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Gyre posted:Bookmobile, I'd like a recommendation based on ~my animes~. Harry Turtledove is the closest I've seen, specifically his Darkness series - starting with "Into the Darkness". It's a fantasy version of WWII with a whole bunch of changes so it's not quite the same, and it follows like a bazillion characters on all of he factions. His writing is decent to good, so it's a tentative rec. If it seems like that's your bag, check it out!
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May 18, 2016 03:04
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It's Lum from Urusei Yatsura, a long-running surreal comedy manga/anime from Rumiko Takahashi. I don't know why someone bought everyone Lum avatars, but she's a good character from a good show and it's worth checking out.
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May 18, 2016 23:39
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VALIS looks completely bonkers and I've never read anything by the author before, so I've ordered it from my local library. Thanks for the recs!
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May 19, 2016 03:13
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:You haven't read him, but you've probably seen movies based on his stuff. I actually haven't seen any of those!  I've been meaning to watch Blade Runner for ages and ages because I loved Neuromancer so much, but I haven't gotten to it yet. Fortunately it's on netflix now, so I have no excuse aside from my own laziness.
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May 19, 2016 03:52
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I need to stop looking at this thread, I've already got too many books to read - my library has West with the Night, and it sounds incredibly neat so I'll check it out. Thank you!
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May 20, 2016 00:01
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Picayune posted:It's ridiculous that I've never read any Agatha Christie. Where should I start? I started with And Then There Were None and loved it, but if you want to start with one of her titular detectives (Poirot), Murder On The Orient Express is a classic, and I loved the hell out of the Murder of Roger Ackroyd. As for Miss Marple, I really, really loved reading the short stories involving her, but haven't yet touched any of the novels - yet! (My reaction, just a few seconds ago upon googling her - 'there are NOVELS featuring her??? brb library') Really though, it's hard to go wrong - unless you start with her first novel! The Mysterious Affair At Styles is lousy, lousy, and lousy and it kept me from reading her stuff for years until I started elsewhere.
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May 24, 2016 08:31
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Okay, seeing as I just finished a book (Deliverer by CJ Cherryh, it was really good!), and before this thread leaves Trad Games, I've got a general request. One of my favorite things to do is read the fluff in these books - World of Darkness' crazy short stories and even crazier worlds, Nobilis (all of it), Shadowrun's elaborate timelines - I am a sucker for reading about weird/interesting settings more than I'm into reading about people in those settings. What are the best setting-focused books to read? They can be RPG books or novels or anything, I don't care - I want to read about weird places. If the writing's good enough, I'll even read about weird places in the real world, too!
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Jun 8, 2016 10:26
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Probably the best modern fantasy novel of setting is Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I've tried it and didn't care for it, go figure. The writing was solid, but I didn't like the characters or the excessively gross quality of the people in the setting. Thank you, though! (By the way, I tried VALIS and it was incredible but also so viciously dark I set it down before it impacted my mental health. It was incredibly weird but also - strangely - very readable. Going to pick it back up when I can do so safely!) Franchescanado posted:Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, as the name suggests, contains forty short-short-stories detailing a different afterlife (God is really thousands of tiny dumb creatures, an afterlife where you exist in limbo as long as your name is remembered on Earth, etc.). The only real characters are you and a version of God (sometimes not even that). Sum sounds amazing! - So, naturally, my library doesn't have it. I'll pick it up when I can, thank you! As for the rest - I've read Stephen King but not those three and he was a pretty good author, worth looking at again. The Haunting sounds great for reading in Fall, so I'll definitely grab that, and I've already been through Hitchhiker's and bounced off of Discworld. (Criminal, I know, but Guards, Guards, didn't click with me? And neither did Rincewind? I'm letting them sit before I try again.) Selachian posted:The first things that come to mind are M. John Harrison's Viriconium and P. C. Hodgell's God Stalk and sequels. Of course, there's also Dune if you haven't tried it. I've got Viriconium in my hands right now, and migod the writing is marvelous. I can just picture this fading city so well, it's a delight! God Stalk sounds like I at least need to flip through it, and my library system has exactly one copy of it, so I'll pick it up. As for Dune - it's been years since I last read it, and it's clearly due a revisit. Malazan! Intriguing books, but my god they're so grueling. The siege in Memories of Ice was some Warhammer 40k-tier violent bleakness, and I'm still working up the stomach to continue. Thank you all for the recs!
