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Bogus Adventure posted:The Chronicles of Prydain. They're written for kids, but I go back and read them every so often because they rule so hard. this is also still one of my favorite fantasy series; Castle of Llyr in particular is high on my list of favorite books. there's an artist who has been slowly working through the first book as a graphic novel over the last few years and it's pretty good http://thebookofthree.thecomicseries.com/comics/1/#content-start
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Jul 6, 2021 00:23
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StoryTime posted:Gene Wolfe, Book of the New Sun. Real good takes on an unreliable narrator from him, also extremely hosed up authority figures to make your bro really think. The short stories are good as well. I'm slowly making my way through The Book of the Long Sun, set aboard what you eventually discover is a vast world ship. drat it's good. For people not up to a whole series, he also has two FANTASTIC recent novels. A Borrowed Man and The Sorceror's House. Basically Wolfe is a genius and his books are so much deeper than they first appear. I'd also recommend the Revenger series by Alastair Reynolds. If only fantasy, I'll second Joe Abercrombie for his gritty style and ruthless deconstruction of all the lovely fantasy tropes and add N.K. Jemisin's Fifth Season series. Also Gideon the Ninth was a very strange and interesting fantasy novel, and The Blacktongue Thief a more classic but still self-aware new novel.
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Jul 6, 2021 00:33
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Simone Magus posted:I want a movie with Bill Murray playing Archchancellor Ridcully I don't know why you'd need anyone but Joss Ackland for it. He was pretty much perfect in the role.
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Jul 6, 2021 00:45
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tell him to go type "reverse harem fantasy romance" on amazon and read all of it. if he's still sane by the time he's done, we've galvanized him.
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Jul 6, 2021 00:48
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For reals how dorky do you need to be to enjoy Dune? I’m excited for the upcoming movie due to the director and cast, but I’ve never read it or watched the first movie.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:06
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Dune isn't really dorky, it's basically a soap opera
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Jul 6, 2021 01:06
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Very dorky
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Jul 6, 2021 01:10
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Honestly, I think reading awful poo poo like atlas shrugged and other similar dross is a good idea so you can tell really quickly what tropes ppl are regurgitating, and avoid them in future.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:13
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Gideon The Nineth and its sequel, Harrow The Nineth. Space necromancers with swords. Also lesbians. Someone described it to me as Warhammer 40k meets Revolutionary Girl Utena and I was sold.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:19
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ZionestLord posted:be aware that the end of the series he basically spends 100 pages preaching about god and worship and how to be a better mormon or wtver poo poo he is.  Unrelated: Garth Nix, Sabriel would be another recommendation from me with hopefully less weird Mormon stuff. Female protagonist, sort of a floaty magic system, deals with the loss of parents. I had some LeGuin vibes (vibes, that's all) from at least the first three in that series.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:26
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Hello Sailor posted:Umpteenthing LeGuin and Pratchett, just keep in mind Pratchett has this weird Randian Great Man thing going on. At least he realized the hypocrisy of it.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:44
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I should mention he’s also an aspiring fantasy writer.
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Jul 6, 2021 01:46
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Cubone posted:
I’m a cucked beta soy boy so this sounds like my jam. Pickin it up
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Jul 6, 2021 02:14
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Trapped in the body of a chad I forgot to add
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Jul 6, 2021 02:15
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Applewhite posted:I should mention he’s also an aspiring fantasy writer. Then there is no hope for him, sorry.
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Jul 6, 2021 03:29
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Hello Sailor posted:Umpteenthing LeGuin and Pratchett, just keep in mind Pratchett has this weird Randian Great Man thing going on. At least he realized the hypocrisy of it. Pratchett's characters do spiral out of control, don't they? And they become worse for it. Carrot is way better as a Good Lad raised in a dwarf mine instead of the heir apparent nonsense. Vimes turns from the manic depressive alcoholic cop that Ankh-Morpork deserves into a strange and unlikably brutal cigar chomping über sleuth. Granny Weatherwax peaks at Witches Abroad before she and her coven aquire more powers than Superman. Even Rincewind gathers this mystique about his cowardice that kinda goes against his purpose of being slapstick incarnate. Death, funnily enough, seems to be immune to this because he's defined by being kinda bad at his job. Great books, nevertheless.
