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Can anyone recommend any books like "Declare" by Tim Powers? Declare blew me away when I read it, and hit this sweet spot for me that I guess I'd never really thought about in the way that it combined the occult and the Cold War. I've read a few other Tim Powers books (Anubis Gates, The Stress of Her Regard), which I enjoyed, but the particular setting of Declare worked better for me. I guess the Milkweed Triptych scratch a similar itch (and for WWII occult stuff there's always Hellboy), but where to go from there? I read the first two books in Stross's Laundry Files series, and mostly enjoyed them but found them a little too silly. I loved Kim Newman's Anno Dracula and its sequels -- which I guess has some similarities, but it's not quite the same thing. I find myself at a loss to figure out what else would be close to Declare. Is there anything else like Declare?
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Jun 29, 2013 01:57
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I just finished Peter hamilton's "Great North Road," and loved it. Usually I move on to my next book immediately, but it has left me wanting to sit down and think about everything the boom contained. Just immensely satisfying in its scope and the way everything wove together by the end. But I'm pretty sure I've never read anything else by Hamilton. What else by him should I consider now?
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Jul 19, 2013 17:40
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Corvinus posted:I find that while Hamilton's stuff is frequently juvenile pulp, I still like it. My recommendations would be Fallen Dragon, a self contained novel, and the Commonwealth Saga/Void Trilogy, which are mostly like the Night's Dawn Trilogy but better and way further in the future. Awesome -- thanks. I'll check those out.
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Jul 20, 2013 04:23
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regularizer posted:e: Also, has anyone in the UK picked up Broken Homes by Ben Aaronovitch yet? It's not out on the US kindle store until next February, and shipping for a hardcopy takes like 3 weeks. The wait is killing me February? What the hell? I was figuring we would get that here on kindle sometime later this summer.
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Jul 28, 2013 14:27
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SHAOLIN FUCKFIEND posted:I read Altered Carbon during a series of long train trips this week, and really enjoyed it. Are the other Takeshi Kovacs books worth reading? Yes, definitely. Neither is really a detective story, so keep that in mind if what you liked most about AC was the way it worked as a hardboiled detective novel. That being said, I like the sequels at least as much as I liked AC, in part because the change of settings and style were interesting (also, in both sequels Morgan explores more stuff related to Martians and Quellism, which are just hinted at in AC -- I found that all a pretty good read).
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Aug 29, 2013 13:42
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Loving Life Partner posted:
That is a tremendous comparison that retroactively improves my enjoyment of the ending of 2312.
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Sep 3, 2013 23:23
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DancingMachine posted:Is there no modern cyberpunk that folks wholeheartedly recommend? I know some folks here are not big fans of Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs books (starting with Altered Carbon), but I loved them and know a number of people who felt the same way. Altered Carbon is a hardboiled detective-style scifi novel, which I found to be a worthwhile mixing of genres, and not any kind of Carver ripoff, and the two sequels are somewhat different in style, although expanding on the same character and some of the same ideas about ancient Martians and some political stuff. I'd say at least give AC a try -- if you get halfway through and it's not doing it for you, then maybe take a pass, but I think it would be a shame to be scared off those books if you're looking for modern cyberpunk.
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Sep 5, 2013 18:04
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Rough Lobster posted:I wanna see Richard Morgan write a book with a female protagonist. Morgan wrote a run of Black Widow comics that I thought were pretty solid. He does a good job with her, and to the extent Natasha Romanov is a psycho, she's not just a variation on Kovacs. Can't recall the titles off the top of my head, but they're collected in two smaller TPBs. Worth checking out.
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Oct 13, 2013 01:19
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Dryb posted:This was how I felt about Daniel Abraham's recent 3rd book (now out of five!) in the Dagger and the Coin series. He's half of The Expanse (Abaddon's Gate) writers if I recall correctly. He is half of James S.A. Corey, and that's a fair assessment of The Tyrant's Law, I think. I'll probably keep reading that series in the hopes that some cool stuff happens with Marcus Wester, but the third book was not very exciting. Having just started Abaddon's Gate, I'm disappointed about some of the character absences I know are in here. Leviathan Wakes is proof these guys can write a fun sci-fi novel -- I hope they get back to that in this series.
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Jan 1, 2014 23:18
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General Battuta posted:The Expanse just got extended to nine books. Who keeps thinking this is a good idea? I mean, jesus, even if they plan to write 9 books, don't say that you're extending your original story to 9 -- say that you're going to wrap it up in 6 (or even better, 3) and then write another trilogy (or two) in the same universe. Unrelated, I recently finished Promise of Blood and loved it. Haven't picked up The Crimson Campaign yet, but plan to soon. I've noticed there are 2 shorts and novella by McClellan also available in the Kindle store -- is it safe to assume that if I liked Promise of Blood I'll find those shorter works worth my time?
