I've read "The Way of Kings" and I really didn't enjoy it. Before I discovered that I didn't like it, I bought Dawnshard while it was on sale. I'm too cheap to not read a book I've bought so I am planning on reading it.

What lore or spoilers should I know to catch me up from tWoK to DS?

Oh my goodness. I love the spritely innocence of Sylphrena. Being an honor spren, cousin to wind spren, i cant help but find myself absolutely delighted by her mischievousness.

I'm reading Stormlight 5 now and this scene had me absolutely cracking up. I can't believe Brandon wrote this. It is so very Syl. 🤣😂😜💜💜💜

Syl’s eyes went wide, and she let out a soft “Ooooo …”
“New style,” the woman behind the counter said. “Based on an old ko-takama.” To their confused looks, she continued, “Female warrior clothing, very old, from our more savage times. That didn’t use the uniform coat, of course—and those had a higher waist, and sometimes a bow. I might have a picture somewhere …”
She trailed off as Syl’s clothing fuzzed and she was immediately wearing something similar. Syl rose up a little, her skirt—which was longer than the one she had worn in the past—rippling faintly. Thin, pleated, with the fitted jacket above. She continued to wear her hair loose, though she was one of

Your "To Be Read" list, that is. Tell us what's near the top or share the whole thing if you like. I'm nosy and like seeing what books people are excited about.

I really enjoy the idea of world building of high fantasy: A completely foreign place, not tied to anything like earth. I also like that the norms of current social structure can be completely turned on its head.

But what I struggle with is: a lot of popular high fantasy turns into an epic, super high stakes tale of how the world almost ended. I think that is something I've either seen too much of, or something that just takes away from other potential interesting stories that could come out of a different world.

So instead, I am looking for books where the protagonist explores/adventures through the foreign world discovering people and places within it. But there the challenges or conflicts the characters go through are personal and more relatable.

Does anyone share similar frustrations? Does anyone have any suggestions for books that I might enjoy?

Edit: Thanks everyone for your suggestions! Anyone that still comes across this tread, please feel free to add more, and hopefully

Hello everyone,

I haven't been that active in that community, it probably deserves better.

There are a few questions that should probably be asked:

1. Should we move the community to another instance?

As some of you may know, .ml is a polarizing instance (the reasons why are beyond the scope of this post, but feel free to have a look at https://lemm.ee/post/53735049 for instance). I've seen quite a few people blocking .ml in their settings, so any community hosted here could suffer from that.

2. What potential instances could we move this community to?

There are a few that come to mind

• https://literature.cafe/ is an instance related to literature and reading, so would fit the topic
• https://lemm.ee/ is my general recommendation for generalists instances (Lemmy.world already centralizes a lot of the communities, some decisions they make tend to impact all of them, such as this one: https://lemmy.world/post/24135976)

If you have any other you would like to sugge

We’ve written a detective story and I’m wondering if anybody likes it. It’s kind of a detective story that “tells itself”.

https://www.loomers.world/derek/

You’re detective Derek Maker and you have to extract a confession by interrogating the suspects of an art heist.

We worked hard on writing the script (it’s not AI generated!) and we programmed an AI to play out the other characters.

Solving it seems pretty difficult, because so far nobody’s come close to cracking it!

Can you solve it? And do you think it’s any good?

Hi!

I'm looking for books about mages, wizards and witches in which the magic itself is a central part of the story and not just there so the MC can slam a fireball into the face of his foes.
Maybe the magic has a will of its own or the MC is trying to 'restore' it from some kind of 'disease' or something else.

And how are you liking it?

I'm working my way through Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett and it's solid so far, lots of fun, very compelling. I'm not the fastest reader but I'm already halfway done after just a few days.

Looking for recommendations for series with rebellion as a main focus. I want a MC that tells the elder council, noble assembly, ancient wizard circle, whatever high and mighty force to go to hell with their suggestions and orders. I liked the Embers of illeniel series where the MC decided to burn the whole world when he got the power to do it. I like the immortal great souls series where all authority is rightly viewed with suspicion. What else do you fine connoisseurs have for me?

Wow I'm in that book fog. Finished this arch of the story and just feel drained. While not the best book in the series in my opinion I still enjoyed it. Going to feel rough to wait 10 years (IRL time) for the next visit to main story Roshar. Hopefully the planned novellas and possibly some hints in other Cosmere works will scratch the itch.

"Skeletons of the Gods" is a dark fantasy/horror tale about the man, who always wanted to be someone better, than he was. I invite You to read: https://adeptusrpg.wordpress.com/2024/02/17/skeletons-of-the-gods-short-story/ or listen to: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nk5RprPrkiU And here is the fragment.

Thousands of years ago, in a certain kingdom in the far south, there lived a man who always wanted more than he had... wanted to be more than he was. His name has been erased from the records, but the wise people who know this story call this man "The Insatiable One." He was born into a family of servants of a nobleman. His parents trained him from an early age to take their place one day. They always told him, “Look how lucky you are! You could have been a slave on some plantation, but you are a servant in a rich man's house! Moreover, such a good man. He lets us eat the leftovers from his table and only beats us when he gets really angry. You will have a real paradise with him!” B

cross-posted from: https://biglemmowski.win/post/3737049

How I didn't know about this is beyond me, either way now you know too, can't wait for release!

https://reactormag.com/columns/wind-and-truth/

@[email protected]'s wife is the author of this story. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I wanted to support one of our Lemmy users (or their spouse, anyway)! Let's hope this becomes a franchise like she hopes!

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/5600161

Thoughts on this book?

Thoughts on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit?

I might watch The Rings of Power but I've heard mixed things on it. What do you all think of it?

Mostly though: I'm hoping that some people here can expand on what I'm reading so far.

'Cause honestly, I do like what I'm reading, I do, and that's because I genuinely like the mythological tone that the world-building takes. And Numenor as an "Atlantis" is a fine way to do things, but honestly, I doubt they'll be able to do much with it in whatever Amazon property they decide to make of it (which, I mean, is fine). I wonder if there are other shows or serials besides The Rings of Power that are coming out? Either way: I really like the beginning and how everything started with music and song.

Your thoughts?

39 titles for $18 and up. Good for another ~2 weeks. DRM'd but, uh, doesn't Calibre just have the neatest plugins?

So there is a loud party near my house and I can't sleep so I decided to see how many books I have in my house. There is this trend that says that 1.000 books make a library and I wanted to see if I have more. I am at 1.697 books and I haven't counted 14 shelves, a bookcase, some books that are just hanging around the house (You know the ones you read at the same time and the books that you may want to read next) and some books that we have in closets and boxes cause we were out of bookcases 🤣🤣

I really want to find and count the rest!

Want a great book to get someone reading again. Thornhedge is a good one to try. I think it’s a good gateway book to fantasy books as well.

What books do you think would be good? To get someone into a new genre or back into reading?

Good deal and great series. Just bought and redeemed it using Kobo, very smooth experience.