Books or Lit-r-cha Recommendations

So I got a 12 niece who is an absolutely avid reader and reading more advanced stuff than I did, Busted through all 7 Harry Potter books and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy so far this year...

Her birthday is coming up so I need gift ideas, anyone got any good ones?

1) I know I always rec Frances Hardinge , but she is seriously perfect for this. Her specialty is fantasy Doorstoppers featuring pre-teen protagonists that have incredible worldbuilding, complex plots and gorgeous prose. I'd go with either A Face Like Glass or her Fly by Night Series to start, or maybe Gullstruck Island aka The Lost Conspiracy if you don't mind something darker.

2) Dianna Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle or her Chrestomanci series.

3) Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen's Thief series.

You can't go wrong with Pratchett. I recommend The Wee Free Men or The Amazing Maurice.

Seconding anything by Dianna Wynne Jones.

Robin Hobb might be a little advanced for 12ish, but if she managed Lord of the Rings it should be fine? Assassin's Apprentice is a good place to start.

Anything by Brandon Sanderson would also be great. Mistborn: The Original Trilogy is basically "What if the evil overlord won?" which might appeal to her LotR sensibilities.

Seconded Brandon Sanderson. Also, The Chronicles Of Prydain and The Dark Tower.

Does anyone know of any genderflipped Sherlock series? I just got done with A Study in Scarlet Women and while I enjoyed the concept, I found it terribly dull.

Preferably, I'd like to read something where heroine is Holmes, but I'd also be interested in characters that are close enough. (I've also already read Laurie King).

~comicwriter: Oliver Onions, Algernon Blackwood, M.R. James, Hugh Walpole and E.F. Benson will likely strike your fancy. Each is fairly different in style and tone, although each touches on the same strangeness which Machen did from a slightly different angle. Onions' "The Beckoning Fair One" and Benson's "Caterpillars" are particularly disturbing.

In terms of more recent authors in a similar vein, I would look into Robert Aickman, M. John Harrison and the early work of Thomas Ligotti. Conrad Williams might also be to your tastes.

Thanks!

How old is your niece? If they read advanced stuffs, I'd recommend dystopian fictions like Nineteen Eighty-Four. If they are a little bit older and more comfortable with sexually explicit material, I'd recommend Brave New World or The Handmaid's Tale. Nothing can go wrong with a classic.

edited 29th Aug '17 5:49:00 PM by shatterstar

I have only read 2 of those 3, and I have to say I don't agree with those recommendations. A, isn't the Handmaid fairly uh. Adult material? For a 12 year old? I'm not going to throw stone here because I read some pretty inappropriate stuff as a 12 year old myself, but that doesn't mean I'd recommend it to someone I don't know.

Also, YMMV, but those are books that are more 'interesting' and 'thought-provoking' rather than 'enjoyable'. If she likes that sort of stuff, well and good, but I don't think pushing 'the classics' on people is always a good thing.

It's my fault. I thought the poster talk about 12 nieces, not a 12 years old niece.

So, my local library is hosting a Banned Books convention. I am planning to bring my copy of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn but my friend doesn't know what to bring yet. Any suggestion for him?

Your neice might enjoy Deltora Quest. Its not Harry Potter but I loved it as a kid and I still revisit it on occasion when I want something light, fun and nostalgic. Its also more skillfully written than you would expect from a children's series. If she likes Harry Potter, she will probably like the Percy Jackson series too. They have a lot of similarities but PJ is a bit more of an adventure story.

Does anyone know know of any fantasy/adventure or urban fantasy stories with a female protagonist, where her love interest ISN'T a cardboard box with arms and legs? I'm so sick of authors who dream up all these interesting worlds and seem to put so much thought and effort into their protagonist but can't find the energy to give the LI any interesting traits beyond being hot. Like hell, would it kill him to take up lawn boules or knitting?

