When people were upset about the Game of Thrones ending, Peter Dinklage was like “by the way, it’s fiction. There’s dragons in it”. People use the same argument all the time. What does it even fucking mean?! Are people not allowed to critique something by virtue of it not being real? Or is it because it’s fiction nothing has to make sense? Just admit the writing sucks and stop shifting blame to the genre
Edit: this is just me ranting about Game of Thrones to be honest, and other plot/writing issues that get dismissed with a “get over it, it’s fantasy”. I’m not talking about race swapping in casting
Edit: since so many are still bringing up race swapping I thought I’d share my thoughts on it. Race swapping for me represents a bigger issue with the film/tv industry: that they still aren’t adapting much by poc authors and many races are still very under-represented (native/indigenous and asian actors, among others, are rarely chosen). Everything these days is remakes and spin-offs. I’d …
It may not even be possible for an author to get everything right, but every now and then something pops up in a book that makes you go “yeah, that’s not how it works”. Sometimes you can just ignore it and sometimes it breaks immersion completely.
In fantasy, the thing I notice the most is how archery is done. Characters having a conversation with their bow at full draw like it’s some kind of gun, or being able to use a warbow perfectly the first time they touch it like it wouldn’t require skill or strength. It’s a pet peeve and it obviously depend on how heavily it impacts the plot, but at times you just wish the author would’ve looked it up when writing the story.
So what are some things in books that often make you sigh and think “that’s not how it works”?
Despite the latest TikTok trend, serial returning of fully-read Kindle ebooks has been a long issue. In theory, Amazon says they allow returns up to 14 days for any ebook, including fully read, but in reality they have allowed returns up to one year (Source: Literally me. My royalty statements over a decade of publishing). If a person had a lower sales series, it was really easy to see trends such as:
This has always been a specifically Amazon problem, as they allowed these kinds of returns. With pressure from American author associations, Amazon has finally said they will make improvements to this system.
For me, the biggest improvement is this:
Most notably, we will de-activate self-service returns for any book read past 10%, adding substantial friction to the process.
People will still take advantage of the system, …
Almost a year ago I asked for standalone recommendations. I was 2 months into my master’s degree and looking for ways to procrastinate. I’m done my degree now and finally got around to reading books recommended by you all.
I also included the whole list, in alphabetical order by author, in case someone wants something to read. The first table are books I haven’t read but that only got recommended once. The second table are books that got mentioned once or more than once but that I’d already read. The last table are books I hadn’t read but that got mentioned more than once. Originally, the plan was to read all the books from table 3 but some of them sounded like something I really didn’t care to read so instead I chose only one.
|Book|Author| |:-|:-| |The Unspoken Name|A.K. Larkwood| |Snakewood|Adrian Selby| |The Shadows of Dust|Alec Hutson| …
*Spoiler Free-ish. That was the first thing I said after reading the last page and closing the book: “Holy shit”. My Fiancée, looked at me and asked “Was it any good?” She hasn’t read it and thought it was kinda funny with how enthralled I was with it, literally reading it at every free moment. “I absolutely loved it,” I told her. “What’s it about?”
“No idea. But I freaking loved it.” I immediately bought the rest of the series.
https://www.tor.com/2022/09/21/cover-reveals-martha-wells-witch-king/
Anyone else excited for this? Martha Wells is my favorite author and I love the premise of this novel.
I recently got a library card because I wanted to support my county’s library. I downloaded Libby because the closest library is an hour and a half away which makes it very difficult to get books and return on them on time. But I was reading on this subreddit that is very expensive for libraries to use Libby. Now I feel guilty for borrowing a book. Is it okay to use Libby? I feel like I’m adding to the already underfunded library’s problems.
Let’s hope the prices are cheaper
I’m Robin Furth, and I’ve been traveling with Stephen King through his multiverse for more than twenty years. My reference book—STEPHEN KING’S THE DARK TOWER: THE COMPLETE CONCORDANCE—was originally written for Steve King’s personal use and has since been translated into five languages. I am the co-author of the bestselling DARK TOWER comics and worked as a consultant for both the 2017 DARK TOWER movie, directed by Nikolaj Arcel, and Amazon’s 2019 DARK TOWER tv pilot, created by the show runner Glen Mazzara. My latest fabulous adventure was traveling to Empis with Charlie Reade and his dog, Radar. If you want to read more about my work, take a look at my website: www.robinfurth.com. I really hope you’ll join me on September 20, 2022, at 1pm ET. Hail Empis!
I’ve lurked this subreddit since before I made a reddit account. I’ve wanted to post several times before, but every question I wanted to ask had already been asked and answered.
Thanks to everyone participating in this community, not only did it revive my love for reading, but for SF as a whole, something I mostly ignored through my late teens/early 20s, and my love for reading and the genre is likely stronger than ever before.
A book like Children of Time was something I never could have imagined coming across 15 years ago and I’m thankful for this community for recommending and discussing this book, along with many, many others.
Enough of the cheese. If anybody reads this, feel free to hit me with any recommendation. Your favorite, a hidden gem, anything.
Thanks again, everybody. And watch out for Stobor.
I’m currently going through all the most iconic series. Currently I have, the foundation, Peter Hamilton books, Ian banks, Greg bear, star wars books, hainish cycle and a few others. What are the absolute must reads?
thanks in advance
edit thanks everyone i know thi question is asked alot you guys are great
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My dad is stuck in the hospital at least the next four weeks while he undergoes 24⁄7 chemo. To put it mildly, he’s bored.
He likes military sf and some space opera, but he’s been reading sci-fi since the late 50s, and I usually buy him the first book in a new series for his birthday/holidays so finding thing he hasn’t read can be hard.
So far I bought him Moon’s Vatta series, a bunch of CJ Cherryh’s Alliance-Union War books, Weber’s Honor series, and all of the Expanse series.
He loves Anne Leckie, John Scalzi, and Ben Aaronovitch.
He doesn’t like John Ringo/Tom Kratman (he’s a hippie at heart, the libertarian stuff won’t fly) or Lois McMaster Bujold (I’m still confused by this). He also noped out of the Bob legion books after book two.
I expect him to read 30-40 books even if the chemo slow him down some, so throw your best at me.
Which ones would you say have the most “original” plots?
The world’s going to end and everyone has to band together to save it with some super ambitious, bleeding edge of the possible project. Ex: Project Hail Mary
What would you recommend?
This was my introduction to Iain M. Banks. Spoilers follow!!!
The book, for those not familiar with it, is about a far future where all intergalactic civilization is connected via wormholes. Large gas giants are occupied by Dwellers, ancient non-humanoid aliens whose history spans millennia. Seers seek to gain knowledge from these Dwellers by spending time among the aliens. One Seer, Fassin Taak, stumbles upon a Dweller List, which can has drastic implications for all galactic civilization. Meanwhile, an extremist religious leader organizes an assault on Fassin’s home system to obtain the Dweller List.
The book is largely about Fassin’s adventures to find the Dweller List, as he goes from planet to planet, system to system, encountering various species and entities.
I enjoyed the book for its setting and world-building. The idea that religious extremists hunted down all AIs to execute them was fascinating.
I found that the ending was lackluster, the big bad …