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Guy A. Person posted:So I am looking for recommendations on basically any fantasy that is either a single book or so self-contained that I could read the first book in a series without needing to immediately go into the next part. I tend to try to mix up genres and move from fiction to non-fiction so I don't want to get caught up in a series, especially one that is extremely long. I recently read the Colour of Magic since it was on a Kindle Daily Deal and, just as I feared, it ended on a total cliff-hanger with no resolution (although I have heard that the second book does wrap up this particular story). I would prefer swords & sorcery - either high or low - since I don't get enough of that in my reading diet, but I am fairly open in my reading tastes and can find enjoyment in anything. I have followed the flow-chart above and it seems like Stardust by Neil Gaiman is one of the few that matched my criteria. I am pretty set on sci-fi, so don't need any recommendations there. Some fantasy I have read and enjoyed: So, I know I'm late in responding to this and the thread has moved on somewhat, but I really enjoyed The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It's clearly a modern homage to C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, but was enjoyable regardless. The novel very much stands on its own but there is a sequel should you get invested in the story. If anyone's looking for a good epic fantasy, I'm really enjoying Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles. The first book is The Name of the Wind. I found the style of writing really unique, and the presentation of key parts of the story as a recollection of a main character leaves the possibility of a fallible or dishonest narrator having an impact on later events. The world-building is also very colourful without being oppressive, and the diction used is almost musical in quality. I kept finding myself comparing the book to listening to a symphony, as opposed to some lower-brow 'epic' fantasy being more equivalent to a brainless but easily-digested top-40 track. Also to guy asking about Children of Hurin vs. The Hobbit, there's almost no question that you'll like Children better, but I personally found that it didn't have the same grand scale as The Silmarillion and, as a result of the way it was edited together from unfinished notes, was even more difficult to read through. I can't help but feel that much of what Christopher Tolkien elected to publish following JRR's death was essentially a cash in on the unexpected interest in The Silmarillion. To be clear, I also read and loved the Hobbit, and can't recommend against it to anyone unless you're put off by the more simplistic writing style.
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Jul 1, 2013 01:00
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Great Gray Shrike posted:
So, I actually started out thinking that - something like 'oh gently caress he's gone and made it mundane', but I keep going back to the point about the fallible narrator. I'm hoping that the next book can bring it back and will give it a shot whenever he gets around to publishing it. I also find the world itself intriguing so would probably put up with some stupid fluff now that I'm invested.
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Jul 1, 2013 19:39
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One series I haven't seen mentioned yet, but have enjoyed myself, is the Midkemia books written (mostly) by Raymond E. Feist. There are definitely some issues with the series, like every other trilogy or so reverting to a new set of young and inexperienced goofs who are a variation on Arutha and Jimmy the Hand, but there are also some really interesting ideas around magical travel and how societies of similar origin can develop in drastically different ways in different environments. There's also the related Empire series written by Janny Wurts which has a really strong female character (which someone mentioned earlier and made me think of this). Just thinking if the series makes me want an orange (Nakor, an associate of Pug, has a bottomless bag that he mostly uses to pull oranges out of). I also enjoyed Enchantment, by Orson 'bigoted gently caress' Scott Card. If you can ignore the fact tat the author is a total poo poo, it's an interesting take on the Sleeping Beauty myth with an interesting Slavic / Russian twist. Has anyone else here read it?
