|
quantumfoam posted:It's almost time for another SFL archives update post(hit 75% completion in SFL archives Volume 10), but I have to ask.
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2020 00:01
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 06:31 |
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Apparently, Terry Goodkind passed. awesmoe posted:Hissing, hackles lifting, the chicken’s head rose. Kahlan pulled back. Its claws digging into stiff dead flesh, the chicken slowly turned to face her. It cocked its head, making its comb flop, its wattles sway. “Shoo,” Kahlan heard herself whisper. There wasn’t enough light, and besides, the side of its beak was covered with gore, so she couldn’t tell if it had the dark spot, But she didn’t need to see it. “Dear spirits, help me,” she prayed under her breath. The bird let out a slow chicken cackle. It sounded like a chicken, but in her heart she knew it wasn’t. In that instant, she completely understood the concept of a chicken that was not a chicken. This looked like a chicken, like most of the Mud People’s chickens. But this was no chicken. This was evil manifest. "Out of the way!" Richard yelled as he closed the distance. This was no time for subtlety or discussions: the success of their attack depended in large part on speed. "Get out of the way! This is your only warning! Get out of the way or die!" "Stop the hate! Stop the hate!" the people chanted as they locked arms. They had no idea how much hate was raging through Richard. He drew the Sword of Truth. The wrath of its magic didn't come out with it, but he had enough of his own. He slowed to a trot. "Move!" Richard called as he bore down on the people. A plump, curly-haired woman took a step out from the others. Her round face was red with anger as she screamed. "Stop the hate! No war! Stop the hate! No war!" "Move or die!" Richard yelled as he picked up speed. The red-faced woman shook her fleshy fist at Richard and his men, leading an angry chant. "Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!" On his way past her, gritting his teeth as he screamed with the fury of the attack begun, Richard took a powerful swing, lopping off the woman's head and upraised arm. Strings of blood and gore splashed across the faces behind her even as some still chanted their empty words. The head and loose arm tumbled through the crowd. A man mad the mistake of reaching for Richard's weapon, and took the full weight of a charging thrust. Men behind Richard hit the line of evil's guardians with unrestrained violence. People armed only with their hatred for moral clarity fell bloodied, terribly injured, and dead. The line of people collapsed before the merciless charge. Some of the people, screaming their contempt, used their fists to attack Richard's men. They were met with swift and deadly steel. At the realization that their defense of the Imperial Order's brutality would actually result in consequences to themselves, the crowd began scattering in fright, screaming curses back at Richard and his men.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2020 02:25
|
|
|
Terry Goodkind posted:First of all, I don't write fantasy. I write stories that have important human themes.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2020 15:53
|
|
|
graventy posted:Oh god that's from book 8 isn't it. I have never read a book in my entire life that was more boot-strappy. Richard was for some reason a peasant but took a second job and invested wisely and becomes a superman again all through his own power. Inspirational stuff. Naked Empire was published in 2003. The Pillars of Creation, the prior book, is: Terry Goodkind posted:Dedicated to the people in the United States Intelligence Community who, for decades, have valiantly fought to preserve life and liberty, while being ridiculed, condemned, demonized, and shackled by the jackals of evil. genericnick posted:We had some good times. I think the ASIOF forum had something like 50 threads writing parodies.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 18, 2020 18:23
|
|
|
Carrier posted:Wikipedia description of GranBretan:
|
|
#
¿
Nov 18, 2020 18:27
|
|
|
Kchama posted:I'm not sure how you even map a story to Crusader Kings which has no real coherent narrative. It's like saying your story maps 1:1 with Civilization 2. edit: General Battuta posted:I would be pissed off if I had any pride or positive emotional investment in my work still left in this drifting cnidarian bloatage of a brain 
Drakyn fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Nov 22, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2020 15:16
|
|
|
