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Gaius Marius posted:Journey to the West Gilgamesh
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Jan 6, 2023 21:09
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Gilgamesh gesundheit
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Jan 6, 2023 21:12
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Gilgamesh edit: looked it up, both are predated by a single Sumerian tablet DACK FAYDEN fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Jan 6, 2023 |
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Jan 6, 2023 21:18
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Atra-Hasis is the oldest we have, right? Yeah I thought of that, but I wasn't sure if creation myths should count. It's sort of a "Silmarillion vs Lord of the Rings" situation.
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Jan 6, 2023 22:14
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pseudorandom name posted:In the good old days this kind of drama would be safely contained to a single coffee shop or bar and the wider world would never hear anything of it. is faking your death for business reasons really that common? it's a really audacious act and will probably lead to several lawsuits, so I think it'd be newsworthy no matter the era. really the only problem here specifically is that it has nothing to do with sf/f because she only writes romance --- for on topic content: Finished Thomas Covenant, and I really, really liked it. It has loads of problems, but it was compelling and fantastical in all the right ways. I absolutely loved the Land, and all the characters were interesting and weird and contrasted perfectly with Covenant. I also have a feeling this series was influential to Richard Garriot when he created Ultima. There are a lot of similarities, both superficially and thematically The rape was the obvious low point, and you need a high tolerance for fail protagonists. Some of the prose is just... woof, really bad at times. It goes for an archaic feel ala Tolkien, but without any of the grace or skill, so you have passages like "For an instant, the company stared at him in silence. Then Mohram ejaculated, "<Town> is in flames!" Come on, man. yet it was worth persevering through. Think I'll at least wrap up the first trilogy at least
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Jan 6, 2023 23:06
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I finished reading Death Troopers. It's a fun time. Like if a Resident Evil game took place on a Star Destroyer. I am unfortunately now gaining an interest in reading more old EU novels now.
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Jan 7, 2023 00:47
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If you haven't read Wraith Squadron yet....
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Jan 7, 2023 02:02
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If you want to dip into the Clone Wars era books, Shatterpoint is kind of the gold standard. I remember really liking the Medstar duology, basically just MASH in Space.
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Jan 7, 2023 02:08
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Patrick Spens posted:If you haven't read Wraith Squadron yet.... Are these considered good? I certainly enjoyed them as a teen but I've never dared go back.
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Jan 7, 2023 02:18
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WarpDogs posted:is faking your death for business reasons really that common? it's a really audacious act and will probably lead to several lawsuits, so I think it'd be newsworthy no matter the era. really the only problem here specifically is that it has nothing to do with sf/f because she only writes romance LFB is iirc the weakest for writing, and I think the first trilogy gets better as it progresses though the final resolution is, hm, interesting.
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Jan 7, 2023 02:22
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Harold Fjord posted:Are these considered good? I certainly enjoyed them as a teen but I've never dared go back. They've certainly aged better than other teenage favorites of mine. They're nothing groundbreaking but they're solid little military adventures with an interesting cast of characters, and its quite nice that they take places on the fringes of Star Wars so you don't have a bunch of characters that you absolutely know aren't going to die sucking all the tension out of things. Like I haven't polled anyone but my impression is that they're some of the more well regarded Star Wars novels.
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Jan 7, 2023 02:32
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Roth posted:I finished reading Death Troopers. As recommended, Wraith Squadron is very good. Hell, I think even the Rogue Squadron books were at least decent. Generally the further into the EU timeline you get the more Force Users are a thing. If that's your bag, then good, because that bag is going to get bigger and bigger as time goes on. If that's not your bag, I'd suggest reading Rogue, Wraith and maybe the original Thrawn trilogy and then maybe bugging out at that point. Or at least maybe skip to the Vong war. I won't say the whole thing is all great, but it's a full-on galaxy-wide actual loving war involving a genuinely alien power, so at least it's not yet another repeat of Jedi vs. Sith again.
