These books were everywhere when I was a kid and now I never see them. But come on, they were so epic! The battles that were fought, the mysteries they solved, the adventures they had to go on…. The river otters and the Long Patrol! I know they’re for kids but I remember they’d get pretty dark, and I definitely cried at some characters deaths. Did anyone else here love them as a kid?
Any theories as to why this keeps happening for literally everything? HOTD being the latest I’ve seen to do so.
Do you think it’s a pride thing? Or maybe younger/newer writers are a bit more stuck up with their own ideas that they ignore what should be done?
I just can’t see how someone in the board room doesn’t turn round and say something along the lines of “ if it’s not broken don’t fix it” and boom that way you keep fans happy and the success of a show continues which = money. I just can’t wrap my head around it honestly
”..I am not weaponless.”
Aragorn threw back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he grasped it, and the bright blade of Andúril shone like a sudden flame as he swept it out. ‘Elendil!’ he cried. ‘I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dúnedan, the heir of Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!’
Gimli and Legolas looked at their companion in amazement, for they had not seen him in this mood before. He seemed to have grown in stature while Éomer had shrunk; and in his living face they caught a brief vision of the power and majesty of the kings of stone. For a moment it seemed to the eyes of Legolas that a white flame flickered on the brows of Aragorn like a shining crown. Éomer stepped back and a look of awe was in his face. He cast down his proud eyes.
When I was in 7th grade or so, I started my first modern epic fantasy series after reading Lord of the Rings, the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Even back then in 2014, Gardens of the Moon was $6 or $7 for a mass market paperback, if I remember correctly. Since the series has no box sets, it made it about $70 to complete Malazan.
It’s been almost a decade since then. Malazan is still affordable, thank fuck, due to the legacy mass market paperbacks never getting replaced. But I decided I might want to try reading Realm of the Elderlings. I went into Barnes & Noble, and there are no longer the old MMPBs, the series has been reprinted with new covers, that are trade paperback only, and I saw that it was god damn $18 for the first book in the series. I then checked the price for the entire series from Barnes & Noble - $240 to complete it, not including Rain Wild Chronicles, because it’s not being printed in the new cover!
Kindles killing mass market paperbacks has …
The Lions of Al-Rasan in 1995, Sailing to Sarantium in 1998 and Lord of Emperors in 2000 is such an insane back-to-back-to-back publishing streak that it leaves me dumbfounded that it isn’t spoken about more. All three are absolute masterpieces – especially Al-Rassan, which is a dark horse pick for the greatest fantasy novel of all time IMHO – and any one of them would have been magnum opus-quality for a lesser author. It’s a truly remarkable feat of writing and y’all owe it to yourselves to read these books if you haven’t already.
Hello, everyone!
To celebrate the launch of my 5^(th) Arcane Ascension book, When Wizards Follow Fools, the first four books in the series are currently up for free on Kindle.
This amazing cover art is by Daniel Kamarudin, with graphic design by Shawn T. King
The first four books can be found at these links:
· The Torch that Ignites the Stars
· The Silence of Unworthy Gods
And if you’d like to pick up the latest book, you can find it here:
If you’re not familiar with the series, here’s some info:
Arcane Ascension follows Corin Cadence, a young man who seeks magical power in order to uncover the fate of his brother, Tristan, who disappeared into a colossal tower five years earlier.
Subgenre and style wise, it’s a magical academy progression fantasy inspired by games JRPGs Final Fantasy, Lufia, Bravely Default, and Trails of Cold Steel. The …
I feel like no one whose ever adapted the invisible man actually read the source material because they all make him way too competent . For those who haven’t read it I can absolutely recommend it but in short griffin the trademark invisible man . Is awful I don’t mean just as a human begin I mean he’s literally the worst at being invisible. Everything he tried to do whether it’s spy on woman or killing someone he fails at and gets almost caught despite being invisible. . And when he does decide to come unleash a reign of terror on the town he’s immediately rounded up and murdered by a mob of people despite I remind you being invisible .in adaptations Griffin is a rapist and a killer but in the book he’s an egomaniac selfish and somehow stupid . He is literally the worst at being an invisible man and just once id love an adaptation that’s accurate to that fact .
