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Eh, the first boo is so so. I wasn't able to make it through the last book though, it just didn't hold my interest at all. The first book was basically annoying as hell because the main character is a fat kid, who constantly, always, implicitly, unerringly, CONTINUALLY describes himself as a fat kid. Like, loving, always. The same god damned thing. Doesn't matter if he's running away from an assassin ("My pudgy legs trembled with fat as I ran away from the horrible assassin, puffing and wheezing for I am fat, you see") to just loving, talking to people ("I spoke to the guard, slowly and politely, because he was large and muscular, and I was but an out of shape fat child whom he could easily kill, for I am fat"). I liked the City Stained Red. It's the first book of a 3? part series by Sam Sykes. Decent world building. It's a sequel to his original 3 part series but I can't really recommend it because I gave up in the third book because it got kinda dumb and boring. The Revanche series by Craig Schaefer might work for you. It's "Not medieval italy/europe" political fantasy with magic and weird poo poo. It's bleak as gently caress though. The happiest guy in the first book is the guy who dies (this is not a spoiler, just letting you know what kinda ride you are in for). Discworld is pretty amazing for some books. The Tamuli and Elenium from Eddings are both pretty awesome. They are somewhat PG rated but they are a bit more violent than the Belgariad. For straight up murdering people with an axe and saving damsels kinda stories, you can't really go wrong with David Gemmell. There's no real set order to his books unless it's a series like the Rigante one. Just start with Druss the Legend and if you dig it, awesome.
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Sep 18, 2016 23:24
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:For straight up murdering people with an axe and saving damsels kinda stories, you can't really go wrong with David Gemmell. There's no real set order to his books unless it's a series like the Rigante one. They're all series or mini-series, though? Even the Drenai Saga breaks into three clear sections, although they can be read in any order (numerals indicate strict chronological order). Legend (7) King Beyond the Gate (8) Quest For Lost Heroes (9) Winter Warriors (10) First Chronicles of Druss (4) Legend of Deathwalker (5) White Wolf (6) Swords of Night and Day (11) Waylander (1) Waylander II (2) Hero In The Shadows (3)
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Sep 19, 2016 00:26
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:What about Brent Week's Lightbringer? I had tried Night Angel a long while back and didn't really get into it. It's quite a fun light read with a cool magic system (absorbing different wave lengths of light channeling through their eyes to make it do stuff) and pretty fun cast (fat goon "turtle-bear" protagonist). I like it a lot for what it is. Much better than Night Angel which was straight male wish-fulfillment loser-to-badass assassin power-fantasy. Lightbringer has a little bit about it but it's not nearly as bad and characters are much better.
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Sep 19, 2016 00:52
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:Hey guys, I've posted in here a few times before but I could use another list of recommendations. As was said before, Discworld is a fantastic series. You should read that posthaste. If you *wanted* to like Belgariad then you should give the Elenium series a shot, a little more adult by the same author - but David Eddings really just writes the same loving story over and over. That said, I think a similar type of book that is just better in general is Raymond Feist's Magician Cycle. Errr...whatever it's called - Riftwar. I think you'd start with the Riftwar Tetralogy, move on to the Empire Trilogy (the best of the entire series and mostly standalone within the entire series of the the Riftwar Cycle ), and then finish up with the Serpentwar Saga. If you REALLY want to you can keep reading the other sagas in the Cycle series, but whatevs. It's like 30+ books, and the others are focused on brand new characters, just set in the same world. The DeathGate Cycle was pretty dope back in the day, but not sure how it would hold up - it's basically like a much better Dragonlance series than Dragonlance ever was. That said, mentioning it now made me remember that the Dragonlance Chronicles with Midnight and Raistlin and whatever were some of the first books I bought on my own back in elementary school. They were fantastic for a young kid  Off the top of my head I'm going to list like ten series/books that I thought were absolutely fantastic and enjoyable and around what you were asking and I highly recommend you at least check out their summaries. Totally worth reading, though. Vinge's Zones of Thought series - literally great. Ian Banks' Culture series - don't read Phlebas first. The Deed of Paksenarrion Takeshi Kovacs series Garth Nix's Abhorsen series Vlad Taltos A Long Way to an Angry Planet - more just good and cute and fun than amazing, but even so.  Fafrhd and the Gray Mouser - Some of the original Sword/Sorcery, and still among the best imho. Initiate Brother duology The Golden Witchbreed duology
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Sep 19, 2016 01:28
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Jedit posted:They're all series or mini-series, though? Even the Drenai Saga breaks into three clear sections, although they can be read in any order (numerals indicate strict chronological order). Yea, they are all one overarcing series, but there's not a particular reading or publishing order you need to follow or you'll be lost. Every story is basically a stand alone. The only ones that might be kinda weird would be the Waylander books, and since they are titled appropriately you kinda understand you are reading a sequel when you pick up book 2.