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Jul 6, 2021 05:24
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Pratchett owns a lot OP give him Gormenghast
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Jul 6, 2021 05:30
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Also for true heads check out One For the Morning Glory. It's loving sweet
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Jul 6, 2021 05:33
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I read soul of the fire in jail and got early release cuz the judge said I’d suffered enough
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Jul 6, 2021 06:33
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beer gas canister posted:Pratchett owns a lot His books give me a fuzzy feeling
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Jul 6, 2021 06:45
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StoryTime posted:Pratchett's characters do spiral out of control, don't they? And they become worse for it. Carrot is way better as a Good Lad raised in a dwarf mine instead of the heir apparent nonsense. Vimes turns from the manic depressive alcoholic cop that Ankh-Morpork deserves into a strange and unlikably brutal cigar chomping über sleuth. Granny Weatherwax peaks at Witches Abroad before she and her coven aquire more powers than Superman. Even Rincewind gathers this mystique about his cowardice that kinda goes against his purpose of being slapstick incarnate. Death, funnily enough, seems to be immune to this because he's defined by being kinda bad at his job. Yes, kinda, but Pratchett has this obvious pattern where character = power. Being yourself is the ultimate power. And when they peak in character development they tend to move to the background. Granny Weatherwax isn't the main character of the later witch books. Rincewind grows a spine in The Last Continent, and that's his last book as the protagonist. Carrot is only a real person in Guards Guards, where he's both The Hero and a guy who can make mistakes and learn from them. After that he's kinda frozen as this Perfect Man, and it's Angua who is the interesting one. She's making choices, Carrot is there being perfect (and sometimes also a complete dick) for her to react to. Even Death grows as a character: after Soul Music he stops being a fuckup, because it would hurt Susan for him to keep being the same. He's learned to be a person and to care. So Pratchett has to invent the Auditors for Susan to keep having books and development of her own. Yeah the auditors are dumb and suck, nobody bats 1000. Exception: Vimes. Vimes's character arc kinda drifts off and he can't complete the Prachett cycle. And it's down to one thing: Pratchett never kills off Vetinari. Vimes's antagonist is the evil in society & politics, but he can't have a real win as long as there is this godlike chessmaster controlling everything. Vetinari keeps the city in stasis, but for Vimes to have meaningful victory something has to change. IMO it's Pratchett's biggest thematic mistake.
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Jul 6, 2021 07:24
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I've only read two fantasy series, Steven Brust and Piers Anthony. I would not recommend Piers Anthony Brust doesn't get enough recognition imo, his stuff isn't top shelf but it's fun, digestible fantasy with a sort of buddy-criminal dynamic with the main character and his familiar who is basically a miniature dragon with whom he is telepathically linked. It's very cute. You can get his novels in anthologies so it's easy to just tear through them
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Jul 6, 2021 08:41
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I was given a copy of something called the black library sampler. the first page was a warhammer 40k story. i got about five lines in. there were a couple sentences about " red skinned savages " and i stopped there.
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Jul 6, 2021 08:46
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gimme the GOD drat candy posted:the premise of this thread is flawed because if someone thinks that sword of truth is an amazing work of literature then they will likely not appreciate better fantasy novels. your brother, assuming he is an adult, is simply the sort of guy that is into godawful libertarian bsdm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDSZ_bzudv0 also if anyone here is interested in figuring out just how horrible the Sword of Truth books are, Secretly Best Girl actually did a read through and blow-by-blow of the SoT series in a thread, and it's really quite something. Also, another thread which is quite good is by Mors Rattus, going over the Xanth series of books by Piers Anthony, which is also stupendously creepy and awful
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Jul 6, 2021 09:03
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I've been rereading my Discworld books and I'm finding them kinda hit or miss these days. Pratchett is brilliant in many ways but he's got a few stylistic habits that wear on me. He likes to have characters describe what someone's doing to the person doing it, and he likes to describe his events like he's narrating a movie you're supposed to be seeing. It's descriptive writing, which is good, but it feels like there's always an intermediary. Like he'd rather have written for the screen sometimes and never could quite transition those scenes to prose. Also his "modern pop culture on Discworld" books haven't aged well but a lot of that is stuff like Ready Player One poisoning the well. Oh you clever author you have slyly referenced a thing, well done you. Still well worth it, largely, mind you. And especially, like, thematically, morally, leaps and bounds above tons of other stuff.
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Jul 6, 2021 09:16
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Robert Asprin isn't the best fantasy author but his stuff is easy to get into and rather humorous. He has some mild problematic tendancies but almost everyone is amazing in comparison to Goodkind.
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Jul 6, 2021 10:23
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Klyith posted:Exception: Vimes. Vimes's character arc kinda drifts off and he can't complete the Prachett cycle. And it's down to one thing: Pratchett never kills off Vetinari. Vimes's antagonist is the evil in society & politics, but he can't have a real win as long as there is this godlike chessmaster controlling everything. Vetinari keeps the city in stasis, but for Vimes to have meaningful victory something has to change. IMO it's Pratchett's biggest thematic mistake. I always thought of Vetinari as a personification and a product of the oligarchic machine of Ankh-Morpork. He's in his position because he's convenient, and has figured out how to remain convenient. He's someone who can cleverly put his thumb on the scales to influence events, but is actually very limited in realpolitik power. I never thought Vimes should score one on Vetinari, it's the nobility behind Vetinari he has a problem with. It's true that there's no satisfactory end to the Vimes character arc, he just keeps solving bigger crimes.
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Jul 6, 2021 10:34
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Just give him a random handful of vampire gently caress books and accept he will always be a casual.
