[Off-Topic] Community Chat Thread

[5colorsrainbow]

I was just curious, I've been trying to do a bit more reading books, both new and old one and when talking about it to friends I found a few of them really don't read much fantasy but mostly interact with the genre tv shows/videos games/comics* and I figured I'd ask here since I assume most people here like fantasy in some form LOL

Recently I've read Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and re-read Holes by Louis Sachar, the first set of the Circle of Magic by Tamora Pierce and Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya.


*blah blah blah yes comics is a form of reading and writing but I'm looking for for traditional prose for this question. Audio books count as well. Also not trying to shame anyone who doesn't read.

[cheonice]

*blah blah blah yes comics is a form of reading and writing but I'm looking for for traditional prose for this question. Audio books count as well. Also not trying to shame anyone who doesn't read.

Each medium has it's own strengths and weaknesses. There are things you can do in a novel but can't in a comic.

[materpillar]

I was just curious, I've been trying to do a bit more reading books, both new and old one and when talking about it to friends I found a few of them really don't read much fantasy but mostly interact with the genre tv shows/videos games/comics* and I figured I'd ask here since I assume most people here like fantasy in some form LOL

Recently I've read Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and re-read Holes by Louis Sachar, the first set of the Circle of Magic by Tamora Pierce and Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya.


*blah blah blah yes comics is a form of reading and writing but I'm looking for for traditional prose for this question. Audio books count as well. Also not trying to shame anyone who doesn't read.

It's SciFi not Fantasy but the audiobooks for The Expanse were truly exceptional. It's the best series I've read recently.

The Dresden Files are great.
Anything Brandon Sanderson writes is great.
I enjoyed the Lightbringer series although it's worse than the above mentioned books.

If you're looking for classics Dracula and Frankenstein hold up really well in my opinion.

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

Anything Brandon Sanderson writes is great.

Have you read Sanderson's Mistborn series ? Curious about that particular trilogy and your opinion on it.

[Moxnix]

I loved it though i liked the start of the series more than the end its hard to follow up Kelsier the survivor of hathsin as his story was just so damn epic.

[materpillar]

Anything Brandon Sanderson writes is great.

Have you read Sanderson's Mistborn series ? Curious about that particular trilogy and your opinion on it.

I think Mistborn was excellent. I tried to get my wife to read Harry Potter with me and she slogged through a few books of it. Then, one day I came home and she was just reading my copy of Mistborn that I'd be reading on the side. It's probably her favorite piece of fiction now. I think the first 3 books are some of the best introduction to fiction I know of. The second arc (last 4 books) is also very good but not as good as the first.

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

I think Mistborn was excellent. I tried to get my wife to read Harry Potter with me and she slogged through a few books of it. Then, one day I came home and she was just reading my copy of Mistborn that I'd be reading on the side. It's probably her favorite piece of fiction now. I think the first 3 books are some of the best introduction to fiction I know of. The second arc (last 4 books) is also very good but not as good as the first.

Added it to my reading backlog. I can get the trilogy for about 30 euros, which is a decent price .

[Jemolk]

If anyone hasn't yet read the Discworld series by the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett, I cannot recommend it highly enough. And it'll mean you won't run out of reading material for a while -- there are 41 books! I gather some people can find that a bit intimidating, or not know where to start. The first couple of books are good, but not so good as to drive Pratchett fans everywhere to evangelism. That hits a bit later. Personally, I usually recommend starting with Small Gods, because it's a stand-alone story with minimal references to the rest, so you're not missing much of anything, but also, Sir Terry had really honed his craft by that point. Really, though, anything that sounds good to you is a good place to start.

Just don't forget to read the footnotes!

[Hermes_]

If anyone hasn't yet read the Discworld series by the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett, I cannot recommend it highly enough. And it'll mean you won't run out of reading material for a while -- there are 41 books! I gather some people can find that a bit intimidating, or not know where to start. The first couple of books are good, but not so good as to drive Pratchett fans everywhere to evangelism. That hits a bit later.

