Favorite Reads

[Edonidd]

Don't be nervous. Everyone should see Enders Game for the movie alone, bad as it was. But it fell short of the book. And I liked Pern and Shannara way back when I read them. I do not know if I would now, but it doesn't mean that they shouldn't be mentioned. As far as David Eddings goes, he wrote the same freaking story 4 times, and YES, I read his same freaking story four times! Won't read it again.

The Wheel of Time was on track to be the best fantasy series epic of all time, until after book 5 (when he came out of the Aiel Waste) and things seemed to stop moving forward. Too many different storylines got created and the author became bogged down in telling each one such that a 4 inch thick book only told a few days storyline for 15 different threads. I could never finish it, he totally lost me.

FWIW, I see something similar happening in Game of Thrones.

I read Raymond E Feist back in high school long ago. Riftwar originally then Serpentwar, then another one on top of that with some kid that was an expert swordsman, Talor I think was his name. I eventually lost interest. The books are good though. I would recommend. The Empire trilogy was even better IMO.

Dragonlance I gave up in high school, though the twins trilogy was pretty good as I recall.

I am having a hard time finding good fantasy now that I haven't already tried. There a couple series out there I have read what is out so far. I am partially through king killer Chronicles, Stormlight Archive and Lightbringer series. They all are decent reads.

I read The Night Angel trilogy recently, it was good, a little darker than normal. You try Farseer books with the Assassian theme? That was good if only for the take on the tragic hero.

Sherwood Smith "Inda" series I have not finished, but it is not too bad. I only liked it because they went to sea and entered piracy.

I have tried to read the far seer stuff. Read the first trilogy two or three times actually, the kings assassin I think it was called. Then the author wrote a second trilogy called the liveship traders, or something like that. I get bogged down in those books, they just hold no interest for me. So I have never ended up making it to her third trilogy, the tawny man I think it's called? I believe that's the far seer stuff right?

Night Angel trilogy was Brent Weeks, right? I think he ended up writing more than just 3 books, maybe a second trilogy. I only read the first book or two and decided I didn't like it.

If you like Stormlight Archive, the author actually wrote a book piece by piece live on the internet over a period of time. It's called Warbreaker. I didn't know you could get it free on the internet so I bought it in stores at full price (yes he had it published) and I wasn't disappointed at all. It may have started as a pet project or whatever but it ended up very good.

If you've read Erikson's MBotF you may or may not like Ian C. Esslemont's series - The Malazan Empire. It's written in the same world, and they share characters back and forth. They were nerdy college roommates who invented their own world to role play games in. But Erikson is a masterful writer and ICE ranges from absolute shit in the first books he writes, to just way, way below average towards the end of his series. It's kind of like reading Brian Herbert's Dune books. On one hand you like seeing more Dune, or Malazan. On the other hand it passes you off what they're doing to the world.

Speaking of Steven Erikson, he is writing a prequel trilogy centered on the Tiste and Anomander Rake. Not something a MBotF fan is going to want to miss.

A personal favorite of mine are both of the Renshai trilogies by Mickey Zucker Reichart. They involve a lot of Norse Mythology, but I really don't think you need much if any background to get into it.

 

[Edonidd]

Yes, but sometimes older is better.

If you tell me now that you didn't like it, Then we have nothing further to discuss.

I don't like much older fantasy. Even LotR which so many fawn over wouldn't make my top 10, maybe not top 20.

And I wouldn't say that I disliked the Amber Chronicles. But I definitely wouldn't say I did like it either.

 

[Nasty_Magician]

What To Read At The Beach This Summer Mount Rantmore

 

[Indrid Cold]

The novel "Requiem For A Dream" was even better for me than the movie, which I loved. "Last Exit To Brooklyn" was also better as a book, but I didn't really like the movie that much. All of this is pretty dark stuff, not light reading.
Also read "Hadji Murat" by Tolstoy in my never ending quest to read all of his fiction...well worth it, but not in the class of "War And Peace" or "Anna Karenina".

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

I'm mostly a non-fiction reader but I likes me some sci-fi/fantasy. I go through periods where I read one author's works, pretty much from start to finish, in as much order as possible. It started with Tolkien's stuff back when I was a teenager. Eventually, I branched out into other authors and/or series:

Frank Herbert -- a high school teacher made us all read Dune. I have several of the books but have never finished them all, probably because I hated high school so much.

Stanislaw Lem -- guy was WAY ahead of his time. Mostly short stories and independent novels, but his Pirx The Pilot tales are great.

