Hi, r/fantasy, I’m Travis Baldree! I’m the author of Legends & Lattes and the upcoming Bookshops & Bonedust, which releases November 7th. At least, that’s what most people know me for these days.
I’m theoretically also a full-time audiobook narrator, where I’m best known for narrating Will Wight’s Cradle series, and more LitRPG/Gamelit and Progression Fantasy than honestly seems probable - which is what folks mostly recognized me for before the whole writing thing.
Before THAT I was most widely known as a game developer and software engineer for a few decades, where I made the action-RPG Fate (Which many people played on their parents’ laptops -“Your pet has fled!”), and I also ran Runic Games and led development of Torchlight and Torchlight 2. Then I left and cofounded Double Damage …
Over the past six months, I’ve encountered several articles, discussions, and comments all on the topic of ‘evil coded’ races in fantasy stories. The overwhelming sentiment is that they no longer have a place in modern fantasy, and that they were always problematic to begin with. With the recent release of the videogame Baldur’s Gate 3, this discussion has seen an uptick in activity, because the 5E D&D rule-set has changed traditionally evil races such that they can no longer be referred or considered as ‘evil.’
I want to make the case that these ‘evil coded’ races do have a place in modern fantasy, and that to remove them only weakens the world they inhabit.
For this purpose, I want to focus on the orcs from The Lord of the Rings, because they are typically held up as the biggest culprit for this backwards trope. Also, I just finished re-reading the trilogy and the books are fresh in my mind.
The most important point I want to make to support my case is that evil is a matter of …
Anyone else read Redwall as a child/teen and just get strangely obsessed with “woodland” food? To this day, I get a weird rush whenever I see elderflower cordial any where.
Me (29M) and my girlfriend (30F) are reading totally different books. She’s onto psychology politics yoga and travel books etc.. I’m onto fantasy mostly. She never even touched a book of this genre (not even Harry Potter). So here’s the deal: I give her one book from my genre to begin with and she does the same. What would you give a fantasy virgin girl to begin with?
I don’t want to give her something cliché like HP or GoT. I thought of maybe The Lies of Lock Lamora from Scott Lynch that I recently had. Or something classic like Narnia or Eragon? Any suggestions?
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Edit:
Thanks for the tips keep ‘em coming me lads.
A lot of you asked why I said Eragon as a classic. It’s just a book from my childhood wich came to my mind. Not exactly classic I agree.
A lot of the books was mentioned some of them meself have read, some of them tried and some of them never even heard of. Meself definitely expanded me list, will read more.
I think I will …
Listening to the Andy Serkis narration, and for the first three books it’s been great. Excellent voices, especially during the songs, all great. What I didn’t expect was how big my smile would be when Gollum shows up, because of course it’s the same voice as the movies - but in an audio-only medium, it’s so easy to imagine the actual real life Gollum crawling into the recording booth!
I read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell recently and absolutely loved it. One of my favorite books I’ve ever read. So yesterday I bought Parenesi and read the whole thing cover to cover.
I loved it too. It started out good and got better it went on. I think its an example of a book where the end makes the rest of it better - which is very rare for me. >!I thought it was really well done to have him return to the big world and still have this split personality, it felt realistic for Piranesi to not revert back to his old self, at least right away. I assumed that the book would end with him leaving, or else flash forward to ten years later. and this was so , so much better.!<
I loved the main character. He has a fun personality, instantly likable even as you are trying to understand the setting. >!The journal entries were really well done and it was impressive the way we were able to learn things he did not know - or at least catch on before him - despite only …
Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is probably one of the most consequential books I’ve ever read, or will read for many years to come. I first read it in the spring/summer of 2019 when a friend basically pushed their copy into my hands after several years of telling me I needed to read this book.
I kept thinking about the book for ages after I finished it. When it came time to apply for grad school, I knew there was only one book I’d care to write my thesis on. I focused on the two distinct models of learning and knowledge exchange espoused by Strange and Norrell throughout the story, and analyzed the ways in which the story’s discourse on magic expresses and deconstructs ideological positions in society.
Earlier this year, after much preparation, sweating, and rereading, I successfully defended that thesis, and received my Master of Arts degree from the University of British Columbia. A number of people in this sub were previously kind …
Book -> The Joy Plan: How I Took 30 Days to Stop Worrying, Quit Complaining, and Find Ridiculous Happiness.
Cliffnotes, a mother of 2 devoted her life to a business startup, it failed. She was lost. She set of to find happiness in 30 days.
What followed was a heck of a lot of pseduo-science, a lot of dime store spiritualism, and a whole lot of unnecessary autobiographic details.
Is this entire genre a lost cause? There must be some deeper works that explore these concepts in more detail.
I’d put Solaris to the side for years. Growing up I watched both adaptations numerous times. I sometimes drag my feet reading the book if I’ve seen the movie version first. The 1972 Solaris being incredible didn’t help. I’d get in the mood for Solaris and opt to watch the movie. I now regret waiting so long. The book’s themes have never been explored in full on the screen. Mosfilm tampered with Lem and Tarkovsky’s script. Lem obviously wasn’t happy. But Mosfilm didn’t want Solaris outright banned like Tarkovsky’s last film. So what you have is a masterpiece of cinema. But an undeniably altered vision.
