#genre fantasy

[reddy-reads]

The Frog Princess (E. D. Baker)

I loved this series when I was a wee child, and I picked it up again from the library for some good old-fashioned comfort reading. (Incidentally, when Disney’s the Princess and the Frog came out, it briefly gobbled up all the search results for this series, but they’re not related.)

This is a book series for young readers! It features magic, talking animals, friendship, a (cute and tame) romantic relationship, and uhhhh magic. I love magic. And magic talking animals.

WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK

Talking animals! Over the course of the series, the princess Emma meets a talking prince-turned-frog, gets turned into a frog herself, meets a nice bat named Lil, and also becomes (among other things) a dragon-friend!

Character development! You get to see the characters grow and change over the course of the series!

That YA classic “feeling like you don’t fit in with your assigned role in society” theme. Listen, the girl Emma would not be running off and hiding in the swamp if everything was always easy all the time

This is a fun series, and I recommend it :)

[bajoop-sheeb]

PLEASE for the love of the universe read anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy written from marginalized perspectives. Y’all (you know who you are) are killing me. To see people praise books about empire written exclusively by white women and then turn around and say you don’t know who Octavia Butler is or that you haven’t read any NK Jemisin just kills me! I’m not saying you HAVE to enjoy specific books but there is such an obvious pattern here

Some of y’all love marginalized stories but you don’t give a fuck about marginalized creators and characters, and it shows. Like damn

[draguscn]

Plot Fantasi

Menulis cerita fantasy tidak hanya membutuhkan dunia yang menarik dan karakter yang kuat, tetapi juga penguasaan plot dan struktur yang solid. Banyak cerita fantasy terkenal memiliki plot yang kompleks dan berlapis, melibatkan berbagai karakter, konflik yang mendalam, serta twist yang mengejutkan. Penulis perlu merencanakan jalan cerita dengan baik untuk memastikan bahwa cerita tetap logis,…

[boyslovegermany]

Vice Versa (2022)

Darsteller: Jimmy Jitaraphol, Sea Tawinan, Ohm Pawat, Nanon Korapat, Aou Thanaboon, Neo Trai, Jeab Lalana Regie: X Nuttapong Buchvorlage: "Vice Versa" von JittiRain Genre: Paralleluniversum, Fantasy 12 Folgen à 55 Minuten

Ich werde jetzt nicht verraten, wie es dazu kam, aber Talay (Sea) macht einen Sprung in ein Paralleluniversum, ebenso wie der bekannte Schauspieler Puen (Jimmy). In diesem Paralleluniversum haben sie andere Namen (Talay heißt Tess, Puen heißt Tun) und Aussehen und mit Hilfe einer Krankenschwester müssen sie eine Person finden, die ihr Portkey, ihr Schlüssel in das alte Universum ist. Sie freunden sich an. Sind sie der Seelenverwandte des jeweils anderen?

Die Serie ist nicht so verwirrend, wie sie im ersten Moment klingt, man kann der Handlung gut folgen. Die Grundidee fand ich interessant. Leider muss ich bemängeln, dass - es war ihre erste gemeinsame BL - die Chemie zwischen JimmySea so gar nicht stimmt. Jimmys Schauspielleistung lässt zu wünschen übrig und ihre gemeinsamen Kussszenen sind einfach unangenehm mit anzusehen. Gerettet wird das Ganze nur von Sea Tawinan, der die ganze Serie auf seinem Rücken trägt, sowie den charmanten Nebendarstellern.

Ich gebe dem Ganzen nur 2/5 Strenen. Wer eine gute Serie mit JimmySea sehen will, der sollte unbedingt "Last Twilight" schauen.

Anmerkung: - In zwei nicht unwesentlichen Nebenrollen spielen Ohm Pawat und Nanon Korapat, die man natürlich aus Bad Buddy kennt. Und sie holen das Beste aus ihrem kurzen Auftritt heraus, besonders Nanon.

[elucubrare]

i firmly hold that it's my duty as a reader to believe it when an author tells me at the beginning of the series that the dragons are gone forever and never coming back. but god it's a struggle sometimes.

[colmsmyth]

Review: Babel by R.F. Kuang ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really need to use this blog more often — partially because, as an aspiring writer, I should be involved in a community of other readers and writers.

Kuang’s Babel follows the journey of nameless-yet-pseudonymed Robin Swift, a Chinese boy living in a world of magic and severe inequality.

Once again, Kuang’s incredible writing prowess shines through in this story of colonialism, magic, racism, and translation. The experience and knowledge of a writer flaunting two Master degrees and a Doctorate arise on every page of this book, and I found myself amazed at the amount of in-depth knowledge Kuang includes throughout.

While the story of a young boy growing in a world of magic is one that has been tackled many times, (even I’m currently writing it!) Kuang’s spin on the genre adds a bitter, scathing indictment of British imperialism and colonisation in general. Kuang’s magic isn’t fantastic and heartwarming, because it is rooted in slavery, murder, rape, torture, theft and greed.

I found this book to be a great fiction read and a great history lesson. Kuang includes footnotes which make the text much more accessible for readers who do not speak any of the languages explored, and includes detailed information on contemporary wars, conflicts, and social viewpoints. Even if you are not well-versed in Chinese history or non-Romance languages, Kuang makes her story accessible to us as universal readers.

