/sffg/ - Science Fiction & Fantasy General

Comics really are better than books

>Comics really are better than books
Not really, not at all in fact.

Is there any fantasy that involves knights/wizards/whatever typical fantasy characters fighting against Lovecraftian/Eldritch horrors?

Let's see how this goes.

>UK editions have way worse cover art
>US editions have way worse binding and paper

Why this

It's pretty gay, but not graphic. I kinda liked it.

>Japan has best everything

Books>>>>Manga>>>>>>>>>>Comic "Books"
Granted my experience with comic books was buying a big stack at random, but they were pretty boring.

Wish they would share their secret of thin yet nice paper with the US

It definitely goes off the rails at the end, but if you pretend you're just reading a different book after that it is tolerable. It gets a bit interesting when things start to go down on the planet.

I finally got around to finishing Neuromancer guys. It was amazing. It was better than I imagined it was going to be, and I knew it was at least going to be pretty good.

By "comics" he probably means like graphic novels, as opposed to serial "comic books."

A Player of Games
Not enjoying it as much as Use of Weapons, or Consider Phlebas, but it's still good. Got AADB and Excession on deck.

Oh, I thought those were mostly just collections of the serials.

After reading Book of the New Sun, I really feel like its a pity that human history isn't longer and richer, going far into the obscured antiquity with many lost civilizations yet unknown. Imagine the world with so much ancient knowledge and literature that despite technological advancements and modern education, centuries could pass before humanity uncovers and interprets all of it, let alone grasps it.

But human history is insanely long and rich. People just don't give a shit. Start reading Cambridge ancient history on archive.org if you don't believe me, and also read the golden bough.

I'm classical archaeologist though, I know. It's not as long or rich as you'd think. I mean, I respect it and love it, it's what it is, I'm just sort of fantasizing here a little bit.
If you specialize in, lets say, Greece and Rome, there's isn't a name or event you couldn't recall and tell about it a little bit, especially actual historians. Someone will study ancient Middle East or Egypt and do the same. Later periods are basically recent history compared to the scope of histories in fantastic universes. Knowing detailed history of medieval houses and their affairs is going in depth, not in width, so to speak.

Not to mention that cultural groups, religions and customs of groups of humanity overall aren't plentiful in comparison and many have very limited number of origins. Ideas are recycled throughout history over and over. In fact, I believe that a typical archetype of a fanatsy sage who devotes his life to studying history of the Earth, could as well attain great knowledge that is almost all-encompassing, even having enough time to critically turn back to it and get some valuable insights, interpret some historical processes and even wisely apply that knowledge on the modern world and nature of humanity overall. For many reasons it is much better however to specialize in narrower branches and be able to conduct research with precision, so that many others later on can have a legacy.

"Best" is subjective.
But:
>roadside picnic
>metro 2033
>shades of grey
>library at mount char
>lord of light
>undying mercenaries (modern pulp)
>red rising (read past the hunger games finger in the air/hand on chest start, it gets better I swear, you will hate it, but it's worth it)
>rendezvous with rama (first contact)
>out of the dark by weber (I found it to be a comedy after "HE" showed himself)
>hull zero three (kinda like a side scrolling video game in novel form, entertaining)
>wind up girl (you're on Veeky Forums, so you like traps, it's a biopunk novel about qt Japanese gf being genetically made to order, and liking all the weird shit you see in Japanese hentai)

Enjoy. As always, read blurbs and reviews to see if they are what you want. I personally like scifi that hints more to the technology of the future, than the politics. So take that as you may.

They use rice to make their paper over in Nipponville, America uses trees and recycled materials.

What about prehistory? Human beings were running around talking to each other and making up stories for tens of thousands of years before there was any such thing as a civilization. But as I understand it tiny nuggets of their culture are still embedded in our language (and probably in the fabric of all the oldest known myths and legends too), and there are many techniques we can use to actually make inferences about them.

I don't think that's possible because you need the cellulose from wood fibre to strengthen it

>>undying mercenaries (modern pulp)
Just finished Home World. Great series so far. Thanks to the user who recommended this series when I asked for something similar to Fear Agent.

