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SF/F goons, a friend has asked for recommendations for fantasy or SF books with romances that Don't Suck, and I'm really racking my brain here - any suggestions? I'm struggling with this because I actively avoid books in which romantic relationships have a major role, unless the writing is so compelling that I'm forced to grin and bear the romance in order to get to the rest of it, so even if I've read ones that fit his criteria, they're not coming to mind. Specifically, he's looking for stories where the romance is actually convincing, the characters are actually together for most of the book instead of being separated for hundreds of pages and pining after each other, and, his words, "doesn't feel like it was written by an angsty teen." No sexual violence, helpless damsels, or doomed loves that end in tragedy either. This seems like a tall order, but there's got to be something out there that fits, right? Surely somewhere in the fantasy/SF canon there are healthy, well-written romantic relationships.
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Mar 7, 2023 22:19
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Winters Orbit by Everina Maxwell
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Mar 7, 2023 22:22
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Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
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Mar 7, 2023 22:32
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The Silver Metal Lov --Kestral posted:No (...) doomed loves that end in tragedy either. ... darn, okay. How about Lois McMaster Bujold? I'm thinking particularly of Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan in Shards of Honor and Barrayar, or Miles and Ekaterina in Komarr and (especially) A Civil Campaign. There's also her Sharing Knife series and The Curse of Chalion, although those are very much May-December romances, which may or may not be a turnoff for your friend.
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Mar 7, 2023 22:34
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I'd classify the invisible library series as primarily mystery with some light romance, and there's also this is how you lose the time war, in a way.
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Mar 7, 2023 22:37
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Witchmark by CL Polk. Actually, pretty much anything by CL Polk will help with that; they do good romance.
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Mar 7, 2023 22:48
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Kestral posted:SF/F goons, a friend has asked for recommendations for fantasy or SF books with romances that Don't Suck, and I'm really racking my brain here - any suggestions? I'm struggling with this because I actively avoid books in which romantic relationships have a major role, unless the writing is so compelling that I'm forced to grin and bear the romance in order to get to the rest of it, so even if I've read ones that fit his criteria, they're not coming to mind. The Paradox series easily has one of best romance subplots that I've ever seen. Definitely the best romance I've read in a book that also heavily features a lady space marine curbstomping lizardmen pirates.
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Mar 7, 2023 22:51
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Thanks for the recommendations so far, folks - if there's more, I'll gladly pass them on!Selachian posted:The Silver Metal Lov -- I was going to recommend him Bujold until I remembered how rapey Shards of Honor, the first and only book I read in that series, was. Does it get less rapey in the rest of the Saga? Kestral fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Mar 7, 2023 |
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Mar 7, 2023 22:59
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Magician: Apprentice (Riftwar #1) by Raymond E Feist - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073TJ3J3J/ The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - $3.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YDL2CY/ The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson - $1.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PI181JI/ Zodiac by Neal Stephenson - $2.99 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008UX8SNU/
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Mar 7, 2023 23:30
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Kestral posted:Thanks for the recommendations so far, folks - if there's more, I'll gladly pass them on! Yes. And why haven't you read Barrayar yet? It's spiffy.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:31
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Wungus posted:Witchmark by CL Polk. Actually, pretty much anything by CL Polk will help with that; they do good romance. In a similar vein, A Marvelous Light by Freya Marske or Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh. Also This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. And for anyone in the thread who does love tragic romances, Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee and Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly are both great.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:36
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Have you seen everybody else recommending The Spear Cuts Through Water? Well, it's a love story down to it's dented bones. Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace have a romance at their heart, though there's also a lot of other political intrigues and sociological exploration going on.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:43
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tokenbrownguy posted:Winters Orbit by Everina Maxwell I loved the sequel Ocean’s Echo even more, because the protagonist is such a messy bitch, I love him. The romance is slow burn, and replaces pining with “Aaaaargh-gently caress!” if that fits the criteria. If he’s read Boyfriend Material, it’s kinda like that but space opera involving telepathic powers. Wungus posted:Witchmark by CL Polk. Actually, pretty much anything by CL Polk will help with that; they do good romance. YES. Also you get three different romances in each of the three books. The third is a great mature relationship, which you don’t usually get in romance. It’s so refreshing. Also the political intrigue gets better and better as the series goes on.
