Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

✌️I give up. So far my options seem to be The Wheel of Time, and thats it.

What counts as traumatizing? Harry Potter level okay?

Michael J Sullivan books
Brandon Sanderson

Everyone has different triggers, like if you had a trauma of your classmates dying, even HP might not be the right fit. I'm pretty tolerant of just about anything except:

1 - if the horror is gratuitous (but then I just get disgusted, not trauma)
2 - someone tortures/kills a cat...for whatever reason I'm ok with dogs (I mean not ok ok, just make sure its not the issue above and its needed for the plot), just leave the cats alone

Although I was traumatized by the sequel to Dragonsbane, I wouldn't have been able to predict it, since the topic itself wasn't a trigger for me, it was just written so darn well and felt so real it gave me nightmares.

GR has a list for cozy sci fi/fantasy, and would be easily found on google, as well. I have a shelf on my GR page. That's about all that ISN'T traumatizing me these days! My library book club has me reading The Dream Hotel and it is making me so tense. Too real to today's garbage, my stomach hurts reading it. Gah. I've been avoiding it all day!

Georgann wrote: "GR has a list for cozy sci fi/fantasy, and would be easily found on google, as well. I have a shelf on my GR page. That's about all that ISN'T traumatizing me these days! My library book club has m..."

Your post reminded my of my trigger #3, loads of political propaganda and other nonsense. Even if the book was meant as a satire, anyone going "this political party eats babies and worships the devil" I can't handle anymore. There's too much of this going on right now for real. Its why this book is my DNF shelf's one and only entry - A State of Disobedience

Although if I were to be honest with the DNF shelf, there is the Edge Allen Poe story The Black Cat or something like that, where I couldn't get further than when the guy killed the cat, though I feel the point of the story will involve the cat getting its revenge in the end :D

Here's one of GR's cozy fantasy shelves - https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Let's see if I've read something to confirm...hmm...The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? But the lion literally gets sacrificed on an altar...

Dealing with Dragons - I read this quartet ages ago, seem to recall it was pretty fun

An Enchantment of Ravens - I recommend this for the faeries, dunno if it screamed cozy, the fae are pretty monstrous, but nothing I think was "trigger" worthy. I did really enjoy this book, and its faeries that aren't urban fantasy (ie. not taking place in our modern or even past world).