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Sep 19, 2016 01:32
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:Yeah, it seems like it's really cool but I had a hard time getting into it. I had started with the first book and I think I got maybe halfway? It was a while ago. I do intend to give it a try again eventually as there aren't that many series that have a good amount of books and world building so highly rated. Some thoughts off the top of my head:
jarito fucked around with this message at 01:48 on Sep 19, 2016 |
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Sep 19, 2016 01:45
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Oh god, Glen Cook's Dragon Never Sleeps could be right up your alley. Really good milscifi/Space Opera in the vein of Erikson's Malazan series. Oh, yeah, and Tony Daniel's Metaplanetary is also really good, but more traditional action than otherwise. John C Wright's Golden Age is also a fantastic and creative space opera - irrespective of Mr Wright himself. Its writing style could be a little confusing for some people. Drifter fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Sep 19, 2016 |
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Sep 19, 2016 02:10
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:The Revanche series by Craig Schaefer might work for you. It's "Not medieval italy/europe" political fantasy with magic and weird poo poo. It's bleak as gently caress though. The happiest guy in the first book is the guy who dies (this is not a spoiler, just letting you know what kinda ride you are in for). Gemmell is always a good time. Discworld is great, I just tell everybody to NOT start at the start, because Color of Magic is arguably the worst book out of the billion or so in the series. Go for the Guard novels or the Witches, and fun is guaranteed. (Sam Vimes is the loving man, and any book he's in is worth reading, period. Same with Granny Weatherwax.) Discworld is the rare "series" that isn't a series at all in the traditional sense, and as soon as you convince people they don't have to be read in order (and some can be skipped entirely), they're ready to roll. Revanche gets more optimistic around book three, with Schaefer's one really good romance plot that kicks in once the romantic lead has psychologically tortured and broken her intended lover--- um, wait. I mean, it's more optimistic once another heroine embraces the dark arts and abandons any hope of salvation-- okay gently caress it, it's bleak as poo poo. But fun. StonecutterJoe fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Sep 19, 2016 |
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Sep 19, 2016 02:48
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Yeah read discworld,start with "guards,guards" or "Mort" or "lords and ladies" to get a general idea what discworld is about then read them by release date. The first 10 or so are funny books but I think pratchett only finds his voice in "small gods". From guards guards onwards is just pure gold until almost the end of the series. Dont binge read it and you'll have quality reading for the next ten years. Also,not a series per se,but the sci-fi masterworks editions are great for getting to know great writers : Frederick pohl,olaf stapledon,Alfred bester,Vernon vinge and many others,i dont think theres a Bad book in the whole bunch. Oh and read everything by Ursula Le Guin because goddamn! Edit:in discworld for example read " the colour of magic" and " the light fantastic" before you read "interesting times". I mean, you don't have too, but its more fun if you do. Antifa Poltergeist fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Sep 19, 2016 |
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Sep 19, 2016 02:55
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Thanks for the suggestions guys, it's a bit of overload of info right now, so its a good time to paste them all in a new text file I'll have to reference next time I get curious. I think I may give Death Gate another shot since overall I enjoyed the first book, and apparently a main character or two I like comes back in the later books anyway. The ratings on goodreads get better with each book too but I try not to take goodreads rating too seriously. I've always been aware of discworld but never really gave it a shot because it didn't seem to be my thing with the humor but I may give it a shot anyway. It also seems like it might would be a good one for listening to at work e: since I was being pretty generic looking for several different recommendations, I'll ask for something a bit more specific - I really dug Revelation Space, and both of Peter Hamilton's worlds. Something about the epic scope of the story along with an interesting mystery really grabbed at me. Now that I mentioned that it reminded me, I listened to Blindsight on audiobook a while back and really enjoyed it. I should probably add it's sequel to my reading queue as well. Also the longer the series the better, Hamilton's giant books were a plus for me, even though it took a while to get the story going. Also a friend had turned on Hyperion at work the other night and I listened to up to the priests story and his big "revelation" before the shift ended. It seemed decent, not sure if I liked it on the same level as Reynolds or Hamilton though. Drunk Driver Dad fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Sep 19, 2016 |
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Sep 19, 2016 03:55
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Ugh book seven in The Academy series by Jack McDevitt kind of starts off really boring doesn't it? Even the writing style feels off. If I had to guess I'd say the author has gotten bored of this series or maybe someone else wrote it and he let it be released under his name.
