Books (General)

[velvet umbra]

yeah and like I feel kinda bad for it because it's not the authors fault I read all their copycats and proteges before them lmao

[ivory cypress]

i read some and so i did buy that massive chonker of the illustrated collected works, so i'll go through that.... some day

[cunning pivot]

I got the bigh illustrated book and constantly fight the urge to buy the individual Folio Society ones...

Like look at this copy of Tehanu

I guess I need to do a re-read...I wonder if I can convince the boom club...

[low hill]

-# I have those copies. They are nice.

[cunning pivot]

Thank you for adding to the temptation

[analog geode]

imo Tehanu is one of her masterpieces

[cunning pivot]

It's an excellent capstone to the series and her career. It also was her third book to win a Nebula after TLoD and the Dispossessed and deserves it just as much as those two.

Also in Le Guin news. They are doing a podcast around her blogging. Lots of insights and cats there

It starts this week.

https://reactormag.com/in-your-spare-time-ursula-k-le-guin-podcast/

[minor sleet]

She really did like cats

From her picture book “Cat Dreams”

[cunning pivot]

I have an elderly neighbor, who reminds us every time we see her, that she is working on some picture books about where cats come from(in like a fantastical way)

Eventually these may become real and I imagine will have some wild art.

[tight kindle]

The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook 12 ||Elle you are literally like a hundred years old 😭
Stop flirting with Carl.||

[junior dew]

Oh that’s good to hear. Please tell me it’s not focused on (Earthsea first 3 books) || Aaron || again.

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/why-i-love-comics/813097326373650432/marvel-zombies-red-band-4-2025-written-by as we all know, that’s how this works

A blog dedicated to all your favorite moments

Marvel Zombies: Red Band #4 (2025)

written by Ethan S. Parker & Griffin Sheridan
art by Jan Bazaldua & Erick Arciniega

-# #spiderman #peter parker #magik #illyana rasputin #marvel #marvel comics

Tumblr · Apr 5, 2026, 11:00 PM

[cunning pivot]

It is not. Tehanu general/no details ||It deals with things from all three books but not that particular character. It is less action forward as it really is about the growth of the characters after having lived the lives you've read about on page.||

It is also written from a woman's point of view so there is a very different perspective on the same world as well.

[junior dew]

Great to hear! After the last book I’m not in a huge rush to get to it but it’s nice that the next one will be solid

[velvet umbra]

||let the old lady have some fun with her new hot young (???) body (I cant remember what race/class she is)||

[sleek jungle]

||Frost Maiden, Blizzardmancer I think||

[velvet umbra]

||oh yeah that's right||

||some of the book 1 people got hard for me to keep track of once they picked their race lol||

[minor sleet]

I’ve started on Absolute Superman now and I’m so glad they gave him his 90s longer hair back

Bring back Superman’s post resurrection mullet!

[hushed kettle]

Anyone here a fan of Marie lu

[wraith lynx]

He is so damn fine PLEASE 😭💖💕💖

[minor sleet]

Yeah he’s so handsome

Finally a comic Clark as cute as the movie actors

https://tenor.com/view/tsk-tsk-tsk-superman-superman-the-movie-disappointed-let-down-gif-4244947485457717147

https://tenor.com/view/superman-clark-kent-brandon-routh-gif-23783495

https://tenor.com/view/superman-david-corenswet-james-gunn-dc-dc-comics-gif-3632597836955221959

(I am omitting Henry Cavill on purpose because I do not think he was cute as Superman. Too handsome and square jawed for the role)

(Also omitting Dean Cain because while he was cute as Superman I do not like his politics)

The 1950s tv actor George Reeves was a cute Superman too

[raw musk]

Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook 12: ||Wasn't she anyways hitting on Carl in book 1? Or am I going crazy and getting events mixed up?||

[cunning pivot]

DCC ||She did but was not in a place to have full control over her faculties. She is definitely doing it on purpose now.||

[minor sleet]

Jimmy will be asking for his preferred pronouns next

This is Absolute Lois Lane btw

[junior dew]

Saint of bright doors chapter 5.

THE WRITING. It’s just SO GOOD omg

I wish I could take tomorrow off work to just slowly devour this book my god

[minor sleet]

She’s still dyslexic and she’s still got the purple eyes

Absolute Superman #13 ||he’s putting them in Time Out ||

Updated my rankings of the Absolute runs

Wonder Woman > Superman > Green Lantern > Batman

Absolute Evil was interesting but a standalone. Haven’t read Martian Manhunter or Flash yet

[lusty meteor]

READ MARTIAN MANHUNTER

[minor sleet]

As soon as I can get my hands on it. My library didn’t have it and nor did my comic book shop

Also absolute Superman ||Im curious about the choice make the arc 1 villain Ra’s with Talia and Brainac as supporting characters. The al Ghuls are almost exclusively Batman villains. The writer must be saving Lex for something, since he was the stinger for absolute evil ||

[old bone]

Absolute Batman the lowest huh

I always see that or Martian Manhunter at top

[snow vessel]

For me i think its... wonder woman > martian manhunter > green lantern > batman = superman > flash

[deft stream]

I am indecisive, help me decide my next read based on the granny square that I will make after finishing it

Jasmine stitch background and a lavander moonflower

Two colour moss stitch granny with an apple applique

Classic granny with a famous door as an appliqué

Heart stitch square

A hawk with a grey background

[wise haven]

heart stitch!

[snow vessel]

Moss and apple

[wise haven]

how dare you

[tight kindle]

About to start Heated Rivalry 4-6

I'm excited

It's been quite a while since I read 1-3 for the first time

[deft stream]

The long game is so lovely

[tight kindle]

Common Goal 1 ||SCOTT AND KIP ARE ENGAGED???
AHHHHHHH||

2 ||> If Kyle had one weakness-and he didn't; he had many-it was confident, attractive older men. Also, confident, attractive younger men. Also, men.
He's literally me.||

[snow vessel]

There are 6 heated rivalries???

[deft stream]

2 about Ilya and Shane (a third is on the making)

The rest are about other couples

[snow vessel]

Ahh

So it's same setting different people?

[deft stream]

Yes

[tight kindle]

7 is coming out (heh) July 1st 2027

[old bone]

Classic granny with a famous door as an appliqué

[minor sleet]

I don’t like the art as it makes the human characters look strange and it took a while to find its focus

Superman, Wonder Woman, snd GL had a clear conflict from the get go

[old bone]

fair

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/j3nnix/807628519658094592/fire-alone-will-save-our-camp

ฅ•ω•ฅ

fire alone will save our camp

-# #warriors #warriors fanart #warrior cats #warrior cats fanart #digital art #wc graystripe #wc ravenpaw #wc fireheart #wc firestar

Tumblr · Feb 4, 2026, 2:16 PM

[snow vessel]

Does anyone know why an audiobook would have three chapters under one chapter audio file thing?

It's one straight audio file of all 3 chapters

[minor sleet]

We should start saying this but for Lex Luthor

[alpine drum]

lex's baldness already has a canon explanation

[minor sleet]

What about when he cloned himself in the 90s and faked his death to pretend to be his own son and his clone had a big head of red hair and a bushy beard

And also he trick Supergirl (who wasn’t Kara at the time) into dating him

Comics are so wierd and dumb

[junior smelt]

Absolute Super Man || makes his red hair in Absolute series make sense.

Also aligns with the Cailou meme above. ||

[tight kindle]

Found a historical m/m romance that looks really interesting

Called Copper Script

[minor sleet]

He looked like this at the time

[long sorrel]

goes check

Ah! The author of A Charm of Magpies (which I had recced you before and I think you already had on your tbr)

[velvet cargo]

Lex 🤝 Doom blaming the someone else who just tried to help for your mistakes

[tight kindle]

I immediately knew you would

I do in fact have the other one on my TBR

[long sorrel]

I know

[tight kindle]

Also I finished Common Goal at like 1:40 am this morning

333 pages that I read between like 10pm and then

[long sorrel]

That's Kyle's book yeah?

[tight kindle]

Mhm

[long sorrel]

Kyle's my fave of all of them

[tight kindle]

That tracks

[long sorrel]

Right???

[tight kindle]

Common Goal ||Kinky, kinda chaotic, very aware of himself and what he has to offer.||

[long sorrel]

Yep, the most relatable

😈

[tight kindle]

I dunno who I relate to the most tbh

[long sorrel]

You have 2 left

[tight kindle]

True

[long sorrel]

Well just 1 couple left to meet I guess

[tight kindle]

Game Changers ||I think I maybe have some Kip energy, but that's as close as I get I think.||

[long sorrel]

Hmmm, yeah I can see that

I don't think the ones in book 5 would be it

[ivory cypress]

i love people jumping on this

https://bsky.app/profile/solarisbooks.bsky.social/post/3mitng3kgvm2b

Solaris Books (@solarisbooks.bsky.social)

Grab the fourth instalment in @maryrobinettekowal.com 's Hugo and Nebula award-winning #ladyastronaut series - THE MARTIAN CONTINGENCY!

"A deeply personal novel about whether the human race will survive and, if it does, what it will be" - Bookpage

Buy now: geni.us/lamarcon

Bluesky · Apr 6, 2026, 4:06 PM

like yeah absolutely great time to boost this series

[wraith lynx]

👀👀

Another sci-fi series??

[ivory cypress]

kind of alt history a bit

[wet belfry]

I'm not sure I knew there was a fourth

[long sorrel]

What's one now book in the tbr

[velvet cargo]

I have the 4th but haven’t read it yet. Great series though I would have liked ||More information on the state of the world and the plans to save everyone in the later books. Reason why the first is my favorite of the bunch.||

[low hill]

Whoops. Accidentally a whole Dresden Files book this afternoon...
-# Now I'll have to pick something new to read. Oh no...

[alpine drum]

That tends to happen yeah

[mild lance]

Dresden books usually take me 2-3 days, but I literally sat down and read all of Changes in one sitting

[iron pond]

Let's see, does that mean you just finished Death Masks, Vecna?

[velvet umbra]

I don't think I've ever read any book in one sitting

[tight kindle]

Just finished Game Changers 5
-# took me approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes. Sitting on this bench in the arboretum.
||The cutest out of all of them so far, I think. I liked it a lot.
Now that I've met all the couples I think I relate most to Kip, but there's some Harris in there.||

[versed agate]

I did that with WoR

[long sorrel]

uh...

[versed agate]

university was a different time

[long sorrel]

They are great but yeah I didn't see you in either

Nobody beats Kyle...

he is the closest to whimsy chaos gremlin isn't he...?

[tight kindle]

Yeah pretty much

[long sorrel]

I didn't realize this until you said it earlier you know?

