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Disillusionist posted:I'm looking for fantasy books with huge battles, bloody wars and political intrigue. Alex Marshall's A Crown For Cold Silver
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Feb 1, 2017 00:54
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Selachian posted:I'll go for the obvious answers: The Black Company and the Malazan Books of the Fallen. The Black Company is, on average, the grimdarker one; however, it's almost all humans, while Malazan has significant nonhuman races. I'm having trouble comprehending how a series might be more grimdark than Malazan
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Feb 1, 2017 12:40
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Sakurazuka posted:I'm having trouble comprehending how a series might be more grimdark than Malazan Nothing. Not even Warhammer at its grimmiest and darkiest could ever beat literal buildings full of corpses killed by like one dude as he was defending a city from a siege, not to mention the end of the Chain of Dogs.
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Feb 1, 2017 13:05
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Sakurazuka posted:I'm having trouble comprehending how a series might be more grimdark than Malazan Better writing, mostly. Black Company series is pretty much the Tolkien of grimdark -- first and best. edit: "best" only applies to first three books, after that, not so much
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Feb 1, 2017 13:09
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Sakurazuka posted:I'm having trouble comprehending how a series might be more grimdark than Malazan It's not really that it's more grimdark, it's that the Black Company is purely from the viewpoint of the soldiers in the trenches. The equivalents of the Ascendants and Gods that are all over the place in Malazan are just scary figures that show up to nuke things and give orders in the Black Company.
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Feb 1, 2017 17:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Better writing, mostly. Black Company series is pretty much the Tolkien of grimdark -- first and best. Huh, I didn't realise that TBC was so grim! I've already started Anabasis (all the books from my last posts in here arrived yesterday), but I'll have to bump TBC up to be the next book on my list. It sounds even more interesting, now! 
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Feb 1, 2017 22:43
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Croaker is the best narrator.
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Feb 2, 2017 00:13
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dordreff posted:The Dandelion Dynasty, Ken Liu. Seven warring countries were unified by an emperor conquering all the others, series effectively starts when he dies and it all starts crumbling. I've seen it described as a wuxia asoiaf, which is fairly accurate but it has more focus on characters and their interactions than on bloody wars and intrigue (though that's in there too, obviously, it's just not as over the top as asoiaf is). Not much in the way of other races but the political intrigue does spread to the gods, which is fun. It's also much more concise; Liu's civil war ended in one book whereas Martin's is still going after five.
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Feb 3, 2017 04:00
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Thanks for the recs. I'm going to try the Dandelion Dynasty first and I'll go from there. I haven't read The Wheel of Time yet so I'll check that out as well. A related request: I've been playing a ton of Hearthstone, Magic and Elder Scrolls lately. Any fantasy series that captures that sort of vibe? It doesn't have to involve a lot of warfare or grimdark business. Are there any Forbidden Realms books that are decent? I know WoW and MTG have novels but I'm reluctant to read any because my guess is that they're not that great. I could be wrong though. The difference between this and my previous request is that I'd love to find a series with elves, orcs, druids and such. I loved The Way of Kings but it was missing that flavor of having other races (besides Parshmen I guess).
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Feb 3, 2017 15:06
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In that case you might want to give the Malazan books a try - they're basically an answer to both your requests.
anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Feb 3, 2017 |
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Feb 3, 2017 18:26
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Looking for good non-fiction books on a couple of topics: (1) English history through the Dark Ages and medieval times; preferably something that focuses on the personalities and strings together a narrative to keep things from being a dry recitation of facts.; and (2) A book on notable warrior women in pre-modern times. So many fantasy books depict warrior women that make me roll my eyes as unrealistic based on my own ideas of how people are and what make someone likely to be a good fighter. I'd be interested to know what kind of personalities, upbringing and personal attributes actual historical female soldiers, mercenaries or generals had. Also, what're some good Dying Earth type books? I've read the original Dying Earth books, the Book of the New Sun (love it) and Viriconium. I don't really mind whether it skews more fantastical or more scientific, though the more vivid the imagery and the crazy the ideas the better. Tall ask, I know; the kinds of imaginations that make for good Dying Earth settings aren't that common.
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Feb 4, 2017 08:07
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you're not supposed to call it the dark ages anymore anyway dark ages through later middle ages is like a thousand years of history and the books i've read that attempt to cover such a vast swath of time are a) not very good and b) super oversimplified, even for pop history. a focus on personalities is for the most part going to be too granular in detail for a book trying to cover a millennium. you'd be better off reading a few different books that cover different eras within that thousand-year span that said, peter ackroyd's foundation isn't terrible chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Feb 4, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 17:01
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I thought maybe there'd be a multi volume series or something. Thanks will check it out.
