Books

[ebin namefag]

I can't read.

[rabidtictac]

The concept is very retarded. Men are tainted because they are men but wombyn are pure and awesome.

Now wonder it got a live-action series in Current Year.

Supposedly they made the tv adaptation even more woke, to the point that none of the OG fans of wheel of time like it.

[Kugelfisch]

I plan to get to God-Emperor and Dune Messiah. I know I read Children of Dune and I have read Dune many, many times. But I don't remember when I read books 2 and 3.

Messiah is the second, Children the third and God-Emperor the fourth book. Sounds like you're mixing them up.

I'd always advise people to stop after Children of Dune and just pretend three books is all he got to write and then died.

[rabidtictac]

Ah. Yeah, I was confused about which book was which. Normally I just stop after book 1 because that's satisfying enough.

I do love the kind of story Dune is. The pseudo-messiah angle exploration is really interesting to me. Same reason I like Lawrence of Arabia. I've been reading the Prince of Nothing series of late and it does something similar, although way more edgy.

[ebin namefag]

I do love the kind of story Dune is. The pseudo-messiah angle exploration is really interesting to me.

You have a God complex.

[Kugelfisch]

Ah. Yeah, I was confused about which book was which. Normally I just stop after book 1 because that's satisfying enough.

Messiah is also really good. A very well-written twist. Children was mostly bad but it had the greatest out of nowhere ending ever.

Then God-Emperor shows you what happened with that in a thousand year time skip and it's total garbage.
Don't even get me started on the following books! I don't think I'll never not be mad about them.

[ebin namefag]

Children was mostly bad

Just like in real life.

[Kugelfisch]

Children was mostly bad

Just like in real life.

And then one of them becomes the God-Emperor for a thousand years.
It's as bad as it sounds.

[rabidtictac]

I do love the kind of story Dune is. The pseudo-messiah angle exploration is really interesting to me.

You have a God complex.

I am a DHI mod.

Children was mostly bad

Which was why I never got to God-Emperor. I remember getting really pissed off while reading Children and quitting it.

[rabidtictac]

If anyone wants to read some free fantasy stuff, Clark Aston Smith's Zothique is free on archive.org and Lord Dunsany's King of Elfland's Daughter should be copyright free.

https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/lumi ... thique.pdf

https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20120938

I don't remember how long King of Elfland's Daughter is, but Zothique is a short story collection. It's not long, but the prose is dense. I recommend starting with The Dark Eidolon instead of Xeethra. Xeethra is a little esoteric. With compilations like these, I don't know how they decide which stories to sort where in the ordering. In my opinion, a short story collection should begin with the "best" stories, some less good stuff in the middle and then end on a final banger. The best stories in Zothique are:

Black Abbot of Pathuum
Weaver in the Vault
Dark Eidolon
Isle of the Torturers
Voyage of King Euvoran
Necromancy in Naat

It's a great shame that a couple of Smith's best stories are technically not counted as part of the Zothique universe... The Death of Malygris is a must-read. But I will say, that the Zothique collection is probably overall the most consistent in quality out of the various Clark Ashton Smith collections I have read... Which include all of his fiction of which I am aware. The most recent collections of Clark Ashton Smith seem to be chronological rather than themed... So you get all of his fiction but it's scattershot quality... The best of his stories resting next to some of the more pulpy stuff.

Edit: Oh yes, and if you truly hate yourself or want to test your English literacy, you may go for some of this:

https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/lumi ... ebook).pdf

I don't mean to argue it's bad.... But you'll be working on this one a while.