/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

What is the difference between high and low fantasy? If you could, explain it in your own words rather than copy pasting a definition. It;ll help me to understand.

Low fantasy has comparatively way less fantastical elements than high fantasy.

Like ASOIAF compared to Malazan.

Lirael. Though Lirael is the 2nd book in the series, Sabriel comes first, and also has a female as protagonist and is good. Lirael is better though.

Also The Liveship Traders Trilogy has a lot of characters, but probably slightly more than half of the main ones are females and one of them is a qt young teenager.

To the person who said Kahlan is your waifu: Why in the world? She's so bipolar that if the series were written by a Japanese author she could be mistaken for a cookie cutter light novel tsundere.

High fantasy simply has a higher presence of magical/fantasy elements. It's a pretty arbitrary line.

hey :)
> Low Fantasy has little fantastical elements, which impact the world little to none

> High Fantasy has very many fantastical elements, which can have earth shattering implications

this is the most basic description I can provide, and of course it's all on a scale :)

Anything that features mother-son incest? Brother-sister would do, too.

All I know is this actually does sound badass to me:
>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 half way 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.
So it would be a shame if that recommendation was merely intended to meme.

Thanks to the other posters for the continued suggestions anyway, I'm not a fast reader so I think I'm pretty much set for months at this point.

Where should I start with Jack Vance? I've heard a lot of good things about his work, but I'm not particularly experienced with his kind of pulp fiction. Ideally something fantasy would be good.

Somebody discuss Xeelee: Endurance with me.

>Lirael is better though.
What makes you think that? I just finished reading the trilogy and think that Sabriel is considerable better, both the protagonist and the book.

Try The Emperor's Souls, I am reading it right now and enjoying it a lot.

I started with dying earth and enjoyed it greatly

I've read pretty much everything fairly recently (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen, Clariel, Across the Wall, To Hold the Bridge, and Goldenhand) and while I like his stuff, it has a tendency to come across as a little bit young adulty. It's very fast paced and doesn't let you settle with the characters for very long. Sabriel did this quite a bit, moving very quickly and though it was still enjoyable I wished it'd take the time to slow down and describe what was happening a bit more. The opening to Lirael cures that complaint entirely, as we follow Lirael's despondence in the Clayr Glacier and it causes us to root for her as she ventures deeper into the library.

As for the characters, well I can't really say for certain who I prefer. Sabriel was a little bit too good at everything for my liking, whereas Lirael started off useless and overcame her trials by learning and accepting outside help, so I guess I'd also have to say Lirael.

Equal Rites

Why do you read sci-fi/fantasy instead of classics like East of Eden?

>fantasy
Lyonesse

East of Eden is a fantasy novel.

have you read it then?

Any good recommended dystopian novels?

I already read:
>1984
>The running man
>Farenheight 541
>Logan's run

I started reading brave new world buts it's boring as fuck

Brrave new world by Huxley
After that read Brave new world revisited
And to clean your pellet go for Island by the same author.

I'm two chapters in and I'm not that into it. Does it get better?

Anyone else here read the Mars trilogy? I listened to them a couple years ago. The first was ok, a bit heavy handed with the ecoeconomics crap, general proselytizing, and character development. Thought it might get better in the other books, but no. Shouldn't have really been surprised based on what I've read of the author.

Really, I can't remember anything of it besides a bunch of too good for themselves scientists making proclamations about martian lives matter and leave mars alone.

Much. I'm a hard scifi fan though, so I love all that biology shit, but its the weakest bit of the novel really

Also try We by Zemyatin

Well it is not really a long book and I think it is worth following trough. Expecially in BNW Revisited which is written 25 years after the first one Huxley has some pretty interesting points about development of society (in the 60s, he would be horrified or really excited in the 21st century).

Also Island is his idea of ideal world and I really like that one. And it is important to read at least BNW as the distopian story to appreciate it.

