Fantasy
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Science Fiction
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Previous Thread:
There aren't any good low tech sci-fi books like Asimov.
>Hur dur muh techwank
What book is least like the culture?
Hey, it's just a short fantasy story I wrote in the same spirit like fairy tales.
read it, rate it, shit on it, critique it, give feedback, ignore it, do whatever you want. I just wished to finally post this.
In which direction? Adam Roberts' Stone is a look at a society like the Culture being completely infantilizing to its humans, shows the dark side of letting yourself be pets to AI. John C. Wright's The Golden Age is like Culture but libertarian, with Minds that actually respect humans.
Or if you mean not any tech at all, just read post-apoc. Canticle for St. Leibowitz or Damnation Alley or Amtrak Wars, stuff like that.
>What book is least like the culture?
Animorphs.
Do I have to read Dying Earth first before I start reading Lyonesse?
Question: how hacky is it to resurrect a dead character twenty years after his death? I mean my writing is incredibly hacky anyway, and it's not really writing, it's kinda hard to explain, but it is writing. It's just something else beforehand.
But basically there's a girl kinda like Alia from Dune, having these visions of her dead father who sacrificed himself to kill a main villain a long time ago, she never met him. I killed him off wanting some kind of "new era' in the story but I've since regretted it because his son just isn't as good, I just don't connect with him as much as I did. So I've been focusing more on his daughter, because I need that "default character." I am considering bringing him back but it's a problem for two reasons. One, it's weird cause it breaks up the cycle where the children take over the focus of the story from their parents who die. So basically, the son would have no reason to live anymore. He wouldn't belong in the story, in some ways. I introduced his long-lost cousin in a lame attempt of bringing in a more likeable character to focus on but that went nowhere, so I am worried the same thing would happen. Maybe the father's story really is concluded. I just feel this deep sadness that he is dead, it felt like such a badass epic end for him at the time yet now I regret it. Same with his wife, she was a good character and actually somewhat multi-dimensional unlike most of the side characters, and I let her die as well.
So it's kinda a complicated thing. I would say the tech level and supernatural level in this universe is pretty close to dune, except it all takes place on one giant planet. I could bring out the Clarkian "ancient tech is magic" bullshit as an excuse to resurrect him, it would make a good "quest" for the daughter. But like I said, there is nothing supernatural except the family's abilities which are just there to explain their plot armor.
Autistic mess of a post, sorry. Just mind dumping.
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Not only is Relevation Space Alastairs worst book, it's also a trilogy. His stand alones are better.
Resurrection is always kind of hacky.
Avoid it if you can.
Absolutely no need to bring him back from what you're telling me. The father's still a character, his character overshadows everything his kids do, and their conflict is becoming like him. The point he really "comes back" is the point where his kids are as awesome as he is. Same for the mother.
Except three body problem sucked.
put the full trilogy
Dat M1911 silhouette, tho.
I think you said that last thread but Pushing Ice was underwhelming.
Just finished 2010: Odyssey Two
Is the 3rd book in the series worth my time?
having read your stuff from that blog you posted once I would just advise you to keep doing the thing you're doing. You're onto something insane, something no one but you can understand, so asking for advice is pretty useless. That's my opinion.
You might as well. It's not historically bad like the Rama sequels. 3001 is quite stupid though
Yeah I'm kind of intrigued to see where the plot goes desu and to see what happens on Europa.
The Lucifer shit is kinda stupid tho
True I suppose. I mean, I guess he's still a character no matter what by that logic. I think these urges are less out of what fits the story and more out of missing a character I had for years and years.
Yeah it's hard to explain it so someone else would understand. I don't know what to do for now, I will just keep that storyline in the background and maybe use it later if it feels like it really truly fits. I just feel like I need one "OG" character to make it to the end. I have one, but I feel like I need another. But yeah I think I answered my own question by listing the problems it would cause.
Is it good?
>Star Wars
>good
Pretty much universally no.
A friend told me I should read Sanderson. I finished Eltantris last night and it was meh, but I'm about 75 pages into Mistborn and already enjoying it significantly more. Cool to see how much more creative freedom he took in his second book.