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Jun 8, 2016 22:59
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funkybottoms posted:I've recommended it a number of times, but if you're in a place where PKD's existential dilemmas are doing a number on you, you might want to hold off on Sum until you're in a better mood... I mean, it's not on the same level, but if you're prone to anxiety about the nature of existence, it might not be the best thing. House of Leaves is 50% interesting, and 50% drivel, in my opinion. Overall I enjoyed it, but it's such a slog in so many sections. Franchescanado posted:This is true. The ideas can be heavy, and it really plays with what it means to exist. However, most of the stories remain optimistic, there's humor, and the majority of them are 2-3 pages long at most, so it's easy to pick up/put down. Also, it's about 100 pages total. Readers beware. It's not so much the ideas that were too heavy in PKD, but in VALIS, the human element of a character repeatedly destroying his life and spending time in a mental institution/with the cancer patient - that hit too close to home. In a sense, if I could have excised Horselover Fat's life from the book, I may have been able to read it all - but at the same time, that removes the weight from scenes such as when he talks to the doctor, or the initial emptiness when that suicidal friend calls. Which is to say, I'm still interested in Sum, especially given its brevity. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Ok, that's making it complicated. Good setting AND likeable characters is a tough find because if it's focused on setting it tends to not be focused on characters and vice versa. It's not so much that I need to like the characters, and more that they need to not be too intrusive, and I found myself disliking the personal plight of the main character in Perdido Street Station, along with Lin's particular fate. I'm sorry, I'm very picky. I have Tigana by that author already on hand - would it also be a decent place to start with him?
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Jun 9, 2016 01:46
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savinhill posted:Tim Lebbon's Noreela books have one of my favorite weird settings/ worlds that's a combination of dark fantasy, Dying Earth, creepy hosed up horror and a little bit of scifi. It's not a chronological series of books, but mainly stand-alones set in different times and places of the setting, but you learn more about the world through each book and events from previous books will still have an impact on other's, even if they're set hundreds of years later. I somehow missed this in my scrolling, whoops! Creepy messed up fantasy/sci-fi is my jam, so I'll definitely check out Tim Lebbon (alas, my library also doesn't have his stuff, but I'll get my hands on it!) - and I'm already reading through The Warrior Prophet slowly - I blitzed the first one some months back but haven't gotten into the second one quite the same way, so I'm slowly picking through. I do find I have to do the Warhammer 40k thing of not caring too much about the characters, or else I just get depressed for everyone in the setting. Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yes. His thing is basically writing historical fiction novels set in fantasy versions of historical places and times -- byzantium, reconquista spain, etc. Tigana is one of his better novels so dive in, basically set in Fantasy Renaissance Italy. Excellent, I'll take a whack at it tonight!
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Jun 9, 2016 03:53
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Blind Rasputin posted:I read the forever war because of this thread. Fantastic. I need more real Sci-fi with relativistic science and war and spaceships and a deep good character development/inner struggle. That poo poo was just perfect. Any recommendations? I've read starship troopers which was good. I read one book (I can't remember the name or author) in the series about ships that would shoot weapons that took months to hit their targets, which I would read again if I could just figure out what series it was. CJ Cherryh, specifically her Chanur series and/or Downbelow Station and/or almost any of her other sci-fi. All of her ships take days to get anywhere when they aren't in the FTL jumpspace, and while she does more with merchanting and diplomacy, there are ship-to-ship fights and other fascinating dangers in her works.
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Jun 10, 2016 03:41
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To the goon who recced me Sum by David Eagleman: this is a great book, to the point where I loaned it to my dad and he loved it. Thank you!
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Jul 31, 2016 08:06
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SEX HAVER 40000 posted:I'm looking for a book on ornithology for a layperson. My ~girlfriend~ is trying to get into it but doesn't have a good starting point text-wise. Is there anything straightforward and not dry that I can get her, that she will be able to read casually, and make her want to kiss me? I want to say one of the Sibley Guide to Birds - aha, found it on amazon: The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior! It's big and dense with information, but it's an excellent guide and I felt it was decently approachable for a layperson. I mean, I enjoyed it and I'm no expert on birds.
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Aug 13, 2016 05:03
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Seconding the rec for the Dictionary of the Khazars. Honestly one of my favorite strange books. It feels like nothing else, I think, and I like to pull it out and reread it every few years.