Bakker's The Second Apocalypse is the king of GRI

I read the first one and liked it, but for some reason I didn't go on and read the sequels. I think because it was so thick and heavy and the old characters don't continue in the new books I lost my motivation. Also it seemed inherently less interesting to read them do the same things they did in the first book (ie, Martian rebellion) but over two books instead.

I watched the anime adaptation, Eden of the East.

Some of the actual science stuff was interesting and how he would describe the landscape, but all his stuff about politics and the character development just seemed like too much.

I'm a pretty much hardline conservative as far as politics go, so the idea of economics should be dictated by nebulous ideas like its environmental impact (especially considering on a planet like mars where as far as humans are concerned has no environment) is just shuddering to think of.

>the idea of economics should be dictated by nebulous ideas like its environmental impact
>shuddering to think of

b8

>Fantasy General
What makes Raymond E. Feists "Magician" entry level? Granted it doesn't feature a hundred different races and a thousand different gods and demigods But it involves pretty long journeys that actually feel like they take some time (they're not on the other side of the continent 2 pages later) there are larger political issues next to the smaller personal conflicts and influences.. It does have a couple of races and a bunch of different cities, villages and territories that are affected in different ways by the war.. I'm not really sure it's entry level.

Trine is one of my favorite games.

I mean the environment matters obviously, but that the economy should be run in a fashion that treats nature is perfect and pure is just ridiculous. For me the first thing that matters is human life, everything else is secondary. It reminds me of a lot of the crap we hear these days about carbon impact as if that's the only thing that matters.

I've owned the first two for years but still haven't gotten around to playing them. I really should.
I guess there's a third one now but nobody seems to like it (they outsourced it or something?) so no rush with that one I guess.

Cheers lads

what a nice, well written, reply.

>implying you can't read both

The third is garbage. I don't think they outsourced it, just totally dropped the ball with it. The first two are wonderful though. They even went back a few years after releasing Trine 1 and added better graphics and online multiplayer to it for free.

>so new he doesn't know about preggers anonette

what the heck is east of eden
i like reading shit where the stakes are high, like planet-ending high. i like scale, size, space.

the writing is simplistic and the setting is pretty generic

it's something that can easily be read by 12-14 year olds as an entry point to 'epic' fantasy

Black Jewels Trilogy
Hull zero three
Or check chart

Check chart

Is Seveneves really that bad?

Gri approved books user
Look for the seal

No.
>tfw used to look up to cosmerefag until he was unveiled as pollie

>look up to cosmerefag

Why is the red knight in shit?

no GRI

Has all of them though.

The first build up slow and annoying with it's delta Vs being repeated so much, but I thought it would be a pay off. Nope. Humans regressed further in some parts and expanded in others.

If you like hard scifi it would probably work for you.
I like sci-fi where they push the theoretically possible line as far as it can go(cloning, advanced biological prosthetics, etc ). I loved Anathem so I guess all of stephenson is not for everyone.

I thought I would share with you this engrossing SF book from 1985, one of those where several disparate plots and people converge in one place by the end.

In post-apocalyptic 22nd century America, the wandering protagonist has Lovecraftian visions of beautiful alien planets - he falls in with a group of murderous scavengers, whose likeable ringleader treats him like a lucky charm. They travel towards San Francisco to escape radioactive dust.

Near SF, patients at a psychiatric home, who are rehabilitated by a process of memory wiping, begin to have the same vision, along with the staff.

Meanwhile, a Dionysian cult marches from Brazil Northwards, along the West Coast, promising to meet the alien gods.

It's a mix of Lovecraftian flourishes, religious allegory, Mad Max, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Very new age. Long, but one one Silverberg's better books.

Where?
>medieval crusade knights
>no rape
>no buggering pussy boys when on long champaign and no pussy in sight
>didn't fuck the head nun even though her pussy was wet at all the chivalry
I got memed

What's some sci-fi and fantasy with NO romance? I want people who don't waste time on stupid shit like love.

