I am reading Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn (Era 1). One thing that really annoys me about it is that the world is eerily devoid of animals.
If a fantasy story is set in a world that’s almost like ours, this isn’t much of a problem. A Song of Ice and Fire, for example, is “realistic” enough that I can safely assume there are rats, crows, spiders and tardigrades without having them explicitly pointed out. (And Martin does mention a lot of animals anyway.)
Mistborn is set in a dystopian hellscape where the sun is red and ash falls from the sky. It is not at all clear to the reader what the local fauna is like. And it’s virtually never mentioned. In the whole first book, the only normal animals that physically appear are domestic horses. And I think maybe rats were mentioned in a figure-of-speech, but we didn’t see an actual rat. Now I’m nearing the end of book 3. We’ve seen dogs and goats, and I have gleaned from circumstantial …
I’ll start things off with one of mine: To this day I still cannot read Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series because, on the day that I decided to read Assassin’s Apprentice, I ordered a copy of “Farseer Book 1” from Amazon and got sent a copy of this instead - so now whenever I try to read Assassin’s Apprentice proper I cannot help but imagine Fitz as a dinosaur and it completely ruins the mood and tone of the book for me.
What stupid personal reasons do you have for not being able to read some books or series?
This isn’t meant to be a hate thread. Just wanted to share how my experience reading this book again changed so much as an adult. Kid Kvothe was easy to connect to, but now as an adult I could actually see how immature he really is.
I read both books a decade ago as a teenager and I’m surprised by how different it is reading as an adult. I remember thinking Kvothe was this amazing character and that he always got the short end of things. Like it was him against this awful world.
But reading it now as an adult (and having already read the sequel before), I realized that Kvothe is really his own worst enemy. His arrogance is his own undoing over and over again. He always pushes a bit too much or thinks too highly of himself and it comes back to bite him.
My first read I really sympathized with everything he went through, but now I see how immature he really was. Honestly it was to the point that I found him unlikeable. I kept bouncing between sympathy and frustration. As …
I met someone a few years ago who was named Lando. He seemed not to mind it. What is your take on naming your kids after your favorite characters?
My dad doesn’t believe that fiction has any value (period.). It’s not just that he prefers non-fiction– he gets mad at Greek mythology because it is “full of nonsense creatures not based on biology.” He dislikes the Orient Express because none of the events actually happened.
And it’s not just novels: he hates anything written which is not firmly grounded in reality (Just for example: refused to finish reading the satire “A Modest Proposal” because it’s “nonsense” and “could never work in real life”). Like, I’m sure the guy would hate the Declaration of Independence if he wasn’t such a die-hard patriot.
He also doesn’t recognize writing as a valid art form. He doesn’t think it takes any particular skill, that authors only have to “talk out of their ass,” make the prose flowery and unnecessarily complicated (I tried to explain what imagery was to him once, and he cited the …
I’ve read the whole Langdon series and his other two stand-alone novels. Even though he writes it to the point to keep us engaging it is very predictable and clichéd if you’ve read his past novels. I will just focus on the RL series.
1) Robert Langdon gets into shit.
2) Shit always has some religious/cult thing associated with it.
3) Somehow finds himself a female sidekick.
4) Gets into some kind of claustrophobic situation.
5) The twists are always that someone/something (can A.Is be considered as “someone”?) ends up being the villain.
It just keeps repeating and repeating with different premises and different characters with the exclusion of Robert Langdon.
He gotta try something new.
Edit: I tried replying to all the comments and it keeps coming up and I can’t seem to catch up. I apologize if I don’t reply to your comments. Thank you everyone:)
Edit (5) The twists are always that someone/something (can A.Is be considered as “someone”?) who he knows well or is close ends up …
I am an avid reader. I typically consume 5 books per week. From the age of 10 - early 20’s, I loved Stephen King. So I’m familiar with excessively long, wordy books. But omg, I think LOTR may be my undoing. I was never interested in these types of books in the past. Although, I adore the movies and similar movies. While I appreciate the effort, I’m left wondering if I really need to know all these people’s songs, poems, etc. Are they even going to be relevant at all? Please tell me there is someone else that has struggled with this. And tell me there is a point to this excess information. It’s taken me all week to slog through 60% of The Fellowship of the Ring. Can anyone relate to my struggle?
