I’m jaded by every new novel I’ve read in the last few years having unnecessary sexual assault.
I have no idea what else to add. The title is all It really needs.
I’ve just started reading Circe, and I really want to enjoy it - Greek gods! Magic! What’s not to love? - yet every single character besides Circe is unbearably and unendingly cruel, rude, and spiteful. It feels like an abusive relationship in book form. Why is everyone so awful?!?
So many books I’ve read lately have followed the same style; Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard, Peter Brett’s The Demon Cycle, Joe Abercrombie’s First Law series come to mind.
Note that I’m not just talking about Grimdark fantasy, where life is bleak and people are cruel and terrible things happen, but other fantasy genres too. What’s the appeal? Why do some authors write this way? Why???
Edit: Okay I’ll agree, it does make sense in the context of Greek mythology. I’ll accept that. But my point still stands that it’s a trend that has pervaded fantasy in general, even outside of Greek mythology.
Edit: Perhaps there should be a term …
In your opinion, across all mediums, what is the best fantasy world ever created? LOTR, Harry Potter, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, A Song of Ice and Fire, Avatar, Fullmetal Alchemist - all just some possible examples.
This is strictly about the world itself, not the prose of a story or the characters. What makes the aura of the specific world you chose your favorite?
Pretty self explanatory: what feature of a book do people frequently dislike that isn’t a problem for you. For me, it’s slow pacing. I see a lot of people who DNF slow books but my faves include Realm of the Elderlings, Wheel of Time, Memory Sorrow and Thorn, Lord of the Rings, and Dune, all of which can be downright glacial. I genuinely am not bothered by it at all as long as the character work is good and it feels like the story is going somewhere (when that doesn’t apply, then it becomes bloated.)
How about you? Do you think prose isn’t very important? Do you love farm boy (or girl) chosen one narratives? Do you get invested in love triangles?
I went into this expecting a lot more grimdark in tone, and I was surprised to find it’s honestly very lighthearted. The story gives you a clear idea of exactly what it is very early on, and has very little deviations or surprises on that front. And yet, despite me constantly expecting to get bored at some point, the story was just through and through fun and held my interest long after it was done, because the story and characters are just done so well.
The story is set in a world where mercenary “bands” are basically treated like rock stars, and their exploits are legendary. The leader of a former Band, the Kings of the Wyld, is retired happily with his wife and daughter, when one of his friends comes to him saying his daughter is in danger and he needs help to save her. So begins the journey to get the band back together, and journey through a deadly forest to a town under seige.
The characters throughout the story are absolutely fantastic, with a particular …
This may sound like a bit of a rant, but something I see too much on this sub is, ironically enough, anti-intellectualism. Now it doesn’t bother me that some people only read for fun or don’t enjoy classics. What does bother me is the total dismissal by some of very impressive works of literature because they’re “too dense” or “not fun” or “have really long sentences.”
For example, I think it’s patently ridiculous when I see people on here not only saying that guys like Herman Melville and James Joyce are bad writers but that anyone who says they enjoy them is lying to sound impressive. There are most definitely “classics” that I don’t enjoy (catcher in the rye) and great authors that are not to my taste (Nathanial Hawthorne). But there’s no way I would go on Reddit and make a claim like “Hawthorne is a terrible author.”
No, he’s a great author who’s not to my taste. This is a point that in all kinds of criticism I don’t think we collectively grasp any more. The fact that you don’t …
Now, I’m a guy so maybe I’m missing it, but here is my basic read on the story: a guy puts on a bit of an act to get a girl who’s out of his league. He loses his money, his mother gets sick, it quickly becomes clear the marriage doesn’t work, and he has a kind of gross affair with a younger woman. This all makes him a standard bad dude that you feel a little bit of pity for because he’s had a tough go of it but ultimately you dislike imo.
Ok but then his girlfriend is literally psychotic and not in a “well he/the patriarchy made her that way” kind of way. No, it’s in a “shes so crazy, and has always been so crazy, that I’m now rooting for this mediocre guy because he now looks like a saint in comparison” way.
I see isolated feminist moments like the cool girl monologue. But, at least by my reading, the point of this monologue is less that trying to play to male fantasies eventually drives people crazy, and it’s more a supremely inauthentic person projecting. Amy’s act didn’t start …
So I’m reading a scifi/fantasy book, the specific ones is not important. I’ve noticed similar trends over a lot of modern books.
I feel like authors very seldom just let a character ‘sit’ have a small win and celebrate, or rest after a battle etc. I remember reading Lord of the Rings and something that’s struck me is that Tolkien knew when to take a moment to let his characters rest for a moment. But I feel like so many modern authors don’t do that, has anyone else noticed this, or am I just crazy?
Technically this is a short story within a book, but I read Stephen King’s Night Shift when I was 12, and the story The Boogeyman man absolutely scared the crap out of me. I slept with my light on for weeks, and checked in my closet every night before bed for months.
That was bad enough. But at the time I used to think it was pretty hilarious to hide in various places around the house and then jump out and scare my little sister. She did not fail to notice how bad that story scared me. And she was unusually patient for a nine year old. She waited until I wasn’t checking my closet anymore. Then she waited a little longer. Then, one night just before I was about to drift off….creeeeaaaak - my closet door slowly swung open.