Phobeste posted:Yeah what the book is is good but unfortunately I can't get past what I thought it would be. Oh well (full trilogy spoilers) And I've got to say, (1) it's not actually playing with reader expectations to have the secretive-and-seemingly-evil-aliens* turn out to be super evil after all; and (2) after spending the entire series trying to stop the preemptive genocide of a species possessing a hugely dangerous biological life cycle because goddamnit there has to be a better way!, dealing with said secretive-and-super-evil-aliens by genociding them all because 'eh, they're all assholes and inimical to life or something, problem heroically solved!' came off as decidedly lazy and hosed up. *seriously their scout drones made evil noises and left evil slime trails and they had TENTACLES. All they needed was a hive mind lacking understanding of the concept of individuality and we've got a full bingo edit: and now that I'm looking up stuff online I'm being reminded about things that I disliked at the time but had completely forgotten, like the unending and desperate attempts to give the main character gradeschool-level chemistry with secret agent guy when she seemed to be at 100/10 gals-bein'-pals with her VERY GOOD FRIEND, THAT IS ALL, JUST MY BEST FRIEND from the first page they interacted, even before said best friend got Princess Peach'd by super evil aliens and she vowed to go Marioing for her. Maybe it would've taken more than just added ecological restoration and fewer gunfights/spaceships to make me like this trilogy. Drakyn fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Nov 28, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2020 18:45
|
|
|
If we're talking about this again, I was never a fan of the vampires in Blindsight because nothing about them made sense, I didn't appreciate their 'hey autistic people are a broken expression of dormant predatory traits!' origin, and seriously literally nothing about them made a gram of sense biologically or ecologically. They were the nessie-is-a-plesiosaur of hard science fiction concepts: making a myth 'realistic' in a way that's even less plausible than its original form*. Then I read the first Rifters book and the guy from the surface who comes downstairs to monitor the underwater workers privately nicknames them 'vampires' in his head and is constantly experiencing ~primal spooks~ from how pale and silent and menacingly otherworldy they are to his frail human sensibilities and I liked Blindsight's vampires even less in hindsight because now they felt like the author jerking off. And this is probably why people end up talking about them so much relative to the rest of the book or its sequel: they're such an outlandish concept - even in a book full of them - that you end up either feeling they're really neat or really stupid. *I would unironically find 'evil magic made this corpse (or melon, or gourd) animate and thirst for human blood' more believable than 'there was once a pathologically solitary Homo species that was dietarily compelled to kill and eat other (hypersocial, probably armed) humans or die and it was very successful and good at doing this until humans invented distinct right angles, something that definitely never ever previously existed.' I've said this before, but it's like making a lovely tiger and giving it a koala's picky eating habits. You don't need to invent a secret brain glitch to explain why that wasn't a viable ecological niche. Drakyn fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Dec 4, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2020 19:54
|
|
|
Hieronymous Alloy posted:Technically, you just proved them correct! Boy do you have egg in your face now I bet 
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2020 16:01
|
|
|
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering chair; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I slouch at thee; for hate’s sake I rest my rear end upon thee. Sink all cushions and all blankets to one common nap! and since neither can be mine, let me then doze to pieces, while still using thee, though tied to thee, thou damned chair! Thus, I put up my feet!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2020 19:54
|
|
|
For some reason, the way Calvin is holding the toy train higher than the airplane in that last panel has always stuck with me, probably because that sort of thing is something I absolutely would've done myself at the age I was reading it for the first time. One toy starts high and goes lower, the other starts low and goes higher, woah now my train is farther in the air than my airplane this is so BADASS.General Battuta posted:There actually were trains in the original short story. I took them out because, uh, I dunno. It might've been kind of cool. Maybe I thought it was too steampunk? Or too Bas-lag? General Battuta posted:I think the problem with ending at Book 3 is you end up with the 'answer' to the series being and then Baru ended colonialism with the power of friendship and it's totally great to use the master's tools to disassemble the master's house, works like a charm, don't kick up a fuss or do anything too radical, just collaborate and try to reform the system from within, it takes a reform like no problem. Which I think...misses the problem of empire, a bit; it's not about a secret cabal planning the conquest of the world; it's about these vast stupid greedy processes which resist change specifically because they are producing huge gushing geysers of wealth for the colonisers. Trim is a lovely idea, and in some sense trim did exist in our real world because there was a general recognition that colonisation was a violation of fundamental human dignity, but that wasn't enough to actually stop colonialism until a huge amount of suffering had been inflicted.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 13, 2021 15:51
|
|
|
