cptn_dr posted:

Take care, General B. Hope things look up soon.

ravenkult posted:

What's going on with B?

scary ghost dog posted:

has anyone read the witcher books....i just finished them and i thjnk the last one is the best fantasy book ive ever read.

Xtanstic posted:

Looking forward to it. Preordered in order to support and hopefully to ensure the 4th book gets published.

Xtanstic posted:

Looking forward to it. Preordered in order to support and hopefully to ensure the 4th book gets published.

Krazyface posted:

Baru 3's out in June, read all about it.

General Battuta posted:

Neither, the manuscript is final. They're just delaying the book because they think the pandemic is going to make the launch suck.

quantumfoam posted:

Then Niven got creepy with clones and eugenics, and even creepier with the Ringworld series and rishathra

quantumfoam posted:

MeerkatHero posted:

There's a new K.J. Parker novel out as of yesterday: How to Rule an Empire & Get Away with It. It's sort of a sequel to Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City.

Sadly, there is almost no way to read anything about it, even the slightest blurb, without spoilers. Then again, if you like K.J. Parker, you already pretty much know what you're getting. Here's what Publisher's Weekly thought.

I do happen to like K.J. Parker, a lot, and have wondered why I don't see his stuff promoted often or in many places.

StrixNebulosa posted:

Oh oh oh a random rec for you, I haven't read much of it but it sounds exactly like this, Irenicon by Aidan Harte.

ulmont posted:

It's more that after reading...*checks notes* 16 KJ Parker books and several novellas, while I buy them, read them, and enjoy them, I'm always waiting for the brutal twist.

darkgray posted:

This conversation reminds me of a Photoshop edit I made years and years and years ago for some old SA thread, but nobody seemed to get it back then. Maybe its time has finally come...

General Battuta posted:

Anyone have any good cosmic horror or (even better) deep space horror that's not Blindsight, Revelation Space or Ship of Fools/Unto Leviathan? Similar vibes welcome, I'm looking for a nice break from 2020.

Underwater horror that's not Rifters or The Deep (lol) also welcome.

Ben Nevis posted:

I'd always thought that's why it was called Ringworld.

McCoy Pauley posted:

Can anyone recommend any KJ Parker novels that are like the short stories in Academic Exercises related to the Studium? I really liked 16 Ways, which I presume is set in the same world as much of the rest of Parker's fantasy, since Saloninus is mentioned, but I particularly like the short stories in Academic Exercises featuring people from the Studium, which were a little different from 16 Ways. Anything else by him that directly relates to the Studium and its members?

xiw posted:

i feel you, this is my reading since someone in this thread pointed me at Prosper's Demon:

mllaneza posted:

You also left out Against A Dark Background

I forget in which, but a GSV makes a passing reference to a lazy gun in one of the later books.

AADB and Consider Phlebas are both dark, depressing, ultimately futile efforts by their protagonists, and jam packed with mind blowing set piece scenes. Sure, the hovercraft fight would be great properly filmed, but how about Horza flying the CAT out like a loving madman ? I wanna see that filmed.

HampHamp posted:

I've been working night shift for the last few months and I've been using this thread for book recommendations. So far I've read Book of the New Sun, the Quantum Thief trilogy, Between two Fires, Ninefox Gambit, Lord of Light, the first two Baru books, and I'm about to start Aurora. I've adored every single one of these books, so just wanted to say thanks!

And seconding the love for Borne, such a great, sad story.

Lily Catts posted:

Hello again, thread! Can I ask for some fantasy recommendations that's centered on an adventuring party (think D&D), but with a personal, micro focus on themselves as opposed to saving the kingdom/world? Something about not heroes but people just trying to survive (and some just fail). I've read several Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books already, but they're more epic for my tastes. Dark is fine, though not too much, I guess (Howard and Moorcock are out). Japanese light novels are fine too, but it's rather hard nowadays to find fantasy series that aren't isekai.

At the moment of typing I realized that Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash really fits what I'm looking for (even if it's technically isekai), but I'd like more if possible.

BananaNutkins posted:

Big recommendation for Fritz Leiber if somehow you've never heard of him. The only author I know of whose best stories are easily his prequels (The Snow Women, The Unholy Grail).

I wish we'd gotten a few full sized novels in Lankhmar, but what's really special about his stories now is how they're satisfying epic fantasy in short form, which is something few authors today are doing well--to my knowledge. Throw me some recs if that's not the case

GrandmaParty posted:

I'm doing a reread of Talion: Revenant by Michael J. Stackpole. It's late 80s as gently caress. Is it fantastic? No. It's not. But neither is a solid bar steak. It's fine and meaty and scratches that good itch.

Aardvark! posted:

My personal favorites of Space Opera, totally subjective and in no particular order, though Banks is my #1 all time fave

The Culture series by Iain M. Banks
Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie
Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold (this one spans all sorts of genres over time)
House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds
Machineries of Empire series by Yoon Ha Lee
Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Commonwealth Series by Peter Hamilton

Lots more I'd probably list here if I remembered

The Gunslinger posted:

I've been doing a re-read of everything David Gemmell recently and despite some product of the time elements, it's still fantastic. I really miss his writing style, he had razor sharp focus on characters, themes and elements of story telling rather than pointless minutiae or heavy layers of descriptive detail. He had that rare quality among authors to let the reader's imagination fill in the blanks and always offered some closure. I really appreciate the latter in this age of door stoppers and never ending series.

