/sffg/ - Science Fiction and Fantasy General:

I see you liked my sanzo images user

Which books will upgrade my vocabulary level?

Gene Wolfe, Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Vance

Hmm i have an itch i want to scratch.
Book where protagonist betrays his country/faction whatever, turns to dark side so to say.
Note i dont want something like classical spy fic where protag is evil ruskie and betrays for goodie muricans. I'd much more like protag is murican and joins nazis or something.

Same. It's very dull to see middle of the road protagonists sacrificing everything to benefit their boring, slightly less morally perfect friends.

Dull and predictable and insufferably boyscoutish, but it's standard, because apparently readers are very thin skinned and want the protagonist to be their bestest bud.

You can somehow find dark fiction like prince of thorns where protag is bastard/evil but ones where protagonist starts as good and gets "seduced" to dark side (betrays goodies for baddies) are impossible to find....

As a long time Borges aficionado, I don't think so. Borges prose itself is fairly average, it's the stories that he tells that are so incredible - which pretty much every translation is able to capture quite well.

That's absolute bullshit, Cyberpunk lit is amazing, Do Androids, Neuromancer, Naked Lunch the list goes on..

Best Space Operas?

The Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb.
It might be extra comfy for me though because of how long it's been in my life.

I'm partial to the works of Alastair Reynolds.

hey bb

Finished Red Sister.

Very anime. Very Reddit.

>The live of Fitz"I will fuck everything I love"Chivalry.
>Comfy.
You are a monster user. Poor moppy fucker only knew happines a few times, and then fleeting.
I liked the Prince of Thornes, it was edgy shit done right.
I started the red sister but It didn't grip me (I hate vikings), what's so reddit about it?

Those books helped me through my depression a long time ago thanks to the mopey antics of Fitz.
He had a nice bitter sweet end though I guess.

What do vikings have to do with Red Sister?

Does he mean "Red Country" by Joe Abercrombie d'ya reckon?

Or maybe Red Rising, with it's wack af gri

Shit, I mixed Red Queen with Red sister, my fault anons.
So, what's bad about it?

The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs

goodreads.com/book/show/24718342-the-face-in-the-frost

What should I read?

The Lies of Locke Lamora or The Blade Itself?

Locke Lamora.

read blade itself. listen to the locke lamora audiobook, it's great

>audiobook

Next you're going to tell him to buy it on kindle! Friggin plebs are everywhere these days.

maybe the user commutes to work on occasion or exercises(things a fat lazy NEET like you probably know nothing about). he could use that time to listen to some audiobooks? I don't see the problem with that?

Absolute filth you are.
Audiobooks are for people who don't even care about the work.
You just want to avoid silence because you can't be alone with your own thoughts.
Don't even pretend that you have the mental capacity to fully visualise a piece of literature whilst you're doing other things.

>the mental capacity to fully visualise a piece of literature whilst you're doing other things

if you can't do this while jogging, driving, or some other mindless daily tasks or chores, I question your IQ level tbqh

Your level of visualisation must be a pale imitation of a true Veeky Forumstard if you can do it whilst you're paying attention to your surroundings.
I pity you.

Sorry, I forgot The Blade Itself or The Lies of Fucking Locke Lamora were such deep literary works that require such focus to follow and understand. I'm done wasting time with memester such as yourself. Enjoy being a trolling idiot.

A while ago I saw a guy on the L-train reading a fantasy book, don't know what it was. He got to a page that had lines of verse on it, some song or poem, and he skipped it.

Well duh

Who said anything about understanding?
A book doesn't have to be deep to benefit from good visualisation you peasant.
There's no need to lash out at me just because you can't admit your own lack of imagination and therefore your inability to truly appreciate any written work.
You're a shallow normie.
There's nothing particularly wrong with that, but you should acknowledge it and leave this place.
At the very least, stop embarrassing yourself.

The nature of language, spoken or otherwise, conveys meaning. Spending a few minutes visualizing the paragraph you just read and read again is certainly one way to enjoy a novel, but it's by no means the only way.

>trying to assert superiority over other posters
>while avatarfagging

>complaining about jpgs

Who the fuck is this guy
Getimoutah here

A prominent UK politician, leader of the Lib Dems.
Here he is with his wife.

Wtf I'm British lol, I'm too out the loop.

What's some good semi-realistic Space Opera like Hyperion?

Not a big written scifi guy myself, but Legend of the Galactic Heroes is the GOAT space opera.

is the broken earth series or other series by NK Jesmine decent?

Read pic related recently.

The central idea is underdeveloped in favor of the protagonists somewhat prosaic personal narrative. The ending of "The Plural of Helen of Troy" also seriously undermined one of the central points of the whole collection regarding the fundamental immorality of time travel.

"The Slayer of Souls" was an unexpectedly good horror story. Wright ought to do that more often.

I'm struck, as another user pointed out when recommending this, that Wright is actually good at writing dialogue. He's not quite at Jack Vance level, but he's getting there without the annoying Joss Whedon/"reddit" factor that bothers me about so much witty banter in contemporary fiction.

He also manages (here and elsewhere) to keep his goddamn characters distinct. They occasionally descend into caricature but I don't have trouble keeping track of who's who. I might be giving him too much credit having just come off of a Clarke stint though.

The Broken Earth is pretty good. Of her other series, I've read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and it was awful.

If a book isn't in bookzz or #bookz is it safe to assume no e-version exists? I'm specifically looking for Stephen Baxter's Obelisk.