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Jul 16, 2013 04:40
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BlazinLow305 posted:As you can see, I'm not above reading cheesy things with elves and dwarves,etc such as Forgotten Realms(which if there's a well regarded series that's anything other than Salvatore, let me know). I just want something to get invested in and have a few books to read. As long as something is interesting about it, whether it's the world, or just the story I can deal with it being kind of bad. AreYouStillThere posted:Raymond E. Feist doesn't get much love in this thread but I really like him. Magician: Apprentice is a really great introduction to his world, and the first 4 books had me totally hooked. It's then really easy to go on and read more stories set in the same world as he wrote arcs in trilogies, with a big overreaching arc over the entire 27 book series. If you like the Forgotten Realms stuff, you might like Feist quite a bit, as he basically crafted the universe with a bunch of his D&D buddies and then wrote a bunch of books about it. As I noted in an earlier post, it's not perfect, but nice fun elves and wizards stuff with some unique twists. My favourite books were the first 4 (Riftwar saga, starting with Magician: Apprentice), as well as Janny Wurts' Empire series (Daughter of Empire, etc.), and the 3-book set starting with Talon of the Silver Hawk. The latter was interesting as it was stylistically quite different from his previous books. Also contains some good food-porn and a fantasy-world version of Lloyds of London.
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Jul 18, 2013 01:41
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BlazinLow305 posted:
They're written in time order, and each book (even the old ones) has a list of books. You could also check out http://www.crydee.com/, but be careful what you read on there as I saw something that was a bit of a spoiler right on the front page. http://www.crydee.com/raymond-feist/books is probably safer to start, and http://www.crydee.com/raymond-feist/reading-order will tell you obvious things (look at the menu on the left). Even better for you is that the final book of the entire cycle is being written now, so unlike the rest of the suckers who have been following it for 30 years, you can probably just plough through start to finish. Feist is moving on to a new series when this one's done. Hope that helps!
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Jul 18, 2013 07:14
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Victorkm posted:Rupert Grint could play Kvothe and Emma Watson Della. Who would play Kote the Bartender / Failure / Lying Storyteller? I'd rather see Feist's series made into a TV show. The way it's written would be pretty easy to serialize. Make each trilogy a season - there's probably a similar amount of content in a Feist trilogy to a GRRM book. e: spoilers added for those that haven't read the books.
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Jul 19, 2013 18:13
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calandryll posted:I re-read it a few weeks ago, the previous time was I want to say around 94. I still thought it was pretty good. There were a few cliches and what not but overall I thought it was a pretty good read and stood up well to my memory. It also gave me a pang of wanting to play old school D&D. So I'm not the only one! I always thought Pug was cool, and it's lovely that his wife died and everyone he knows is slowly getting hosed over. e: Although kind of interesting that in one of the most recent books Nakor has returned from the dead as a demon. ee: Further, I miss 2nd edition D&D a lot. I think the new rules are stupid and the tiles are just a retarded money grab. gently caress them. Kalenn Istarion fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jul 19, 2013 |
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Jul 19, 2013 22:05
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Walh Hara posted:Yes, I read The Orphan's Tales: in the night garden. It was extremely good, one of my favorite books this year. Well written and a fantastic story. In The Night Garden is also a hosed up British childrens television show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6TBAedCxss
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Jul 28, 2013 00:40
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ManOfTheYear posted:I wonder how I can put this in words: Can you guys recommend sci-fi books that have alien and/or robot characters who function like a sentient being that's not human? For example I liked in Mass Effect the alien races having their own cultures and worlds but in the end most of them are just re-skinned humans, with the exceptions of krogans going on and on about war and the asari talking about philosophical lifestyles because they live a thousand years. The Geth were the only actually different race. I'd like to read a book with intelligent life forms who are psychologically completely unlike humans. Bonus points if the life forms is based more or less on an real thing, like an ant colony or something like that. Ender's Game features a hivemind-like alien race. The sequels go into a lot more detail fleshing them out though some don't like the way they're written (and hate the author because he's a horrible bigot). I personally always thought the robots in Asimov's Robot series (and some of the Foundation books) had an interesting inhuman feel to them. I mean in many cases they're made to look like humans but they always have this ~otherness~ to them that is pretty subtle and vaguely creepy. There's a particular robot of some importance that shows up here and there whose perspective is particularly chilling, but you need to read pretty much every book he wrote to really get the pay-off.