I ask this once every few years and usually come up short but has anyone found any newer authors who write in a similar style that I might enjoy?

C.M. Kruger posted:

They did it to Iain Banks, too, and apparently at a con he tore out the offending page and ate it.

Strom Cuzewon posted:

For all the weird sex in The Culture those books are fairly normal and healthy about sex.

Even Mr Thirty Dicks.

Fivemarks posted:

I always wanted to write sci-fi, but I got convinced by mutual acquaintances of GB and I that I'm too black, not smart enough, and not 'good' enough to ever be a real writer, especially in Sci-fi. I guess seeing the recent change in things on the sci-fi front has made me feel better about that. After all, if Sanderson can just right four books offhandedly, I can at least write a short story.

PeterWeller posted:

A little late on this one, but for those of you who loved Harry August, pick this one up. It's another serial lives story, but I think much more beautiful and thoughtful than Harry August.

Bhodi posted:

Also sounds like the Heechee/Gateway books. I read them as a kid, no idea if they hold up.

Hiro Protagonist posted:

Every day I'm reminded that so many YA authors, most notably Applegate and Riordan, deserved JK Rowling's level of success but never found it.

Queer Salutations posted:

The Belgariad/Mallorean were my gateway fantasy novels that really got me into reading, I'd reread all ten yearly for awhile. I think the writing is prosaic and workman like but the story moves at a pace that keeps it interesting. But with an adult eye? It's a wildly problematic series. Even if you were willing to overlook the "author was bad enough to go to prison for child abuse in the 60s", you got:

- It's wildly sexist. Just endless Women belong in the kitchen nonsense. He uses the 3000 year old sorceress who's at least the third most powerful human as a mother figure who basically only does domestic chores. In fact her good end is to get a solid dependable husband she can dedicate her life towards.
- The race of Dryads that are exclusively women, kidnap men to use for breeding purposes, and are described as looking like young teens/children. The fated wife of the protagonist is half Dryad and half Roman (every kingdom is nearly 1:1 to a real country/culture), this does not prevent her from described as tiny and "small breasted" all the loving time.
- The hero who commits marital rape which is good apparently. The hero who is Gandalf but a sexist prick. The hero who is of the race of shrewd, conniving spies with the hook nose.
- The villains of the Belgariad who are 100% coded as Middle Eastern and called the Murgos who are violent, treat women poorly, and follow their god's will blindly. Those things are true of literally all people in this world but the Murgos are eastern and they have "slanted eyes".
- The villains of the Mallorean who are 100% coded as Chinese (they are at least somewhat humanized because the Adventure Party spends a lot of time actually living with them but they're still evil easterners).

FPyat posted:

Has anyone read Michael Stackpole's fantasy books? Personally don't know why they'd pick him of all authors to write a Dark Souls novel.

Larry Parrish posted:

Its been long enough that I can't remember why but I think look to windward was the one I liked the most

General Battuta posted:

I'm sorry, I can't write that story now that I know it's based on a hateful conspiracy theory. I tried to write today but all that come out of me was this poem about my botched circumcision. All of this really happened to me.

circumcised age thirty five, daikatana milah knives, cut my dick up like bryan cranston in drive
white jacket, scorpion back it, foreskin shredded like flak hit
exsanguinating from glans, mohel got bad hands, "my god im so sorry", it's too late i'm unmanned
reduced to a wax stump, induced to get rear end pumped, cant cum from the front cause i got a gristly scar lump
meant to convert to the tribe, now masturbation's proscribed, zero sense in my pipeline, dakota access denied
bleeding wont stop! rabbis intervene - hebrew orbital laser cauterizing it clean
call my dick temple prime cause its gettin the nod. only now do i realize — GDI offends god!
you cant kill the messiah! kane enters left. "call me nehemiah, i'll rebuild what was cleft"
peace through technology! reverse the chronology, undo the mistake that caused this pathology
it's done, i'm rehung, i'll name my first son tiberian! but now the rabbis wont have me, i dont meet their criterion
seudet mitzvah aborted, my conversion is thwarted. that red scorpion flag has em all disconcerted
peace through power

quantumfoam posted:

I read Locklands and the Big U this week.

Locklands was ok, liked that it tied everything up in 3 books and didn't extend itself out into a endless fantasy series. The timeskips in Locklands and the earlier first two books in the series didn't bother me, that's Robert Jackson Bennett's writing thing.

Started off enjoying the Big U, then read it for morbid completions sake after the rape attempt scene happened. What the gently caress Neal Stephenson.
Before that point it was oddly engaging and full of cleverish pokes at college environment life/college faculty and students living in a different reality than non-college people, after that the Big U became recognizably Neal Stephenson-esque with everyone morphed into complete psychopath villains or morphed into hyper-competent urban combat badasses or existed to make the hyper-competent characters go places. Other than that, the pocket tank was a cute concept for the 6 pages it existed and the sewer LARPing before the giant mutant rats appeared was amusing.

sebmojo posted:

I can't stand what I've read of long sun fwiw, it's just endless scenes of people speculating about what the plot might be. I really fall off Wolfe after Soldier of arete, though that's not a common view so take it with a grain of salt.