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Jan 7, 2023 02:38
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Leng posted:The Sword of Kaigen by M.L. Wang - $0.99 Reporting back. Nigmaetcetera posted:Anybody know of any fantasy books with middle-aged or senior protagonists? I’m tired of opening up new (to me) books and chapter 1 begins with “In the middle of his 17th year, at the start of the harvest festival,” or something like that. Extra points if they’re nobodies and not heroic in the traditional sense The Sword of Kaigen would fit. It starts off with a typical teenaged protagonist going to school butting heads with a new transfer student and sets him up to be the hero leading a rebellion against the government's propaganda machine but the book is actually about his mom, who gave up her life of crime fighting to become a housewife after an arranged marriage, dealing with her cold, abusive husband and the aftermath and loss suffered due to war intruding upon their quiet village life. Some reviews complain about the book having the climax at the midpoint but that's if you don't understand that Misaki is the real protagonist, not Mamoru. The big battle is the midpoint and the climax is a pretty epic 1-v-1 duel. It's a 3/5 read for me. I finished. I do not feel compelled to read any other works by the author. There were some very well written emotional moments that had me tearing up. The fight scenes are pretty great. But there are some glaring flaws too. Giant exposition dumps happen. Early on we are forced to sit in on a history class where the teenaged protagonist zones out because the lecture is so boring because it's literally bullet points of dates and historical events delivered in dialogue. For PAGES. Prose is inconsistent. There are some great lines and some rough sections that are horribly clunky and/or on the nose. Italicizing all speech in a certain language was a formatting choice that made it hard to read some sections. The inconsistency in how in-world terms are sometimes used and sometimes not also drove me crazy. Also how sometimes stuff is translated/expressed as English and sometimes not, even when the character understands said language. Pacing is slow and repetitive in the first half and a lot of scenes are longer than they need to be. One particular relationship arc was pretty rushed. There's an odd structural/tonal choice made to include a bunch of flashbacks which imo are unnecessary and don't fit with the rest of the story. It's a ~650 pages standalone prequel to an earlier written series that's since been discontinued and the ending is way too dragged out for the sake of bringing in a bunch of cameos. ~100-150 pages could easily have been cut without changing the essence of the story. Every time Mandarin and Japanese popped up it broke my immersion a little but subsequent googling revealed that this is intentional. It's supposed to be an alt universe fantasy world where everything about our reality is inverted and it's a West African centric world instead. The map is literally our world map flipped upside down with south on the top. So okay, I understand the authorial reason for including real world languages. Overall, there's a good story in there and it's the kind of story I would love too but it's not as polished as I expect it to be given all of the hype and kudos it gets in indie reader circles and for winning the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-off contest back in 2019. It could be, if it had had another solid pass in revisions, but imo it's not there yet. It was originally written as a newsletter serial and in the version of the ebook that I read, it still feels very much like it. But hey, more than 2500 people paid nearly $225k to back the limited edition Kickstarter which ended up being the 9th most funded fiction project of all time so it's clearly working well and found an audience. Finally in terms of pure enjoyment I liked The Sword of Kaigen way more than say, The Poppy War, flaws and all.
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Jan 7, 2023 12:34
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StrixNebulosa posted:Most influential fantasy novel that isn’t by Tolkien, go!
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Jan 7, 2023 14:55
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:Same question, but for novels that post-date his books! Tea for the Black Dragon and War for the Oaks, for creating the urban fantasy genre. Or maybe The Eye of the World, for proving there was a market for series of massive doorstopper books.
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Jan 7, 2023 15:53
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Anyone read anything by Ruthanna Emrys? I’m looking at her recent A Half-Built Garden.
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Jan 7, 2023 16:38
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General Battuta posted:D...racula? Or maybe Frankenstein? Except Frankenstein is science fiction, notionally... frankenstein is fantasy because it takes place in the past
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Jan 7, 2023 16:49
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FPyat posted:Anyone read anything by Ruthanna Emrys? I’m looking at her recent A Half-Built Garden.
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Jan 7, 2023 17:25
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FPyat posted:Anyone read anything by Ruthanna Emrys? I’m looking at her recent A Half-Built Garden. I really enjoyed parts of it, but just kind of trailed off at the end and still haven't finished it. I love stories with near-future societies dealing with climate change poo poo and I also love alien culture stuff and it did hit those interests for me. I thought the corporate culture and gender stuff was cool and interesting to think about. The characters were just kind of fine, I only got really interested in Adrien and we don't spend enough time with them to keep me super invested. I think that's why I didn't finish and moved on to other books. I think it's worth a read if you like first contact stories.
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Jan 7, 2023 19:09
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WarpDogs posted:
If you've come this far, read the second trilogy. It's set a long time and many disasters after the first one. I found it to be a very enjoyable post-apocalyptic look at that world.
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Jan 7, 2023 19:15
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FPyat posted:Anyone read anything by Ruthanna Emrys? I’m looking at her recent A Half-Built Garden. I liked it. The only tasteful threesome involving an alien I think I've ever read and may ever read.
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Jan 7, 2023 20:15
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Copernic posted:frankenstein is fantasy because it takes place in the past
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Jan 7, 2023 20:21
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did it take place in the past when it was written though
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Jan 7, 2023 20:29
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I just finished Lathe of Heaven after reading The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness. I really liked it just like the others. Any other books from her that are similar? I don't think I would be into her YA fiction.
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Jan 8, 2023 00:09
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err posted:I just finished Lathe of Heaven after reading The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness. I really liked it just like the others. You probably would be! It's all good.