I was just like "ah yeah this guy is a little bit me" and didn't delve into it past that

[tight kindle]

I get to start The Long Game now, which several people have told me is their favorite

[velvet umbra]

that's wild to me

[velvet umbra]

I guess I could if I intentionally cleared my schedule for it, I've just never felt the need

[long sorrel]

I think my fave is still Kyle's but Long Game is probably the best, like it's just so much better written as a whole

[versed agate]

usha be like

[tight kindle]

I'm excited to see what happens, cuz I just don't really know what the story is going to be about

[long sorrel]

Yeah, if it's a book like WoR then sure, I'd need to clear my schedule to read but 200-300p in one sitting doesn't require me to do that all

If it's 400p sometimes it's because I'm being irresponsible really

[ivory cypress]

i can do the dragon reborn in one day, and have every time i get to it

the others are JUST a bit beyond what i can do in a day

[long sorrel]

I'm not the only one here 😌

[ivory cypress]

:)

[velvet umbra]

I think this more of an attention span thing for me than a reading speed thing. If I was really gripped by a book I could probably do 200 a sitting (I cam close finishing Hero of Ages) but its rare that that lines up with a time where I can just take like several hours straight to read no interruptions

[long sorrel]

mhm fair

[velvet umbra]

most instances where this would be an option are when I'm reading at night and I choose sleep over that unless it's a weekend night

[ivory cypress]

some books are easier reads than others, and it's not a quality thing

there are books I think are amazing that I just cannot get into the flow with ever, I have to fight to keep my attention there

some books are just... absorbent

[velvet umbra]

for sure, I definitely breeze through some more than others (DCC for instance although audiobooking this doesn't translate 1:1)

it's just more in the "number of days it takes to get through a book this size" rather than one monster reading session

[velvet umbra]

yeah I've had great books that are just very dense and epic and with heavy prose and high level diction that I end up rating very highly, but they're hard to read more than a few chapters at a time because the concepts/themes/words are just taking more out of my brain

[ivory cypress]

this won't last but yesssssssssss finally

usually the smallest number i can get here is 2

[long sorrel]

aaah, I do have it on 2 usually

[ivory cypress]

that's the best i can do most months

march was like, 6 days or something

[long sorrel]

you know Grey when you said "not competitively"... well 😈 /j

[ivory cypress]

:D

hahaha

[velvet umbra]

😭

tbh this is probably inflated by the fact that I have stuff like Gardens of the Moon inflating the time as I slowly chip away at it

[ivory cypress]

oh for SURE, i have a few books that do that to my average here and there

i went to check, this is what said book or two did to my march avg

and my april avg IS going to go up as soon as i mark my current books as done, they are DEFINITELY not one day reads... like liar's knot.... these books are some of the aforementioned books i'm finding really really good but can't find the flow state

[velvet umbra]

my reading this year has just been more scattershot, I've had 3-5 books I'm chipping away at for the last couple months

it's a nice change from last year which was a lot of long series with no gaps

[ivory cypress]

oh love that

i'm trying to do some shorter series or standalones before i jump into my next big series

i want to try and finish kate elliott's crown of stars finally (which will certainly require a reread of what i've already done to get up to speed) and i want to try janny wurts' war of light and shadow but i'm also like, wait.... i need to brace myself... i need to get some smaller shorter things off my list

[velvet umbra]

yeah last year my big series were like WoT and SLA/MB which were great but just don't require the same level of attention as like

Malazan

so I need some like romance/comedy type sub 400 pagers for when I just want to read a little before bed or listen to something doing chores and not thinkg about it

[snow vessel]

I think my average time to finish a book this year is ~15 days

Honestly kind of lower than I expected

[little dock]

My average gets pretty skewed by some nonfiction and short story collections that I read a bit of here and there between other reads and then eventually finish after a few months

[half raven]

https://bsky.app/profile/jonbois.bsky.social/post/3miuvghaqwk2b

Jon Bois (@jonbois.bsky.social)

told myself i could change my avi once the first draft of the book is done

Likes

669

Bluesky · Apr 7, 2026, 4:02 AM

https://bsky.app/profile/jonbois.bsky.social/post/3lp7tpfpeqk2o

Jon Bois (@jonbois.bsky.social)

working on stuff

Reposts

418

Likes

3346

Quotes

122

Replies

105

Bluesky · May 15, 2025, 3:35 PM

and on immortality day no less!

20021 is never coming out is it

[ancient bay]

OOOOOOOOOOOOH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (ReZero Arc 7)
that one hurts
||This is the first permanent death (not counting villains and Shaula, who herself is a weird edge case cuz she's kind of still alive)||

[low hill]

Yep.

[low hill]

I did it with Wind and Truth.

[low hill]

It me.

[ancient bay]

YEEEEEEAHHHHHH (ReZero Arc 7)

[low hill]

I didn't plan to, I just apparently ended up with that much time.
And speed whiplash from the two weeks for Midnight Tides right beforehand.

[velvet umbra]

You guys gotta be using more generous definitions of a sitting than me

[long sorrel]

Well, it does include bathroom breaks

[low hill]

I had dinner in the middle I suppose, but other than that I just read for 15 hours straight

[versed agate]

when I read WoR I did not leave my room for 48 hours except for food and "anti-food"

-# university was not a great time for me

[low hill]

Like, I didn't read Death Masks in one sitting because I had an RPG in the middle. But I don't consider stopping to eat to really be an interruption.

[low hill]

And onto book 20 of the year, in week 15. Not too shabby.

Especially considering that included two Malazan tomes. :P

[velvet umbra]

Ok at least we’re talking meal breaks here

Still though doing any single thing for 15 hours with only breaks for biological necessities is just super anathema to me

[minor sleet]

https://global.penguinrandomhouse.com/announcements/remembering-john-flanagan-the-author-who-taught-a-generation-that-heroes-come-in-all-sizes/

Author of the Ranger’s Apprentice novels died last night

[tight kindle]

Oh man
Rest in peace

I love those books

[wraith lynx]

Awww no! I know a few people were raised on that one :((

[versed agate]

oh!

[small bloom]

Oh damn, one of my favorite series 😔

[analog geode]

Rest in peace

One of my favorite authors

I’ll miss him

[sharp steeple]

Oh that hurts

[cunning estuary]

oh no

those were some of my absolute favorite books as a kid, rest in peace John 💔

[half raven]

Without being spoilery, The Left Hand of Darkness involves some non-gendered characters. And reading some quotes from Le Guin reflecting on her choice to use the “generic he” in the book (including from the perspective of a non-gendered person, rendering arguments about outsider perspective inadequate), it seems to me fascinating how long it took her, an avowed feminist, to even consider the usage of singular “they” for a known subject. There’s a quote from her where she says the issue is intractable because “she” has the same issue, “it” comes with issues of its own, and neopronouns like “heshe” and “te” are “dreary and annoying”. In the whole passage she fails to mention “they” as an option at all. In a later quote she notes the use of singular “they” in colloquial speech and wishes it be a part of the accepted rules of formal English, and near the end of her life she is just straight up using “they”.

also, she ||uses “ambisexual” to describe the Gethenian’s whole deal, where individuals are nonsexed the majority of the time and only become male or female in their time of month (with all individuals having the ability to become either), and “bisexual” to describe the condition of most humans, which is annoying because in today’s parlance those are synonyms that both speak to a sexual orientation, not a sexual identity.||

[minor sleet]

Everyone has his or her (or their!!!) own blind spots and I think the full implications of a truely gender free society on Gethen was one of Le Guin’s

[minor sleet]

Also when Le Guin was writing this novel “he” was the default pronoun. Saying “he or she” was unusual and considered grammatically incorrect

[lusty meteor]

i think the universal they developed later

[unique turret]

Not sure what they teach in schools now, but I was told in no uncertain terms that singular “they” was completely informal and not considered grammatically correct

I’m much younger than she was, so I’m sure she was taught the same lol

[half raven]

not developed, was reallowed

singular “they” occurs in Shakespeare and AKJV

[spiral jungle]

I heard they used in normal speech as a singular for an unknown person (eg. not making it to the land line in time and it rings off "I guess they'll call back of it was important") but not for a specific known person in the enby/agender sense until I became aware of such things, and then took it for myself.

[wet belfry]

I do wish there were a better solution

Mostly for subject-verb agreement reasons

[spring turtle]

...huh. my preorder of the last Sir Callie book in paperback got cancelled and it's vanished from all sites

[cunning pivot]

In line for a Matt Dinniman event and the line looks exactly like I'd expect it to.

But I do wish they'd open the doors a bit earlier because the wind is killing me.

[minor sleet]

You and all the people dressed in just the heart boxers

[raw musk]

They probably care more about the bare feet than the bare legs though

The ground can be cold

[cunning pivot]

Only one person so far. Also a dude dressed up as Robotnik (as one does)

The graphic Tee game is strong though.

It is not the crowd you'd expect to see queued around the block for a church or (if you aren't local) across the street from Harvahd Yahd

[velvet umbra]

I don't really distinctly remember it but I don't recall this being the case

[unique turret]

I remember because I used it in an essay and the teacher had me talk with him after school about it. For years afterwards I avoided the singular they, even informally.

[velvet umbra]

I mean it was contextually dependent but like the concept of "person of indeterminate gender = they" has always just been like a rule of English that I didn't have to think about as far as I remember

[unique turret]

This was AP English Language and Composition, and this teacher was able to get ~90% of his class to achieve 5’s on the exam (the average is closer to around 10%), so I don’t really doubt his knowledge on formal writing from that time

[velvet umbra]

what was the context do you remember

[unique turret]

I don’t remember

I remember I was told to use “he or she” or figure out some other method of referencing the person

[velvet umbra]

that seems bizarre to me, not saying that wasn't the case it just seems really illogical to me

to me "he or she" is associated with people going "he (pause) or she" cause they defaulted to masculine and dont want to exclude women lol

[unique turret]

I could use “she or he” as well

[velvet umbra]

I do kind of recall awkward "he or she" usage in my textbooks

but I dont think it was emphasized as like an important linguistic thing that was correct

[half raven]

there was this Lego board game instruction booklet that awkwardly insisted on … it was either he/she or s/he i forget which

[velvet umbra]

s/he is crazy

[cunning pivot]

The moderator has not read DCC but has read Bounce House Matt is throwing some shade.

DCC and Operation Bounce House ||"Roger Roger is an AI and there is a different AI (and it doesn't have a foot fetish)

everyone laughs but the moderator

This is hilarious because she doesn't know what the frack I am talking about."||

She called Operation Bounce House a LitRPG, her first. "First of all OBH isn't a lot RPG but if you read DCC you will learn about those. It's related but not that"

I would die.

[hollow schooner]

Has anyone here read 17776? It’s 17776 day today and I reread it and it’s rewired my brain again

[cloud socket]

I keep meaning to, and I know it's the 9 year anniversary today

[ivory cypress]

i'll reread one day............

[hollow schooner]

It’s not the 9-year anniversary. It’s just the day of the inciting incident of the story

[ivory cypress]

it's emotionally a lot 😅

[cunning pivot]

DCC 8 general ||This book covers both floors 10&11. He had to completely rewrite the 11th floor because he had to figure out what the title means due to patreon voting.||

Important clarification per a question. Carl is canonically caked up.

[junior dew]

I just looked this up. Do I have the right one here?

