I think the idea of fantasy worlds are so cool. I love seeing dragons and magic and struggles between good and evil. It’s all amazing to me. But when some people get their panties in a twist about forced diversity because one background character is darker than others it just makes me think that you’re too indoctrinated by this political climate we live in to enjoy the actual story. There’s a fucking dragon getting slayed but you are pissed there’s an Asian wizard in the background in the climatic fight scene? That doesn’t sound like an actual grevience. Sounds like a personal problem.
I’ll take it a step further. I don’t care if main characters are diverse. If it’s a fictional world not based on any real people I say go nuts. People say it’s pandering but litterally it’s all pandering. White dudes get pandered too so much they don’t even notice it like a fish in water. Let me have a bad ass Asian dude on a quest to …
Happy Friday everyone! I’ve received a few requests to post another Tolkien-themed essay recently, so here’s one all about the Dwarves…
When it comes to the history of the Elves, we have the entire Silmarillion. When it comes to the history of Men, we have all of the Lord of the Rings and its appendices. But when it comes to the history of the Dwarves, sources get a little sparse. Now this isn’t to say that Dwarven history is a mystery, or that they didn’t contribute significantly to the events of the Third Age, but in comparison to Elves, Men, and even Hobbits of Middle-earth, the Dwarves are to an extent, exempt from the Great Tales of the Fading Years. And there’s an in-universe reason for this. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit were of course first written by Bilbo and Frodo in the Red Book of Westmarch, and so if they didn’t know something, it’s not included. The Silmarillion is a little more complicated, but again, Tolkien …
Yeah so we all know the story of King Arthur, who founded Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table, and rallied the people of Britain against the Saxons. Most depictions however, have always stuck with this weird late medieval setting, with stone castles and knights in shining armour etc.
Are there any adaptations (whether they be books, comics, films, etc.) that actually depict Arthur as he would have been (if he actually existed): a Celt defending a post-roman Britain against era-accurate Saxons.
Opening lines are what draw readers into novels. They hook a reader’s interest, tugging at your attention. A great opening sentence can make or break a reader’s expectations, and can be a shock to the system if done well. If not, they can completely turn off a reader.
Comment on your favorite opening lines of fantasy novels!
Thanks!
These are my favorites:
“It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.” (Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind)
“It was said the gods weep every time a dragon falls from the sky. But it wasn’t true.” (Spencer, Dragon Mage)
“Ash fell from the sky.” (Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire)
Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we? (Jemisin, The Fifth Season)
“It was a pleasure to burn.” (Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale)
“When they had to kill a grown man, the children worked in pairs.” (Wight, Of Shadow and Sea)
“Szeth son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to kill a king.” …
I’m lazy, so posting a search page with all 6 books listed: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=The+Elder+Empire+will+wight
Changing .com
to your country domain will likely work. For example, Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=The+Elder+Empire+will+wight&i=digital-text&qid=1614607027&ref=nb_sb_noss&s=price-asc-rank (I had to sort by price low to high though)
I know it’s a vague question but here’s an example:
two or more characters are having a conversation, one says something questionable and the author goes “Bob looked at Ted for a few minutes”.
HOW?!? Do they know how long a single minute of staring at someone is? Now i have to picture this guy awkwardly staring at the other for an uncomfortable amount of time…
Even 10 seconds is a lot during a conversation.
I don’t know, maybe i’m weird.
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PS: well this exploded. If you’re a writer new or experienced i suggest you take a dive in the comments, i see a lot of useful tips.
As I am writing this, the top post on the sub is someone sharing about their experience listening to World War Z on audiobook. They mention that they “read” the book, and there are a lot of upvoted comments telling OP that OP didn’t “read” the book, they listened to it. Some of these commenters are more respectful than others, but all of them have this idiotic, elitist attitude about what it means to “read” a book. Why do you care? Someone is sharing the joy they experience while reading a book. Isn’t that what this sub is all about? Get over yourselves.
There are also quite a few upvoted comments telling op that if WWZ is one of the best books they’ve read, then they need to read more books. There’s no nuance here, these commenters are just being straight up rude.
Stop gatekeeping “reading” or whatever. Someone referring to listening to an audiobook as “reading” does not harm you in anyway.
EDIT: I …
I have seen a lot of people feeling guilty about not being able to complete reading a book. There was a time when I picked up a book, didn’t like after going through 30% of it but still continued to finish it. Or when wasn’t able to finish it, I felt bad for some reasons. I don’t think it is the right way. Just because you picked a book and spend some time reading it, doesn’t mean you have to finish it after you don’t like it. It’s a sunk cost. What do you guys think?
