/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

Well if you liked the Black Company, I'd suggest the Instrumentalities of the Night series, probably Glen Cook' next best series.

The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear aren't in any of the fantasy recommendations here, do people not like them? I've just came out of hospital and they both made me feel much better during my recovery.

Mediocre written wish fulfillment stories, not much more than that.

Autistic wish fulfillment shlock

It's an overused word nowadays but Kvothe is the epitome of a Mary Sue. I had to put it down when it looked like he was going to get trained by those weeaboo Vulcan warriors.

Isn't that kind of the point? Both books are filled with little stories about Taborlin the Great and people like that. Kvothe is one of those mythical figures, but ends up broken and miserable in the middle of nowhere at the end of it all.

...

Who would win between a Resistance mage using surrealism as a weapon, and a Nazi officer-priest with a direct line to Hell?

>Resistance mage using surrealism as a weapon

So is he gay or is his girlfriend black?

With Mieville it's usually one of the two.

Red Rising

Illustrated Man is better desu desu

Any sci-fi and fantasy booktubers worth checking out? Bonus if they're qt grils.

*grasps the absolute*

>>everything by David Gemmell, loved it
Mah nigga. As someone who's been a Gemmell fan for over 10 years I'll recommend the book Blood Song. It's very comparable to Gemmell's work. I can't recommend the sequels though since I haven't read them because apparently they're not nearly as good as Blood Song, but Blood Song works as a standalone novel anyways.

I'd recommend the first 6 books.

Doesn't seem like either, though details are sparse atm - it's more about the nightmarish battleground the city's become, and everybody trying to contact an entity called the Exquisite Corpse. Might be some GRI though.

Anyway, Lin's a bug-girl not a black one, it's important to know the difference.

Is BC worth reading past the first 3 books?

What do you expect from a stinko pinko?

>everything by Miles Cameron, loved it

Go to bed Senator McCarthy.

McCarthy was right though.

Trying to remember the title of a scifi story I started a while back but never finished. All I can remember is that the basic premise was that a disgraced space military officer/space captain gets hired on as a bodyguard/pilot for a space princess or something but it turns out there's more going on than she expected! Oh no!

Dagger and Coin is perfect for what you want

Also had the exact same experience with Mistborn as you, the second book fails to hook at all

I'm mad as fuck, was kinda enjoying some schlocky fantasy (Blood Song) and then for no fucking reason the author makes the sequel multiple perspective and kills all of his characterisation, which is not a great move when it's the only thing holding his writing together.

I couldn't make it through Kvothe goes to college

That's like 600 fucking pages of "he played his lute really well, and the girl liked him and he was good at learning stuff"

What does this GRI mean? It's just popped up in the last few months and I have no idea what it means.

Generosity Reliability and Intellect
GRI approval is the mark of good, moral fantasy literature for the whole family

so what does /sffg/ think of the hungergamesredfactioncodegeass trilogy? I liked it. though during the third one I kept wondering why characters I liked weren't dying horrible violent deaths in the numbers they should, but when I was done I heard he was working on a new trilogy, so I guess he saving those kills for the next book.

I actually wish it meant this

Abercrombie usually has people of some moral fiber somewhere, he isn't *completely* off the wall with sex or violence.

>Ender, Catniss, now Darrow

Only so he can punish them for doing one decent thing ever

He's unbearable to read because you can see that shit coming a mile off and it has no value outside of this unfulfilled shock

Divided between people who won't read it because it's YA, people who dropped it because of the first person present tense edgy narrator, and people who loved it. Morning Star was too long, though.

You try coming up with a tagline for old-style pulp disguised as YA without putting school libraries off.

Can't remember what series it is but one of the best fantasy books I've read of late had "...in a game of thrones..." on the blurb

would anyone recommend any of GRRM's work other than ASOIAF? I read the series back in 2011 before the GoT explosion, so I my memory of his writing was more lenient.

Fevre Dream is pretty good, written just before vampires were finally cliche'd to death. Haven't read the others, though apparently he was so disappointed in Armageddon Rag he quit writing for years

Dying of the Light is okay, honestly ASOIAF is the most interesting thing he hass done.

nm, found it, Hunting Party by Elizabeth Moon.

gay/rape/incest, the standard elements of edgelord modern fantasy.

That makes sense, thanks friend-o.

Hey /sffg/, this short story I'm working on is about 4k words long now and I don't think I'm halfway done. I've never finished anything even close to this big, and I ran out of steam months ago.

At this rate I'm progressing at maybe 200 words a week and am only writing because I feel internal pressure to either keep writing or give up on my dreams.

