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can yall help me find some fantasy that's driven by extremely good prose, to read? like botns, or anything ursula le quin wrote. authors who really savor the written word. been reading fafhrd and the grey mouser and in between all the goofy dialogue and bizarre fights there's some pretty beautiful writing
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Feb 3, 2022 11:18
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:can yall help me find some fantasy that's driven by extremely good prose, to read? like botns, or anything ursula le quin wrote. authors who really savor the written word. been reading fafhrd and the grey mouser and in between all the goofy dialogue and bizarre fights there's some pretty beautiful writing
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Feb 3, 2022 11:28
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oh yeah i gotta finish titus groan. that book absolutely rules also ive had manly wade wellman's john the balladeer sitting at 2% read because i usually read before bed and his writing gets me way too excited to go to sleep
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Feb 3, 2022 11:30
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:can yall help me find some fantasy that's driven by extremely good prose, to read? like botns, or anything ursula le quin wrote. authors who really savor the written word. been reading fafhrd and the grey mouser and in between all the goofy dialogue and bizarre fights there's some pretty beautiful writing Look at Starbook by Ben Okri. I also really like the Lyonesse books by Jack Vance.
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Feb 3, 2022 12:11
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:can yall help me find some fantasy that's driven by extremely good prose, to read? like botns, or anything ursula le quin wrote. authors who really savor the written word. been reading fafhrd and the grey mouser and in between all the goofy dialogue and bizarre fights there's some pretty beautiful writing 100% check out Patricia McKillip John Crowley, John M Ford, Lord Dunsany, Jack Vance, Samuel R Delaney, Jeffery Ford, Zelany on a good day, Avram Davidson, R. A. Lafferty, Peter S. Beagle fez_machine fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 12:43
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:can yall help me find some fantasy that's driven by extremely good prose, to read? like botns, or anything ursula le quin wrote. authors who really savor the written word. been reading fafhrd and the grey mouser and in between all the goofy dialogue and bizarre fights there's some pretty beautiful writing Lord Dunsany was a huge influence on Le Guin. Start here https://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/dun/swld/swld09.htm
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Feb 3, 2022 13:16
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:can yall help me find some fantasy that's driven by extremely good prose, to read? like botns, or anything ursula le quin wrote. authors who really savor the written word. been reading fafhrd and the grey mouser and in between all the goofy dialogue and bizarre fights there's some pretty beautiful writing Guy Gavriel Kay's books if you don't mind them being extremely light touch on the typical fantasy elements (magic etc.)
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Feb 3, 2022 14:53
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:can yall help me find some fantasy that's driven by extremely good prose, to read? like botns, or anything ursula le quin wrote. authors who really savor the written word. been reading fafhrd and the grey mouser and in between all the goofy dialogue and bizarre fights there's some pretty beautiful writing The Scar by China Mieville
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Feb 3, 2022 15:01
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In addition to what others posted, Susanna Clarke.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:09
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ToxicFrog posted:Melissa Scott returned to the Astreiant setting after a more-than-a-decade gap following the death of her wife and co-author and reportedly those are pretty good, although they're still on my to-read list. Can confirm, they're pretty good.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:51
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:oh yeah i gotta finish titus groan. that book absolutely rules Yeah, Wellman's stuff is a lot of fun. To add to the pile of recommendations already built up: James Branch Cabell and, of course, Tanith Lee.
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Feb 3, 2022 15:54
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Eason the Fifth posted:Hey, they picked up the Riftwar for the next fantasy series to televise. It could work. A single story using the Riftwar and Empire trilogies should be interesting because jumping between Pug and Mara for stuff on Kelewan will flesh out a lot of things better for a TV show. Plus the people behind this will probably go hard on the Kelewan game of the council stuff to try and rope in GoT fans. The Serpentwar would make for a more interesting show... right up until the very end which makes a hard turn into "here's something Feist is really bad at." Granted, the first book in Serpentwar is a pretty shameless ripoff of The Dirty Dozen which is probably why it's good. Sailor Viy posted:They won't have the SFX budget to do this justice. All the coolest scenes I can remember from these books are like, a wizard hurling meteors at 50 dragons or something. I look forward to the really bad SFX for stuff like the Tower of Trials and City Forever.
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Feb 3, 2022 16:08
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Sailor Viy posted:They won't have the SFX budget to do this justice. All the coolest scenes I can remember from these books are like, a wizard hurling meteors at 50 dragons or something. Nah, the cool bits are all to do with assassins and politics and Japanese planewalkers loving poo poo up. Also the tie in game (Betrayal at Krondor) had the best music outside the HOMM series, seriously, it owns.
