Hi r/fantasy! AMA. I will let this simmer a bit before I start answering questions around 9 am pst. Please ask me anything.

For context: I’m not a big fiction reader. I gravitate towards history, philosophy, the occasional long-form journalism piece. My friend has been pushing fantasy on me for about two years and I kept saying it wasn’t really “my thing.” Eventually we made a stupid bet over something completely unrelated and the punishment for losing was reading a book of his choice, no skipping, no summaries.

He picked The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune.

I went in fully prepared to be bored and slightly smug about it. I was going to finish it, report back that it was fine, and move on with my life and my correct opinions about fiction.

I finished it in three days. On a work week. I cried at the end, not like a single tear moment, but actually had to put the book down and sit with it for a bit. And I genuinely cannot fully explain why because on paper the plot is pretty quiet? Nothing explodes. There’s no massive battle. It’s just this slow build of a person …

Man thats a legend gone….

Someone recommended it to me saying it was peak fantasy and since then I’ve seen people online absolutely rave about it, but it was pretty clear straight away that it has no actual literary value. It just seems like a comfort read for people who don’t like saying goodbye to a universe or a set of characters, like yeah, you can read it for weeks without feeling challenged, and that’s fine, but why do people keep saying “keep reading it gets better” when IT DOES NOT GET BETTER. Maybe there is a slight improvement beyond the first chapter but the writer does not develop any kind of prose that is in any way interesting. And the fantasy setting is generic to the point where most of the creatures barely get a description beyond “it was a goblin”, “a wolf but giant and red”. Ok, I get it, all of your elements are pulled straight from well establised fantasy worlds but why not try to pull me in with some in-depth description? Frankly, …

I was talking to my girlfriend about this the other day and we both started laughing because we realized neither of us even blinks anymore when a fantasy romance reveals the love interest is like 800 years old.

But when you actually stop and think about it? A being who watched empires rise and fall, who has seen every war, every plague, every century of human stupidity - and his great love story is with a girl who just graduated college and still texts her mom when she’s sick. The power imbalance alone should be terrifying. The life experience gap is unsurmountable. He’s seen literal history happen and she’s still figuring out her skincare routine.

The one that always gets me is Rhysand and Feyre in ACOTAR. Rhys is 500+ years old and Feyre is like 19 when they meet. And we’re all just fully on board, myself absolutly included. I’ve read those books twice. But if someone described that dynamic to me without the fantasy context I’d have serious …

I want to talk about The Kingkiller Chronicle and I know this is not a new conversation but I think it’s worth having again because I genuinely believe The Name of the Wind is one of the best first books in the genre. The prose, the framing device, the way Kvothe tells his own story with this unreliable narrator energy, the University sections, Auri. All of it. I reread that book probably four times.

And then The Wise Man’s Fear exists… It’s not bad exactly, it’s just sort of… sprawling in a way that feels unearned. The Ademre sections go on forever. Kvothe becomes increasingly difficult to spend time with. The narrative momentum that made the first book feel urgent just kind of dissolves. And then it ends and we’ve been waiting for book three for over a decade with no real end in sight.

But honestly the one that dissapointed me more personally was The Stormlight Archive. First two books are some of the most ambitious fantasy I’ve …

The Trump administration is dismantling NASA’s Goddard Library and discarding decades of irreplaceable, non-digitized space and climate data despite legal protections.

​Does prioritizing “government efficiency” justify the permanent destruction of unique scientific and historical archives?

Source: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/longmont-co/daniel-simmons-12758871

I explained to my girlfriend why Dune is cool and unique, and one of the main points is the main character and his actions. Most chosen one narratives are fundamentally comforting - the special person arrives, fulfills the prophecy, saves the world, everyone goes home happy. Dune does something much more unsettling. Paul sees exactly what his “victory” will cost and follows the path anyway.

By the end of the original Dune he has essentially triggered a galactic holy war that will kill billions. He knows this. He watches himself do it. The framing isn’t “hero saves the day” - its “traumatized kid gets swallowed by forces bigger than himself and the universe becomes measurably worse as a direct result of his choices.”

What makes it genuinely uncomfortable is that Herbert never lets Paul off the hook by making him evil. He’s not a villain. He’s someone who believed in his own exceptionalism just enough to keep walking forward when he …

Please recommend me some sci-fi where aliens are truly more intelligent than humans. We’re in the 21st Century and people have not moved on from war. Are there any depictions of aliens who have risen above all that?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I genuinely can’t find a satisfying answer.

I re-read Dune last month for the third time and what keeps hitting me is how layered everything is. The ecology, the religion, the politics, the economics of spice - it all feeds into each other in a way that feels like Herbert spent decades just building the underlaying systems before writing a single page of plot. You can feel the weight of thousands of years of history in every conversation.

I’ve tried a lot of the “if you liked Dune read this” lists. Hyperion comes closest in terms of ambition and I love it, but the worldbuilding feels more like a collection of brilliant set pieces than one coherent living system. The Left Hand of Darkness has increadible cultural depth but it’s a much smaller scale. Asimov’s Foundation has the scope but honestly the world itself always felt a bit thin to me, more like a backdrop for the ideas.

The book that …

Is anyone else familiar with this book? I read it as a kid and it embedded itself in my imagination for years, so I recently went back and gave it another read.

It’s phenomenal. If you like what Adrian Tchaikovsky did with Children of Time, you’ll love what Forward did in Dragon’s Egg with his alien race called the Cheela, which are tiny creatures that are nuclear-based, not carbon, and evolved on the surface of a neutron star.

Not only that, but the neutron star going nova is also tied deeply to the evolution of life on Earth, as it kick-starts the mutations that spur simple life to evolve here.

But most of all, it’s an absolutely epic story of a race not only evolving physically and technologically, but sociologically as well, with all the evolution in beliefs that involves.

Several SF TV shows and novelists borrowed the concept for their own lesser versions of the story, including a Voyager episode thst was clearly inspired by Dragon’s Egg.

I’ve just started Project Hail Mary and I’m up to chapter 5 and I’m discovering that it’s not my cup of tea.

My big issue is that I’m struggling with the voice of the MC. I even tried the audiobook for two chapters and it made it worse..

I know I’m not the only one. I did a search in this sub and there’s some readers (a minority) who, like me, found the prose to be a bit dull and immature. Not saying he’s a bad writer, just not my taste. Not to pass judgement if you enjoy it but to me, it reads very YA, verging on pulp.

I’m close to putting it down but for those who’ve persisted, is there enough in the plot to carry the rest of the book?

Otherwise, can anyone recommend something else? I’m looking for a space adventure that doesn’t have Netflix dialogue.

I’m a novice when it comes to SF. I’ve read some of the classics and the usual suspects that are recommended here: I most enjoyed Three Body …

Hi reddit. I’m Seann William Scott. You might know from me the American Pie Franchise, Goon, Dude Where’s My Car?, Role Models, Old School, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, The Rundown, Southland Tales, The Dukes of Hazzard, Final Destination, Road Trip, Lethal Weapon, The Wrath of Becky, or other things.

Or maybe you don’t know me at all! Either way, I’m here to answer your questions, so ask me anything!

Back later today around 2-3PM ET to talk to you all.

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My upcoming film, DOLLY, is out in theaters March 6 via IFC and Shudder. It’s a horror directed by Rod Blackhurst, who’ll also be doing an AMA here the week of release.

Synopsis:

Chase and his girlfriend, Macy, take a hike in the woods when they encounter a hulking, monstrous figure who abducts Macy to raise her as his own child.

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LALT2B-Ubpk …