The Deep by Mickey Spillane.
It's an old gangster thriller or something.

Amazon publishing was a mistake.

Year's Best Science Fiction 34
I read these every year.
So far hit and miss. Nothing mindblowing.

A first this year and a new low is the inclusion of literal gay fanfiction of John Carpenter's The Thing.

MacReady was taken over by the Thing but keeps his memories, he returns to his black gay lover in NYC and helps bomb all the police precincts in the city.

Eerily realistic

What the fuck

The orthodox view is that homo sapiens appeared approx 200,000 years ago. There is a massive gap between the Neolithic era, and the emergence of Sumeria and settled civilisations about 4000BC.

But we're still excavating Gobekli Tepe, which would seem to predate the Sumerians (10,000 years ago), and suggests the Neolithic era may have had more advanced groups than thought previously.

And of course there is the niggling suspicion that some of the Egyptian archeology is much older than is accepted by academia. The sphinx, for example, whose head I suspect was remodeled by later Egyptians.

There is also the matter of earthquakes and flooding, so that very little could survive longer than 10,000 years even with an advanced society existing.

My own belief is that homo sapiens have existed in advanced and literate groups over a million years, rising and collapsing, with next to nothing left after the rising seas, moving glaciers, earthquakes, and the disintergration of material. If anything remains it's in Antarctica (where John Kerry, Buzz Aldrin, and the patriarch of the Orthodox church have visited, along with various heads of state and royalty...)

Warlock of the magus world.

Currently looking for a series to start, maybe something about a knight because I'm pretty burned out on wizards.

is this the western equivalent of shitty japanese light novels?

All the spinoff stuff includes shit like fantasy novels by other authors too. It's a literal expanded universe of shit.

And holy hell the descriptions.
>Some forget why she was called the Queen Bitch.

>Not Anymore.

>Bethany Anne is going stir crazy after more than a decade of having to be 'The Empress.' Now, her advisors have to deal with an Empress who is determined to be on the front line.

>The Ixtali's come to the Etheric Empire, hat in hand.

>Nathan decides that the best way to handle soft intelligence, is to create a new company. What they name the new company should give a clue what it is about.

>The Skaine are able to finally get Ranger Tabitha's group right were their missiles can attack. The problem is, who is sucking whom into a trap?

>Strap back in, because Bethany Anne is putting the Queen's crown back on.

Well I'm the Bv Larson shill. I was in the thread when one of my converts recommended you Undying Mercenaries in regards to fear agent.
You might also like Neal Asher's Shadow of the scorpion.

A large group of us should offer to write for it and slowly steer it into becoming a self aware parody of itself

Neanderthal is suspected to be almost as intelligent as early man and he was around for two hundred thousand years, in the end breeding with humans, possibly influencing humans in some way at the time. And what about all the other races before? We'll never know the true process of verbal knowledge evolution and culture preservation in prehistoric world without writing and records of any kind but stone tools. Its safe to say that 'culture' started anew with humanity turning to cattle, inventing thunder gods and all the other ones, then agriculture and all the beliefs connected with observation of the sky and the cycle of things.

Frankly I don't believe that someone growing crops in prehistoric Europe 2500 BC could even conceive of the concept of humans living as hunters gatherers or even anything 200 years ago with some precision, let alone other races ever existing or even big cities in the east or pyramids being built even in their own time. Equally I don't believe anything of that is still left in any of those languages. Oldest words in the world are words such as mother, father, earth (ground), milk, sun etc. and are mostly Indoeuropean generally in origin.

Those nuggets of extremely old past seem to be saved in those earliest places of civilization in the form of very vague myths. As far as I know, myth of Eden, Kain, Abel becoming shepards and farmers has origin in Sumeria, but interpretating it in such a way might be a stretch.

