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Izzhov posted:Are there any series of fantasy books other than Harry Potter and LOTR that are both a) finished and b) good? Everything I can think of either fails the first requirement (ASoIaF) or the second (Eragon). Jack Vance's Lyonesse trilogy (Suldrun's Garden, The Green Pearl, Madouc). Patricia McKillip's Riddlemaster trilogy (The Riddle-Master of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, Harpist in the Wind). Stephen R. Donaldson's Mordant's Need books (The Mirror of Her Dreams, A Man Rides Through.) Generally a good choice if you want to try SRD -- it doesn't have as much of the dark ickiness of the Covenant or Gap Cycle books. Tanith Lee's Tales from the Flat Earth (Night's Master, Death's Master, Delusion's Master, Delirium's Mistress, Midnight's Sorceries). Not strictly a series in the sense of an ongoing story -- more like an interlocking set of novels with the same setting. David Eddings's Belgariad is decent by extruded fantasy product standards, if you want something that's quick, entertaining, and unchallenging.
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Mar 12, 2017 04:39
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looking for something like john darnielle's universal harvester, jennifer mcmahon's the winter people, or william gay's little sister death - atmospheric rural setting, significant horror elements, preferably centred around a family. any recs?
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Mar 13, 2017 23:00
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chernobyl kinsman posted:looking for something like john darnielle's universal harvester, jennifer mcmahon's the winter people, or william gay's little sister death - atmospheric rural setting, significant horror elements, preferably centred around a family. any recs? A bit of a stretch, but We have Always Lived in the Castle satisfies 2.5 of those requirements.
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Mar 14, 2017 00:01
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Any recommendations for historical fiction set during the early middles ages (6-10CE)? Preferably with major female characters. I've read very few books set during this period, but fwiw, I liked Hild and hated The Saxon Chronicles. I just don't like Cornwall.
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Mar 14, 2017 04:37
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chernobyl kinsman posted:looking for something like john darnielle's universal harvester, jennifer mcmahon's the winter people, or william gay's little sister death - atmospheric rural setting, significant horror elements, preferably centred around a family. any recs? Not sure how well it will fit, but you can give Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones a try. Coming of age story about a boy in a rural werewolf family. First book I thought of that could check your boxes.
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Mar 16, 2017 17:03
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Lilikoi posted:Any recommendations for historical fiction set during the early middles ages (6-10CE)? Preferably with major female characters. I've read very few books set during this period, but fwiw, I liked Hild and hated The Saxon Chronicles. I just don't like Cornwall. This is pretty good and hits all your requirements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Belisarius
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Mar 16, 2017 18:05
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Ranger Vick posted:Not sure how well it will fit, but you can give Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones a try. Coming of age story about a boy in a rural werewolf family. First book I thought of that could check your boxes. ahahaha good suggestion bro
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Mar 16, 2017 22:41
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A human heart posted:ahahaha good suggestion bro One of your favourites?
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Mar 16, 2017 23:15
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Got an unusual request here - I'm looking for examples of dialect from 1920s Devon, whether it be from a 1920s novel that doesn't have its cast speak exclusively in RP, or a piece of non-fiction work. Any suggestions?
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Mar 17, 2017 01:38
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Darth Walrus posted:Got an unusual request here - I'm looking for examples of dialect from 1920s Devon, whether it be from a 1920s novel that doesn't have its cast speak exclusively in RP, or a piece of non-fiction work. Any suggestions? John Cowper Powys' contemporary novels, A Glastonbury Romance etc, are probably a good bet.
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Mar 17, 2017 13:29
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I'm looking for some period-piece action thrillers, like Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal or Loup Durand's Daddy. I'm up for whatever as long as it's generally set somewhere in the past. On a vaguely-related note: are the Jason Bourne books worth reading? Ludlum in general?
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Mar 18, 2017 01:38
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I'd like to read some slice-of-life SF set in deeply thought-out, deeply weird-to-us worlds, where the inhabitants are fairly typical inhabitants of those worlds, doing things that aren't that consequential, and where the narrator assumes I'm also a typical member of this world who takes its cosmological/cultural/etc assumptions for granted. (This is half-inspired by reading Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning and Seven Surrenders and falling absolutely in love with her world but hating the characters, and half by reading "Coming of Age in Karhide.")