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Feb 3, 2022 16:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Lord Dunsany was a huge influence on Le Guin. Start here This owns, because the crew are basically a demanding RP dnd group: “I dreamed I met a captain and his crew, and they asked where I was from, and I said ‘Dublin, in Europe’ and they laughed at me and said ‘get lost, nerd, that’s too boring’ so I said ‘actually I’m from the lower slopes of the endless mountain of high chermaigne’ and they said ‘yeah, that’s what we’re talking about, come share our mead and vittles.”
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Feb 3, 2022 16:35
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Evil Fluffy posted:It could work. A single story using the Riftwar and Empire trilogies should be interesting because jumping between Pug and Mara for stuff on Kelewan will flesh out a lot of things better for a TV show. Plus the people behind this will probably go hard on the Kelewan game of the council stuff to try and rope in GoT fans. Shadow of a dark queen is imo the best of Feist's stuff. Magician through a darkness at sethanon is incredibly derivative if very readable, but the first few books of the serpentwar really showed a darker and different side of Midkemia. Plus Feist cleaned house in that series, putting Martin to shame with all the characters he killed off. He really phoned it it with shards of a broken crown, though, and I haven't read anything since. All that said, the riftwar and serpentwar were faves growing up in the 90s, and I hope they do better job with it than the Witcher or the wheel of time or (lol) the sword of truth. Eason the Fifth fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Feb 3, 2022 |
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Feb 3, 2022 16:55
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Quitting at that point was smart, because the end of shards of broken crown is just the beginning of Feist writing more stuff of that nature and he never, ever got better at it. His consistency of in-universe stuff got worse too since in later books he wrote thinks like Erik commenting on staying single and never getting married which coupled with the writing quality drop, makes it sure look like he was already wanting to be done with the series.
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Feb 3, 2022 17:34
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Larry Parrish posted:I'm pretty sure galaxy's edge is derivative on purpose but maybe I'm wrong because there's like 25 short novellas and they've been rearranged a few times. I liked it better when it was less not-jedi and more vivid descriptions of Tax Day being a literal invasion fleet where the feds come and loot it off of your planet, because there was a bunch of goofy poo poo like that and it was funny. I can't remember if I had a break betwen the first and the second/third that I read together - but it seemed to go from generic marines in space book to a completely other universe and it made no sense whatsoever.
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Feb 3, 2022 20:16
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Carrier posted:Guy Gavriel Kay's books if you don't mind them being extremely light touch on the typical fantasy elements (magic etc.) I have to say, I'm currently listening to Tigana because it's been recommended here a few times, and I'm not really enjoying it much. I have about six hours to go and so far it feels to me like something that probably seemed progressive in the 90s but isn't really holding up for me now.
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Feb 3, 2022 21:22
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:can yall help me find some fantasy that's driven by extremely good prose, to read? like botns, or anything ursula le quin wrote. authors who really savor the written word. been reading fafhrd and the grey mouser and in between all the goofy dialogue and bizarre fights there's some pretty beautiful writing I like Bujold's Five Gods series for being well-written. The Curse of Chalion is the best starting point. LeGuin is also really good with words, start anywhere.
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Feb 3, 2022 21:56
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Oh Doris Lessing too! Try Mara and Dann.
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Feb 3, 2022 21:59
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:can yall help me find some fantasy that's driven by extremely good prose, to read? like botns, or anything ursula le quin wrote. authors who really savor the written word. been reading fafhrd and the grey mouser and in between all the goofy dialogue and bizarre fights there's some pretty beautiful writing I'd recommend The Adventures of Alyx by Joanna Russ (sort of like a feminist rejoinder to Fafhrd & Grey Mouser, with strange stream-of-consciousness prose) or A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny (minimalist, almost Hemingway-esque prose, the story is told from the POV of Jack the Ripper's dog. it also has an extended homage to Dunsany)
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Feb 3, 2022 22:16
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The Forever War by Joe Haldeman - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PI184XG/ Seveneves by Neal Stephenson - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LZWV8JO/
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Feb 3, 2022 23:39
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The Sweet Hereafter posted:I have to say, I'm currently listening to Tigana because it's been recommended here a few times, and I'm not really enjoying it much. I have about six hours to go and so far it feels to me like something that probably seemed progressive in the 90s but isn't really holding up for me now. I thought it was boring and that the prose was bad. You're not alone.
