Will 10 episodes be enough for Way of Kings do you think?

I don’t frequent this sub so I’m sorry if this is a common topic of discussion, I was just thinking about this after having read it and I didn’t know where else to post my thoughts.

It seems to be common knowledge that LotR is the originator of all the tropes and cliches you see in fantasy media. Everything that followed cribbed everything from LotR, and if you read it now you’ll just find an outdated story that’s been done a million times since then. Except I’ve found that this is not actually true at all.

LotR doesn’t rely on common fantasy tropes, and I still found it a refreshing read even today. There’s an evil dark lord, but he doesn’t actually do anything during the story and the heroes never even meet him. The evil wizard villain doesn’t get a big scene where he uses his magic powers and is eventually heroically defeated, he gets shanked by a random hobbit in the epilogue after having become a pathic, vengeful gang …

So, as a young reader who stopped reading as many others have, only to pick it back in their late 20s, this trilogy has blown my mind and created an insatiable desire to consume more fiction.

When finishing the final page of HoA, all I could think about was how did we get here? >!This was a cool magic heist book with these cool magic powers and a fantastic characters that we get to watch take down the big bad guy to free their fellow enslaved people.!< >!Then, we culminate by merging with the cosmic entity of preservation to destroy the other cosmic entity of ruin, sacrificing our beloveds, and allowing the real hero of ages to rebuild the world through a balance of both aspects.!<

I have never felt emotional while reading, aside from the slight pang in the gut when a loved character dies…. But I was full on crying, tears and snot while finishing chapter 81 of HoA.

I know Sanderson isn’t for everyone, but this style of world building and pace, culminating in dozens of …

By certain measures, you might have thought Animal Farm stood a chance of being a good movie. After all, it’s an adaption of George Orwell’s classic work, Animal Farm; it has an all-star cast, including Seth Rogen, Gaten Matarazzo, Steve Buscemi, Glenn Close, Laverne Cox, Kieran Culkin, Jim Parsons, Woody Harrelson, Andy Serkis, Kathleen Turner, Iman Vellani and more. And it’s directed by Andy Serkis who, sure, is mostly known as a voice actor. But he was, after all, a main character in one of the most successful book-to-film adaptions of all time (LotR), and as an audiobook reader, he always seemed like someone who would respect the text.

But as rumors about the movie began to leak, I started to have my doubts. First, I heard (but have not bothered to verify) it got dropped by it’s initial distributor… It then got picked up by Angel Studios, which caters to right-wing conservatives… But then the right-wing conservatives started howling because …

Hi everyone, I was reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell a few days ago and I didn’t know anything going into it except that it was widely beloved and respected in SFF spaces. I’m only 200 pages in since I’ve just started it, and yet even in that small page count, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve thought to myself, “Wait a minute, this element(s) is also there in the Emily Wilde books!” or “Oh, did V. E. Schwab take this idea and turn it into a novel?” or “Oh so that’s where Babel got this idea from!”

To be clear, I’m not saying that this is a bad thing or accusing these authors of plagiarism or anything like that. It’s totally natural to be influenced by the books which you have read and all the authors I’ve mentioned have been upfront about how JSAMR inspired them. But from my perspective, I’ll admit it was kinda humbling to realize that a lot of the worldbuilding and magical elements that I found so interesting and surprising in my favorite books had already been done …

‘I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages.’

You know, I had a review planned. I had a very well versed format I was going to adapt. Things I was going to write, like chapters in a book. Halfway through the book, that changed. 80% through the book, it took a shape of its own, one I was kind of hesitant to write about. But then came the final part.

Trust.

And I guess that pretty much sums up this book, and my experience with it. It was a thing of beauty, the way the story flowed. I had my doubts about where the plot would go. And for the most parts I was right. Though I will admit, those two deaths at the end …

For a long, long time I despaired about fantasy books being too lenient to their characters, being too forgiving. You know what they say, seek and ye shall find, one of little faith. In a way, this book taught me more about religion, about the very essence of there being so many, about the importance of having faith. Especially when things seem dire. 

I had …

I wrote a short essay after each book I read and finally hit 500 today as I finished a book on The Dreyfus Affair (interesting stuff!). I was reflecting back on my essays (which I can share if folks find it worth discussing any of the titles further)

I gathered most of my reading list from here (reddit r/books) but very often followed certain themes and threads that were related to whatever wavelength I was in at the time. I spent like 4 months on nothing but biblical apocrypha and then another detour into Opera for a good 6 weeks. I read all the Raymond Chandler books in between all of Virginia Wolf’s books to keep an oscillating variety because of ADD)….

Speaking of: ADD sufferer for 40 years+ w other fun cognitive comorbidities. Quite intense that manifests in impulsivity which causes my thoughts to dart ²⁴⁄₇ unless I’m completely regimented about overcoming it. I had to train my brain completely to become a good reader, to the point where I kept a sharp …

I kept seeing all the hype about this book everyone on Reddit and other online spaces and wondered how good could it be. Could it live up to all the praise and positive reception?

