https://www.robinhobb.com/blog/posts/46926

When I was a fledgling writer, I read that Isaac Asimov replied to every reader letter he ever received.  (This was before Email.  Yes, I am that old.)  And I resolved that I wanted to be like him.

 

Over the years, I flatter myself that I kept up pretty well, even with the email.  Like Asimov, I limited my responses to the first letter from any reader.  I could not establish regular correspondence with anyone but I did want to let readers know they had been heard.

 

But now I can’t.  And it makes me sad.

 

Lately, my email has been flooded with 8 to 10 letters a day.  They start out like reader email.  They talk about the specific titles, and mention that they like the political intrigue or the character development.  But then, some of the immediately offer to promote my books, for money, in various ways.  Promises of increased orders, podcasts, you name it.  Those ones I now see as AI generated and delete right away.

 

But I …

If you haven’t read this, it’s the darkest take on an adolescent wizard school. The students are locked away for four years after being teleported in with no teachers, frequent monster attacks and deadly consequences for blowing off work. The wizard parents do this to their kids because, ostensibly, it’s the better chance of survival. It’s almost an inversion of Harry Potter. Magic is expensive and it mostly makes the world more dangerous for wizards rather than less. The school is broadly split between kids of wizards living in fortified “enclaves” and “independents” who are everyone else with far less access to resources. Enclavers have a far better survival rate.

The narrative voice is 100% first person retelling from the protagonist El Higgens who, for the first two books has extremely limited information. Scholomance students have no timely news from the outside world, and El and her mother were outcasts from wizard society by her …

Alright, I can’t be the only one, but I constantly see people say “The book is so long, how can someone read an 800-page novel”…and then there is me, who just finished all of Sapkowski’s novels (5 + stories), and I think I want like…15 more…? I’m not kidding. I will read about Geralt farming and taming trolls for 200 pages and him doing other stuff for 10 books before he finally completes the main story arc. I just want more content from the world.

I guess I’m starting to understand why fanfictions are so popular.

Does anyone feel the same? Maybe it has a lot to do with my love for videogames, which allow me to spend hundreds of hours lolygagging and roleplaying in the same world…

As someone who has just finished rereading Will of the Many (and realized I had forgotten 80% of the book), I suggest that anyone without the time to reread an entire book give this a read before Strength of the Few comes out. Super cool of James to do and I really wish more writers would do something like this, especially in the SFF space where there can be multiple years between books.

Link HERE

“The sand of the desert of Yondo is not as the sand of other deserts; for Yondo lies nearest of all to the world’s rim; and strange winds, blowing from a pit no astronomer may hope to fathom, have sown its ruinous fields with the gray dust of corroding planets, the black ashes of extinguished suns. The dark, orblike mountains which rise from its wrinkled and pitted plain are not all its own, for some are fallen asteroids half-buried in that abysmal sand. Things have crept in from nether space, whose incursion is forbid by the gods of all proper and well-ordered lands; but there are no such gods in Yondo, where live the hoary genii of stars abolished and decrepit demons left homeless by the destruction of antiquated hells.”

I don’t care if it’s a flowery purple prose or pretentious, it’s metal and I wish modern fantasy had similar prose.

I’m a relatively new fantasy reader without much experience. The last book I read was Discworld: Guards! Guards!, but I found it boring and didn’t really enjoy it. I started this series as a sort of palate cleanser after hearing so many good things about it — and I’m honestly shocked by how good it is. I’m only on page 85 of the first book, but the clarity of the writing, the pacing, the great characters, the atmosphere, and the tone of humor have all impressed me so much in a positive way. And people say the first book is the weakest one? I think this might be the first series I’ll truly get addicted to after A Song of Ice and Fire.

Edit: I would really appreciate it if people who like this series could recommend some slightly more serious, epic fantasy series that they think I might enjoy. Thank you.

A library director in Wyoming who was fired two years ago because she refused to remove books with sexual content and L.G.B.T.Q. themes from a library’s children and young adult sections was awarded $700,000 in a settlement on Wednesday.

I am 99% certain these are BS posts just farming engagement. So I just hit downvote and move on.

I put it off for years and wow, I should not have waited. The world-building and structure were incredible. What’s a foundational book in the genre that you read recently and absolutely loved?

“No doubt, we ourselves are faced with the possibility of a scarcely less destructive war; but, whatever the agony that awaits us, we shall almost certainly recover. Foolish we may be, but we always manage to avoid falling into the abyss of downright madness. At the last moment sanity falteringly reasserts itself”

—”Star Maker” by Olaf Stapledon

One of the few literary quotes that made me cry given the context. Knowing that this quote was pretty much ultimate expression of belief in goodness deep within humans and the hope that some day there will be better times.

I was completely captivated by the Byzantine politics, the focus on language and culture, and the mystery at the heart of the story. I’m looking for another sci-fi book that has that same rich, anthropological feel. Any suggestions?

Have you ever read a book that impacted your life in a positive way?

Some thoughts after a second reading (spoilers below)…

1. This novel feels far ahead of its time. It doesn’t feel like something written in 1949.

2. Though one of the first post-apocalyptic novels, “Earth Abides” still feels fresh, mostly because it totally dodges all the clichés and tropes the genre would subsequently invent or cling to.

3. Also unique: the main character is a snob and almost totally ineffectual. None of his grand ideas or plans prove fruitful, he doesn’t bother to pursue most of them, and his few attempts at making a dent in the world either backfire or have little effect. He achieves more by simply not trying, or by not attempting to force his will upon the world. Indeed, his most consequential act - repopulating a chunk of California - is caused by him kowtowing to the desires of a woman. Though he has no interest in kids, and can’t even bother to read books on fatherhood and pregnancy, he accidentally starts a civilization because …

Unlike the previous shows, Parker made a promise to Martin, who serves as an executive producer, that he would never shift to a perspective of anyone in the upper class. Viewers will always stick with Dunk, Egg, and this lower rim of Westeros society: the armorers, the performers, the barmaids, the whores, and the like.

The one that immediately comes to mind for me personally is Starship Troopers. It works really well as just a straight up action movie that it can be quite easy to just shut your brain off and enjoy the shoot ‘em up (of which there is plenty). I speak from experience as my dad is like this.

I would love to hear what other movies people list!

Edit: spelling.