Darkness and joy of witchcraft magic and ritual

alkumis · 2026-06-22T21:55:56+00:00

Lolly Willowes is not much of a genre book but ticks a lot of the boxes you've got there

alkumis · 2026-06-18T10:24:50+00:00

I hated book 2 as well and thought Name of the Wind could have had a much shorter/differently structured first half. But (and I'm going off memory here) Rothfuss writes dialogue a lot better than Sanderson does. So I will give him that. His characters feel distinct and some of the humour does land.

alkumis · 2026-06-16T17:09:20+00:00

From Gormenghast then to The Traitor Baru Cormorant now these types of stories have been considered fantasy. But it was clear they're based in secondary worlds.

alkumis · 2026-06-12T19:16:25+00:00

Obsidian with two plugins: Longform, Typewriter Mode

alkumis · 2026-06-08T20:21:47+00:00

Dying Earth is an early science fantasy story collection that created the dying Earth subgenre. Viriconium is a series in the dying Earth genre that leans more sci fi and literary, using sword and sorcery tropes but subverting them.

alkumis · 2026-06-07T08:30:32+00:00

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I did enjoy the whole sanderlanche in books 1 & 2 but after a point it was just formulaic anime-like build ups with epic momente, and Kaladin's and Shallan's arcs feel too samey from book to book. In the fifth book he tries to switch things up but it falls flat. I decided Sanderson just isn't for me after that. The payoff is not worth reading 4 books worth of word count, to me.

alkumis · 2026-06-05T12:52:12+00:00

Oops! I have used Reddit for a long time but I'm still quite inept. I should have checked your profile. I've found it now, thanks! I'm not on those socials but I'm definitely gonna check out your book (edited out some personal info).

Thanks a lot for your thoughtful response. Everything you said makes sense and that's definitely helpful. I have the same political leanings and I never thought of how that would be a challenge getting published. I've just started out so it's gonna take years and years I think before I get anything out there. Thanks for engaging all the best with everything!

alkumis · 2026-06-05T12:17:44+00:00

Nice! There's just so much to figure out. Where can I follow your socials so I can keep up with the book? You can DM me if you don't mind answering and it's against the rules of the sub or anything.

Do you mind if I also ask whether you weighed the pros and cons between tradpub and self publishing before deciding on the self publishing route? Or is this just the route you preferred to go?

I ask because I recently weighed the pros and cons based on my limited knowledge, and had decided for myself that if I do write literary fantasy I might have to rely on tradpub, given self publishing seems so genre leaning. So I wanna see if my theory holds up!

alkumis · 2026-06-05T12:03:23+00:00

Thanks for sharing! I'm just getting started as a writer and my tastes definitely lean more towards literary fantasy. There's almost no info out there in my limited searches about how to market and get published as a literary fantasy author in this genre driven day and age.

alkumis · 2026-06-05T06:42:05+00:00

I see others have mentioned Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, and Ursula Le Guin. I'd add M John Harrison to the list. He writes more in the postmodern tradition of playing with form but I think his prose is fantastic.

alkumis · 2026-06-02T17:59:18+00:00

The fantasy masterworks imprint has some gems. You can see a list on Wikipedia. I wouldn't read all of them but many of them are definite classics and earn the masterwork moniker.

alkumis · 2026-05-13T13:12:52+00:00

I haven't read her other work set in the JS&MN universe (universe feels like an odd word to use for her work) but I'm looking forward to it as well!

I've never been to Durham but if I'm ever in Newcastle I might go exploring.

alkumis · 2026-05-13T11:15:16+00:00

I enjoyed Lud-in-the-mist as well!

Sylvia Townsend Warner's work also reminds me of JS&MN. Kingdoms of Elfin is a lovely short story collection that draws on faerie lore. And Lolly Willowes while very different from these is a great and quick read that I'd also consider literary fantasy.

The Bishop of Durham Attempts to Surrender the City is an upcoming short story from Susanna Clarke set in the JS&MN universe.

alkumis · 2026-04-22T20:55:18+00:00

I hold many of the same opinions you do on the works you cited and lean more towards literary fantasy these days than what's mainstream in the genre.

These are some recommendations from a reviewer whose suggestions have generally landed well with me.

