The Kiwifarms Unofficial Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Club

[Old King Koaleamos]

I thought this was well known. Nasu was a fan of western TTRPGs and especially white wolf games. His ideas for magic and worldbuilding came from VtM and MtA. He talks about this pretty openly and how he was writing his first story (which would eventually become Witch on the Holy Night) while he was really into White Wolf Games.

Pretty much every big dog of Japan's entertainment industry has some kind of western oshi with a big bushy beard and questionable views on sexuality.

(btw - the non-fate entries in the Nasuverse are all fantastic if you like urban/modern fantasy but can't stand the waifushit. Witch on the Holy Night and Tsukihime are both wonderful urban fantasy stories in VN form and Kara no Kyoukai aka The Garden of Sinners has a really good series of film adaptations)

I never revealing my power-level on Nasuverse shit. I love it, but I hate the fans being weird fucks 70% of the time.

But yeah, a lot of young/autistic weaboo supremacy spergs like dissing western culture for some strange reason.

Anyways, I find it funny that a lot of people are faggotishly snobby about sci-fi/fantasy as if they're too "learn-ed" for it, yet will eat up Game of Thrones or whatever vaguely fantasy/sci-fi slop pops up with the leftist establishment giving the green light to "enjoy" it.

 

[Fcret]

I never revealing my power-level on Nasuverse shit. I love it, but I hate the fans being weird fucks 70% of the time.

For me, Fate is okay. I like FSN, Ataraxia, and Zero. Everything else in the franchise is incredibly mid and increasingly designed to sell people into gacha serfdom.

The non-Fate parts are peak for me. I wish he'd do more with them but Fate makes way too much money and the waifu-hungry normgroids don't seem to enjoy the more complex ideas he explores in those settings.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

For me, Fate is okay. I like FSN, Ataraxia, and Zero. Everything else in the franchise is incredibly mid and increasingly designed to sell people into gacha serfdom.

The non-Fate parts are peak for me. I wish he'd do more with them but Fate makes way too much money and the waifu-hungry normgroids don't seem to enjoy the more complex ideas he explores in those settings.

The fanbase can barely handle the complex ideas in FGO, let alone his other works and weird ideas. Well, if it drives their coom then they'll do it.

 

[LordOfZhbagva]

Anyways, I find it funny that a lot of people are faggotishly snobby about sci-fi/fantasy as if they're too "learn-ed" for it, yet will eat up Game of Thrones or whatever vaguely fantasy/sci-fi slop pops up with the leftist establishment giving the green light to "enjoy" it.

I kinda get it, there is a lot of shit in fiction.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

I kinda get it, there is a lot of shit in fiction.

Oh yeah, and anything that's labeled as "entertainment" gets negative connotations even after decades after the pulps stopped.

Sci-fi, fantasy, crime, etcetera.

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

I’ll be honest bros, I haven’t been reading shit this month due to personal losses and not being in the mood to read much.
However, I think a good theme for December would be Classic Pillars. The great-grandads of sci-fi and fantasy like Asimov, Tolkien, H.G Wells, C.S Lewis, Frank Herbert, etc etc.
I’m hoping for more on the fantasy side of things this time, but either way classics are classics and it’s fun to see how much they’ve influenced modern literature.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

I’ll be honest bros, I haven’t been reading shit this month due to personal losses and not being in the mood to read much.
However, I think a good theme for December would be Classic Pillars. The great-grandads of sci-fi and fantasy like Asimov, Tolkien, H.G Wells, C.S Lewis, Frank Herbert, etc etc.
I’m hoping for more on the fantasy side of things this time, but either way classics are classics and it’s fun to see how much they’ve influenced modern literature.

I'm praying December isn't a book I've read this year.

The Hobbit could be good, but it's also very common. What about something by a major foundational pillar that's not one of their major-top tier-everyone's read them works. Something like Asimov's End of Eternity, Clarke's City and The Stars, or even just sth like Smith's Triplanetary.

 

[LordOfZhbagva]

I’ll be honest bros, I haven’t been reading shit this month due to personal losses and not being in the mood to read much.
However, I think a good theme for December would be Classic Pillars. The great-grandads of sci-fi and fantasy like Asimov, Tolkien, H.G Wells, C.S Lewis, Frank Herbert, etc etc.
I’m hoping for more on the fantasy side of things this time, but either way classics are classics and it’s fun to see how much they’ve influenced modern literature.

Hope you get through it bro.
Don't forget to offer Frankenstein as an option. I'd also prefer the Bobbit over the LotR and I think the War of the worlds would be a good option for Wells.
Other then that, Starship troopers feels like it'd belong (despite it's age, its a foundational sci-fi work), as would The Warlord of Mars by ERB, as it's a very old work (1913) which greatly influenced fiction in general.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

Hope you get through it bro.
Don't forget to offer Frankenstein as an option. I'd also prefer the Bobbit over the LotR and I think the War of the worlds would be a good option for Wells.
Other then that, Starship troopers feels like it'd belong (despite it's age, its a foundational sci-fi work), as would The Warlord of Mars by ERB, as it's a very old work (1913) which greatly influenced fiction in general.

You mean A Princess of Mars and the two sequels, right?