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Mar 18, 2017 06:10
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Selachian posted:
Dude I thought I was the only person who's heard of this. It's incredible. another fantasy author people might like is Carol Berg. She's got a few trilogies and stand alones. Everything I've read by her is solid.
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Mar 20, 2017 22:57
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DemonDarkhorse posted:Dude I thought I was the only person who's heard of this. It's incredible. You're not alone! (even though it seems like it amid the sea of endless Mistborn and Wheel of Time recs...) I've been recommending Carol Berg for as long as I've been posting in TBB, more people need to read her.
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Mar 21, 2017 00:17
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Picayune posted:I'm looking for some period-piece action thrillers, like Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal or Loup Durand's Daddy. I'm up for whatever as long as it's generally set somewhere in the past. As for Ludlum, I'd go with "no" but it's airport fiction so if you like that YMMV. On the plus side they're all interchangeable. edit: Hell, I forgot my own question. I'm looking for a book on Houdini, more specifically his war on psychics and mediums. Any recommendations? anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Mar 21, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2017 13:36
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anilEhilated posted:Jeffrey Deaver's Garden of the Beasts? It's a pretty standard spy story set in Nazi Germany, enjoyable enough. You might enjoy Houdini: His Life and Art by James (The Amazing) Randi and Bert Sugar.
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Mar 21, 2017 15:38
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Picayune posted:I'm looking for some period-piece action thrillers, like Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal or Loup Durand's Daddy. I'm up for whatever as long as it's generally set somewhere in the past. Watching the main character struggle to adapt, and seeing his transformation from European to more Japanese habits is quite fascinating. When he meets his old crew after a prolonged absence, it definitely drives home the point of how much he has changed.
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Mar 21, 2017 18:05
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Any recommendations on near future sci-fi 100-500 years, maybe with things not necessarily in space? Something like Kim Stanley Robinson (which I have never read).
succ fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Mar 21, 2017 |
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Mar 21, 2017 20:28
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succ posted:Any recommendations on near future sci-fi 100-500 years, maybe with things not necessarily in space? Something like Kim Stanley Robinson (which I have never read). It seems like you answered your own question there.
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Mar 21, 2017 21:06
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succ posted:Any recommendations on near future sci-fi 100-500 years, maybe with things not necessarily in space? Something like Kim Stanley Robinson (which I have never read). Try Robert Charles Wilson's Spin.
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Mar 21, 2017 21:31
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succ posted:Any recommendations on near future sci-fi 100-500 years, maybe with things not necessarily in space? Something like Kim Stanley Robinson (which I have never read). KSR is great, start with Red mars and keep going. ^^^ pre-emptive Thanks :P I'd like some answers to his question, except I've read the mars trilogy and the one in the generation ship kind of depressing that one, good still but she got old and sad 
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Mar 21, 2017 21:33
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succ posted:Any recommendations on near future sci-fi 100-500 years, maybe with things not necessarily in space? Something like Kim Stanley Robinson (which I have never read). Have you considered maybe trying Kim Stanley Robinson?
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Mar 21, 2017 21:40
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Dirty Frank posted:KSR is great, start with Red mars and keep going. Glad to see you were touched by Aurora, that book was really special. Ken MacLeod started a very interesting trilogy called Corporate Wars in 2016 with two novels, Dissidence and Insurgence. The third book is expected this year. It's about a big struggle for the Solar System, lots of shady characters and motivations, virtual worlds, machines going sentient, virtual mercenaries in robot bodies... Fun stuff and not as political as most of his earlier works. If you don't want space, Ian McDonald is hard to beat. His River of Gods deals with a balkanized India affected by climate change and near future technology. It's brilliant. A friend of mine described it as "Midnight's Children, but cyberpunk". Luna New Moon, Brasyl and The Dervish House are all also good. e:damned Scottish surnames
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Mar 21, 2017 22:18
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thanks, maybe I will Take the plunge! Okay!
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Mar 21, 2017 22:20
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I read the synopsis of 2312 and it didn't sound like what I was looking for. I'll try his earlier stuff that is more widely regarded. Thanks for the recommendations!
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Mar 21, 2017 22:29
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Is there a good biography of Julie d'Aubigny?