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Mar 7, 2023 23:54
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Stuporstar posted:I loved the sequel Ocean’s Echo even more, because the protagonist is such a messy bitch, I love him. The romance is slow burn, and replaces pining with “Aaaaargh-gently caress!” if that fits the criteria. If he’s read Boyfriend Material, it’s kinda like that but space opera involving telepathic powers. Tennalhin is a such a lovable prick, it's great. The chemistry between Surit and Tennalhin is so sad-fun and the flips in PoV are pretty heartwarming.
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Mar 8, 2023 00:02
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Graceling by Kristin Cashore is one, albeit a weird one. The main character is a girl who's basically the king's niece and assassin, and the dude she gonna up with she meets fairly early. I haven't read the rest of the series and it's been years since I read this one, but I remember liking it. Only sexual violence I can remember was her uncle was gonna get touchy and she killed him when she was like 7? They don't go into detail, just mention the situation.
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Mar 8, 2023 01:28
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Kestral posted:SF/F goons, a friend has asked for recommendations for fantasy or SF books with romances that Don't Suck, and I'm really racking my brain here - any suggestions? I'm struggling with this because I actively avoid books in which romantic relationships have a major role, unless the writing is so compelling that I'm forced to grin and bear the romance in order to get to the rest of it, so even if I've read ones that fit his criteria, they're not coming to mind. You should read Possession by A.S. Byatt it's only lightly fantasy related though Little, Big by John Crowley has some good ones. It's a doomed romance but the central romance in Declare by Tim Powers is great. lol Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders has a very stable central relationship set in the near future but also um probably isn't what your friend is looking for fez_machine fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 02:20
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Stuporstar posted:I loved the sequel Ocean’s Echo even more, because the protagonist is such a messy bitch, I love him. The romance is slow burn, and replaces pining with “Aaaaargh-gently caress!” if that fits the criteria. Hmm, by "Aaaargh gently caress!" are we talking like, an agonizingly-extended "why won't you fuckers get together?!" kind of thing? Because I think that's what he's specifically trying to avoid, the whole "we know these two are going to end up together because the author is going to make it happen, but it's like having teeth pulled to get there" sort of thing. Groke posted:Yes. Okay, that might be a solid recommendation then, since he reads like wildfire so a series the size of that one might be appealing. As for my not reading Barrayar yet, I bailed on the series after struggling with Shards of Honor and then having folks tell me, "yeah, the series gets much better but you never get away from the persistent romance component." My SoH experience is that it's a mediocre romance novel with a thin veneer of Space Words over it, spiced up by Vice Admiral TortureRape, the Sinister Bisexual. Shards of Honor killed my interest in the series stone dead, and while I doubt I would have been able to fall in love with the Vorkosigan novels, I suspect I might have stuck with it longer if I'd started literally anywhere else. I know a lot of folks here love the series so I don't mean to knock it, it clearly works for a lot of people, but that's my data point.
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Mar 8, 2023 05:58
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Kestral posted:Thanks for the recommendations so far, folks - if there's more, I'll gladly pass them on! While the Sharing Knife series has that May/December stuff, it certainly isn't rapey, so there's that. I'm not even sure I'd call it May/December because while the guy is much older than the girl, he's also part of a long-lived bunch. So, maybe May/September?
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Mar 8, 2023 06:26
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Been going through New Weird stuff lately. I liked The Half-Made World up until the cliff-hanger ending, mostly just because Creedmoor is such an entertaining piece of trash. Any of Felix Gilman's other stuff any good? Also, I should really get back to reading through the rest of that Area X compilation I bought. Annihilation was cool but the shift to the office setting in the follow-up was a bit jarring and I fell off in favor of reading some other things. Also also, tried to read Gideon the Ninth but bounced off it. The main character's dialogue reminds me too much of those really bad clips I saw of Netflix's Cowboy Bebop adaptation; the main character said something like five pages in that was something like, "I offered him a wonderful book of a titty nature," and that made me drop it. Is it all like that?
