site banner
PaperclipPerfector  16d ago (text post)   2462 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 6, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

TLDR: Request for fantasy / scifi stories.

I am looking for a certain type of fantasy stories, but it's a bit difficult to describe exactly what too concisely, so please bear with me.

I keep noticing two kinds of problems in Western fantasy stories of the last decade that breaks immersion for me and makes them all feel very similar to each other (and thus more boring).

The first is that the main characters will go out of their way to virtue-signal some stance or action to appeal to the modern Western audience. It may be in the form of immediately going out to fight slavery / chauvinism / racism in a medieval society, even if such a course of action would've realistically carried great risks for the gang and little practical changes.

The second is that their thoughts and actions will be sanitised to not include anything that any large percent of the audience would be likely to find "icky" and cause them to leave a negative review or stop reading the story. This includes inner monologue of sexual nature (if it's in 1st POV); very rarely using intimidation against "non-combatants" / non-enemies; rarely using the character's advantageous position (or e.g. some resource monopoly) to strong-arm concessions from allies, neutral parties, or civilians; almost never deciding to procure slaves of their own (unless there's some convenient excuse to "force" such a scenario upon the MC); and so on.

So I am looking for stories that will not have these two types of writing tropes, and will in addition:

* be well-written in general; preferably be completed and have a large word-count

* the main character(s) should also

** not be edgelords (unless it leads to a really well-executed character development later on)

** not be sadists who tend to cause suffering / harm just for its own sake

** not be hypocrites, not apply double standards when judging others' actions v.s. judging their own

* not be the Prince of Nothing series. (edit:) Or aSoIaF, or Chronicles of Amber.

Does anyone know any such stories? Any format is fine, be it printed literature, web originals, or fanfiction.

And to clarify, I am not advocating for any real-life applications of what I've listed earlier. I just want my fictional stories to have more variety to them, and am trying to find works of western origin that would offer such variety.

edit: stories recommended so far:

  • Acts of Caine series / Heroes Die (1998) — new
  • The Black Company (1984) — new
  • The Bloodsworm saga (2021, 3 books, complete) — new
  • Brigador Killers: Pilgrim (2025) — new
  • Codex Alera (2004) — new, but Jim Butcher
  • Cugel's Saga (1950 / 1983) — new
  • Dresden Files — didn't like the writing
  • Eisenhorn (2004) — new, but WH40k. May give it a try.
  • First Law trilogy (2006) — new
  • Furies of Calderon (2004) — new
  • Locke lamora (2006) — IIRC, didn't like it for some reason
  • The Malazan series — was just about to start reading myself
  • Night angel trilogy (2008) — new
  • Powder Mage series (2013) — new
  • The Sun Eater series (2018) — new
  • Vlad Taltos series (1983) — new
  • Warhammer 40k — I liked the Astartes miniseries, but the overall format of this franchise is not for me.

-

  • Berserk — liked the Golden Age Arc, but the overall manga's not for me.
  • Lymond Chronicles — probably not fantasy enough
  • oyasumi Punpun — not Western
  • Worth the Candle — This story is superbly written, and it matches the "not pandering to the audience" part. But the MC is also extremely motivated towards helping as many people as he can. IIRC, it was pretty much the driving force behind his Quest.
  • The Witcher series — I've mostly liked both the books and the games. However, I don't think Geralt's personality fits this request.

Thanks for all these recs! If you know any others, please post them too, though.

I second the suggestions below for Daniel Abraham's Dagger and the Coin series. (Daniel Abraham is one half of James S. A. Corey, the partnership that wrote The Expanse.)

In addition, you cannot go wrong with Adrian Tchaikovsky. The man is enormously prolific (like, Stephen King or Brandon Sanderson level prolific), but a much better writer than Sanderson, and he writes science fiction and fantasy equally well. His Shadows of the Apt series is ten books long, but I also love his Final Architects and Children of Ruin space operas.

