I’ve seen more than a couple of posts in the last few days in which people are having this fight over types of magic systems again and it drives me crazy. Look, I’m a huge hard magic system fan, and I love Sanderson books, but that isn’t the only way to write fantasy, and anyone who says it is the best way is probably not reading widely enough and sticking to their Sanderson-McClellan-Weeks-etc. circle of authors. And on the flip side, I can love a good soft magic system, but just because it doesn’t have rules doesn’t make hard magic systems highly mechanical and lifeless! It just means you have your own tastes for what you like, and that’s okay.
For this post I’m going to be using Brandon Sanderson’s definitions of hard and soft magic systems. I’m using them because he was really the one to coin and popularize these terms in discussions of magic in fantasy, and because they are very precise and refer to VERY specific effects. I …
I’ve loved magic, horror, and the supernatural for a long time (big fan of Tolkein, Lovecraft, etc) and so I’ve been struggling lately to try and figure out why so much current fantasy (Sanderson, Hobb, for example) bores the hell out of me. Its been very frustrating, especially when fantasy seems on the cusp of a renaissance, to find yourself bored out of your mind. It wasn’t until I started reading magical realism that I figured it out, that as the title says, a lot of modern fantasy has taken the magic out of magic.
I’ll explain using Mistborn. In Mistborn, magic is has very rigid rules. Everyone knows it exists. Government programs use it for suppression. It’s even powered by minerals that need to be mined. An extremely industrialized magic. It is, for all intents and purposes, just an alternative science. And so Mistborn is really just a matter of watching people use the science of their world to solve problems in a straightforward, very materialist …
While my favorite series of his has always been the City Watch (that Vimes arc!), I think my favorite single creation of his has to be the character of Death.
He somehow took the thing that many of us fear most and made it…..human. Quite an achievement, IMO.
What did/do you love about Sir Terry?
What quotes hit you guys the hardest? Whether it be a quote on inspiration, corruption, hardship, or happiness, what was something a character or narrator said that you just couldn’t stop thinking about?
For me the hardest hitting quote out of the countless books I’ve read is from The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
“They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment”
EDIT: for the people just mentioning a book or series and don’t provide any quotes, please don’t be rude to them or sarcastic. It’s rlly not cool and they’re just trying to participate even if they don’t give an exact quote.
Many of my friends were bragging about how great “The Alchemist ” was and how it changed their life. I don’t understand what the protagonist tried to do or what the author tried to convey. To be honest I dozed off half way through the book and forced myself to read it cuz I thought something rational will definitely take place since so many people has read it. But nothing a blunt story till the end. I was actually happy that the story ended very soon. Is there anyone here who find it interesting? What’s actually there in the Alchemist that’s life changing?
I just started the 5th book, and I’m loving that I can spend more time with each main character. I’m actually reading the books through my local library via interlibrary loan (I live in New Hampshire, USA). My local librarian said these are some of the only copies in the state and They have only been checked out like 3 or 4 times in their existence, it’s crazy! Everyone should be reading them!
End rant.
Edit for more insight: To me this series provides a deeply immersive, character building world that aligns just close enough with our own to make it relatable. Small details like the power and influence a character has based on a real wooden desk in a space station office, give literal weight to the value of having the resources to get something like that off earth and into the outer belt.
The series almost always maintains a good pace and consistently changes things up enough to keep it interesting, despite such a breadth of content. It literally expands the …
I sat down by the window while waiting for my coffee and crêpe, pulled out my book, and only got a few sentences in before having to set it aside, finding myself too distracted and drawn in to what I was overhearing at your table. You were there with your mom, working your way through a picture book about how love is always stronger than anger. You were not afraid to ask for help when you couldn’t figure out a word, and weren’t ashamed when mom asked you if you wanted to take a short break and have her read the next few pages out loud. After finishing the one about the string, the next book you read from talked about a little boy who witnessed something terrible happen, who felt afraid and unsure, and had to seek help from the various adults in his life. I heard you ask your mom what the terrible thing was that happened to the little kid in the story, how it didn’t specify what was going on. Your mom whispered to you that she thought that that element was kept vague on purpose so that …
For those that don’t know the ‘Known Space’ books are a large collection of short stories and novels that exist in the same universe and cover a span from the near future (well, 60’s near future) to far future.
The near future stuff deals with the exploration and colonisation of the solar system and is mostly quite ‘hard’. Besides the space stuff there are also enjoyable noir detective stories and stuff that’s more about social issues, such as over-population and organ shortages (yeah these date it a bit). As humanity expands with a fantastically distopian colonisation effort some interesting alien races appear and details about past inhabitants and the origins of humanity are revealed. Then we have the far future stuff with FTL, indestructible hulls, loads of aliens (the Pupeteers are my favourite) and the most iconic stories such as Ringworld and Neutron Star.
It was finding these books on my dad’s book shelf that really turned me on …
I’m typically much more of a bog standard fiction/occasional fantasy reader but recently been really craving some utterly mind blowing sci fi. Thanks!
There’s nothing wrong with dystopian sci-fi, but there’s so much of it that I’m finding myself more and more interested in recommendations for books (or stories) that go in the other direction—utopian sci-fi. And I don’t mean utopias that are secretly evil, thriving on the torture of a child in a basement or something, or where it seems like everything’s great but then it turns out that the superfood is actually people. I mean visions of the future where the world is actually pretty good and where the drama comes not from trying to overthrow society or survive miserably in it but instead from another aspect of the story.
The Forge of God - Greg Bear (1987)
The local Rotary Club runs a book redistribution organization (Books for International Goodwill) that routinely holds events to sell donated books to help defer their costs. I attended with my family this weekend (despite my buying more books than I can read) and picked up the above referenced title.
I’ve read a few of Bear’s books and found this just as interesting as those books. As his story was only set about 10 years into the future, I found the technology to be pretty good and mostly accurate. One area not really touched on was cellular communications, which I guess was new enough in the mid-80s.
In an effort to limit spoilers, I will refrain from discussing it except for the warning that it doesn’t end well for most of those involved.
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*Edit* Upon updating my Goodreads account (which gets updated maybe annually) I realized there was a sequel to the book, Anvil of Stars. So that will have to go on my …
I think Dune did this to some degree with Islam but it was very hand wavy and did not really dig into the theology or evolution of the faith (let alone how it handles the situations posited by futuristic sci fi).
I never really thought about it before but I would love to read something that deals seriously with modern faiths and their evolution when space travel (or any traditional sci fi trope) is incorporated into their worldview.
Edit- Ive read Dune (loved it and Messiah but didnt care about anything after that), Hyperion (was not a real fan), The Sparrow (liked it), Canticle for Leibowitz (in my top 5)
The interview that aired last night on CBS revealed a lot of new information and clarified old information about how the royal family treated Meghan Markle ever since she started dating Harry.
The bullet points:
When Meghan spent time with the Queen, she felt welcomed. She told a nice anecdote about the Queen sharing the blanket on her lap during a chilly car ride.
Meghan never made Kate cry about a disagreement over flower girl dresses for the wedding. Kate made Meghan cry, but it was a stressful time, Kate apologized, and it was a non-issue. Yet 7 months later, the story was leaked with Meghan as the villain.
The press played up a rivalry between Meghan and Kate. When Kate ate avocados, she got positive articles written about her and her food choices. When Meghan ate avocados, she was contributing to the death of the planet. When Kate touched her pregnant belly, it was sweet. When Meghan touched her pregnant belly, it was attention-seeking, vile behavior. That’s two …