/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

The fantasy novels are alright and the sci-fi are shite.
Sci-fi always pales against actual theoretical physics and mathematics.

The editor was him wife.... just let that sink in.

Makes sense, if she was a LARPing harpy of a seamstress who liked to play with her hair.

Because you're big meanies

I'm sorry.
Urban fantasy is really shit.
Other fantasy is just shit.

So you're a hard sci-fi guy?

I like my science fiction as fantasy as possible. Stretching what technology could theoretically do to the utmost. I like reading about nano tech, humans seamless integration with technology, growing food in spaceship and how further tech could evolve.

I guess I'm a sucker for these types of books because I used to read those "Popular Science" magazines from the 80's as a kid.

Some of you Dûnyain are alright, don't go to Ishual tomorrow.

>So you're a hard sci-fi guy?
No, I'm a researcher and inventor who likes to think/make the future himself instead of reading about stupid hypotheses with poor prose.

Any French speakers here? I want to read some Jules Verne in the original language, but it's been a while since I last used my French. What's a good work to start with?

I'll get 20000 Leagues Under the Sea since it is cheap but would also grab some others.

Don't get this reference

Ah, so you're a loser, then

The reference is TUC EXCERPT FUCKING WHEN

Well maybe in some eyes.
But I'm also wealthy-for-life thanks to nepotism.

This site might be more suited to your needs:
>>>reddit.com

No but this site might be more suited to YOUR needs:
>>>reddit.com

Reading Titus Groan at the moment.

Struggled at first with Peake's prose, it's so detailed and descriptive that the pace is really slow. Enjoying it a lot more now that Steerpike is into the flow of his scheming. He's a fun character, I like how you can see what a prick he is without the novel telling you how to feel about him.

Don't make me post it user, please don't.

He's not recommending it to anyone Kevin. Just let it ride.

...

Now I'm curious. Am I heading to spoiler territory?

Stop with this e celeb bullshit.

Hi anybody read the tom clancy series? Is it worth picking up?

Can any one recommend some scifi horror novel/story with alien(the movie) like or similar vibe ?

Brothers, we need a stone e-tablet listing the top 10 works in both science fiction and fantasy. What would belong on each list?? For Scifi I'd put forward Hyperion, Neuromancer, Dune. What else?

>stone e-tablet listing
What? And Dune is garbage. If you want recs just ask in a non-embarrassing way and list your interests.

>Dune is garbage
>My taste is fucking superior

Can someone recommend some zombie-related books?

sounds pretty boring desu. when are you going to kill yourself?

All very good ideas, I'll continue watching this thread just in case anything pops up

The fact is this time is a great time for a girl who has been on twitter and is a great woman to me for sure who I got on twitter twitter I think she was a great friend to me I hope she gets to see my girl and I will be happy for her and will always love her to her as she will ever love me so I will never have enough to be a happy woman to me

Most certainly.

my name is a legend by Matthew Richards

This has probably been discussed a million times, but holy shit I just finished Hyperion after being late to the party. Why didn't anyone tell me that Simmons is a FANTASTIC prose writer? Most genre fiction I read is pretty whatever in terms of prose and it's the ideas that are worthwhile, but this novel was amazing

Imagine how ironic that would actually be, like you spend all this time and energy preparing to shoot up your school, you leave a goodbye note for your parents etc. and when you arrive you find somebody already shot up the school lol!

Also, Shaeönanra did nothing wrong.

>tfw you will never be remotely as good as half the fantasy you put down and never pick back up

Here is one for speculative fiction writers. The Trappist-1 solar system of seven roughly Earth-sized planets orbiting a dim salmon-coloured star. Given their distance from it, they may have water and life. The planets are tightly clustered together with orbits between 1 and 13 days.

Start your Bradbury-esque chronicles, Asimovian space operas, or your Vance esque fiction of worlds swirling around a subdued star.

theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/22/thrilling-discovery-of-seven-earth-sized-planets-discovered-orbiting-trappist-1-star

he describes 'phosphorescent' things pretty well lol

If anyone is gonna read Wizard Knight, i highly recommend the single volume collection, it was meant to be read as one book and having it split in two really doesn't help the story
The main character is pretty annoying for the first couple chapters but it should seriously be given a chance. He may feel like a gary sue but he shows some big change over time
I thought I would dislike it but the ending almost made me tear up a bit

I don't know if it was b or pol but last year or the year before??? Some kid said "some of you are alright, if you are in [insert place] don't go to [insert college] here tomorrow / this afternoon". He then went and shot up the place.

I am legend
The strain by del toro

Exploring a spaceship and finding scary shit? Hull zero 3

I was hoping more for literature, but thank you. The Eclipse Phase thing seems especially interesting as it seems really fleshed out.