You might check out Flames of Mira by Clay Harmon, but he's only up to two books. Ember Blade by Chris Wooding is also very good (and long), though much more traditional fantasy. Dreams and Shadows and Queen of the Dark Things by C. Robert Cargill if you like Dresden-style urban fantasy. Rob J. Hayes's The War Eternal starts out looking like it's going to be YA, but it really is not (and features the protagonist as a much older narrator looking back on what an idiot she was). Evan Winter's Rage of Dragons is also a good series but it is an unfinished trilogy at present. Both of the latter have very flawed protagonists in fucked-up societies, but I would not quite call them grimdark.

What do folks here think of The Blacktongue Thief? I'd seen it recommended quite a bit and am two-thirds of the way through and think it fits his search pretty well.

It's certainly quite different in it's language and characterization than your standard genre work. Although the MC might be a bit of an edge lord (I'm not totally certain what this means) but I think if he is, the self reflection in the first person narration takes the edge off it a bit - he's presented as pretty self aware.

Curious to hear what others here think of the novel.

Dagger and the Coin

If you like low fantasy try The Crippled King by the A. Trae McMaken. It's a very procedural story about the development of a grand dwarvish mine, plus plenty of politics and conflicts between the dwarves and their human former slavemasters. The MC has a great arc.

Its already on your list, but I can second the Malazan books. Start with the 10 book series The Malazan Book of the Fallen, its been complete for over a decade now. Erikson and Esselmont are actual professionals with bills to pay and an output to match, so there are many more books after those. Its not just very good fantasy, its some of the best fiction every written. Memories of Ice is probably the best fantasy novel ever made.

You may like "Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City" - seems to fit your request, some people liked it. Personally I bounced - but not exactly sure why.

I'd like to recommend the Hammer and the Cross. It's an alternate history set in medieval Europe where Vikings rapidly develop technology without the accompanying enlightenment ideals. I think it fits a lot of your criteria.

Reverend Insanity fulfils your criteria almost perfectly. It's a Chinese xianxia webnovel, extremely, extremely long (albeit sadly unfinished due to a murky legal situation), translated into English.

We have a brutal but not sadistic main character who routinely intimidates non-combatants, 'strong-arming' could be his middle name, closely followed by extorting, betraying and deceiving. He starts the novel beating up fellow students for money. Later on he does some industrial-scale slave-raising of non-humans.

There's basically no sex, rape is alluded to occasionally (notoriously in chapter 1 but this is never followed up on), we never actually see it. That's the only sanitization in the story. Generally it's incredibly un-PC, there's casual homophobia and misogyny that's not even intended to raise any questions, it's just atmospheric. There's a race war going on in the background, a zero-sum struggle for dominance over the world is assumed. There are some nice people in this world, some even highly successful but this is a brutal world with dynamics that incentivize harshness and repression. There can be no political or social equality when personal combat power in their world is more unequal than wealth is in ours.

There's no hypocrisy, our MC doesn't think he's in the right or make justifications at any point, he mostly just clowns on people who are forced to betray themselves by the social constraints they're in. Occasionally he recognizes and salutes fellow people who are true to their own selves, whether they're evil like him or good or just crazy obsessed with something.

Reverend Insanity is also super thoughtful in the construction of the setting, in the conflicts of the characters and the social games they play. The slave-raising chapter I mentioned is interesting, it goes into detail about how he manipulates the rockmen leadership structure, how he toys with them, making it seem like they're defiantly resisting him as he works them to death. Nothing about the story is generic, he made up his own power system with its own dynamics, a rich and strange world with its own power structure, international relations, economy, culture and so on. It all feels like it fits in its world,

However the prose is weird, it's super straightforward, almost childish to a certain level. That may be due to the translation, I don't know. So if you go in and think 'this is insanely low-level, what kind of shit taste does this guy have', sure... it is basic in prose. The author gives up on flowery descriptions quite quickly. But there is a lot more than you'd think in this story. The power of love, fate, revenge, duty, sacrifice... Possibly this is also due to it maturing over the years. While I'd say it's not an edgelord story at any point, (even the infamous bear scene has a thematic level beyond shock value) it definitely becomes less edgy over time. There's a whole meta-level with the in-universe allegories, Reverend Insanity has a claim to literary merit.

Reverend Insanity does have plenty of flowering descriptions, the issue I find with it is that the narration is about 99% tell, 1% show. It will explain at every moment what a side character's inner thoughts and motivation were and why they acted like they did, as well as every intricacy in the magical system that facilitated a difference in power between two characters.