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Feb 4, 2017 17:59
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Neurosis posted:Also, what're some good Dying Earth type books? I've read the original Dying Earth books, the Book of the New Sun (love it) and Viriconium. I don't really mind whether it skews more fantastical or more scientific, though the more vivid the imagery and the crazy the ideas the better. Tall ask, I know; the kinds of imaginations that make for good Dying Earth settings aren't that common. You might enjoy Matthew Hughes (The Gist Hunter, The Meaning of Luff, et al). He's the closest I've ever seen anyone come to being able to ape Vance's style.
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Feb 4, 2017 20:32
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Neurosis posted:I thought maybe there'd be a multi volume series or something. Thanks will check it out. Oxford University Press is the go-to for multi-volume histories of Europe, but it's going to be a dry, academic sort of read.
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Feb 4, 2017 21:50
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chernobyl kinsman posted:you're not supposed to call it the dark ages anymore What if I wanted a book focusing on the foundation of the Catholic Church?
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Feb 4, 2017 22:45
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Solitair posted:What if I wanted a book focusing on the foundation of the Catholic Church? The Civilization of The Middle Ages by Norman F. Cantor does an excellent job at explaining this. It's also brilliant, if a bit dry.
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Feb 5, 2017 00:15
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Does anyone have any recommendations on the rise or history fascism in the 20th century?
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Feb 5, 2017 03:49
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Solitair posted:What if I wanted a book focusing on the foundation of the Catholic Church? chadwick's The Church in Ancient Society is excellent but a) scholarly and b) apparently like $60 on amazon. i'd recommend gonzalez' The Story of Christianity, Vol. 1: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation or the oxford history of christianity, in that order of preference. both are obviously a bit wider in scope than you're looking for but you can always just read the chapters that interest you. alternatively you can read eusebius' church history, which is an early 4th century text that chronicles church history up until that point. the translation by paul maier is annotated with historical commentary.
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Feb 5, 2017 05:22
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WAR DOGS OF SOCHI posted:Oxford University Press is the go-to for multi-volume histories of Europe, but it's going to be a dry, academic sort of read. drat. I just finished Patrick Atiyah's excellent Ride and Fall of Freedom of Contract which managed to be both academically meritorious and engaging but I guess it's an anomaly.
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Feb 5, 2017 14:20
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Fuzzy Mammal posted:Does anyone have any recommendations on the rise or history fascism in the 20th century? William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is still the go-to for the history of Nazi Germany.
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Feb 5, 2017 15:47
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Neurosis posted:drat. I just finished Patrick Atiyah's excellent Ride and Fall of Freedom of Contract which managed to be both academically meritorious and engaging but I guess it's an anomaly. Oh no, don't get me wrong...I'm sure there are other great books out there -- I wouldn't presume to know what "the best" is. It's just that when I was looking for multi-volume deep dives into European history (early, modern, Holy Roman, etc.), I wasn't finding much other than the ongoing Oxford sets consistently mentioned in readers advisories. Like, if you're interested in the inter-war period, the Oxford title, "The Lights That Failed," is great for it's comprehensive treatment, but it's academic as hell. "1919" is a better read in terms of ease of reading and entertainment. I can't say one is better than they other, but I really admire those rare writers that can do both. AARP LARPer fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Feb 5, 2017 |
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Feb 5, 2017 23:10
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Selachian posted:William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is still the go-to for the history of Nazi Germany. I don't think it is actually
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Feb 5, 2017 23:40
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Been going through the thread bit by bit and picking up some recommendations, but recently I just read through The Magicians and its two sequels, and did so in about a week because I loved them so much. I haven't seen them mentioned much in what I've read of the thread so far, so does anyone have some obvious "gimme" titles based off those books?
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Feb 6, 2017 00:07
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jonathan strange and mr norrel
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Feb 6, 2017 03:03
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Looking for two suggestions. 1) Books about the Mongol empire, specifically about the invasions and conquests. Stuff that gets heavily into military tactics would be great, but not necessary. 2) Where's a good place to start in the Warhammer 40k books? I read Salvage Marines since it was free to borrow on Amazon. It was ok in a turn your brain off kind of way, but the writing was pretty bland. It did get me interested in the universe though. There's like a hundred novels and I have no idea where to start.
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Feb 6, 2017 07:02
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HairyManling posted:Looking for two suggestions. 1) Books about the Mongol empire, specifically about the invasions and conquests. Stuff that gets heavily into military tactics would be great, but not necessary. Warhammer: Go here, read the OP, then come back. I personally preferred Gaunt's Ghosts as an intro to Warhammer over Eisenhorn, but it's all good.
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Feb 6, 2017 07:13
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StrixNebulosa posted:Warhammer: Go here, read the OP, then come back.
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Feb 6, 2017 07:18
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HairyManling posted:Awesome. Thanks for the link! I looked through the thread list before posting but didn't know The Black Library was WH40k related and so passed it by. Enjoy! There's a whole lot there if you dig Warhammer - I've been reading Lord of the Night recently and while it's not a good starting point for Warhammer stuff, it's full of fantastically ornate descriptions of the places the characters go to. As for your request for books about the Mongols.... I read and enjoyed Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, but it's been a while. If your library has it, have a look?
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Feb 6, 2017 07:22
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A human heart posted:I don't think it is actually Can you tell us why it's bad and then give an alternative recommendation and tell us why it's good. Dirty Frank fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Feb 6, 2017 |
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Feb 6, 2017 07:52
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Dirty Frank posted:Can you tell us why it's bad and then give an alternative recommendation and tell us why it's good. it's pretty old at this point and he focuses a lot on nazism being like a unique culmination of the course of german history which isn't very helpful in explaining it or comparing it to other fascist movements HairyManling posted:Looking for two suggestions. 1) Books about the Mongol empire, specifically about the invasions and conquests. Stuff that gets heavily into military tactics would be great, but not necessary. Peter Jackson's The Mongols and the West is supposed to be very good iirc
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Feb 6, 2017 08:45
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In the spirit of upcoming Valentine's Day, do you have any suggestions for a decent romance book? Preferably with a hook or a gimmick? I'm not exactly looking for trashy airport romance. I thought The Time Traveler's Wife was decent when I read it years ago. Is Outlander decent?
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Feb 7, 2017 06:39
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Xtanstic posted:In the spirit of upcoming Valentine's Day, do you have any suggestions for a decent romance book? Preferably with a hook or a gimmick? I'm not exactly looking for trashy airport romance. I thought The Time Traveler's Wife was decent when I read it years ago. Is Outlander decent? Anna Karenina
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Feb 7, 2017 10:35
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Goodreads have done a series of five blog posts for the different styles of romance novels https://www.goodreads.com/blog/index?rel=nofollow
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Feb 7, 2017 10:45
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learnincurve posted:Goodreads have done a series of five blog posts for the different styles of romance novels https://www.goodreads.com/blog/index?rel=nofollow goodreads official blog posts are really bad, and i bet amazon uses them to push its bestsellers on people
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Feb 7, 2017 10:49
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Xtanstic posted:In the spirit of upcoming Valentine's Day, do you have any suggestions for a decent romance book? Preferably with a hook or a gimmick? I'm not exactly looking for trashy airport romance. I thought The Time Traveler's Wife was decent when I read it years ago. Is Outlander decent? Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler. It's pretty funny and well written, and I hate romances.
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Feb 7, 2017 13:56
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Xtanstic posted:In the spirit of upcoming Valentine's Day, do you have any suggestions for a decent romance book? Preferably with a hook or a gimmick? I'm not exactly looking for trashy airport romance. I thought The Time Traveler's Wife was decent when I read it years ago. Is Outlander decent? "Ada, or Ardor," by Vladimir Nabokov.
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Feb 7, 2017 17:01
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Xtanstic posted:In the spirit of upcoming Valentine's Day, do you have any suggestions for a decent romance book? Preferably with a hook or a gimmick? I'm not exactly looking for trashy airport romance. I thought The Time Traveler's Wife was decent when I read it years ago. Is Outlander decent? Chretien de Troyes
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Feb 7, 2017 17:06
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learnincurve posted:Goodreads have done a series of five blog posts for the different styles of romance novels https://www.goodreads.com/blog/index?rel=nofollow Yeah the splash page on Goodreads is what prompted this but I've always been quite skeptical of their recommendations. Thanks for the suggestions.
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Feb 7, 2017 21:54
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Xtanstic posted:In the spirit of upcoming Valentine's Day, do you have any suggestions for a decent romance book? Preferably with a hook or a gimmick? I'm not exactly looking for trashy airport romance. I thought The Time Traveler's Wife was decent when I read it years ago. Is Outlander decent? ethan frome
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Feb 7, 2017 23:10
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