Anyone into 40k novels? Used to love reading the lore as a kid. In the market for simple fun grimdark tales.
if you enjoy Sanderson then I honestly feel bad for you. A friend of mine forced me to read the way of kings and it was hands down the most horrid piece of shit I've read in my entre life. The guy has ZERO knowledge of historical social norms or human nature and his writing is nothing but recycled counter culture liberal propaganda wrapped in GRRM tier pseudo complexity. Literally the epitome of sjw-ness in modern fantasy.
Not sure which one to download lads
>Sanderson has shitty dialogue, exposition problems, pacing problems, flat characters, and obvious plot twists
>It's his medieval society (in appearance only) with almost modern day social relations that's the problem
>Sanderson has shitty dialogue, exposition problems, pacing problems, flat characters, and obvious plot twists
I recognize all these issues (holy fuck his jokes are horrible) but I feel that my biggest gripe with him is the fact that his writing delves so easily into the realm of unapologetic propaganda before you even get to acquire a sense of his lackluster writing.
user I absolutely love fairy tales, I will read it when I get home.
I must be naive. what books have explicit examples of propaganda o_o
There was good humor in the last three wheel of time books.
Why are they using swords if they're 40k year in the future
It's crap, but if you know what you want, Helsreach is great.
China mievelle first comes to mind
>"China Tom Miéville FRSL is an English fantasy fiction author, comic writer, political activist and academic."
oh well fucking duh. I thought we were talking about Sanderson's books not fantasy authors in general.
Bump
QUICK
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE TECHNOLOGY OR CONCEPT FROM A HARD SCI-FI STORY
I thought you were asking about books with explicit propaganda in general? Any way, I only read the way of king by Sanderson and I have little reason to believe that his other works are more subtle.
Monoliths in 2001 series
Axolotl tank.
Good books that have lots of mythical creatures (like Chimera, Hydra, Pegasus etc) in them and somewhat focuses on them?
Is Stephenson hard to get into? I'm not really a big fan of hard scifi and Anathem looks very intimidating. Not interested in Snow Crash. Maybe Diamond Age first?
ELABORATE
The giant monolith is a teleporter and sends David Bowman millions of lightyears away
He's still just about the only recent sci-fi writer whose prose doesn't make me come out in hives.
Best Stephenson is The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon.
Snow Crash you have to read as almost retro-futurist at this point unless you really think that people having to get the bus or ride a bike in cyberspace so they can buy something is a good plot device.
The Baroque Cycle is also interesting.
He is a bit hit and miss though and has a tendency towards Slashdotesque nerd rage showing off.
That's underwhelming for a favorite technology.
Excuse me?
>Are there any SFF works where brothers and sisters actually like and care for each other in a healthy way.
IIRC Miles Vorkosigan has a pretty good relationship with his clone brother.
In the Lies of Locke Lamora the two main characters are orphans who have a strong brotherly bond.
Why on Earth does alloys need symbols? This is the first I've ever seen of this!
Psstt
Because civilization advances.
We're gonna get new symbols during modern Mistborn too.
What technology are these supposed to be?
Nope, both are separate
I just had a sad thought, or rather, an hilarious one. That list of weird symbols I've never seen before reminds me of those lists of non-existent genders. Well, there is probably people out there who have gotten tattoos of one or some of those non-existent genders. Imagine, when they grow up and stop being retarded, if someone asked them what it means. The sheer sense of humiliation, disgust of one's self, and self-loathing that should come with either explaining it or trying to change the subject will be incredibly powerful.
They're not supposed to be any technology. What lead you to believe that?
>tfw fictional literature symbols hold more meaning than fictional gender symbols irl
The guy that originally asked what was our favorite technology that attached the picture of that star symbol thing.
Historically alchemists never gave symbols to alloys.
Additionally there's also some odd stuff. For example, steel is basically just iron that's had at least 98% of the carbon cooked out of it for example. If anything, rather than being directly opposed to each other, he would have been better off using chemically pure metals as bases, with alloying suppressing or enhancing certain properties.