To a certain extent sure but there's a lot of mystery in what happens. WTF was Thieving Heaven up to, what was his whole deal? It was deliberately written so that commenters who tried to work out what would happen would be deceived, he'd change the plot to surprise them.

Lilliana Bodoc's Saga of the Borderlands. Vague retelling of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, but the Spanish are Sauron. I've only read the first one and am making my way through the other two but it's good. Ecological twist on Lord of the Rings with some pretty unique races of people that I don't think I've seen anywhere else in fantasy.

Also have to recommend Wizard of Earthsea. Best character development I've seen in fantasy by far.

I know you say that Warhammer isn't for you, but I would actually recommend you give the Ciaphas Cain series a go, it's very different from anything else in Warhammer, very light hearted, fun and unusually sensible for the setting.

Similarly I would suggest for Warhammer Fantasy the Gotrek and Felix series, at least up to Beastslayer, after which I've found myself falling off the series. It's good fun fantasy adventuring, the first book is different from the others in that it's more of an anthology of short adventures rather than a single narrative. I quite enjoyed it but the second books introduction of the skaven and their schemes really adds a lot of humour.

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. (There's an element of edginess there because the main character starts out as a torturer/executioner, but he isn't a sadist and sees it more as job/necessary evil).

Anything by Daniel Abraham (link to my old review), particularly the Long Price Quartet.

It may be in the form of immediately going out to fight slavery / chauvinism / racism in a medieval society, even if such a course of action would've realistically carried great risks for the gang and little practical changes.

And I in turn would love to see some story with anti-slavery campaign - feel free to recommend me some.

Just it should be serious conflict, not "everyone claps and praises to moral superiority of main character, slavery instantly disappears". It is a pity that I do not remember any stories doing it well. Narnia is closest of all things that I remember right now.

almost never deciding to procure slaves of their own (unless there's some convenient excuse to "force" such a scenario puon the MC)

mostly the same, it sounds like interesting topic to explore but either everything goes unrealistically well or entire story does not deserve to be read at all

I have no problem with Goody Two-Shoes protagonists, I have problems with story having no conflict or having utterly useless world-building.

I in turn would love to see some story with anti-slavery campaign - feel free to recommend me some.

Just it should be serious conflict, not "everyone claps and praises to moral superiority of main character, slavery instantly disappears"

I think the Honor Harrington series and short stories get there eventually.

I think the Honor Harrington series and short stories get there eventually.

I tried reading something by this author and quality was atrociously terrible, in my opinion.

Once again I'll trot out Pale by Wildbow. I think it captures both "anti-slavery campaign" and "slavery does not instantly disappear".

How much of dystopian grimderp world it is?

As much as Worm? 10% of worm? 5%?

I dropped Worm on account of being distilled grimderpness.

I wouldn't call Worm too grimderp, but Pale is definitely much brighter. Maybe 25%? The most grim elements of the setting that were on full display in Pact, the other work in the Otherverse, are pretty much out of the way.

That being said, if you dislike a few horrific displays of torture and violence sprinkled here and there, those do exist in Pale. As I said, there is slavery and the associated mechanisms of suppression.

Thanks for info! I have less problem with "a few horrific displays of torture and violence sprinkled here and there" and more with general hopelessness/pointlessness. Or world where everyone depicted would benefit from being nonexistent or deserves to be nonexistent (see also WH40K).

In that case, I can assure you there is definitely less pointlessness in Pale.

Citizen of the Galaxy (1957) is pretty good, although short-ish.

The Ends of Magic Series (2023) has a lot of relevant stuff also. It has pretty good magical system and fight scene simulation, ok-ish worldbuilding, but underwhelming global plot arc and characters (in my opinion).

Citizen of the Galaxy (1957) is pretty good, although short-ish.

I really liked it despite not being 12 year old. Thanks for recommending. And recommending it also for others!

I did damn it with faint praise by bringing up the market segment like that, didn't I? That wasn't intentional; it's one of my favorite books, without qualifiers, and I just wanted to explain the length. It is aimed at 12 year olds, but it's better than Heinlein's other juveniles, which in turn are better on average than most books targeted at adults.

