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Sailor Viy posted:For anyone interested in dark fantasy/existential horror, I've got a new short story out in Mysterion magazine today. It's about a human soul who's sent to the Hell of Birds. I remember this Thunderdome story, congrats on getting it published!
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Oct 27, 2023 06:24
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To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose is another good YA book. It's a fantasy with unique Anglish worldbuilding, dragons, and chemistry magic, what's not to like?
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Nov 11, 2023 01:13
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Lex Talionis posted:As for my inflammatory statement earlier about death and loss, I should have expressed myself better. First, I was just talking based on Gideon the Ninth, obviously, and not the sequels. I do appreciate that Harrow the Ninth pays a lot more attention to death and loss both in big ways and in some smaller ways and that Gideon the Ninth was obviously written to set these up, so I'm sorry I said anything about the author. That was dumb. But the underlying feeling I was trying and failing to talk about before is still there for me, so at the risk of further angering people, let me try one more time. I get what you're saying here, and tend to agree, especially wrt Gideon. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the next book, Nona, is a ground-level view of what living in a necromatic empire, specifically on a war-torn world, is like, and so touches on these issues a bit more. If you're looking for a book that delves into the morality and responsibilities of necromancy, I'd recommend Saint Death's Daughter. It's about Lanie, a young necromancer who's kindhearted to the point of being physically allergic to violence. She's from a long line of evil assassins and necromancers, and so has to forge her own path as she grows into her power. No life, not even that of a mouse, is too small for her to care about. Unfortunately, her family's business means that she had a lot of enemies and, even worse, people who want to use her abilities for less than savory purposes. The book's tone is light and hopeful, like Lanie, though some pretty dark stuff happens throughout. It's not perfect- the middle slows down quite a bit- but I found the characters fun enough to spend time with that I didn't mind.
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Dec 12, 2023 06:26
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pseudorandom name posted:Warning: The Magicians is a bad trilogy that you shouldn't read. (The TV show is great, though.) Counterpoint: I enjoyed The Magicians trilogy. It's been years since I read them, but I remember that it captured young adult emotions around "I've achieved everything I thought I wanted ... why am I still depressed?" fairly well. No argument about the TV show, though, getting outside of Quentin's viewpoint is definitely an improvement. While I'm here, here's my top 10 "oops, all fantasy" books from last year, in no particular order. Most were recommended in this thread, so thank you all! Piranesi, The Spear Cuts Through Water, Vita Nostra, The Singing Hills novellas: You don't need me to tell you how good they are. Kushiel's Dart: The idea of sex being the solution to problems rather than the cause of them is fun and refreshing. The rest of the series is on my TBR. Saint Death's Daughter: I talked about it a bit upthread, it's the story of a necromancer growing up in a rich, progressive fantasy world. The Golden Enclaves: Naomi Novik totally nailed the end of the Scholomance trilogy. I love the plotting in all of her books that I've read. The Priory of the Orange Tree: This book scratched the same itch as Game of Thrones with the large cast of interesting characters and epic-scale showdowns. And dragons. One Last Stop: It's a romance with a science-fantasy, stuck-in-time element, so it belongs here  Darkdawn: This is the final book of the Nevernight trilogy by Jay Kristoff. I haven't seen it mentioned here so I'll recommend the series. Our antihero is Mia Corvere, an assassin with strange shadow-based powers in an imperial Rome-inspired world, who seeks revenge on the people who killed her family. The books are dark, violent, smutty, have a sense of humor, and come to a worthy, touching conclusion.
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Jan 3, 2024 09:52
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Late to the party, but I just finished the rollercoaster that is Exordia. From the blurbs, I was expecting a Serious Story about violence and ethics, but it was actually about those things and sassy aliens and how cool fighter jets are. I used to study physics, so it was fun to see the theoretical concepts, like symmetry breaking and group theory, used in a creative way (and explained better than some professors I've had). Nice one, GB!
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Mar 27, 2024 05:50
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