I thought I was diving into a fun story about going on an epic adventure to defeat the big bad dragon. And that’s exactly what I got for the first 80% of the book! Tolkien’s narration was so cozy, full of humour, and I felt like he was my grandpa telling me this awesome story. Bilbo’s journey and transformation into an adventure leader was inspiring. What was there not to love?
So imagine my confusion and disappointment to see Smaug was dealt with in four pages. One single arrow and done. Not to mention, the dwarves and Bilbo were nowhere in sight! Where was my epic battle? Where was everyone uniting and fighting against the terrible monster and coming out victorious? Worst of all, now we’re following this Bard guy we had never even heard of and they’re discussing “politics”. What the hell?
But I continued reading and my heart dropped when I understood where this was going. How gut wrenching it was to see the people we had been journeying with, the dwarves and specially Thorin, …
What are your favorite STP quotes, or books, or stories?
Is that perplexing to anyone else?
What books have you recommended people with the proviso that it’s not stunning literature but you really enjoyed it nonetheless
I’ve decided to keep it at just one that has to stand tall above all the others. This is the funniest fantasy book that you have ever read in your entire life. If it made you spit what you are drinking out of your mouth that’s a plus. If you couldn’t stop laughing and had to put the book down that’s also a bonus. This is what I’m looking for.
What comes to mind for me are a few fantasy authors that meet the criteria, but it can only be one book. If its impossible to narrow it down to just one book, you can do a max of three books. Ideally, just one book.
Curious to see if there is one book that dominates all the others and is worthy of being throned as the number one fantasy book to make a reader laugh.
I mean, bad writing is bad writing, but if the worldbuilding is interesting and compelling and fun, then learning about it for pages at a time will also (for me!) be compelling and fun. I of course appreciate subtle and implied worldbuilding, but if there are lots of cool details to learn about, then I don’t at all mind an extended diversion to hear about them. This is especially the case if there’s an interesting magic system or use of technology/science ideas. And I don’t need a weird pretext–like a classroom lecture–to take it all in. I completely understand this is a largely unpopular opinion but gosh darnit, it’s one I hold!
Sounds negative, but this could be for better or for worse. Perhaps you interpreted the book or the actions of a character far different from everyone else? Or maybe there’s a universally disliked book that you think is great or vice versa?
For me it was Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. The book was so poorly written, the plot was basic and predictable, and it was just so cheesy to me. The thing that really got me however and made me think “Am I reading the same book as everyone else?” was the repeated claim that the premise of this book is so new and original. Absolutely not? I was also shocked at how many of my trusted sources for book recs absolutley raved about this book while I found it to be pretty terrible.
This post is inspired by another post asking which author you’d never read again based on the content of their work.
I will not read anything by John Grisham because he defends pedophiles or Anne Perry because she committed murder.
As for John Grisham, I don’t mean defending pedophiles when he was an attorney, I’m referring to his comments in the 20-teens.
As for Anne Perry, I think it’s disgusting she committed murder as a teen and now makes a lot of money from writing about murder.
For me it’s probably Stephanie Garber. ‘The Night Circus’ by Erin Morgenstein was a book I deeply enjoyed, and so when Garber’s ‘Caraval’ began to be advertised as something within a similar vein to ‘The Night Circus’ I knew I had to give it a try. And.. it was awful. A deeply annoying and painfully stupid MC, a plot that tries to palm off its non-sensical story beats as simply fitting into the world’s aesthetics. The idea of ‘nothing being quite what it seems’ is not an excuse for poor planning and writing. It was a disappointment, I reread Night Circus shortly after to cleanse my palette. Recently Garber’s re-gained some attention for her ‘Once Upon a Broken Heart’ series, and most reviews for it seem fairly positive, but I don’t know if I’m willing to give her another chance.
Which authors have made you feel this way?
(Edit) Thought I’d list some of the most common answers: James Patterson, Steven King, J.K. Rowling, Colleen Hoover, Dan Brown, Sarah J Mass, Brandon Sanderson & …
I see now why this book inspired so much other art! From the classic Tarkovsky movie Stalker, to the STALKER video game franchise, to Metro 2033 - the Strugatsky brothers have left an awfully big legacy with this one.
Here’s the setup (no spoilers, but inside tags just in case you want a blank slate):
!Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of the young rebels who venture illegally into the Zone to collect mysterious artifacts left behind by aliens after their visit. But when he and his friend Kirill go in together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. Despite the danger, Red keeps getting pulled back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answers he’s looking for, or his luck runs out.!<
The book is a masterpiece of world-building and suspense. The Zone itself is a character, a constantly shifting landscape that both repels and compels those who enter. I won’t say too much more about it, and the specifics of the danger lurking there, or the power of the artifacts …
I love this book, especially the beautiful and awe-inducing ending.
Anyway, here are the reasons why I think Contact contains some of the best and most meaningful payoff in all of sci-fi literature, for your skimming pleasure. Let me know if you feel similarly or, even better, if you can recommend other pieces of fiction that hit some or all the same beats.
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1. IT DOESN’T SHOW THE ALIEN:
A key feat a sci-fi story can do in any medium can do is nail the fine line between “providing answers” and “leaving to the imagination.” I believe Contact pulls this off perfectly as it hints at what is going on, and has been going on, in our galaxy.
The greatest example of “leaving things to the imagination” is something I wish more writers would do: do not reveal the alien’s biological form. We do not know what the aliens in Contact look like (we do not even know if it even has a biological form anymore). This is because it presented itself to each of the travelers in the machine in …
I just finished “In Ascension” and was absolutely blown away. I also love all of Emily St. John Mandel’s books, Lem (Solaris), Ted Chiang, Gene Wolfe (hated Long Sun, loved New Sun, Fifth Head, Peace, Short Sun) to randomly pick some recent favorites. In general, I love slow moving stories with a strong aesthetic, world building, and excellent writing. The “sf” component can be very light. What else should I check out?
The shop owner and I looked through the book together and the only year we could find on the copyright pages was 1974. He said if it was a later edition, there would be a certain number on the copyright page. Being that the number he was looking for was absent, he determined it was a first edition.
My issue is that all of the dust jackets for the first edition that I’ve come across online look different from mine. Additionally, it’s in such good condition it makes me a little suspicious.
On top of that, he was actually selling this book as part of a set along with the sequel, also $13. So $26 for the two. I’m not so concerned about the sequel, but part of the appeal of buying this specific copy was the chance of it being a first edition.
I read Children of Time and it was (and is) my favorite book of all time. Then, I read the next two books in the trilogy which weren’t quite as mindblowing as CoT but certainly were great books I really liked. Having found an author I enjoyed this much, I decided to read the Shards of Earth series which had come recommended on here I think.
I was expecting something in the vein of the “children of” series, and was quite shocked at how different it was. All three of the “children” series are philosophical meditations on things like communication, the nature of consciousness, and evolutionary development, in the mold of something like Blindsight. Shards of Earth, on the other hand, is a space opera–something like the Expanse, right down to the motley crew and lovable underdog spaceship. It took me a bit to “adjust” to what I was reading versus what I had been expecting but once I did I loved it. It was a cool story with interesting …