/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

>be biochem student
>try to write basic hard scifi about aliens
>ends up being non-sensical protein fan-fic

jesus fuck I am retarded

The Hobbit

David Eddings - Belgeriad

Thanks! I had looked into Discworld before but I never really paid much attention. I was thinking of starting her up with the first novel The Colour of Magic because that seems more right up her alley.
What do you think?
I'm not sure about this one being 'light' and streamlined enough for her but thanks user I'll keep it in mind.

What are some books rarely mentioned in this thread that are great reads?

well, I did rather like this one.

Yeah that would probably be a better choice, I have a bit more of a bias for the watch novels since they were the first ones I read, but Colour of Magic could work out better for getting someone unfamiliar with the novels into the series.

Narnia

>fevre dream
I see books that outer lit likes to suggest is either degenerate, racist or both. Are they just edgy? Does your book need farts, pedophile, scat, cuckoldry, racism, homoerotic tone, etc to be literary?

George sure loves his buck African American brothers.

I need to keep better track, because I feel like I've read one. Have some random scaly women.

Is Mistborn as cringey as Elantris?

>preferably a protagonist or ally of the protagonist, who is both male and bisexual, but not reducible to his sexual orientation
The only difference between a straight man and a gay/bi man is the way they have sex. The sexual act is all that defines a gay person. That is why in music videos /movies (California's new laws) they show 2 guys/girls kissing/fucking to show that they are gay. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell.

What are some great stand alone fantasy books? Not looking for a series

I don't know if anyone answered my question in the previous thread, so I'll ask again: what other Wolfe fantasy books are worth reading? I've already read The Wizard Knight and enjoyed it.

The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs

...

The Silmarillion

most any Guy Gavriel Kay

Are unfinished tales, children of hurin and the history of middle earth worth reading?

The City and the City

It depends how deep your interest in Middle-Earth is. Out of those three, Hurin is probably the most accessible since it's a full novel (expanding and cleaning up the prose from one of the better Silmarillion stories), UT has some interesting bits of lore but not much actual story, and History is a REALLY in-depth account of the whole writing process.

I'm currently really enjoying Deed of Paksenarrion, kinda generic epic fantasy but it's from the viewpoint of a random solider.

The first quarter of Mistborn is absolutely cringey. Kelsier all but tips his fedora while going M'Lady when he first meets Vin, I was almost expecting that tired old standby where the young special snowflake girl falls in ~love~ with the older author self insert character. But it gets better further into the book.

>the biggest, baddest, smartest, most skilled, feared, respected, toughest criminal in the whole city is a 17 year old dude who walks with a cane

Literally anime. The first scene he appears in is some keikaku doori Lelouch shite. Pretty close to dropping this.

>17 year old dude who walks with a cane

Is it a sword cane?

Might be yet, in his inner monologue he claims his wounded leg doesn't really hurt that much even on a bad day.

TKaG

If the book was a hidden gem then you could shill, but the book is ,

/sffg/ where can I go to read short stories? I've been using tor, but their supply isn't exactly bottomless

absolutely drop it. it only gets worse

Achamian

If I didn't enjoy mort, but I like technological growth, is moving pictures worth checking out?

>absolutely drop it. it only gets worse
Well I'm convinced. I was reading it during a 4 hour wait, got to about the 2 hour mark and switched to a different book because it was making me roll my eyes every other page.

There's Beyond Ceaseless Skies and Clarkesworld, but I don't know how good they are

I don't really like fantasy stuff in general but the Watch and Moist von Lipwig books are good. They're basically about medieval cops, and a conman who gets forced to work for the government to create working mail/railroad/banking systems. There's a definite sense of technological progress in the books.

(It's a shame he never got around to writing the one where Moist gets appointed Taxman, because I can imagine how he would instantly become the most hated man in the city)

Beneath Ceaseless Skies published the Traitor Baru Comorant short so at least they aren't all shit but I had a look at the other pieces and they're nowhere near as impactful (in that some fanfics have more quality writing than the stories they publish).

For scifi Asimov, Aldiss and Clarke write fantastic ones and Roadside Picnic and Flowers of Algernon are both worth checking out but I'm not sure about the enduring quality of sites.