[cunning pivot]

Chris Yost who is writing the DCC show is a friend, a big fan, and a member of Matt's patreon. Matt doesn't have deep insights to the day to day, at least that he can share, but knows they are all big fans and working to be as respectful as possible.

[hollow schooner]

This is the link ||https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football||

[junior dew]

Lol wtf was that text explosion

Thanks, I’ll bookmark this to check out a bit later

[long sorrel]

What

what

[ivory cypress]

wow some store really breaking street date

[long sorrel]

By a whole week!

[hollow schooner]

You're welcome! It's definitely worth the read. And it's a quick read too; only took me about two hours when I reread it earlier today

[light drum]

Can we react for prerelease book so long ad they are tagged?

[ivory cypress]

i don't believe so

[marble sinew]

I'm pretty sure historically at least for Sanderson books it's a no, but it'd be worth asking in #17s unless Grey has a solid answer

[ivory cypress]

it's not like the sanderson preview chapters where they're available to everyone

[alpine drum]

I am 99% sure when WaT was released early in some places we didn't allow discussion of it

[ivory cypress]

same

i would be so firm if i had that last 1% but right now just like, yeah i'm pretty sure

[cunning pivot]

When folks picked it up at that B&N a bit before the con started yeah it wasn't allowed until release.

Same when some showed up in an airport.

[long sorrel]

I selfishly don't want reactions to Faith of Beasts

Hf Banished

[alpine drum]

hmm, do I have time to reread mercy of the gods

[somber timber]

I should read a few chapters of it so I can listen to the audio book in the plane and not be lost

[light drum]

Ya FoB releases on the 14th iirc and Mercy isnt super long

[alpine drum]

yeah, I'm in the middle of rereading another series though and idk if I will be able to finish the current book in time to read MoG

[ivory cypress]

just gotta read multiple books at once

you can always pick the book up on the day it releases 👀

[alpine drum]

oh I'm definitely going to read FoB when it releases

[junior dew]

I’ll be reading FoB at release as well

Which is a lot sooner than I thought. Wow time flies

[long sorrel]

I have a concert the day of the release so I'm reading it the 15th...

I've dnd on that day but I'll have time after to go through probably about half of the book

[hollow schooner]

Is this book in The Expanse series? I've heard good things about that but haven't read any of it yet

[junior dew]

Saint of Bright Doors (Going to start saying SoBD assuming nothing else notable holds the acronym) Chapter 8 || I’m SCREAMING ||

[junior dew]

It’s a separate series. Book 2 of the Captive’s War trilogy by the same author as the Expanse

[hollow schooner]

Oh neat

Also isn't "the author" of The Expanse actually two guys?

[junior dew]

Yep

[hollow schooner]

Or am I thinking of a differ

[junior dew]

In a trench coat

[hollow schooner]

Oops I meant to hit backspace

I'll leave it up there as a record of my shame :P

Anyway, I need to get to The Expanse soon

[half raven]

i am gonna reread today

[hollow schooner]

Hell yeah

It's so freaking good

[snow vessel]

Mm I was gonna take a break between finishing one and starting another audiobook, but im really excited to start the next one... maybe I just go straight on

[velvet umbra]

I gotta be honest as someone who has read neither I feel like the covers on these new ones have a very similar aesethic to the Expanse in a way that's kind of confusing

[long sorrel]

That's sounds right

But they're not even quite the same set of sci fi subgenres

And so far explore rather different themes too

[raw musk]

Probably a cold take, but the covers of the Expanse are trash

[long sorrel]

Ofc hard to tell with Captive's War having 1.5 books and The Expanse 9

[long sorrel]

I don't mind them but prefer my special editon ones for sure

That have the regular cover art inside and I do like them as an art piece way more than I like them as a cover

[velvet umbra]

when I first started seeing Mercy of the Gods in bookstores I assumed it was like the newer Malazan novels where the series is finished but the writers are still doing side stories

[long sorrel]

Completely unrelated they've said

[velvet umbra]

yeah I like the art I think they just don't mesh well with the text/titles

[long sorrel]

But I get where you're coming from

[cloud socket]

Ahhh I've been conflating the two all day, whoops (which is a sign I haven't read it I suppose)

[reef pasture]

I once found a copy of defiant in a store a week early. Congrats!

[minor sleet]

I can’t believe it worked. I read one (1) absolute comic and now I’m obsessed with DC again

Do they still do letters to the editor because I need to complain and or thank them about this

[junior smelt]

Know that she loves to go out in a bang

[astral atlas]

Rereading 17776 rn. ||So what I'm hearing is I should totally go into this deadly cave because I'm unkillable now that it's 2026||

[somber timber]

Love to see Jon Bois spread

[sleek jungle]

MoG, Livesuit, and the Expanse all ||But it would be funny if human Command was just Amos doing his thing||

[half raven]

finished 17776 right at midnight on the day

[long sorrel]

||I think itd in fact be perfectly sensical if it is the same universe, itd make sense why they lost contact with the rest of humanity and its been too long on the planet, itd make sense for some human coalition to have happened elsewhere meanwhile, etc||

[low hill]

@ripe tide One I think I've probably forgotten to recommend at some point, but which swirls around the back of my head in the same space as Riddell but have you tried any of Bridget Collins?
The Binding, The Betrayals, The Silence Factory. (All standalones)

[ripe tide]

I haven’t. What are they about?

And which should I start with?

[low hill]

The Binding was her debut. It's about ||a Bookbinder who can bind your memories into books so that you forget them||.

I actually remember very little about The Betrayals...
And I'm just picking up The Silence Factory to read today.

They are all unrelated to each other, as far as I'm aware.

[solid locust]

Are there any fantasy worlds more complex than the cosmere

[low hill]

How are you measuring complexity?

[solid locust]

Average depth of made up stuff ✖️ Amount of made up stuff

[low hill]

I don't think the Cosmere is actually that deep.

[ripe tide]

I don’t know about amount, but I think the Rook and Rose trilogy has that in a lot of different areas and it’s pretty deep

[solid locust]

It isn’t deep but it has so much stuff in it that it still cancels out i think

I mean A wiki of ice and fire has double the entries of the coppermind

[low hill]

Off the top of my head, I'd say both Wheel of Time and Malazan are fairly complex.

[junior dew]

Yeah there's also the question of whether you consider complexity/depth relative to number of published works or word count

[low hill]

Broken Earth is not simple...

[junior dew]

No it is not

Hence why I raise that question of considering how much complexity or depth exists relative to how much is published for said world/universe

Complexity as measured by depth and density of worldbuilding relative to word count

[alpine drum]

in general ASOIAF has a much more fleshed out history and world than the cosmere

Malazan has a less fleshed out history, at least in terms of the time periods spanned by the books (100k years for Malazan vs several thousand years for ASOIAF), and doesn't really have the extensive family histories that ASOIAF but also has many more pov characters

[loud atlas]

I've read the first book for that and enjoyed it
then got distracted and didn't continue anything

[low hill]

Tolkein's Legendarium is deep.

[lusty meteor]

It depends on what you mean by complex. In regards to structure wot is pretty simple, it just builds a lot out of what it has. Malazan has complicated narrative structure and a massive world, but doesnt dig as much into each culture

[low hill]

So, yes. There's plenty of fantasy that's more complex than the Cosmere.

[minor sleet]

One of the deepest books I read was A Memory Called Empire

[low hill]

Not fantasy though. :)

[minor sleet]

The author really mastered the trick of showing the depth of time to the Texicalaan empire without bogging you down in detail

[junior dew]

It's times like these where it really stands out to me that language is all just made up

[lusty meteor]

Making a DEEP STORY tierlist brb

[minor sleet]

No but it’s REALLY REALLY good

[low hill]

Oh, it is. No disagreement there. :)

[low hill]

I like to think I've helped your eventual existential crisis just a little closer with every day that passes in this benighted world.

[alpine drum]

yeah I can see that in terms of amount of stuff explored for such a relatively short book

[junior dew]

Oh I think about this fact with some amount of frequency.

I think it's the tism and my constant "well so what do you mean by X" in order to try to ensure that discussion can occur on a common framing.

[low hill]

Isn't life fun?

[long sorrel]

I feel we can lens the cosmere complexity through "relevant" interconnection, I think that's what people generally refer to

When it comes to the cosmere specifically

The puzzle drawn in the cosmere is big

[spiral jungle]

Super underrated skill in the fantasy genre, and weirdly I think Tolkien is a great example of doing this too even though he inspired generations of fantasy writers who do the opposite. Like... His worldbuilding is super deep but in terms of what he actually puts on the page it isn't actually too much, just it's done with the knowledge and weight of all of the bits he left unsaid (and then his estate mined for, like, a dozen other books).

[minor sleet]

I think this is a sign of an author who is a) writing about something they are deeply familiar with/an academic expert on and b) knows less is more

Tolkien was a linguistics expert, Martine wrote a book about the small country next to an empire trying to annex it after getting a PhD in the Byzantine annexation of Armenia

[light drum]

YESSSSSS! ITS SO GOOD

[solid locust]

Complexity shouldn’t be relative to wordcount

[solid locust]

It’s really deep, and my favorite world of all, but it’s not the most complex i’d say

[spiral jungle]

this is #1331360043748032532 but I feel like relevant to the current discussion

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/554001400476991489/1491421315033337866/image.png?ex=69d7a1d6&is=69d65056&hm=711cecbc2fc1b243c7c72166248f57572b001a9d5c62f085b382cd7615932811&

[old bone]

not really valid cuz Dark souls and by extension souls like like HK does storytelling through the environment

[spiral jungle]

I think it pertains greatly to the discussion of how we perceive and interpret things like depth and complexity - obviously this tweet was a joke, and i do think there is something to be said for this critique but also I think it's valid to, essentially, build some bones and then allow the audience to fill in all those blank spaces

depending on how you feel about this style of course it's either a big criticism or a great praise for minimalist storytelling

[old bone]

a short sentenec descriptor regarding any facet of storytelling or story would just be incomplete anyway

what sort of depth in what aspects of worldbuilding and many more questions would be further needed imo

[junior dew]

I think you may have misunderstood what I was getting at. Your frame of reference for the question of was the Cosmere when asking about fantasy worlds more complex than the Cosmere, right?

And you said measured by “Average depth of made up stuff ✖️ Amount of made up stuff”.

The Cosmere has a lot of books with a lot of word count. So amount of made up stuff can be quite high. Depth of made up stuff under debate.

Cosmere has breadth essentially without going as deep. Contrarily there’s stuff that doesn’t have that heavy amount of books and thus word count for breadth, but has significant depth. And more so there are also worlds that are deep or complex, particularly when considering how little has been published in that world.

So it was more of a question about the goalpost itself and whether the complexity measure should consider how much is done relative to the amount written - attempting to narrow down further what you’re looking for in the graph that is breath vs depth.