Isaac Asimov -- if you read all of his series, you'll see that they are all connected somehow. Unfortunately, the ending of "Foundation" sucked, horribly, and left me with a bad taste for his entire life's work. I'm only slightly kidding. He contradicted himself quite a few times between "Pebble in the Sky" and "Foundation and Earth," and he said it was only after he finished them all that he realized they were actually one long series of 14 books. WTG, Einstein...

Robert Jordan -- have read the entire Wheel of Time, unfortunately. Dude could have finished the damn thing in six books, but nooooo. I thought Sanderson did a pretty good job with the material he had to work with, but too many things were left hanging after the last one. Kind of like Asimov, the finish left me unsatisfied.

J.K. Rowling -- read Harry Potter aloud to my kids, still loved it. Got all the elements of a Classic. Was sorry when it ended, but at least it tied up all loose ends.

Philip K. Dick -- not sure why I picked up his "Four Novels of the 1960's" one day in the library, but was glad I did. Brilliantly demented. His later stuff like Valis has been mentioned, but those books are more autobiographical and maddeningly indecipherable. Have discussed those in another thread somewhere on the hoop. His earlier stuff is in-fucking-credible.

GRR Martin -- hurry up and finish, asshole! You got Robert Jordan's disease...don't leave your work to be completed by some one else. Have not watched a single minute of the hbo series, though. Will probably do so after the books are finally over.

Just recently started Orson Scott Card's "The First Formic War" books, which are prequels to the "Ender's Game" series. Will then progress through the rest of the series.

 

[Hank Kingsley]

Wilbur Smith - African Adventure huge body of work, series of families over many centuries. The Courtenay saga is great.

John Ringo - Military Sci Fi, great stuff.

S.M. Stirling - Alternate history story lines

 

[Hank Kingsley]

GRR Martin -- hurry up and finish, asshole! You got Robert Jordan's disease...don't leave your work to be completed by some one else. Have not watched a single minute of the hbo series, though. Will probably do so after the books are finally over.

You will be very upset if you think the series follows the books.

Have you read the PK Dick novel where the Germans won the war?

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

You will be very upset if you think the series follows the books.

Have you read the PK Dick novel where the Germans won the war?

Your question first, yes I've read Man in the High Castle.

I know the GoT films have diverged a great deal from the books. There won't be many surprises for me there, but I will eventually want to binge watch the whole thing.

 

[Hank Kingsley]

Your question first, yes I've read Man in the High Castle.

I know the GoT films have diverged a great deal from the books. There won't be many surprises for me there, but I will eventually want to binge watch the whole thing.

I just noticed they have a mini-series of that Dick novel.

Diverged is sort of an understatement.

They are flat out making it up as they go along.

 

[H2S]

They went for'ard and passed another marine sentry; and groping his way along the dim space between two gratings, Stephen stumbled over something soft that clanked and called out angrily, 'Can't you see where you're a-coming to, you grass-combing bugger?'

'Now then, Wilson, you stow your gob,' cried Mowett. 'That's one of the men in the bilboes - lying in irons,' he explained. 'Never mind him, sir.'

'What is he lying in irons for?'

'For being rude, sir,' said Mowett,

 

[chf]

Stand on Zanzibar/1968...JOHN BRUNNER. Huge, prophetic, brilliant...where we're headed, where we're at.

I think there's only about 12 people still alive who read that book cover to cover, and (full disclosure) the only reason I did was because it was for a summer credit course.

If you can get past the setup, it's brilliant. And scary how prophetic it is.

I think Brunner sold his soul to the devil for some insight.

 

[H2S]

it bears endless repetition...

True, you're not a slave. You're worse off than that by a long, long way. You're a predatory beast shut up in a cage of which the bars aren't fixed, solid objects you can gnaw at or in despair batter against with your head until you get punch-drunk and stop worrying. No, those bars are the competing members of your own species, at least as cunning as you on average, forever shifting around so you can't pin them down, liable to get in your way without the least warning, disorienting your personal environment until you want to grab a gun or an axe and turn mucker. (this is in essence why people do that.)

Chad Mulligan

 

[Tin Man]

@Huwaryu_in_exile, we have similar taste - non-fiction and sci fi. I too have read the sci fi classics - Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Le Guin, et al. I've also read the Gaea Trilogy by John Varley and the first six books of Donaldson's books about The Land.

Non-fiction, I recent re-read 'The Wild Blue' by Stephen Ambrose. It's about the 15th Army Air Force, an under-appreciated unit which did much to win the war in Europe. Sci fi, I've begun the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. Two of ~ten planned books have been published. The 3rd of the series is ~20% complete, so, maybe 2016 or early 2017. Additionally, I made the mistake of beginning the King Killer Chronicles. There are two books published and nobody knows how many will be written or when they'll be available. Patrick Rothfus is a fine writer, but weird and maddeningly unpredictable.