re: seveneves. I cooled on Stephenson a lot faster and earlier than this (Cryptonomicon and Anathem annoyed me constantly; there's this endless smug assuredness he drips everywhere), but 'what if we all sat down and decided to work way too hard to make racism incredibly true and real and then both this and our society's fabric didn't really change in any form for literally thousands of years?' felt egregious as hell even for him. StrixNebulosa posted:That's the most delightful cat wizard thing I think I've read in a long time. Gosh I should find and read that book.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 4, 2021 15:56
|
|
|
Kesper North posted:FALLEN ANGELS is like if Rush Limbaugh went to science fiction conventions and was mad about cancel culture in the mid-90s, what an insane book. Almost prescient in its wrongness, everything in the book is the opposite of true. shtick already, and then the rest is just the author's names.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 26, 2021 23:46
|
|
|
Roses are red Violets are blue I stabbed Morgoth 'Till he fed me his shoe.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 27, 2021 20:28
|
|
|
quantumfoam posted:Other than that, the popularity of Xena Warrior Princess and the gasp *lesbian friendly* overtones in it are confusing some people. Haven't seen the chud who hated on Octavia Butler commenting on Xena yet, but have seen what appears to be David Mitchell, the future semi-notable SFF author, critiquing how terribly put together (and written) Neal Stephenson's DIAMOND AGE is.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2021 13:40
|
|
|
Aardvark! posted:id rather die than read about the star wars movies anymore
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2021 00:01
|
|
|
Damned straight. Thank you.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 22, 2021 00:20
|
|
|
neongrey posted:Four total. I disagree about the quality dropping but with how the series goes off the rails I'm also not going to really fight for it in that sense.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2021 22:10
|
|
|
ulmont posted:Basically (mild Caine’s Law spoilers) it’s the tension between Caine’s persona in different contexts: it works well in the fantasy world but fails tremendously in the real one. Caine trying to deal with that and forge a health path forward for both worlds is the main through line. I say this without doing a recent reread though, which I probably should do.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2021 23:26
|
|
|
ulmont posted:You misread me again - I’m not the OP, just someone else who enjoyed the series.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 5, 2021 13:41
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:Honestly, I'd compare a dragon more to an A-10. Big and lumbering in the air, but devastating to targets on the ground. neongrey posted:sorry about leaving you hanging for so very very long because it took a while for me to figure out how to articulate this in my head.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2021 14:08
|
|
|
The webcomics thread crew posted up a little something that reminded me an awful lot of far too many sci fi authors I read as a teenager. 100YrsofAttitude posted:False Knees
|
|
#
¿
Sep 3, 2021 14:13
|
|
|
DurianGray posted:Exactly how I ended up reading a YA novel about a Chinese kid who ended up emigrating to 1800s America and being more or less forced to work on the deadliest portions of the intercontinental railroad. It was a good book (or at least one that stuck with me) and I learned a lot about historical horrors! But there were no loving dragons and I wanted dragons!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2021 13:03
|
|
|
Ben Nevis posted:
|
|
#
¿
Oct 7, 2021 15:41
|
|
|
DurianGray posted:Oh my god, yes! It was Dragon's Gate! I've never been able to remember the title off hand, but that's definitely it! *No illustrations, probably not much over or under a hundred pages, some ?siblings? on holiday at a ?cottage? ?on an island? with their ?aunt and uncle? and they find weird scavenger-hunt clues left around the island by the older relatives' ?brother? who was some sort of weird hermit back in the day. I think one clue partway through was in a hollowed-out tree in the middle of the woods and the one thing I know for SURE is that the entire chain of hints ends up leading them to the recluse's secret room hidden in the house itself. it is neither science fiction nor fantasy Drakyn fucked around with this message at 01:18 on Oct 8, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2021 01:14
|
|
|
I read some of those years later and didn't make any connection, but it very well could be - that's the problem with the damned thing; it was so early on that I have very, very limited memories of reading it and the ones I DO have are garbled due to being a psychopathic little alien gremlin at the time.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2021 01:20
|
|
|
Danhenge posted:The siblings with the aunt and uncle is what makes me think boxcar kids. There are definitely many structural similarities but the siblings plus aunt and uncle was the unusual part. Also in looking this stuff up I rediscovered that the boxcar children's grandfather was like 40x more obscenely rich than I recalled him being so the series is technically fantasy after book 1, it's just the fantasy of 'oh what a lovely house grandfather' 'haha yes, shall i buy it for us?' 'please!' 'very well, onto the pile with it!'