Feel free to ignore me haha

I’m running on far too little sleep currently

[buoyant whale]

i think lotr is a lot deeper of a world than anything brandon has ever written yeah

[solid locust]

Thats a fair point actually

[solid locust]

Definitely

But all in all the cosmere has more stuff by count

Quantity

[buoyant whale]

i mean, yeah, it is way longer by word count

[marble sinew]

Honestly? I think it's an unfair comparison. So much of the worldbuilding of LotR is from the author's personal notes, letters, and drafts, and we don't have access to that with the Cosmere.

[buoyant whale]

i mean even just taking the hobbit and the lotr trilogy it still applies imo

[velvet umbra]

its depth vs breadth and also Tolkien's prose superiority allows for a level of like leaving it up to your imagination that a lot of authors just can't accomplish

[ivory cypress]

even on what makes it to text vs outside the text in LOTR vs cosmere in that sense is that there's lots of things in LOTR that go without explanation and you can go to all those extra Tolkien sources to find out if you really want to. the unexplained things for cosmere get a quick line response in a q&a, or "I might do something with that later so I'll just skip this one" style rafo or just nothing comes of it. it makes cosmere feel incredibly shallow and I don't really care to give Brandon points on breadth just because he writes a lot. Brandon isn't writing the same amount of stuff in letters or works he never intends to be published, and that's just fine, but they're not comparable

the longer I've been in Brandon fandom, the more certain I feel that with cosmere, what we see is what we get

[velvet umbra]

yeah I don't really like going to far in on the comparison between the two because there is just so much different

[ivory cypress]

so my answer to the question of what is more complex and deep than cosmere is like, 70% of everything else I've read

[velvet umbra]

but like as much as people who talk about fantasy online (in many ways myself included) love the wiki filling 100 books of info type stuff it actually takes a lot less skill to do that than to take the less is more approach and let people fill things in on their own by what you're leaving open to the imagination and not overly explaining

[ivory cypress]

mmhm definitely

this isn't something I judge by how many articles on a wiki exist, it's the sense of plausibility and verisimilitude and the sense that the world extends beyond what we're currently being shown on "screen"

[velvet umbra]

that being said I think it's very hard to fairly compare certain aspects because the author/audience relationship and the ease of conveying info or releasing side stories is so incredibly different

like I'm sure he wouldn't be giving out WoB level info but we also can't really say how much more Tolkien might have gone into stuff if he could constantly choose to respond to inquiries and interact with readers in the way an internet age author can

[low hill]

Yeah, the amount of wiki information about a thing has no baring to me on how much thing there is, or how complex it is. Just how much people are motivated to write about the thing.

[velvet umbra]

well I was just using that as a metric to convey how much info is in the source material, as in "if someone were to catalog it in the way wiki writers do, how much objective info could they pull from the source material before running out".

[ivory cypress]

I don't know if it's about objective info either, like that goes to the point about how easy it is to make a big worlsbuilding document than about how to write to accomplish the sense of this being a real place and time with real people in it

[buoyant whale]

i hate wobs 🙏

[velvet umbra]

yeah that was kind of my point, the former is easier because a lot of people can just endlessly "and then, and then, and then" their way into a very THOROUGH worldbuilding, and probably have a lot of fun doing it

but I wouldn't necessarily call that complex just because it as a lot of information

[unique turret]

Brandon should just release the wiki when he’s done with the Cosmere

[low hill]

His wiki is not hugely detailed.

[velvet umbra]

Yeah personal wiki vs fan wikis are very different because the former just needs to jog the person’s memory

[wide hearth]

I'm just going to mention Wildbow's Otherverse (Pact and Pale) as an example of a complex setting, because I think it has ridiculous breath and depth, in rather odd ways, and I hadn't seen it mentioned. Although it's modern supernatural rather than epic fantasy.

[lusty meteor]

I think the reason brandon doesnt appear as “deep” is bc a lot of his worldbuilding and history just exist to make the plot function and dont really interact with the characters that much. Kaladin Dalinar Painter Spensa Wax Steris and so on all read like people who could exist in a modern AU with little modification. Whereas Frodo Anomander Rake Rand Lufffy and so on have to exist in the world they are in, bc they are intimately connected to that world’s construction

[wide hearth]

That's a party I'd like to see

[low hill]

From a safe distance.

[tight kindle]

Is there any way to buy the Magnus Archives without ads? I'm very willing to pay for it. Having four minutes of ads before every episode makes it genuinely unlistenable for me.

I've heard really good things and I get needing to make money off of it, but I can't stand it

-# idk if here or #1364954411582885899 is better

[snow vessel]

You can skip the ads, right?

I remember that's what I used to do

[tight kindle]

Yeah, but I also really dislike manually skipping through for minutes of ads every episode change.
I just want to turn it on and have it go.

[snow vessel]

I'm not sure then

[velvet umbra]

agree with the point but Painter's a funny example cause ||he already lives in a modern AU lol||

[versed agate]

Children of Time 2.6 + expanse all || Ant colonies be like "it reaches out"||

[lusty meteor]

||he really doesnt. brandon just writes it that way||

[tight kindle]

Yeah, but I also really dislike manually skipping through for minutes of ads every episode change.
I just want to turn it on and have it go.

[potent linden]

I just listen for free on YouTube, which doesn't have ads baked into most of the episodes, but I also have an adblocker for YT's own ads

(though in the future media is generally better for podcasts)

[ivory cypress]

okay i'm reading alix e harrow's the everlasting and boy do i hope there's a good character arc coming 🫣 ||i completely get what's going on here and there are little wet cat qualities about the pov character, but he's also a scabby little nationalist who loves if not creates the propaganda and i'm cringing my way all the way through now that the book is in full steam||

[velvet umbra]

Heard good things about this one though admittedly only from a couple places

[ivory cypress]

yeah same i'm eager to see what happens here

the BOOK clearly knows what's up even though he doesn't

[velvet umbra]

library wait time not friendly to me on it though lol

[ivory cypress]

oh yeah this took months on libby

[velvet umbra]

the nice thing about reading big long series last year was once I got past the first few books I was generally not competing with many people for wait times

some of the stuff I want to read this year that are like popular stand alones or book 1's or duologies are brutal

[ivory cypress]

the everlasting 5 ||oh he's such a wooooooorm 😩 get him! please!||

[light drum]

Having to read a book physically for the first time in a bit I was kinda shocked at how much worse my retention is reading vs listening

[hollow schooner]

Oh interesting. My retention is much worse listening vs. reading

Not that much worse, but to the point where I much prefer reading

I do listen to audiobooks when driving or doing chores though

[forest sierra]

ASOIAF moment

(still love it)

I think my fav worldbuilding would be with Martin's style for the most part but ultimately Sanderson style revelations by the end

Maybe not as clear cut I wouldn't want it to be a make up whatever you want case

Let's say something with the amount of discretion and ambiguity as ASOIAF book 4 ||The Hound still being alive||

It's not confirmed outright but it's very unlikely that it's not the case

[ivory cypress]

okay the everlasting has hands

[low hill]

Their $5/month Patreon tier, by the looks of it.

Or set your podcast app to skip the first 4 minutes automatically?

[low hill]

-# I'd have assumed #1364954411582885899

[snow vessel]

-# you can do that?

[low hill]

You can on mine.

-# And by "mine", I mean the one I use, not one I made...

[light drum]

Can you listen to it on YouTube?

Also you can find full downloads of it, and since its CC 4.0-NC its 100% legal and expected even to do such. And like you can still buy merch or support the patron if you want to but like 4 minutes of adds is a lot

[raw musk]

The ads are country specific to an extent and varied in length. I've seen as long as 6 minutes on TMA, and as short as straight to the intro

[low hill]

Sure, but given Atrus said they were 4 minutes I used their number.

[raw musk]

I retract my pedantry

[low hill]

Either way, it is possible to automatically skip some amount of intro and outro. :P
-# If you have a good podcast app, and not some sparkingly corporate walled garden.

[raw musk]

You have any podcast app recommendations?

I'm currently using Spotify

[low hill]

I've been quite happy with Podcast Republic, because it's on the list of apps which can hook into private Patreon feeds for those podcasts I get ad-free via that.

[raw musk]

Phantom Chamber 11: ||So this is magic PETA. Got it||

[tight kindle]

Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook ||Transphobic crossbow 💔||

[light drum]

||Ya that was not fun||

[wide hearth]

How well known are Ursula Le Guin's children's books (i.e. Catwings) to modern Americans? Do they still get read?

[velvet umbra]

||does it specify how this works? I remeber kind of thinking of that aspect but I don't recall it being clarified||

[ivory cypress]

dac ||the ai explanation starts with Warning: You have a dick.||

[velvet umbra]

oh yeah

||I do think it's debatable if that actually means the item functions that way or if it's just the AI being crass||

[half raven]

Left Hand of Darkness ||anyone happen to know if Earth and Terra are synonyms in the Hainish cycle. It’s been driving me crazy trying to figure it out||

[analog geode]

afaik yes

[snow vessel]

...I've gone from no books catching my attention to too many books I want to read at once

[brazen pilot]

The Lathe of Heaven is dystopian in so many ways and yet it's still like ||Yeah he didn't get a car because cars weren't allowed downtown and he would just take the subway. Oh, if only.||

Lathe of Heaven 4 ||There's something endearingly straightforward about George's attitude. His shrink is manipulating him to nefarious ends and he's like "well maybe if i get a lawyer i can solve this." He just wants to do everything the normal way despite it not being at all a normal situation. It's such a surveillance state that I honestly can't blame him. But I think his groundedness balances out the surreality of the premise in an important way.||

[ivory cypress]

okay........ The Everlasting hits. that's a good one

[spring turtle]

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/welcome-to-heroism/

Short story for bored people today

[long sorrel]

Oh, it has super high ratings, do you think it'd be my cup of tea?

[ivory cypress]

i think it'd be worth checking out at the least

[long sorrel]

I'll add it to the tbr for now

The premise looks good, but I'm not fully sure if it's my thing or not

[ivory cypress]

I'm not sure if it would be a LOVE THIS but I was like, huh wow

it is VERY romance

high romance even

[long sorrel]

But maybe I can give it a go

[long sorrel]

Yeah that's what I thought

[ivory cypress]

but that's not all that it is about

it is more romance than most romance books I've ever read

[long sorrel]

Oh huh

[ivory cypress]

it is kind of the ideal of what fantasy romance could be tbh, this is like. this fulfills the promise of being great at both romance and fantasy in a way that they're inextricable from each other

[long sorrel]

That makes me curious to some degree, ah well, we'll see

[ivory cypress]

also, queerest m/f pairing I've seen in some time

[long sorrel]

👀

[junior dew]

To the TBR it goes

I have been really slow on making time for Saint of Bright Doors due to some life stuff unfortunately but I really want to read more

Been listening to Ridiculously Bright Creatures and that has been solid

[long sorrel]

Remarkably?

[junior dew]

That

Wow, that really goes to show the state of my brain this week

[long sorrel]

I was like wow that title is remarkably similar to "Remarkably Bright Creatures"

[snow vessel]

Dune messiah finished

Going to start rereading Gideon the ninth, I think

I should refresh myself for my book club

[old bone]

Liked it?