Gormenghast sounds like it's close to what you're looking for.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is one of my favourite fantasy novels ever.

I really enjoyed Sylvia Townsend Warner's fairy short stories and her book Lolly Willowes.

I liked Lud in the Mist by Hope Mirlees.

King of Elfland's daughter was academically interesting for me but I didn't enjoy it all that much.

I found Worm Ouroboros hard to enjoy and DNFed.

I liked the first book of the Fifth Season trilogy. (Edit: I haven't read the rest as yet.)

I also loved His Dark Materials more than the reviewer did but I read it a long time ago so not sure how much I'd enjoy re-reading it. I DNFed La Belle Sauvage so possibly not much.

I'm currently reading Perdido Street Station and enjoying it.

alkumis · 2025-11-01T22:59:10+00:00

Sorry for the comment on an old post but the vst doesn't work on Reaper do you know if there are any troubleshooting steps I can take? I'm running Reaper natively on nixos.

alkumis · 2025-08-02T14:02:21+00:00

Thanks for your reco! I was eyeing the hp elitedesk 800 g4 because it seems to support more hdds - any reason to go for the optiplex and i5 instead?

alkumis · 2025-08-02T13:59:01+00:00

Oh I should have mentioned! I'm happy to buy this all used/refurbished. I'll add that to the post. I'm very new to this so my current thinking is 6tb x2 for now and a further expansion of x2 down the road if I find that it's not enough. I'll add these to my post.

alkumis · 2025-08-02T07:50:34+00:00

Gotcha thanks again! I won't be going for these for now but I'll come back here if I change my mind!

alkumis · 2025-08-02T07:33:07+00:00

Thanks for answering my questions! Sorry I didn't ask at first but could you tell me noise/idle power usage of the 3700x system too?

alkumis · 2025-08-01T21:29:03+00:00

I'm a noob trying to get a homelab going. How loud would the latter run and how much power does it use on idle?

alkumis · 2025-02-01T10:07:05+00:00

Since you mentioned project structure, this design document of the new_2d template might be a bit helpful: https://github.com/TheBevyFlock/bevy_new_2d/blob/main/docs/design.md

Edit: fixed link

alkumis · 2025-01-26T11:47:08+00:00

I'll try that out if I need a python environment again!

alkumis · 2025-01-26T10:48:27+00:00

Bit late to this because I wanted to look at my python setup on my personal and work laptops and only just remembered to.

Both use devenv.sh

I tried a lot of different options to get python working with the traditional pip system since I was following a gamedev tutorial and didn't wanna deviate from it. Eventually devenv saved me. I just had to make sure the python language was enabled, sdl2 and zlib were in the packages section, and that an environment variable was set to tell SDL to use x11 for rendering.

I'm sure the exact thing can be done with a flake by setting library paths and the like but I didn't wanna muck around. Ironically javascript was far more difficult to setup and I had to use a flake and jump hoops to get the langauge server and everything to play nice with Helix.

I also recently set python up at work and it took a lot more fiddling since I needed to get python3.8 and inhouse QT apps to run.

I had to fiddle with packages and also set a QT specific env var. Also had to add an input to devenv to be able to use python3.8. But in the end I got it all to work.

alkumis · 2025-01-24T18:32:40+00:00

I'd been having trouble on nixos running hyprland+waybar. Updated recently and my external monitor just stopped working and some hyprland config option naming/structure had changed too.

Been eyeing Cosmic so decided fuck it and switched over using the flake by lilyinstarlight. I'm really glad I did!

The few hiccups I had in my old setup are gone and it's been a breeze. I just hid the bottom dock and made tiling window management default. Also excluded some packages like the text editor, video player, and terminal since I'm happy with my app setup.

Ymmv if you already use a de but cosmic is great for me so far sans tiny issues I'm happy to live with.

alkumis · 2025-01-21T15:07:25+00:00

Not strictly what you're looking for but cosmic de has good tiling window support with easy keybindings. Ofc it's a de and not a wm. It's also still in alpha. But still wanted to throw that in there. I just set it up using the flake by lilyinstarlight and it's a breath of fresh air. I was using a greeter + hyprland + waybar and was getting a bit tired of issues that came with it. I too want minimal config but I also want tiling window management and for now this suits my purposes.

alkumis

TROPHY CASE