 

[Edonidd]

@Huwaryu_in_exile, we have similar taste - non-fiction and sci fi. I too have read the sci fi classics - Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Le Guin, et al. I've also read the Gaea Trilogy by John Varley and the first six books of Donaldson's books about The Land.

Non-fiction, I recent re-read 'The Wild Blue' by Stephen Ambrose. It's about the 15th Army Air Force, an under-appreciated unit which did much to win the war in Europe. Sci fi, I've begun the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. Two of ~ten planned books have been published. The 3rd of the series is ~20% complete, so, maybe 2016 or early 2017. Additionally, I made the mistake of beginning the King Killer Chronicles. There are two books published and nobody knows how many will be written or when they'll be available. Patrick Rothfus is a fine writer, but weird and maddeningly unpredictable.

Kingkiller Chronicles is a trilogy.

Sanderson writes REALLY fast for the size of books he's pumping out. He could probably pump out the remaining 7.8 books in the Stormlight Archives in 5-6 years if he wanted. But he likes to work on different things. Check out his planned writing schedule, I think it's posted somewhere on his website. I was digging for something and ran across it once, but don't remember it exactly. Anyways, after he finished book 2 in SA, he was going to write a sequel to one of his other books, then a sequel to one of his young adult series, then book 3, then another 2 sequels from another series, another sequel to his young adult series, an original book he had planned out, and possibly some other stuff, then he would write book 4. To sum it up, I have absolutely no guesses as to when Stormlight Archives books will be written.

If you like those 2 series though, along with Ice and Fire (or Game of Thrones) I am willing to bet you would like Gentlemen Bastards series. At least pick up "The Lies of Locke Lamora" it is an excellent first book.

For the slightly more adventurous, The Malazan Books of the Fallen are my personal favorites of all time. But they are 100% love or hate, it's extremely polarizing. Nobody has read the series and just thought "meh, it was an ok read." Either you devour the whole series, or you never finish Gardens of the Moon (book 1).

 

[Edonidd]

it bears endless repetition...


Chad Mulligan

Did you ever take a look at the Prince of Nothing series that I recommended to you? Every time I come back to this thread and see you've added a new quote that you enjoy I get further convinced that you would like Princeton Nothing. But I also think it's the first time I've ever recommended somebody else read something I hated. So I'm curious.

 

[Tin Man]

Kingkiller Chronicles is a trilogy.

Glad to learn that from you post. Rothfus did put out a novella, 'The Slow Regard of Silent Things,' which is a side-bar to the Kingkiller Chronicles focused on Auri, the girl who befriends Kvothe at University.

 

[Edonidd]

Glad to learn that from you post. Rothfus did put out a novella, 'The Slow Regard of Silent Things,' which is a side-bar to the Kingkiller Chronicles focused on Auri, the girl who befriends Kvothe at University.

Yeah, did you read that? It's one of the weirder things I've read in a while. Like he said himself, it's not really a book. Nothing really happens. But I need to go reread the two main books, because I don't think the stuff from that story has happened yet...? At the very least I think we got some heavy forshadowing.

Oh and here is/was an old thing with Sanderson writing schedule. He claims he wants Stormlight Archive to be an every other year thing, so book 3 should come in 2016. But if you look through it, the man sure keeps busy.

 

[Tin Man]

Yeah, did you read that? It's one of the weirder things I've read in a while. Like he said himself, it's not really a book. Nothing really happens. But I need to go reread the two main books, because I don't think the stuff from that story has happened yet...? At the very least I think we got some heavy forshadowing.

Oh and here is/was an old thing with Sanderson writing schedule. He claims he wants Stormlight Archive to be an every other year thing, so book 3 should come in 2016. But if you look through it, the man sure keeps busy.

Yes. I read it. The time frame for it was just before Auri meets Kvothe.

 

[Edonidd]

Yes. I read it. The time frame for it was just before Auri meets Kvothe.

Not for the first time was it? I admit it's been years since I read book 2 even, but I was under the impression that it is right before one of their meetings, and I kinda got the feeling like it was right before their meeting that we haven't seen yet, ie book 3 apparently there will be a meeting. Did I just read it all wrong?

 

[Tin Man]

Not for the first time was it? I admit it's been years since I read book 2 even, but I was under the impression that it is right before one of their meetings, and I kinda got the feeling like it was right before their meeting that we haven't seen yet, ie book 3 apparently there will be a meeting. Did I just read it all wrong?

Maybe I'm the one who read it wrong...
BUT, we can agree that Rothus OWES us book 3!!!