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Jan 30, 2014 23:40
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Hedrigall posted:It's utterly boring. The entire novel until literally, loving LITERALLY the last two pages consists of the main character hiding in vents and watching things happen. It's also completely devoid of actual science. The author seems to think that turning off a spaceship's engines would result in the ship coming to a dead stop. The characters have lag-less conversations with people back on Earth, over distances of light-minutes-to-hours. It's so loving unreadably bad. Maybe they live in fluidic space with superluminal EM transmission properties...
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Feb 4, 2014 05:15
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Cardiac posted:
This is sadly true for most of the other books in the series. Some descendent of a certain family starts out on his farm, meets elf-girl, goes off, meets druid / half-druid / elf-druid-sorceror, discovers vast unrepentant evil threatens world but can be defeated by THIS ULTIMATE MACGUFFIN WHICH HAS BEEN HIDDEN FOR 1000 YEARS, retrieves MacGuffin after loss of elf-girl / druid +/- childhood friend, and becomes / marries druid / elf. If you only ever read the Sword of Shannara you'll probably enjoy it, but the further you go the worse it gets. His later "trilogies" are also basically the same amount of content as the Sword of Shannara but split across 3 books which is annoying as poo poo, so I haven't read any of them in about 5 years. Brooks actually has a related series (generally referred to as Word & Void) which has a different and arguably more mature feel, although he sadly tied it in to the Shannara series about 8 years ago. The first book in this series is called Running with the Demon if you want to look it up. Feist was mentioned above. I honestly enjoy most of his books, although some of them (not all of them) suffer from some of the same issues that the Shannara books do. There are some side series that have a decidedly different tone and are an interesting twist on the universe. For example, there's the series co-written with Janny Wurts with a lot of political intrigue and social dynamics, also written by a woman from a woman's perspective, and then there's the 4-book set with Tal Hawkins which among other things has an interesting take on Fantasy Lloyds of London and food porn. Also anything with a character called Nakor is pretty good. The later books in the series get a bit darker but there's 20 books of relatively light-hearted fantasy in front of that if you're looking for uncomplicated stuff. I also generally like his characterization a bit better than Brooks but the main characters are still mostly archetypes. Kalenn Istarion fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Feb 5, 2014 |
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Feb 5, 2014 20:03
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One series that I haven't seen mentioned in the pages I've read (or the OP, which only references his historical fiction) is Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry. I enjoyed these books quite a bit when I read them 5 or so years ago but they were really the only ones of that sort that he's written. Curious what others think.
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Feb 7, 2014 22:46
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Cardiac posted:I liked the Fionavar Tapestry for the twist on the Arthurian myth. In some ways the books are similar to Donaldsons Thomas Covenant, although thankfully not as depressing. Having characters that are tragic and bound adds to the atmosphere. This is closer to how I felt about it. I can see how some might see the drama as overplayed a bit but his prose is pretty good (younger me analogized it with reading a symphony) and I don't think he did anything glaringly inconsistent. I thought the situation where Kevin gets sexed to death was adequately foreshadowed earlier on so wasn't caught off guard by it as much as Echo was.
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Feb 8, 2014 19:42
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Echo Cian posted:That's an interesting confirmation, then. It's better if you're going in expecting a take on Arthurian myth rather than an original setting and story. The thing was that it seemed original until somewhere in the second book. I liked it a lot when it was Kay's own characters doing their thing, before the Arthurian stuff took over everything by the third book, completely at odds with the first, and it viciously insisted that I sympathize with these characters that I hadn't spent a book and a half with. I actually had no idea it was going to dive into Arthurian stuff - I actually was surprised when they showed up, but I enjoyed the transition rather than being put off by it.  Echo Cian posted:It was partially foreshadowed. The actual myth concerning it that the scene revolved around was never mentioned before that point, though, which was what irritated me.