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Feb 4, 2022 03:47
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The Sweet Hereafter posted:I have to say, I'm currently listening to Tigana because it's been recommended here a few times, and I'm not really enjoying it much. I have about six hours to go and so far it feels to me like something that probably seemed progressive in the 90s but isn't really holding up for me now. This was my experience with it as well. For what it's worth, I didn't feel as though it improved by the end, and it turned me off to reading the rest of GGK's work.
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Feb 4, 2022 03:50
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Sailor Viy posted:A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny (minimalist, almost Hemingway-esque prose, the story is told from the POV of Jack the Ripper's dog. it also has an extended homage to Dunsany) masterpiece. i read it once a year--i actually get kind of mad everytime i finish it that there aren't more books like it. the low-key intrigue and interplay between all the familiars is so, so good
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Feb 4, 2022 03:50
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:can yall help me find some fantasy that's driven by extremely good prose, to read? like botns, or anything ursula le quin wrote. authors who really savor the written word. been reading fafhrd and the grey mouser and in between all the goofy dialogue and bizarre fights there's some pretty beautiful writing Lots of good recommendations here, and I'll second anything by Susanna Clarke, Dunsany, and M John Harrison. Also: The Once and Future King by T. H. White. Le Guin and Wolfe are masters of the written word and their prose is quietly beautiful; White savors the English language like they do, and has that same interest in the human heart, only executed differently. The Once and Future King is a masterpiece. If you're good with the excellent prose also being deliberately florid and sometimes sexy in the way that folklore and mythology can be, Tanith Lee's Night's Master is your ticket. Her Tales from the Flat Earth series is like the mythology of a culture that never existed, with each volume being a series of short stories that all weave together despite starting off seeming separate. Also the titular Night's Master is queer as gently caress and it rules, especially considering it was written in the late 70s. Edit: Actually, writing about Night's Master made me wonder - are there any other decently written queer men in fantasy / SF? We have a fair number of bisexual and lesbian women in genre fiction, especially these days, but I struggle to think of queer men who aren't lovely stereotypes, let alone queer male relationships. Kestral fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Feb 4, 2022 |
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Feb 4, 2022 03:52
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Kestral posted:Actually, writing about Night's Master made me wonder - are there any other decently written queer men in fantasy / SF? We have a fair number of bisexual and lesbian women in genre fiction, especially these days, but I struggle to think of queer men who aren't lovely stereotypes, let alone queer male relationships. There's not a lot of it! Especially queer men/male relationships written by queer men. Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders by Samuel R Delany is about a very stable loving queer relationship between two men even though it explores some dark aspects of queer sexuality. Neveryon makes its Conan style character a gay man in a relationship. Dhalgren and Triton also feature homosexual relationships. Thomas M. Disch's On Wings Of Song is great but unfortunately its queerness is largely allegorical. 334 is a collection of stories but does feature queer relationships more prominently. Both of the above writers are pretty entrenched in the 70s as well. I did a quick google search to see if there were more and this article came up: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/where-are-all-the-queer-men-in-sci-fi/ and this wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_themes_in_speculative_fiction which does mention Geoff Ryman who I haven't read much of. fez_machine fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Feb 4, 2022 |
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Feb 4, 2022 05:02
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I find that queer men think the genre is overrun with lesbians and queer women think the genre is overrun by gays. John Chu, Sam Miller, Kai Ashante Wilson, TJ Klune and Yoon Ha Lee are all men writing queer men.