 

[LordOfZhbagva]

You mean A Princess of Mars and the two sequels, right?

Yes, yes I do.

 

[The Mighty Banth]

The Warlord of Mars by ERB, as it's a very old work (1913) which greatly influenced fiction in general.

Princess of Mars is the first one, but I certainly agree.

Edit: sorry, I'm a big, old late dummy.

Edit edit: These covers are the ones I grew up with and are still my favorite. Back and front, they were loaded with detail to pour over as a child. I wish modern covers were half as good.

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

Alright, the poll for December is up and the idea is "Lesser-read Classics", works that are from foundational authors but lesser known in 2025.
We got some good choices, I find that sometimes the coolest books are the ones that got less popular.

 

[McMitch]

I’m not participating in the book club and I couldn’t vote if I wanted to because I refuse to turn off my VPN, but I would strongly recommend The Demoloshed Man.

 

[Total Norman Death]

I've only read a little Poul Anderson, but it's all been fantastic. I had someone recommend me High Crusade on X and came across it in my local used book store, one of my favorite books that I read in 2023.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

Alright, the poll for December is up and the idea is "Lesser-read Classics", works that are from foundational authors but lesser known in 2025.
We got some good choices, I find that sometimes the coolest books are the ones that got less popular.

Man Plus is a fun choice. I recall finding out that Pohl had some other guy do a sequel to it.

Hoping for the Bester book ngl.

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

Man Plus is a fun choice. I recall finding out that Pohl had some other guy do a sequel to it.

Hoping for the Bester book ngl.

I unironically have a deep love of Battlefield Earth.
Is it “good”? Not really.
Is it fun as fuck? Absolutely.

 

[MetokurGroomedMe]

i'm not sure if this is really the place to suggest these, and i do feel like a bit of a retard tourist. i searched and didn't see the titles here but i've missed stuff like that before. lately i recommend two different books for different messages.

the first is the short story The Machine Stops, by E.M. Forster, published 1909/1928.
the other is The Camp of the Saints, by Jean Raspail, published 1973/1975.

The Machine Stops is a book i recommend for its really interesting and forward thinking understanding of automation and how going too far with it could lead to the world we kind of see around us now, a bunch of retards who don't actually know how to use any of the technology that sits rotting around them, and ultimately explores a humanity separated from one another in person, mostly connected by video call interfaces.

The Camp of the Saints is a book that i recommend because of its own interesting predictions and forward thinking understanding, but this time about immigration from the third world, specifically places like india. it was considered extremely racist on its release, and has garnered tons of controversy, but if you read it and don't see parallels to modern day immigration i really don't know what to do to help you.

because i'm a tourist i didn't voot but i'll read whatever gets suggested by the poll, too.

 

[Old King Koaleamos]

i'm not sure if this is really the place to suggest these, and i do feel like a bit of a retard tourist. i searched and didn't see the titles here but i've missed stuff like that before. lately i recommend two different books for different messages.

the first is the short story The Machine Stops, by E.M. Forster, published 1909/1928.
the other is The Camp of the Saints, by Jean Raspail, published 1973/1975.

The Machine Stops is a book i recommend for its really interesting and forward thinking understanding of automation and how going too far with it could lead to the world we kind of see around us now, a bunch of retards who don't actually know how to use any of the technology that sits rotting around them, and ultimately explores a humanity separated from one another in person, mostly connected by video call interfaces.

The Camp of the Saints is a book that i recommend because of its own interesting predictions and forward thinking understanding, but this time about immigration from the third world, specifically places like india. it was considered extremely racist on its release, and has garnered tons of controversy, but if you read it and don't see parallels to modern day immigration i really don't know what to do to help you.

because i'm a tourist i didn't voot but i'll read whatever gets suggested by the poll, too.

The Machine Stops is very famous and is in a ton of anthologies.

The Raspail book keeps getting fucking Streisand Effect'd everywhere I see it.

 

[Greedy Fly]

Alright, the poll for December is up and the idea is "Lesser-read Classics", works that are from foundational authors but lesser known in 2025.
We got some good choices, I find that sometimes the coolest books are the ones that got less popular.

Great selection, I haven't read anything on that list and a lot of blurbs are catching my eye. (I'm going to be struggling to find quality reading time until after New Years though).

 

[AnOminous]

In oft-praised but rarely-read writers, I would suggest Olaf Stapledon. In Star Maker, in 1937, he even invented the idea of a Dyson sphere. Somewhat like C.S. Lewis, he approached his fiction from a philosophical perspective, but unlike Lewis, was not a Christian.

Another author nearly entirely unread these days is Auguste de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. His novels Claire Lenoire and L'Ève future both have science fictional elements (Eve is about an android), with the latter being overtly SF well ahead of its time of publication in 1880. He approached his fiction from the school of Symbolism. Additionally, the very term "android" itself, while existing since the early 18th Century, was popularized by this novel.

Probably his most well known book is his collection of short stories, Contes cruels, in which most stories end with a twist and is somewhat reminiscent of Guy de Maupassant.

And my final suggestion, from a book I had never met anyone who has read it since the person who introduced it to me, is A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, published in 1920. All I can say about it is it literally is unlike anything else anyone ever wrote.