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Sep 19, 2016 04:36
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Hyperion is good, but the quality level drops steadily as the series goes on - if you read them, feel free to drop it when you stop enjoying the books. I'm gonna second Malazan, Vlad Taltos and Discworld - they're all series that set out to do different things, but they all do them amazingly well.
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Sep 19, 2016 05:14
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:Yeah, it seems like it's really cool but I had a hard time getting into it. I had started with the first book and I think I got maybe halfway? It was a while ago. I do intend to give it a try again eventually as there aren't that many series that have a good amount of books and world building so highly rated. I'd suggest something entirely different for you. Like Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts. quote:The longer the series and the more world building and that sort of thing the better. I don't really like series where the books are in some weird order or where a book's chapters actually go backward. This is my before bed time easy reading.
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Sep 19, 2016 08:13
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:Yeah, it seems like it's really cool but I had a hard time getting into it. I had started with the first book and I think I got maybe halfway? It was a while ago. I do intend to give it a try again eventually as there aren't that many series that have a good amount of books and world building so highly rated. A lot of people have bounced off the first Malazan book over the years; Erikson does not believe in explaining things too much, rather letting the reader piece information together on their own... I remember upon rereading it after having read the next three or so books in the series, I understood approximately 150% more of what was going on. "So that's what that meant, and that's that guy who's doing that thing..."
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Sep 19, 2016 08:52
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:Thanks for the suggestions guys, it's a bit of overload of info right now, so its a good time to paste them all in a new text file I'll have to reference next time I get curious. I think I may give Death Gate another shot since overall I enjoyed the first book, and apparently a main character or two I like comes back in the later books anyway. The ratings on goodreads get better with each book too but I try not to take goodreads rating too seriously. If you liked Blindsight, you might like Peter Watts's earlier "Rifters" trilogy. It's not quite as sharp as "Blindsight" and "Echopraxia" but it's definitely got the same feel. Plus you can download at least the first book for free off his site here http://www.rifters.com/real/STARFISH.htm. Also, although many people don't like it as much his "Revalation Space" series, Alastair Reynolds "Poseidon's Children" trilogy is pretty good and definitely fits the bill for a longer series. Speaking of Reynolds, I'm about 75% done "Revenger" and goddamn is it good. Not as heavy on the science as his other stuff but the story is an absolute page turner. The universe is awesome too and has a ton of room for more books. I really hope he decides to write more in it. I'll echo what someone posted a couple of pages back in that I wish it was longer. johnsonrod fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Sep 19, 2016 |
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Sep 19, 2016 11:21
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drat, hadn't even noticed Reynolds had a new one coming out. Thanks for that.
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Sep 19, 2016 12:18
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I just finished watching Jonathan Strange and Me Norell on Netflix and loved it. Is it worth going back and checking out the. I'll as well?
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Sep 19, 2016 15:52
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LASER BEAM DREAM posted:I just finished watching Jonathan Strange and Me Norell on Netflix and loved it. Is it worth going back and checking out the. I'll as well? Yes. The TV series was a half-step short of perfect in terms of its adaptation of the source material for the first 3/4, before going a bit off the rails towards the end, to the detriment of the story. There's a lot of style that can't be conveyed by the TV series, too; Clarke really apes the Austen style perfectly, while keeping things moving. Despite being a loving tome of a book it never really felt like it dragged to me. Very strongly recommended.
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Sep 19, 2016 15:57
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Neurosis posted:Yes. The TV series was a half-step short of perfect in terms of its adaptation of the source material for the first 3/4, before going a bit off the rails towards the end, to the detriment of the story. There's a lot of style that can't be conveyed by the TV series, too; Clarke really apes the Austen style perfectly, while keeping things moving. Despite being a loving tome of a book it never really felt like it dragged to me. Very strongly recommended. The tie-in book of short stories (The Ladies of Grace Adieu) is equally great and highly recommended.
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Sep 19, 2016 16:20
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Neurosis posted:Yes. The TV series was a half-step short of perfect in terms of its adaptation of the source material for the first 3/4, before going a bit off the rails towards the end, to the detriment of the story. There's a lot of style that can't be conveyed by the TV series, too; Clarke really apes the Austen style perfectly, while keeping things moving. Despite being a loving tome of a book it never really felt like it dragged to me. Very strongly recommended. Not to mention the textbook worth of footnotes
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Sep 19, 2016 20:10
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Death's End tomorrow 
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Sep 19, 2016 20:12
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Xaris posted:It's quite a fun light read with a cool magic system (absorbing different wave lengths of light channeling through their eyes to make it do stuff) and pretty fun cast (fat goon "turtle-bear" protagonist). I like it a lot for what it is. Much better than Night Angel which was straight male wish-fulfillment loser-to-badass assassin power-fantasy. Lightbringer has a little bit about it but it's not nearly as bad and characters are much better. I just looked up what Night Angel is and it turns out I got the first book in a swap meet months ago. It's been collecting dust on my shelf ever since.
