Just finished Assassin’s Fate, the final book in Robin Hobb’s 16-book Realm of the Elderlings saga. To say that I’m floored would be understating it. Pretty convinced that I just read the greatest fantasy ever written and it’ll be hard for anything in the genre to top it. I’m not an emotional person but holy shit I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest.
I won’t go too much into the story or characters but just more wanted to share my feelings. Really feeling like I just spent a lifetime with these people, these characters that came to mean so much to me.
Has anyone achieved this kind of depth, poignancy and complexity when it comes to characters in fantasy? I really can’t think of another series or standalone novel that has. Following Fitz’s journey from a child to an old man was a transcendent experience. I felt like I lived his entire lifetime with him, with every single high and low – and boy, there are so, so, so many crushing lows.
I could spend pages talking about …
I have seen many people discount this book because it’s about unicorns. Unicorns are for little girls and glitter. But I have always loved both the book and the movie.
When I was younger, I saw myself as the unicorn. I grew up being told I was special, unique. And it seemed to be true. I lived in a world of my own creation, a world that was more imagination than reality. It was real for me. Nothing in real life had the power to interest me for long compared to the fairies and flying horses of my mind’s eye.
In elementary school, I made up elaborate stories, and got other people to join the game. A patch of crabgrass was our magic carpet. The home plate fence was a castle. Everyone had magic powers, an ability to affect the story, the world. But, tall and awkward, I was still never chosen when it came time to form a team.
Despite being told I was different, I had always assumed there were people like me somewhere out in the world, and I was content to be alone.
At some …
And WOW what an amazing book. This is the kind of fantasy book that English professors would read and claim isn’t fantasy because in their eyes it’s too good to be fantasy. I was utterly blown away by every single word I was reading here. The character work, from the main character to the supporting characters, was some of the best I have EVER read. I can’t wait to read all 16 of these and I can already tell that I’m in for a fucking ride. I already have the rest of the Farseer Trilogy sitting on my shelf and if I had the money on me atm, I’d just go ahead and buy the other thirteen because I already know I’m gonna read it all.
One thing that stuck out to me was how every time a character stepped onto the page Hobb could immediately make me know who this person is in just a few lines of dialogue and narration. The characterization was utterly brilliant. I don’t think I’ve read another fantasy book where the author has this much skill in …
The book is an insane political horror that I feel like I both fully understood and didn’t grasp a single concept simultaneously. The realism is genuinely terrifying, everything in the book feels as though it could happen, the entire basis of the society and its ability to stay perpetually present logically stands up. I both want to recommend this book to anyone who is able to read it and also warn you to stay away from this hellish nightmare. The idea that this could come out of someones head is unimaginable, George Orwell is a legitimate genius for being able to conceptualise this. I’m so excited to start reading animal farm so no spoilers there, please. But to anyone who’s read it please share your thoughts, even if it’s just to stop my mind from imploding. I need something external right now
I got through 3 of the Dresden Files books before I had to put them down. The author just cannot keep from commenting on how sexy every single female character is and how chivalrous and misogynistic Harry is. An example from the book: “She pushed back her asphalt-colored hair with one hand and gave me a look of pure calculation. Then she simply crossed her legs, so that the cut of her dress left one pale leg bare to midthigh. A subtle motion of her back thrust out her young, firm breasts, so that their tips pressed visibly against the fabric. “Of course, Mr. Dresden. I’m sure we can do business.” The look she gave me was direct, sensual, and willing.”
Every single woman is portrayed exactly like this and I think it represents the worst in Urban Fantasy.
Edit: For all the people saying she’s a a supernatural fae or something this is Lydia from Grave Peril. She’s a seer who gets possessed by the end of the book but during this she’s a human.
Because I KSR (like many here), I recently watched all of a 2 hour 20 min interview with him on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-jGwBHIc7o
Notable comments at the end on his future writing plans, after the host asked if The Ministry for the Future would be his last sci-fi novel:
No, that’s not correct. It’s going to be my last big long novel of any kind. I want to see what happens when I begin to compress. I feel like I’m old enough and I’ve been writing really quite long novels for about 30 years. It’s time to invent a late style that will be more compressed. But I’m not going to stop writing fiction… It’s the last novel on the contract I was on. I don’t think I can do more than The Ministry for the Future. If I tried to write another long novel I would be repeating myself. I don’t like to repeat myself. So in the hunt for something new I’m going to be trying new things, but I’m never going to give …
Does anyone think that a bi-weekly or monthly “little-known gems” post would be useful, where people responded with older books they love that are generally unknown or unread, and the abnormal convention that we would upvote responses with books we’ve never heard of, rather than upvoting recommendations we agreed with? This would surface GENUINELY unread books. As it stands now – as per reddit’s design – recommendation threads are usually echo-chambers of popularity, but there is a LOT of good SF out there that Iain Banks and Liu Cixin didn’t write :-)
Are there any first contact type plot-driven hard-ish sci fi books that have really unique (and non-trope-ey) takes on aliens?
I really don’t the Star Trek type aliens that speak English and like chocolate cake. I also don’t like inexplicably hostile “monsters” that exist just to get shot at/ blown up or exterminate all life. I have mixed feelings about extinct god-like races that almost always conveniently invented some portal thing or big scary booby trap. I have seen it done well, but it’s getting old when I keep seeing it in like 5 different books. I have equally mixed feelings about alien mind control/influence of humans. Alastair Reynolds does both of those reasonably well but it’s very easy for that to get tropey and predictable too.
Despite it not being the best book overall, Nemesis by Asimov had one such unique take. I’m aware of Dragon’s Egg, too. Roadside Picnic captures the “we have no idea what this is and we …
There is this idea that if the universe is infinite inevitably patterns will repeat which could lead to multiple versions of you existing somewhere far far away.
Are there any stories that touch on that subject?
Any good sci-fi releases in 2021 thus far?
Any big names released anything?
Really need something new to read!
I’m watching the show for the first time on Netflix and I was astonished by the number of patient deaths. According to google, the death rate is over 35%. This is nearly four times the irl death rate of the average hospital. Google also tells me this place has bombings, mass shootings, and doctors that drop like flies. When the doctors aren’t dying, they’re fucking each other in any available janitor’s closet. Side note, I really feel sorry for the janitor. Imagine trying to kick back after a long work day only for your personal space to smell like sweat, fish, and semen.
The audience is told this is the best hospital in the state of Washington but I find it hard to believe that it would make the top ten in a third world country.
There’s one guy named George that severs a major artery during a routine appendectomy and is just a shitty doctor in general but I think I’m meant to root for him because he’s funny and nice. Loooool. The man is a walking medical malpractice lawsuit.
You …