The finalists for the 2021 World Fantasy Awards have been announced. The results will be announced at the World Fantasy Convention in 2021 in November. Two Life Achievement Awards are presented every year. This year the winners of those trophies will be Howard Waldrop and Megan Lindholm, better-known to most fantasy readers by her pen-name Robin Hobb, under which she wrote the Realm of the Elderlings series and Soldier Son trilogy.
Previous recipients of the award include Hayao Miyazaki, Charles de Lint, Terry Brooks, Andrzej Sapkowski, Sheri S. Tipper, Tanith Lee, Susan Cooper, George R.R. Martin, Alan Garner, Peter S. Beagle, Terry Pratchett, Diana Wynne Jones, John Crowley, Tom Doherty, Stephen King, Michael Moorcock, Andre Norton, Madeleine L’Engle, Gene Wolfe, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jack Vance, Ray Bradbury and Fritze Leiber.
If your favourite book does not meet the criteria of the question , pass
The first time I have ever heard of the LoTR, was when the movies came out, and it was about the same time as Harry Potter movies were coming out as well. Not knowing any better (at all), I compared the two series (I was obsessed w HP) and as a result, was bullied in class. Badly.
As a result, its been really difficult for me to read the main series (I read the hobbit one summer for summer reading and loved it) and watch the movies, because it always brought my mind back to those days and reminded me of those who bullied me.
Well this year I made the resolution to read all my TBR pile before buying any new books, and the LOtR books were a part of it. I decided to bite the bullet and get started. Well just over two weeks later I have 50 pages left of the Fellowship and plan to bring the second book with me on vacation to read on the beach.
I’m so glad I finally gave this series a chance. I knew I was a stubborn, ignorant, shitty 6th grader, but man those girls were bitches. The …
Authors don’t really pay attention to the dental care, and my dad brings up lots of good questions:
me: Hey dad, how do you like the book so far?
dad: The main character said he broke his molar a couple chapters back does that ever get fixed?
me: uh, I don’t know, probably?
dad: well he better, because you don’t just break a molar and keep going, it needs to be extracted or he is going to need a root canal.
It doesn’t matter if your main character survived a sword in the gut if he will die of a tooth infection anyway.
dad: What kind of fruit do they eat?
me: I don’t know, I can’t remember them eating any.
dad: How do these people not have scurvy???
Unfortunately, bread, cheese, and the occasional strip of dried meat does not maintain the level of Vitamin C that humans need.
dad (distressed): You don’t just lose a tooth! That isn’t a minor injury! They need a doctor! *incoherent rambling about infection*
Basically, messing …
Edit: The original post has been edited so further people don’t get upset.
I just finished reading The Neverending Story and I loved the book so much. How it’s printed in green and red ink to differentiate the two worlds, and I loved the second half of the novel when Bastian goes to Fantastica. >!The plot about how Bastian loses a memory everytime he makes a wish, and must go from wish to wish to find his way back was beautiful, I couldn’t stop reading it. I loved The Night Forest and The Desert of Colours, how they cannot co exist was so thoughful. I loved how Xaiyide tried to rule Fantastica by proxy, manipulating Bastian to use his wishes. I loved how every wish cost him a memory, and so he had to go from wish to wish to find a wish that would take him back to his world, and how he misinterpreted AURYN’s inscription. I loved Atreyu’s explanation of the contradiction as “It gives you the means, but it takes away your purpose.” Another …
I loved the idea of the a gates and t gates, it was good to read a tech utopia after the dystopian books that are everywhere now. I’m going through his other books - rereading singularity sky next. So any non Stross recommendations would be good. I’ve read most greg bear and Scalzi books - a lot of them are post singularity - so other authors.
I just got done reading Red Mars by KS Robinson and really liked it. There are two more books in this series to go and I look forward to them. I realized what I liked about it was that it was a combination of hard and somewhat optimistic sci fi. I mean yes there was a crisis that drove the plot, but the future it was depicting was bright. There was technology and societal will to colonize another planet, and this feat was explained in a scientifically plausible way without relying on plot devices that might as well be harry potter magic (e.g. warp cores, teleportation, etc.). It makes it feel more relatable, and therefore inspiring. Sometimes hard scifi can lean into the gritty and harshness of its world, which is great, but I’m wondering if there’s a term for this more optimistic type of hard scifi. Any ideas? Or maybe any specific book recommendations? I’m on a real space exploration kick and am interested in hard sci fi stories about reaching a nearby solar system, …
I sometimes see people post the covers of the translated versions of Lord of the Rings or ASOIAF and I’m curious how these books are received in those cultures?
By that I mean that e.g. Tolkien supposedly created Middle-Earth (at least in part) as a creation myth of the UK. This is probably part of the reason why concepts involved in his Legendarium are adapted or borrowed or similar from/to European medieval concepts.
Therefore I would find it interesting to hear about the reception in other cultures, e.g. Japan.
Since Japanese history and culture are different from “Western” culture (not that there’s ONE Western culture, but they’re at least similar enough to be able to translate fiction back and forth and one be able to understand the general cultural context from which the book arose).
I know that in Japan there are plenty of Anime and Manga which are SFF, and I know that there is Japanese literature some of which gets translated, such as Murakami, …
I love Stephenson, and got hooked with Snow Crash. Anathem was always said to be his opus, and over the span of maybe three years, I tried to read it at least 3x, but never got deeper than 50 pages. When I finally picked it up the fourth time, everything clicked, and it’s now one of my absolute favorite books.
Just yesterday, I found myself having this experience again. I’ve heard terrific things in this subreddit about Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief but I couldn’t get into it when I bought it back in 2016. I remember making a point of trying again, two separate times, while on vacation, but never being able to get more than 20-30 pages into the book. On a whim, I picked it up yesterday, and started reading again… and, it’s fantastic. I’m 40% of the way through the book and I honestly can’t imagine not loving this book from the first second.
Are there any books you love, that you couldn’t get through the first time you tried to read it?
Edit: You are all AWESOME! Thank you for …
I want to read a book that is set in far future and so far away in the universe that characters are so far away and earth doesn’t play any role in the books
I read Waystation and really loved it. Everyone sad to read city next. What an amazing book. It reminded me of the Martian Chronicles for several reasons. First, the story structure was similar. Second, and more importantly, the book is very powerful. Just like the Martian Chronicles, emotionally powerful, and it really sets a very specific mood. He really lays it on thick at the end, with the alternate universe is missing humans, and ancient mutants. It’s a sort of melancholy pastoral vibe. I think that’s what he was going for. The mood of the thing is almost as powerful as the plot of it. Anyway I really enjoyed it. I don’t know if I’ll ever read it again, but he sure does know how to hone in on an eerie depressive vibe, and hammer it home.
This is just a friendly chat, no need to get hateful. In my opinion, “28 Days Later”, is the best zombie movie in cinema history. The characters, the acting, the way it was shot, all amazing. I know there are some great zombie/infected movies out there Cough Train To Busan Cough, but I feel they all fall short of “28 Days Later”. If your opinion differs, feel free to explain why and let us know what your favorite zombie flick is.