I recently finished Leviathan Wakes and I absolutely loved Miller’s character arc. >!He starts out as a hotshot, experienced detective who always knows exactly what to do. Then, over the course of the first half of the book, he slowly begins to realize that his confidence is a delusion, and he’s actually a washed up, lonely, divorced alcoholic who “used to be good”. His superior assigned him a special job not because he was the only one who could solve it, but because she didn’t want it to be solved. After that, he quickly devolves into insanity and depression. He becomes obsessed with a dead girl he’s never met. He starts hallucinating. At some point he realizes that he has no problem with killing people and never has, and he shoots an unarmed man without hesitation. His death at the end of the book is more of a suicide than a sacrifice.!<
In the first few chapters, I thought I would be reading about a Sherlock-style genius but eccentric detective, but then the story flips him …
Seriously, what is happening. I don’t want my Kindle book title to show up as “Scholomance: Tiktok made me read it”, because that’s how it is listed on Amazon.
This is happening across a wide variety of books too.
“The Left Hand Of Darkness: A groundbreaking feminist literary masterpiece”
Thank you.
Every single writer, world creator, and fantasy guide we thank you. So many of us go through hard times and our escape are these worlds you create. These characters we can get lost in and fall in love or in hate with. Some writers dont really get to truly understand how much their books, novels, webseries or otherwise transport us to save havens when the rest of our world is nothing but chaos.
Alot of writers never get the recognition, and toil away each day and put stories out hoping that people like them. We do. Every word matters to the kid in his parents basement who needs to know there are people like him who love fantasy worlds. Worlds of dragons and elves, AI and war machines.. Writers, Fantasy writers, thank you for every single thing that you do. For the service you provide and the love you put into these stories we treasure. We know it sometimes can be tough, timelines can be hard, and it feels overwhelming. We want to express that your effort is worth it to all …
or more specifically, i hate the way some people try to convince you that you’re not a real reader if you don’t get through a book a day. i saw a reply to someone who wished that they had more time to read saying ‘i get through the amount you read weekly in a day, you should learn to love reading more’ and it irritated me big time
i love reading and i’ve read since i was a child. but i have a very busy schedule which means that i don’t get the time to read more than 30 or so pages on a weekday. i’m fine with that because i prefer to savour books anyway, however just because i take two weeks to finish a book instead of a few days doesn’t mean i’m not a big reader. i just have other things going on in my life
when did reading turn into a competition? maybe it’s just me, but it seems that most book accounts on social media just try to get through as many books as they can. and yes, i completely get that people read for different reasons. but if you’re reading for enjoyment, why read so …
A while ago I finished Phantom of The Opera and decided to start Frankenstein. Phantom of The Opera became an all time favourite of mine. Gaston Leroux wrote a sensationnal story full of thrill and drama bound in the gilded wrapping of late 19th century french art and high society.
Now, Frankenstein is an entirely different vibe. Mary Shelley is a poet. A painter with words. The many ways she finds to describe emotions and scenaery are incredible. And oh, so very gothic.
I’m only about 160 pages in, so halfway through the story but I already think this is gonna become my number one book for a while, as there couldn’t be anything I would dislike that could come my way. It’s like nothing I’ve ever read. There’s this heavily dramatic and engaging story delivered with intense emotions and stakes that keep rising, but through the entire thing there persists this underlying theme of existentialism, religious symbolism and mythology. What it means to be a man …
With the most unrealistic and unbelievable main character I’ve ever encountered. She is an 18 year old assassin who startles at every sound, swoons over the crown prince (who she hated), eats candy to the point her teeth are stained, begs for a puppy, sasses everyone she can, and complains when she is woken up too early.
There is no plot. There is no tension. The worldbuilding is boiler plate European fantasy. The love triangle is saccharine and predictable from the first page.
What do people see in this book? I understand not every book needs to be East of Eden, but even the most egregious YA (Hunger Games, Harry Potter) were filled with breakneck pacing or charming creativity.
Throne of Glass is insipid to the point of secondhand embarrassment. I’ve never been so frustrated reading a fantasy book. Please tell me I’m not alone.
Edit: The word “egregious” has triggered a lot of people when describing Hunger Games and HP. I only meant it in the sense that both HG and HP lean heavily …
I’m really interested in consistency through time, like how a political or biological structure could hope to last for massive stretches of time - life itself seems to be something that, by replicating and mutating and dying - exists through time, though this is contradictory. How would an intelligent species hoping to maintain it’s own integrity as a static type of ‘thing’ cope with deep time? Could it survive? What does a billion year old civilisation look like? Given enough time, does everything become ‘patterned’? Will all matter become life?
I tried searching for any threads that asked about this but couldn’t find one. Are there any books where humans begin to travel space only to find that a long time ago other humans had left earth and colonized another planet? They could be still recognizable as humans or more interestingly so much time has passed that these other humans had evolved into something else entirely. I hope this makes sense, I would love to find a book like this.
Thanks in advance!
Edit: thank you all for the amazing recommendations! I can’t wait to check them all out.
Hi all! With Gardner Dozois’s passing a few years back, I kinda lost a source of cool new novellas as he always included one or two in his yearly best of compilations. I really love a good sf novella, that was how I first fell in love with Kij Johnson’s writing with “The man who bridged the mist”. So I was wondering if there are any specific websites or mags/zines(are they even a thing anymore?) that tend to have more high quality novellas?
I’m thinking of the original Dungeons & Dragons film from 2000, when the two leads get transported into a magical map. A moment later, they come back, and talk about the events that happened in the “map world” with “map wraiths”…but we didn’t see any of it. Apparently those scenes were shot, but the effects were so poor, the filmmakers chose an awkward recap conversation instead.
Are the other examples?
Another rant about the 2012 Judge Dredd remake starring Karl Urban.
I watch this movie every couple months. It’s a tight 90min movie that does exactly what it is supposed to–grimdark, gorey action movie possibly starting the Judge Dredd franchise while honoring The Raid that it was based on(Apparently it was not based on The Raid but a lot of people don’t read the bottom edit so for the love of god stop whining about this). Some corny moments, but the writing is solid, the action is great, and the music and effects are pretty damn good for how tiny of a budget it is.
And the fact that nothing ever came of it–that it’s just a footnote in Hollywood–drives me insane. Not every movie needs its own franchise series, but this could have been just as successful as John Wick and yet the studios said, nah, no thanks, in fact let’s actively sabotage its release.
Rant over.
EDIT: so it wasn’t based on the raid, just read that. Still both …