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Mar 22, 2017 02:14
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succ posted:I read the synopsis of 2312 and it didn't sound like what I was looking for. I'll try his earlier stuff that is more widely regarded. Thanks for the recommendations! I thought 2312 was very meh. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
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Mar 22, 2017 16:59
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Looking for two recs: Godzilla/Giant monster/Kaiju sci-fi books and x-men style mutant books? Has anyone with writing talent ever done a good book version of any of this types of things?
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Mar 24, 2017 00:30
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succ posted:Any recommendations on near future sci-fi 100-500 years, maybe with things not necessarily in space? Something like Kim Stanley Robinson (which I have never read). David Marusek's Getting to Know You, Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl, Gibson's Neuromancer, Stephenson's Snow Crash, Atwood's Oryx and Crake, Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven, Boudinot's Blueprints of the Afterlife, James' The Children of Men, Dick's Don Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and maybe The Unincorporated Man, although I didn't particularly care for it. Of course, there are also classics like Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 if you never got around to those in school.
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Mar 24, 2017 01:10
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Good non-fiction covering the 7 year war?
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Mar 25, 2017 06:42
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Is there a preferred edition/translation for The Tale of Genji?
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Mar 27, 2017 19:19
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Filthy Monkey posted:I am almost finished Shogun, and I can say that it is quite an entertaining piece of historical fiction. It is loosely based on the real story of William Adams. I wouldn't describe it as an action thriller, but it definitely has tension. It is set in 1600, as the sengoku period is leading into the tokugawa shogunate. The book is about an English privateer ship captain who is forced to land in Japan, and the role that he ends up playing in the upcoming power struggle. I'm gonna go with a counter-recommendation and say it's 1150 pages of quasi-literary tripe. Quasi in the sense that he uses big words gratuitously; tripe in the sense that there's a lot of embarrassing homoerotic sex fantasies and heavy adulation of all things Japanese. The payoff is not worth it and Clavell's understanding of Eastern philosophy is patently absurd
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Mar 28, 2017 03:58
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Can anybody recommend a good biography of Georges Clemenceau?
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Mar 29, 2017 00:57
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hog fat posted:I'm gonna go with a counter-recommendation and say it's 1150 pages of quasi-literary tripe. Quasi in the sense that he uses big words gratuitously; tripe in the sense that there's a lot of embarrassing homoerotic sex fantasies and heavy adulation of all things Japanese. The payoff is not worth it and Clavell's understanding of Eastern philosophy is patently absurd Nah
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Mar 30, 2017 06:50
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you're right; forgot to mention the gratuitous references to Blackthorne's penis, that overwrought hawk simile and the nonexistent character development leading up to Blackthorne's miraculous conversion to samurai. also that every Japanese samurai who ever lived was incredibly honorable and had no fear of death. karma, neh? hog fat fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 07:57
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Ive not read that book because i'm very smart but i do remember reading an excerpt where a japanese woman talks in heavily accented english to a white guy she's loving and it was really bad
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Mar 30, 2017 10:10
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Mira posted:Is there a preferred edition/translation for The Tale of Genji? Read this and decide: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-sensualist-books-buruma I read Tyler's and loved it mostly because I love footnotes - if you prefer fluid prose over intentional obscurity and don't need to understand the exact meaning of every single one of the thousand or so poems in the book, you may choose another one.
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Mar 30, 2017 10:55
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hog fat posted:you're right; forgot to mention the gratuitous references to Blackthorne's penis, that overwrought hawk simile and the nonexistent character development leading up to Blackthorne's miraculous conversion to samurai. also that every Japanese samurai who ever lived was incredibly honorable and had no fear of death. karma, neh?
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Mar 30, 2017 13:03
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Can anyone recommend any of the "Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" books? There's a lot of them and books like that - continuations by writers other than the original author - tend to be of variable quality.
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Mar 30, 2017 13:17
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Wheat Loaf posted:Can anyone recommend any of the "Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" books? There's a lot of them and books like that - continuations by writers other than the original author - tend to be of variable quality. I've read probably thirty or forty different books in that general vein over the years. I honestly can't recommend any of them, no. The "best" of them were the Solar Pons books, but only because they knew they were a straight pulp pastiche and didn't try to be anything more. Sometimes you'll get a good book where Holmes shows up as an incidental character, like in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Night in the Lonesome October. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 13:29
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