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Jul 6, 2021 11:45
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StoryTime posted:I always thought of Vetinari as a personification and a product of the oligarchic machine of Ankh-Morpork. He's in his position because he's convenient, and has figured out how to remain convenient. He's someone who can cleverly put his thumb on the scales to influence events, but is actually very limited in realpolitik power. I never thought Vimes should score one on Vetinari, it's the nobility behind Vetinari he has a problem with. It's true that there's no satisfactory end to the Vimes character arc, he just keeps solving bigger crimes. Yeah, it's this.vetinary isn't a one -man dictatorship, he's someone who mastered the political game to the detriment of everything else in is life. He's deeply broken, and doesn't stop being deeply broken because he's a paranoid that always has a escape plan. the man enjoys music only by reading sheet music, that's not Nietzsche's superman.
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Jul 6, 2021 11:53
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Also vimes arch should have ended at night watch, but I enjoyed thud so.
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Jul 6, 2021 11:57
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Scaramouche posted:It's all the same crap but I like Miles Cameron and Joe Abercrombie. Both are muddy kind of low fantasy in the vein of Cook's the Black Company, but the writing isn't straight up insufferable like Goodkind, Rothfuss et Al. Gonna second Joe Abercrombie. If you want to read Dark Fantasy, well, you probably shouldn't read Dark Fantasy. It's not really a revelation that the real Medieval period was full of lovely things. There have already been some really solid recommendations in this thread that don't dwell on violence and magic cannibalism. But if you're really committed to the idea of Dark Fantasy, Abercrombie is pretty good. He's decent at making the murderous assholes the books focus on actually likable, well-rounded, and worth getting invested in. It's not an out and out parody, but it doesn't always take itself seriously and can get pretty funny. There are plenty of fun and memorable characters (though it takes Abercrombie about five books to figure out a way to write a 'badass warrior woman', an archetype he clearly loves and keeps coming back to, without just making her an unpleasant, violent rear end in a top hat who hates everyone). Honestly, he's way more fun than G.R.R.M., and, even with a professional torturer as point of view character, nowhere near as gross. I would just start with A Little Hatred, the first book of his newest series. It's one of those next-generation kind of sequels and works perfectly fine as a jump-off point. Anyone who likes them can go back to the earlier books for some added background if they really want.
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Jul 6, 2021 12:00
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IDK about recommending Dune here, this guy might have such poor taste that he reads the Brian Herbert ones.
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Jul 6, 2021 12:04
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Robert Jordan's wheel of time is good. I also like Raymond e. Fiest books especially the serpent war saga. If you want black library stuff I enjoyed William Kings gotrek and felix novels.
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Jul 6, 2021 12:23
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Vimes was pretty clearly a favorite character for Pratchet. While the character may have hung around a little too long, Pratchets own health problems robbed us of a good closing arc. I think if he gotten more time to write there would have been a better send off. Also want to +1 whatever the count is on the Chronicles of Prydain. I read a lot of fantasy as a kid, but that series stuck with me a lot more than pretty much everything else I read. It wasn't nearly as well known as a lot of other series, and that made it even better.
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Jul 6, 2021 12:37
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why have so many of you dipshits had 'Ayn Rand' phases? I don't loving trust a single one of you. You're tainted.
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Jul 6, 2021 12:51
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Regarde Aduck posted:why have so many of you dipshits had 'Ayn Rand' phases? I don't loving trust a single one of you. You're tainted. I never had an Ayn Rand phase. I don't understand it either. Rand's an awful writer even without the overbearing message. I didn't even have a Heinlein phase. Stranger in a Strange Land is supposed to be his best, but it was a pretty gross and unpleasant book. Though I have to be fair and admit that I didn't finish it. I got to the part where a woman suddenly transforms into an author mouthpiece and starts explaining how most women who get raped were totally asking for it by dressing that way and leading men on. That's when I grokked a wrongness with it and, poof, the book just suddenly vanished.
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Jul 6, 2021 13:01
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You could read Thomas Covenant, where in the opening section of the first of 9 fat books the 'hero' rapes someone because he thinks he's dreaming. (He is at least thoroughly disgusted with himself later)
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Jul 6, 2021 13:08
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I read some of Atlas Shrugged in high school. It was on our "pick a few of these" summer reading list for AP English and my mother had a copy so I gave it a shot. It was dreadful and I lost it about halfway through the John Galt speech. It was the single biggest literary turd I had and have ever encountered and I remember my mother was super disappointed that I didn't like it because it was one of her favorite books. She mostly read mysteries and pulp horror so maybe it did compare favorably to the other stuff she read?
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Jul 6, 2021 13:22
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Mervyn Peake's GormenghastRegarde Aduck posted:why have so many of you dipshits had 'Ayn Rand' phases? I don't loving trust a single one of you. You're tainted. i didn't have one but being taught by a teacher in the 80's and 90's meant you were listening to someone who had to read ayn rand in college OMFG FURRY fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Jul 6, 2021 |
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Jul 6, 2021 13:33
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The Lone Badger posted:Has anyone recommended Matthew Stover yet? I don't think so. I didn't he write some Star Wars novels? I seem to recall enjoying those
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Jul 6, 2021 13:54
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