Fuck, I'm stalling at 4.6k words. this story isn't going to get finished if I don't keep at it, but I have no desire to write and I've already taken my sleeping pills.
nonononononononononononononononoonononnononononononoononnoonononononnonononononononononononononononoonononnononononononoononnoonononononnonononononononononononononononoonononnononononononoononnoonononononnonononononononononononononononoonononnononononononoononnoonononononnonononononononononononononononoonononnononononononoononnoononononon
The Emperor's Blades got progressively worse desu.
Im a bit confused as to what exactly is going on in the story. The writing isn't actually that bad though. There were still a few times the writing sounded a bit amatuerish. Keep writing though, you'll get better.
FINE, ILL FUCKING READ THE MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLAN ALREADY, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST
Tell me about the phenomenon of "Grimderp". How dark can a story get before it goes full circle into a comedic work? What are some examples of stories doing this?
The painted man is awful. Not only does the inject his politics into the story in a hamfisted way, he also doesn't acknowledge the obvious plotholes.
Reading this at the moment. Enjoying it quite a bit so far. The concept behind the setting is pretty intriguing. My ereader tells me I'm 25% through it though and I don't think the actual plot has reared its head yet.
>The guy has ZERO knowledge of historical social norms
As displayed by what, an entirely fictional world with no bearing at all on our world?
I feel like I've been memed.
I know how you feel.
dude JA is the man
>Do I have to read Dying Earth first before I start reading Lyonesse?
No. They are both their own stand alone series that most likely take place in the same universe. I would recommend reading Lyonesse first but it doesn't really matter.
>liberal propaganda
>sjwness
Sanderson is actually a republican Mormon.
You're just the special kind of moron that attaches 'liberal' and 'sjw' to anything you don't like.
+100 for correctly identifying night watch as the best Pratchett book. It's one of my favorites all told. Vimes is just the best character.
>Nothing to read
>Waiting for sequels to 8 series
eh
>men are illiterate warmongering brutes while women are kickass pioneers of science and art
>it's disgraceful to have strands of blond in your hair
>zero respect for authority and higher ups
>people with light eyes enslaving others with dark ones
>people who got these light eyes got them by committing hideous greed driven murders
Yeah the guy is your typical neo liberal
Psychohistory, if Asimov counts as hard sci-fi.
Just don't read past the first book.
>just don't read past the only bad book
>waiting for sequels
WAKE ME UP
WAKE ME UP INSIDE
CANT WAKE UP
SAVE ME
CALL MY NAME AND SOMETHING
The only good book you mean
It's only downhill after the first one
It was pretty early in his career that he plotted out allomancy, he'd probably do it differently with what he knows now.
top kappa
Cryptonomicon/Baroque Cycle are great if you don't mind long asides into the history of science and technology in the middle of your adventure story. Diamond Age is good all around, probably his most normal SF book, but he flubs the ending, be warned.
Anathem isn't actually very intimidating when you get into it. Even if you don't get the hylomorphism you can enjoy it as a story about science monks, and the alternate technological world is absolutely delightful.
>Which came easiest? Well, not Uncross the Stars. That I rewrote at least 14 times, throwing out over 1000 pages. Not the first two Books of Unexpected Enlightenment either.
>I rewrote the Prospero Children series six times, beginning to end. By the end, it was a much better story...more fun, more interesting, than it had been when I started. It was excruciating at the time, but looking back, I'm really glad that I did it, as my understanding of story writing and how to do it improved dramatically in ways that would not have happened, had I published an earlier version of the story and moved on.
Maybe 1-4 but the rest are absolute shit.
That's just (very) loosely describing Stormlight archive, of which there are only 2 books out and many things may or may not change in the following 8 mofokin books to come.
Even so, you failed to properly describe anything and just vomited random shit you don't like with a few things from the books.
user, you yourself are the cancer that killed /sffg/
Howbto write compelling magic? Can magic ever be interesting?
