/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

Halfway done.

Lots of fucked up shit. A couple big plot revelations. Pretty satisfying.

As in shitloads of action and violence? You might like something like powder mage

powder mage was just ok.
The ending was shit though, didn't feel satisfying at all.

Of course a guy taught by Sanderson can't write endings

>People say Sanderson is anime
>Expecting shit like a high fantasy setting slapped onto a modern world like our own
>The main party killing god at the end
>Archetypes out the ass
>The closest his writing gets to anime is the cringey dialogue and shounen battles/power ups

Fuck, do I have to write this shit myself?

>the closest his writing comes to anime is having the most widely recognised traits of anime

>not killing and replacing God
Which Sanderson are you reading?

>do I have to write this shit myself?
No because I am.

A Land Fit for Heroes is fucking hilarious

It's so over the top in it's grimdarkiness

I liked the Sanderson one about how Jesus was a fraud

>1/4 through The Great Ordeal
>Gay rape already

Seriously?

Have you grasped the absolute Veeky Forums ?
How's the ordeal going?

>"grasping" the absolute
>"grasping" everything and nothing

absolutely fucking Dunyain

There was child rape not even 5 pages into the first fucking book, what did you expect.

Holy fuck, I just reread The Wizard of Earthsea for the first time in years. Was it always this great?

>the Dunyain breeding chamber

So what I'm getting is that Bakker is basically a xXxSePhErOtH666xXx author.

Don't have my copy yet. No spoilers pls.

not really...There isn't a single "edgy thing" that happens without a reason. Everything has a purpose. I can't think of a shocking rape/murder etc happening only for bakker to show of...

>mommma

leave this place else it will break you

> God
> No God

His books are dark and "obscene" but not really edgy.

Check out the bakker discussion thread...maybe we can get some actual discussion going besides memes ( spoilers of course)

>The man in the dinner plate scowled as a servant shoveled a heap of peas onto his brow. One day he would be free of this porcelain bondage, and his revenge would be as succulent as the cowflesh framing his jaw.

This, pls phams.

Does anyone else get... uncomfortable racial vibes from Stormlight Achives?

Sorry, I've already decided to discuss the gay rape here.

The scenes of hell were actually pretty fucked up.

HERE:

what scenes? did I miss them ?

This from your unpublished work?

>what scenes? did I miss them ?

The first chapter.

"He comes to the shore that is here, always here, gazes without sight across waters that are fire, and sees the Sons swimming, lolling and bloated and bestial, raising babes as wineskins, and drinking deep their shrieks."

Not so much that part but the revelation that all of the gods are utterly inhuman, basically just abstract concepts, and use living souls for sustenance. Not playing along means you go to hell and suffer for all eternity. So either the Consult wins and everyone dies, or the Consult loses and everyone goes to hell.

Wew.

Also Serwe is burning in hell.

Loving this grimdark.

The angry man on the plate sneered contemptuously as roasted meats and vegetables were placed upon his face.

"Duke Weidimar, this new china you have obtained is certainly... exotic" murmured General Voskan as gravy pooled on the man's brow, obscuring the generic rage smouldering in his eyes. "From farest Cathay did you say?"

"Indeed, and at great expense as you can imagine" he replied, pleased that the plates had been noticed, "only one of the latest acquisitions for my collection. I am expecting another shipment from my agents in the coming month that promises to be quite exquisite."

"Ah. Indeed. Money well spent I assume?" said the General as he eyed the plate like a sailor in a foreign port who had been beset by swarthy locals.

"Indeed. They say it includes a tourine featuring 'improbably muscled beasts'" said the duke as Duchess Katarina rolled her eyes and peas beaded on the man's cheeks like sweat.

The angry man glared frightfully as the palace staff began serving the third course.

No. It rewrote itself when you weren't looking so it could surprised you.

Yes.

>uncomfortable racial vibes
My wife's boyfriend and I both agree.

Finished reading the Dresden Files a while back.
Are there any other novels with the same setting while I wait for Peace Talks?

this is my fetish

Reading A Wizard of Earthsea right now.
Anyone find that it has a very distinct feel to it? The material is obviously derivative but something about her writing gives it a unique vibe.

You're meant to.

Endurance isn't very good to be honest, by far the weakest of the three Xeelee Sequence Anthologies, the couple original stories feel, to put it simply unfinished, like single chapters in a longer story, same as Gravity Dreams (it reads like an introduction to what should have been a fully fledged Raft 2) which you can't find anywhere else outside the ridiculously expensive hardcover. The Old Earth stories are fine if you've never read them before but none of the important mysteries trough the book get explained aside from very vague hints that just leave you blueballed. All in all it feels like a rushed "bridge" anthology and Baxter hintedin an interview there will be a final book where we might actually see the Xeelee themselves in all their spacetime defect glory.