Edit: Thank you so much for all the tips and words of encouragement. I’m going to keep at it now that I realize it’s not the fast paced adventure I was expecting. And I’ll stop pressuring myself to finish them all if it becomes tiresome. Thank …
I’ve read a fair amount of speculative fiction but Le Guin always remained a blind spot for me. I decided to finally give her a go and holy shit I was not prepared for how much I loved this book!
One thing I haven’t heard much as an outsider to her work was how unabashedly political this book was. As someone pretty disenchanted with modern capitalism this book touched me deeply in how unapologetic it was in critiquing the materialism that pervades basically everything we do in our current society.
Overall I just found myself “seen” by this book in a way I don’t think I’ve felt since I was young. What an absolute treasure Le Guin was, I’m definitely one of the converted now.
I first discovered this subreddit back in August or so, and it completely opened my mind to all the amazing Scifi (or speculative fiction) out there. Thank you all so much for contributing to the expansion of my personal universe.
Thus, I feel obligated to share my thoughts about everything I’ve read as a result of this subreddit. I will do my best to avoid spoilers, or to keep them light at least.
Manifold: time - Stephen Baxter
Rating: 4⁄5
Thoughts: I was a huge fan of the narrative structure to this novel, specifically the drone trip >!through the future in the doorway early on, and then going through said doorway only to find a different result on the other side.!< The chapters with Sheena 5, the squid, were innovative and fun to read. Other elements I enjoyed were the “blue” children (especially the parts with the neutrinos) and the method of sending information back in time.
Read this if: you like books exploring the Fermi paradox, time …
You are setting the curriculum for a crash course of one year to introduce new SciFi readers to the genre, and specifically the modern SciFi genre. When the student finishes your recommended reading list, they should have an idea of the major works / authors in SciFi of the last 30 years, which will enable them to go deeper into a certain subgenre or author they liked.
You can include up to 12 series / books in this curriculum from works published between 1990 and 2020. Which books / series do you include in this curriculum?
I cant think of a single book (maybe seveneves, possibly Peter Hamilton but I never read his stuff) that presents a near future where human genetic engineering is common place and extremely beneficial.
It seems as if presenting the concept in a good light is taboo or something.
Personally, I am not a very hopeful person. I dont look at society, people, religion, art and politics and see a bright future. Really the only thing that gives me that deep, unnerving feeling of hope for the future is genetic engineering. The possibility that our descendants will be able to carve out a new emotional, cognitive and material existence for the species.
I guess I just want to find some fiction that shares that hope.
My therapist keeps on saying stuff about self compassion and I keep hissing at him like a possom sitting on a pile of garbage but I figure I probably should listen to the guy at some point.
I’m in the first 50 pages and I’m hooked. Some of the technical details about the ship I don’t really care about and if I zone out over it, I don’t re read those aspects, but the plot thus far is captivating and KSR has really interesting dichotomies betwixt relationships and interesting, fun facts sprinkled throughout the book.
I originally tried to read this book in 2015 and bought a mass market version, then realized the font was too small for me to enjoy and I sold it. I realized a few years later that I actually needed glasses. Now in 2022 I’m reading the much larger hard cover version I picked up off thrift books for $5 and it’s a wild ride.
In my head canon, I cast Maya as Rashida Jones, John Boone as Owen Wilson, and Frank Chalmer as the Rock. LFG! I never used to like cast people like this until the last few months. No idea why I started doing it but it’s fun.
Anyone else read this?
After playing Terraforming Mars so much over the last few years, it’s definitely fun for …
I’m not sure how to articulate it, but all the “promised” improvements for the home cinema experience don’t interest me at all. However, I would pay money to be able to adjust the volume of the dialog, the music and the effects in a movie.
3D movies, VR, smell-o-vision, it all can wait. If I have to get one improvement, can it be the ability to change the volume of different tracks?
Video games allow it since the 90s or naughts. Why don’t movies ship with different tracks, like subtitles and audio already do, so that we can adjust each level independently?
In movie theatres, the sound is always super loud. It’s good for this situation, but when you’re watching a movie at all, you don’t always want to have it at wall-shaking levels. I would like to be able to actually hear dialog without having SFX tear my ears.