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Sep 19, 2016 22:00
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Reading has been probably been my biggest hobby since high school. I have not had as much time to spend on the hobby over recent years but I have kept up with some series (I think Dresdin files is the only one still going). I have to say I feel sorry for anyone that is trying to find a good book. The age of the Kindle and digital publishing/self publishing has made my eyes bleed trying to find a author that can tell a story worth reading. The worst part is that reviews mean almost nothing as you can hire people to boost that rating. I have completely stopped reading any review with a 3 star or higher review and focus on the 1 and 2 star reviews. Depending on what those reviews state I may give the book a try, like if it is for foul language or using "gods" name in vain. I have read a lot of books over the last almost 30 years and I can not get over how bad most of these new authors are.
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Sep 20, 2016 02:03
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I pretty much rely on word of mouth and threads like this to find books to try. I have a good reads account and their ratings are absolutely loving meaningless. I don't think a book exists on there that has less than three stars.
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Sep 20, 2016 02:06
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Also when did science fiction and fantasy turn into soft core porn? I do not mind sex in my books but it seems the target audience is now lonely house wives.
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Sep 20, 2016 02:31
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It didn't? I think your technique for picking new authors may be flawed.
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Sep 20, 2016 02:38
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NiknudStunod posted:Also when did science fiction and fantasy turn into soft core porn? I do not mind sex in my books but it seems the target audience is now lonely house wives. I don't know what books you've been reading but the genre's certainly had plenty of sexed up stuff (often "regrettable" at best, but that's the genre for you) for decades.
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Sep 20, 2016 03:46
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It's hard to disagree with goodreads being pretty worthless for picking out new content, though. I mean, Dianetics has 2.3 stars. The worst book i've ever paid for got, like, 3.1. The fact that goodreads supplies the means for a group of devotees to find their icon and worship at it means that scale basically goes from three stars to five stars. E - You know what, i feel like i've said that before. So instead, how about i ask an actual question. I, personal taste, absolutely hated the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. The relevant threads seem to be a-flutter about The Fifth Season, so... is it different? I mean, i don't want to sound sore here about getting bait-and-switched, expecting a grand fantasy book and getting a romance instead. I bought the Sharing Knife at 4am one time because a wizard stabbing a deathless turboghost sounded cool. And, i mean, i didn't buy the rest of the series, no, but it was alright. I'd recommend it to people who wanted that. The 100k kingdoms, though, suggested that we'd be hearing about a society that enslaved its own pantheon of literal gods and how said pantheon felt about it, and then instead i got 200 pages of a (failed) attempt to resist the urge to schtup the dreamy, brooding, misunderstood god of loving psycho bloodmurder, and it just left a bad taste in my mouth. Again, just my (admittedly cranky) opinion. So... do characters still make incredibly, staggeringly bad decisions for inane/'fate' reasons, and, am I going to be cross about the swords&sorcery versus 'fifty shades' ratio again? Ceebees fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Sep 20, 2016 |
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Sep 20, 2016 04:28
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Having read both, Fifth Season is a very different sort of book from Hundred Thousand. I grew eventually to like the latter, but Fifth Season grabs you from the get-go and amusingly enough actually tells you about a society that enslaves its (demi)gods or really more like its wizards (a minor spoiler for both books).
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Sep 20, 2016 05:54
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fritz posted:I don't know what books you've been reading but the genre's certainly had plenty of sexed up stuff (often "regrettable" at best, but that's the genre for you) for decades. Just try and name one Heinlein book that dealt with sexual themes. 
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Sep 20, 2016 05:57
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NiknudStunod posted:The age of the Kindle and digital publishing/self publishing has made my eyes bleed trying to find a author that can tell a story worth reading. The worst part is that reviews mean almost nothing as you can hire people to boost that rating. I have completely stopped reading any review with a 3 star or higher review and focus on the 1 and 2 star reviews. Depending on what those reviews state I may give the book a try, like if it is for foul language or using "gods" name in vain. I mean, most of your issues likely stem from your personal culling method. It sounds inherently flawed.
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Sep 20, 2016 05:58
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Just try and name one Heinlein book that dealt with sexual themes. Heh, good one.
