Bikini armor. Oversized and impractical weapons. An overreliance on swords. Dysfunctional politics. People neatly divided into races, despite these races having co-existed for thousands of years and are capable of having children across the racial divide (and apparently do so fairly regularly).
The highest form of love is satire, lets poke fun at what we love. What’s your favorite genre nonsense of fantasy?
After a long battle to get a copy, I was so eager to read it. I go to Starbucks per my nightly ritual. Sit down, read for a couple hours (now 200 pages in) , get home, and within 20 minutes get a call that my own narcissistic mother is dead at 47. It’s such ridiculous timing I don’t even know what to do with myself.
Just curious, should I keep reading or should I put it down for a bit? Basically is there closure at the end or will it just add to the very complex emotions running through me already. Reading is my coping strategy… so what do I do?
Edit #2: I deleted my first update because I didn’t mean to upset anybody. I didn’t want to exceed this forum because the fact I was reading this book at this time was really getting to me and I didn’t know how to deal with this material going forward. Plus, I got so many good book recommendations from your comments so I wanted to keep the post. My apologies and still thank you for anybody who wrote …
I’m currently listening to The Court of Thrones and Roses series and I’m so tired of the sex scenes. They are highly detailed and last a long time without adding anything to the story. It’s gotten to the point I just skip them and hope nothing important happens.
I’m on the third book right now and it’s the first series in a while that has truly pulled me in with its amazing fantasy world and fun magic system but it will go from important plot developments to a 10 minute sex scene that just brings the story to a halt. I am interested in the love connections and get excited when the characters I ship finally get together but I don’t need every intimate detail of their sex life.
Edit: To clarify I understand that romantic/erotic is a genre that a lot of people enjoy but I’m talking about when sex isn’t the point of the book.
I was just discussing this with my boyfriend. He mentioned how he read ‘Wicked’ when he was twelve and that it screwed him up big time. I then told him about how I read ‘Go Ask Alice’ when I was eleven (for the record, I know that that whole book and everything by that author is fake). I wouldn’t say that that book screwed me up per se, but I probably should not have been reading it as a fifth grader.
What are some books you read at a young age that you maybe should not have read? Did it screw you up or disturb you in any way? If so, how?
So I decided to reread ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley again. I read it a few years ago after having it suggested to me and it was alright, not as exciting or frightening as 1984 - more of a dry commentary on modern society before we even reached modern society.
As I was doing my reread of it, I began to realise just how scarily identical our society is to the one portrayed in the book: purely hedonistic behaviour all around; there’s no genuine act of love, no genuine act of play, no care for the environment - it’s all in the pursuit of pleasure and the belief that everybody is one whole. A lot of stuff skipped over my head the around the first time I read it but I particularly enjoyed the critique of modern society, mockery of religious practices/dogma, science going to far(with genetic engineering of humans, who based on the descriptions of the DHC and Henry Foster, slightly and variously deformed), how outsiders to every society are viewed as being …
Personally it’s hard to decide. I’ve been waiting for ages to read the Kingkiller’s Chronicle, but until DoS isn’t out I don’t want to start it. Also, I’d love to read the full Empire of the Vampire saga and having all the Stormlight Archive out to read instantly would be nice, so I can’t chose between those 3.
Does anyone remember the name of Ursula LeGuin’s short story of Earth explorers on a culturally extremely boring world that turns out to be a society that somehow has been brought into existence by the imagination of an unimaginative teenaged boy on Earth?
To my mind, it’s ever better than Norman Spinrad’s Iron Dream, but I can’t find it.
Edit (thanks to u/nolongerMrsFish). It’s The Pathways of Desire in The Compass Rose.
So many lists I’ve found on the internet, but I sometimes struggle to know what recommendations to pick as I like to hear what it is about the series people liked that the author did so well.
I’m someone who’s in a tough spot in life where I need something to take me away and get immersed in. Just finished a few of the Halo books, which has just the right combination of futurism, plot progression, intrigue and world building, and not too much prose so I don’t start slipping and remember my current state of affairs.
Well… actually maybe not that much.
It was initially planned for the end of the month but checking the latest news, it seems to be slated for a late December / early January release.
I was really hoping to get it this month but well… let’s wait a bit more then.
A lot has been said about the Children duology and I will not do you the affront of going through it all again. If you’ve read them you know, if you havent, go read these masterpieces of litterature at once.
I know some people have said that Time is better than Ruins, its sequel, but I disagree. Both are absolutely incredible in their own way. Both go all the way through with their ideas, themes and concepts and just do not let you go until the very last page.
​
And now, let’s enter spoiler territory… you’ve been warned. We’re going on an adventure.
DONT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVENT READ BOTH BOOKS IN THE SERIES.
So… anyone feels like speculating about …
In terms of strong stories, variety of themes, good writing.
I loved many of the stories in Greg Egan’s Axiomatic.
I acknowledge this probably gets asked a lot, but I wonder if people’s answers would be different knowing the asker knows very little about any of the lore and only watched a game or two take place. I’m definitely not interested in the game (no offense) but it always looks like I would be into the lore sideof things. Is Horace Heresy the best starting point?