Hey y’all, this is a post from the moderation team regarding some issues we have been noticing for a while now. We want to share our concerns with the subreddit as a whole, let everyone know about what we are thinking of doing about it, and also ask the general userbase for feedback and suggestions. Please read through this post and leave us feedback on what actions you think we could take.
The issues
Over the last few months, we have been noticing a persistent and regular issue. Recently, posts related to certain popular authors, books, and series (such as The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson or The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan) have been getting extremely combative. The comments are increasingly becoming battlegrounds where people holding mutually opposed opinions are engaging in long fights. In many situations, when one such post gains traction, another new post is made to refute the previous one and the argument continues there, sometimes leading to multi-day …
Is this how the villagers who sat around the fire and listened to a bloke called Homer speak of Odysseus felt, back in the day? I could really use some help articulating how good these books are.
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Maybe I’ve just been a bit too busy cutting my teeth on the bleak worlds of Bakker, Abercrombie, and Cook in recent years. While I love them all, some might say they look away from the sunny side of things at the expense of certain truths. Not Le Guin. She breathes life into each pebble, bird, and grain of sand in a way that makes you feel as if everything really matters. The prose fits her themes so well, too. Each line seems effortless as the eagle’s flight, yet as deliberate and technically excellent as the duelist’s lunge. The author proves that brevity is the soul of wit by saying more with less: “Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light?”
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This rant won’t bring any justice to how I feel …
The number of amazing books I hear about is just too much for my wallet. I’m reading a lot more, but holy hell, in the few months I’ve been here I’ve bought hundreds of dollars worth of books.
This is a pet peeve of mine, but I can’t stand fantasy books. Anything with wizards and mages and quests and singing swords and the like drives me up a wall.
I have recently read two books which were recommended as science fiction which turned out to be fantasy: “Lord Valentine’s Castle” by Robert Silverberg, and “The Eye of the World” by Robert Jordan. I didn’t finish the first but forced myself to finish the latter.
It’s my fault, because I know if I had done any basic research into either title I would have known what they were before reading them.
My purpose here is not to bash those books. I know they are highly regarded, but they are not my cup of tea.
I’m just wondering why science fiction gets lumped together with fantasy when, at least to my way of thinking, they are two completely different genres.
It’s probably just me, isn’t it?
Finally got around to reading the advanced copy I won off a Goodreads giveaway (Side note; did not realize anyone actually won those, just figured it was a way to gauge interest and harvest data) and holy shit but that was truly a good read.
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It had a lot of the same charms as The Martian but in a much larger scale. The science was all there (presumably bent in a few places for plot purposes. Definitely lots of “science-ing the shit out of it” moments. And enough action to keep me glued to it for two evenings straight. 10 years ago I would have called out of work this morning and just spent all night finishing it in one go, unfortunately I’m a real adult now.
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Either way, if this one isn’t on your radar it should be.
Hello everyone,
I’m hoping to get some recommendations. I’m looking for any science fiction novels or stories that are inspired by, or take place in, the Middle East and its cultures.
The two obvious examples that I can come up with are the Dune series by Frank Herbert, and “When Gravity Fails” by George Effinger. Any other suggestions?
Hey guys and girls
So I have decided to read the Red Rising Series in between the Malazan books. So after I finished Gardens of the Moon I picked up Red Rising after hearing great things about it on here and other subreddits.
It was a fun read, but I guess there was just something missing. I expected more for me it kinda just felt like a mix of Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies. The action was interesting but I felt like the author relied a bit too much on sexual violence to show us these guys are bad people.
Do the other books get better?
The first 1⁄3 of this book was incredible to me, some of the things happening gave me proper existential dread vibes - right up my alley.
Then the videogame part really picked up speed. I didn’t mind any of the technological explanations in the story up until now really. But the videogame, the story progression is soul-crushingly slow.. Around chapter 17 where the author spent 30 minutes explaining how motherboards and logic gates work, I stopped, I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like I was back in my most boring university class.
All of the initial vibes of dread and mystery are gone, the author seemingly only being focused on some beyond ridiculous mental gymnastics..
Honestly is it worth the willpower? Does the initial atmosphere or style return?