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Aug 21, 2016 02:03
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Solitair posted:Recent things I've read online make me want to find as many sci-fi and fantasy books where queer people do cool things and don't suffer and die for being queer as I can. Bonus points if the author is themselves queer. Charles Stross' Halting State - one of the three protagonists is a married lesbian cop who gets drawn into a techno-thriller. It's a bit odd due to the second person pov, but I'm 226 pages into it and having a good time. S Andrew Swann's second Moreau book, Emperors of the Twilight, features a lesbian cyborg who goes through a whole thriller plot with a lot of action but finds some love along the way and the last page is the protagonist and her girlfriend being alive and kissing. I don't recall how reliant it is on the first book for plot, but the first one is about a giant tiger-man detective who gets involved in a bizarro investigation way out of his league with lots of action, so it's fun to read.
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Aug 23, 2016 06:22
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Flaggy posted:Never Bill Bryson. Why? No, genuinely curious here: I own his Short History of Nearly Everything and found it to be entertaining.
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Sep 1, 2016 19:27
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I was asked by a friend to recommend her books/media with robots in it, and to my everlasting shame I can't produce very many outside of I, Robot and tentatively the Bolo series. So now we're both curious - what are some good books with robots in 'em? Ideally these robots are characters instead of plot devices, the genre isn't horror (no System Shock-esque AIs), and they're decently written. Note: AIs also count, we just want non-human metallic creatures. Second note: I hate, hate, John Sladek's Complete Roderick so that one is out.
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Oct 14, 2016 18:15
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These are all excellent recs and I cannot believe I forgot Caves of Steel, of course. Thank you all! I've passed the recs along and as soon as I'm done with Tigana I'm thinking I'll hit up Saturn's Children or that Tanith Lee book. (My library doesn't have Stanislaw Lem, so I'll have to actually spend some money on a book for once, sigh.) e: Tigana is good, by the way. Finally got around to it and while it's not my usual wheelhouse the writing is good enough that I keep reading it instead of Charles Stross' Merchant Prince series. StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Oct 14, 2016 |
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Oct 14, 2016 22:00
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hubris.height posted:I'd like to start reading some modern sci Fi, but the shelves are loving full of what smells like poo poo. CJ Cherryh, does she count as modern? She's my hands-down favorite in terms of how rocksolid her world-building is. Try her Chanur series, or Merchanter's Luck, or Downbelow Station, or Cyteen, or her Foreigner series - er. She's written a lot, and most of it is good! Chanur: A single scruffy human winds up on an alien space station and runs into an merchant's ship for refuge. The heroine is the captain of that merchant ship as she tries to untangle all of the politics surrounding this human while still keeping her ship and crew afloat. The first book is standalone, the next three are a tightly interwoven trilogy, and the fifth book is a years-in-the-future sequel. Merchanter's Luck: Standalone book set in the A-U universe that mostly follows the adventures of a down on his luck pilot as he tries to find stability and crew while being haunted by his own ghosts. Has a lot of starships in it. Downbelow Station: I hardly know how to describe it, there's a lot going on - it's the flagship book of the A-U universe, a Hugo winner, and it opens with a starship fleet escorting survivors from an exploded space station to another one. Huge amounts of politics and drama follow, as it follows dozens of characters as various factions try to avert war, make profit, and just plain survive. Cyteen: Her other Hugo winner! One of my favorites from her, but it's hard to get into. In the human colonyworld of Cyteen, a prominent politician and scientist is murdered. The book follows her supporter's attempts to clone her and raise this clone so she can grow up to inherit everything. Questions about humanity, cloning, ethics, and so on follow. Foreigner: Cherryh's latest super-long series. It follows an alien world - a starship full of humans crashed on it (kind of), and it focuses on the politics centuries later as this human colony tries to co-exist with the highly developed aliens. It follows the diplomat from the human's side as he tries to acclimate to the alien's side, and there's all kinds of questions about what it means to belong to a culture, politics, love, and introducing technology to alien species in a responsible manner. The series is at its best from books 1-6, then turns in a sideways direction for the rest of it, and it's good, but it also feels - well, I'm reading like book 15 now and I feel like Cherryh got in too close to the world-building at this point and can't let anything go undescribed, so be careful if you read after that. I mean, I'm having a good time, but I am really, really into Cherryh's writing style. It's terse, and brisk, and it often feels like you're going through culture-shock as you acclimate to her settings and characters. Then you get a hundred pages in and can't put it down. 
