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robotox posted:Could any of you fine folks direct me to some books in the vein of Stross' Laundry Files, Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, and Cornell's Shadow Police series? Basically, anything sci-fi or fantasy that has a noir/detective/crime vibe. I've read most of the classic cyberpunk stuff. Alistair Reynolds's Chasm City is half noir mystery, and excellent. His Century Rain is alt history noir but not that well regarded here, its at best okay.
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May 11, 2015 01:26
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robotox posted:Could any of you fine folks direct me to some books in the vein of Stross' Laundry Files, Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, and Cornell's Shadow Police series? Basically, anything sci-fi or fantasy that has a noir/detective/crime vibe. I've read most of the classic cyberpunk stuff. The novels of Astreiant by Melissa Scott and co-writers are fantasy mysteries solved by a local guardsman in a city that has only recently added professional guards, though they don't have a noir tone. The Rook by Daniel O'Malley seems right in that vein. Lies of Locke Lamora is definitely crime, though from the criminals' side of things and if you haven't read it you should anyway.
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May 11, 2015 01:52
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The early Vlad Taltos books count, they're from the POV of an assassin but the story beats are more detective than anything.
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May 11, 2015 02:55
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robotox posted:Could any of you fine folks direct me to some books in the vein of Stross' Laundry Files, Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, and Cornell's Shadow Police series? Basically, anything sci-fi or fantasy that has a noir/detective/crime vibe. I've read most of the classic cyberpunk stuff. Craig Schafer's Daniel Faust series.
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May 11, 2015 05:18
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Patrick Spens posted:Craig Schafer's Daniel Faust series. Seconding this.
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May 11, 2015 05:21
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robotox posted:Could any of you fine folks direct me to some books in the vein of Stross' Laundry Files, Aaronovitch's Rivers of London, and Cornell's Shadow Police series? Basically, anything sci-fi or fantasy that has a noir/detective/crime vibe. I've read most of the classic cyberpunk stuff. City of Stairs is basically a detective/spy story set up in a fantasy world.
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May 11, 2015 11:18
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One series of this kind I've become rather fond of lately is Mark Hodder's Burton and Swinburne books. It starts as alternate history steampunk with werewolves... And gets progressively crazier from there. A nice thing about it is that you can tell the author has really done his research about the anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 12:01 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 11:41
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savinhill posted:Awesome, love when series actually come out fast with the sequels. That cover sucks rear end though Then you should start to read Brandon Sanderson books.
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May 11, 2015 11:57
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Ok I totally forgive Richard K Morgan for A Land Fit for Heroes because the Takeshi Kovacs books are really, really good.
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May 11, 2015 19:36
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The Gunslinger posted:Ok I totally forgive Richard K Morgan for A Land Fit for Heroes because the Takeshi Kovacs books are really, really good. He had been excerpting a new SF thing on his blog now too
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May 11, 2015 19:45
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Thanks for all your recommendations, guys. I appreciate it! Out of curiosity, if you guys were to recommend a fantasy novel to someone that doesn't particularly care for fantasy, what would it be?
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May 11, 2015 19:45
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Fried Chicken posted:He had been excerpting a new SF thing on his blog now too Is it another Kovacs book? Because while intellectually I understand that an author doesn't "owe" me anything, after the painful exercise of gutting through the end of The Dark Defiles, I'm willing to entertain the notion that Morgan owes me a new Kovacs book.
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May 11, 2015 19:47
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robotox posted:Out of curiosity, if you guys were to recommend a fantasy novel to someone that doesn't particularly care for fantasy, what would it be?
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May 11, 2015 19:49
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robotox posted:Thanks for all your recommendations, guys. I appreciate it! Edit: Forgall posted:Half-Made World.
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May 11, 2015 19:51
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robotox posted:Out of curiosity, if you guys were to recommend a fantasy novel to someone that doesn't particularly care for fantasy, what would it be? Amberskin posted:City of Stairs is basically a detective/spy story set up in a fantasy world. Seconding Amberskin's rec of CoS. My wife doesn't like fantasy at all and loved that book.
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May 11, 2015 19:54
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McCoy Pauley posted:Is it another Kovacs book? Because while intellectually I understand that an author doesn't "owe" me anything, after the painful exercise of gutting through the end of The Dark Defiles, I'm willing to entertain the notion that Morgan owes me a new Kovacs book. IIRC it's set in the same universe as TH1RT33N or whatever it was called, but he is returning to the first-person grimsnark perspective. We shall see.