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Jun 18, 2014 00:05
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fritz posted:Try The Queen's Necklace, Theresa Edgerton. Goblin Moon ($2.99 in the kindle store right now) and The Gnome's Engine by her are also good, and probably fit the bill, too.
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Jun 27, 2014 04:50
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Tower Lord, the second Raven's Shadow book, is out today. I love when I've forgotten I preordered something and it just magically appears on my kindle.
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Jul 1, 2014 12:40
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I just finished Anthony Ryan's Tower Lord, and I really enjoyed it. A different sort of book from Blood Song -- no framing story (which I thought really worked well in Blood Song), and rather than the singular focus of Blood Song, four main POV storylines that Ryan kept jumping back and forth between. I sometimes find that distracting, but I thought it was well done in this book -- I never lost interest and I liked the way Ryan handled them all in the end. I thought the writing was just as sharp as Blood Song -- good action scenes, some awesome battles, a nice siege, and some interesting further development of the world that we saw only a little of in Blood Song. Ultimately, the book lived up to my relatively high expectations based on Blood Song, and I eagerly await the next book in the series.
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Jul 12, 2014 03:09
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I just finished The Crimson Campaign, the second book in Brian McClellan's Powder Mage trilogy, and it was excellent -- I liked it even more than Promise of Blood. The world development is good, the three main storylines being advanced were interesting, the characters are all enjoyable, and McClellan writes great battle scenes. The only downside was it ends on something of a cliffhanger, at least as to one of the three storylines, and it's going to be a tough wait until the final book is out.
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Jul 27, 2014 23:18
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Phanatic posted:And Tim Powers. Who is awesome. _Declare_ is especially awesome. So I love Declare, and at this point have sort of given up hope of finding anything else that so perfectly marries the occult and John Le Carre spycraft. I guess Ian Tregillis's Milkweed Triptych scratched that itch in part, but I'm not sure I'll find anything that hits all the high points for me that Declare did. I haven't enjoyed The Laundry Files books that I've read (which were the first 2 or 3 -- I'm forgetting the names). Of the other Powers books I've read, I enjoyed Anubis Gate, and did not really enjoy The Stress of Her Regard (I liked the way it handled history and occult events like Declare, but the actual setting did little for me). Given all that, what Tim Powers book should I read next?
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Jul 30, 2014 21:06
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Dryb posted:Have you read The Rook? It fulfills occult-Le Carre, and does it pretty well. I have, and I enjoyed it, although not as much as Declare. Has O'Malley written anything else? Is anyone else doing spy/occult stuff? Maybe I should give Stross another shot. Phanatic -- I'll check out Last Call. Thanks.
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Jul 31, 2014 00:47
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ed balls balls man posted:Err apparently The Magician's Land is out tomorrow but I can't find a kindle edition on Amazon UK or US, is it just not going to happen? It's the No. 1 seller in the Kindle Fantasy Store on Amazon US -- here (more specifically here). Having just done a quick re-read of the first two Magicians books, I am beyond excited for this third book (even after a back to back read highlighted the shortcomings of the second book compared to the first). I'm optimistic that Grossman will conclude everything in an entirely satisfactory way. McCoy Pauley fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Aug 4, 2014 |
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Aug 4, 2014 23:54
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Megazver posted:Look through the last five pages or so. I've got some more detailed thoughts in those previous 5 pages, but this is the summary of my thoughts as well. I definitely recommend it if you liked Blood Song.
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Aug 5, 2014 00:38
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Fraction posted:Does anyone know of anything similar to Charles de Lint's novels? He writes stories mostly about mythical beings--lots of Native American mythology, which is cool--that kind of straddle the line between magic realism and urban fantasy, and I absolutely love him but I've read all of his books now (...several times). Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series and Paul Cornell's Shadow Police are both cool urban fantasy series that have nothing to do with Twilight. Both are about police in London dealing with the occult, and despite that common element are pretty different. Both great and worth reading. Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim series is another good one that is similarly unlike Twilight. It's sort of like if John Constantine was from Los Angeles. McCoy Pauley fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Aug 5, 2014 |
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Aug 5, 2014 21:47
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regularizer posted:In Lev Grossman's The Magicians trilogy, can someone refresh me on who the neither worlds monks are? I know Penny is now one of them, but I forgot who the rest of them are/how they got their start/how they recruit new members. Also are dragons bad guys or good guys? And what's Alice's deal again with regards to how she got into Brakebills/why she never took the entrance exam? I believe the answer to the first two questions is that neither is really explained in the prior book. I take the dragons as being good guys because they team up with the Neitherworld monks against the old gods, but mostly the dragons just seem sort of mysterious. as for the third question my recollection is that Alice isn't allowed to sit for the Brakebills test because of what happened to her brother, like the school thought it would be too traumatic for her to be there, so she just travels to the area near the school by cab and wanders around the woods until they find her and let her in.