[snow vessel]

Yess

[old bone]

Noice

[snow vessel]

And I feel like I understood it a lot better than last time

A few years more reading experience + knowing the rough arc of the story probably helps

I might pick up children of dune after Gideon, though I did say I'd start dracula again in May to align with the book so we'll see what happens

and I wanna pick up prince lestat 2 in physical so hopefully the timing works out but I doubt it will

[velvet umbra]

Interesting, intrigued to see what that means in this case

[old bone]

Nice

[tight kindle]

I love that book

[long sorrel]

I'm back on Children of Time again, will I manage this time? We'll see

[junior dew]

https://tenor.com/view/nail-file-cathy-evans-married-at-first-sight-bored-fed-up-gif-16639920

[long sorrel]

Well, I just understood this

Children of Time 2.6 ||So Kern knew the monkeys never made it to the planet, but now that she's insane, does she think there are monkeys replying to her but it's actually the ants? (Rhetorical) ||

[junior dew]

Ngl I think you may really vibe with some stuff in book 2, Children of Ruin.

If you ever get to it lol

[long sorrel]

I will at some point

[light drum]

Not bejng able to share reactions about the book im reading is killing me

[long sorrel]

Is killing me that you're reading it at all

[light drum]

4 more days...

[long sorrel]

Yeah

Except I've got a concert the 14th and so I won't be reading until the 15th

[light drum]

Ah well the book will wait. Concerts are cool

[long sorrel]

5d for me

I could start reading on Tuesday... I shouldn't but I could

[light drum]

https://tenor.com/view/do-it-dark-kermit-gif-13921433

[long sorrel]

I've read 3 ch in a row which is more than I had managed before!

[cloud socket]

lathe is fascinating because she wrote it in 1972 but set it in 2002, so it's fun to compare the actual Portland/US to her predictions, and just thinking about the layout of things

[uncut shoal]

Ever notice that in fantasy/scifi that involves the main characters going to a Special School, they almost never actually graduate from that school?

[analog geode]

Idk, the ones I’ve read mostly have that, or at least it’s implied it’ll probably happen sometime in the future

[marble sinew]

A decent of the time I feel like it's just not-in-scope for the books, but it is funny how often the protagonist is strictly a dropout of Special School

[ancient bay]

[proper silo]

ah yes, ground dragons, water dragons, flying dragons, and dragons dragons

makes perfect sense, really

[ancient bay]

Indeed

[junior dew]

Remarkably Bright Creatures 75% through || I will say Tovah keeps making me roll my eyes with her willful ignorance when it comes to technology and her writing off her son’s music as noise and all that. I like her character overall but man… it’s obnoxious when people act like that||

[uncut shoal]

I don't actually remember reading one where they get all the way to graduation

[analog geode]

Sanderson ||What about Skyward||

[uncut shoal]

||Spensa gets kicked out before graduation||

[analog geode]

||Technically. She was still at graduation, and effectively did.||

[uncut shoal]

||She was in the audience at graduation lol||

[light drum]

Ive read a few books where there's POVs from insufferable, morally depraved characters, and it feels like a chore to listen to them generally. I think in multi-pov books its slightly less bad and do understand the want to show multiple prespectives around events, but still find it quite difficult to enjoy listening to such.
The Dollmaker||I think the worst such example of this was in this book where Shean actions made me hate listening to her actions so much that I was very close to DNFing||

I think where often we connect to characters experiences thorught a n empathy of sorts, having those who we actively dislike makes it so much harder to be immersed

[uncut shoal]

There's one series I read where the protagonists are completely set up to be heroes and good people but in their first "free time" they go around using their powers to coerce regular humans to give them things for free

And there's a whole list of other things they do that are just banal and bad

I very much wanted to DNF that series but I did want to know if they ever evolved from that. Spoilers for Zodiac Academy ||They didn't||

[iron pond]

I know one! The Scholomance trilogy by Naomi Novik. First book is called "A Deadly Education" and the second is called "The Last Graduate"

[uncut shoal]

I'll check that out one of these days 😄

[analog geode]

It’s great

[iron pond]

Yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed it

[uncut shoal]

Is it done?

[analog geode]

Yep, completed trilogy

Fairly short

[viral fractal]

Tolkein was trying to write a modern day mythology and he succeeded but lotr feels super impersonal and broad strokes

Asoiaf brings everything up close and personal

[lusty meteor]

the psychological realism in asoiaf adds a lot

[forest sierra]

GRRM's actual worldbuilding isn't even a fraction of what Tolkien or even Sanderson has done but he's so good at giving you just enough information to make the world seem larger and much deeper and mysterious than it probably is

[lusty meteor]

its interesting how martin and jordan went their own routes with this

martin has was more in depth worldbuidling than sanderson tbh

i think sanderson gets away with a lot of inch deep culture building specfically

he basically just given each culture some niches ceremonies and swear words and calls it a day

[viral fractal]

Okay I disagree

[forest sierra]

TWOK is my fav Sanderson book cause it's probably the only time he spent so much time detailing the cultures of the everyday people and the sociopolitical state of his world

[lusty meteor]

to be more specific i think the culture is not well integrated into the character

[viral fractal]

Martin fleshed out the worldbuilding of certain parts of Westeros a lot but he pays very little attention to both non western type cultures and to material culture in general

[forest sierra]

And one of my least fav things about Stormlight as it went on is how the sociopolitical tension dissolves

[lusty meteor]

so it feels like a wiki of say alethi society that has been translated onto the page

[viral fractal]

RJ developed and fleshed out multiple extremely divergent cultures and genuinely pays much more attention to material culture, trade, etc

Wot feels like it has a genuine economy moreso than both Asoiaf and lotr

[forest sierra]

To me the worldbuilding in LOTR doesn't mean much cause the characters representing them are so incredibly flat

[old bone]

Yeah for describing cultures in depth and that playing with economy, not much can beat WoT

But that's also a reason a good number of his books felt sloggish for people

[proud stone]

tbh fantasy where you actually pay attention to material conditions and trade etc is something thats hard to do and i dont think is nessecarily better

[viral fractal]

Idk I love material culture

[lusty meteor]

i dont think the juice is worth the squeeze in jordan's case

[forest sierra]

Also Green Bone is Barry fantasy tbh

[lusty meteor]

the culture come throug the characters in such a uniform way

[forest sierra]

It's more of a straight up mafia story

[old bone]

I had gone on rant of wanting to hear about detailed economies of fantasy worlds and planets and met with the reply that most readers don't care at all about it so authors don't care

[proud stone]

me too but after a certain point of realism it just gets boring

[viral fractal]

Big disagree, I think RJ’s attention to dress, clothing, jewellry, etc actually does make the world feel substantially more fleshed out

[viral fractal]

Big disagree there

[old bone]

it didn't get boring to me but I don't find WoT to be a slog in anywhere except CoT

[lusty meteor]

i found the minutiae to be tedious but that isnt in the top 10 things wrong with wot

[old bone]

I even liked || circus ||

WoT

[viral fractal]

Brandon’s worldbuilding tends to be overly focused on Magic A vs Magic B

I don’t think he’s very good at crafting societies

[proud stone]

after a certain point of economic realism you cant really do high fantasy of a guy going to beat the magic wizard or what have you

[viral fractal]

Yeah because the worst part of a fantasy book is the fantasy part lol

[old bone]

I want to see how magic affects the economy

[lusty meteor]

i think alethi society is interesting, i wish there was a book about it

[old bone]

Like if there's an ice magic user in medieval period

boom you invented Refrigeration

[proud stone]

Nothing

[old bone]

Imagine how it affects trade

[proud stone]

like

[old bone]

and longer delivery

I just showed an example where change would be mighty

[proud stone]

Most magic systems wouldnt affect the economy at all

[analog geode]

Thats just not true

[old bone]

They would

[old bone]

Just this simple example

[lusty meteor]

i think if the core of your story is something not realated to trade, putting in a bunch of eocnomics only distracts from the plot

writing for worldbuilding first is another thing

[old bone]

yeah but those could be reflected in interactions

in like anachronisms

just put it there subtley

That readers can connect

[viral fractal]

For me the core of any story is how people interact with the society around them and trade is a huge part of that

[lusty meteor]

sure you can do stuff with it, but i think you get less out of tha narratively then you think

[viral fractal]

WoT is actually a fairly good depiction of an early modern society

[lusty meteor]

unless you are specifically writing things to play into it

spanking and all?

[old bone]

I liked how || Roshar having spren physics before inventing systematic agriculture is reflective of its societal structure of classism ||

Stormlight all

like such minute stuff can contribute

It can be in development time

[analog geode]

Thats part of what I loved about David Weber's Safehold. As technology progressed, one of the primary ways he expressed that is through the change in trading patterns

[old bone]

|| having windrunners who could carry big boulders easily would also speed things up

Shardblades being able to cut anything easily would replace need of dynamites for construction of tunnels etc || more Stormlight exampled

and how would these not affect trade

[proud stone]

||Theres not that many windrunners||

[old bone]

I don't want a dissertation on it
I just want it to be reflected on it

[lusty meteor]

there are examples. magic in malazan means infant mortality is much lower than in our history, which promotes gender egalitarianism

[old bone]

Even the amount we have can make wild difference

[viral fractal]

That sounds interesting, I’ll give it a shot

[brazen pilot]

I think it's neat when magic stuff affects economies but that only really does a lot for me if it's integrated into the narrative. Doesn't have to be the central conflict but I want it to play into something with what a character has to do, the situation they face, how they feel. If it's just mentioned as a thing that happens then it doesn't really matter.

[proud stone]

||And why would being able to carry big stuff matter by individuals when you have boats that can do the same thing on mass||

[old bone]

It could be reflected from one off convo a character has with someone

where the core isn't that

[viral fractal]

I think the issue for me is that I am really only interested in books that have interesting societal themes to begin with

[old bone]

but the conversation only.makes sense with the world being that

[lusty meteor]

i beg for fantasy novels to use appendices so i can skip them

[old bone]

I want fantasy novels to just use it well

or just use them

[proud stone]

Magic systems that are en masse with most people are much more interesting but arent the majority of magic systems

[old bone]

I was told Malazan does it well but 1/3 of the book the world is still boring

[proud stone]

Wait why are you in a sanderson discord then

[old bone]

😔

[viral fractal]

😔

You kinda got me there 🫣

[brazen pilot]

I don't want just a one-off convo.

Like, I don't just want it to be mentioned that ice magic creates refrigeration. I want something like, the local ice mage is very wealthy and arrogant because of that, and we need his help but we can't afford his price.