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Mar 8, 2023 12:04
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It's full of memey nonsense, if that's what you mean. I adore it, but if you don't like that, it doesn't get any less so. I mean, there's literally a "I studied the blade" line a few pages after where you stopped.
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Mar 8, 2023 12:53
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It stays like that through Gideon, but it also stopped bothering me really, really quickly for whatever reason. The tittymag comment had ne pause for a second but I kept reading and was really glad I did.
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Mar 8, 2023 13:20
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Frontline Titties isn’t a real publication.
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Mar 8, 2023 13:23
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90s Cringe Rock posted:Frontline Titties isn’t a real publication.
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Mar 8, 2023 14:45
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Everyone posted:While the Sharing Knife series has that May/December stuff, it certainly isn't rapey, so there's that. I'm not even sure I'd call it May/December because while the guy is much older than the girl, he's also part of a long-lived bunch. So, maybe May/September? This is interestingly heading into 1000 year old demon territory from the other side. “Sure he has 50? more years of life experience and the power dynamics are all off, but his body is more like a 30 year old’s!” …That having been said, I enjoyed the series immensely and it makes a good romance-centric speculative fiction recommendation.
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Mar 8, 2023 14:52
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Speaking of May/December, I'm wrapping up Judas Unchained - really gets to be a slog once they resolve the central conflict - and good lord the romantic politics in this book. I like the character of Mellanie, I think she's interesting, but I don't get the point of making her a barely legal nymphomaniac who will gently caress anyone and everyone at the drop of a hat. There's something to be said about evolving mores towards sex positivity but she stands head and shoulders above any other character in that regard, and also kind of the point of the Commonwealth Series is that the ease at which we were able to colonize the galaxy occurring at the same time as clinical immortality has left the future largely frozen in early 21st century culture. Also I think she fucks a 15 year old kid at one point. Anyway, you have 300 year old people loving 20 year old people constantly, it's mentioned once that it's a huge cultural taboo that only the most elite can participate in except half the characters in the book, including the guy who's supposed to represent the future everyman, is with someone decades older or younger than them. I am begging middle aged science fiction writers to stop writing sex scenes
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Mar 8, 2023 15:49
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fez_machine posted:lol Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders has a very stable central relationship set in the near future but also um probably isn't what your friend is looking for Don't kinkshame. Selachian posted:How about Lois McMaster Bujold? I'm thinking particularly of Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan in Shards of Honor and Barrayar, or Miles and Ekaterina in Komarr and (especially) A Civil Campaign. There's also her Sharing Knife series and The Curse of Chalion, although those are very much May-December romances, which may or may not be a turnoff for your friend. There's an understated and quite sweet romance in Ethan of Athos, although it's not the main focus. Falling Free has two romantic subplots - Claire and Tony, the quaddies', is nice, but Silver and Leo is a bit undercooked and has uncomfortable subtext. Kestral posted:SF/F goons, a friend has asked for recommendations for fantasy or SF books with romances that Don't Suck Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner and Legend of the Condor Heroes by Jin Yong, although that's on the edge of fantasy.
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Mar 8, 2023 16:04
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Kestral posted:SF/F goons, a friend has asked for recommendations for fantasy or SF books with romances that Don't Suck, and I'm really racking my brain here - any suggestions? I'm struggling with this because I actively avoid books in which romantic relationships have a major role, unless the writing is so compelling that I'm forced to grin and bear the romance in order to get to the rest of it, so even if I've read ones that fit his criteria, they're not coming to mind. Swordheart by T Kingfisher is a great example of this. As are her other books set in the same world. A middle aged widow inherits a magical sword with a warrior inside and hijinks ensue. For a focus more on the romance than fantasy everything by Celia Lake is really good. The books can mostly be read out of order. I started with Eclipse after reading this review.
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Mar 8, 2023 18:23
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I should also mention Holly Black's Elfhame books (The Wicked Prince et al) as a pretty good fantasy romance, although they fail the "not separated for hundreds of pages" test. It's more of a "start out hating each other and then discover their true feelings" romance.
