im looking for recommendations on dark fantasy novels that do NOT contain sexual assault. ive had to stop reading the black company by glen cook, because halfway through chapter two is a very graphic rape scene. i asked a few sources before reading, if this book had any sexual assault. and they all said no, or they didnt think so. at the time i could not find other reliable sources that would give me a clear answer. my fault for being too trusting i guess :

this is not a subject i can personally handle. do yall have any suggestions? ty, i appreciate it 🤘

EDIT: i dont want to argue about dark fantasy and rape. my head isnt in a good place right now. please respect that.

re: “rape is prolific in dark fantasy” yes i know, and EVERY GENRE HAS RAPE IN IT. im pretty sure there are books without it!

i wont engage with posts criticizing, arguing, etc. i am only interested in recommendations. if you want to come in slinging mud, debating me, etc, please save everyone the hassle, …

Reposting /u/InGenNateKenny ’s thread on this from /r/asoiaf to over here. Please don’t harass the Artist over this.

Imgur album link of the Art: https://imgur.com/a/et59wvZ

All through today this story has been spreading across the ASOIAF Tik Tok, Twitter, and Discord-verses (shoutout the industrious members of the servers I frequent), so it won’t be news for many of you. Still, in interest of spreading the T, I humbly present this post: it really looks like AI was used in creation of the illustrations of the 20th anniversary edition of A Feast for Crows.

I’m not going to post all of the images in case that puts this thread of being taken down, but there are some links to it in here.

Here are a few things myself, friends, and fellow ASOIAF fans (credit to all the voices out there on Discord, Twitter, Tik Tok and such) have noticed that suggest AI:

1. Heavy use of blue — even on characters where it makes little to no sense (Cersei, Jaime, Margaery, …

The plot info we have so far: “Forced to investigate a devastating personal tragedy, an ordinary woman stumbles on dark conspiracies and provokes the attention of uncanny forces.”

I just. I mean. What the hell? Why did I not read her books earlier? It’s crazy. I have always been a huge fan of fantasy literature. I remember binging the classics as a kid and later George RR Martin and other giants as a young adult, but for some weird inexplicable reason I never got into Robin Hobb.

She is. Amazing. I can’t remember being this invested in characters since first time reading ASOIAF. What a storyteller. Instantly a favourite.

Is there any other author that write in similar prose and style? Character driven and just down to earth, where you can feel the struggles and the reality of their lives, and where the magic is more intuitive than explicitly explained?

When I was younger, reading was magical to me. I’d sit in a quiet corner with my book, lights dimmed, and it felt like the world around me disappeared. I remember being completely lost in Harry Potter back in middle school. Rushing to finish up my school work, just so I could escape into my book. It wasn’t just reading, it was living inside that story.

Now I’m older, and somewhere along the way, that feeling faded. I have easy access to every book online, but I feel like that’s part of the problem. Back then, I had to wait for a library copy or read whatever I could find, and it made everything more special. These days, I’ve become pickier, always chasing a certain theme or character type to give me that same high, and it’s like my “reading tolerance” has gone up.

I want to fall in love with reading again, that same deep, cozy, immersive feeling. If you’ve ever felt this too and found a book that pulled you all the way back in, what was it? I’m planning to get a physical copy through …

I loved The Warded Man and was excited to continue the series.

Book 2 feels like I picked up the wrong book.

Everything is so convoluted with ridiculousness.

“The ka-valad in ebin-ala-din called the dal-vin to shalla-bat in the second day of ish-ma uder the sun of halla -din.”

This is an exaggeration of course but man it feels like 4 out of every 5 words are loosely defined hyper specific nouns that need remembering and I now I just do not care…

I can’t stand with authors feel the need to do this to such an extreme.

That was my mom’s favorite episode. She was a voracious reader, hitting somewhere between 200-300 books in a year. She passed on that love of reading(though not production). While I liked the episode as a kid, I suppose I never thought about it beyond the surface level irony.