[lusty meteor]

also arent you watching maul shadow lord

[old bone]

I want one off convo as in

A character is able to do something in a setting that in that setting would be impossible by the trade structure of the world without magic

[lusty meteor]

what is the society theme there

[viral fractal]

One scene I loved in WoT was ||when Nynaeve and Elayne pretended to be travelling merchants with Nynaeve as Elayne’s aunt||

[proud stone]

Laser swords are cool

[old bone]

I don't mean one off exposition convo pizza

[lusty meteor]

being evil is bad unless we can make a spinoff of it

[viral fractal]

It tells us sooo much about the world, that it’s a place where female apprenticeship and female mercantilism is normal not just among the Aes Sedai but in general

[viral fractal]

I like Sam witwer’s voice

[old bone]

one off convo which is for plot, but the thing that enables it works for the worldbuilding

[lusty meteor]

an issue with getting this worldbuilding in is that it can often slow down pace

wot is an example

green bone saga is ironically another

[viral fractal]

Wot worldbuilding is fine

[old bone]

I am a bad sample for this as I don't find WoT to be a slog other than in one book

[lusty meteor]

book 3 is basically a bunch of wiki articles stapled together

[viral fractal]

It’s the “Elayne takes a bath” scenes and Perrin’s entire arc that’s the issue

[viral fractal]

Green bone saga had super silly worldbuilding from day one lol

[lusty meteor]

wot gen ||honestly the gender essentialism is just a no go for me
||

[old bone]

And I hate much focus on plot when it could be done to spend time on characters

[viral fractal]

It did the thing where it tried to shallowly copy paste a very specific irl location (Hong Kong) without any of the wider context that makes said location exist

[old bone]

💯

thank god someone else agrees with me on that

[viral fractal]

Okay I don’t think sex and gender are more important or essentialist in WoT than it is in any other book series or real life for that matter. It’s just that they dynamics are different from what we’re used to

[brazen pilot]

Man I need to get you to read some of the good GGK books

[viral fractal]

I will

At some point

[brazen pilot]

Just read the Sarantine Mosaic it's got fantasy Theodora in it

[lusty meteor]

i just dont agree and i dont think this is defendable in the text

they are pretty important!

[proud stone]

the difference between genders in society are artificial entirely tbh and dictated by the material conditions and theres not the material conditions in WOT that existed to create societal gender difference in our own reality

[lusty meteor]

wot gen ||the essentialist part is non negotiable the magic system is literally gendered ||

[viral fractal]

Okay there’s two points. I don’t think “women have one magic and men another” is any different than “women are physically weaker than men” or “women (generally) are the ones that can get pregnant” which exists in all books and also irl. The actual essentialism is the same, it’s just that wot exists on a different axis which stands out because it challenges pre existing assumptions

The second point is that I don’t think the socially constructed gender dynamics in WoT in terms of how men and women think about each other is any more extreme than in, for example, Asoiaf. The gap is the same, it’s just the nature of the dynamic is different

[ivory cypress]

yeah wot is above A Bunch of others for being able to land a sense of place and the particular material culture is absolutely part of that, and it's very my speed. I was also not a reader who noticed or cared about "the slog" so I guess the pacing worked great for me with all that stuff in it. genuinely wish more fantasy did it this way

[proud stone]

asoiaf is different because it isnt that materially different from our own realities mostly compared to WOT tbh

[viral fractal]

The fact that it’s materially different is the entire point of WoT!

Wot asks “what conditions are necessary for a matriarchy to exist and what would that look like”

[lusty meteor]

its not just that the magic is gendered, it is that gender in wot always breaks down into a binary across cultures.

[viral fractal]

It doesn’t anymore than gender irl

Almost all cultures in WoT are matriarchal to a degree just like how most irl cultures are patriarchal

[lusty meteor]

asoiaf writes a society that developed into a patriarchy. wot takes gendered differencs as an axiom of the world

[ivory cypress]

also asoiaf's worldbuilding is the type that falls apart a bit when poked too much but seems great if you don't think about it too hard. Sanderson is undeniably just not into this aspect of worldbuilding at all lol so no further comment there

[lusty meteor]

it isnt really the matriachy thing, it is the uniformity in how gender is expressed by people. men are Men and women are Women and there is little to no variance

[viral fractal]

IMO they’re two sides of the same coin. Asoiaf looks at a world that is a reflection of ours because the same pressures that lead to patriarchy in our world also exist in theirs. Wot looks at a very different world that developed under very different conditions

[proud stone]

im rusty i havent read WOT in years but no matter how much i liked it it has its issues with how it understands things from our own reality compared to a fantasy reality but it does its better an i do like it but eh its pretty minor and kind of debatable so who cares

[viral fractal]

I don’t think gender roles in WoT societies are any more homogenous than they are irl

[lusty meteor]

I dont think society is the way to look at this at all

It is how characters are expressed

[proud stone]

also WOT doesnt really good outside of whats basically equivalent to eurasia IIRC

[viral fractal]

Basically all cultures irl ever run the gamut of “female subservience and extreme male dominance” -> “relative egalitarianism with male preference”. Wot cultures go from “extreme female dominance and male subservience” -> “somewhat patriarchal”

[lusty meteor]

Wot + asoiag gen ||Asoaif has brienne for example, that goes against gender roles bc those roles are produced by the society. In wot the gender roles are cosmically enforced. To me that is a huge difference||

[viral fractal]

Your tagging died 😭

[lusty meteor]

i dont think wot ever portrays a society with male subservience

[viral fractal]

Wot ||there’s Brigitte and Aviendha||

[lusty meteor]

If anyone female submission keeps coming back again and again

[viral fractal]

Wot ||idk what else you’d call the white tower||

[lusty meteor]

||the white tower isnt the full culture||

[viral fractal]

||it’s a subculture we spend a lot of time with||

[ivory cypress]

the problem with wot is that I still like/sympathise/am compelled by characters to varying degrees far better than many others despite Jordan's failure to imagine real matriarchy and the variations of individuals within that; in terms of gender, I also earnestly believe he gave it a shot more than Sanderson has considered gender, (and I'll hold off on Martin cause I haven't read enough) and that comes through

[viral fractal]

||also the Seanchan||

[lusty meteor]

||women have power but it isnt gender flipped from what he had in our world||

[viral fractal]

Wot ||it absolutely is? In the Seanchan the ultimate leader is always female and women make up the core of the military||

||it’s a clear matriarchy with some gender egalitarian characteristics||

[lusty meteor]

Wot all||also this all gets flipped when the black tower forcibly marries like 50 aes sedai||

[viral fractal]

Wot ||yeah because cultures change and evolve due to changing material conditions 😭 ||

[lusty meteor]

Honestly wot had a lot to say about gender and i found none of it compelling

[viral fractal]

I genuinely appreciate that RJ did try to portray a matriarchal society and I think a lot of the flak he gets about gender is because his gender roles standout so much in comparison to what we’re used to

Coming up with a matriarchal society is also pretty difficult as a worldbuilding exercise because there are basically no examples to draw from irl

[proud stone]

i wouldve done it a lot differently if i was him but i can respect it

[lusty meteor]

Wot all ||the matriarchal society is also an unnatural state of the world and this gets fixed over the course of the series by returning men to the more dominant position (although from what i understand brandon softened the blow a bit, but this is far beyond what i can talk about definitely )||

[viral fractal]

Wot all ||it’s a pretty clear spiff off of Eve and original sin, and the the world “corrects” by moving to a more egalitarian system||

||matriarchy in WoT is not generally portrayed positively but it is there and well explored||

[lusty meteor]

Wot all ||the essentialist part is not the society, it is that there is a clear demarcation between men and women that cannot be crossed||

[ivory cypress]

wot all ||the existence of androl and that whole plot was no softening, that's for sure||

[viral fractal]

Again, this distinction also exists in most irl societies due to the differences in physical strength, reproduction, etc.,

RJ just flipped it on its head

[proud stone]

eh that distinction absolutely can be crossed biologically nowadays and could be crossed socially in certain societies

[lusty meteor]

No it doesnt. Those differences can explain the societal dynamic in power, but not the variance experienced by individuals. Wot doesn’t have variance between individuals in terms of expression or identity. Everyone converges

Different means but wide variance

[viral fractal]

Wot ||I disagree that there’s no variance in wot both societally and individually. The way Aes Sedai express gender is not the same as the Aiel is not the same as the Seanchan||

[viral fractal]

Yes but generally speaking AMAB people are physically stronger and AFAB people can get pregnant and especially in societies without modern medicine and technology, these distinctions give rise to different social roles which influence how people think of themselves and others

[lusty meteor]

||But they are expressing it always on gendered lines. That is the point. There is variance in how masculinity and femininity are viewed, but the issue is that everyone is either 100 masc or 100 femme||

Camille im not being rude here, you know that people can not view themselves the way society expects them too right?

[viral fractal]

Wot ||again, I disagree especially with the female warders stuff which occurs later||

[viral fractal]

Yes but peoples views of themselves will also be influenced by how society expects them to

[lusty meteor]

Influenced but not determined

[viral fractal]

Which is also the case in wheel of time!

[lusty meteor]

Im talking about the gendered part here

All of the men essentially act masculine, all of the women essentially act feminine. This is true across time and society.

[ivory cypress]

wot all ||I do have a lot more respect for Jordan trying out these ideas while also noting his exploration is unfortunately clearly being locked into an outdated idea of feminism when he was writing and disagreeing vehemently with a lot of his output. love the ideas - the idea of original sin being Adam's instead of Eve's, the attempts at matriarchy instead of patriarchy (god, he tried), and after a lot of back and forth with "I love this!" at 15, and then "I'm over this, it has nothing for me anymore" at 25, at 35 I'm feeling more, there's still lots to appreciate in seeing more depth in what he was trying to do even if my disagreements with Jordan's gender stuff are still here and just sharpened over time ||

[viral fractal]

Wot ||what does that mean though, when femininity and masculinity are defined differently in different cultures? Like both the Aiel and Seanchan have female warriors in different ways, while the Aes Sedai do not, so “acting femininely” is very different for Aiel vs Seanchan vs Aes Sedai||

[lusty meteor]

||bc it is also determined by sex. An aiel woman will play into the aiel’s view on what women should be. Your sex determines your gender completely as your gender is an immutable aspect of your soul||

||that is textbook gender essentialism, like by definition||

[viral fractal]

||you say “all the women act femininely” but femininity is defined in incredibly broad ways across WoT cultures and these are all very different for different cultures. If a woman is allowed to be a channeller or a warrior or a leader, what is “acting femininely”?||

Asoiaf Gen ||I feel like this is saying all the men in Asoiaf “act masculine” because they take advantage of the roles that men are allowed to occupy||

[lusty meteor]

Aosiaf gen ||i think that is an accurate statement for asoaif men||

||at least to what i can remember||

[viral fractal]

Yeah so I don’t think wot is more gender essentialist than Asoiaf for example

In Asoiaf female roles are incredibly restricted so of course more women will act in “unfeminine” ways because they can’t fit into that very small box

In WoT female gender roles are incredibly broad so more women will “act feminine” because femininity is a bigger category with more flexibility

[lusty meteor]

I think wot argues that men and women are disjoint classes of people and that this difference is a fundamental fact of reality. The way that plays out in culture is secondary. I dont think asoiaf makes the same argument even if the society is as gendered

[viral fractal]

I don’t think that the wot gender system is any different than the fact that, in Asoiaf, women can give birth