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Mar 8, 2023 18:32
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Kestral posted:Hmm, by "Aaaargh gently caress!" are we talking like, an agonizingly-extended "why won't you fuckers get together?!" kind of thing? Because I think that's what he's specifically trying to avoid, the whole "we know these two are going to end up together because the author is going to make it happen, but it's like having teeth pulled to get there" sort of thing. It’s that kinda thing yeah. I mean, the characters are together for most of it in the biggest way (literally telepathically linked), and totally functioning like partners for most of it, but despite that they are both loving stupid about their feelings and also majorly distracted by big plotty poo poo, which is either entertaining as hell or agonizing—really depends on the reader there
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Mar 8, 2023 18:39
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Kesper North posted:There's a new Craft Sequence (Max Gladstone) book out on Tuesday. Or rather, I guess this is the first book in the Craft Wars Sequence. I'm hype.
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Mar 8, 2023 19:30
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Wungus posted:Witchmark by CL Polk. Actually, pretty much anything by CL Polk will help with that; they do good romance. Lotta love for this but I'm pretty sure the whole romance, at least in book one, kicks off with magically coerced sex, which is yucky if not strictly contrary to no sexual violence. Will add that I thought Even Though I Knew the End was really good. Ben Nevis fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Mar 8, 2023 |
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Mar 8, 2023 19:36
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Ben Nevis posted:I'm hype.
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Mar 8, 2023 19:45
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Ravenfood posted:It stays like that through Gideon, but it also stopped bothering me really, really quickly for whatever reason. The tittymag comment had ne pause for a second but I kept reading and was really glad I did. Yeah, it's really really good, but if you don't like the style it's not going to get more normal.
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Mar 8, 2023 19:47
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ZyrKx posted:Swordheart by T Kingfisher is a great example of this. As are her other books set in the same world. I realize this is a loaded question, but is swordheart more adventurous and comedic or is it all lovey dovey doe eyed romance cooties stuff? I just hate romance relationship style books. Nothing against anyone who likes em, just not my cup o tea.
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Mar 8, 2023 20:18
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I realize this is a loaded question, but is swordheart more adventurous and comedic or is it all lovey dovey doe eyed romance cooties stuff? It is a romance that happens to involve a "disputed" inheritance, an attempt to force a woman into marriage, and solving that via a magic sword, some hijinks, and also priests of the rat (aka lawyers). There is quite a bit of adventure and violence involved. It's slightly more romancey than The Princess Bride.
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Mar 8, 2023 20:45
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I haven't gotten to Swordheart itself, but Ursula Vernon, the human behind the Kingfisher pen name, is one of the few humans I would trust to write seemingly-saccharine junk and still have it come out well-written and meaningful. She's real good.
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Mar 8, 2023 20:52
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The Nebula Awards finalists are out and I'm... A bit underwhelmed. Especially in the novella category, where the absolute worst thing I read in 2022 (High Times at the Low Parliament) was shortlisted and one of the best (All The Horses of Iceland) was not. I think, overall, I just feel a bit out of touch. Most finalists I have read I didn't love, and most books I did love didn't get noticed. Shocked that The Spear Cuts Through Water didn't get a nod, but pleased at least that Nona did. Also good to see T Kingfisher acknowledged.
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Mar 8, 2023 20:53
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grassy gnoll posted:I haven't gotten to Swordheart itself, but Ursula Vernon, the human behind the Kingfisher pen name, is one of the few humans I would trust to write seemingly-saccharine junk and still have it come out well-written and meaningful. She's real good. Oh poo poo, is that what she has been doing since Digger? I need to check that out.
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Mar 8, 2023 21:18
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cptn_dr posted:The Nebula Awards finalists are out and I'm... A bit underwhelmed. I looked up TSCTW as it's reached that point of "enough people say it's amazing that it probably is" for me and I lolled at this content warning from a Goodreads review: cws: gore, torture, genocide, cannibalism, body horror, dismemberment, ableism
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Mar 8, 2023 21:21
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All accurate.
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Mar 8, 2023 21:49
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