I'm working and fleshing out the magic in my novel which is related to writing in a world where there's basically no concept of writing/reading/books/etc and everything is related in images and sculpture in relief.
Sanderson is a very liberal Mormon who got into email fights with (probably) Correia over the Puppies thing.
This part was actually worldbuilding. The men are illiterate and warmongering but they're not brutes, and they would learn to read if it wasn't seen as completely effeminate. The women are pioneers of science and art but they're blessedly absent from battle (unless they're Parshendi, whose sexual dimorphism is noted to be much less). Kaladin's lost his authority for higher-ups because his commanders betrayed him and sold him into slavery, the rest of the Alethi are pretty respectful. The lighteyes/darkeyes thing is pretty standard for a caste system, historically speaking, and as described by the author elsewhere actually has a kind of social mobility in it, as high-ranking darkeyes can marry low-ranking lighteyes. The entire society is aligned on a military structure.
He is pretty liberal and has promised a gay love interest for a bit part but his worldbuilding's on point, aside from the ridiculous cursing.
>"Ice! said Nanooq. "Icing freezy SEALTUSKS!"
Magic is compelling as far as it's mysterious. When you know all about it it's just superpowers and they're fun but not compelling. Diana Wynne Jones is really good for walking the line between mysterious and accessible.
>ridiculous cursing
I'm half way through Words of Radiance and if I see one more sentence start with "Storm it but..." I'm going to kill myself.
Storm you.
Hello newfag, welcome to our general. Please keep all redshit and tumbfag out the thread.
The person in question is cosmerefag, he is our local go-to guy for everything Sanderson.
He is recognised by his avatarfaging.
Johannes Cabal is a fine example.
If you're Americlap the British humor might not give you the giggles.
What is it about? I read Deborah Harkness life trilogy and it was something new(even if it was about a fucking vampire love story) at the time I read it.
Women can really be creative, but their vaginas salivate too much and cause them to write in romance shit.
What are your thoughts on Discworld / Terry Pratchett?
I haven't read that much fantasy yet (Mistborn-trilogy, Legend, LoTR), but I have been playing RPGs my entire life, so I really love fantasy as a concept.
I've read a few discworld books and I really enjoyed them. They read fast, were funny and clever and used many different elements from fantasy.
How do you feel about the discworld series? Or eve nthe world Pratchett built?
Also, can you buy them in a collection? There are so many books and it seems a bother to have to buy them all seperatly.
It's probably another autist, like the guy that was tripping because people didn't know that stormlight could be used as a jetpack, when they everyone was using it for candles.
That was more dark humour than it was exaggeratedly grim, it vacillates between the funny and dark, but the humour is mostly derived from the sarcastic narration than the actual content, which tends to be pretty dark.
I'd say that Brent Weeks type shit seems to be more on target, where everything is so retardedly edgy that it makes it impossible to take the book seriously and you drop it after reading the rape and forced transexuality that greets you on page 1.
but I've never surpassed 5k words, and this took weeks of effort
...
I enjoy Sanderson in general, but there are little things that bother me, little modernisms. The Alethi are late-medieval, with a very stable and prosperous society, but that really doesn't seem enough for a regular footsoldier to be wearing socks, let alone the 19th-century uniforms everywhere. That implies a massive, massive textile industry in a country without machine looms. They haven't been implied to not have machine looms, but their energy sources are basically giant crabs and slaves, with the occasional hurricane. They could conceivably power factories with fabrials, but you'd think that technology would have made it to the war camps somehow.
Yeah, it's autism. That's why we read Sanderson.
It gets easier with consistent practice. Writing is a skill, it's a trade. You wouldn't expect to be a master of drywall within a few weeks of picking it up. There is no royal road to readable prose.
>magic nowadays are all explanations and no holding back
>in the 70's books I read with magic were never clear, they just waved their hands and mountains parted
>that is the best form of magic, mysterious and unknown
>also if the author writes himself into a corner he can deus ex machina something from his ass and insult his readership's intelligence
>I mean they are already stupid for reading magic books, they won't care / notice a stupid ass pull to draw the novel to a close