*Beyond

One thing, as a woman, that bothers me. Is the lack of disturbance towards the concept of pregnancy in novels. Seriously, it's like nobody considers it. Especially given how little of a choice there was in the far past towards our rights and unwillingness. It's terrible body horror shit. It's demeaning, dehumanizing, it fucks up what you look like forever. It breaks your pelvis in microfractures. It's just, awful through and through with some positive elements.

But I don't like how it isn't explored, demeaning and dehumanizing labor we have no choice but to be put through is a concept I don't that's ever been handeled well or properly. Maybe it's me, it's a deep seated fear of not being understood, that men's desires for heirs in the past, or just their mindless desires in the present, override our own autonomy and emotions towards them, making you feel like you don't see in them what they see in you.

I don't know what I'm saying. I just wish women weren't constantly written as "Men! But different!", and not facing the grimey slimey disturbing bullshit dealt with is. Or how we're forced into believing its acceptable after shock and sobbing of it wear off as a child, for some people, and for many people, it doesn't wear off. This was even more prevalent in the past I'm assuming given the lack of choice involved.

>this fucking pasta again
KYS.

At least use it as a template for other things. Those were briefly amusing.

>leftover pasta again
Pasta's only good for 1 reheat before it gets all gooey.

The person who originally wrote this ought to read Sexual Personae

Is Bakker red pilled?

Yes

Great stuff, more SFF authors should read it.

Fuck off with the pasta.

Reading Wizard of Earthsea atm, LeGuin really knows how to play her tropes. The books are cliche, but she makes it work so well. I had the same feeling with another of her stories, the dispossessed.
Incidentally, I'm pretty sure Name of the Wind ripped off its "true name magic" from Earthsea.

...

True names are big in primitive magic, that's where Le Guin got it, and there's a chance Rothfuss got it from there too. He probably took enough anthropology classes.

He's also a hack, so balance of probability says that he ripped it off LeGuin

Been thinking about reading more Wheel of Time (I've only ever read the first book), but I found The Eye of the World to be... flawed. The writing itself was sound enough (in my opinion) but I didn't like the way some of the plot points were handled.

I'm not sure how to put it so I don't know if anyone feels the same way as me. So I guess what I want to ask is, do you feel the other books are improvements over the original in any form, or is it one of those series where the first book is considered one of the best? I just wonder whether or not I should expect more of the same.

True names are a very common fantasy trope. I don't think you can say Rothfuss ripped it off from Le Guin, that's a bit like saying he ripped off the "guy goes on a fantasy adventure" from the Hobbit.

I thought the first book was the hardest to get through of the first maybe six or so. It feels quite derivative and cliche in places. After the first book Jordan starts to branch out a bit and do things his own unique way. The problem is once you become completely invested in the series, at around book 6 or 7 he's introduced way too many POV characters and the main plotlines start moving at a snail's pace. But by that point you're (or at least I was) pretty committed to the story and some of the characters and felt the need to slog through the back half of the series. The tempo picks up once Sanderson takes over at least even if his writing style isn't as engaging.

The subsequent books are much better and the first book is widely considered to be one of the weaker ones for a number of reasons. It actually has very little to do with the big picture of the rest of the series. It's more like the inciting incident and does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of getting the reader's understanding of the world moving. If you're reading closely enough to catch them all there are actually hundreds of little things in EoTW that come back around in the other books and I never cease to wonder at how much of the story was planned and how much of it Jordan went back and thought "alright I guess I can kind of use that as set up for what I'm writing now"

Read on. Books 4 and 6 are my personal favorites of the whole series, and if you make it that far you might as well finish because the bad parts aren't as bad as everyone says and are relatively short compared to most of the rest.

(incidentally those slow parts/books are also why the series won't work as a tv show or movie series because there are so many little details that become important and axing them without damaging the epic scale of the story would be impossible)

That all actually sounds quite promising, especially the part about the small details that become relevant later. I love that kind of stuff. Thanks for the responses, I'll definitely give the rest of the series a shot. And yeah, in general I'm not a fan of seeing books get adapted - even with simpler stories you'll see a lot of valuable exposition cut out which invariably results in a weaker narrative.

What book should I read if I want to see heroic adventures and orcs being BTFO?

does what it says on the tin

What is the term or a brief description for this depression in the slope of the mountaint?

t. poor but ambitious writer

Ridge? Indent? Valley? Platform?

shelf?