I tried reading it twice and i couldn't get get into it.

[5colorsrainbow]

Each medium has it's own strengths and weaknesses. There are things you can do in a novel but can't in a comic.

Oh 100% just in this case I'm looking more so for traditional prose mediums. Not trying to sound superior but it was just the fact I feel that how much the idea "reading books is for nerds" and yet it seems a lot of people don't read as much. I will say a good ton of people I asked who say they don't read is due to not having the time/mental energy.

It's SciFi not Fantasy but the audiobooks for The Expanse were truly exceptional. It's the best series I've read recently.

The Dresden Files are great.
Anything Brandon Sanderson writes is great.
I enjoyed the Lightbringer series although it's worse than the above mentioned books.

If you're looking for classics Dracula and Frankenstein hold up really well in my opinion.

I'm not looking for recommendations atm BUT I'm never not interested in them (I just have a big reading log I need to get thru myself) but thank you :D

I love Dracula, and I still haven't gotten over one of the staples of gothic horror had a cowboy as supporting lead character. Frankenstein is also a favorite and love that it was just a melding pot of genres before they had really come into focus. I like to re-read them and Poe stuff during Halloween.

Just my own personal favorite fantasy stuff off the top of my head;

-Most anything by Tamora Pierce, The Immortals and Circle of Magic series being my favorites

-Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Brandon Sanders also famously wrote the last few books after Jordan passed and I did read his Magic story, so I've been wanting to get into his work at some poitns

- Iron Widow novels by Xiran Jay Zhou (I just really enjoyed them and the new one came out this year so its been in my mind).

- Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, it really looks a lot at the culture i grew up with and the superstitions that are still believed in.

-I like the world building and history of A Song of Ice and Fire AOT but a lot of the main storyline plots I'm just not into. Like I rather just get more history books then the last two books (if we ever see them).

-Percy Jackson Universe, I loved it as a kid and I think the author has some of the best ways of adapting greek mythology into urban fantasy.

-I wouldn't lie, also was a fan of JK Rowling and Neil Gaimen but their recent action have put me off their work I think for the indefinitely future.

On my list atm is:
Circe by Madeline Miller
100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez
Queer as Folklore by Sacha Coward
Oath of Fire by K Arsenault Rivera,
Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology
The two non-porn books by Chuck Tingle
Queer Oz by Tison Pugh
Dungeon Man Sam by J. W. Benjamin
Some of the newer Percy Jackson books
Re-reads of some of the stuff.

I also would like to find a good translation of Journey to the West and I need to look up with Discworld book to start on.

[Dragonlover]

I need to look up with Discworld book to start on.

Ask five fans, get ten answers. There are reading guides out there, I personally started with Mort which is apparently a good one to start on, for me it was just the first one I came across.

Dragonlover

[Jemolk]

A good video for Pratchett recommendations:

If anyone hasn't yet read the Discworld series by the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett, I cannot recommend it highly enough. And it'll mean you won't run out of reading material for a while -- there are 41 books! I gather some people can find that a bit intimidating, or not know where to start. The first couple of books are good, but not so good as to drive Pratchett fans everywhere to evangelism. That hits a bit later.

I tried reading it twice and i couldn't get get into it.

Not sure what you've tried, but from the sound of things, and what you've indicated you really like, you might get a kick out of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch sub-series. It follows Sam Vimes and the Watchmen under his command. It's got a detective noir sort of style. This sub-series is also the one that most closely deals with the organization of society. It's not the sort of partial real-world setting that something like the Dresden Files has, but Ankh-Morpork draws very heavily from a lot of real cities in its design, and definitely can feel like a real place, despite how patently absurd the disc is on its face. The books in that sub-series, in case you want to check out back-of-book blurbs and see what sounds good, are Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Thud!, and Snuff.