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Aug 6, 2014 20:42
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spootime posted:Anyone read The Magicians Land yet? I just finished it but I'm not sure how I feel about it. Whatd you guys think? I had pretty high expectations going in, and they were met. It wrapped up everything in ways I found very pleasing, and while towards the end I was feeling a little bad at the prospect of the whole trilogy being over, by the last page I was entirely happy with where everyone ended up. I'm still processing it and mulling it over after having finished it last night, but those are my initial thoughts -- namely, Grossman delivered.
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Aug 9, 2014 15:04
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Hedrigall posted:
Don't jinx it. In the time it took to post this, those dudes could have decided to go to 12 books.
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Aug 10, 2014 15:34
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Cardiovorax posted:Considering he also writes bad prose, dull characters, uninteresting worlds and boring plots I don't really see why he would be. Something about their writing just appealed to me more, but if you disliked it I'm not going to fight over it. If you can track down a copy, there's an annotated omnibus collection of Chronicles with lots of notes by Weis and Hickmen. The notes are interesting -- at least, many of them. Most of the Hickman notes make him sound like an rear end, although that's amusing in its own right. At the least it's a handy large format collection of the books. For my money, Chronicles stands up better than most of the Brooks, Eddings and Feist books I was reading at the same time back in the day. There's also a similar annotated omnibus of Legends, but i haven't read my copy yet, so I can't vouch for those annotations.
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Aug 14, 2014 20:58
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Hedrigall posted:And Janet is amazing Yeah, I didn't have a whole lot of use for Janet in the first two books (actually, scratch that, I hated her by the end of the first book), but her story of how she got her axes (and her general conduct in this book) entirely redeemed the character for me. Plus I really loved one of the tiny bits earlier in The Magician's Land where Eliot makes some nice little observation about how he's decided that Janet must think everyone else in the world is as critical and judgmental as her (or something like that) and how that must make the world a really scary place for her. I'm mangling it, but it was one of many really nice little characterizations throughout the book that were just perfect. I had incredibly high expectations going in to The Magician's Land and Grossman met them all.
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Aug 19, 2014 01:48
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General Battuta posted:She has a really cool voice so I'm excited to hear her say gently caress a lot. Will she be allowed to say "gently caress" on a Syfy show?
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Aug 21, 2014 03:43
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Lowly posted:In my opinion, Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice are two best in the series out of the ones I have read (I've read up through the 7th book), so I would advise anyone who gets that far and doesn't like it to just stop there. I'd second this (having read all 10 books). If those two books don't do it for you, nothing else in the series is really going to seem worth the effort, let alone blow you away. I'd also say that you could skip Gardens of the Moon and just start Deadhouse Gates without really missing a beat.
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Aug 27, 2014 02:51
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Neurosis posted:Heads up: VanderMeer's Acceptance is out today. Awesome. I completely forgot it was out so soon. Here's hoping for some explanations.
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Aug 31, 2014 20:09
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Hedrigall posted:It's one of my least favourite of Miéville's books — he's my favourite author though so it's still one I like a lot. It's not bad. It's darkly funny and a bit satirical. Wait -- what's up with that spoiler? Why not -- is there no hope he will return to New Crobuzon? I want to read more about The Weaver, dammit. I'd second your recommendation of PSS and The Scar over Kraken -- both of those were really mindblowing reads. I enjoyed parts of Kraken, but other parts just left me feeling like I'd be better off reading a Neil Gaiman book instead.
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Sep 9, 2014 03:49
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Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:On the other hand, the last story I finished was Leviathan Wakes which was amazing. Is Caliban's War worth reading? Yes -- Caliban's War is definitely worth reading. I would have a hard time recommending the third book though, and still haven't gotten up the energy to read the fourth.
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Sep 16, 2014 20:53
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Dreqqus posted:So I just finished rereading the Magicians, and read The Magician King for the first time. I plan to move on to Land but I have a question for the thread first. Are there any INCREDIBLY uncomfortable and off putting scenes like Reynard the Fox at the end of Julie's story? Because if so, I'd just as soon not. No -- there's nothing like that. You'll be fine. onefish-- I haven't posted about it yet but I just started City of Stairs this week and am loving it. Really interesting setting.
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Sep 19, 2014 18:50
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Thanks to whoever earlier in the thread recommended The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes. It's a hell of a lot of fun, and the perfect antidote to help me overcome the giant "meh" I felt upon having finished The Dark Defiles, which was so frustratingly inconsistent between good and bad parts, it just felt like a really missed chance by Richard Morgan.