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2021 04:14
|
|
|
Hobnob posted:There's a dedicated book identifying thread (all genres) if you want to get more eyes on it. Gone-away-Lake I read some years later when my brain was fully operational. I don't THINK it's 'Spiderweb for Two' either, based on what I've read. Apologies for the offtopicking.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 8, 2021 13:54
|
|
|
pradmer posted:In that vein, does anyone have any recommendations for books with journeys through weird and alien settings. The best examples I can think of are Cugel's Saga by Jack Vance and Kameron Hurley's The Stars Are Legion when they're traveling through the inside of the world. Not so much Arthur Clarke's Rendezvous at Rama because I found that pretty sterile. *Funnily enough, in parallel with the litrpg talk, The Mysterious Island (its sort-of-sequel) I recall as basically being the olde timey version of that kind of build-yourself-up stat-padding fantasy, where you till and tame and alter the land around you to make it habitable, because they didn't have pen and paper adventuring rpgs back then but they DID have dreams based around colonialism and homesteading. The Swiss Family Robinson was like that too but turned up to 11.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 2, 2021 15:32
|
|
|
secular woods sex posted:I feel like there is a subset of people who assume that autism also confers savant status in something. Combat savantism would have gotten the point across better in my opinion. https://twitter.com/BudrykZack/status/1222670961411084288?s=20
|
|
#
¿
Nov 16, 2021 15:56
|
|
|
I feel like I must have read Excession a little off-kilter, because to me it was full of Minds that were unbearable and smug in precisely the way you described but the way it ended made it all worthwhile because it consisted of them realizing they had totally wasted their time acting like cleverer-than-thou dickheads when confronted with something way more powerful but less self-congratulatorily convoluted than they were.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2021 14:58
|
|
|
branedotorg posted:I think the deathworld trilogy is his most readable and fun series but from left field:
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2022 04:13
|
|
|
buffalo all day posted:shameful lack of gay dinosaurs 
|
|
#
¿
Feb 11, 2022 16:36
|
|
|
SEX HAVER 40000 posted:on the subject of colonization times fiction, the word for world is forest by le guin is that from the perspective of the colonized people
|
|
#
¿
Mar 17, 2022 01:47
|
|
|
Shitstorm Trooper posted:Okay so I've been trying to explain what I disliked about Kaiju Preservation Society and I guess it's that even the characters weren't buying the stupid meme poo poo believably. "YoU nAmEd tHeM EdWaRd AnD bElLa?!" except if youre my age and someone tells you they named a pair of observed breeding animals Edward and Bella your response kinda ranges from an eye roll to a chuckle depending on how you felt about Twilight. You're not just bowled over that a scientist named a couple of monsters after a couple from some dork poo poo from their childhood.
|
|
#
¿
May 15, 2022 00:37
|
|
|
Sax Solo posted:I'm okay with, "I only write cis people because I'm cis", but "Body transformation? That's modern/sci-fi stuff, not fantasy!" is wild. edit: seriously shapeshifting is not a new thing and very much not sci-fi what is going on with that argument. Drakyn fucked around with this message at 18:27 on May 23, 2022 |
|
#
¿
May 23, 2022 18:23
|
|
|
General Battuta posted:I guess Flashback is set in 2034 so we have another 12 years to discover that climate change is fake, sell the government to the Japanese, yield the southwest to Mexican supergangs and establish global caliphate. Keep it up Dan
|
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2022 15:19
|
|
|
The most important question here: why reduce the genre to 'Russian Tom Clancy' when it could instead be described as 'Russian Tom Clancy isekai'? https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1535602482218418176?s=20&t=8xMt2ZZIafCy6GZ_yd0zLQ https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1535612298257215489?s=20&t=8xMt2ZZIafCy6GZ_yd0zLQ Come to think if it, did Tom Clancy do isekai?
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2022 14:24
|
|
|
The Sweet Hereafter posted:I have no real opinion about the dark forest, but the fact that humans are earth's second attempt at a globe-dominating, tool-using species after the dinosaurs gives me some slim hope that the worst of the great filter may actually be behind us. I'd say this hope keeps me warm at night but actually that's the climate change.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2022 22:46
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 06:31 |
|
|
zoux posted:Bipedalism might be weird, it's not actually very stable and walking is really just controlled falling.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2022 21:11
|
|