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May 11, 2015 20:01
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Forgall posted:Half-Made World. I mean, this is an excellent book, but first fantasy novel for someone who's not really into it?
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May 11, 2015 20:41
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McCoy Pauley posted:Is it another Kovacs book? Because while intellectually I understand that an author doesn't "owe" me anything, after the painful exercise of gutting through the end of The Dark Defiles, I'm willing to entertain the notion that Morgan owes me a new Kovacs book. Character is called Mr Veil in the excerpt, doesn't mean that isn't an alias. Could also be a new thing Kesper North posted:IIRC it's set in the same universe as TH1RT33N or whatever it was called, but he is returning to the first-person grimsnark perspective. We shall see. I always thought that one was very underrated. But then most people probably aren't familiar with Susan Faludi, toxic masculinity, or extrapolation from that to get the virilicide concept, and they take the statements from the brother and the Rush Limbaugh stand in at face value rather than being the delusional assholes he means them to be. Plus if you miss that the cop lady wasn't white then you get some weird racial stuff going on there that overshadows what he was trying to do with race, class, and history with Carl. Basically he aimed for a high concept book and for a lot of people he missed.
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May 11, 2015 20:48
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robotox posted:Thanks for all your recommendations, guys. I appreciate it! I'd say read discworld I mean it's basically HHGTG's humor but with wizards instead of robots. I figure if you're not going to care about the genre you could at least be amused with jokes.
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May 11, 2015 20:50
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Megazver posted:I mean, this is an excellent book, but first fantasy novel for someone who's not really into it?
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May 11, 2015 21:01
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robotox posted:Thanks for all your recommendations, guys. I appreciate it! Eh, I was always against fantasy for a long time growing up until I read the Belgariad by Eddings. I guess it depends on what kinda fantasy you are looking for. Urban, high, low, grimdark, etc.
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May 11, 2015 21:05
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robotox posted:Thanks for all your recommendations, guys. I appreciate it! It depends somewhat on what they don't like about fantasy--is it the long, fat series being kind of overwhelming? The quest/destiny aspect being kind of heavy-handed a priori justification for anything the lead does? The names being complicated? But still, Lies of Locke Lamora, and the The Goblin Emperor are both pretty fun books. The Chathrand Voyages and all of Martha Wells's books are favorites of mine and I don't get on with most epic fantasy. Discworld seems to work for a lot of people, fantasy fans or otherwise. Those are all without wandering towards modern or dark or other branches of the fantasy tree.
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May 11, 2015 21:06
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I may forever be a shill for his writing, but for a foray into some urban fantasy S. Andrew Swann's Dragons of the Cuyahoga is a quick little read. I believe it may be easiest to find these days accompanied with its sequel Dwarves of Whiskey Island as Dragons and Dwarves (under $6 for the kindle version on Amazon). The setting is kind of a budget Shadowrun, albeit not cyberpunk: magic portal opens up in the middle of Cleveland and fantasy archetypes start streaming out of it as well as the ability to use magic (which in turns plays all sorts of havoc on technology, but this is semi-resolved by the time the book starts). Like most of Swann's writing it's got a lot of noir elements with shadowy groups and their convoluted plots uncovered by the protagonist.
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May 11, 2015 21:29
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anilEhilated posted:One series of this kind I've become rather fond of lately is Mark Hodder's Burton and Swinburne books. It starts as alternate history steampunk with werewolves... And gets progressively crazier from there. I can echo this recommendation. I got the first three as a gift a few years back, and they were terribly terribly fun.
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May 11, 2015 21:38
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robotox posted:Out of curiosity, if you guys were to recommend a fantasy novel to someone that doesn't particularly care for fantasy, what would it be? anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 21:52 on May 11, 2015 |
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May 11, 2015 21:48
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robotox posted:Thanks for all your recommendations, guys. I appreciate it! The Lies of Locke Lamora. Easily the best Fantasy book of the last decade. It's about fantasy mafiosos in fantasy Venice and while there is magic involved, it's a lot more cloak-and-dagger than sword-and-sorcery. On the grimdarker side of things, I'd look at TBB Fantasy Favorite Joe Abercrombie's First Law books, which take the "Wise old wizard assembles party for epic quest" fantasy motif and takes it somewhere different.
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May 11, 2015 21:54
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Locke Lamora is really high fantasy fantasy though, which is throwing someone into the deep end. With Half-Made World you could sell it as a Western with some sci-fi/fantastical elements - "like Stephen King's Gunslinger (but way less crazy and with less Dr Doom robots.)
