Sex & Shenanigans

Gave it a quick googling, and while I really appreciate any and all book-tips, isekais (person transported to another world, often containing game-elements) are really not my thing 😖 Fantasy in general is pretty low on the list, unless it's contemporary. Like Shadowrun! Contemporary sci-fintasy. The dragons are corporate CEOs, sitting on digital piles of gold 😂

But I truly hope you get as lost in it as I did with Worm! It's the best feeling ever 🥰
Take a look at The Dragons of the Cuyahoga by S. Andrew Swann. The premise is a portal opens in Cleveland to a magical realm, which allows magic to be used within a few miles of the city. It also allows the humans, elves, dwarves, and dragons, among other things, into our earth. After a few years, everything has settled down, with the legal and political ramifications still working themselves out (such as dragons incorporating to gain power in our world). And then, someone murders a dragon over Cleveland (the first chapter is a fantastic description of what would happen if a magic dragon ran snout-first into the Square-Cube Law). Then it is up to a political reporter to find out what happened and why. It has some strong Shadowrun vibes, and is a nice magic noir thriller. I love that the main character is just a 40ish guy, not a wizard or a warrior, just a reporter. I really enjoyed it.
 
It's also the reason why I can't for the life of me get into Brian Sanderson's stuff! I have a copy of the Stormlight Archive laying around somewhere with a bookmark at some chapter where he spend like 10 pages going into excruciating detail on how fucking lamps work! I don't need to know that! 😂

Huff... hufff..... sorry. I get a bit worked up over literature. I don't mean to yuck your yum. Not intentionally. Sorry 🙏


:love: :love: @UnquietDreams is a big Shadow Run fan too! There are dozens of us, DOZENS!
I appreciate Sanderson's world building, and if he were writing RPG sourcebooks, I would probably enjoy them. But I utterly hate is writing style (or lack of therein), and how he lays everything out. His prose is so fucking vanilla. And I want a workable, consistent magic system, but I don't need to be able to write a dissertation on it after reading a novel. I read the first of the Mistborn books, and about half of The Way of Kings before I gave up, so I tried, I really did.

The Shadowrun sourcebooks are so much better written, and more compelling, than anything Sanderson wrote.
 
sorry, half past 3 in the morning, this is the only thing to which i have the mental wherewithal to reply
His prose is so fucking vanilla.
A perk of having english as a third language, I'm not picky when it comes to prose! Flat language isn't much of an issue, but repetitive language can drive me up the fucking wall. I love Joe Abercrombie and his grim-dark industrial revolution fantasy... but the man's in love with the word "floundering". People never stumble, or fall, or crawl, or stagger, or reel, or lurch... They always flounder. FLOUNDER! It breaks my immersion as my mind's eye immediately replaces the character in question with an uglier-than-sin flat fish.

And I want a workable, consistent magic system, but I don't need to be able to write a dissertation on it after reading a novel.
Opinion piece! The less explained a magic system is, the better. Give me Lord of the Rings, give me The First Law, or even The Colour of Magic. Soft systems. No rules, just vibes. Mystery trumps everything.
 
Opinion piece! The less explained a magic system is, the better. Give me Lord of the Rings, give me The First Law, or even The Colour of Magic. Soft systems. No rules, just vibes. Mystery trumps everything.
When writing fantasy, I have rules -- you need consistent rules otherwise your reader loses trust. But I don't explain them. I know them so the reader doesn't have to. When reading, Jim Butcher's work is an exception to that rule for me, but I like it in spite of that rather than because of that.
 
A-fucking-men sister. It’s magic. Not science. Let me wonder.
Right?? Like, what's more exciting to read about...

The air shimmered around the old smith's shoulders, a hazy mirage which told a tale of flame. "Run," the bald man said, and I obeyed. For a moment, the forest laid still, and the only sounds were of the dry leaves breaking beneath my feet. Then, hellfire.

The air shimmered around the old smith as he painstakingly drew the sign of Ignis in the air. A trail of flame followed his fingertip, drawing out the now familiar shapes. The bald man had opened his dormant internal pathways, allowing the ether to flow freely. This would end badly. "Run."
 
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