Well after finally reading it, I can safely say that the answer is a resounding no. In fact I can’t remember being this disappointed and underwhelmed by a hyped genre book on Reddit since Project Hail Mary and everything written by Brandon Sanderson.

I suppose it’s somewhat better than your bog standard lit rpg but that’s honestly a very low bar and DCC just about barely clears it. The premise is interesting enough but nothing unique in the realm of this sub genre. It’s just written in such a grating, juvenile style. It feels like you’re reading a Reddit comment thread where each poster is trying and failing to be funnier than the last.

I wasn’t really expecting anything from a prose standpoint because this is a litrpg we’re talking about. in that sense, I can’t say I was disappointed because I expected …

The short list for one of my favourite sff fiction prizes was just released, and for the first time ever I have not read any of the books. Would love to hear your thoughts on the ones that are sci-fi if you have read any of them. I think I’m looking forward to reading Slow Gods by Claire North the most.

This is all the shortlisted books:

** Audition* by Pip Adam.
** Sunward* by William Alexander.
** Call and Response* by Christopher Caldwell.
** Midnight Timetable* by Bora Chung.
** The Works of Vermin* by Hiron Ennes.
** Notes from a Regicide* by Isaac Feldman.
** Mad Sisters of Esi* by Tashan Mehta.
** One Message Remains* by Premee Mohamed.
** Slow Gods* by Claire North.

I have been craving military scifi recently, but I find the typical authoritarian bent distasteful. Can anyone recommend something that won’t irritate my left-wing sensibilities quite so much?

• Interstellar society, not limited to our solar system.
• Things are okay and we’re working to make them better, not starting with a straight up dystopia.
• The protagonist is either part of a team, or is supported by a team.
• There is a chain of command that leads to the government - it doesn’t need to be military specifically.
• There is a problem solving focus that is more sociological and psychological and figuring things out, rather than just using force better than the other guy.
• Written after 1980 or so.

Things I’ve read and liked that had most of the things I’m looking for:

• The Ecolitan Matter by LE Modesitt
• The March North by Graydon Saunders
• The Fourth Fleet Irregulars by SJ MacDonald
• The Constabulary Casefiles by Eric Thompson
• Planetside by Michael Mammay …

I finished this book 3 weeks ago, I really liked it and it was a good read, especially after finishing AP environmental lol. But a lot of the stuff mentioned in the book is happening now, most notable being the heatwave in Europe. Has anyone else who has read the book been thinking of it constantly now?

In his debut novel, Sundiver, David Brin gave us an imaginative story about first contact, large-scale species engineering, and the ethics of fitting into an imperfect galactic culture, but as I tried to show in my review, I think its reach exceeded its grasp and some of its ideas were distinctly undercooked.

Startide Rising, on the other hand, is a fully mature sequel, taking place over a century after the events of Sundiver and mostly disconnected from them. It was also a roaring success that bagged a Hugo and Nebula in 1984. Its story is self-contained, but the wider conflict and mystery it sets up was the basis for the rest of the books in the Uplift Saga. I don’t usually think it’s wise to skip entries in a series, even if they are disappointing, but Sundiver is far enough in the background from Startide Rising and enough of the basic ideas are recapitulated that I don’t think much would be lost if you just started here.

To restate briefly, civilization across …

EDIT: thank you all!! Took me a while to read everything so far and add books to my list. Did not realize that there would be this much to parse through. Really appreciate it all.

Basically the title. The concept of a hive mind or collective consciousness is used periodically but it’s usually portrayed as either bad/evil or at best undesirable.

Are there any stories that try and flip this concept that convince the reader that the hive mind is good? Or the hive mind is the protaganist? Maybe invert the survival story and instead of someone trying to avoid being assimilated it’s a hive mind trying to avoid being dismantled by someone who thinks they’re doing good.

Really just curious to see how an author might try and take this concept.

“A Logic Named Joe,” by Will F. Jenkins, now better known by his pen name Murray Leinster, predicts the modern personal computer stack: a screen, a keyboard, a network connection, a search engine, a video service, a phone system, a database, an advice engine, and the need for content moderation.

Joe is a “logic,” (a personal computer as mass household appliance) serviced by Ducky, the narrator. Ducky encounters what we would today call an alignment problem. I won’t spoil the story, but it’s worth reading.

“I could live with it, in a sense,” Glover said, but added that as the disease progresses, “things are going to be different and changing.”

“I still have my daughter, I have friends,” he told the outlet. “I want to just say, your life continues.”

“I’m still not accepting in my mind all parts of it,” he also said. “There are the moments that you keep remembering that validate the fact that you can remember stuff. And there are moments I’ll never forget.”

Glover’s daughter, Mandisa, told People that her father is “aware sometimes and then sometimes not,” and she described the diagnosis as a “change in the core of who you think you are or don’t think you are.” But the actor said he doesn’t feel it’s “the end of my life,” telling People, “There’s work to do.” Glover shared the news of his diagnosis weeks before his 80th …