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May 12, 2015 03:35
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I just finished the first four books in the Book of the New Sun series. They were a total blast to read, and I was wondering if anybody had read the sequels or other series in the same universe by Gene Wolfe? Just curious if they're worth getting.
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May 12, 2015 03:42
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robotox posted:Thanks for all your recommendations, guys. I appreciate it! What do they normally enjoy reading? Do they like to read in general? What kind of fantasy are you thinking about when you say 'fantasy'? How old are they? I'd probably amend and shrink my answers down if you specify. Here's some random poo poo: When I was very young my big books' start was with the Xanth, Ravenloft, Belgariad/Mallorean, and the Death Gate Cycle stuff and similar. I'm not sure I'd really ever recommend Xanth stuff, though - maybe if a person was less than 12 or so, too young to do anything but enjoy the silliness and weird magic and poo poo. Raymond Feist's Magician Apprentice series was fun for the first few sets. My favorite was the Empire Trilogy. Garth Nix's Abhorsen were really good. Pullman's Subtle Knife series is really fun as well. The Discworld world is great. Start them off with my favorite one, Small Gods. It's nice and standalone. James Morrow's Towing Jehovah is a fun as hell series. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay is an amazing book. Patricia McKillip's Forgotten Beasts of Eld (or anything else by her, tbh) is like airy poetic fairytales in novel form. Elizabeth Moon's Paksenarrion is really fantastic. Fritz Leiber's Swords and Deviltry is the start of his wonderful Ffarhd and the Grey Mouser series. Catherynne Valente's In the Night Garden is really loving good. Vlad Taltos books are good fun, and I will say Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds is great. This should always go without saying. Sean Russell's Initiate Brother was also really good. Drifter fucked around with this message at 03:57 on May 12, 2015 |
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May 12, 2015 03:50
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Less Fat Luke posted:I just finished the first four books in the Book of the New Sun series. They were a total blast to read, and I was wondering if anybody had read the sequels or other series in the same universe by Gene Wolfe? Just curious if they're worth getting. I haven't read the sequels myself, but you can probably find something about them over in the Gene Wolfe thread.
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May 12, 2015 04:56
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Khizan posted:I haven't read the sequels myself, but you can probably find something about them over in the Gene Wolfe thread. Also, if anybody hasn't read Book of the New Sun I cannot recommend it enough.
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May 12, 2015 05:22
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Less Fat Luke posted:I just finished the first four books in the Book of the New Sun series. They were a total blast to read, and I was wondering if anybody had read the sequels or other series in the same universe by Gene Wolfe? Just curious if they're worth getting. The Books of the Long Sun and Short Sun (read in that order), yes, very much worth reading. They're connected to the New Sun but I won't say more than that. Long Sun is about a generational colony ship whose internal systems are starting to break down. Urth of the New Sun is a good coda to the BotNS, although not quite on the same level. Fifth Head of Cerberus is an amazing stand-alone novel with cool post-colonial themes. Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete are awesome books set in the era of the Greco-Persian Wars that concerns a soldier who forgets what he learns day-to-day and records it. He also has the ability to see mythological figures because of his condition. They're good, although the third, Soldier of Sidon, written 17 years after Arete, isn't particularly good. Outside of those I think nothing is considered 'essential', although I really enjoyed Peace and the Wizard/Knight. Peace reads on a surface level like the memoirs of an older American gentleman but there's a fair bit more going on between that. It's quite fractured, but it's interesting and quite well written. The Wizard/Knight is about a boy being transported to a fantasy world based loosely on Norse mythology where he is given all of the physical attributes of a hero. A lot of people don't like Wolfe's more recent output. All his short story collections are pretty good.
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May 12, 2015 10:38
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The Gunslinger posted:Ok I totally forgive Richard K Morgan for A Land Fit for Heroes because the Takeshi Kovacs books are really, really good. I thought ALFFH was, like, twice as good as his Takeshi stuff. And I really quite enjoyed his Takeshi stuff.
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May 12, 2015 13:01
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Neurosis posted:Outside of those I think nothing is considered 'essential', although I really enjoyed Peace and the Wizard/Knight. Peace reads on a surface level like the memoirs of an older American gentleman but there's a fair bit more going on between that. It's quite fractured, but it's interesting and quite well written. The Wizard/Knight is about a boy being transported to a fantasy world based loosely on Norse mythology where he is given all of the physical attributes of a hero. The Wizard Knight is probably his best regarded recent novel. And I'd say Peace is essential, and central to his work - in some ways almost a fictionalised autobiography. You'll probably also like Castle of Days, which is an omnibus of a short story collection, a short book about The Book of the New Sun and how Wolfe wrote it, and some extra essays and stuff.