The main character is the product of incestuous rape and there's plenty of boy buggering.

>Female urban
>No Guilty Pleasures Anita Blake.
Shit

I made this for you cosmere-kun, do you approve?

Was that revealed in the first book?
If the first book is bad you think I would continue the series?
Do I look like the masochistic WoT user to you.

Got pic related as a christmas present to myself.

What order should I read it in?

Publication order or Joe Marek (chronological)?

I've only read Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash, how would you compare it to those?

Why do you read?

The series turned to shit after obsidiqn butterfly. It's now a porn series. I feel guilty suggested it to people.
The women in this chart are better than Anita(no fake porno shoot every new book )

LET ME SEE YOUR JOHNNY

Never read those two. Not really a cyberpunk enthusiast, and a lot of people said they were shit so I never touched them.

New Model Army by Adam Roberts is a great dystopia, about the dark side of democracy and the information age, but it reads like a utopia because the viewpoint loves being in war so much.

Red Rising. Not even joking.

The first Anita Blake was class though

>sad-faced scientists gazing at a glacier and deciding to limit human expansion and condemn billions to poverty because that glacier might disappear
At least it wasn't Aurora.

>he doesn't get Stephenson
Of course you wouldn't like Seveneves. We read Stephenson because we want lengthy digressions into delta v and Captain Crunch.

don't listen to this guy

I suggest starting with page one and going from there.

So would you say it's similar quality to the other two? Loved both.

Embrace the Cretaceous.

It's a lot more Cryptonomicon than Snow Crash, mixed with Jack London in space. The characters go through more setbacks than anything else he's wrote, though, aside from maybe Half-cocked Jack, and it even has a decent ending if you take part 3 to be a weird tacked-on novella sequel and not part of the main story.

But if you liked Cryptonomicon you'd like Seveneves. Baroque Cycle is a lot more Cryptonomicon-like, though, and is in my opinion Stephenson's best work (though I haven't read his thrillers).

Are you genuinely retarded? The limits placed on human expansion and economic restrictions caused by damage to the ecosystem far outweigh the short term benefits of fossil fuel use. The population displacement from rising sea levels alone would be catastrophic, much less the property damage/loss, and the health hazards from pollution.

Thanks. I'll get a hold of it.

is it shit?

The glacier was on Mars.

That it was. It was the first to do urban fantasy right. It was even great when the cia no survivors spooks came to her to raise a dead president. I thought shit was looking up.. then her boyfriend /husband left her irl and she just ran to Jean Claude Vandamn's undead dick and she's been riding it since. Her pussy is also super special and grants powerups to everyone who enters it's depths.

Back the fuck off dude.

Just ignore him. I bet he believes that global warming is a myth.

Red rising is great

Can someone make a spurdo red rising text maybe?

I'm not either of the people you're talking to/about, but you can't claim to be some enforcer of neutrality while weighing in your own opinion on a topic.

GRI APPROVED
Loli protagonist and __milf sex___ in book 2

Did I say I'm neutral? I'm calling it as I see it, he sounds like the idiot pol types who refuse the data given to them or what they are seeing outside their basement windows as a hoax.
Also let's end it here

If you think that left wing evangelising is somehow less obnoxious than /pol/ then you should leave. None of that shit is on topic.

And she needs sex to survive.

Heroes Die

I dunno man, I think American Bear might be getting played out. We might be one of the only boards/generals that still uses it. What are the cool kids doing, Gondala? Maybe we should invest in Gondala.

But if you must
"The Society ain't properly ordered. The Bellonas and Augustas gotta get harvested by the Reaper's slingBlade Octavia au Lune is not my Sovereign, she is weak bureaucrat and probably Bronze as well. HOWLERS not BONERIDERS ok omnis vir lupes"
or something to that effect.

Dude, the glacier was literally on Mars.

RwR is shit and put Blindsight on there somewhere

This is the funniest reply I've seen in this General in a while.