Books or Lit-r-cha Recommendations

kkhohoho: Off the top of my head, you should take a look at stuff by Max Gladstone (notably the Craft Sequence), N.K. Jemisin (Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, among others), Lois Mc Master Bujold (mostly famous for space opera, but the Sharing Knife and Chalion series are fantasy), Tanya Huff, Wen Spencer, Dave Weber's War Gods books,

@kkhohoho: In addition to The Stormlight Archive and Discworld, there's Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain for a light-hearted take on the superhero genre.

edited 30th Dec '15 10:24:41 AM by Discar

{Looks up Lois Mc Master Bujold. Looks up Ms.Bujold's bibliography. Sees that she's written an interesting looking series called the Vorkosigan Saga.}

{Then sees that said Vorkosigan Saga is 22 books and nearly 30 years long and counting.}

{Promptly does a spittake.}

I don't think I'll be checking out anything from Ms.Bujold any time soon. I mean, the reason I haven't checked out Disc World is because there's 40 freaking books in the series, and while that series makes Vorkosigan look like a small trilogy, it's still a loooooooot of books. Also the reason I stopped reading The Wheel Of Time, unfortunately. I'd like to read all of those series, but it takes me anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month to finish one book. I just don't have the time for a ridiculously long doorstopper series, unfortunately. (Which might mean The Way Of Kings is out of the question...)

But in any case, thanks everyone. I've got a nice list of choices both from reading this thread as well as checking out recommendations from Amazon. For those interested, so far I've ordered:

• Rivers of London: Midnight Riot
• The Way of Kings (Don't know if I'll ever read it though...)
• Ancillary Justice
• The Three-Body Problem
• City of Stairs
• The Mechanical (The Alchemy Wars)
• The Grace of Kings
• The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth)
• Crystal Rain
• Three Parts Dead

Also thinking of getting the God War books. Either way, this should all keep me busy for a while. Also, most of these are the first books of ongoing series, so they should keep me reading after I've finished them all. Now I just have to wait for them to get here...

edited 31st Dec '15 8:01:00 AM by kkhohoho

Yeah, Stormlight is going to be very big, but so far there are only two books, so you're getting in at the ground floor, so to speak. I'm not sure if that makes the length better or worse.

That's why I suggested the Chalion books to start; there's only three of them. :)

I'd recommend China Mountain Zhang by Maureen Mc Hugh. It's from '92, I think, but I don't think it shows its age in many aspects (there is one that stands out).

Thanks. It looks... interesting, to say the least. Might have to give it a shot. Just to clarify though, I'm open to anything made anywhen, just so long as it's good. It's just that I wanted to start with stuff that was more recent, is all.

Highly recommend both City of Stairs and Grace of Kings.

And if/when you read them, would be great if you created a page on them. So far I haven't taken the effort to, really should...

Oh, a rec question- Is there any historical fiction book that is from the perspective of the Persian Empire, particularly in the wars with the Greek City States?

I wondered because pretty much every book or graphic novel I've encountered (not just 300 but this new work, Demokracy) presents them as antagonists at best, The Evil Empire at worst.

City of Stairs was amazing.

I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like Creation by Gore Vidal may be what you're looking for? It's true that most fiction and what is taught in classes is pathetically one-sided about that time period.

Thanks, though funnily enough, my first book just showed up today, and it's none other than The Grace of Kings. Guess that's what I'm reading first.

I also ordered a new copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which was not only something I actually read, but it was probably my favorite book ever. Only I lost the second volume a year and a half ago, and I've been searching for it ever since. Part of the reason I got Grace of Kings was because of how much the basic premise reminded me of Three Kingdoms, so in addition to Grace of Kings, I finally caved in and ordered a new copy of Three Kingdoms, which I might finally get back to when I'm done with Grace of Kings. Just felt like bringing that up.

edited 2nd Jan '16 1:07:59 PM by kkhohoho

I own a copy of Creation and started reading it at one point; hopefully will read it through soon.

Although, it (IMO) has another issue typical of historical fiction books set in that time period. While it fits the POV's perspective (a descendant of Zoroaster whose family has married into the Athenian aristocracy), the presentation of history is very hostile toward Athenian democracy/populist figures and is pro-aristocratic.

I see it as an issue, because as with the presentation of Persians, you have a situation where the sources through which modern people learn of the period has a bias and that bias is reflected in historical fiction.

On another note, I really should read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but I'm not sure how much it is a source for Grace of Kings- the book is heavily inspired by the Chu-Han Contention to a degree where once you've read the book, if you click on any major historical figure, you will know exactly who they were in the book/know where an incident from the book came from.