Should I start something else, or keep going? I have another story I never finished. Should I try that instead

Generally, its better to finish things, even if they aren't very good. Practice makes perfect, and finishing stories is maybe the most difficult thing of all about writing.

What's it about? How long do you suppose it to be?

Anybody got a link for all the .epubs of Prince of Nothing and Aspect Emperor? I can't into google.

the one I'm on now is about an ancient greek shephard struggling to carry on after his daughter dies. After pulling up an amazon girl who tried to drown herself in a nearby creek he makes it his duty to save her, but then he learns why she did it: She burned down a sacred grove, and for that she was turned into a were-lioness and exiled from her homeland

The second one is about about a korean war vet who got shot in the leg. As he adjusts to civilian life he learns three things:
1: His parent's apartment is not wheelchair accessible
2: The bridesmaid from his friend's wedding would be an excellent wife
3: His father, the Rabbi has a lot of weird books on kabbalah

Those who willingly avoid the sticky are doomed to frustration.

the one I'm working on now is shaping up to be at least 9k words, the other is much, much closer to done the other is at 6k and will probably only be 8k

>he only has two ongoing writing projects

I want to fuck Spinner-of-Rope!

I have three, but the third is bigger than either of these, and completely unpublishable due to the fact that the subject matter is 50 years shy of public domain

literally the second result on google for "prince of nothing epub" is a kat link

Oh, i thought it was there merely to redirect people to Veeky Forums or /pol/. Neat, now i only need to find one for The White Luck Warrior.

Is China Melville's 'Iron Council' a decent read? I've never read his stuff, but the kind old man at the bookshop let me have it for free because I was already buying 2 books

I don't know, but I've heard people (on Veeky Forums) complain about it being very leftist

He is a hardcore left-wing socialist and those types of scum aren't known for NOT injecting their personal politics and beliefs into their own works. So make of that what you will.

Its decent.
Read Perdido Street Station and The Scar first though. People complain about the leftist side of it, but honestly, it isn't that bad, I don't mind it when authors include what they're passionate about. In my mind the most powerful part of the trilogy comes from the Marxist aspect, so it's essential to the text.
The Scar is the best one though.

I've searched through soulseek, torrents, the sticky recommendation, and basic google searches and I cannot find this book for download. Found the first two in the trilogy easy enough, but I can't find so much as a dead torrent for this one. Can any bros help me out?

Is it necessary to read Perdido Street Station and The Scar first? I'd rather not have to go hunting for them but if it's necessary to make this one readable I'll do it

Not really, the Bas-Lag books share a setting but don't really overlap plotwise, except minor stuff like the protagonist of Scar was a friend of the guy from Perdido. You can start anywhere.

You can read it without them, but you'll miss lots of important story. The Bas-Lag books, Perdido in particular, got me back into reading fantasy when I was 20, so I'm pretty attached to them. I mean, when you're presented with a character who fucks a woman with an insect for a head in the first chapter you want to spread that book around, you know?
Shouldn't be too hard to find. Everything's on kat.

All of the Jack Half a Prayer and the Runagate Rampant stuff carries through into Iron Council though. There's a lot underneath the main plot that carries through all of them. The story of the train is basically an extended metaphor that the previous books establish.

*tips shardfedora*
Heheh, nothing personnel, parshman

>All of the Jack Half a Prayer and the Runagate Rampant stuff carries through into Iron Council though
Ohh, okay, actually the one real problem I had with Perdido was wondering who the hell Jack was and what he wanted (isn't there also a short with him in Looking For Jake?). Have to get to #2 an 3 soon.

People kept recommending China Mieville to me so I read a bunch of his stories and they're okay. Interesting settings and ideas but the prose is, while easy to read, bland and the plots are predictably constructed. I know this is the sffg thread so you're not looking for Literature with a capital L but it is a lot like YA fiction. Like eating ethically sourced fast food.

Neil Gaiman for the male demographic, only not as good. I don't even like Gaiman but he's inarguably a good storyteller.

As, how the fuck do I write a short story? Every time I start shit gets crazy and I end up with thousands of words. Part of my just wants to explore and build the world and it hurts my writing. Even on my big project, a lot of it goes into random philosophical ramblings and exposition and although I can write good and intelligent dialogue, everything else feels like shit.
I think I should learn to write short stories first and foremost.

The story in Looking For Jake does explain Jack and his motivations. I think that collection of short stories is actually the best thing he's written. ( here by the way).

I found hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/nwwf.aspx helpful when I was starting out.