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Sep 20, 2016 06:26
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Ceebees posted:
There is substantially less romance in Fifth Season it's also a significantly better book. Patrick Spens fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Sep 20, 2016 |
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Sep 20, 2016 07:04
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Drifter posted:I mean, most of your issues likely stem from your personal culling method. It sounds inherently flawed. How would you suggest I go about finding decent books? Browsing online on the kindle or my pc is not like it was when I would go to a book store to browse the book shelves. Being able to pick the book up and reading through a few chapters usually gave me a good idea of if I would enjoy it. Not that it was foolproof as I bought a few stinkers as well over the years. My current process is to 1) separate by genre and sub-genre 2) search for a typical setting in the genre I am in the mood to read ( for example zombie survival or emp power outage in the science fiction/post apocalyptic setting) 3) read the summary to see if it is what I am looking for 4) check the bad reviews to see if they are reasonable ( for example grammar errors, lack of continuity in story development) 5) repeat until I find something I want to read
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Sep 20, 2016 07:44
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Well, that's somewhat encouraging to hear. On the other hand, if i'd heard i wouldn't like it then i could have saved  , so...
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Sep 20, 2016 08:44
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I actually asked Goodreads support -- the stars are an average, not predictive, so they're completely useless. The best recommendations still come from Amazon.
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Sep 20, 2016 08:49
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Just try and name one Heinlein book that dealt with sexual themes. Farnham's Freehole. Ceebees posted:E - You know what, i feel like i've said that before. So instead, how about i ask an actual question. I, personal taste, absolutely hated the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. The relevant threads seem to be a-flutter about The Fifth Season, so... is it different? I felt pretty much the same way about The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms too but it was her first novel, authors can get better with experience 
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Sep 20, 2016 08:55
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NiknudStunod posted:The worst part is that reviews mean almost nothing as you can hire people to boost that rating. I don't think fake reviews happen as often as people assume they do, mainly because when people pull that poo poo, it's usually super-obvious. Like, twenty five-stars on a just-released book, and every one of them is a variation on the exact same phrase (and when you click the "reviewers" profiles, they review everything from books to potted plants using the exact same cut-and-pasted line). Also, I don't know about ibooks, but amazon's been actively hunting and suing fake-review providers. Anyway, using the "look inside" feature is a godsend. Gives you the first 10% of the book or so, so you can assess a new writer right on the spot. If they can grab me in those first few chapters, they get the sale. StonecutterJoe fucked around with this message at 13:44 on Sep 20, 2016 |
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Sep 20, 2016 13:41
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NiknudStunod posted:How would you suggest I go about finding decent books? Browsing online on the kindle or my pc is not like it was when I would go to a book store to browse the book shelves. Being able to pick the book up and reading through a few chapters usually gave me a good idea of if I would enjoy it. Not that it was foolproof as I bought a few stinkers as well over the years. I pretty never find myself "just browsing" for books these days. Instead, I mostly get my recommendations from four sources: - New stuff by authors I know I like. Yeah, sometimes they're off their game, or I discover that a book I really liked was the only thing by that author that I liked, but this still has an extremely high hit rate. - Recommendations by authors or editors whose work I like or whose taste in books generally matches up with my own. Jo Walton and John Scalzi both blog a lot about new and interesting (or old and interesting) SF, for example. - Targeted recommendations from friends. - Descriptions and/or recommendations in various TBB threads (primarily here, the booklord challenge thread, and the nonfiction thread). Between this, I have book and author recommendations coming in faster than I can read them, so there's no reason to browse. If you do want to browse, there are some ebook sellers that let you read part of the book before buying (I believe Amazon and Google both do this). You could also go to a bookstore in person and take note of the books you like to buy online later, or look for authors who have put some of their work online for free (a lot of Baen authors have done this), or even seek out  to "try before you buy".
ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Sep 20, 2016 |
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Sep 20, 2016 14:10
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NiknudStunod posted:How would you suggest I go about finding decent books? Browsing online on the kindle or my pc is not like it was when I would go to a book store to browse the book shelves. Being able to pick the book up and reading through a few chapters usually gave me a good idea of if I would enjoy it. Not that it was foolproof as I bought a few stinkers as well over the years. As was said, Amazon's feature of looking inside on most books is pretty goddamned useful. It's pretty much just like picking up a book in a bookstore and flipping through it. I was mainly talking about your approach of not looking at any book with a star average of more than three. Especially if you're reading Dystopia/PostApoc stuff.  I also do find the Goodreads' group lists of similar books to be sometimes useful. I tend to browse through goodreads and then go to amazon to check inside the book itself. If I see a reviewer on goodreads who criticized a book in a way I thought was well done I'll see what else they've reviewed, et cetera. But I find threads like these to be great for asking or lurking for suggestions.
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Sep 20, 2016 14:19
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