Citizen of the Galaxy (1957) is pretty good, although short-ish.

It's a juvenile (what publishers now call "middle grade"), and about the right length for its target audience. It's much better than you'd expect for a book targeted at 12 year olds, though. It also fits

serious conflict, not "everyone claps and praises to moral superiority of main character, slavery instantly disappears".

perfectly.

Dorothy Dunnett is historical fiction, but it fits what you want. It even has some very minor low fantasy elements. If you want to dive into a series, begin with the Lymond Chronicles or King Hereafter if you want a taste of her writing.

The Malazan series maybe? personally dnf'd it since it lacked character focus and development for me but if you dig worldbuilding its kinda king.

The Sun Eater series by Cristopher Ruocchio, one book still not out, but you'd have 6 to read to catch up. MC starts out idealistic but things change quickly.

The Bloodsworm saga by John Gwynne recently finished. I'd say it's borderline, characters are mostly following their own motivations, killing is just part of their world, maybe a bit of commentary on slavery but it doesn't feel like a modern sermon it is guilty of the fantasy thing where women have unrealistic combat ability however.

Powder Mage series and it's sequels seemed to mostly avoid this but it's been a while since I've read them so I could be misremembering.

The Witcher series would probably fit this if you haven't read it.

Been recommended The Black Company by Glen Cook a lot for this sort of fantasy, but haven't personally read it yet, on my to read list.

Just started Heroes Die, part of the Acts of Caine series as I was looking for something similar to what you're describing after how guilty of all this Sanderson's latest was. I'll update if it's any good I guess.

If you don't mind manga Berserk fits, and it's not fantasy but I just finished oyasumi Punpun and that story definitely doesn't sanitize it's characters thoughts author might fit your sadism complaint though, even though the characters don't.

The Witcher series would probably fit this if you haven't read it.

this one is quite funny in "The first is that the main characters will go out of their way to virtue-signal some stance or action to appeal to the modern Western audience" category

at the same it has some quite evident targeted attacks and virtue-signalling, but...

  • it applied in a completely different political context
  • to the point that some will be utterly missed
  • this is decades old at this point so it is not so modern politics

Even blatant ethic/racist discrimination stuff is far less jarring as it has more realistic presentation than in a typical modern story (usually both sides did shitty things)

  • Vlad Taltos series by Steven Brust. The books are fun to read. They do explore issues of racism and serfdom, but in a way that doesn't correspond to the modern world, and the main character retains a grounded, no-nonsense attitude.

  • Both the Dresden Files series and Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher. The latter is a six-book completed series, with a cool fantasy-meets-Roman-Empire theme.

  • Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy has some of the most vividly developed characters I have ever read in a fantasy novel.

I also considered the first law, but despite the morally grey main characters, it had a modern western feeling to it. The main party includes a woman, who is also a strong, physical fighter. The opponents engage in slavery and dark magic, while the main characters, for all their faults, have clear red lines on that front. Modern-style romance and gender relations in general are quite clearly implied to be the morally correct option. It has been quite some time since I read it so I may be misremembering/forgetting some parts, though.

The Union has gulags out of sight in Angland; one of the main characters had run such a gulag just prior to the novels, and sends people there during.

The penal colonies are imo quite clearly presented as bad, and Glokta likewise as a cynical anti-hero literally broken by life.

Also, this reminds me of another thing that gave it such a modern western feeling: West hangs out a lot with the Prisoners because he gets along with them well, while the prince he is supposed to be with is a complete idiot asshole. This is mirrored in the cast of PoV characters; By far the most insufferable person, and deliberately so, is Jezal, the nobleman, who only redeems himself through the adventure the story is about. The king, meanwhile, is a fat, drooling senile. The first law consistently portrays the aristocracy as vain idiots with few exceptions, and even those exceptions make up their intelligence with malice. On the other hand it idealizes the wretched.

In history however, meritocracy didn't succeed because commoners are better than nobleman, but because the best of the commoners are better than nobleman. However, the average nobleman had always been better than the average commoner in most ways you could care about. Nobleman often suffered higher casualties than commoners during wars due to their bravery, even common-born upstarts would prefer spending time with the noble-born due to their sociability and commoners in general often engaged in the kind of dysfunctional self-hurting behaviour that contemporary lower classes still exhibit much more than contemporary middle and especially upper classes. And this is and was true even more so once you compare criminals with the nobility.

