I had some time on my hands during a long trip, so I decided hey, let’s go get a fantasy book and get lost in 800 pages of something. I did little to no research, just chose something that looked sufficiently long. Enter “Wizard’s First Rule” by Terry Goodkind.

I have since discovered that this is not a particularly well loved series, but many folks will defend the first book as being pretty good. I couldn’t disagree more.

Spoilers ahead for the many, many issues I have with it:

1. !There is so much violence to children in this book. I don’t mind violence towards children if it serves the plot, such as by demonstrating the depravity of a villain, but my god. A boy is drugged, has his skull split open, and then is sliced down his abdomen after being groomed by the villain and his pedophile sidekick - oh and the villain in question is notably erect when this happens. A man is recounted as having raped his neighbor’s 3 daughters, the oldest of which is 5. Undesired newborn babies are …

so after seeing A LOT of recommendations for paladin’s grace i finally started the series last month, i finished the third book yesterday, and this series is the best thing to ever happen to me. it’s funny, clever, captivating, the fantasy is unique (LOVE her deconstruction of the knight/paladin genre), the romance isn’t cringy at all and thank god for these lovely, considerate, nerdy paladins. i’ve had a writing block for a year and a half and this week i finally wrote a little fic with galen and piper

the problem? she isn’t as popular as she ought to be. and i have no one to talk about this incredible series with. the fandom at tumblr, nonexistant. my fic, got 7 hits. the subreddit, isn’t active. there isn’t even merch 😭

if anyone wanna yell about their love for these books i am begging for company. wishing you all have a good day!

edit: this blew up a bit (thank you all for your comments!) so here’s my fic if anyone wanna read: …

Wanted to join the discussion on u/doppelganger3301 ’s post but I started rambling and it was too long to post, so I hope the community enjoys its second-in-a-day Sword of Truth rant.

Like many other people here, I read the series at a young, impressionable age and thought it was awesome. Obviously, it didn’t age well.

But, you know, I have to give credit where credit is due. The series was the first to show me ways of thinking that I had never been exposed to in a rural, conservative, religious environment.

• Gay people are not hurting me. Richard has a conversation with Berdine where she comes out as a lesbian. He responds that he doesn’t really get it, but hey, you do you, it’s your life, it doesn’t affect me. This was the first time outside of my sheltered life where I realized hey, wait, maybe I don’t have to mindlessly hate gay people?
• Don’t give God credit where humans have acted. My friends risked their lives to save me, The Creator …

I just read a series I enjoyed a lot, despite way too many winces. Mistaking proscribe for prescribe, things like that. A long stretch where the word “however” occurs over and over and over… Occasionally even continuity errors, like taking off a hat and also still wearing it.

I love that we can all tell our stories these days, but I do miss the days of editing. Do you care whether books are edited or not? Do these things bug you?

Do you think there are any that could reach the heights of those and become a cultural phenomenon like they did?

I listen to audiobooks in the car with my 2 youngest boys, ages 11 & 12. We spend a lot of time in the car, bc we live out in the middle of nowhere 😅.

I’m making my way thru the Dresden Files and I LOVE it…but I cannot listen to sex scenes / sexual content with the boys. They react badly - apparently it embarrasses them to listen to this stuff “right next to Mom”.

We listened to the Scythe series, and the (very vague) sexual references were “tolerable” (boys’ words 🙄🙄).

They both love the Fantasy stuff, and want to listen to books about the Fae, magic, etc. But “no sex, Mom, like seriously.”

Help!?!

Context: each year, Gothemburg university does a poll of media habits. They’ve been doing it since the 1970’s, and for the first time every, a majority of respondents (51%) said that they read or listended to a book every day. 66% percent of respondents said that they read at least once a week.

This is the highest percentage since the poll started.

38% read a printed book every day, 15% listened to an audiobook every day, and 7% read an e-book every day (there’s overlap, so the total daily readers becomes 51%).

Source (in Swedish): https://www.svt.se/kultur/mediebarometern-rekordmanga-laste-en-bok-forra-aret

One of Victor Hugo’s most famous novels is called “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”. This, together with some notable depictions of Quasimodo in films, has led to a common view among Anglophones that Quasimodo is the protagonist.