I pissed the bed, yet was so frozen I couldn’t even move out it - at least until the little shit started giggling…lol.
Scarred for life, people. That was forty years ago, and I can’t even THINK about seeing the movie version of …
Doesn’t necessarily have to be medieval.
I read Stephen King’s Dark Tower some time ago but I remember a part where they have to deal with what is essentially a very advanced technology for the world’s inhabitants yet something you would see in our time. If I recall correctly, it is called “old machines” or something like that but are basically treated as magic or some unknown mysteries by the characters.
I’m looking for stories where things like that are more thoroughly explored. Maybe an apocalypse happened and the story takes place thousands of years later. Maybe something similar to the video game series Fallout? But perhaps more lighthearted, like a character stumbling onto Tamagotchi and figuring out how to use it so he’s made into a prophet who only wants to eat grapes.
tl;dr: I hated the first book, the second book ended strong, the third was not bad. I’m glad I read the whole series.
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The Three-Body Problem | Liu Cixin | 2006 | 390 pages
2 out of 5 stars
Arthur C. Clark style sci-fi, or in other words, explore a big idea with paper-thin characters. It feels like an episode of Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone. I appreciate being exposed to China’s Cultural Revolution for the prologue. And also really liked every footnote by the translator to explain Chinese cultural references, contexts and connotations for many things that would’ve gone right over my head when just reading the plain Chinese-to-English conversions.
However, I have to admit I found the all the character behaviors, dialogue, and plot to be just cartoonishly dumb. It reads like a sub YA novel. I wonder if this is a side effect of being translated from another language. Because it feels so artless. There are so many awkward, tedious info dumps to …
I’m looking for the best detective novels that are set in space. Please no Asimov, I’m not an Asimov guy.
I thought it might be fun for those of us who are playing starfield to provide some recommendations that are reminiscent of the atmosphere/story/setting/etc of starfield.
House of Suns by Reynolds - one of my favorites that has stuck with me way more than I expected after finishing it.
I’d love to know of more books that fit this description. Horror elements aren’t a must but certainly add to it. My favorite novels have all had these elements—Solaris, Blood Music, Dawn, etc.
I prefer older sci-fi. You can recommend modern, but the chances of me liking it are way slimmer. I’m not sure why I don’t like modern sci-fi, but I’ve yet to find one I liked. Feel free to recommend actual horror books as well because I’d love to get into horror more!
(And I already know to read Blindsight eventually, so no need to recommend it here haha.)
Basically as the header says. Stories I’ve read and liked include, Horus Heresy Series, Red Rising, Dune, almost everything from the warhammer 40k black library including eisenhorn and it’s sequels, revelation space, the culture series, lots of Asimov and Heinlein, new Jedi order, Hyperion Canticles, and the children of time series. Currently not accepting anymore Star Wars novels as Disney has pillaged the franchise and left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Honorable mention for cool concepts goes to the video game scorn which takes a lot of inspiration from the artist H.R. Giger. I like organic technology and biopunk a lot and am currently writing a biopunk, so inspiration on that front is most welcome. Extra points if the author or book is not well known and you think it’s a hidden diamond in the rough.
Edit: duplicate novels that I missed in the OG post.
Villain Valentine wants to decimate the worlds population in order to save the planet. He does this by giving everyone Earth a free SIM card that once activated sends out a signal inducing ‘rage’, effectively making people ferociously try and kill each other. Eggsy infiltrates his evil lair, kills Valentine, stops the apolcapyse, and proceeds to have anal sex with a Scandinavian princess.
Happy ending, right?
Well, for a few minutes, Valentine actually does manage to set off the signal. This increases the urgency of Eggsy’s mission, but also effectively means one thing: Valentine succeeded in decimating the world’s population.
The film establishes through the church scene that it takes seconds for the signal to make people kill. Not minutes; seconds. This means that for those couple minutes that Valentine activated the signal:
Anyone with access to a firearm went on a shooting spree. Anyone with access to heavy machinery, tools, or sharp objects went on a …
For me, it is Nathan Fillion. He had the potential for so much, but has been relegated to cameos, voice acting and crime procedural dramas. He could have done more seasons of Firefly, a green lantern live action film, or been the lead in an Uncharted or Halo ODST series, or an episode of a World War Z miniseries.
Edit: wasted potential does not necessarily mean unsuccessful.
I understand Nathan Fillion has a very successful career, and is likely very happy with it. There is just so much I would have rather seen him in that I feel like I missed out on. And no, I don’t think that it is his decision to make more seasons of Firefly or any other show, they didn’t happen for a large variety of reasons, I just think that he had the potential to a very good job in those theoretical roles.
For me it’s definitely Hans Landa from inglorious basterds. Christoph Waltz is absolutely incredible as him, and even though he’s a piece of shit, he’s still so entertaining to watch on screen. The opening scene alone tells you everything you need to know about him. I think the movie wouldn’t have been nearly as good if Hans was played by anyone else.