The main party includes a woman, who is also a strong, physical fighter.

Her abilities get represented as highly unusual in that world, and the reason for her deviation is important to the plot. Unfortunately, the author provides no such reason for the protagonist of "Best served cold" set in the same world and time. So skip that one, if martial females mess with your enjoyment of the story.

I don't really mind it too much in itself. It's a question of frequency and presentation; It's annoying and stupid that it has become the default, especially so if it's not justified through fantastic elements. But it seemed relevant to the OP.

Seconding the First Law, with the caveat that some of the (six) protagonists fail pretty hard on the hypocrisy metric.

Do you like urban fantasy? They're not completed but The Dresden Files are a fun time.

Codex Alera is completed, 6 books - that's a more traditional fantasy from the same author. I don't know about any ideological axes to grind in that one. In fact the political elements are interesting if a bit muddled because the "evil side" is clearly making some good points and the "good side" has failed the citizenry in various ways. But that tends to be more in the background as the main story follows the traditional "peasant has to level up and become a hero" saga.

Most things from the golden age of Science Fiction are pretty good. Things by Robert Heinlein, E.E. 'Doc' Smith, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov etc.

Most of the heroes are strong willed masculine archetypes, but flawed in one way or another.

Cugel's Saga by Jack Vance fits the bill. Cugel the Clever is a smarmy conman antihero who commits felonious crimes and treats women badly. The reader sympathizes with Cugel because he strives valiantly to survive in a hostile world. Cugel's Saga is set in the Dying Earth: a far-future setting where the Sun flickers weak and red, and the Earth is scarred with the ruins of millions of dead civilizations. The world is polluted with cursed artifacts and monsters. The powers-that-be are insane, malevolent wizards. It is a despondent, hopeless world inhabited by selfish, cynical people. Cugel victimizes many innocent people, but most of the people he tries to con are even worse than he is, and they usually get the better of him. After endless setbacks and frustrations, the novel ends in a hard-earned triumph for Cugel the Clever.

Matthew Colville dislikes Cugel's Saga because he thinks it is too mean-spirited. That's as good of an endorsement as you could ask for.

What about the Warhammer 40k universe? Very grimdark of course, but as far as I see it should mostly fulfill your conditions, though it depends on which particular book you read. Neither sadists nor edgelords are rare, for one, but they also aren't universal. I guess some may say the entire setting is kind of edgelord-y.

Another option would be old epics and stories, especially greek or german are enjoyable. Or do you specifically mean modern western? I wanted to mention japanese stories, but they are also excluded if you are spefically looking for western ones.

Eisenhorn was pretty good and would fit this I think. He's a rather grey character even from the crazy perspective of the Imperium

Based fellow hater of Goody Two-Shoes protagonists

Worth the Candle probably satisfies your criteria, IIRC.

Huh, from my memory, "Worth the Candle" has a lot of modern-day virtue signaling.

The protagonist's internal monologue does discuss the attractiveness of his lovers Amaryllis and Fenn; he (or at least his close ally Amaryllis) does strong-arm concessions out of nominal allies; and he does engage in some mind control late in the story. But this is all IIRC, and I may be misremembering.

I suppose that's true. I never finished the story, but there was a fair amount of pragmatism in the protagonists in what I read.

Hmmm ...

Brent Weeks night angel trilogy. Locke lamora if you don't mind waiting 20 years per book. Chris Wooding's old stuff.

I read "Brigador Killers: Pilgrim" last week. It was phenomenal in that it completely avoided practically all of the tropes that usually annoy me.

See https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F199RDCY for the ebook version.

Much recommended if you can stomach reading a novel set in a video game universe.

Thanks for the recommendation. How much will I be losing from this story, if I haven't played the game and know nothing about the original setting?

Possibly quite a bit, but I have no control group. It's a short read though, and you can get a kindle sample for free, or listen to half the audiobook for free on youtube, so I'd say try that and see whether it works for you.

There's also an earlier Brigador novel that Pilgrim is a sequel to. Reading that first might make sense. It's also very good.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats