DragonOfTheAerie
Vala
Not *literally* anything, but close...
I'm talking about the literary world here, fantasy mostly, since that's a good bit of what I read. Guys, I am in despair.
What can you do when just no book satisfies you anymore? On Goodreads, I find myself rating books higher than they deserve, simply because I have nothing to compare them to. I've been working my way through all the dragon books I can muster a remote interest in. So i've tried Temeraire, i've tried Pern, ive tried Eragon...et cetera et cetera. I was stunned at how much the latter two sucked, given how wildly popular they are, and Temeraire is pretty good but it's nothing great. I rated the ones i've read so far pretty high and yet they still seem to fall really short. I have no idea what i'm comparing them to, I don't have anything, but i don't understand why everything is so utterly unsatisfying. I just want some good solid reading about some goddamn dragons.
I still enjoy reading, but i have a creeping feeling that the reason I find it so hard to motivate myself to read is that a book hasn't really captured me in forever. I've found plenty fun to dive into, but nothing that insists to be read. I miss so much the feeling of not being able to put down a book and yet almost everything makes me wither a little inside as I read because it just doesn't seem like enough. Satisfying enough, captivating enough.
It's hard for me to find a book that interests me in the first place. I look at all the most popular fantasy novels and...idk guys. Wizards, kings vying for thrones, more wizards, thinly veiled D&D campaigns. Fantasy is a genre where you can do LITERALLY ANYTHING. LITERALLY. ANYTHING. You can write about space beings living in colonies in the rings of a toxic planet, communicating telepathically with the stars. You can set your fantasy world entirely on the abyssal plain of an ocean, with cities built in the interiors of sunken warships and the bones of fallen giants. But every other book is more wizards, more D&D creatures, more elves, more kings vying for thrones, set in a vaguely European pseudo-medieval land, with generally similar types of themes. The Dragons list on Goodreads is mostly either this or shifter romance. (???) People that deviate are harder to find. Maybe i should *make* myself read the books that seem really boring to me. But shouldn't there be books that I...I don't know...naturally want to read??
And i know. I know. Genre conventions, based on what people like to read, what people can be relied upon to read...except that apparently some readers are getting glossed over. Why does everything seem so bland? Do I just have fundamentally different tastes than everyone in the world?
I've been reading weird fiction lately and I guess I like most of it? Also steampunk. It's more creative and closer to what I care for than everything else i've been trying, but...I don't know, guys. I don't know. It seems like people aren't writing things like I'd want to read.
That is, not a lot of books out there are very good, and not a lot of them are very interesting to me.
I remember when i first read Harry Potter when i was little and how captivating that was. And I *miss* that.
I'm talking about the literary world here, fantasy mostly, since that's a good bit of what I read. Guys, I am in despair.
What can you do when just no book satisfies you anymore? On Goodreads, I find myself rating books higher than they deserve, simply because I have nothing to compare them to. I've been working my way through all the dragon books I can muster a remote interest in. So i've tried Temeraire, i've tried Pern, ive tried Eragon...et cetera et cetera. I was stunned at how much the latter two sucked, given how wildly popular they are, and Temeraire is pretty good but it's nothing great. I rated the ones i've read so far pretty high and yet they still seem to fall really short. I have no idea what i'm comparing them to, I don't have anything, but i don't understand why everything is so utterly unsatisfying. I just want some good solid reading about some goddamn dragons.
I still enjoy reading, but i have a creeping feeling that the reason I find it so hard to motivate myself to read is that a book hasn't really captured me in forever. I've found plenty fun to dive into, but nothing that insists to be read. I miss so much the feeling of not being able to put down a book and yet almost everything makes me wither a little inside as I read because it just doesn't seem like enough. Satisfying enough, captivating enough.
It's hard for me to find a book that interests me in the first place. I look at all the most popular fantasy novels and...idk guys. Wizards, kings vying for thrones, more wizards, thinly veiled D&D campaigns. Fantasy is a genre where you can do LITERALLY ANYTHING. LITERALLY. ANYTHING. You can write about space beings living in colonies in the rings of a toxic planet, communicating telepathically with the stars. You can set your fantasy world entirely on the abyssal plain of an ocean, with cities built in the interiors of sunken warships and the bones of fallen giants. But every other book is more wizards, more D&D creatures, more elves, more kings vying for thrones, set in a vaguely European pseudo-medieval land, with generally similar types of themes. The Dragons list on Goodreads is mostly either this or shifter romance. (???) People that deviate are harder to find. Maybe i should *make* myself read the books that seem really boring to me. But shouldn't there be books that I...I don't know...naturally want to read??
And i know. I know. Genre conventions, based on what people like to read, what people can be relied upon to read...except that apparently some readers are getting glossed over. Why does everything seem so bland? Do I just have fundamentally different tastes than everyone in the world?
I've been reading weird fiction lately and I guess I like most of it? Also steampunk. It's more creative and closer to what I care for than everything else i've been trying, but...I don't know, guys. I don't know. It seems like people aren't writing things like I'd want to read.
That is, not a lot of books out there are very good, and not a lot of them are very interesting to me.
I remember when i first read Harry Potter when i was little and how captivating that was. And I *miss* that.