CBS Sunday Morning Profile: LeVar Burton
LeVar and Reading Rainbow helped me appreciate reading as an exciting, enriching and fun thing to do. Changed how I view the world and inspired me. Here’s to you LeVar :D
How did Reading Rainbow inspire your love of books?
I’m not sure if you could really call this a genre, maybe just a type of book. But anyway – I love fishing horror.
I know that sounds weird. But I find nothing more genuinely creepy than a horror book/movie/game that is involves fishing.
My favorite book that fits in this category is, of course, The Fisherman by John Langan.
I like lots of other kinds of books too but there’s something about aquatic and specifically fishing horror that just really does it for me, y’know? So my question to you guys is this: do you have a really specific, niche kind of story or theme that you love?
Edit: if you have any good scary fishing books/stories please send them my way
Edit two: wow, thanks for all the replies, youbguys! I can’t respond to all of them but I will read each and every one, and they all make me smile! :)
Smith is best known for the ‘Lensman’ books. For me these books epitomize the fun (and at times the problematic) parts of pulp science fiction. They’re full of dramatic space battles, weird aliens, titanic psychic battles for the future of the universe, beautiful red-headed nurses to rescue and other goofy fun. They stand out from other books of the period for two reasons: first, Smith’s unique prose style.
“She looks like an angel, but take it from me, she isn’t. She’s one of the slimiest snakes that ever crawled—she’s so low she could put on a tall silk hat and walk under a duck. I know she’s beautiful. She’s a riot, a seven-section callout, a thionite dream. So what? She is also Dessa Desplaines, formerly of Aldebaran II.”
I particularly enjoy the ‘space swearing’ such as “KLONO’S tungsten TEETH and CURVING CARBALLOY CLAWS!!!”
Clearly understatement and nuance are not Smith’s forte. Planets being destroyed IN ALL CAPS …
I haven’t seen enough people raving about GGK’s work here so I felt the need to rave myself.
If you’re not familiar, here’s why you should get to a bookshop right away. Since the 1980s Kay has carved out a niche writing beautiful, deeply humane fantasy novels, most of them standalones set in different worlds inspired by different aspects of our own history, He doesn’t do a tiresome generic ‘medieval land’ but ancient Byzantium, medieval Spain during the battles with the Moors, and other fascinating settings. These aren’t ‘alt history’ but the connections to the real world make things livelier and more resonant.
The thing I like best is the underlying humanity and decency of his work. The characters, both heroic and villainous, are humans, not cardboard cutouts. Good generally prevails, but at terrible and deeply-felt cost. There’s magic, but no elves or fireballs.
Tigana and The Lions of Al-Rassan are good starting …
I want keep on the Asimov train but have the following on the nightstand:
Rendezvous with Rama Left Hand of Darkness The Dispossessed I, Robot Inherit the Stars
What’s next?
Ideally written since 2000.
As I make my way down the Hugo award winners for best novel (It will be a very sad day when I complete it since it has guided my reading choices for the last 8 years), I keep fooling myself that nothing can surprise me anymore in sci-fi lit. As a single genre reader, I think I have a grasp of what is in store, I see the year the book was published and have the context of what was written in the years surrounding and the real-world events that help shape the novel. But once every 8-9 months I’m blown away and this time it was Stand on Zanzibar.
1968, how in the world was this written in 1968. Your talking about deep into the cold war, 6 years after the Cuban missile crisis, it must have been fresh in his mind while writing the novel. Any depiction of the future that has the United States facing off against another world power and barely a mention of Russia? He correctly puts it rival at china. I could go on with the correct predictions, News that’s entertainment, weed …
Even though I’ve currently got a substantial backlog of books I intend to read, I’ve been looking for new books to add to the pile. In particular I’m in the market for stories involving interplanetary or interstellar trade and commerce. I’m not talking about where the bad guy faction happens to be an interstellar megacorporation, I mean where trade is a major part of the story, especially when the protagonists are engaged in it themselves.
In case you wanted to know, I’ve read a few books in the Dune series, as well as Foundation, and I plan to read the rest of the trilogy.
This is a bit of rant. I have a 2020 model Roku TV and the Disney+ app just failed to load on multiple attemps, and HBOMax is so slow to load and clunky to use that I don’t watch anything on the app unless I absolutely have to.
And granted, the Disney+ app is generally faster and more stable, but why does it keep asking if I want to resume the previous episode of WandaVision even if I’ve already finished watching it and am 30 seconds into the credits? Shouldn’t that be enough for the app to register that this episode is “completed” and to show me the newest episode, instead? And why when I’m trying to find the newest episode, do I need to scroll to the end of the episode list? Why not list them in reverse chronoligical order so the newest episode is easiest to find? Or have a button up top to “play next episode”?
HBOMax, on the other hand, is a disaster. It seems to load the “featured” row and “continue playing” …