You know, that familiar ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I loved that so much, I’m never again going to be able to read it for the first time, now it’s finished and I feel hollow’ ache.
For me, it was basically all of Robbin Hobb’s Realm of Elderlings books and The Hyperion Cantos.
For me, personally:
• Exactly one country for each race, apart from humans. Also, humans are diverse, but all characters of a different race share the same culture.
• Males always being bigger than females. It’s completely understandable if they are humanoids, but I like some variety when they aren’t. Most non-mammalian species (and some mammals as well) have bigger females, so I appreciate seeing it in fantasy. (I liked how it was done in the Elder Scrolls and Dragonriders of Pern.)
• All races somehow being conventionally attractive by human standards. Or better yet, only the author’s preferred gender, while the other one is allowed to look weird.
I’ve been feeling alienated by the huge upswing in romantasy and cozy fantasy publications lately. I miss the classic political epic fantasy of the 90s, and the grungy grimy weird urban fantasy of the 00s. I miss the quest narratives and the horror of being beholden to a destiny you didn’t choose. What are you missing from the current landscape?
“Children are dying.” - Deadhouse Gates, Malazan Book of the Fallen.
I don’t think I have come across a line more devastating and painful with its implications than this one from Malazan. It disturbs me by the cruelty of human existence, evil and ignorance.
What are some lines that have shook you to your core when you read it?
Edit: A little bit of light-spoiler context would be helpful.
reading the daevabad trilogy and I gotta say I’m a huge fan of Dara the scourge of qui-zi what an amazingly flawed character. Incase anyone complains I do not condone war crimes of any kind just a huge fan of crazy characters doing crazy things
The classic I think has to be Dragonriders of Pern. Also personally I feel like Mistborn qualifies as this, just because of the way the world’s existence is justified, though I’ll acknowledge it’s a bit of a stretch.
My OC has fantasy tropes but is set entirely in a mundane world, so I’m interested in finding other examples of similar approaches. Thanks in advance!
UPDATE: Y’all I am overwhelmed with all these great suggestions! It’s going to take me years to get through these!
I’m reading Dracula now, with the “Diary following” one e-mail a day formula, that I find quite fun. And I was surprised when “Kodak views” where mentioned, referring of course to photographs. I thought for a moment that they were feeding me some “updated” version of Dracula, but no, I checked the dates and Kodak incorporated in 1892 and Dracula was published in 1897. Colour me surprised. Anyway, Mr Stoker seemed to be quite on the front wave of tech, for the time. I had never thought of Dracula as a “hip” or “modern” novel, but of course it might have been, when first published :-)
This is a bit of a vent. I keep seeing these bad reviews of books which are solely founded on the fact that “It didn’t address this issue well! It’s not accurate! It looks down on X representation!” IT’S A NOVEL FOR GOD’S SAKE. Have you ever considered the possibility that it being accurate in regards to something is just… not the point? Maybe it’s trying to say something else and maybe it’s just not for you? I think some readers these days can be so pretentious and self indulgent, acting like every single book should cater to their expectations and develop in a certain way that they wanted it to. Truly sad and worrisome. There’s nothing wrong with a story wanting to be accurate in its references, if it’s the goal it’s trying to achieve, then good. But I don’t think a book is meant to constantly reaffirm you in your beliefs, books should also challenge you. So many novels are being misunderstood and …
I’ve always wondered why didn’t Artemis Fowl become as famous as some other legendary prodigies of our times, most notably Frodo Baggins and Harry Potter.
Does it have to do with the fact that Fowl’s character is somewhat “greyish” when it comes to the greater good factor whereas the other two clearly stood “for” the good and “against” the evil?
It may also have to do with technology fiction being somewhat of a niche even today. Fairies and leprechauns are something most folks can easily relate to but Foaly the tech geek and Fowl doing some coding exercises to achieve his goals? Perhaps Nah!
And if you haven’t read Artemis Fowl yet, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do so. I’m positive you’ll enjoy it, especially if you’ve enjoyed HP and LOTR already.
I re-read 1984 for the first time in 10 years and had totally forgotten the plot. Then at a moment…. which I will not elaborate on for spoiler reasons… I genuinely got a fright while reading.
I felt like someone jumped out and screamed “Boo” at me. I even gasped out loud! Do you know those scares you feel in your body that heighten your awareness of everything? It was one of those.
Like an adrenaline junkie I’m now chasing another high like this - but I don’t like horror and the thrillers I’ve read are too predictable to have a proper jump scare.
What books have had the same effect on you?
I don’t think I’ve had this kind of physical reaction to a single sentence in a book since I first read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets… and a moment I will not elaborate on….
This is going to be very negative but please bear with me. I grew up reading a lot of the conservative old-guard hard sci-fi guys (Asimov, Clarke, Lem, Niven, Orson Scott Card) before moving onto stuff like Ursula Le Guin, Sam Delaney, Kim Stanley Robinson, Vernor Vinge, and Octavia Butler. Most of those authors a now dead, and I feel like I should be keeping up with more authors who are still active.
But I really struggle to find NEW sci-fi from the last few years that fits my tastes. So much of what’s out there feels like its only a half-step away from YA fiction, too cutesy and casual and trope-y. I’m not interested in coming of age stories, or snarky humor, or pop culture references. I’m looking for stuff that takes itself seriously,.
KSR is my current favorite, and I enjoy Watts and VanderMeer so you don’t need to recommend them. I’ve got my eye on Greg Egan but haven’t taken the plunge yet. I like Stross and Doctorow sometimes but don’t …
TLDR: Three Body Problem feels like the Big Bang Theory of hard sci-fi.
It seems that everybody acknowledges the characterization and writing in general in the novels is pretty lackluster, but are blown away by the big ideas laid out by Cixin Liu. The novels are described as hard sci-fi, but as far as I can tell the big sci-fi ideas presented by Liu are mostly a hand-wavy mess and have been more deeply and competently explored in other novels. In isolation most of the hand-waving is fine just to keep the story rolling but taken together it makes the entire premise of the universe fall apart for me. Here’s a few examples:
Xenolinguistics: pretty much completely glossed over in the novels, and completely hand-waved away by the “Self-Interpreting Code” developed by the Chinese. I’m generally ok with hand-waving away this problem, but IMO it would be less offensive if the Trisolarans as the advanced race had some sort of magic computer (the Sophons?) that …
I found this quote in a review by Steve Case of a sci-fi book:
If you’re looking for a riddle to parse or for a tangled, hard sci-fi puzzle-box of time travel to unravel, this book isn’t it.
I found this line very helpful, because as a matter of fact, I am looking for a tangled, sci-fi puzzle-box of a book! Hard sci-fi and time travel are bonuses.
What are your best recommendations for me?
So I read Elric of Melnibone in February. Just like the title says, I finished it and thought it was okay, maybe slightly good. But as time has passed this book over and over again comes back to me, I dont know why, I think maybe the simplicity of it, the old school style… the weirdly cardboard cut out but also super alive characters. I honestly dunno what it is, but I know my opinion of the book has grown and grown over the months and I recommend it to everybody now, which i didn’t when I first finished it.
Do you guys have any similar experiences?
Enjoyed the first two parts but am really struggling with the amount of detail in the 5000 years later section which seems to not really be going anywhere.
Should I persevere? Is there a satisfying conclusion or does it just ramble for another 200 pages?
Ideally no spoilers please.
What is the series that you’d recommend above all others just because it was so dang fun? Even if it may have its weak points, you can genuinely say that you had a blast and would read it again. Perhaps it’s a series you’d love to see get a proper translation to the big screen, to have that fun again and see how scenes would look.