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Oct 17, 2014 01:30
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savinhill posted:It's definitely a step down from Blood Song as it turns into a multiple POV sprawling fantasy and I think Blood Song's biggest strength was probably getting caught up in that single character's journey. I think that's a fair assessment of how Tower Lord was different (and in particular note it has a lot less of Vaelin in it). But that being said, it also did a bunch of world building beyond what Blood Song had done, which I thought was all pretty interesting, and on balance I liked it about as much, albeit for slightly different reasons.
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Oct 29, 2014 17:55
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I'm picking up the 4th book in Daniel Abraham's The Dagger and the Coin series, and I'm realizing I've forgotten most of what happened in the third book. Can anyone give me a real quick summary of how the third book ended, particularly with regard to Marcus Wester?
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Nov 6, 2014 22:40
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Clipperton posted:Speaking of Malazan - I picked up Gardens of the Moon a while ago and I've started it like four times, but I keep stalling halfway through Erikson's introduction because he comes across as an actual real-life Garth Marenghi. Many people recommend skipping Gardens of the Moon and just diving into Deadhouse Gates. I don't think you'd miss out on a whole lot of essential introduction if you did that, and Deadhouse Gates is (at least for my money) a whole lot easier to get into, and more awesome.
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Dec 1, 2014 20:53
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DrProsek posted:Yeah I've tried to get into Garden of the Moon about three times myself, last attempt ended like a month ago. The setting seems pretty interesting and I keep hearing people say book one is easily the worst, if it's skippable then I'll definitely try again with Deadhouse Gates. Yeah, I can't say this from personal experience, since I slogged through Gardens of the Moon, but lots of people recommend skipping it, and thinking back, I can't think of single thing in Deadhouse Gates that would have been confusing if I had skipped GoM. And Deadhouse Gates is just awesome -- the ending in particular is incredible.
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Dec 1, 2014 21:10
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FastestGunAlive posted:I read the first Dagger & Coin book and found it was not very ambitious for most the story- and I found that very refreshing. Have been tired of the epic fantasy focus on world politics with dozens of viewpoints. I also enjoyed Cithrin's analytical personality. I would read an entire book of Geder just exploring the wilderness and deciphering history but he seems to be going down a dark path. Going to continue reading the series. Would love to hear others opinions on this series. If you enjoyed the first book, I think you'll continue to enjoy the series. I really liked the first book as well, and having just finished the fourth book, I think the series has only gotten stronger -- the fourth book was my favorite. I think you'll continue to find the focus of the books to be a refreshing change of pace from most other fantasy series. Without getting into any specifics, I'll just say that I wouldn't have expected monetary policy to be such an interesting plot point for a fantasy series, but it absolutely is. And, so far as I know, the author still plans for the fifth book to be the conclusion of the series, so it's not suffering the bloat of The Expanse sci-fi series that Daniel Abraham also writes. Definitely keep up with the series.
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Dec 6, 2014 01:24
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General Battuta posted:Thread, I am in a jam. Editor wants an example of the kind of map I want in ~my book~ (regrettably it does need a map). I'm looking for something clean, graphically striking, readable, and personable. Got any favorites? So far my strongest candidate to mimic is a map of the Hundred Acre Wood. I like the map of Fillory from the Lev Grossman books, and it seems to me along the lines of The Hundred Acre Wood map
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Dec 11, 2014 22:57
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Lowly posted:I haven't read anything of his other than Mr. Shivers, but that book was godawful. Definitely stay away from that one. I think it even had its own mock thread here somewhere because it was so bad and that guy is/was a goon. His second book, The Company Man, is really pretty good. It's a noirish detective story set in an alt history Seattle where this company has all this weird technology from mysterious origins. I haven't read anything by him other than City of Stairs, and The Company Man isn't like that book at all, but it's definitely a solid read and worth checking out.
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Dec 23, 2014 00:57
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HIJK posted:I'll look at Rivers of London, keep the recs coming if anyone else has any. You might want to look at Paul Cornell's London Falling. On its face it sounds a little like Rivers of London (London police dealing with the occult), but it's very different in tone, and also an excellent read. The sequel, The Severed Streets just came out, and was also great.
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Dec 23, 2014 18:57
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:So what was everyone's favourite book this year? CIty of Stairs cleanly wins out for me. The Magician's Land was my favorite book of the year -- I had pretty high expectations going in, and they were all met, and it's number one by a sizable margin for me. But City of Stairs was probably my favorite surprise of the year, in terms of being a book I hadn't heard anything about, and which I really ended up enjoying.
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Dec 24, 2014 18:47
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