/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General

why would you want anything else?

Days of the Deer by Lilliana Bodoc if you dont mind the american conquest retold as fantasy

Honestly I really want to se a setting similar to Morrowind, with its volcanic ladscapes filled with giant mushrooms and bigass insects

China Mieville's Bas-Lag
Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris
Book of the New Sun has some weird elements

Why is there no fantasy author writing some medieval Asia knockoff setting instead of Europe? Would that be cultural appropriation?

this might be what you're looking for. i havent read it though.

I believe light novels have you covered

No scrap that. Its mostly high school and western influenced fantasy

Under Heaven and River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

Both are historical fantasy set in an alternate history of China.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Heaven_(novel)
goodreads.com/book/show/7113496-under-heaven

But there are. Do you even bother doing a rudimentary google search before you mouth off?

why use google when you have /sffg/?

>it's a shallan chapter

What reaction is your picture supposed to represent?

shallan is best pov

I dropped Mistborn halfway through the second book. Didn't care for any of the characters and got tired of the constant, seemingly pointless over the top animu fights. Should I give this Stormlight thing a chance, or are all of Sanderson's works like this?

stormlight archive is better and mistborn book 2 is one of his poorer efforts -- suffers horribly from second book in the series syndrome in that it feels for the most part like a bridging filler

but if you also disliked mistborn 1 then I'm not sure you should bother, sure stormlight is better but not significantly so and his writing style doesn't change

someone post some of the autistic shit she says

>safe hand exposed
Filthy degenerate slut.

...

Wrong image

Because /sffg/ is pretty terrible for asking about less popular titles and authors. There's maybe 10 fantasy authors that get discussed regularly and if you want something outside those you'll be lucky if even one person here has anything to give you.

Just finished the Belgariad series. Even though 90% of it is traveling and complaining, I still enjoyed it - quite relaxing.

Started the Princes of Amber. The first half was pretty interesting, but the characters are pretty forgettable and 3/4ths of the way in it starts reading like a textbook. Not sure if I can continue.

I need a new series to bury myself in before this depressive phase grows feet and figures out how to stick them up my ass.

All I care about is good characters and storytelling.

>But, like, dude, how are we supposed to know what series you've already read?

Unlock your latent telepathic powers and figure it out, you fuck.

what other place is good then?

Im finding tons of unpopular books on goodreads with good reviews and dont know where to discus them.

Is The Drowned World a good place to start with J. G. Ballard? I also own Crash and Empire of the Sun. Not sure if this is the best place to ask this tho desu

you must seek in the place where the dit is red

>What is the order of operations

Lel, Red Sisters
That anime power-up near the end
>I did 3 steps on the path!!
>lol noob
>watch this
>eurobeat intensifies

...

Wtd is going on in this pic? Am I supposed to grasp this meme?

>tfw it's been almost a year since the last time I read a book that blew me away
>only finished 2 books in the past 4 months because everything else seemed shitty

Maybe I should just take a break from fantasy and read some non-fiction

>reading non fiction
you must be a boring person with no imagination

Oh look. It's the user that can't enjoy anything except a specific set of rules that follow a specific order.

Not your best work. This is more of an abstract meme, I have no idea what the scales are supposed to symbolize.

Google it. These threads are slow as fuck and it's just the same shitposting about the same authors week after week. Anyone who comes here regularly only does so because they have nothing better to do with their lives.

is the rest of the black jewels books worth reading?

from the cover it looks like female erotica fanfiction

Is there a release date for the next Breeks masterpiece?

Is it the perception of people who like old books overshadows their actual quality?

Being a fantasyfag, I decided to delve into sci-fi in the form of The Foundation by Asimov. There's a whole new level of fun in finding how technology deviated from what he predicted (shiny newspapers, but newspapers still, in the year 12,000~)

However, I find it very expository, but I'm not sure if I'm just a cynical asshole trying too hard to "keep ahead of the curve" or it's just the way sci-fi attempted to convey "believable" fantasy to the reader.

brent weeks?

What are you reading? How do you like it?

sword of truth 1

wizards first rule

its entertaining but i wouldnt recommend it outright

Expanse

I'm liking it a lot. I haven't been this invested it a book series in a long time.

Asimov is a good example of what people mean when they say science fiction is an ideas medium. He's an ideas man, and good at depicting an idea or technology of the future. His plotting is decent as well. However, I find his characters are just functional, and he isn't a very descriptive or ornamental writer. I would argue, though, that he has the perfect style for what he wanted to do, and in this way he is a good writer, one who knows his abilities and limitations.

Asimov only represents one tradition of SF anyway, 'hard' SF, fiction about problem solvers ('men with screwdrivers' protags) that tries to be grounded in the more probable. If you want to see what science fiction has to offer then you should also read something from the pulp tradition, and New Wave.

