When I first got into fantasy, I only wanted the huge epics. Multi-volume sagas, maps in the front of the book, magic systems with pages of explanation. I loved the feeling of being lost in a massive world.

But lately I find myself gravitating more toward smaller, more intimate stories. Books where the stakes are not “the world will end” but instead “this one village might survive” or “this one character might finally find peace.” There is something refreshing about fantasy that does not try to be bigger than life, but instead feels deeply human within the magic.

I am not saying I have stopped loving epics, I will always respect Tolkien, Jordan, Sanderson. But there is a different kind of magic in a short novel that focuses on a single journey or a quiet piece of folklore. Sometimes it feels even more real.

Has anyone else felt this shift? Do you still crave the massive series, or do you also find yourself more drawn to the smaller, character-driven side of fantasy?

… I’m oh so angry at Fitz

I don’t see a lot of discussion around relating to tv shows so I thought I’d ask the question. I’m in a strong mood to watch a really, really good show and obviously something relating to my two favourite interests fantasy and sci-fi. So what in your opinion is the best tv show ever made? Can be sci-fi or fantasy.

I’ve been looking forward to reading this for a while but, half way in, I wasn’t prepared for just how much I was going to love it. The way the characters talk and interact, and the child’s kindness cutting through the cruelty of the world, make this feel like a medieval version of The Road, but with a layer of grim humour over the top.

Buehlman is a brilliant writer, and his work feels less conventional than a lot of other fantasy out there (even though this might be classed more as ‘horror with fantastical elements,’ it still fits into the genre for me), verging on being literary and experimental but still grounded in great storytelling.

So, I’m now wondering what else like this is out there? I’ve read Blacktongue Thief and Daughter’s War is on my shelf and has shot straight up my TBR, but are there any other authors who are attempting this sort of thing?

I wrapped up Last Argument of Kings last night and I am honestly stunned. Abercrombie has this way of making characters so flawed and brutal yet impossible to stop reading about. The ending left me feeling both satisfied and kind of empty, like I had lived through every betrayal and every failure alongside them.

Now I am stuck wondering what else out there feels this raw and unforgiving. Most fantasy I have read leans into hope or epic arcs of triumph. This one left me with a pit in my stomach but in a good way.

For anyone who has read it, what did you pick up next that scratched a similar itch?

Just finished Gardens of The Moon. I picked up this novel based on several reviews circulating around the internet testifying on the greatness of the Malazan series. And I decided that I was going to finish the whole book before really giving it an honest and thorough digestion.

I think that Erikson has very polished prose and decent talent at using descriptive writing to flesh out some characters. However, the storytelling seemed really poorly conceived and really messy.

I just read about 500 pages where there was limitless insane supernatural nonsense, and at the end I still feel as if almost nothing really happened. It kind of felt like reading an encounter where two kids are playing make believe but in an argumentative one-upping game. “My guy has a magical sword”. “Well my guy has a dragon that beats magical swords”. “Well my guy has a spell that makes his magical sword beat magical sword eating dragons”. Etc. Additionally, the amount of supernatural and magic that …

In it, a zookeeper notices that two male penguins have paired off and built a nest together. “They must be in love,” the zookeeper thinks. When the two penguins put an egg-shaped rock in their nest and start sitting on it like all the other penguin couples do, the zookeeper replaces it with a real egg that needs to be cared for. That egg becomes Tango.

I just read a book review that just baffled me and I wanted to discuss it. Maybe I’m just ignorant or ableist?? Idk.

So I read a review of a book that said a long the lines of: I felt confused reading this book because it was third person POV and I’m used to first person POV. I felt like I was unable to follow along.

It made me feel so sad and confused. Is reading comprehension really this bad now? I just can’t understand how one POV is more confusing than the other. I can understand preferring one over the other, but not being able to read one just blows my mind.

The book this review was about was not a difficult read (to me). It was a pretty straightforward urban fantasy. It wasn’t a long (under 200 pages).

I know that first person seems to be the preferred POV these days so I can understand this person not reading many third POV books, but I just don’t see how it could be difficult to follow a book because of its POV. Am I missing something? Is …

For me its House of Suns. “I was born in a house with a million rooms, built on a small, airless world on the edge of an empire of light and commerce that the adults called the Golden Hour, for a reason I did not yet grasp.”

This book has been sitting on my shelf gathering dust for months. I tried starting it when I first got it, bounced off after the first 30 pages or so. But recently I ran out of fresh sci-fi. My copy of Chasm City was still in the mail, and I was bored. So I picked this back up to see if I’d stick with it.

And holy shit I was floored.

I wound up finishing the whole thing in a couple of days. The world building here, the portrayal of accelerated evolution in a species (various breeds of Spider) not designed for it. Of a frail and desperate humanity, making reasonable but ultimately selfish decisions, justified through a lens of extinction. And the final impact of these cultures finally clashing, this was a story that absolutely gripped me from page to page.

Despite the overall tone, the ending was surprisingly upbeat. And while sometimes I think an optimistic ending can come at the cost of some of the stakes (Castlevania Season 4 comes to mind) I think here it was done …

Just read it, 10 years after A Fire Upon the Deep. Some thoughts:

1. This is probably one of my favorite books of all time. I can’t believe I hadn’t read it before. Think it deserves way more hype than it currently has (obviously personal opinion).

2. Why did Vernor not write a true sequel? I could probably read another few books easily about the development of Spiders as well as the trajectories of the various protagonists on the human and spider sides. Would even read fan fiction if anyone has come across it.

3. What should be the next Vernor Vinge book I pick up? Anything that comes close to this? I’m still running high on adrenaline from the final 10% of the book.

As the title says. I wanted to know if there is (pretty sure there is but I’m not aware of it) science fiction books that are NOT set in our own universe. By that I mean literally. I wanted to know of works set in fictional universes, not our own but set so far in the future that it is indistinguishible; a fictional universe with it’s own “rules” and so on, like Westeros, Middle Earth, Star Wars. And what are your thoughts on this kind of scifi (if there is), compared to the traditional futuristic scifi in our universe?

I wanted to know if there are such works, both for reading for my enjoyment, and for my writing (because I don’t wanna set it in our universe and wanted to see how other people do it, beside star wars)

[Not the original OP here] That last one was a hot mess and almost nobody actually answered the title. Let’s try this again, shall we?

It looks like Orbit has published a blurb for Ann Leckie’s next book.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0FPCCYTL1/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.N15v1UAMDCxIK6EsCMHk1ZQKY47I3VjSD6jKMyheWCXDCyUJswB0zaKgqkP3kCdc1n12do8LW8B9FA35l2fgKcD_n6H3NFEtXOT7NPJT2i9VX_QbPhPo939ZODai12iRnQTYFi_sTGn0tO0y05_jb-epyWba3AuIKnJCkDI0j9Lan32gs4IJLGWk7Ieq7lgEXZqIPx-WKpqiyi_7xwV-8w.ZPE6NhpB_UBrW0IOEMaVIvDj7YO-fYSITWu98lPAmlY&qid=1759197403&sr=1-4