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Feb 8, 2014 20:20
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Grimwall posted:Which books that you read while a teen hold up well after 15 years? I read everything Asimov ever wrote before I was 18 (I was a boring teen) and everything I've re-read since has continued to be great, including the weird poo poo where The Robot and the Most Correct Human Ever decide to force humanity to merge with a Gaia entity to defend the galaxy from invasive alien life and also they have a E: Agree that Dune has held up well.
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Feb 10, 2014 13:44
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Oh man, I semi-forgot about the Prydain books. Need to bust that poo poo out once I finish re-reading Fionavar. Welsh? mythology is probably my favourite.
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Feb 12, 2014 08:03
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Linco posted:Can anyone recommend any good military fantasy? I just read The Red Knight by Miles Cameron and really enjoyed it. I also really liked The Black Company series. When you say military fantasy is there a specific sub-genre you're looking for? Otherwise I'd say check out the Malazan books. They're mostly about characters in various militaries although there's other types of prominent characters as well.
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Feb 17, 2014 23:32
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General Battuta posted:Do I Yes
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Mar 2, 2014 15:43
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or do I 
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Walh Hara posted:I'm sorry but I don't think you know what you are talking about. First of all, you are generalizing an entire group of fantasy writers from one single author. Second, you are utterly and completely wrong about the statement that Sanderson explaining his magic decreases tension in the conflicts. It's exactly the opposite as has been explained very well earlier in the thread and in his blog post about this. Third, you are also wrong in the statements "every capability is detailed up-front" (some are, some are not) and in the statement that there's a pecking order (edit: in the sense that characters beat stronger characters often). I am somewhat loathe to wade into this rather acrimonious debate, but I get the sense through most of the Malazan series that the true limits of magic and the way it interacts with the world are pretty much incomprehensible to most players, but magic is constantly used to resolve conflict. It's a bit of a grey area as there's some definition around warrens and how those limit a mage's power, but those limits are routinely broken and the holds somehow play into it and gods and statues and  So that's one, in my opinion anyways.
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Mar 13, 2014 14:24
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corn in the bible posted:They're taking us to the planet of Hell! I hear that the climate there is almost like Hell! Eh, some of the stuff is a bit silly, but the space naval combat is neat and feels more like an extension of reality than most space battles; speeds are relativistic, acceleration takes a while, and there are some creative ideas about how a military and society responds to the duress of war. Also, there are telepathic space cats and naval officers are totally allowed to have them hang out on their shoulders in combat because ~spacecats~.
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Mar 14, 2014 10:38
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Joramun posted:Can someone who knows what the bold part is referring to lift the veil a bit more on this? Or point me to the specific passage in the books? It sounds pretty cool/interesting. If you start by reading the robot series books you'll be introduced to him pretty quick. Many of the robot books are about putting the robot in scenarios where the Three Laws of Robotics (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics) are tested. Over time, he evolves his thinking from the three laws to encompass a broader 'Zeroth law' which is a broadening of he first law and essentially states that he will put the good of humanity before the good of any individual human. While this sounds like a benevolent concept, consider how this might cause him to treat sentient non-human life, for example, or what might come about from a society where a powerful hidden actor with limitless time seeks to reduce or eliminate the possibility of harm coming to humans, especially if one was to determine that the greatest cause of harm to humans is other humans.
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Mar 14, 2014 17:01
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Has anyone ever read anything by Daniel Arenson? Website here: http://www.danielarenson.com/authorbio.aspx Someone mentioned it to me but it looks horribly generic on the surface.
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Mar 16, 2014 03:36
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Most of them are fairly good or at least ok but that's my favorite. The only ones I'd avoid are his Fionavar Tapestry trilogy -- they were his first books and they're just awkward. They're definitely less polished than his later stuff but I wouldn't say avoid them. Pretty enjoyable read having just dusted them off after a discussion earlier in the thread. They're also the ~purest~ fantasy that he wrote; much of his later writing is historical fiction and some of it loses the fantasy elements entirely afaik.