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

It's more in the vein of Aliens than Alien, but the Lazarus War series is about humans using remote-controlled clone supersoldiers to fight what are effectively the Zerg. It's pretty good for pulp milSF stuff.

I have to say in Star Wars every time I see ysalamiri mentioned somehow I automatically think of pic related. RIP Thrawn he didn't fucking deserve to die like that, and neither did poor Pellaeon ;_;. Zahn doesn't especially include too many plot twists (unlike Asimov, master of plot twists) and his characters tend to follow more predictable train tracks but they are thoroughly characters that I can empathise with. Upon reflection it strongly feels to me that a good portion of Pierce Brown’s ‘Obsidian Class’ – a race bred for war – was completely plagiarised from Zahn’s Noghri race, just as the extremely predictable Hunger Games setup was quite clearly ripped from Hunger Games for mass demographic appeal.

Onwards to Prelude and the Foundation.
RIP Mule-sama you will be missed ;_: It features a qt Seldon who loves to smile at everyone. So far he seems to be far less confident than his appearances in the original trilogy.

Part of what I enjoy about Asimov's works so much is his focus on dialogue. Dialogue reveals the plot, dialogue is the plot. Gone is the often hackneyed exposition of 9 million things happening in jargon that the reader is supposed to fill in themselves and somehow this guy manages to consistently pull out plot twists out of plot twists, chapter after chapter, book after book. He's clearly cut down on the extraneous information and only focussed on the parts that are important.

I had a brief recently read of one of Ted Chiang's stories. Unfortunately, he tends to write in very short paragraph/two paragraph long snippets, almost as if he cannot picture what is happening between these events, which suggests that he is an amateur writer. He heavily relies on the pattern of ‘two paragraphs’, ‘insert fact paraphrased from wikipedia’, ‘two paragraphs’ and so on and so forth. His characters are not especially interesting and cannot be connected well with and he heavily tells not shows the intelligence of the characters. For example, one of his characters is a mathematician and this character never once shows that they are capable of doing any math – the entire story consists of the character referring to the paper they are about to publish and how they somehow found that 1=2 without any information about how they actually came across this result other than they somehow did. It does not seem to me that Ted Chiang knows anything about mathematics other than what he is regurgitating from Wikipedia.

Moreover, the situations within his writing are more typical of daily life/university than anything unique or unusual somewhat suggesting a lack of experience to draw upon when writing and his short story conclusions are not especially impactful. Therefore, I found his writings to be rather less enjoyable.

I also had the opportunity to read the train story in Stefan Grabinski's 'The Dark Domain', particularly 'The Wandering Train'. Like Asimov, Grabinski doesn't over rely on jargon. His ability to pull plot twists and to conclude isn't as strong as Asimov's but the ending was quite favourable which suggests that this author is quite a promising writer.

Regarding Beaulieu’s ‘With Blood Upon the Sand’, a recent 2017 fantasy release the worldbuilding remains top notch. The setting is unique however the plot progression is generally quite predictable except for one certain king’s machinations. Morality is defined (in terms of black and white than the previous book) however unfortunately for the book it introduces an annoying character who is clearly supposed to be a university student and another university student and together one of them is becoming a blood mage because they are exceptionally talented and can apparently cast spells after reading a few pages. Thankfully, the other parts of the book are not as crassly written and fit in the middle eastern setting more ‘university student who can cast magic’. I was rather fond of the low magic setting of the first book. Both the first and second books are rather equal in terms of plot twists, the first was foremost a complex slow mystery (unusual in this genre) and the second is more traditional in terms of the plot.

Madness Season by CS Friedman. I am convinced more than ever that the Coldfire Trilogy is this author’s only good set of books. Why? The mystery of the protagonist’s identity was revealed extremely early on, the vampirism has next to no effect on the plot and seems to be tacked on for worldbuilding, the mysterious nature of how immortals who can phase in and out of reality can actually die permanently is never touched upon again, one of said immortals behaves like Okabe from Steins;Gate, not to mention attempts to establish a romance that I cared nothing about, overuse of jargon (but thankfully not to Peter Watts’ extent or in terms of basic science – Watts’ books I always felt were terribly interesting but the jargon took away from the plot progression.)

Transunion?

>Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever

Just past the rape scene and ive enjoyed it so far. whats the rest looking like for me?

It was on /r9k/, actually.

Fuck you faggots for making me read this trash

I am a Hero, the manga

Looks like shit. Enjoy, you seem like a lover of filth.

You are lucky. When I read that years ago there was less for me to choose from, so I had to make do.

