d_w_w Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 I know that we have another thread floating around for post apocalyptic novels, but I thought it might be good to start a more general book thread. Just a place to pop in and talk about what you're currently reading, comment on books that others are reading, ask for suggestions, give suggestions, etc. I'll start: I just finished the second book in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series (A Clash of Kings). I know I'm behind on this, but I have kind of shied away from fantasy books for awhile now (loved that genre as a youth and teen, but started to find it a bit bland and moved away to other pastures for the last 10 years or so), but opted to pick this one up on my kindle after hearing some positive reviews (in another thread on this forum). I'm glad I did. Very rich writing. Great mixture of character building, action, and political intrigue. Going to start book 3 just as soon as I click submit to this thread. Imminently bummed out that only 4 of 7 books have been released though. Also, any suggestions on other fantasy novels and/or series that I might enjoy if I A Song of Fire and Ice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordJaguar Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 I just finished (for the 3rd time) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and I must say it is a great fantasy book to read. I can't wait until the next book in this trilogy comes out in March. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d_w_w Posted January 12, 2011 Author Share Posted January 12, 2011 I just finished (for the 3rd time) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and I must say it is a great fantasy book to read. I can't wait until the next book in this trilogy comes out in March. I'm not familiar with that book. Guess I'm way out of touch with the fantasy literature. Googled it. Seems like it should be fun. Going to add it to my list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angeldelayette Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 I am a fan of adult vampire novels. Some that I would recommend: Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward Southern Vampire Mysteries/Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton All excellent reads but I would caution they are for adults only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prophet Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 For fantasy, I think my fallback is still R.A. Salvatore. Albeit a Dungeons and Dragons themed series, his Forgotten Realms lineage revolving around Drizzt Do'Urden is phenomenal work. I'm sure I'm still way behind on the series, but the bunch I've read so far (13 or so in total?) have yet to disappoint. I also recommend Heat Wave and Naked Heat by (fictional) writer Richard Castle. They stand alone well, although used as promotion for the show, and Stephen J. Cannell, who actually wrote the stories, did a great job of blending serious crime drama and light hearted humorous characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaysin Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Southern Vampire Mysteries/Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris I'm halfway through that series. I love it. I just started reading Star Wars: Red Harvest. It's pretty ok so far. The action hasn't picked up yet, but I've heard once it gets going its quite a good read. I also just bought the Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx, To Be The Man by Ric Flair, and Neuromancer by William Gibson. I've read most of Neuromancer before. It's a cyber punk book which I started getting into because of the Sega Genesis game Shadowrun. It's a fun book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moon_lit_tears Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 I'm halfway through that series. I love it. I just started reading Star Wars: Red Harvest. It's pretty ok so far. The action hasn't picked up yet, but I've heard once it gets going its quite a good read. I also just bought the Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx, To Be The Man by Ric Flair, and Neuromancer by William Gibson. I've read most of Neuromancer before. It's a cyber punk book which I started getting into because of the Sega Genesis game Shadowrun. It's a fun book. Loved the game! You will have to tell me if it's worth reading. I have argued with myself on that one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Self Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Trying to get back into reading, but I haven't the foggiest what kind of books I'd be into. In my younger days, I enjoyed the whole fantasy genre, but now whenever an author talks about the Gilgapools waging war against the Xanthians over the mystical Globe of Iodale I want to close the book and set it on fire. Use real words, people. Been reading the remnants of my brother's once mighty collection. 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' is apparently the first book in a series, but I enjoyed as a stand-alone, self-contained story that wasn't too indecipherable in it's language and wasn't a generic "Young boy. Is special. Saves world" adventure. Also returning to the Discworld books. Not as funny as I remember, and there's something unsatisfying in the character arcs, but there's a certain pleasing whimsy to be had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordJaguar Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Trying to get back into reading, but I haven't the foggiest what kind of books I'd be into. In my younger days, I enjoyed the whole fantasy genre, but now whenever an author talks about the Gilgapools waging war against the Xanthians over the mystical Globe of Iodale I want to close the book and set it on fire. Use real words, people. Been reading the remnants of my brother's once mighty collection. 