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Feb 4, 2022 05:42
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fez_machine posted:100% check out Patricia McKillip
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Feb 4, 2022 07:31
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Sailor Viy posted:I'd recommend The Adventures of Alyx by Joanna Russ (sort of like a feminist rejoinder to Fafhrd & Grey Mouser, with strange stream-of-consciousness prose) Thanks, this sounds great (I'm also working through the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser omnibus) and they even cross reference each other but I'll have to put this as a thrift store wish as the paperbacks are way too much on Amazon/Abe books (except maybe one mysteriously only $20, hmmm...) and no ebook option. Tars Tarkas fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Feb 4, 2022 |
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Feb 4, 2022 07:57
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BananaNutkins posted:I thought it was boring and that the prose was bad. You're not alone. Kestral posted:This was my experience with it as well. For what it's worth, I didn't feel as though it improved by the end, and it turned me off to reading the rest of GGK's work. Yeah this is pretty much where I'm at with it. A lot of long-winded rambling, a lot of irritating coincidences, a lot of 'young man having to fend off the unwanted attentions of men' at the start, followed by same young man consistently referring to a particular sex scene as 'making love' long after he's learned the woman in question didn't really want to have sex with him, an openly gay character who pretends to be flamboyant to fool people into not taking him seriously, and who then dies early in the novel, and the bit where the prince literally enslaves a wizard and then spends the rest of the chapter (and several other parts of the book) telling the wizard that enslaving him was the right thing to do and he should understand and accept that. I suspect by the end the wizard is going to agree, too. I really hope I'm wrong. And that's without going into how uncomfortable I feel about the main female viewpoint character being a kidnapped sex slave who wants to kill the tyrant but has also fallen in love with him, and her totally unnecessary incest background story with one of the other main characters. e: Can't believe I forgot to mention the guy who fakes his own death and then appears to spend the entire rest of the book in something like blackface as a disguise. The Sweet Hereafter fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Feb 4, 2022 |
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Feb 4, 2022 09:23
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BurningBeard posted:Finished The Book of Strange New Things by Faber, again.
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Feb 4, 2022 19:43
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Trying to think of a book I read over 10 years ago. It was scifi, had eco-terrorism, cybernetics were becoming a thing in society but their was a group of people who wanted to stay organic and not have parts. And the lead was a female scientist who had or made an AI that was like a creature in the system that fought other AI creatures. I think the AI and the discrimination toward organic vs cybernetic were the main things that stuck out. The book would be from the 90s, maybe 80s. goodness fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Feb 4, 2022 |
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Feb 4, 2022 20:34
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Tars Tarkas posted:Thanks, this sounds great (I'm also working through the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser omnibus) and they even cross reference each other but I'll have to put this as a thrift store wish as the paperbacks are way too much on Amazon/Abe books (except maybe one mysteriously only $20, hmmm...) and no ebook option. Yeah in one of the Alyx stories it says she had a fling with "a huge red-headed barbarian". Are there references to Alyx in the Fafhrd stories too?
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Feb 4, 2022 20:56
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Kestral posted:This was my experience with it as well. For what it's worth, I didn't feel as though it improved by the end, and it turned me off to reading the rest of GGK's work. GGK is a mediocre writer doing an impression of a Great Writer. His books are all overwrought and boring. Imo
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Feb 4, 2022 21:04
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goodness posted:Trying to think of a book I read over 10 years ago. It was scifi, had eco-terrorism, cybernetics were becoming a thing in society but their was a group of people who wanted to stay organic and not have parts. And the lead was a female scientist who had or made an AI that was like a creature in the system that fought other AI creatures. I think the AI and the discrimination toward organic vs cybernetic were the main things that stuck out. thought you might be talking about the fortunate fall but i think the lead was a female journalist and not a scientist? cool book though https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/031286034X
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Feb 4, 2022 21:11
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A Carly Rae Jihad posted:GGK is a mediocre writer doing an impression of a Great Writer genre is mostly bad writers doing an impression of mediocre writers
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Feb 4, 2022 21:13
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yeah i hate it when books have genres. and don't even talk to me about themes or motifs!
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Feb 4, 2022 21:24
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I just finished The 15 Lives of Harry August and really liked it! The voice of the narrator is distinctive and compelling, and I was totally absorbed by the love/hate story at the center of the whole thing (but I wish they had kissed). Has anyone read There Is No Antimemetics Division? A friend recommended it to me with the caveat that the writing was kinda amateurish, but that the story + ideas would be strong enough to carry it. AND SHE WAS RIGHT! On all counts! The writing [i]is/i] amateurish, and the ideas did carry it! I guess it’s drawn from/based on some sort of shared fiction wiki (which really made me not want to read it)? It details the exploits of an organization tasked with containing ideas that don’t want to be remembered and has lots of good and weird horror vibes. It’s kinda like a low budget Annihilation if Jeff Vandermeer were less into fungus and more into predatory ideas. It actually gets at some of the same stuff that the best PKD books do where reality gaslights the characters and the horror of it comes through in the writing. Fun stuff.
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Feb 4, 2022 21:27
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buffalo all day posted:genre is mostly bad writers doing an impression of mediocre writers It’s been a while since I tried to read him, but what I remember was a lot of mediocre purple prose in service of a story I just didn’t care about.
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Feb 4, 2022 21:30
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