I just finished Ursula Le Guin's award gobbling The Dispossessed from 1974. My initial thoughts? It's a clever book with a lot of worldbuilding; the barren planet founded by anarchists, and the capitalist dystopia they came from. Le Guin is comprehensive in her worldbuilding; geography, history, politics, culture, domestic life, education, dating, food production, and more besides. Annares and Urras feel like fully constructed worlds. I think this even surpasses Dune for breadth and depth of detail

Le Guin explores the shortcomings and pitfalls of the anarchist utopia while comparing/contrasting it with the capitalist hegemony. It turns out that anarchy can produce a restrictive orthodoxy and static society after all. In a society without government and private property, control comes from the collective social conscience, producing 'walls' that stultify the conscience and freedom of the individual, such as that of the genius physicist protagonist, who falls foul of the anarchists and elopes to the the other side. The book is full of comments on the nature of anarchy, capitalism, and the individual, but there is also an interesting subtext on the true nature of time and suffering. It's an extremely thematically dense book, and this along with the non-linear plotting meant that I had to pay more attention than is perhaps customary when reading most SF. I even took notes for heaven's sake. Anyway, it gets 4/5, one star omitted for making me work hard, and because I lost some interest during the lengthy passages about physics.

Flow My Tears, The Policeman said still should've won some of those awards.

Anyone read worldbreaker series by kameron hurley?

I know it's like comparing apples and oranges, but I enjoyed Flow My Tears more. The Dispossessed is so dense and clever, though, that it's award bait, and the kind of book that will have a life in the reader after the last page is finished. Although her Lathe Of Heaven is more charming, simpler while still being philosophical. It may just be my preference for SF books with a narrow focus and scope.

I've had multiple people recommend Book of the New Sun to me but many people have also told me Wolfe is a difficult writer so I feel slightly intimidated. Should I just jump right in or is there maybe a better starting place with Gene Wolfe's works.

>Warrior born, warrior bred, Sir Danic of Drakehorn has faced death, capture, dismemberment, and torture, but he is not prepared for this curse — trapped inside the body of a beautiful elfmaid!

nice

His treatment of female characters is very sexist.

I bet Heinlein would've been so proud. Would've brought a tear to his eye.

Some works of Alastair Reynolds
Expanse

Who the fuck cares.

Triggered

why was Harry Potter so popular? It couldn't have just been that "It was good," there has to be something that made it good

It was imaginative but grounded enough in reality I guess. It made a world than would make any lonely child desire it to exist, colorful characters and well weaved relationsb helped too.

fun story and characters + millions in marketing budget

someone tell me american gods gets better.
im at page 140 and it's dreadfully boring and the writing isn't very good.

Can anybody suggest a book with a similar theme/story.

I really enjoyed the first 1/2 but the second 1/2 was way too drawn out and repetitive. It picked up near the ending again but the actual ending was a bit to cliche for my tastes.

African kingdoms user, do you actually read sff related books, or are you just here to be an avatarfag? You seem to be purposely stirring shit up.

Was.. she taken against her will? I don't think I like trannies because they look like females (some even better than real females) and I know they can't get pregnant, but maybe deep down I know they are a failed shell of a creature who failed at being a man, and now has to take dick and be subservient like a bitch ro survive. I like that.

I wonder who won

If you're completely unfamiliar with SFF then read The Fifth Head of Cerberus first. Otherwise just go for it.

I make numerous posts about books, I just don't always accompany my posts with an image.

Fuck you whoever recommended to kill a god to me, 150 pages in and it's so fucking shit
thanks for wasting my time asshole

But are they sff related books?

>Fuck you whoever recommended to kill a god to me,
Nice try S. No one recommended shit to anyone.

Well yes.
I actually made a couple in this very thread, though I won't point them out to you.

Kek you deserved it.

It's been in my backlog for some time, I just wanted to tell the guy to go fuck himself

It was WoT, before Sanderson ruined it for me.

Dracula

what are some good non-textbook/journal books on history and science to get ideas for scifi?

What ideas are you looking for? That's kind of a broad purview.

...

In terms of science, anything obscure besides modern physics (I've read enough of that). In terms of history nothing I would have already learned of in history class

A mix of both is ideal

It was the author shilling the books. We never recommended them. He used to edit our charts and slip it into the OP.

Anything like Nuruto?

You forgot Gary Gygax..... milleu

This isn't a manga board.

I'm stalled a hundred pages into Dracula. 19th century writing is my bane. Not to mention that the format is my most hated....Journal entries and correspondence. I'll slog through it again soon but fuck if I don't find it repellant....I hope it get more interesting and distracts me from my peeves.

I liked to listen to the audiobook while laying down on my bed
Super comfy

I tried to read it back before the movies were being made. I read like 125 pages in and couldn't understand why the fuck friends and acquaintances were drooling over such garbage. I was going to to toss it in the trash but a cute girl in my office was interested so I gifted it to her.

Thoughts on (RIP) Iain M. Banks? He's very popular around where I am (Fife, Scotland). I just finished up Feersum Endjinn and i thought it was quite good, better than any of his culture novels (though I do adore them as they were what got me into reading sci-fi as an adolescent) although the ending was rather poor which is quite typical of his books I think.

whoops

You're gonna need a moby bait m8

Sounds like the The Traitor Baru Cormorant.
I didn't like it very much personally, but for a reason unrelated to the theme of betrayal.

Vorkosigan series.

why the fuck can't i suspend disbelief. i overanalyze everything i read and ruin it

Jake Featherston did NOTHING wrong

most likely it's autism

the prognosis is grim at this point