Only in the 19th century humans realized that not only they once lived as hunters gatherers, but the fact there were other races before them. That is profound. They lived in the dark for...well, actually since forever because nobody could tell what the hell happened 100 years ago before they were born and they tend to turn into myths people their great grandfathers might've known. Imagine the might of the name Caesar in the middle ages. Imagine what would the name Hitler mean to Europeans 100 years after 1945 if we had no media, internet and informations were spreading slowly along the few dangerous roads. This sort of reminds me of the way my great-great-granparents lived, possibly without ever seeing a book other than the Bible which they couldn't read anyway. They spent their lives in the field and dirt, yet they and their illiterate parents knew the names of Napoleon, Charlemagne, Alexander etc.

Roman records were re-discovered in the monasteries during the reinnissance which slowly started the era of questioning because it gave us that grasp on our past.

Without records, we literally wouldn't be able to know anything. Everything before the Sumerian tablets is pure speculation, but that's not history, nothing is left from it. They rely on contemporary interpretations instead of hard evidence. Reconstruction of the myths from 5000 BC years ago based on the way people constructed mythology 3000 BC is NOT evidence, its contemporary interpretation people in 2600 AD might do differently.

The wizard knight?

I also genuinely believe the human history is deeper and stranger than we know right now. So much knowledge was passed on orally I don't just mean little tidbits, but thousands and thousands of lines were memorized by sages and singers.
Also recent evidence human remains in North America have been discovered that predate the date humans were supposed to have migrated by thousands of years.

Not impossible at all. The more you dig about this, you're definitely going to find many inconsistencies in history of humanity. Its easy to say that nothing happened between some period of 1000 years in this or that part of the world, but 1000 years is a damn long period of time for human society thats left in peace to grow their food in abundance, now imagine that being 2-3000 years. Nobody says its impossible, but there are no direct links.

It's strengthened by Japanese Will you stupid gaijin.

maybe ya'll should be using that will to strengthen your economy instead of paper.

Human history is as ancient as it is mysterious. We all know how for the vast majority of recorded history secret societies and cults have hidden important knowledge from the uninitiated. Everything from pottery, to geometry, to how to make nuclear bombs. Combine intense secrecy with oral transmission of information, and periodic horrific disasters natural and manmade, and it's easy to see how civilization and industry could stretch back millions of years leaving very little if any evidence. Hell, even Chimps can teach each other about simple hand tools! Human history could extend so far back we weren't even humans yet!

Just look at the Great Pyramid, that thing was built like a nuclear bunker combined with a bank vault, composed of almost solid stone, covered in layers of granite armor plating, shaped for maximum stability and strength, even buried underground for hundred of years in a desert! And look at it now, partially destroyed, multiple entire layers missing, falling apart, stripped bare on the inside. Anything built of lesser stuff is nothing but dust on the wind by now, deep underground, buried in miles of silt at the bottom of the ocean, or frozen deep in a glacier. Nothing on the surface could last 10,000 years, let along 100,000. In 100,000 years there will be nothing left of what we've built but rich iron deposits and methane wells. And for all we know that's what we're tapping right now.

I just finished Shadow of the Torturer

what the fuck is. things seem to happen at random for no fucking reason

Get used to it, the other books are like that too.
It's intentionally nonsensical, reminds me of dreaming. One thing flows into another in a way where each individual action makes sense but the whole is incomprehensible.
If you enjoy the taste, keep eating, otherwise stop now because you're wasting your time.
Don't let anyone in this thread know I told you that though, they're all fanatics.

>implying I'm a fanatic

I mean, it's super interesting, but the way the story is told is really strange. It's feels a lot of unrelated events happening rapid-fire one after the other

It doesn't give you much time to fully process what's happening until an idea is replaced with something new and equally confusing

>Human history is as ancient as it is mysterious.

I've long wished we had better historic information about Native American cultures, like the mound builders or the various groups around the Inca. Basically all we know is that around the year 800-900, North and Central America were hit by a 300 year long drought that caused the near total collapse of the cultures of the time and plunged the contents into a Mad Max-esque landscape, complete with bizzare death cults in Central America. By the time Europeans arrived they'd apparently started to recover but everything was still really fucked up.