I would like a novel that has a better well described action scenes. Large scaled battle or one on one fight, fantastic or mundane, anything would be fine.

If it features a good hand to hand fight, even better.

See, I'm an aspiring author who is also a big action movie fan...but I learned time after time that what works on kinetic, visual media often doesn't translate very well in textual media. As such, I figured that I can run from reading books with well described action scenes.

S.M. Stirling is good at that; the Emberverse series has a good mix of small and large scale action. Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series as well.

Oh, btw, I started a page on The Grace of Kings.

Okay, thanks.

Speaking of which, I've gotten to page 154, and while it's pretty darn good, it ain't perfect. The book has a tendency to derail the ongoing storyline in favor of suddenly divulging a given characters' life story to the reader, when in most cases, they don't really need to know most of it. What the readers do need to know could easily have been conveyed with a couple of throw-away lines or through a brief conversation, but instead, the plot becomes derailed for up to 10 pages at a time.

If you really need to do a flashback though, do a flashback. Don't convey the whole thing just through narration. Rather than treating it like it happened years ago, (which it did, but whatever,) make a new chapter and go back to that time, and show what happened first hand, rather than going off on what seems like a tangent. Otherwise, don't bother, because doing that takes away from the ongoing storyline and is just distracting, and it also borders on Tell, Don't Show.

That said, otherwise, the book's pretty good. It's more plot focused than character focused, but Kuni and Jia are still fleshed out and likeable characters, so it's not really an issue. The real strength of the book though is its plot and its world, both of which are epic in their ways. I can't say much more than that, other than that this belongs on everybody's bookshelf.

edited 6th Jan '16 3:07:49 PM by kkhohoho

Slightly different request: This year, Minicon's Writer Guest of Honor is Seanan Mc Guire and thus we're doing monster and horror-related panels. I am planning a "Japanese Monsters" panel, so what I am looking for here is good prose books that use Japanese monsters, whether the author themselves are Japanese or not. For example, Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan is considered a classic in the field.

Any good superhero/people with powers books directed at teens?

Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain. It's very, very good. The sequel isn't quite as awesome, but still worth reading, and the third book is coming out in early February. It's a good time to get into the series.

^^Brandon Sanderson's Reckoners series is a fun take on supervillainy - is it possible for people with superpowers to be anything but evil? The first book is Steelheart, with a twisted take on Superman.

edited 19th Jan '16 7:21:10 PM by Yuanchosaan

Just read the Moviegoer and I'm looking for a couple different recommendations. I want something similar by another author, and I also want to know where to go next with Walker Percy.

I started reading Lois Mc Master Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga books mainly because she'd written so many of them up to the point I started reading. I'd read some of her fantasy stuff before but I'm an Eddings fanboy - there's not much better in his field apart from Tolkien and Donaldson - so I wasn't as impressed as I could have been. Then I discovered her hyper active little teratogenic mutant and fell in love.

Anyway, recommendations. If you want some serial killer stuff that isn't Harris and his over-exposed (in my view) fava beans eater, I'd nominate Michael Slade's Special X books - they're well written, deviously plotted and extremely gory. As well as... educational, shall I say, and leave it at that.

edit

I'd heartily second the Please Don't Tell books. I've read all three that are currently in print, and own all of them in Kindle format. The second one's a vast change in tone from the first and third, sorta like Empire Strikes Back in the Star Wars franchise, but still very worth reading. Richard Robert's take on the Red Riding Hood mythos, Quite Contrary, is just plain awesome too. But it took me a lot longer to get into - the lead character is NOT likeable at all.

edited 20th Jun '16 6:30:18 PM by TamH70

Which series is a better series to read first and then second, guys?

I want to polish up my fantasy story credentials and so far I've Lord of the Rings, the Children of Hurin, Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, Knight of the 7 Kingdoms, and some HP Lovecraft.I loved them all.

These are the ones I'm looking at right now:

Memory, Sorrow and Thorn

The Once and Future King

The Elric Saga

Robert E Howard's Conan

The Malazhan Book of the Fallen

The Wheel of Time

edited 29th Jun '16 10:49:23 AM by MadSkillz

What a coincidence, can anyone recommended me some books on the same level A Song of Ice and Fire series? There was a list on the actual post on that Game of Thrones and/or Song of Ice and Fire thread that highlighted some books that are good but I forgot.

What do you exactly mean for the same level? Good fantasy? Low fantasy? Deconstructionist fantasy? Historically-inspired? Dark in general? Political plots?