Solaris is a reading experience that’s hard to describe. I felt unnerved. Creeped out. Depressed. At awe. Emotionally invested. Apathetic. At the edge of my seat. Lost in thought. These emotions and feelings changed from page to page. Paragraph to paragraph. The ebook version of the 2011 translation I read is something like 178 pages. Yet, somehow, it feels enormous. I’d read a …
When I watch a science fiction film I judge on a curve. I can’t think of a genre that has progressed less in film than SF. The majority of SF movies produced are at the 1930s pulp level. I chalk it up to Star Wars influence. Space opera has full representation in Hollywood. How many directors/writers do you think grew up on those movies? Did they set ideas back?
That’s my big issue. In speculative fiction the idea is king. Star Wars was a throw back on release. Decades of influence from a money making machine operated on vintage parts. A movie like Arrival wouldn’t get near the recognition it did as a book. We’d all agree it was fine. Nothing new. But it’s able to stand out in a sea of uninspired releases in the world of movies.
There is complex SF in cinema. Some that come to mind are adaptions like Akira, 2001, Blade Runner and Solaris(1972). There is original work like Twin Peaks, Dark City, and Brazil. I’d say those last three are downright …
I am forty-odd years old and not one person I know (or don’t know for that matter) has ever forcibly thrust this book into my arms, seized me by the lapels, and shouted at me to read this book, it’s right up your alley, do it now.
Instead I had to stumble across an offhand mention in a printSF comment.
Thanks for listening.
I’m a bit tired of picking up something to read just to realize it’s once again volume 1 of 8 of Chronicles of Saga of Diibadaabia Cycle. I don’t mind a book having sequels as such, as long as the first novel doesn’t end in an unsatisfying blatant setup for the next book. (What is considered unsatisfying is, of course, really subjective.) There’s a difference between having a sequel and being written as the first book of a series from the get go.
I’d like to read more stuff like Blindsight, A Darkling Sea, Gideon the Ninth, Annihilation, Skullcrack City, There Is No Antimemetics Division, and such. Any recommendations?
was not too interested in space or sci fi until I experienced “Mass Effect” after being tired of being a CoD type gamer.
What I experienced blew me away. I immediately fell in love with the story, universe, and characters Bioware had created even though before I didn’t care too much about “Wars” or “Trek”.
The first game gave me a huge sense of wonder.
After finishing the trilogy I immediately searched for books that came close to Mass Effect. I ended up devouring “The Expanse” and Vernor Vinge’s “A Fire Upon the Deep”.
It seems like mostly men tend to gravitate to this genre. Most of my female friends who read tend to gravitate to fantasy and romance and that makes me a little sad.
I also saw some 1 and 2 star reviews of “Levathan Wakes” saying that it was sexist.
I don’t remember there being any sexist stuff in Leviathan Wakes but if there were then something better than The Expanse needs …
I just finished Blindsight, and my hot take is that this is a five star first contact book mashed together with a three star book about future gene editing and body editing.
If the characters on the ship were a run of the mill human biologist, a military general, a strategist, and a linguist, the book would not really lose anything and wouldn’t have to spend so much time explaining these edited characters. By adding in the whole Heaven thing, the whole Siri being a synthesist thing, the weird Vampire part…I feel like the story did not need those elements, and they took it from an interesting look at an alien “intelligence” to a disjointed and less relatable story.
I understand that there’s some looking at different versions of sentience and conscience: Heaven is only sentience with no body, the characters are all points on the spectrum, and the aliens are non sentient. But still, the book dragged the most when it had to explain those parts, and without them I think it’s a better …
Bill Murray. His characters are always an ignorant asshole who respects no one else’s boundaries. Ghostbusters is a great example. I enjoy Scrooge at points and What About Bob but 90% of those movies he’s still ignoring boundaries or being a dick. Even Groundhog Day he’s a horrible human. I get he’s supposed to be the heel with a turn but damn its grating.
He has superhuman strength, able to throw grown men 20 feet in to the air, he collapses a parking garage by stomping his foot, he can rip off car doors with his bare hards, lift up cars which must weigh 2000 pounds and is able to beat 10 men on his own in a fist fight (Fast 9). He can survive car crashes (one time off of a mountain) with only a little bit of blood on his face. Secret government agencies hire him because he’s the only man for the job.
He’s also a master mechanic and he able to drive any vehicle with the skill and reflexes of a fighter pilot.
Is he a secret superhero or an alien? I’m not trying to shitpost, I enjoy these movies but it just gets sillier and sillier.
Edit: For anyone who for some reason hasn’t seen the Fast and Furious movies, he’s supposed to be a normal man, the movies aren’t set in a fantasy universe such as the MCU.
(Updated 11-08-23)
Also created a Letterboxd list (not all movies could be found on Letterboxd and tv shows are missing too): https://boxd.it/orEe4
Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003)
The Gathering Storm (1974)
Race (2016)
The Eight Hundred (2020)
City of Life and Death (2009)
The Flowers of War (2011)
The Children of Huang Shi (2008)
Nanking (2007)
John Rabe (2009)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Munich: The Edge of War (2021)
Countdown to War (1989)
My Way (2011)
So, I rewatched the original Mission Impossible from 1996 and was reminded of how amazing the tone was set up in the film, kind of noir-ish with a serious narrative that played out without interruption.
As I worked through the franchise, even though later films share a lot of qualities from the original, I experienced the presentation of the spectacle being way more quirky. Although I do like the later films as well, I sensed that the magic of that original film was replaced by forced comedy, a lot thanks to Simon Pegg’s character.
Isn’t this a standard strategy in blockbuster movies today? Even though every plot is built on a serious task, you can’t have a too dark tone because it would make the presentation too depressive. Why is that?
Let me know your thoughts