

>shakespeare
Who used tons of fantastical elements.
Especially Midsummer Night and Tempest.

*depending a little on your definition.
Some people have more limiting definitions to it.
Like needing a completely fictional world or whatever, even then it's not that limiting.

Any way, how is "limiting" yourself to fantasy any more limiting than limiting yourself to real things?

And I think your Shakespeare example was very bad considering he/they liked their fantastical elements so much.

>cut off date
Oh boy.

Fiction is inherently dumb and escapist. Real men read about real things, not some made up bullshit by a poofter.

"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

>Gormenghast, that is, the main massing of the original stone, taken by itself would have displayed a certain ponderous architectural quality were it possible to have ignored the circumfusion of those mean dwellings that swarmed like an epidemic around its outer walls. They sprawled over the sloping earth, each one halfway over its neighbour until, held back by the castle ramparts, the innermost of these hovels laid hold on the great walls, clamping themselves thereto like limpets to a rock. These dwellings, by ancient law, were granted this chill intimacy with the stronghold that loomed above them. Over their irregular roofs would fall throughout the seasons, the shadows of time-eaten buttresses, of broken and lofty turrets, and, most enormous of all, the shadow of the Tower of Flints. This tower, patched unevenly with black ivy, arose like a mutilated finger from among the fists of knuckled masonry and pointed blasphemously at heaven. At night the owls made of it an echoing throat; by day it stood voiceless and cast its long shadow.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I am but an actor and the world is my stage.

This. Pick up a book and read about the real world. Ideas, people, events that actually happened. Not some faggot's made up shit where he spews all his political opinions throughout the story where his opinions are portrayed in the right and opposer as idiots. Like a /pol/ comic.

Gorgeous, truly magnificent prose.

What, you're denying that the books I listed are good?

And I just haven't seen too many good sci fi of that kind in recent years. If you can give me some examples that would prove me wrong, great.

He's a local troll, ignore him.

Historians and other nonfiction writers put their political agenda in their works all the time. Don't see why people see this as a bad thing.

Try Gene Wolfe, Roger Zelazny, Philip K Dick and Samuel Delany for best sf.

On a scale from "Dragonlance mass-produced garbage" to "Bretty gud", how would you rate Coltaine's story?

>Titus is seven. His confines, Gormenghast. Suckled on shadows; weaned, as it were, on webs of ritual: for his ears, echoes, for his eyes, a labyrinth of stone: and yet within his body something other – other than this umbrageous legacy. For first and ever foremost he is child. A ritual, more compelling than ever man devised, is fighting anchored darkness. A ritual of the blood; of the jumping blood. These quicks of sentience owe nothing to his forbears, but to those feckless hosts, a trillion deep, of the globe’s childhood. The gift of the bright blood. Of blood that laughs when the tenets mutter ‘Weep’. Of blood that mourns when the sere laws croak ‘Rejoice!’ O little revolution in great shades! Titus the seventy-seventh. Heir to a crumbling summit: to a sea of nettles: to an empire of red rust: to rituals’ footprints ankle-deep in stone. Gormenghast. Withdrawn and ruinous it broods in umbra: the immemorial masonry: the towers, the tracts. Is all corroding? No. Through an avenue of spires a zephyr floats; a bird whistles; a freshet bears away from a choked river. Deep in a fist of stone a doll’s hand wriggles, warm rebellious on the frozen palm. A shadow shifts its length. A spider stirs …

>And darkness winds between the characters.

AHHHHHHHHH

Assessing someone's opinion in relation to a real event is doable to assess it.

In a fictional story where they control everything? The only interesting thing from that is seeing how they perceive the world.

God I need to read the second volume after my immediate nonfic.

Who was Coltaine?

>And I think your Shakespeare example was very bad considering he/they liked their fantastical elements so much.
Maybe so. My bad.

I can see your point, I guess. But Literature is often focused on artistic elements while genre fiction doesn't usually have that as a primary concern.

Maybe what I was trying to ask was if sci fi/ fantasy which isn't trying to be "art" is limited and can't be as profound as literature.

>as it were

Is there any phrase more disgusting and poisonous than this

Oh, you're talking about style? There's nothing in genre that prevents anyone from having that. Read Jack Vance.

Too lazy to get the bottom text out say some shit about dinosaur posters.