For these, I suggest Edgar Rice Burrough's A Princess Of Mars, Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, And Philip K Dick's Martian Time-Slip. Three science fiction stories about Mars from three very different authors.

Any examples of sci-fi works in the not so different future that are thematically like system shock 2/prey?

By which I mean a focus on big powerful transnational corporations and tech, but without going full cyberpunk.

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance.

One of the best Sff works I've read so far.

>he isn't a very descriptive or ornamental writer. I would argue, though, that he has the perfect style for what he wanted to do, and in this way he is a good writer, one who knows his abilities and limitations.

He definitely knew his limitations when it came to prose. Multiple times in his career he commented on that fact that his critics said he had "no style", and said that early on in his career he realized that he simply was not very good at writing stylistically or evocatively. He preferred to just be as completely clear as he could possibly be. If Asimov wrote about a door, he wanted you to know with rock-hard certainty that it was a motherfucking door.

>american gods
i dont know, the writing is kinda bad. i had higher hopes considering i liked niel gaiman's the sandman graphic novels. i just started though.

Just started Age of Myth.

Basically loving it.

I like how it breaks the typical medieval stereotypes about gender

The story is pretty good and engaging so far, of course it's helped a ton by very well written female characters

There's something really fucked up about building a robot PKD.
>Hey, you know that guy we love and respect? Let's make his worst nightmares a reality!

You have to wonder if it started as a joke that somebody higher up the chain of command didn't get.

It had so much potential for femdom, damnit. But the author went back to women as victims and aggressive men after a while.

Ninefox Gambit.

For all it's lovely worldplay, and I must the say it's written beautifully, the core ideas seem to be pretty YA.
>Muh 6 special factions with their own cool animal!!
>Muh star signs which show your personality!!!

The calendar stuff is entreating but I hear it's not really explained so much as "it just is" so probably won't go anywhere.

>entreating
intriguing, bleh

Without having read the books, I feel like season 1 of the show could be clearer on the difference between the people on Earth/Mars/Belters.

As a fan of Blade Runner I decided to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I was expecting it to be different from the film, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite so different. Philip K. Dick's vision of the future doesn't seem rooted in reality but rather the absurd. I would liken Dick to Kafka but loaded with LSD. I'm still unsure if I actually like the book.

Battlefield Earth
Its good

Do Androids Dream is honestly one of Dick's most grounded novels.

Just finished Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb.
It was a reasonable end to over a decade of my life reading the same story.
It feels weird that it's over, the only ongoing book series from my teens is now ASOIAF, which I don't give a shit about.

Farseer trilogy

iktf m8

>It was a reasonable end to over a decade of my life reading the same story.
>first book published in 2014
?

Definitely the Farseer Trilogy.
The first book is a bit shakey with writing quality, but it improves quickly into the trilogy.
If you like what you read then you've got another four series of books to read that continue the story.

I feel a bit empty.
I'm not even sure if I want another trilogy following Bee or whoever.

Alright alright Mr Grammar man, you know what I mean.

How does it tie in with her other books? I can't make sense of them all.

Have you read any of them?
It's a pretty linear series of books.
The Farseer Trilogy
The Liveship Traders Trilogy
The Tawny Man Trilogy
The Rain Wild Chronicles
The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy

It's essentially one continuous plot.
The other books set in the same world don't really matter.

I haven't. I looked at them before posting, and it seemed like Liveship at least was sort of a side-trilogy to the main plot.

It sort of is, but isn't.
Only one character is from the first trilogy but what happens in the trilogy affects the rest of the story.
If anything, The Rain Wild Chronicles is a side story, though it still adds a lot of information that you need to avoid confusion later on.

Why don't Moorcock, Herbert or Asimov get love among faux geeks who love nerd capitalism?

I'm honestly surprised about Moorcock not getting enough love among the mainstream.

Alright, might as well add them all to the neverending to read list.

The first book of the traitor son trilogy is very good, about a knight mercenary band. It derails from there tough.

If you can read Spanish (I doubt it's translated) Mascaras de Matar is very alien, you can't pinpoint exctly what's the main inspirations, from ancient europe to meso america to Iranians/hindu. My prefered fantasy novel after the hobbit.

I couldn't swallog the Rain wilds compared to his oter stuff, I couldn't end the third. The characters weren't engaging and the only thing that interested me (the elders and dragons) wasn't enough.

Just finished this. Fairly generic in an inoffensive sort of way, it's not particularly deep reading, but it's interesting and fun enough to keep you going. Characters are varied and fairly solid, with 3 main viewpoint characters. The female viewpoint character manages to be relevant to the plot without being a preachy stereotype of a stronk womyn and also without any significant focus put on romance.
On the other hand, characterization is a bit shallow across the board, but it's the first book in a trilogy so I can't really fault it for that just yet.