I think that’s what blew me away the most about Babel, and what utterly decimated my self-expectations as a writer. I revisited my manuscript after every reading session and asked myself, “Why can’t I BE her?!” I found a deep love for Robin, Ramy and Victoire that I couldn’t even find in my own characters. It feels as though Kuang truly spent blood as she wrote the relationship between these characters. Without detailing any spoilers, the character deaths, plot twists, betrayals, and even just the daily interactions with racism and colonialism, all pluck either a nerve or a heartstring. I found myself experiencing mixed emotions up until the very last page.

The last book which managed to play my emotions like a grand piano like this was Yellowface, which is another incredible work of Kuang’s, though it is set in a much different environment. (Regardless, Kuang of course writes powerfully and effortlessly here, too.)

I finished Babel close enough to the end of 2023 that I’ll cheat a little and call it my favourite book of 2024. I cannot see any novel I read this year topping this powder keg of emotion. I give Babel a 5/5, as it was a powerful and interesting read, and evoked a strong emotional response in me — mainly anger, but many moments of sadness as well.

[d20outofcontext]

[prokopetz]

"But if this other world has always operated according to video game logic, why is the isekai protagonist literally the first person to figure out all these basic mechanical exploints" well, largely because litRPG isekai is merely the latest flavour of I've Been Transported To Another World Where Everyone Is Stupid Except For Me, a venerable genre that's been a going concern at least since Mark Twain.

When I was a kid, it was American sci-fi authors writing stories about shitass engineering majors getting portal-fantasied to alien planets and single-handedly saving civilisation on the strength of being the only person in the world who knows what a flowchart is, and very little has changed – right down to the weirdly inverted character arcs where the loser protagonist discovers that they don't actually need to engage in any self-reflection at all because the very traits that rendered them odious in their native society are what make them God here.

[txttletale]

fuck tolkein and fuck dnd for being the originator and modern popularizer respectively of the race science tropes that have glued themselves parasitically to the fantasy genre and refuse to come off

[reddy-reads]

Book of the Month: February

I finished January's book, so it's time to pick a new book of the month! (I pick a book that's been on my "to read" pile for too long; if that book doesn't get finished by the end of the month, it gets donated to the library.)

February's book is "The Women's War" by Jenna Glass.

This one was an impulse-buy, and it's been on my nightstand ever since. Let's take a look at the summary:

[...] a revolutionary spell gives women the ability to control their own fertility—with consequences that rock their patriarchal society to its core.

When a nobleman’s first duty is to produce a male heir, women have always been treated like possessions and bargaining chips. But now, as the aftereffects of this world-altering spell ripple out both physically and culturally, women at last have a bargaining chip of their own. And two women in particular find themselves at the crossroads of change.

Alys is the widowed mother of two teenage children, and the disinherited daughter of a king. Her existence has been a carefully proscribed thing, but now she discovers a fierce talent not only for politics, but also for magic—once deemed solely the domain of men. Meanwhile, in a neighboring kingdom, young Ellin finds herself unexpectedly on the throne after the sudden death of not only her grandfather the king, but everyone else who stood before her in the line of succession. Conventional wisdom holds that she will marry quickly, then quietly surrender the throne to her new husband…only Ellin has other ideas.

The tensions tearing at both kingdoms become abruptly worse when a caravan of exiled women and their escort of disgraced soldiers stumble upon a new source of magic in what was once uninhabitable desert. This new and revolutionary magic–which only women can wield–threatens to tear down what is left of the patriarchy. And the men who currently hold power would do anything to destroy it.

I'm 90% sure I read "fantasy world where they invent a birth control spell, with political consequences" and just bought it--both because that's a neat premise and also because I don't remember any of the summary past "bargaining chip of their own."

I'm used to fantasy that either doesn't really mention birth control at all or that handwaves it. (For example, my beloved Tamora Pierce's works have various magical prophylactics that allow the characters to have safer sex.)

I think it could be interesting to read something that instead starts with "birth control is invented" and goes from there.

Fun fact about this book: I wanted to do it for “Book of the month” LAST february but then something happened (I think I was gifted a book by my parents) and I never got to it 

[belovedfarseer]

Dragons. You agree, reblog

[draguscn]

Karakter Fantasi

Photo by R. Fera on Pexels.com Dalam sebuah cerita fantasy, world-building yang mendalam dan alur cerita yang menegangkan tidak akan sempurna tanpa karakter yang kuat. Pengembangan karakter adalah aspek penting yang akan membuat cerita Anda benar-benar hidup. Karakter yang berlapis dan kompleks dapat menjadi jembatan antara dunia yang fantastis dan emosi pembaca. Pembaca harus bisa merasakan…

[shortboxcomicsfair]

 Magic is disappearing from the world. In a last ditch effort to save it, a ranger is sent up from the kingdom below to get the help of a great wizard, who lives in solitude at the top of a mountain. What he finds instead is a crabby hermit who has dismissed the world below entirely, but the wizard may know more about the unfolding calamity than she lets on...  'The View From Up There' is a new comic by Simone Stehouwer, debuting at the fair this October! This comic will be released digitally in October as part of ShortBox Comics Fair, an online-only event that will see the release of over 100+ new, original comics from artists around the world!

[ashirisu]

getting pretty sick of fantasy novels introducing character flaws that are just, “they’re fat. they like to eat sweets, isn’t that awful and stupid of them?” talk about lazy writing

[yardsards]

laios when his party needed more members:

[prokopetz]

When I think of musical genres associated with standard fantasy species, it's probably elf rock and orc metal, but gnome music is definitely gnomecore. Gnomes just feel like they'd be about -core.