As I get older I feel like I have more empathy for the main character. There are so many books I want to read, so many I want to read again, and so many that come out every year. I’ll never have enough time. IF I read a book a week for the rest of my life, I’ll have approximately enough time to read 1,500 books.

And I find myself thinking, how is 1,500 enough? Aren’t there going to be many, many more than 1,500 that I’ll want to read?

The answer is emphatically yes, and so I finally understand Henry Bemis.

Twain’s 4 in a row:

Woolf’s 4 in a row:

Austen had a terrific run, but Mansfield Park was in the middle of that run, and it’s not usually considered an all-time classic.

Hemingway also had a great run, but it was interrupted by To Have and Have Not, which isn’t typically considered a classic.

Steinbeck’s major works, too, were interrupted by lesser releases.

Are there any other authors that have more than 4 all-time classic novels in a row?

(Mostly thinking about this in terms of sustained uninterrupted greatness, the literary equivalent of consecutive home runs, maybe?}

And obviously Shakespeare had several in a row, but he was a playwright, so he doesn’t count. …

I love fantasy and sci fi. I’ve been reading books in these two genres from big publishers, small publishers, and the occasional self pub. I’ve self pubbed in the genre myself and worked with editors.

In the last few months I’ve noticed a decline in the speculative fiction, especially fantasy books, I’ve picked up. I’ve had to dnf several books because the writing is soo bad. The plot and world building might be fine, but the editing is terrible, and these are traditionally published books. Sometimes smaller houses, but still. I mentioned that I’ve worked with editors as a writer because the kinds of issues I’m seeing are basic stuff any editor should catch. The book I’m reading now has new paragraphs being started in the middle of a sentence. Or a sentence fragment ending ,. Like that. My biggest pet peve is time not making sense. Things that clearly took days to happen being described as happening in a few hours. I have not worked with …

Mods, if this is not allowed, please let me know, but I wanted to let the SF community know of the passing of my father Robert R. Chase. He introduced me to SF, published three novels, and continued writing and publishing short stories until his death from cancer a few days ago. His obit should actually indicate he was born in 1948, which I hope is amusing to him that editorial missed something even in death.

Im studying for yearly uni exams(i failed twice) and i need to get a break sometimes it hurts, do you all have some reccomnendations for me?

i have read hyperion and dune.

another edit, it doesnt have to be an easy read, a break from study sessions; i wanna be amazed, i want my mind explode. To experience beauty of it and not feeling like a prisoner in my current life pace

I don’t know what the scifi landscape will be like in that time but I am curious to see which authors will be held in the same regards as the ones I’ve mentioned above. Im thinking of authors like Pierce Brown, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Liu Cixin and China Miéville.

Who do you think will be on the same level as our classics and do you think they’ll live up to them.

Excluding Le Guin because I’ve read a bunch already,

I loved Ian M. Banks’ ship-AI names, things like A Series Of Unlikely Explanations etc. It is fun and also reflective of the Culture series AIs.

Banks was the first time I came across such odd, wacky, long names for ships. Now I’ve noticed other authors (Elizabeth Bear’s White Space books, John Scalzi’s Collapsing Empire) using similar types of long names for ships –– with no AI “being” attached to the name.

I mean, I understand there is a long tradition of people naming boats and ships with short phrases or puns, but generally not to the extent in these novels. To me, the ship names in Bear and Scalzi books come off as a bit goofy and seem like a reference or homage to Banks. Are they tipping their hats to Banks, or is this a longer tradition in SF books?

I’ve seen different opinions of this book but I thought it was fantastic. His novel take on alien life forms was worth the price of admission - a far cry from the Alien humanoid-adjacent alien trope. Great story, with a cool twist at the end. If you liked it too, what other books of this ilk would you recommend?

Henry was 100% right to walk away from The Witcher. Can’t believe what a fall from grace this show has had since the inception of its incredible first season. It’s mind-boggling that the same people behind that masterpiece are responsible for the mess it’s become. Season 1 was so good it keeps pulling me back… I think I’m actually going to hate-watch entire season 4 just to see how bad it gets.

Marina Mazepa