It very much focuses on world building over character building, in fact that was the main motivator for finishing it. The main plot is pretty bland, but the setting is interesting enough to carry it.

His name is too patriarchal.

Because they're too widely known, therefore if you try to talk about them without having read the books, you look like an idiot.
People capitalizing on trends only want to talk about obscure shit so they can pretend to like it without having to actually invest the effort to read it.

As a matter of fact, I'm a spic. Thanks, I'll look for it.

nah man
The Farseer Trilogy Into
The Tawny Man Trilogy then into
The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy

liveships and rain wild are all very optional and i stress Optional

>Give me an idea on how to make a macro that deals with dino measurements, that also has sffg allusions?

>I don't know, how about something with a big pair of scales in the foreground, with Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance and Walter Miller books on one side, and five disembodied dinosaur heads on the other, weighing down, and Gene Wolfe's big old face grinning coyly behind it, perhaps alongside other disembodied heads of the venerable Robert Howard, Fritz Leiber, Vance, Tolkein, et al.

This picture is the essence of /r/futurology

Talking with plastic toy and LARPing that we're in 'cyberpunk' age.

Rereading Book of the New Sun. Wolfe is a 100% certified genius and most science-fiction isn't worth wiping your ass with next to his writing.

I really like it for being one of Dick's more thematically deep efforts. Rather than just relying on 'and then he woke up, but then realized he didn't' ten times over the course of the story he uses an odd but not too complicated or convoluted premise to talk about empathy, his fucked up relationships with women and how Jews are fundamentally inhuman next to Catholics.

Read the books, then shill them here. If they are interesting someone will read.
I got shilled into a bunch of books that I later added to my charts.
I even gave the less than 1000 ratings books I read, but no one wanted that.

Sffg is an echo chamber for grrm and Rothfuss hate, calling Sanderson anime, asking why no one has read worm and blindsight yet, memeing bakker and his launch dates, asking persons to discuss Revelation space/ice/ w/e, accusing everyone of being reddit when I'm the only person that never used the site, etc.

why the fuck hasn't everyone read Blindsight yet god sake

So help me out, I've been reading a lot of Conan books and i teally like Howards prose, can any tell me what his other works are like (king kull, Solomon kane)?
Also any other authors that have that "brutal" sword & sorcery vain?

>trying to trigger us
The Riyria books had good written female characters, wait till you reach the end of age of myth. We will see if you still feel the same.

xth for book of the new sun

>compared to his oter stuff
>his
Robin Hobb is a female... You've been reading a female author and enjoying it.

Absolute aram-kun, did you show wolfe my meme of him pounding Christianity into book of the long sun.

That explaing why fitz is so moppy and character relations are so complex, and the action is lackluster.
It makes teh soldier son trilogy more cringey now.

So urban science fiction instead of urban fantasy?
Maybe, but your stipulation that it has to be 2020 without cyberpunk is trouble.

Try market forces by Richard K Morgan. Kinda what you want.

I honestly could've enjoyed this piece of crap if Kvothe didn't suck his own dick every 5 pages.

At least Auri was cute.

I agree with you, though I did manage to slog through and finish them. The thing that most annoyed me was that it was split into four books with less content than the previous trilogies, on top of all the shitty characters and teenage angst.

Like I said in another post, it sort of is a side story, but also not because of the background it gives to a lot of stuff that happens in the main three trilogies.
Have you actually read the latest? Because a lot of the stuff would seem a bit out of the blue if you hadn't read the Liveship trilogy. The Rain Wild Chronicles are less important in that sense.
Even some parts of the Tawny Man trilogy could use the back story given in the Liveship trilogy.

To be fair, I think Robin Hobb is probably the best female writer of fantasy and at least is better than the fatman GRRM.

I'm not aram-kun, but I've been meaning to contact him over something.

If in The Fifth Head of Cerberus Dr Marsch is superior to the St Croix natives due to being a shadow-child/human hybrid and his super-anthropology skills allow him to crack the tap-code used in the prison, how did the prisoners initially using it devise this system? From the cell next to Marsch's it's made clear that Abos can't form complex codes for communication and instead try to imitate speech using non-vocal sounds to communicate over distance, as established in the old myths that they used to bang on tree trunks and make speech-like sounds. This is why his neighbor bangs intelligibly when she hears Marsch and the other prisoner speaking through code but at times Marsch thinks he can almost discern speech. Marsch worked it out because his human/shadow-child mind can use tools to come up with creative solutions to problems, but what about the other prisoners? Were there other humans imprisoned with Marsch at the end of the story? Other Shadow Children? Abos who could work codes?

I haven't read absolutely everything he's written on the novel yet so I'd like to be sure it isn't covered before I ask. I should also probably read it again because the answer's always there if you look hard enough.