What books are you planning to read this year guys?

Daenerys Targaryen

Nothing from that, that's for sure.

*tips*

This has a little girl protagonist and is comfy.

I think I'll give ebin :DDD fantasy a rest for a while. That means picking books semi-randomly from my to read stack. Currently halfway through The Difference Engine and wondering if the author will tire of "Victorian prostitutes, lel" and focus on the mechanical computers.

What is that from?

I am trying to find this book and I can't remember what it was called. It was a book that started with the letter z. It was Zarathur or za or something (makes me think of "Zathura"? No that's the children's book) where are the characters in the story or just modern time people and they are in an airplane that goes through the Bermuda Triangle and through some weird warping suddenly are transported onto a planet that has lower gravity (Like John Carter) and literally turn into these different humans that have these really cool abilities like the one chick she can use a bow another guy he is a sword or something like that like they just have extremely large strength. And that's all I can remember from this book could you help me out I'm pretty sure it came out a long time ago because the book was pretty old?

A chronic Taco Bell eater, I imagine?

That sounds like the Diadem series by John Peel.

Man I really shouldn't use the speech-to-text function on my phone, these posts make me sound super autistic.

No that's not it I know the title definitely started with the letter z. And also on the cover of the novel there was a picture of a large airplane flying through a triangle into outer space. But I will definitely look up diadem because I am currently reading John Carter right now and I really enjoy these kinds of stories.

I'm actually impressed that speech-to-text is that accurate. I should get a phone so I don't have to do any typing.

>I'm actually impressed that speech-to-text is that accurate. I should get a phone so I don't have to do any typing.

The punctuation is kind of annoying although I don't think I have figured it out just yet.

Stand on Zanzibar?

Haven't read it, just going off the Z name

...

Source on game please?

I never really would have considered Roadside Picnic Post Apocalyptic, but I guess it technically is in very broad terms.

Red Rising's protag isn't remotely grey, morally. He gets angry sometimes and that's literally it.

Any sci-fi or fantasy about lesbians being gay as fuck?

>Sooner or later, however, either someone would call up to her from the street or one of her regular patrons would knock at the door, and things would sour. Achamian would become grim, grab his cloak and satchel, and invariably go get drunk at some dingy tavern. Usually she would spy him from the sill when he returned, walking alone through the endless press of people, an aging, slightly rounded man who looked as though he’d lost his purse gambling. Every time, without exception, he would already be watching her when she saw him. He would wave hesitantly, try to smile, and a pang of sorrow would strike her, sometimes so hard she would gasp aloud.
Poor akka man.
Why is he always so pathetic?

...

So let's call it lads. Will the Judging Eye show Kellhus as a black pit in the world, the most sinful being to have every existed? Or will he be bathed in light, the savior sent by the One? I'm on the fence about it myself.

And is he actually even a person anymore with thoughts and feelings, like caring about Esmenet, or is he just an association of talents and deception geared toward domination of everything?

I fucking loled. Chemical Engineering here and same, I start going way too much into detail about processes and descriptions of machinery.

Cuck

>loving a literal whore
Nevereverever

In the short term might take a look at the Larry Correia.

Everything he's done since he was broken on the circumfix is just a means for him to destroy the consult and steal a way to escape damnation

Never ever trust a Dunyain

Ted Nasmith's illustrations are top tier, especially the ones for the Silmarillion.

The Witcher books are quite good for that. Easy to read with surprisingly decent vocabulary. I am partial to the David French translations.

THAT'S IT THAT'S THE BOOK THANK YOU!!!

>dunyain dog
>having feelings
they make us love user. THEY MAKE US LOVE

I liked akka and esmi desu. They seemed a good couple.

I wouldn't worry too much about about being too specific with words like these. Chances are readers won't know what they mean and just skip over them.
Like that time I read the word 'riparian' twice in the same book and only googled what it means because I thought it was a typo.

are you paid to post this in every thread?

Do you guys have any good wallpapers or art from the Book of the New Sun? There sadly seems to be virtually nothing on deviant art or google images related to this masterpiece, and I really wanted a good wallpaper from it. Pic related is the only decent one I've found.

What's the best sci-fi with a little girl protag?