>Just look at the Great Pyramid

A lot of other pyramids are even worse off, little more than big mounds or vaguely pyramid shaped outcroppings.

What's also interesting is about 600 years after the last major pyramids were built you have the bronze age collapse, which again results in a Mad Max-esque hellscape where 90% of Greece is depopulated and a wave of humanity sweeps down through Turkey and the Levant before breaking on the Egyptian defenses at the mouth of the Nile.

That's what I meant, he's doing it intentionally. It's too perfectly coordinated. That bleary, confused state of mind is what he's aiming for. it's like being put into a trance. From there he's hoping to jack into your emotions easier. Unfortunately for him, I go into that trance state when I read ANYTHING, so his books just seem bland and flavorless to me by comparison. To someone who doesn't do that, and needs an aid it's probably a very different experience. In other words, every book aims to induce a certain novel sensation/state of mind/emotion in the reader. For The Book of New Sun series, this sensation is "trance". For people who are experienced with "trance" and feel it often it's not very interesting. It's like a prostitute watching porn, or a soldier watching a war documentary. At best it's just a depiction of something you already know about and do every day, at worst it's an frustratingly inaccurate farce.

Also some stuff straight up doesn't make sense. details will directly contradict each other. Is that intentional too?

Oh, another "secret knowledge" thing I just remembered. Apparently Basque whalers may have discovered North America decades or centuries before Columbus, but the captains kept quiet because it was a secret place to get whales that nobody else was exploiting.

Different user here, I've read BotNS a few times. What contradictory details are you talking about? I'll try and help if the answer doesn't spoil the rest of the book for you.

In theory the paper backs are just collections (with exceptions) but here's a big difference between comics written to sell many "floppies" and comics written for paper backs. Comics is an amazing medium with great potential for story telling but 90% or more of what's released is shit. But books are kinda the same, if you'd just buy a stack of books at random you'd probably end up with Twilight, Harry Potter and 50 Shades.

t. /co/

There are maps of the coast of Antarctica that are made using methods invented centuries AFTER they were created, which are accurate the surface BELOW the ice!

That's probably why there are no whales left alive in the continent of North America today.

Found a pretty cool edition of Alice's adventures in wonderland illustrated by Mervyn Peake, it's significantly more unnerving but I like his schizophrenic style of drawing.

I think Player of games is the worst science fiction Banks wrote. So it's all uphill in my opinion. But not all the way up, because I think use of weapons was his peak.

Reposting from last thread.
What was that ending?
Will there ever be a sequel?

Orb Sceptre Throne, started book 2 last night.

>And for all we know that's what we're tapping right now.
Geology is the science of ancient civilizations' leftovers, then?

is the 'elves who want to live in isolation' too much of a meme that should be avoided in one's writing?

Everything is a meme user. The only thing that matters is your writing skill.

Currently reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History, will move onto Brom's The Child Thief.

Anyone else read Too Like the Lightning while I've been on holiday?

I've thought about picking it up multiple times but it's significantly more expensive than other books in my local shop, is it with the extra money?

There's also the matter of the speculated upon secret expeditions a little before Columbus, perhaps by Rosicrucians bankrolled by Venice; the idea being to grab a lot of gold for banking securities.

all memes aside, that's great advice, thanks

That should read Knights Templar instead of Rosicrucians. Next time I will finish my first coffee before going off on pre-Columbus exploration.

But on that topic, I recall reading Gene Wolfe believes the Egyptians made it across the Pacific to the New World.

Thanks dude!

>Too Like the Lightning
>author
No thanks.

...You do realise that every book is uploaded on the internet in a retail quality ebook copy within 24 hours of it hitting overdrive, right? Until they patch the deDRMing tools permanently, at least.

I will fucking cry if I can't download The Will to Battle within an hour of it being released. (requested, put on autodownload and held on my overdrive account)

Nigga I haven't bought a book in months.
Having said that I picked up a TLtL soft cover for cheap second hand to pop it on my bookshelf.
Did the same with Three Body, sometimes you just want your favourites on show

Any alt-history with USR fighting the USSA? Kind of an ideological reverse Cold War?