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Oct 18, 2016 00:10
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ZakAce posted:Oh man, not-poo poo modern sci-fi with good world building? Check out The Traitor Baru Cormorant by resident goon General Battuta (a.k.a Seth Dickinson). It's brilliant. Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is lots of fun, but the sequel Broken Kingdoms was so bad and cruel with its ending that it soured me on the author entirely and I haven't been back since. An entire book just to screw over a heroine twice, ugh. Fortunately Hundred Thousand Kingdoms stands alone very well, so definitely give it a look!
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Oct 19, 2016 05:08
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Megabound posted:I finished The Name Of The Rose recently and have become very interested in the Catholic Churches history, and that setting in general. I've only just started it myself, but the Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch is absolutely fascinating and readable (so far) about the Catholic church and how/why it fractured the way it did. The author also wrote a book about the first three thousand years of Christianity, so that might be of interest?
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Nov 7, 2016 01:13
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I've got too many books to read right now, but whatever, I have an itch: I want to learn about Spanish history. How did they go from... I don't even know if Spain existed in the middle ages, to the rich conquistadors of legend, to not really being too relevant after that: what's a good book for learning about that? Or some good biographies of Spanish folk I could read? I'll probably used wikipedia to fill in overview gaps, but I just want something I can sink into and read for a while, so - help me out?
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Jan 25, 2017 11:00
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anilEhilated posted:Seconding this recommendation; they are also very short so you can take the history in small doses. The problem is they focus on a very specific period of Spanish history and usually center around one event so you won't get any kind of overview. That's actually perfect - I've put the first one of these on hold, and I'll check 'em out. It's probably a quirk of reading too much genre fiction, but it does help to get attached to characters so I can go "aha, year [x], that's where [fave character] lived." Not to mention historical novels tend to be street level, so you can get a better sense of how people lived and went on adventures back then. Ras Het posted:John Elliott - Imperial Spain 1469-1716 is probably as good an introduction to the period as any, covering as it does both the rise and the decline of the empire. And this covers the macro-level history. Thank you!
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Jan 26, 2017 00:15
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Epic High Five posted:Not quite done with it yet but Solaris is Real Fuckin' Good, even by my already high expectations of Lem as one of my favorite authors CJ Cherryh writes some incredible aliens - try her Chanur series and the Faded Sun trilogy. The aliens aren't incomprehensible, but they are alien, and they feel genuine. The Chanur series is about a merchant ship getting mixed up in a nasty affair with the kif when they accidentally take on a really lost human. The first book's standalone, the next three are a single novel pretending to be a trilogy, and the final book is a sequel set some years later. All of 'em involve communication as central themes, in and out of your species, and with some fantastic starship....not battles, per-se, but the game of cat-and-mouse when you're under-armed and still want to survive. The Faded Sun, meanwhile - it's one of her older works, and really bleak, but it has the classic Cherryh "helpless guy thrown into situation where he is forced to adapt to aliens and slowly gains confidence and agency" setup with a species of mercenaries who were turned upon by one of the species that hired them. ... And it has the Regul. I love the Regul. They're brilliantly weird elephant overseer things and they're just weird and crucial to the plot. Alternatively, although I haven't read it yet myself, Blindsight by Peter Watts is both free and highly regarded by this forum for having weirdo aliens.
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Jan 26, 2017 04:12
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Sakurazuka posted:I'm having trouble comprehending how a series might be more grimdark than Malazan Nothing. Not even Warhammer at its grimmiest and darkiest could ever beat literal buildings full of corpses killed by like one dude as he was defending a city from a siege, not to mention the end of the Chain of Dogs.
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Feb 1, 2017 13:05
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HairyManling posted:Looking for two suggestions. 1) Books about the Mongol empire, specifically about the invasions and conquests. Stuff that gets heavily into military tactics would be great, but not necessary. Warhammer: Go here, read the OP, then come back. I personally preferred Gaunt's Ghosts as an intro to Warhammer over Eisenhorn, but it's all good.
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Feb 6, 2017 07:13
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HairyManling posted:Awesome. Thanks for the link! I looked through the thread list before posting but didn't know The Black Library was WH40k related and so passed it by. Enjoy! There's a whole lot there if you dig Warhammer - I've been reading Lord of the Night recently and while it's not a good starting point for Warhammer stuff, it's full of fantastically ornate descriptions of the places the characters go to. As for your request for books about the Mongols.... I read and enjoyed Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford, but it's been a while. If your library has it, have a look?
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Feb 6, 2017 07:22
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my bony fealty posted:Last time I posted in this thread I got recommended I, Claudius which ended up being one of my favorite books. Just finished the sequel - also great. Recommendations for either 1) books related to ancient Rome or 2) books with fantastic first-person narration? I'm personally fond of Susan Howatch's Absolute Truths - about life and death in the Church of England. Not my usual topic, but the writing style is addictive.
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Feb 11, 2017 00:19
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Dazerbeams posted:I haven't read too much sci-fi unfortunately. I loved Dune, Ender's Game, and Left Hand of Darkness. Like I said, I'm hoping for something contemporary. Political elements and world building are desirable. CJ Cherryh. Her career ranges from the 80s to now, and if you want world-building and politics, take your pick: Cyteen is a masterclass about cloning a deceased politician and scientist on a human colony, Downbelow Station is about a space station caught between sides in a war, and Foreigner is about aliens and humans trying to coexist on a planet. She's my favorite author, and all of her stuff is rock-solid. edit: Also, while I haven't read it yet (I know I know), I read this review of Luna: New Moon and it sounds like what you're looking for. Lots of complex politics on the moon. StrixNebulosa fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Feb 16, 2017 |
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Feb 16, 2017 03:11
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Nehru the Damaja posted:I've got some Amazon ebook credit to burn and I wanna read something fun instead of the angry bastard current affairs and history poo poo I normally get into. More pulp than not, but I really enjoyed Simon Green's Nightside series. A private detective takes cases for the magical underside and they're fairly pleasing and quick to read.
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Feb 21, 2017 04:21
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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). Malazan, if you can handle a dark, gory series. e: Fortress in the Eye of Time as well. Not dark or gory, but weird in its own way.
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Mar 11, 2017 07:14
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deathbot posted:Does anyone have recommendations for fantasy or sci-fi that is inspired by non-Western settings/traditions? Rather than "European middle ages with dragons!" For example: Something similar to Bridge of Birds, Yoon Ha Lee's Ninefox Gambit, Cixin Liu's books or Nnedi Okorafor's Binti. Ian McDonald's Luna: New Moon. Most of your protagonists in this are from Brazil/South America, the culture is very distinctly not American or European, and it's really well written. I read about half of it and loved it before the library wanted it back, and plan to return to finish it. I'm also waiting for his River of Gods to get here, which is set in India.
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Mar 11, 2017 10:33
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ArmadilloConspiracy posted:I am looking for books that are: Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic. (Written in the last 33 years, close enough right?)
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Apr 19, 2017 07:44
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GorfZaplen posted:Jesus. Pretty sure the Bible isn't the book he's looking for.
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Apr 30, 2017 10:04
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Junkie Disease posted:I need a good book on Stalin Simon Sebag Montefiore is your man. Young Stalin. Staline: Court of the Red Tsar. Read in any order, appreciate a well-written, well-research biography of a monster. And if you don't mind going back in time a bit, and adding some Hitler to your Stalin: Hitler & Stalin: Parallel Lives by Alan Bullock. All three books are really good and informative for your average layman (me), I'd think, although Bullock's harder to read.
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May 1, 2017 04:14
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Junkie Disease posted:Excellent Now Mussolini? I'm less confident about these recs as I haven't read 'em yet, but: As I read and enjoyed this book (Mussolini's Italy) I feel alright in saying RJB Bosworth's biography of the man himself would be good. Mussolini. That said, Mussolini: Rise and Fall of Il Duce is a higher result on the search on amazon, soooo. Hopefully someone better versed in this guy can chime in!
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May 1, 2017 07:26
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As it's still Cinco de Mayo, I thought I'd come and ask - are there any good layman-level books to read to learn about Mexico, the Battle of Puebla, or anything about Mexican Independence? I've been in a mood for learnin' things so why not ask.
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May 6, 2017 04:06
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I'd like to read about Nixon's impeachment - what's the best book for that?
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May 18, 2017 14:28
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Nixon wasn't impeached Goes to show how much I know about the guy, whoops. Shoulda wikied him first. Thanks for the rec.
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May 18, 2017 23:28
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knowonecanknow posted:I've never really read a book for fun so I have no idea what I like. I spent the last several years reading text books so I am finally looking for something that isn't engineering related. I'd like some easy reading to do in the evenings and I am open to pretty much everything as long as its not Math, Science or History. Do you like murder mysteries? Agatha Christie is genuinely one of the greats, and Ngaio Marsh hits up the same buttons pretty well, but in a cozier, friendlier manner. And Rex Stout writes some corkers with the Nero Wolfe series!
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Jun 15, 2017 21:52
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