If it makes you feel any better he didn't suffer long, Lieserl was only aware of the connection failing due to her nature as a virtual construct allowed he to operate on her processors' time, Uvarov just froze to death rather fast and his crazy design might live on in the new universe if the people in the Great Northern decide to go the natural route for immortality/evolution. I'm kinda bummed there are compratively few stories that explore that semi-utopic period from where all of Superet's projects were launched, it looks like right after Timelike Infinity things just kept going to shit for humanity and never really recovered, if it wasn't being beaten to shit by aliens it was humans going fucking crazy one way or the other like during the long ass Coalition era.

Just finished dune, didn't like it desu had to force myself toward the end

Well his edgy philosophy is totally disproved irl

I am about 80% through this and I have a few minor questions.

1) What was the Great Mistake?
2) What is the All Thing?

why don't you finish both books before asking

Fiiiiiine I will

>1) What was the Great Mistake?
This post

The great mistake is explained in the novel, if you've not finished it yet then don't read on but a team in Kiev "accidentally" created a black hole at the centre of the Earth, I won't say any more than this.

The All Thing is basically the web forum where the super-internet discuss things, it's covered more in the second book.

Simmons really loves overwhelming you with his words for things. I was a tad confused when I begun Dune but nothing compared to the confusion experienced in the first chapter of Hyperion. Another reason it gets so much better upon a second reading.

Wish fantasy authors would stop doing multiple pov's

Instead of 5 crappy stories why not tell one good one?

Daniel Faust books by Craig Schaefer are extremely similar.

I'm reading Asimov's Foundation and have a question.

So the planet Terminus hosts Foundation correct? I'm confused because sometimes in the book another planet at the opposite end of the galaxy is referenced, or maybe I misinterpreted?

Instead of 1 good story why not tell five good stories?

Because almost none of them are good enough writers to pull that off

So what makes you think they'd be able to come up with 1 good story?
If they had 5 crappy stories, it would be 4 crappy and 1 good, if the author was capable of writing a good story, no?

They can put all their focus on one good one.

Because with one story you only have to worry about the pacing of a single story

When an author does like 5, they're balancing the five individual stories alongside the pacing of the book itself, this is almost never done well.

Also multiple Pov's make your world seem really small when you inevitably have them all meet up.

Good = 1
1/5 = 0.2

Instead of a quality of 1, you get 5 stories of the quality 0.2

So if he wrote 1 word he would get a story of near infinite quality?

Yes :)

Yes Terminus holds foundation. All is revealed later.

OK thanks for clearing it up. Its starting to make sense but still confusing at times.

I agree wth the gist of this post.

In my own novel I have one central POV but I'm considering adding another one who shows an entirely different side of the world and information that would be important later on. And that would be it. Never anymore than two if I simply have to do it.

Asimov writes curiously, like a rather incompetent historian. If you find yourself truly confused I would recommend perhaps delving into the wiki of re-reading sections, you don't want to get confused.

I don't browse Veeky Forums oftend and I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but how would someone just starting out get sci-fi/fantasy published?

I don't mind two, or maybe even three

I think 4's the point at which your story starts to get really spread out

write short stories and get published in small journals enough so that you've made a bit of a name for yourself
Find a friend or a friend of a friend or a friends dad or some distant person who have a slight connection with who works in publishing and ask them to review your work
Then just cross ya fingers and wait

Most publishing companies take submissions, google your question and you'll see some good advice

>write short stories and get published in small journals enough so that you've made a bit of a name for yourself
how viable is this really nowadays, it dosent seem like people even read short stories

The books are very clearly intentionally exploring race.

One thing I really, really like about the books is that literally only one race in the books (the Shin) are a race we have here on Earth (caucasians). The Alethi are a korean/spaniard/black hybrid, the Parshmen are entirely unique, every race except the Shin has asian eyes, etc.

book 3 clearly gonna play even more with the parshendi racial stuff. should be interesting. i think book 4 is meant to be Eshonais.

yeah its not viable for getting an audience audience but it can be viable for getting an industry audience

i kinda disagree with other user though, and id say - if you have the time - just write novels. write a few, until you get good at it (sandersons 8th written novel was his first published). if you wanna be really really good at writing novels, writing short stories isnt gonna help completely because its a different format and skill

watch these youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FCD81A6FE4280AC they are a university class taught by Brandon Sanderson, one of the bestselling genre writers today, covering both the writing aspects and the selling aspects (stuff like getting published, getting an agent, etc). people from his classes have become legit published authors, so the advice is sound

Thanks bro. I'm actually in the process of editing my first novel now and I'd rather go "straight for the gold" to get that published if I can. Its supposed to part of a series, so I'm thinking of doing a Gaskun and writing them all before publishing.