Had the idea this morning but I can't believe it hasn't been done already.

I want physical copies too, but I keep moving places and lugging around 75 of my favourite books doesn't seem feasible.

>it's significantly more unnerving
It should be.

I kind of feel that since the creation of the internet the opposite is a problem. There's more information in existence right now than anybody could comprehend, just 99.9999% of it is complete garbage, like /sffg/. Will historians remember /sffg/ in the year 50 000? It is a cool thought though.

You ever read Anatoly Fomenko? I always wonder what historians/archeologists think of his work.

Wolfe has a master plan for absolutely every last autistic and nonsensical detail. At the end of Citadel of the Autarch about 40% of it will make sense, but your second complete reading will blow your mind and possibly turn you Catholic.

He did say that, and I think that it's perfectly possible that they did. Australia was known to Asian sailors long before the English ever showed up, they just didn't give a shit and considered it too remote and barren to be of any use to anybody. Stuff like that could easily fall out of cultural memory.

>gestalt
>precog
>ersatz
>distant strong female characters who the protag fancies
>BOMBS

once you've had one dick you've had them all

>young, beardless Dick
tentative boner alert

Anything else like this out there? Robot just trying to lie low and not have anybody find out it's slipped it's leash?

If you read BOTNS as a series of episodes instead of gunning through chapters you'll have an easier time. It's really a book to be sipped, not inhaled.

>Any alt-history with USR fighting the USSA?
>USSA

Surely you meant something like UASR? The R in USSR stands for Republics, not Russia. USSA doesn't make any sense

>USSA doesn't make any sense

United Socialist States of America.

Alternatives are United Communist States of America, Socialist Sates of America, or if you want to mess with people like the Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkreig developers: Communist States of America.

>It's the twenty-fourth century. Humanity has spread throughout the solar system--but for most of us, life is as precarious as it was in Dickensian England. Brothers Achille, Marcantonio, and Nore have been raised rich, but after their father spends the family fortune and puts a laser to his head, they're forced to face facts. The wealthy Luke Bailey is willing to pay top dollar for what's left of their estate, enough to buy Achille a commission in the space Navy. But only if Marcantonio and Nore will both become female--Marcantonio to marry Luke, and Nore to be their spinster housekeeper, for as long as Luke lives.

>Over the next two decades, the now-female Marcantonio and Nore struggle to make lives for themselves in the service of their wealthy keeper. Then the alien invasion arrives.

"i'm just buying the book for a friend" I insist to the confused clerk who could care less.

Okay thanks, that makes sense. I was assuming just a substitution of that one word

>But only if Marcantonio and Nore will both become female--Marcantonio to marry Luke, and Nore to be their spinster housekeeper, for as long as Luke lives.

wew...

lmao the fuck is this shit

Western sff really has become anime

I'm going to withhold judgement until it's published - or at least until arc reviews start circulating- but is this blurb setting off warning flags for anyone else? I hope that JW makes a point of getting some trans people to preview/beta read/SR/etc this one before it hits the shelves. A premise like this has the potential to go really badly/hurtfully, even with the best of intentions.

It dosent sound like a book meant to be taken seriously

Lads, how can Jo Walton win a Hugo but not Gene Wolfe?

Gene Wolfe is a writer's writer. Your average reader dosent know about him but most established SFF writers will suck his dick on sight: Niel Gaiman, GRRM, LeGuin, etc.

>sorry sir but your books are too literary for the genere fiction awards, consider adding more star trek references next time

The dude has been around since the fucking 70s, he's had his time and has collected many awards. There's nothing he needs to prove.

Here's a YA one that sounds even stupider:
>HarperTeen has acquired The Cerulean and an untitled sequel, a YA fantasy duology by Amy Ewing. The Cerulean tells the story of Sera, who lives in a Sapphic utopia where all women have three mothers and a young woman is chosen every 100 years to be abandoned on the planet below as a sacrifice.

Dear God.