u/Regular-Newspaper-45

I am working on something that could potentially best described as some sort of grimdark high fantasy. The primary theme is, how to be expected, that it is a cruel world full of war and people making bad decisions.

I made a decision a short time ago and that is: I want to have a little bit of whimsical and a little bit of the beauty of the world in it. Wich kind of leads to, usually one or few sentences, short descriptions about things that are not mandatory for the story. I guess I could "reason" it with wanting to capture that between all the bad stuff that is happening there is always some beauty to be found.

As it is usually said to cut out all unnecessary descriptions and scenes that don't bring the story forward I was wondering if the premise of "there is still something beautiful" would work to include these little extra things or if the general agreement would still lean towards removing them.

Hi. Even though I already tagged for spoilers please keep them vague or to a minimum.

I read all the First Law books up to this point and I have listened to most of The Age of Madness as audiobooks. It has been a year or two because I was missing the printed copies and desired to read them without too fresh memories of what will happen.

I loved all the books, listened to the audiobooks several times and I am so excited to read them. But I just read that Uffrith burns and my heart sank. I don't, I can't continue to read this!

I am also somehow reading with David Nathan's voice, who narrated the German audiobooks. It's a bit odd that the female characters have a very male voice now...

Anyway. Is there a way to prepare for it? I am currently reading some short stories by Markus Heitz as well and thought, since they are about murder, torture, human experiments and betrayal, it would be an alright transition but it isn't.

Rant over.

I love mythology and I know I could never properly represent the figures of them. And then I though it would be funny to take names from all sorts of mythologies and give them to characters in my story that are nothing like them.

Wich made me wonder, does it piss of more people if someone tries to represent the figures of mythologies right but doesn't get it completly right or if someone is using the name for unrelated characters?

For me personally the first case is all fun if I know a mythology a bit more and realize what doesn't quiet match. But also writing something myself it feels really strange using names that I strongly relate to a specific figure.

So yeah, I need more opinions on wich is worse/better or if you don't care if someone is just using the names because... well they are just names.

Yesterday I ran into the issue of wanting to read something I really like while not having any books that I know I will like. And that whilst having around 80 unread books in my shelf and my family's library available. So yesterday I ordered 8 books that I know I will like... but I feel like that can't be a sufficient solution. Maybe good to know that most of the unread books in my shelf have been saved from the trash and sounded mildly interesting, wich usually is enough reason to read them for me, but after a bunch of not-so-good, annoying and uninteresting books I need something that I am excited bout.

Anyway, my question: How do you all decide what to read next, if you have some books that you don't really know if you will like them? Do you generally only read what you know/expect to really enjoy or make extensive research and notes for the books you don't know if you will like them? Or more how I do it usually and pick a random book?

Hi there, I am considering to apply for University as soon as I will be a le to but I there are so many Universitys that seem fine.

I guess it can be relevant what the University is specializing in, as that might be a bit more focused on, though how much does that actually apply and does that only apply later, like after one got their first degree? And can it be benefitial to find a University that has professors with specialisations in similar feald that I want to specialize in?

I noticed that some Universities mention specialisations but many just got no further information outside of the general field of botany. Does that mean they all teach basically the exact same stuff? (Outside of the main structure and stuff of the botany field).