[lusty meteor]

Something that isnt essentialist would allow for the possibility of a spectrum

[viral fractal]

It’s a material condition which shapes culture around it

[lusty meteor]

I think you are confusing sex and gender, in wot these are equivalent and irl they are not

[viral fractal]

Okay in WoT verse channeling is a sex linked trait, like many traits. This sex linked trait results in varying societal implications which changes the way gender roles are manifested

[lusty meteor]

It is also equivalent to gender

[viral fractal]

I genuinely do not think it is 😭

[lusty meteor]

In wot at least

[viral fractal]

I don’t think rj thought very deeply about how trans people fit into his system but I don’t think he wrote men and women as having irreconcilable and innate spiritual differences

I think he wrote many of the characters as thinking that, which is not the same as writing it as true

[lusty meteor]

Wot all ||balthamel kinda settles this case in the sense channeling is based on your soul, but that was a unique DO situation so who knows||

[lusty meteor]

Considering it is basically every character all the time, and none of them are even proven wrong, im ok calling this one in

Like it is constantly brought up

[viral fractal]

Wot ||there’s multiple lines where Nynaeve thinks “men are so violent, if I had my way I’d hit them with a stick until they behave”||

[proud stone]

I also think this sometimes /s

[viral fractal]

||it’s clearly supposed to be a character thing and not an innate truth thing||

[lusty meteor]

That specific instance is in character, but wot as a story assume there are innate differences between men and women

If we ran a poll of wot fans for that it would be 95-5

[ivory cypress]

wot ||yeah, I think Jordan's problem if we're describing it as one is that pretty much all the characters themselves believe there are innate differences between men and women, but on a level above that, they are not written as though they are innately different. I do earnestly believe this was purposeful||

[viral fractal]

Wot ||I think rj definitely had flaws especially with all the highly fetishistic lesbianism and borderline BDSM but I really appreciate him trying to explore the idea of a world with fundamentally different gender roles||

||I will not defend the lesbian BDSM though||

[lusty meteor]

||honestly the way he writes romance tips it over the edge for me||

||so many weird moments||

[ivory cypress]

wot all ||I'm happy to let the lesbian bdsm exist, let they cast the first stone who , you get it. I do get sad a LOT wishing for Jordan's ending, though, I'm sure I'd be annoyed at him for a host of much DIFFERENT reasons than I'm pissed at Sanderson for, but at least I'd feel more certain knowing what he was going for||

[viral fractal]

Wot ||the lesbian BDSM is ick to me because a lot of it seems both fetishistic and like it’s intended to come off as righteous narrative punishment||

[ivory cypress]

wot all ||mmm I don't think I can follow you there, I just don't see every single instance as narrative punishment, and I also don't think having a fetish come through is an inherent negative. people have fetishes||

[viral fractal]

Wot ||stuff like galina’s fate gave me the ick||

[ivory cypress]

||I'm more tired of people trying desperately to be clean and not weird||

wot all ||my personal feelings about the seanchan as individuals and as a whole is just, sick rage, but also I'm like, I can take a step back go and you do you man, I see the fantasy, kinktomato||

[wet belfry]

I am commonly baffled when people do not see it this way, it seemed pretty on the nose to me

WoT ||A group of women accusing the men of engaging in some toxic behavior amongst themselves "those men are always doing x", and then several chapters later that group of men accusing that group of women of the same alleged toxic behavior using identical language||

[ivory cypress]

wot ||facts... the bulk of the series miscommunications seems to me to be "wow that person is so dumb/hard to understand (unlike me, the pov character of the moment who does this all the time without consciously recognizing I do this and thus will never see it actually isn't a gendered behaviour I'm frustrated by)"||

[uncut shoal]

And also, ||"I wish I were that person because that person does <this thing involving the other gender> so much better." (but really they don't)||

[oblique zodiac]

yeah, I agree

[spiral jungle]

WoT is kinda the opposite of Cosmere in the sense that literally nobody has been to therapy

And I think a lot of readers run in to not realising that there is a deliberate disconnect between how a character sees themself and characterises their own motivations, beliefs, etc. internally, how they act, and, then what their actual deep down motivations, hypocrisies, traumas etc which drive them aka who they actually are which is rarely spelled out.

There's a ton of insecurity and imposter syndrome and cognitive dissonance going on but it's not often explicitly called out.

[viral fractal]

I actually think wot is similar to left hand of darkness in that it really tries to explore how sex and gender impact society

[minor sleet]

Rand needs therapy so so so badly and he would refuse to attend it

[junior dew]

Why are you not spoiler tagging stuff like this? Some of us haven’t read WoT yet

Like come on

[oblique zodiac]

you should!

[junior smelt]

But "you should" doesn't mean that spoiler tags should be open!

Edit- sorry after further reflection that does not seem what you were intending to say it just seemed like you were saying that

[viral fractal]

Wot character writing is actually really good and it turns expectations on its head

One example is that Egwene comes off as the more conventionally feminine, agreeable etc., character and Nynaeve as the more brash and masculine one, but Egwene is actually the one with more values we associate as “masculine” (ie. ambition, drive, ruthlessness, etc.,) while Nynaeve is the more maternal and supportive one

[hollow schooner]

…genuine question here. Why do you read fantasy then?

[junior smelt]

I mean you can still do high fantasy while not focusing on the magic. All the big stuff could be happening in the background.

Like a seige struggle where a guy is trying to keep a wizard locked from the outside world but the wizard keeps trying to find stuff that he wants from Magic and the other guy finding the few chokepoints in his magic and squeezing the supply chain of that for the wizard to bring him to his knees with his economic intel

Wait I think I should have responded this to the guy you responded to

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/charl0ttan/813451897915719680

until i find my place in your blue sky

-# #infinite jest #finds

Tumblr · Apr 9, 2026, 8:56 PM

[viral fractal]

A lot of fantasy and sff books overlap themes and vibes wise with historical fiction, etc which is my main genre

Asoiaf is a big historical fiction -> fantasy gateway

[hollow schooner]

That’s fair. I just think it sounds like you’d be much better off just reading historical fiction if the fantasy elements of fantasy books are the worst part of any book lmao

But also I’m not trying to gatekeep or anything. Anyone can read whatever they want

I’m just…perplexed? Amused? Confused? By this view you have of the fantastical elements

[viral fractal]

I like fantasy elements that are integrated into the world

Warbreaker for example and early SA are very much my vibe

[brazen pilot]

Never reread Warbreaker

[alpine drum]

pizza is a big fan of war, doesn't like the idea of it being broken

[brazen pilot]

A fantasy book without war is like a child with two living parents

[junior dew]

https://tenor.com/view/umm-oh-mumble-but-nathan-filion-gif-6240060

[oblique zodiac]

yeah I was talking to TheGrimMareeper

[junior smelt]

No I know you were talking to Grim Mareeper but I had added some other intent to your message that wasn't in your message (to my knowledge)

[junior dew]

I plan to! I just haven’t made the time for it yet. Was thinking I may start it next month but we’ll see. Hasn’t been high priority for me

With it being a long series that seems to have some major flaws from what I’ve heard and 3 books being considered “the slog”

[oblique zodiac]

nah

I actually enjoyed the slog books better than the previous (except book 10)

I have my favorite character as my username

Im sure youll grow to love him as I have

[velvet umbra]

I mean they can be your least favorite element but not bad

[minor sleet]

Finally reading Gotham by Gaslight and I’m enjoying the 1890s facial hair

[hollow schooner]

That's a fair point, yeah

[minor sleet]

I love when artists do this with comic book characters’ silhouettes

Fun fact this comic was published just after the first Tim Burton Batman movie

https://tenor.com/view/abell46s-reface-batman-bruce-wayne-dc-gif-20881391

Woah… a crisis in the dc comics multiverse… never seen that one before

[junior dew]

So I started Never Lie by Freida McFannon this morning after a cousin recommended it last night. Figured it’d be a short read to listen to over the next few days before Faith of Beasts drops

I accidentally just finished it

Whoops

Well damn now I need to pick another short audiobook read…

[minor sleet]

Her books have that reputation- quick and compelling thrillers you can’t put down. And there’s always another one

[junior dew]

Yeah that same cousin had recommended the Housemaid and I enjoyed that one. Both fun reads. My sister says they’re pretty hit or miss

Things like that are always fun to slide in here and there

Game Changer is available on Libby 🤔

[forest sierra]

Ok yeah I did not like Green Bone book 2 lol

Rated it half of what I gave the first book

[junior dew]

I didn’t dislike it but I haven’t read book 3 yet lol

Starting deadly education since it was available on Libby and it’s only 11 hours so I should be able to knock it out before Faith of Beasts

[snow vessel]

Starting to reread Gideon the ninth was a bad idea because now I want to reread the whole series

[velvet umbra]

do it cause I am and I need someone to explain whats happening

[oblique zodiac]

oh yeah I need to start reading again

[snow vessel]

Chat you weren't supposed to encourage me

[junior dew]

No don’t do it

You’re stronger than the peer pressure

[ivory cypress]

THREE books came in on libby today

oh my god

i need to be doing just like, 5% of liar's knot at a time if i'm going to make it through at all, books just keep comingggggg

......oh my god, the guy whose book i've been continually meaning to get to died last june............

he was 52

[minor sleet]

https://www.tumblr.com/wafflelovingbatgirl/813653597086760960

Smilodon Admirer

🔁 batmanisagatewaydrug

batman is one of those characters where i can read one of his comics and think “man. what a great guy. despite all his paranoia and obsessive tendencies he has a deep love for humanity that pushes him to make the world a better place. i don’t understand why so many people hate him.” and then i read another one of his comics and i think he should die in a glue trap

Tumblr · Apr 12, 2026, 2:22 AM

[iron pond]

Oooh, "die in a glue trap" is an even better hex than "go step on a Lego"

[ivory cypress]

okay the knight and the moth came in on libby, you know, i was just curious, and immediately it feels like it wants to be what the everlasting is just right off the hop and i regret to say that i'm already inclined to be a bit strict with this now that i've made the comparison

[solid locust]

What is your opinion on the witcher saga by Andrzej Sapkowski

[viral fractal]

Asoiaf ||https://www.reddit.com/r/freefolk/s/JVNYnEh236||

Copium

[vital ibex]

So what youre telling me is that Winds is releasing before GTA 6?

[viral fractal]

According to 4chan, yes

[low hill]

That's not copium, that's just delusional.

[old bone]

If its true

Which it isnt

Isn't the last line spoiler :kekhands:

to those who are only in book 1-3

[old bone]

Also you can do rxddit for better embed

It's like fixupx or fxtwitter

[warm leaf]

I was about to say the same thing 😭

This could be trolling, but I see that ASOIAF fans prefer to take that 1%

[alpine drum]

This is trolling, also knowing what we know about WaT binding issues I am surprised the troll picked 1600 pages because I feel like that makes the troll less believable

[versed agate]

I feel like wat binding issues are not common knowledge

[alpine drum]

I guess I expect more from troll posts in /lit/

[warm leaf]

I mean, the only way someone could publish 1600 in a book would be this

[low hill]

Just print the font at half the size. Easy.