Of course, you are free to tell me I'm completely off-base about my guesses as to what you'd like if that's at all the case.

[5colorsrainbow]

@Jemolk Haha I've seen.

My plan is look at the books more when i get through my reading list and then figure out what book I want to start on. So far i like the sound of the witch characters and might start there.

[folding_music]

got like 20 Discworld novels on my shelf. I love the witches, the guard, Rincewind and a lot of the later stuff. my fave one overall might be Feet of Clay but they're all due a re-read!

most recently read a bunch of Iain M. Banks. his fairly heavy going science fiction Culture series which seems to explore cruelty as the main theme despite being set in or around various techno utopias. I already knew Use of Weapons et al but found Surface Detail to be a masterpiece.

also got recommended Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson but I'm kinda suffering with it? it's so grim! I love fantasy when it includes joy and cameraderie, like the way the characters in LOTR talk to each other in uplifting ways and get each other through hopeless situations. when books dwell on scenes of death and exploitation and all the characters are swapping these gruff laments it's more like being in the trenches than being on an adventure, really stultifying stuff. i'd even take irritating teens being irreverent and doing terrible Marvelesque dialogue over some of this misery. i think it's important to have these negative dour moments in a real work of storytelling but here it's dominant

[Hermes_]

I found the perfect game

[Dunadain]

I won't be active on this forum for the foreseeable future. Unrelated to the forum itself, but I'm just stepping away from MTG in general.

I've been frustrated with magic for a while now, but I've stuck with it, in part with the hope that it could change, in part because I've been playing the game so long I don't want to let it go.

I think Final Fantasy convinced me that things won't change, it's everything I've grown to resent about magic and it's also the most successful magic set of all time. The game just isn't being made for me anymore. Which is fine, WOTC doesn't owe me anything, but I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't sting.

I'm also not completely quitting magic, I've recently started attending weekly drafts/cubes at a semi local LGS (it's actually a bit of a hike to get out there) and I've found it allows me to engage on magic on my own terms. If we're drafting something I think is cool, I show up, if not, there's always next week.

I'll also be keeping my collection, even if I don't expect things to ever change, the idea that I have something to start back up again, if they do, provides me with comfort.

By and large though, I'm trying to distance myself from the game. I won't be maintaining decks, I won't be consuming mtg content, I won't be following spoilers, and I won't be active on this forum anymore.

There's that phrase "this isn't an airport, you don't need to announce your departure" usually said in a sort of "good riddance" attitude when someone loudly declares that they are quitting something, and for the most part I understand that sentiment, but I've been on this forum long enough, and I've grown to know many of you (at least on a superficial level) so I wanted to explain myself and air it all out. I genuinely hope you all enjoy magic for years to come, at it's core, it genuinely is a magical game (pun not intended).

[Hermes_]

I won't be active on this forum for the foreseeable future. Unrelated to the forum itself, but I'm just stepping away from MTG in general.

[Ulka]

I won't be active on this forum for the foreseeable future. Unrelated to the forum itself, but I'm just stepping away from MTG in general.

I feel ya. I find the only reason I play anymore is freinds and Cube. I think with my group all being kinda burned out on the rapid release and UB stuff it made for cubing to be easy as we currently have a legacy cube that the most recent cards are from Eldraine. But I will miss reading your takes and if you want I would love to try to get more users active in the Cube section of the threads but I know the community isn't here as much for that.

[Lifeless]

This isn't a surprise but I'm always sorry to see active contributors go. I expect to see a lot more attrition as UB related burnout escalates. I had a similar moment years ago and eventually found the level of contribution to Magic discourse that made me happy. I wish you the same.

[RxPhantom]

@Dunadain, I know I'm not here too much anymore, but I'm sorry to see you go, even more so to hear how you're feeling about Magic lately. I totally agree. The rise of UB feels like the rapid rot of the game's soul. That may be a bid dramatic, but I truly hate it. The silver lining is that I almost completely checked out of the perpetual hype train for a while, and I'm kind of looking forward to checking out again for Spider-Man and Avatar.