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Mar 17, 2014 04:13
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It's nice to hear in not the only one who liked a lot about the series. On my re-read I could definitely see a few spots where the prose got a little bit over-wrought but overall still a really good story. I think Paul's story is still probably my favourite part of the whole thing, although the stuff with the dwarves is good as well and I like where it ends up with the secret of the lake. Part of my enjoyment of this is that it was probably the first thing I read that contained much Arthurian legend. I didn't pick it up for that but it was neat when it was introduced. Having read some since then, I feel like the angle Kay took on it is still pretty unique, although I'm far from widely versed.
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Mar 17, 2014 20:12
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Damo posted:Sorry to shift from literary Sci-Fi like Gene Wolfe talk to about as bread and butter stuff as you can get, but I'm finally gonna get around to reading the Asimov Robot novels (I've read all his Robot short stories, just not the novels). Personally I would read all of them and frankly don't get the 'post 1960' qualifier as I haven't read much by Asimov that I don't like. Could you expand on why you don't think you would like his later stuff?
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Apr 23, 2014 02:00
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ZerodotJander posted:Remember, Peter Brett wrote The Warded Man on his Treo phone on the subway on the way to his investment banker job. According to his website it was on his laptop on his way to his publishing job  Darth Walrus posted:Malazan might count, simply by dint of the baseline competence level being raised so ludicrously high, though good luck figuring out who the main female character is. Or the male protagonist, for that matter. I don't think there is a 'main' character per say, it's more of an ensemble cast. Feels as much like an episodic TV show as anything, to me.
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May 1, 2014 07:18
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coyo7e posted:But it's got tons of debauchery. And you gotta outdo GoT. And someone could claim that it's revisionist Harry Potter. Much more likely to be called a modern Narnia, I think. Cardiovorax posted:
Stephen King did the same thing with many of his books and the Dark Tower series. The connections are mostly not important plot or thematic points (with the exception of 'The Talisman' and its sequel, Black House) but do make for a rewarding little nugget for long-term fans.
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May 2, 2014 14:09
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Decius posted:Yeah, that's what me always annoys me about all the survivalist/apocalypse stuff (games, TV, books, movies). People for the most part aren't first and foremost out to gently caress everyone else and declare themselves king of the hill. If - as these guys love to call it - TSHTF - most people work together and help others, even if it means risking their lives for no reward. Look at what's just happening in Southern Europe: People lost all their belongings, houses, comforts and sometimes loved ones and still for many the first order of the day is helping others in the same situation or worse. Counterpoint: Somalia
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May 23, 2014 07:11
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Fried Chicken posted:Counterpoint: Somalia It's why I made a throwaway comment rather than fleshing it out, but the country has for real pirates and no government to speak of. South Africa is another place that has gotten quite lovely. Roving rape gangs in parts of joburg for example. Anyone remember the horror stories out of Rwanda? There were also good stories, but my point is that I think people have all sorts of capacity for shiftiness when the rule of law breaks down.
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May 23, 2014 17:43
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Kraps posted:Does The Magicians by Lev Grossman ever get good? I bought the audiobook thanks to the Harry Potter reminisce thread being all "it's like Harry Potter but for adults!" before a bunch of "uhhh it's not really like Harry Potter" post showed up, and I have to agree. There's no one likable and too freaking weird, and not in a good way. Where are you at? Later on I'd say it's more like a grown-up Chronicles of Narnia but it takes a while to get there.
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May 23, 2014 19:02
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Srice posted:Huh, I didn't even know it was going to have a third book, but I guess that was silly of me. It's fantasy, after all. I thought it was fine and didn't cheapen the first book. The ending was depressing, but it wasn't out of character for the universe. Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Man even in fiction all kinds of messed up poo poo happens in Florida. When you're a continent-sized phallus you're bound to get a little dirty coyo7e posted:It's totally comparable to Harry Potter if you wanted Harry Potter to be about entitled (I think they're also all) white kids with magic powers, who mostly just do a lot of blow and gently caress and then complain about how lame life is. Because not-Narnia is used specifically to convey the opposite message that CoN did, which is the lion's not coming to save you, you entitled gently caress, and he's in fact useless, so go figure it out for yourself. Really it's an amalgam of all of the teen/children's fantasy that I presume Grossman finds morally objectionable and he's deliberately attacking the archetypes that were propagated by them.
