/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

Nah, I've read both of those but it's not what I mean.

>No goofy Chinese guys full of parables.

Now that's exactly what I mean. Just something comfy full of descriptions of temples and misty mountains and moralizing by sledgehammer.

Eragon was like that for the first half and a bit of the book.

>It's another young adult series where some teenagers topple the evil government episode

Best science fiction / fantasy blogs and news sites?

Warcraft

Which Book of the New Sun cover is that? It's pretty good.

As for blogs, greatsfandf.com/. Never gets updated but as an archive of great works it's very good. Anything 3 stars or higher is almost certainly worth a look.

I don't think conceptualfiction.com has been updated in years but it has a lot of good recommendations including a bit of analysis and introduced me to Cordwainer Smith. Good site.

>longish training phase
House of blades
Undying Mercenaries

It's an deviant art cover

You cut off the writing at the bottom idiot.

I've read a couple of Clark Ashton Smith stories since the last few days, In Ubbo-Sathla (1932) an amateur anthropologist and occultist enters a curio shop in contemporary London, where he finds a glimmering orange orb. When he looks into it he loses his sense of self, gains the perception of a sorcerer from a past life, and views the devolution of the world to its origins as a primordial slime. The way this story depicts the protagonists disorientation with his contemporary world while simultaneously inhabiting a past life (merging realities) is well done and reminded me of some of Philip K Dick's stories, particularly in a couple of passages. Indeed, CAS says of this piece that his intention was to portray 'the profound and manifold dissolutioniof reality.' But generally, this is more of a conventional Lovecraft tale of past lives, atavism, and ancient civilisations, with a Lovecraftian protagonist, and mythos entity. This is also one of CAS's more accessible stories, and fun. 4/5

Afterwards I read The Double Shadow (1932). Here, a powerful wizard-necromancer and his apprentice live in a secluded cliff-top mansion in the last remaining part of the Atlantean continent. While beachcombing, they find a mysterious mirror-like artifact adorned with ancient runes which they begin to decode through the years. Like other CAS stories this is about powerful men who seek recondite knowledge, and perhaps overreach themselves. The descriptions and setting are well written, full of demoniacal detail, and give a clear sense of being in the ancient seafront household of an Atlantean wizard from the POV of the apprentice. 5/5

>There's another user than like CAS.
I tought I was the only one desu, I prefer him to Lovy or Howy. What do you think about his zothique cicle? I prefer his standalone novels or averoigne better, but they are still pretty good.

I just finished 'Assassins Fate' by Robyn Hobb.

Wew lads - hold me. I was not ready for that ending.

It felt it was wonky and kinda of rushed. Fucking Fitz man, why is he such a disaster at being a family man.

I need either fantasy or near-future sci-fi that will leave me reeling, like I've been in a car accident. I want the sound of screeching metal in my ears, gunfire. I want pulp action, but with a bit of meaning in it. I want PKD mixed with Cormac McCarthy mixed with The Raid: Redemption.

Somebody help me out here. I need something intense and even a bit literary. Like J. G. Ballard decided to go a little more overtly sci-fi or try fantasy.

I like Prince of Nothing and all that, but I don't want epic fantasy.

I think maybe what I'm looking for doesn't exist. But what's the closest thing you can think of?

Ilium

Snow Crash?

If you haven't watched The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, you owe it to yourself.
I'll check it out.
Too much silliness in that book, especially near the beginning. I liked it, but it isn't quite what I'm looking for.

You should start up a review blog, user-kun. I would totally read that shit.

Holy shit Mistress of Mistresses from Zimiamvia is hard to read, but at the same time I feel it's the only worthwhile sffg I've read in a while

What do y'all think of Peter Watts?

Do people think pic related is good? I'm about half way through it and literally can't believe how badly written some of the dialogue is. Does it get better in the next books or should I just quit now?

Erikson is an extraordinary writer... treat yourself

Thanks Mr Donaldson

It gets worse.

Really? I'm struggling at the moment to understand what people enjoy about them.

It gets better but the prose itself is still shit. I am personally dropping it at book 3 because while it's not terrible, it's also not worth it for 10 books. You need to be genius patrician tier to get me to read 10+ books of your shit.

I guess they like the wacky characters and the fact that there's so many of them and so many places. But it's not a deep story or anything. There's more feels later, though. Gardens of the Moon isn't representative. I'd say read Deadhouse Gates before you decide.

This is what I was worried about. I may just give it one more book and decide then. Ten books is far too much if it doesn't improve.