I also agree about Cube. I'm finally almost finished with my Jumpstart cube.

Anyway, I wish you well, my friend. I hope you find your way back one day.

[Rumpy5897]

Feels appropriate to forward what I chose to drop into the FF survey (echoing points made on the forums before)

the game remains amazing, but it would be nice if it stopped being a "your ad here" for whatever third party IP wants to use you for advertising. it's not working. you get sales, but not for the reasons you want to be getting sales. injecting the sets into standard will not magically retain the players as they're just not that interested in doing so, and you're eroding the loyalty of your actual invested player base with each of these stunts that you pull. for the first time in 10+ years, I pretty much stopped following new sets for about half a year after foundations as you announced your full blown shift to even more UB. I was enamoured by bloomburrow, but at some point not long after its release realised that had it come out 15 years ago it would have been just another run of the mill set. that's how far the game has fallen since it started pursuing cheap tropey resonance, culminating in full-blown UB.

Taking this accidental hiatus for a bit let me stick my head in with no pressure and take things as they are when I was ready. Hope that you'll find a way to enjoy the game at some point again.

[Moxnix]

Good luck dunadain always a pleasure

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@Dunadain try out some of the throwback formats like Premodern or classic legacy if you ever feel you need a quick Magic(TM) fix. They're quite fun. Premodern is pretty accessible via reprints and the classic Legacy events I've played were proxy friendly.

Extrapolating from that, I think the popularity of those fixed-timeframe retro formats speaks to a rising distaste of modern magic direction. Maybe WotC will pivot back eventually, maybe not. It's not my worry anymore. They can't take away my Jackal Pups or my Bolts or the fine folks at my local premodern monthly or the people with whom I play Old School, etc, etc. I have found new confidence in that I can find places to play Magic, real Magic, without having to dance to WotC maddening tune. Feels liberating, man.

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

Extrapolating from that, I think the popularity of those fixed-timeframe retro formats speaks to a rising distaste of modern magic direction. Maybe WotC will pivot back eventually, maybe not. It's not my worry anymore. They can't take away my Jackal Pups or my Bolts or the fine folks at my local premodern monthly or the people with whom I play Old School, etc, etc. I have found new confidence in that I can find places to play Magic, real Magic, without having to dance to WotC maddening tune. Feels liberating, man.

For about a decade there was a healthy Standard population in the LGS that I frequent. In the past two years it has completely collapsed. Yesterday there were only two people who had signed up for Standard and it has not been able to fire for months now. There are more people who are interested in Pioneer, which does basically always have enough people willing to play, but the store wants to push Standard for allocation reasons I think?

Which means that Pioneer is only a monthly thing... and makes people weary of playing that as well .

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Extrapolating from that, I think the popularity of those fixed-timeframe retro formats speaks to a rising distaste of modern magic direction. Maybe WotC will pivot back eventually, maybe not. It's not my worry anymore. They can't take away my Jackal Pups or my Bolts or the fine folks at my local premodern monthly or the people with whom I play Old School, etc, etc. I have found new confidence in that I can find places to play Magic, real Magic, without having to dance to WotC maddening tune. Feels liberating, man.

For about a decade there was a healthy Standard population in the LGS that I frequent. In the past two years it has completely collapsed. Yesterday there were only two people who had signed up for Standard and it has not been able to fire for months now. There are more people who are interested in Pioneer, which does basically always have enough people willing to play, but the store wants to push Standard for allocation reasons I think?

Which means that Pioneer is only a monthly thing... and makes people weary of playing that as well .

Yo, you live in Spain, right? The founding people of Classic Legacy folk do their thing in Barcelona. I dunno if that is a massive hike or not, but if you want a taste of that pure Magic, I think you're the closest.

If you ever do go check it, please do tell how green is that grass.