[warm leaf]

Although I don't know why this message has had such an impact this tim

[vital ibex]

Manuscript pages are inflated compared to actual book pages right?

[alpine drum]

So you're saying this is 100% real and you agree to send me £25k in unmarked bills if its fake?

Deal

[low hill]

If anything, I'd have assumed it was the other way around.

[alpine drum]

Venca is the witness to this agreement

[alpine drum]

Is manuscript before layout but after editing?

Because layout would add the number of pages (by a little bit) and editing should reduce it i think

[low hill]

Manuscript would be the author's version, so both before and after editing I'd say. But given it won't be formatted in the same page sizes, font sizes, or even font type then the page counts are going to be all much of a muchness.

If you write everything in Word at A4, but publish everything in "A5" then you've got half the pages in the manuscript compared to the published item.

[vital ibex]

Hahaha

[marble sinew]

George is an old man, so the Manuscript Pages are probably in a huge font size

[alpine drum]

Whats the max font size for WordStar 4.0 on DOS ?

[cunning pivot]

TBF George is a troll. I saw him give a talk in 2015 where he made a snide comment about waiting 6 months for the next bootleg LotR book and how awful that was.

The audience groaned just like he wanted.

[vital ibex]

Its absolutely not real

But i read this in the past about manuscript pages

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/181auvy/spoilers_extended_clarifying_grrms_recent_update/

[low hill]

My manuscripts only have one page, because I don't write in a WYSIWYG editor.

[vital ibex]

Some other we sites seem to corroborate that manuscript pages are double spaced between words

Which I assume is an old school thing that GRRM still does?

[low hill]

1.5x or 2x line spacing are common for manuscript formatting.

[alpine drum]

Implying that the final book would be 800 pages?

That seems ludicrously short

[cunning pivot]

Gotta have room for hand edits and not be too cramped.

[low hill]

-# I see that today it's #writing that's broken containment... :P

[vital ibex]

Well the post isnt true so thats a starting point

[warm leaf]

And when we know this is true or not

[craggy wadi]

I believe it

[versed agate]

Skonger's still have stock if you need it

https://tenor.com/view/clown-makeup-clown-makeup-bozo-gif-26049773

[craggy wadi]

Game of thrones 15th anniversary and 30 years since the first asoiaf book

it's all coming together

[viral fractal]

I’d send my money to a Nigerian prince if he said he had winds of winter 😭

[old bone]

Real

[low hill]

It's your lucky day, I've got hold of a ARC and if you send me £10,000...

[old bone]

We are actually getting TWIW 💪

[ivory cypress]

okay, the knight and the moth is my first dnf of the year. mmmm....

[long sorrel]

Did you read her previous work?

[ivory cypress]

I think I have

yes, just went to check, I read her previous duology, one dark window and two twisted crowns, and thought they were alright

[velvet umbra]

it didn't click for me either

I finished it cause like I did kind of want to see what happened and there were a good number of elements I liked but it just never really grabbed me

if you had just read a similar book you thought did the vibe better I can see that making it even less interesting

[long sorrel]

I'm now curious

[ivory cypress]

okay I'll lay it out

[lusty meteor]

Is there a reason people are coping it will be?

[velvet umbra]

scroll up a bit, its a 4chan post lmao

[minor sleet]

Winds will come out posthumously or not at all

[lusty meteor]

Lol

Lmao even

[ivory cypress]

at around 10% I was prettyyyy done but I skimmed through until about 35% just to see and I was like, nope. Knight and Moth ||I found the king and knights just, truly obnoxious as both people and characters. the lore is both very simple and on the level of being medieval aesthetically without being very medieval at all; but also even though we got the simple layout of the facts, it doesn't feel like... a real place? and it's hard to follow. in both character and world I kept being like, unpleasantly jerked around in terms of how they were going to act. the writing in the narrative and dialogue is a mishmash of sometimes snarky, sometimes Deep:TM:, clearly trying to be poetic at times but then also very casual and irreverent, and it doesn't feel cohesive at all - if anything, it feels insecure.|| so I'll look up a synopsis to see what happens but I don't really want myself through it to find out myself. already returned to the Libby queue

[lusty meteor]

I want it to come out but idk why george would wait months to announce it was delivered

[long sorrel]

Fair

[velvet umbra]

yeah all of this ranges from "I agree" to "didn't bother me but I get it" for me

[ivory cypress]

Knight and Moth ||oh and it has my least favourite thing of all time, "ignorant innocent woman has to be taught about The Real World by men who are largely smug and smarmy about it". it's so obnoxious||

[velvet umbra]

||I liked the main idk "magic system" if we're using the buzz words but the love interest felt really bland to me ||

[long sorrel]

Oh ugh

[craggy wadi]

because they're waiting for him to finish the little he has left of ADoS for the double announcement obviously

[lusty meteor]

True!

[forest sierra]

What is hope but delusion romanticised anyway

[warm leaf]

Maybe if Winds of Winter comes out for real, it would also be a blow to Patrick Rothfuss

I mean, imagine saying it took you longer to get your book out there than Winds of Winter

[alpine drum]

ASOIAF ||idk when it happened but I fell back into ASOIAF discussion a little while ago. I shouldn't be explaining how the Others thought Waymar Royse was Jon Snow in the prologue to GoT and how that's related to the Night's King and the Corpse Queen and yet that's exactly what I was doing ||

[wet belfry]

I think it depends on what group you mean it to be common to. Brandon talks about it all the time and I feel like its become a part of his Lore at this point

[somber timber]

|| wait that’s a thing!?! They thought he was Jon?||

[alpine drum]

||no, it's just a theory||

I'll just copy paste what I wrote elsewhere

||The theory is something like this: the ancient Starks would send a baby to the Others as a part of a pact that ended hostilities between humanity and the Others. Jon is supposed to be that person, he's Azor Ahai: the Prince who was Promised. A Prince who was Promised to the Others...

This ties into theories about the origin of House Stark being related to the Night's King, the mythical 13th commander of the Night's Watch who fell in love with an Other. Jon's potentially of that lineage from his Stark half and he's got other Azor Ahai magic from his Targ half (ice and fire and all that).

Lots of tinfoil but that's sort of the basis of the Others being particularly interested in someone who looks like Jon (what little description we have of Waymar is basically the same as Jon, grey eyes+dark hair+young)||

[somber timber]

|| I like it! Good theory!||

[marble sinew]

aSoIaF ||I mean, it's no "Varys is a Merman"...||

[alpine drum]

ASOIAF ||also when you read the prologue you'll notice the Other exchanges a few normal sword blows with Waymar and then Waymar is cut and bleeds a little. The Other says something in it's own language and the next sword blow shatters Waymar's blade||

[marble sinew]

||aSoIaF as a whole is an incredibly fertile setting for plausible theories that aren't even mutually exclusive. It almost makes me hope that the series doesn't get finished, so we can continue to speculate. Though, the way the books are written, most of them wouldn't be confirmed/denied in-text, so speculation would likely continue regardless.||

[wide hearth]

So when is A Dream of Spring going to be announced?

[marble sinew]

Arguably it already has been, that's why we've got a name for it. It's just nowhere near on the horizon

[minor sleet]

When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east

[wraith lynx]

Assassin's Apprentice 2 + Eragon ||Maybe im insane but Fitz feels like an Anti Eragon and I kinda love it. Theyre both bastards but Eragon was still... loved. Fitz is just out here running the streets 😭||

||NOSY ||

AA 3 ||Regal is such a bum, wow youre so cool and awesome for bullying this kid 😒||

[wind sinew]

Any Kauo Ishigura fans?

I've just started my first book, Never let me go

[minor sleet]

DC & Marvel’s editorial when writers and fans ask for the stories and characters to be allowed to change

https://tenor.com/view/highschoolmusical-statusquo-dancing-gif-5794533

[ivory cypress]

alright, time to tackle The Score

[brazen pilot]

||I'm glad you recognize how cool and awesome regal is||

[long sorrel]

Hope you settle it

[junior dew]

Saint of bright doors chapter 12 || Wtf, this chapter was NUTTY. Like if this all is true it’s NUTTY and also like SUPER cool worldbuilding, dayummm ||

[tight kindle]

Finished DCC 3

Probably gonna be a while before I can get 4

[ivory cypress]

oh no I finally fell into the rhythm of the liar's knot... well after midnight

the intrigueeeeeeee

[tight kindle]

I kind of want to go back to seveneves

I stopped reading it like
Last November

Problem is I have no idea how I would put that on Storygraph
I don't want to start it over

[ivory cypress]

there is a pause book function so theoretically there is an unpause function

[tight kindle]

Yeah but I dnfed it

[ivory cypress]

I'm not sure how to make the journal entries for that without ruining your avg time tho

[tight kindle]

Might just have to have an undeserved spike in the amount of pages I've read

Seveneves ||I made it to the death of Earth and it was just getting into the mess where the ex president of the us was causing political drama when I quit.||

[ivory cypress]

take the spike in pages

you deserve it

[junior smelt]

|| is this the backstory one? ||

[junior dew]

|| Yeah the one from mother-of-glory ||

I hate that I had to go to sleep after that chapter

I want more!

[junior smelt]

Did you finish all of it?

[junior dew]

I finished the whole chapter yeah. Ended with this (SoBD 12 )

About to read a bit more while I eat breakfast before work

Also deadly education 3 || I feel like it would be easy for this MC to be obnoxious but I think she’s fun so far ||

Deadly Education 3 || I’m destined to be a magical WMD and I’m really annoyed by it is a fun concept ||

[junior dew]

Saint of bright doors 14 || The doors are open 👀 ||

[long sorrel]

This section is a thing, I guess

They've so much Schwab 😍

[old bone]

that's way too much Colleen Hoover...

[long sorrel]

I kind of didn't stop to look at the booktok titles

Just the section being called that

But here

[wraith lynx]

This section is in my local Targets.... just the worst slop I have ever seen in my life.... oh and TCP 🤣

Atlas Six being there worries me, I wanted to read it

[long sorrel]

You should not let it influence you either way

Like I think not reading it because its there is probably kind of pointless too

Cruel prince is in the YA section by this one in this store

But it defs fell into booktok books at one point or another

They did not have Faith of Beasts

[wraith lynx]

True, it could be a hidden gem 🤔

Ill read it later probably

After wiggles at backlog

[long sorrel]

Lol

I've not made as much progress in my reading as I wanted

But I have had an amazing time on my holiday so there's that

Maybe I can finish CoT before tomorrow, if I really got down to it

... I've not finished a single book in a week have I?

[junior dew]

I mean, the housemaid and never lie by McFadden were both fun reads

[long sorrel]

Honestly i could have read 2 entire books if I had taken my tablet every time i left if only because of the travel time

[wraith lynx]

Yeah i havent been reading much either. I did that thing again where I stopped right before Things Happened and then BAM I read 80 pages yesterday (god bless long bus rides 😂)