It's really not at all YA material, half way into the first book learns you that

The YA allusion was just the best way to market it, and they dropped the whole pretend concept after the first book, trying to get the "Like Game of Thrones" tag instead

What other YA has rape, incest, disembowelment and sodomy all within a few chapters?

>It's really not at all YA material, half way into the first book learns you that
I know that, but that's what turns some anons away from it. It certainly feels like an extra-edgy Hunger Games at first.

>Mieville's prose is bland
Wow, never heard that before. If anything people usually complain about him using too many weird words (not a problem for me, love a weird word) or that time he decided to only use ampersands.

Gimmicks can leave prose feeling even more bland.

No idea why Pierce Brown did that, the initial first chapters are so angsty I'm too embarrassed to even recommend it in person

But people who tredge through usually have the same glad conclusion they stayed with it

Well yes, I too complain that he occasionally jams inapropos words into his text that don't suit the tone and come across as him awkwardly trying to educate his readers like some "Word of the day" vocabulary expander & yes, the use of ampersands in Railsea was a stupid gimmick. Just because you have weird tasting lumps in your porridge, that doesn't mean it's not bland.

>tfw no one will find this for meh

Sorry user, I tried on libgen but it's not there either ;--;

I REALLY want to write a funky vampire short story with the tone of Sister Sledge's 'He's the Greatest Dancer', but I wouldn't know how write it without it being a mess.

How do you do research for writing stuff? Do you just google shit? I mean I want to write say mediaeval fantasy warfare, do I just google how to set a war camp, how a king would act, how the battlefield dynamic works?
I have drive and I'm some 24k words in but I feel like a lot of what I write is half-assed horse shit I came up with and has no basis. All of it is too outlandish and it gave me excuse to write shit that just ain't plausible ever.

Read history books, watch documentaries; take notes of the relevant bits.

Google for recommended, informative books on medieval warfare then go to the library, read them and take notes.

That made me think, sounds very interesting but I couldn't help you there, it would be almost impossible.

People don't read fantasy for point for point military tactics. Just focus on the characters. If the perspective is a soldier, does he need to understand the strategy, or does he just have to know to stand somewhere and kill people when required? King's don't tend to focus on warfare either, that's what generals and shit are for. Kings act however your character acts. Personal differences go a long way.
Anyway, look for history books and firsthand accounts of warfare. The feeling of being in a battle is more important than a consistent and realistic strategy playing out I would think. I mean, look at The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie. Great book, understanding of warfare is pretty meh.

>download shit off uni libraries
>torrent non fiction, read up on references
>write from experience

Do we really need another medieval fantasy book that involves a war?

>tfw we'll never get a fantasy novel that takes place on the moon

Please write that book user.
I want some comfy moon fantasy with qt moongirls.
Not scifi in any way.
Pure fantasy.

Fuck, that's actually a really cool idea, senpai.

I've been reading through some of the side series from the Malazan universe. The Bauchelain ones were alright, kind of discworldy. Crack'd Pot Trail was pretty unreadable.

But this first book in the Kharkanas trilogy; god fucking damn. This is both extremely good in it's own right, and absolutely fascinating for lore.

If you couldn't get into the main series for whatever reason, you should try it. No pacing problems, no anthropology chapters, and Erikson is actually turning into a great writer.

I honestly cannot comprehend how he writes these characters. I don't think I've ever more envied a particular skill in an author.

Well you could try this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_Moone

>A gripping military fantasy in the tradition of Glen Cook, Scourge of the Betrayer explores the brutal politics of Empire–and the searing impact of violence and dark magic on a man’s soul.

okay sounds good

wait a minute

>main character uses a ball and chain flail

DROPPED

Better than yet another asshole with a sword.

Currently reading Heroes Die in the Acts of Caine series, and while I'm not a huge fan of the characters so far, holy flying fuck does Stover do an incredible job at bringing a couple of scenes to life.

The first few scenes with the Emperor in his palace are so fucking vivid it's impressive.

I wanted to try that at one point but the way everyone talked about it made it seem incredibly edgy

The MC is a hardcore kiler with a hidden soft side. Cliched, mostly fun to read though, and I don't think it's edgy.
Plus this book has had a few neat quotes so far, and I'm a sucker for good quotes. There's this ongoing theme about society, government, tyranny, control and revolution that adds a bit of depth to everything. I like it.

How edgy do David Gemmel books get? Was looking into that next, especially Waylander ones, but I'm a bit sick of edge after Glen Cook and fucking Mark Lawrence in a row. Going to vomit if I read about another mercenary company.