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Jan 8, 2023 00:33
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err posted:I just finished Lathe of Heaven after reading The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness. I really liked it just like the others. if you haven't read The Word For World Is Forest, it's like novella-length and it's not particularly groundbreaking but it's a good read also my favorite LeGuin fact is that she and Philip K. Dick went to the same high school at the same time (they were a year apart) but did not meet
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Jan 8, 2023 00:34
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err posted:I just finished Lathe of Heaven after reading The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness. I really liked it just like the others. If you haven't read Earthsea just because it's YA but you like Le Guin, you should give it a try. You also might want to look into her other Hainish Cycle novels and stories.
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Jan 8, 2023 00:41
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I always get word for world mixed up with the half of speaker for the dead I read
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Jan 8, 2023 00:48
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My recommendation that's not quite what you asked for but possibly something you'd enjoy is Kalpa Imperial, which wasn't written by Le Guin but was translated into English by her. https://www.ursulakleguin.com/kalpa-imperial posted:In eleven chapters, Kalpa Imperial's multiple storytellers relate the story of a fabled nameless empire which has risen and fallen innumerable times. Fairy tales, oral histories, and political commentaries are all woven tapestry-style into Kalpa Imperial: beggars become emperors, democracies become dictatorships, and history becomes legends and stories.
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Jan 8, 2023 00:55
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Harold Fjord posted:I always get word for world mixed up with the half of speaker for the dead I read
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Jan 8, 2023 00:57
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pradmer posted:The Pariah (Covenant of Steel #1) by Anthony Ryan - $2.99 There's nothing groundbreaking or anything about it, it's just got a good set of characters, it's well-written, and does a decent job of moving the plot along. Lotta murder though. pradmer posted:Prince of Fools (Red Queen's War #1) by Mark Lawrence - $1.99
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Jan 8, 2023 00:57
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cptn_dr posted:My recommendation that's not quite what you asked for but possibly something you'd enjoy is Kalpa Imperial, which wasn't written by Le Guin but was translated into English by her. This sounds cool as gently caress
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Jan 8, 2023 01:28
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StrixNebulosa posted:Most influential fantasy novel that isn’t by Tolkien, go! Did anyone answer "the bible" yet?
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Jan 8, 2023 01:52
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branedotorg posted:It's still going, or at least is still used as a 'darkness signifier' Jonathan Maberry is currently writing a fantasy meets Lovecraft series and there are many off screenish depictions of rapes and child murders as some poorly plotted evil soldiers simultaneously conquer a whole continent overnight There's some dark stuff in Maberry's Joe Ledger and Pine Deep books but it doesn't really approach what's been in the Kagen book so far. I don't know what it is about fantasy that gets some authors thinking they have to include the nastiest poo poo they can imagine or the work won't be taken "seriously." The worst I ever read came from James Rollins, who does the Sigma Force series. In the first book of his Godslayer series he had, IIRC, a couple of scenes involving the brutal rape of a young (13ish) teenage girl. He's doing another fantasy series, but I'm not touching it because I don't trust him not to take another poo poo in my brain. And yet there's nothing even close to that in the Sigma books or his other non-fantasy works.
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Jan 8, 2023 02:15
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cant cook creole bream posted:Did anyone answer "the bible" yet? I was going to but I figured someone else had it covered.
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Jan 8, 2023 03:18
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Everyone posted:There's some dark stuff in Maberry's Joe Ledger and Pine Deep books but it doesn't really approach what's been in the Kagen book so far. I don't know what it is about fantasy that gets some authors thinking they have to include the nastiest poo poo they can imagine or the work won't be taken "seriously." It was pointlessly gratuitous for me on top of writing I didn't particularly enjoy. I recently read the JV Jones 'Sword of shadows' books, that's great 'grim' writing
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Jan 8, 2023 04:03
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Danhenge posted:I liked it. The only tasteful threesome involving an alien I think I've ever read and may ever read. Have you heard the good word of Octavia Butler? err posted:I just finished Lathe of Heaven after reading The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness. I really liked it just like the others. Hell, are there even many SFF books from other authors (let alone just Le Guin) that are similar to The Dispossessed or LHOD, with that level of timely social commentary and a gripping plot with compelling characters but minimal violence. Parts of the Culture novels qualify but mostly fail on the last point. Becky Chambers is not so much on the, ah, gripping plot aspect.
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Jan 8, 2023 04:18
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err posted:I just finished Lathe of Heaven after reading The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness. I really liked it just like the others. Lavinia is really good.
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Jan 8, 2023 04:33
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eXXon posted:Have you heard the good word of Octavia Butler? Yeah, I guess, but unlike Xenogenesis nobody has had their biology altered.
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Jan 8, 2023 05:15
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err posted:I just finished Lathe of Heaven after reading The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness. I really liked it just like the others. I don't think she ever really wrote 'YA fiction', just books that you could give to a kid as well as to an adult. Like they don't have anyone accidentally cumming on their dinner hosts or whatever, or getting shot to death by border guards. But they're still beautiful and thought-provoking. Actually there is a bit in one of the Earthsea short stories about a wizard who thinks mercury is moon semen.
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Jan 8, 2023 05:33
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