I’ve returned to the dystopian genre as I do every couple of months and once I read a book, I go to book review sites to see what other people thought. There are always a few rational, thought provoking ones and a lot that make me wonder if they read the same book I did. A character could be written with wrong views and it’s supposed to remake you stop and think something is wrong. Just because they’re the protagonist doesn’t mean their world views are correct. Wait for the character development or not; nothing wrong with a villain as the protagonist.
EDIT: It’s worse when the character’s personality is obviously designed to perfectly replicate the effects of the brainwashing the society has done. Hating the character is fine but if you don’t like the genre, skip it.
Looking for some different short stories that aren’t typically recommended. Could be weird sci-fi or horror or anything else, it doesn’t matter! Below are what I’d say are the 20 I see recommended most! (In no particular order)
The Jaunt by he who must not be named
The Star by Arthur C Clarke
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree Jr
The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin
The Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang
The Egg by Andy Weir
They’re Made Out of Meat by Terry Bisson
The Things by Peter Watts
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison (please no one tell him I put him on a sci-fi list dear god)
Sandkings by George RR Martin
All You Zombies by Robert Heinlein
Sunbleached by Nathan Ballingrund
Zima Blue by Allastair Reynolds
The 9 Billion Names of God by Arthur C Clarke
Beyond the Aquila Rift by Alastair Reynolds
The Lottery by Shirley …
Hi there. Any scifi horror recommendations. I read “The Deep” by Nick Cutter and several Dan Simmons books. Can you fellas recommend a really frightening scifi book?
Hey, all -
It seems I’ve hit another reading slump, caught between waiting for some upcoming books to hit the shelves, and trying to figure out what I want to read from the back catalog.
I’m looking for fiction that’s going to make me say “holy shit” while reading it, books that will really knock my socks off. I tend toward the fantasy end of speculative, and also toward the “literary” side (I care more about the construction of the words in a book, rather than great dialogue or action-centric plots). The problem I’m having is that it feels as though I’ve explored about as much of the territory as exists. Or at least, it feels like I’m familiar with most of the authors that can fit that bill, and have either delved deep enough into their portfolio that the reads have felt too similar, or not really been able to get into their work.
My top authors:
-Iain Banks (Use of Weapons got me right in the gut, just finished Matter a …
Can I get some recommendations for some palette cleanser sci-fi books, something similar to John Scalzi? I need a few books to read between some of the heavy sci-fi and non-fiction I am reading. If I pick up another heavy book with complex world building, convoluted characters or plots which require to get through the first few hundred pages before you get good, I just end up not reading and instead wasting my time watching videos instead.
What I am looking for are books where:
I have enjoyed reading John Scalzi’s books for this reason, they are fun, easy reads which I can enjoy reading between other more complex texts I am …
I’ve read a few books with this feature, where the space-faring vessel is a (sentient or non-sentient) biological organism rather than a traditional metal space ship. I’m curious if anyone is aware of others! It’s always interesting to me to see how different authors explore that idea.
Some examples I know:
Lilith’s Brood by Octavia Butler > The alien race featured in this book is big on genetic engineering (explored in many ways in the series) and their ship is one of many things that they’ve created in this way. The ship is less centrally featured as the main world-building device compared to the other two books below but contributes to the overall picture of how the Oankali operate
The Stars are Legion by Kameron Hurley > Not a lot of explanation of the origin of these ships/worlds, but there’s essentially a bunch of massive (small planet-sized?) organic worlds orbiting a star that are populated entirely by women who give …
“On the day that the scheduled surgery was supposed to happen, I was checking out at the supermarket,” he tells Consequence. “And the person ringing up my groceries was evidently transgender, and it struck me as a sign from the universe. So I asked the transgender person if I could run something by them, and I had a conversation with this person that had a profound impact on me.”
It was this part of the plan that the person Steve-O spoke with found troubling – as the act of deliberately tricking men into thinking he’s a woman was planned so he could get footage of being “beaten up at the motorcycle rally”, which he previously explained in July is part of doing a “funny endurance” stunt.
“Just having that mentality was very flawed, because ultimately it would be an exercise in celebrating violence against trans people,” he reveals. “At least, it would be interpreted that way by some, and when it was put to me that way, I thought, wow, maybe I missed the mark on that one.”
He added …
In keeping with my need to keep my blood pressure in check I waited to see Civil War until I was able to watch at home. I braced for a brutal polemic but instead found a small, well-made film about an extreme situation. I really liked it. But I also felt the ads and title were an overhyping. Anyone else?