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May 24, 2014 19:48
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fez_machine posted:It's always important to remember that Ian M. Banks writes shaggy dog stories, because the rest of his books are going to leave you feeling a bit like that. I've read up to Use of Weapons and while I can sort of agree on the point that they drag a bit I'm curious what you mean by 'shaggy dog stories'? Just a description I haven't heard before.
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Jul 3, 2014 01:43
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Ok, yeah that was Use of Weapons in many ways. I enjoyed it but I was left vaguely unsatisfied by the ending. Player of Games had a bit of that as well. E: these spoilers aren't for show, if you haven't read Use of Weapons don't read this. Like, wtf, they go to all that trouble to get him, then he does what they ask, better than they expect, then for ~reasons~ the bad guys win anyways and he wanders the battlefield for some reason and gets shot a bunch then goes to meet his sister who's not his sister but is the sister of the guy he got to kill himself by sending a loving human chair made out of his other sister  and then he maybe dies or doesn't and maybe they hire someone new or they don't.
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Jul 3, 2014 04:48
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General Battuta posted:It's almost like the story isn't a mechanistic device used to inform you of its own end state, but a work of art designed to evoke feelings and thoughts as you pass through it! I guess you missed the part where I said I enjoyed the book. The last literary fiction I read was in high school so I'm still working on acquiring a taste for it. You have to admit that the ending (and other parts) could potentially feel confusing and unsatisfying to someone used to more standard Sci Fi fare.
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Jul 3, 2014 05:19
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Hahah, gently caress. I hadn't read that series in like 20 years so I'd forgotten about that. You're right it might fall into the "things the internet ruined because they contain anthropomorphic animals" category. Animal Farm now needs to be added to the SFnF Thread Blacklist
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Jul 10, 2014 02:27
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Xandu posted:For someone who hasn't read any of that series, is it worth getting into? I've heard great things about it from some people, but also quite a few people who don't recommend it. Best advice is to try the first book - it seems to be very binary whether people enjoy the tone or not. Ive enjoyed the series so far although haven't read the last book yet. It was interesting because it starts off with many of the trappings of a standard teen / urban fantasy. Kid hates his life, trips across magical school, yada yada but then takes a different spin on it. Also takes a direct poke at the Chronicles of Narnia so if you've read that there's a bunch of references.
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Aug 9, 2014 18:24
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:There might be a Shannara book out there that deserves a Hugo, I dunno. I only read the first one and it was immensely derivative, basically a straight Tolkien reskin. His word and void stuff was pretty decent as well. I was pretty sad when one of his more recent series tied it together with the Shannara stuff and basically turned it into the same cookie cutter Bildungsroman stories that every one of his Shannara trilogies is.
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Aug 19, 2014 16:51
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Clark Nova posted:So it's sort of like Use of Weapons? Ewwwwwww
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Sep 5, 2014 16:45
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Has anyone ever read the English translations of Sapkowski's Witcher series? I enjoyed the games quite a bit so wondering if the translations were competent and kept the same tone as the Polish versions supposedly have.
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Oct 8, 2014 19:03
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GENDERWEIRD GREEDO posted:Honestly I didn't think they were that great. I love the games but the books weren't nearly as interesting as I thought they were hyped up to be. I've heard opinions on either end of the spectrum. I find the world-building interesting - the sort of mythology they use is something I've always enjoyed regardless of the plotting of the book itself. Makes me wonder how much of it was the translation though as the originals are often discussed as being quite good.
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Oct 9, 2014 05:21
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