willDeleteLater01
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User ID: 3548
willDeleteLater01
11mo ago
Citizen of the Galaxy (1957) is pretty good, although short-ish.
The Ends of Magic Series (2023) has a lot of relevant stuff also. It has pretty good magical system and fight scene simulation, ok-ish worldbuilding, but underwhelming global plot arc and characters (in my opinion).
TLDR: Request for fantasy / scifi stories.
I am looking for a certain type of fantasy stories, but it's a bit difficult to describe exactly what too concisely, so please bear with me.
I keep noticing two kinds of problems in Western fantasy stories of the last decade that breaks immersion for me and makes them all feel very similar to each other (and thus more boring).
The first is that the main characters will go out of their way to virtue-signal some stance or action to appeal to the modern Western audience. It may be in the form of immediately going out to fight slavery / chauvinism / racism in a medieval society, even if such a course of action would've realistically carried great risks for the gang and little practical changes.
The second is that their thoughts and actions will be sanitised to not include anything that any large percent of the audience would be likely to find "icky" and cause them to leave a negative review or stop reading the story. This includes inner monologue of sexual nature (if it's in 1st POV); very rarely using intimidation against "non-combatants" / non-enemies; rarely using the character's advantageous position (or e.g. some resource monopoly) to strong-arm concessions from allies, neutral parties, or civilians; almost never deciding to procure slaves of their own (unless there's some convenient excuse to "force" such a scenario upon the MC); and so on.
So I am looking for stories that will not have these two types of writing tropes, and will in addition:
* be well-written in general; preferably be completed and have a large word-count
* the main character(s) should also
** not be edgelords (unless it leads to a really well-executed character development later on)
** not be sadists who tend to cause suffering / harm just for its own sake
** not be hypocrites, not apply double standards when judging others' actions v.s. judging their own
* not be the Prince of Nothing series. (edit:) Or aSoIaF, or Chronicles of Amber.
Does anyone know any such stories? Any format is fine, be it printed literature, web originals, or fanfiction.
And to clarify, I am not advocating for any real-life applications of what I've listed earlier. I just want my fictional stories to have more variety to them, and am trying to find works of western origin that would offer such variety.
edit: stories recommended so far:
- Acts of Caine series / Heroes Die (1998) — new
- The Black Company (1984) — new
- The Bloodsworm saga (2021, 3 books, complete) — new
- Brigador Killers: Pilgrim (2025) — new
- Codex Alera (2004) — new, but Jim Butcher
- Cugel's Saga (1950 / 1983) — new
- Dresden Files — didn't like the writing
- Eisenhorn (2004) — new, but WH40k. May give it a try.
- First Law trilogy (2006) — new
- Furies of Calderon (2004) — new
- Locke lamora (2006) — IIRC, didn't like it for some reason
- The Malazan series — was just about to start reading myself
- Night angel trilogy (2008) — new
- Powder Mage series (2013) — new
- The Sun Eater series (2018) — new
- Vlad Taltos series (1983) — new
- Warhammer 40k — I liked the Astartes miniseries, but the overall format of this franchise is not for me.
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- Berserk — liked the Golden Age Arc, but the overall manga's not for me.
- Lymond Chronicles — probably not fantasy enough
- oyasumi Punpun — not Western
- Worth the Candle — This story is superbly written, and it matches the "not pandering to the audience" part. But the MC is also extremely motivated towards helping as many people as he can. IIRC, it was pretty much the driving force behind his Quest.
- The Witcher series — I've mostly liked both the books and the games. However, I don't think Geralt's personality fits this request.
Thanks for all these recs! If you know any others, please post them too, though.
willDeleteLater01
11mo ago
Wouldn't a powerful immortal trickster be able to successfully trick some muggles into believing he was dead (e.g. and then engage them again as a different person)?
willDeleteLater01
11mo ago
If one has an anti-liberal stake in the culture war, one can actually only welcome this move - mandatory school screenings of anti-white male propaganda will only further alienate and enrage British boys, further teaching them that liberal project sees them as potential murderers who are guilty until proven innocent.
Not necessarily. Someone's stance can be both anti-liberal and anti-"red pill" (let's label it that). I agree that forced indoctrination attempts like this will harm the woke ideology to some degree, but the outcome will not be return to sanity -- just the pendulum swinging towards the extremes on the opposite end.
A more optimal scenario would've been if the series didn't exist in its current form at all, and refugee / migrant problems were discussed and addressed in an honest and unbiased manner, so that they could start being solved and their continued existence would stop radicalising the "anti-woke".
Thanks for the recommendation. How much will I be losing from this story, if I haven't played the game and know nothing about the original setting?
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