In fact, the more quirky, adventurous and funny, the better — YA is the worst Cardboard-Cutout-Hot-Dude offender but I'm not opposed if it's good. Bonus points if the book is light on romance. Super bonus points if the LI is a clownish type and the jokes are actually funny. Maximum bonus points for dragons.

edited 14th Sep '17 4:26:20 AM by cryforce

I generally find that if an author has the love interest just there to be the Love Interest (male or female), it's usually really obvious, because they don't put the effort into making them interesting beyond the romance. As for recs:

• Soul Eaters trilogy, Eliza Crewe - YA urban fantasy. Main character is a half-demon girl who eats people's souls and is very unapologetic about it. Her love interest is a half-succubus who she doesn't trust, and she fully plans to kill him before his Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal. There are few quibbles I have with the worldbuilding, but the character relationships are great, and I really liked how the most important relationship the female lead has is with her best friend, and not her love interest. (One brief appearance by a dragon monster thing in the third book.)
• Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho - fantasy Regency rom-com where both leads are well fleshed out, and there are dragons. More detailed review (not mine) here.
• The Devil of Ponong series, Jill Braden - Southeast-Asian inspired fantasy/mystery. Love interest is a sea-dragon shape-shifter, has a personality, and romance doesn't take up that much of the plot. First book is a bit shaky in parts but the series gets stronger.
• The Lie Tree, Frances Hardinge - A darker Victorian YA fantasy that has either a strong friendship or a light, subtle romance, depending on how you look at it. Unusual for the genre, neither leads are anything special lookswise. No dragons, but there may be dinosaur fossils?

edited 14th Sep '17 7:53:36 PM by whimsyful

Try Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. Not much romance, and her love interest is not at all like a cardboard box.

Depends on what he wants to bring? Is the requirement that it be banned right now? The nazis banned a ton of books. Harry Potter is banned by some religious extremists, but only from their communities, does that count?

You could have a combination of the banned books of the past, the present, and the future.

"The Female Eunuch" by Germaine Greer would be a good choice for banned books of the future. They're trying to ban Greer from speaking, so it's a pretty safe bet her books are already banned from libraries, and may be banned by government later.

edited 22nd Sep '17 10:31:47 AM by Gowan

What's some good hard science fiction?

Blindsight was pretty enjoyable.

Stories of Our Life, the shortstory by Ted Chiang that the movie Arrival is based on, is amazing and has a surprisingly moving emotional core which isn't something you can say for a hard Scifi story.

Anyone know of any good historical or fantasy works with lesbian/bisexual female characters? Everything I find on Good Reads either looks like fanservicey trash or is too bland.

Pichu-kun, have you read Just Juliet? It's set in high school, the depecition of the protagonist's sexual awakening are really relatable.

Perhaps this is the right place, trying to find a children's book of mythological creatures. I know of the Mythical Creatures Bible and I'm leaning toward it because it's bloody thorough.

Ideally I want something for my nieces, one is almost three and the other almost ten. I remember once finding such a book when I was a kid, around 1990 or so, in a school library and it had a ton of creatures in it—in particular stuff like the Scottish kelpie or the Japanese kappa. I just can't remember for the life of me and Goggle isn't helping, finding novels and story books rather than more reference-like.

It's not exactly what you're looking for, but I really liked this book when I was a kid. It talks about the mythology behind some of the magical creatures in Harry Potter. My brother read a lot of the 'ology' books, and they have a magical creatures one.

Next week I'm going to a secondhand bookshop that has about a million books in stock, apparently. Will take any suggestions, because I will read just about anything, but I'm looking into getting some world history/geopolitics books (it's a topic I've been interested in lately and I wanted to start reading more non-fiction anyway).

I'm on a panel about blending science fiction with mystery, so looking for books you liked that were both SF and mystery. (For example, on the extreme "mystery with SF themes but no actual speculative bits" end there's Rocket Ship to the Morgue and Bimbos of the Death Sun, while there have been numerous "Sherlock Holmes goes to space" stories on the other end.)

I've heard good things about Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun which are fair play mysteries set in a futuristic sci-fi world with robots. There's also Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog, which may be more a romance/comedy but also has a mystery component involving time travel.

Any good Kaiju stories not related to Godzilla?