People enjoy epics. You get immersed in the world and the characters. I have not read Malazan but that's my theory on why almost everyone love ASOIAF, Wheel of Time and Stormlight Archives even though they all have their set of problems.

is any of ray bradbury's stuff good or is it just a meme?

whacky characters is pretty uncharacteristic, like thats mainly just the bridgeburners and kruppe, rhulad, karsa, the adjunct, and the tiste were hardly whacky.

the characters are great though, like cotillion and the little girl who eats the dead people.

I get that but the dialogue is very immersion breaking. It's hard to be immersed in the world when everybody sounds like they've been written by a 14 year old.

The descriptive prose is basically fine, not amazing but fine, it's just the actual dialogue that fucks it.

Not that user but it's not that the characters are wacky just that they're caricatures and hard to read. in my opinion at least.

Why don't you just switch over to another series? I mean, even if you liked Malazan at the outside (as many of us did), there's still a serious chance you'll be disappointed later. Book 5 is basically unreadable and almost every apart from a few hardcore fans suggest people skip it.

outset**
everyone***

I'm retarded.

I'll let you know about his Zothique stories when I get there, there's two stories below the The Dark Eidolon. I'm reading CAS for the first time after reading much of REH and HPL, and I'm very impressed.

That's kind praise. Some anons have pointed out the futility of writing reviews on here, where everything is lost in time after a few days in the archive. But I have been backing upto a wordpad file for a while now, and sometimes I incorporate these shorter pieces into longer articles on my wordpress blog: cs7850.wordpress.com/.

I found it rather hard to read, but it made me hungry for more at the end. I didn't really catch the plot of book 2 at the start, but it really got me hooked to read more. I don't regret reading them all and am hungry for a reread despite finishing the tenth some weeks ago.

>Book 5 is basically unreadable and almost every apart from a few hardcore fans suggest people skip it.
What the fuck? Book 5 is one of the highest rated in the entire series. It's just a couple autistic people on /sffg/ I see hating it because it breaks from the established characters and they can't deal with it. If you managed to get into Gardens of the Moon there's no reason you can't get into Midnight Tides, it's essentially an alternate start point to the series.

>the dialogue is very immersion breaking
The dialogue is very well done. I'd like to see your example of good dialogue if you think Erikson's is bad.

>the insecure malazan fanboys have arrived

I guess you guys can only be gone for so long.

I know I'm going to get jumped for this but LOTR. If you legitimately read the banter between the characters, they all feel alive and individualistic.

The problem with some of the dialogue in Erikson is that he'll randomly start using dialogue to infodump pages and pages of shit referencing events from 2 or 3 books ago. Also a lot of characters will talk similarly. But that's because they're so samey

LotR has incredible dialogue. It's some of the best ever written, for sure.

Is it worth reading for someone who loved Farseer/Tawny Man (literally cried twice in Tawny Man, only fantasy series to make me do it), but thinks her other work is hit/miss, and is worried that it will end the (imo) pretty fucking perfect ending of Fool's Fate?

*ruin the ending

Why isn't there a single fantasy series that seems to receive overwhelming praise?

LOTR probably qualifies when it was released, but there are so many complaints about it today.

Whether it's Malazan or ASOIAF or any other highly praised series, there seems to be a lot of criticism about them also.

I think LOTR was hated by contemporary critics during release, though it was very popular. It gained acclaim a bit later in academic circles

Malazan is just another sffg meme

Bradbury is a good read if you are bored with Asimov's style, because he is more of a fantasist and lyrical writer than a realist. I think new SF readers should read Martian Chronicles should be read alongside Foundation to appreciate two different approaches, and depending on preferences either branch off towards other hard Campbellian SF, or soft SF + New Wave. Asimov has better ideas and speculations, Bradbury is a better prose stylist.

>there are so many complaints about it today.
contrarians

Name a popular piece of literally whatever that doesn't have it's fair share of critique, deserved or not.

See The characters are used as a shitty means of exposition and they all speak very alike. There's very little character to how they speak. ASOIAF has much better characterisation but then that's more about the characters than Malazan so it's kind of expected.

Literally every book has some objective flaws, but people often are willing to overlook or don't really notice them in a 400 page novel, while in a 4000 page series they can get really annoying/frustrating.

>ASOIAF has much better characterisation
It's still pretty bad characterization

this series any good?

It's okay. The books are way better than the show.

Are there any overlooked horror novels that people would recommend?

What are some good books that involve different races (humanoid or not)?
Preferably something in which they take part of the story and aren't just relegated to the background.