Yes. It's the author's first published book and the latter ones are better. Personally it's one of my favorite new series of the last few years.

Though, it just may not be for you. People here love Ian M. Banks but I just can't stand his writing style.

>as if

Wow the one who took that picture must have felt happy as a dog in that company

Guys I'm thinking about writing a short story about a guy that works in an intelligence bureau making psy-ops leaflets, set in set in some kind of fantasy or uchronia setting
Good idea? [y/n]

>Fiction is inherently dumb and escapist
Once you understand that IJ, GR, Ulysses, Notes from the underground, the stranger, etc etc etc are all fiction.

If it isn't a STEM book, it's fiction. Fucking asshat.

>what is philosophy

We won't know until you write it, will we?

>he doesn't agree with/like what I like
>he is a troll
nice ad hominem

Banks was Scotland personified and it hurt his writing, his writing literally bleeds bitterness and envy.

>a sffg film
you had one job

>Now I saw how strong the rigid formations of our enemy appeared, rectangles that held machines as big as fortresses and a hundred thousand soldiers shoulder to shoulder.

>But on a screen in the centre of the control panel I looked under the visors of their helmets, and all that rigidity, all that strength, melted into a kind of horror. There were old people and children in the infantry files, and some who seemed idiots. Nearly all had the mad, famished faces I had observed the day before, and I recalled the man who had broken from his square and thrown his spear into the air as he died. I turned away.

>The Autarch laughed. His laughter held no joy now; it was a flat sound, like the snapping of a flag in a high wind. “Did you see one kill himself?”

>“No,” I said.

>“You were fortunate. I often do, when I look at them. They are not permitted arms until they are ready to engage us, and so many take advantage of the opportunity. The spearmen drive the butts of their weapons into soft ground, usually, then blast off their own heads. Once I saw two swordsmen—a man and a woman—who had made a compact. They stabbed each other in the belly, and I watched them counting first, moving their left hands ...one ... two ... three, and dead.”

This book is really, really good

youtube.com/watch?v=D8zlUUrFK-M

wolfe looks pretty good for a guy who was born before the french revolution

Nothing wrong with New Sun fellow Anti-Dinosaur user.
... now if that poster was to only read and suggest New Sun... that is where we would have a problem.

... sounds like you wanna fuck him..
take your fetishes there or better yet..

Meh, Abercrombie does this kind of stuff better tbqh

...

>Titus watched his headmaster. He had no fear of him. But he had no love for him either. That was the sad thing. Bellgrove, eminently lovable, because of his individual weakness, his incompetence, his failure as a man, a scholar, a leader or even as a companion, was nevertheless utterly alone. For the weak, above all, have their friends. Yet his gentleness, his pretence at authority, his palpable humanity were unable, for some reason or other, to function. He was demonstrably the type of venerable and absent-minded professor about whom all the sharp-beaked boys of the world should swarm like starlings in wheeling murmurations – loving him all unconsciously, while they twitted and cried their primordial jests, flung their honey-centred, prickle-covered verbiage to and fro, pulled at the long black thunder-coloured gown, undid with fingers as quick as adders’ tongues the buttons of his braces; pleaded to hear the ticking of his enormous watch of brass and rust red iron, with the verdigris like lichen on the chain; fought between those legs like the trousered stilts of the father of all storks; while the great, corded, limpish hands of the fallen monarch flapped out from time to time, to clip the ears of some more than venturesome child, while far above, the long, pale lion’s head turned its eyes to and fro in a slow, ceremonious rhythm, as though he were a lighthouse whose slowly swivelling beams were diffused and deadened in the sea-mists; and all the while, with the tassel of the mortar-board swinging high above them like the tail of a mule, with the trousers loosening at the venerable haunches, with the cat-calls and the thousand quirks and oddities that grow like brilliant weeds from the no-man’s-land of urchins’ brains – all the while there would be this love like a sub-soil, showing itself in the very fact that they trusted his lovable weakness, wished to be with him because he was like them irresponsible, magnificent with his locks of hair as white as the first page of a new copy-book, and with his neglected teeth, his jaw of pain, his completeness, ripeness, false-nobility, childish temper and childish patience; in a word, that he belonged to them; to tease and adore, to hurt and to worship for his very weakness’ sake. For what is more lovable than failure?

Why does he do this?