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May 12, 2015 16:28
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Anybody read the Mongoliad? Is it worth reading? It's on sale for  at the moment.
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May 12, 2015 16:55
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To whomever recommended The Jade Mage, wtf? I mean I understand that "immature protagonist WHO EXPLODES IN RAGE AND DEFEATS ALL ODDS" is a pretty well-used cliche by now after Wheel of Time, Legend of the Seeker, etc, but good lord, in the first hundred pages the kid kills like 60 people - all of whom are innocent villagers - and just doesn't give a gently caress. Later he kills a half-dozen street kids with fireballs because they were mutilating a dog. Between the absolutely inexplicable levels of rage+power demonstrated by the protagonist every time someone farts in his direction, the writing is terrible - TERRIBLE! Hell, the author can't even keep the third-person perspective out of a character's internal conversations with himself, and dialogue between characters is so stilted I am just kind of glazing over paragraphs as one character spouts tired cliches at another, who responds in other tired cliches. I did laugh out loud though, when the protagonist reads a going-away note (which, among other things, goes on at length about how the person who wrote the note's wife was raped and eaten *at the same time, by people just biting random chunks out of her back because cannibalism is grimdark as gently caress amirite!?* and then killed) and then the kid gets so loving upset that he was abandoned by his master, that he pukes and than faints dead away! Did I mention that the author's bad at writing, as a whole? He likes to go on 3-6 page expository digressions where the narrator just infodumps historical events on you, because he has no knowledge of how to present anything to the reader in a natural way. quote:He was looking at the few remaining signs, but none of them looked promising. The Jiggly Bear was falling apart. The Moo Cow was coated in mold. The Star looked ok, but there were no sounds coming from inside. Tartum was beginning to think there was no inn worth staying at in the entire city, when he spotted a sign that looked brand new. The sign was simple. It was painted dark green and had a man in the center, leaning against nothing. The painting looked amature at best, but gave the impression of an easy going man who was confident and comfortable in who he was. Under the sign was the name of the inn, The Crenshaw. It was an impressive structure. Made almost completely of wood, it towered over other buildings. There were three stories to the inn, and they all looked to be in good repair. The entire inn was painted with the dark green paint just like the sign, and there was the sound of a flute coming from inside.  Also, the author is responsible for a first-time for me in any sword and sorcery novel: making a joke about Pinatas!  Drifter posted:What do they normally enjoy reading? Do they like to read in general? What kind of fantasy are you thinking about when you say 'fantasy'? How old are they? I'd probably amend and shrink my answers down if you specify. Here's some random poo poo: coyo7e fucked around with this message at 18:36 on May 12, 2015 |
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May 12, 2015 17:12
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occamsnailfile posted:Anybody read the Mongoliad? Is it worth reading? It's on sale for The first one had it's moments of coolness and the combat sections were very well written, but mostly it was like reading about how cool other people D&D characters were. I didn't like it enough to get the second.
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May 12, 2015 17:49
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coyo7e posted:I've read nearly all of these and they're all very strong recommendations imho. Towing Jehovah is the book that I've had stolen by folks I lent it to, more than anything else. I've gone through like 5 copies. The Intitiate Brother was pretty good but I petered out on the second or third book, Russell's writing is fun though, he's great at describing a setting. Leiber owns owns owns. Kay is amazing. Discworld is funny as gently caress - Douglas Adams level funny. Paksennarion is fun but juvenile, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone out of their teens who hasn't read a ton of stuff and needs to find more fresh words. Anything by Steven Brust is amazing, Vlad Taltos is hilarious and fun and a very fast read - don't let the YA category fool you, Brust is a master writer. I wavered between Paks or Mary Gentle's Ash: Secret Histories. I figured Paks would be the easier and straightforward read. And the Jade Mage sounds terrible. As a general life rule of mine, if the story summary mentions the year age of the main character, I will not read it.
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May 12, 2015 18:03
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Toph Bei Fong posted:The first one had it's moments of coolness and the combat sections were very well written, but mostly it was like reading about how cool other people D&D characters were. I didn't like it enough to get the second.
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May 12, 2015 18:30
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So I read Low Town by Polansky based on recommendations here. It was Ok with a good flow in the story, kinda generic in the plot setup and settings, and you could see the ending half way into the book. Is the rest of the series any better, or should I just quit now?
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May 12, 2015 18:56
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