It's great

*tugs braid*

World War Z

I've looked on piratebay, bookzz, libgen etc but can't for the life of me find dls for The Great Ordeal and Unholy Consult by bakker

Anyone have any mega links they mind sharing?

The great ordeal is the second link when I googled it
>how do I use google guys
>spoonfeed me

I liked Rot & Ruin and its sequels. Not earth shattering, but well executed.

If you want to try a vampire apocalypse instead of a zombie one check out The Passage.

noob. Also, "mobilism" is another great term to add to your ebook searches.

If you like Zahn read The Icarus Hunt.

Same comfy style.

Could anyone recommend me a book that features characters making something/discovering things?

You mean arts and craft discovery or "oh shit this building was underground the whole time"??

I think he means inventing shit

The arts and crafts type was what I was intending to go for, but feel free to recommend basically anything.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to describe, in a general sense.

I don't know man, pretty vague. You enjoy the drama about dudes who invented shit? Maybe Asimov's "The Gods Themselves."

I can't help but think you'd be interested more in non-fictional stories of musicians, inventors, scientists, etc.

Comfy scifi recommendations are always welcome. Based on what I've seen people mention I'll probably finish Foundation, maybe another Zahn and after that probably Ender's Game.

>Unholy Consult
>expected publication date july 6th 2017

???

>Some of you Dûnyain are alright

bullshit

all dunyain are punkass peckerwoods

Any good book about a self sustaining colony ship traveling?

The only arts and craft that is coming to mind atm is "the cogweaver trilogy". Gnome builds a self sustaining battery that only needs a miniscule amount of energy to get started. (Perpetual machine?)

Anyways, shit hits the fan when everyone is after her invention.

Hull zero three

All the links I keep finding to dl from other sites have been removed.

So no. I did look.

If Google isn't working tey duckduckgo

Sorry to bother you guys again but any of you would know where I'd find the Solaris ebook with the new improved translation by Bill Johnston?

>...to my best knowledge, the book was not dedicated to erotic problems of people in outer space... As Solaris' author I shall allow myself to repeat that I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images. This is why the book was entitled "Solaris" and not "Love in Outer Space"

kek

It reads like it was written by an edgy internet troll who just bingewatched game of thrones

Female warriors ruin books

It was actually on Newgrounds.

>improved
>dedicated to erotic problems
I-is solaris degenerate? Is their GRI involved? I was thinking of reading it years ago, but your answer may be the difference between me pulling the trigger, or walking away.

This just shows you are a reddit faggot trying to fit in on 4chens(honk, honk). The books were out long before games of memes became a thing normies talked about.

You sound like those butthurt females who complain about the book opening with rape. "This book was so bad even though I didn't read it, I know this because it has rape. Rape didn't happen in olden times when bands sacked villages, so you know the author is a tryhard liar fabricating stories about people doing vile things and liking it!!!".

Please off yourself redshitor

Imagine, there are sectors of law enforcement whose job it is to just monitor what people say on Veeky Forums. Really makes you think.

The rape argument comes from not caring to read about the ventures of a rapist, added to the fact that the main character is a god modding vehicle for the author's own power tripping fantasy. Just kidding I haven't read the books either.

Mostly because they are always, always stronk females that need no man and must assert their stronk femaleness by bringing down the men around them. They can't just simply be strong, tough females.

>females
You know someone's a virgin when they refer to women as "females".

My problem with a book starting with rape is that it doesn't have the shock value that it seems to really want. It just sounds like some edgelord trying to be edgy. Plus, if you're starting out with something as brutal as rape, you'll have to go into the realm of audacity to top it later on. And do you really want to constantly struggle to not chortle at a main villain who eats baby puppies in skull bowls in a dining room full of impaled newborn kids who were flayed alive and raped fifty times by their own fathers before Emperor Evil turned them into decorations for his dark castle, The Doomfort of Dread?

The major from GitS is a pretty good female warrior.

>do you really want to constantly struggle to not chortle at a main villain who eats baby puppies in skull bowls in a dining room full of impaled newborn kids who were flayed alive and raped fifty times by their own fathers
We aren't talking about edgy Conan here user.

>You know someone's a virgin when they refer to women as "females".

It always makes me think of this.
youtube.com/watch?v=99Iw2mBO1_8

More like this?

Pretty much anything else by Vinge that deals with space.
I'm on Rainbows End right now, it seems decent. A Deepness in the Sky is a prequel to Fire upon the Deep, and Children of the Sky is related too.

I'm trying to find time travel books but it seems the genre has been hijacked and colonized by romantic trash written by and for women.
Any suggestions?
Farnham's Freehold is as corny as I can accept, with pseudo-muslim cannibal negroes and excessive bridge playing, lpus a patriotic libertarian dickwad main character.