By now I've done dozens of short stories but they're all in the realm of "flash fiction" rather than say a 10 page "short story". Just a few lines with lots of implication. I cant really see myself building up an audience with those as they seem more supplementary to what would be my flagship work.

Welp that's disappointing to find out. It would be cool to see the Xeelee at some point. At first, I was kind of aggravated that we never see them but I do like how he kept them completely 100% off-screen so now it will be a matter of if he can show them on-screen properly and without disappointment. Which major mysteries need explaining?

I know. He fell asleep/passed out and that was it. I didn't care for him at first but he grew on me very strongly as a character all throughout the book. Maybe due to his trait of open honesty all the time. Humanity had it rough in their self-obsession and insistence upon becoming top dog of the galaxy. Too bad 'umies could never roll with the big dawgs.

Fun fact: The Listeners (Parshendi) are the oldest race on Roshar.

Talking about Dresden Files. Is there any books that deal with possession?
Like how Dresden had a passenger, and in Night Angel Trilogy, Kylar had a passenger that talked to him also.

It's nice reading and having dual perspectives. Also do you guys think that Dresden has some "lashes" still remaining on his head? Or was all burnt out?

If you don't like multiple POVs don't read books with multiple POVs.

Done.

They're complaining about a trend that's now in almost every book in the genre

"don't read them lol" doesn't really work when criticising something that widespread

It really isn't.

>download books based on recommendations but don't read them until months later
>now reading some lame shit where people are throwing colours about
I need to find whoever recommended this and punch them

How do you write good prose?

Step 1. Learn Grammer

Read lots of good prose and work out why it's good

Wasn't his sentence grammatically correct?

It has to flow naturally.

There's more to it than dotting your eyes. There are many structural and rhetorical techniques that can help take your prose to the next level. "Flow" as in the sound is just one part of it.

I recommend The New Oxford Guide to Writing. It opened my eyes to many things and took much legwork out the research. John Gardner touches upon it too in his Art of Fiction.

dotting your i's lol

Just finished metro 2033... that ending was fucked up. do the dark friends survive in the sequel? Do they try again? Or is it an all out war?
People just want to wallow in pig shit and mushrooms huh?

>tfw no qt darkone to cuddle with and have my babies
Why live?

Can I get an answer and some recommendations here please?

Shades of gray, warbreaker, or Lightbringer
Which one?

Lightbringer

It's actually an okay adventure novel now that the author's stopped spending every other line explaining his magic system

That's a really bad series.

I hate that Sanderson's started a trend of magic being explained in complete detail

The whole concept of magic is something that's unexplained and beyond comprehension

I'll see, I don't really have an issue with schlocky action so long as it stays schlocky, I read that stuff to have a break in between complex novels.

What does piss me off is stuff like patrick rothfuss where it's still schlock but it's also really slow and overwritten

>I'll see, I don't really have an issue with schlocky action so long as it stays schlocky, I read that stuff to have a break in between complex novels.
Why not read Fafhrd then?

>The whole concept of magic is something that's unexplained and beyond comprehension
Says who? You are just exposing your green scales and sharp teeth with this post.

The whole magic is mysterious schlock has been done to death. So much so, that authors feel they can pull their deus ex machina out their ass at any moment, and we they readers will accept it.

Magic that is structured, with clearly defined boundaries just immerses the reader deeper into the world. It's like science fiction, where they explain the ability /function, and it leaves you wondering if someday, this can actually happen. It gives your imagination more sustenance, so it can in turn keep you strong and well fortified.

The only people I see crying about "magic systems" being structured are old fucking dinosaurs, with dried up imaginations who read Tolkien, and expect everything to follow in his footsteps. They expect to be lead by the fucking hand all the way through a novel, and hate the fact that they have to use their brains while reading.

You cunts fucking make me sick.

Any of you guys authors or aspiring authors? I've been working on a batch of short stories and I'm not really sure where to submit them.

They're pretty traditional fantasy (swords, sorcery, magic towers, etc.) and it seems like most genre magazines prefer 'surreal' and scifi types of stories.

So I need a short break between books 9 and 10 of WoT, and I was thinking short story.

Any recs? Can be anything as long as it's good and takes my mind off WoT. I hear this next book is gonna be turbo shit.