However, the title in the original French is “Notre Dame de Paris” and Quasimodo is really just one character in the ensemble, with la Esmeralda or the cathedral itself arguably being the principal character.

Are there other examples of translations changing how books are interpreted?

I’ve been reading more contemporary books lately and it feels like all of them* are written in the present tense. When did this shift from past —> present occur and why? Is it more prevalent in books of certain genres? Is it just me? Just… what is going on here?

*okay, it’s not literally 100% of them but you know what I mean

If you’re interested in reading (or rereading) Dracula, this is a great opportunity! You can read Dracula in real time with each journal entry being emailed to you as they occur in the book. The book is sent in chronological order so it’s a fun way to read it even if you’ve already read the novel. Runs from May 3rd until November 7th!

I’ve been on a bit of a short fiction kick since 2023 when I did what I called my Year of Short Fiction. That year, I subscribed to and read six different SF magazines (Analog, Asimov’s, Apex, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Uncanny). About half way through, I started taking notes. Since then, I have posted details on each short story I’ve read in a table on my website ( https://myreadinglife.com/shortfiction ).

My latest project is posting a link each weekday at noon to a highly rated (by me) short fiction piece that can be read online for free. My goal is to help those who are interested in reading more to have something other than social media (Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) to read when they have a down moment. I speculate that for many people, novels are too long. These folks need help building up their reading muscles. Short fiction for the win!

I’ve also toyed with the idea of creating a database site like https://www.isfdb.org exclusively for …

Easily my favorite Clarkesworld issue in a while, and Descent by Wole Talabi and Oh Time Thy Pyramids by Ann Leblanc were the particular highlights for me.

Descent is about a civilization that lives on continents floating on the atmospheric seas of a gas planet, and it details the journey of the man attempting to be the first one to descend to the core of this gas giant. The culture, world building, and planetary science are so interesting and unique

Oh Time Thy Pyramids is one of the most imaginative stories I’ve ever read. It details a sentient funerary statue whose purpose is to eternally sing songs of The Queen, a galactic conqueror who now resides in a light cone mausoleum. It is bizarre and inventive and highly, highly recommend the read

Roadside Picnic is my favorite scifi novel and it’s a story that has stayed with me over the years. One thing that always stuck out to me is it seems to cut off very abruptly, and in a way that leaves many unanswered questions about the main character Redrick’s fate. Does he live or die, does the Zone grant his wish, and what do his final words of “Happiness, free for everyone, and let no one be forgotten” actually mean?

To start with, the characters of Dina and Arthur reveal something very important about the Wish Granter. We’re told that these two are children of the Zone, granted to the Vulture Burbridge when he first reached the Golden Sphere many years ago. Dina is a beautiful woman but shallow and selfish, while Arthur is a man of good character - honest, helpful and kind.

Why is this important? The Vulture is a disgusting man with few redeeming virtues, and a misogynist to boot, but even he can at least imagine what a good man might look like when …

…though it is not for everyone. Nayler’s latest work is about a future where formerly democratic governments implement AI to handle official duties and other governments try to transfer consciousness to keep authoritarians permanently alive. The novel is about those who resist or are unwittingly in the path of a revolution when these policies fail.

I was at a book swap recently where people were offering for free books that they didn’t want. Rows of books that were Tom Clancy or old things nobody cared about… and also The Mountain And The Sea. I can understand this audience of people who might have felt ripped off by the book with a huge octopus on the cover, only to find that the novel was only a third about the animals, a third about slave ships, and mostly about consciousness and intelligence.

To those people, Where The Axe Is Buried will probably not work for them. Ray Nayler hops between five major intercrossing storylines, jumping back and forth …

First “they” took away our long seasons with 20+ episodes and now they even took away our yearly seasons. Witcher, rings of power, Wheel of time, Carnival row and most recent offender Andor.

How are we supposed to care or even remember the story or characters, when there is a break ranging from two to 4 years?