Sci-fi, fantasy or both?

I prefer Fantasy but if there are any Science Fiction books or series that do it well then I'd check them out too.

If you're a experienced reader you could probably try Book of the New Sun, it's basically sci-fi disguised as fantasy and feature lots of exotic beings.

Perdido Street Station

Many Discworld books feature dwarfs, trolls and the like.

Metro 2033 is cited as a great exploration or even borderline-YA novel but I got proper spooked reading it.

Holy shit Too Like the Lightning is good. Fucking good. I'm loving this world and style, Palmer's really drawing me in.

Good fucking Lord I have no idea why I finished this pile of hot garbage. How are the rest, do they get any better? Jorg an utter shit, the Nuban deserved better.

here.
Anybody?

I really like him

he annoys a few people and while im not sure we agree 100% politically, i follow his blog enough to call myself a fan. he writes incredible scifi, probably some of the best 2000+

rifters trilogy is ok, if very acquired taste (hardcore watts fans only)
blindsight universally agreed to be one of the best bits of modern (hard) scifi, Echopraxia's great as well
short stories are interesting, not as mixed good and awful as some authors but none of them stand out as on a level of blindopraxia

also he responds to e-mails fairly promptly, and takes awe/criticism humbly

>do they get any better?
It gets more retarded.

Everyone on /sffg/ likes him.

Want to read some scifi again, are these books that good?

I don't think I've ever seen a critique of Book of the New Sun which I didn't find retarded.

After slogging through the Trial and Plato's 5 dialogues for a few weeks I picked up Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep, finished it in five hours, and was blown away with out engaging and easy to read it was. Lots of fun giving a shit about android animals.

The only other Sci-Fi I have on my shelf, other than 10 warhammer books I never read, is Dune, which seems like a big time commitment.

I was going to suggest William Gibson's Blue Ant series but they're not very action packed. Rather they're best described as the modern day viewed through a cyberpunk lens, technothrillers about coolhunters and burnt out punk rockers working for a advertising company to try and find out the deal behind a viral video series or the designer behind a secret brand of pants that may have been stolen from the US military.

On the other hand you might try The Red series by Linda Nagata, which is a sort of a 10 minutes in the future series about cyborg super soldiers dealing with a rogue AI and Metal Gear-esque terrorist plots by defense contractors.

>just finishing up second book of Prince of Nothing
>realize Akka's name isn't Achamain
>it's fucking AchaMIAN
What a shit name, I'm glad he's getting cucked

I read through Dune in a couple weeks as a teenager, it's pretty accessible.

>don't really follow or understand why Aragorn becoming king at the end of LotR is such a big deal
>read Silmarillion
>mfw I understand
>the title "Return of the King" makes so much sense

>they all speak very alike
Yeah no. You clearly didn't read past book 1.

This board is infested by self-styled intellectuals who make a point of forming contrarian beliefs about everything. You should take any criticism or praise you read here with a grain of salt because there's a very good chance it's not coming from a genuine place.

Brilliant but I need Blindopraxia book 3 already...

This is fucking Veeky Forums, not reddit, not sa, not some whatever other bullshit where you know who someone is.
You don't know who the other nigga is, so you don't give a shit about why they think they way they do. You address the arguments being made.

/sffg/ isn't one person.

I've poked enough "arguments" made on this board to know they're mostly hot air. I don't bother engaging people who obviously have phony opinions. They just duck out of the thread whenever they get exposed anyway and resume their shitposting in a few hours pretending nothing ever happened. So I let them continue on their pretensions and I just ignore them, we both win.

Look at this badass crusader. You're obviously a real intellectual compared to the self styled phonies

>But I have been backing upto a wordpad file for a while now, and sometimes I incorporate these shorter pieces into longer articles on my wordpress
>he just doesn't want to make a goodreads
>his reviews will disappear from wordpress when he is no longer active

No such thing as pseudo-intellectuals and intellectuals when discussing fantasy and sci fi

>shill is trying hard but receiving no bites
>shill admitted multiple times that he hasn't read half the books he shills
>says he gets an ego rush out of making people read a book he hasn't touched

I haven't read Dune, but doesn't Paul Atreides endure a long period of training to become Muad'dib?

he's right though its considered the first or second best in the series, at least say toll the hounds or something.

Is The Blade Itself worth a read?

Nope for reasons already stated several times.

What are those reasons? I don't come to this board very often.

I thought that the book itself and plot was terribly drab and uninteresting aside from Glokta and the trilogy ending.