'The Lies of Locke Lamora' is apparently the first book in a series, but I enjoyed as a stand-alone, self-contained story that wasn't too indecipherable in it's language and wasn't a generic "Young boy. Is special. Saves world" adventure. Also returning to the Discworld books. Not as funny as I remember, and there's something unsatisfying in the character arcs, but there's a certain pleasing whimsy to be had. Although The Name of the Wind is in a "fantasy" world it is really the story of a kid who grew into a legend and the truth behind it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BurningHamster Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 In my younger days, I enjoyed the whole fantasy genre, but now whenever an author talks about the Gilgapools waging war against the Xanthians over the mystical Globe of Iodale I want to close the book and set it on fire. Use real words, people. Yeah, I'm with you on that. Since we have a lot of fantasy fans in here I wonder if someone could explain the appeal? Especially since they tend to only exist in a series of like 8 books or so, it seems like a lot of reading in a very formulaic genre to me. Not trying to knock anyone's taste, just curious what people get out of it. Also, weirdly most of the people I know who are into fantasy are quite logical, maths and sciences, technically minded people which strikes me as odd considering all the magic and the way and so forth in fantasy books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoNdOn Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Favourite book I have ever read is Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. Just an amazing read from start to finish. The way it explores the dark side of the human mind and the way the story unfolds is fantastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Self Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Yeah, I'm with you on that. Since we have a lot of fantasy fans in here I wonder if someone could explain the appeal? Especially since they tend to only exist in a series of like 8 books or so, it seems like a lot of reading in a very formulaic genre to me. Not trying to knock anyone's taste, just curious what people get out of it. Also, weirdly most of the people I know who are into fantasy are quite logical, maths and sciences, technically minded people which strikes me as odd considering all the magic and the way and so forth in fantasy books. One of the common threads in fantasy books is an ordinary person discovering they are special, for example, a downtrodden son of a baker developing magical powers and becoming a great hero. I think a lot of people have felt unimportant at some point in their lives, and idea of having, for example, a wizard come along one day and say "Hey Self, put down that calculator, you're the only one in the world capable of killing this dragon!" is... That speaks to people. We all want our lives to mean more, especially the 'logical' people (read; nerds) who are even more often alone, feeling unappreciated. It's wish-fulfillment. Fantasy. We all want to be special. Other than simply being bad ass, the magical elements help keep the stories from striking too close to the bone. It's important we relate to the emotions of the baker's son, but not necessarily the actual situation. I wouldn't want to read about Self, the underpaid accounts clerk living in his brother's spare room and his many pathetic attempts at making scrambled eggs, but changed it to Celf, the underappreciated treasurer of the magical kingdom on Vales, who struggles to destroy a brood of Dragon's Eggs, gets the girl, saves the day etc... That's a book I'd like to read. I understand his frustrations, but it doesn't overtly remind my of scrambled eggs, so I don't cry myself to sleep. Plus, sword-fights and magic are bad ass. That's my take at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazorbeak Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Yeah, I'm with you on that. Since we have a lot of fantasy fans in here I wonder if someone could explain the appeal? Especially since they tend to only exist in a series of like 8 books or so, it seems like a lot of reading in a very formulaic genre to me. Not trying to knock anyone's taste, just curious what people get out of it. Also, weirdly most of the people I know who are into fantasy are quite logical, maths and sciences, technically minded people which strikes me as odd considering all the magic and the way and so forth in fantasy books. I'm not big into fantasy any more, but my sister who's genius IQ and wants to be either an astrophysicist or a planetary scientist reads a ton of it, although I got her to read some Dumas and she loved it, so she's not only reading books with dragons on the cover any more. It's escapist fun that she reads for entertainment, the same way I read comic books and the same way terrible romance novels sell better than 95% of anything at Borders. And I think fantasy appeals even more to logical people because it's such an ordered universe with well-defined rules; even magical stuff isn't used as a hand-waiving deus ex machina but as a system of rules. Personally, I liked LOTR and I enjoyed Lloyd Alexander and C.S. Lewis when I was a kid, but the genre doesn't really do it for me. I hate the boring Joe Campbell protagonists and the thousand different versions of Tolkien-inspired fantasy set in a stand-in for England. Right now I'm switching between historical fiction and more offbeat history nonfiction; I just finished Sharon Kay Penman's trilogy about the last princes of Wales and their conflicts with England, and after watching the Lion in Winter on netflix I'm starting her book "When Christ and His Saints Slept." I'm also reading http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Plague-Strange-Extraordinary-Illness/dp/1402219431/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294847074&sr=8-1 : it's an account of the bizarre but true dancing mania that took over the town of Strasbourg in 1518. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-Lyrium Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 I'm a big fan of fantasy and science-fiction, but I hate books that try to be movie screenplays (which is ironic, considering one of my favourite ever series' is Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts series... I was younger then. ¬_¬). I like magic, and dragons and stuff. But only if there's a decent story behind it. If the writer spends ten pages describing how awesome a battle between two duelling fire wizards is, but gives little real reason for the battle to take place other than "one is good one is evul, evul must be distroied!", then I won't read them. Robert Jordan, Christopher Paolini, take a bow. But if you've ever read A Song of Ice and Fire (starting with A Game of Thrones) by George R. R. Martin, you cannot possibly condemn fantasy as a genre entirely. Those books are amazing. Now all I've got to do is find a wife who's happy to name our kids Viserys and Danaerys. ¬_¬ Hmm, actually, maybe not Viserys, he was a massive ****, and if little Vis ever finds out who he's named after (likely, with a name like that) he'll probably be pissed. Tyrion and Danaerys then. Actually, considering my surname is really short and begins with a T, Tyrion is going to be the most perfect name ever. Yus! I don't tend to read many works of fiction that aren't fantasy or sci-fi. They're just... not that interesting to me. Use real words, people. Also returning to the Discworld books. Bu-wha?! To be fair, it's kinda hard to write a fantasy novel set in a fantasy world without making a few words up... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Self Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 I'm reading the Discworld books (and by that I mean like 3 of them) for two reasons; nostalgia and accessibility. I used to like them, and they happened to be on a bookshelf nearby. I'm not thrilled by the made up words, although they tend to be done with a nudge and a wink in a tone I can almost forgive. I once read a book, years ago, where the author renamed bread. He just... it was bread, and he decided to call it Mitlor or something, and then spent a page explaining what it was. Bread. It was bread. Was that word not magical enough? Don't get me started on how he explained sandwiches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
d_w_w Posted January 12, 2011 Author Share Posted January 12, 2011 Now all I've got to do is find a wife who's happy to name our kids Viserys and Danaerys. ¬_¬ Hmm, actually, maybe not Viserys, he was a massive ****, and if little Vis ever finds out who he's named after (likely, with a name like that) he'll probably be pissed. Tyrion and Danaerys then. Actually, considering my surname is really short and begins with a T, Tyrion is going to be the most perfect name ever. Yus! Glad you changed your mind mid-paragraph. It would be a crime to name your child Viserys. And yes, Martin's work is staggeringly good. As someone that had given up the fantasy genre, I can't speak highly enough of this series. A Song of Ice and Fire is actually making me want to give other fantasy works a try again (though I worry that they might disappoint me). Can't wait to get off of work to dig a little deeper into a Storm of Swords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazorbeak Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 But if you've ever read A Song of Ice and Fire (starting with A Game of Thrones) by George R. R. Martin, you cannot possibly condemn fantasy as a genre entirely. Those books are amazing. I like(d) Fire and Ice because Martin does a good job working in stuff not normally associated with the genre, from the adult situations to the barely disguised reflection of history to the appearance of non-English, non-white people in semi-important roles. My only problem was that by the third book and on he had so many POV characters and so many characters, period, that the story often gets bogged down to a complete stand-still so we can catch up with some minor character as they putter around. It is good stuff though, and an example of how the genre doesn't have to limit itself to stories about dwarves who dug too greedily and too deeply. Also, I don't know if he counts as a "fantasy" author, exactly, but I love Gene Wolfe's stuff, and Book of the New Sun in particular. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hellboy2 Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Favourite book I have ever read is Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. Just an amazing read from start to finish. The way it explores the dark side of the human mind and the way the story unfolds is fantastic. it is an amzing read, i really enjoyed the manga as well i'm not a fantasy person either, but i am enjoying the Abarat series by Clive Barker its not my thing usually but this has had me suckered in also any book by Al Ewing, he's not amazing by anylong shot but he writes around 250 pages of pure carnage and i love every page of it, i just finished reading Death got no Mercy and it felt like i was watching a 70's exploitation film but only in my head of course the main character has a fist fight with a bear it won me over instantly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imarevenant Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Just got done with Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Fall, which was a good read. Nice to not have shiny emo vampires lol Right now I'm reading Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. I <3 Mary Roach Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jesterx7769 Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Started reading "Feed" but don't really like it through the fist two chapters. so started reading "the hunger games" and its much better and i'm not 100% sold but much more drawn in. Also reading "Death to the BCS" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoNdOn Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Started reading "Feed" but don't really like it through the fist two chapters. so started reading "the hunger games" and its much better and i'm not 100% sold but much more drawn in. Also reading "Death to the BCS" Having got excited for reading as a concept again (I have cyclical periods where all I do is read and then I just stop cold turkey) I have looked into purchasing the hunger games series as I absolutely love Battle Royale and from what I have seen the basic principles are similar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prophet Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Just got done with Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Fall, which was a good read. Nice to not have shiny emo vampires lol Non-shiny emo vampires? What is this parallel universe of which you speak?! What really ticks me off about the whole Twi-Hard phase is that I wrote a short story back in 1995 that was (and I kid you not) an emo vampire diary! Oh, if only I had ambition! Darn you lack of willpower ... oh, I'm gonna take a nap. lol I can't wait for someone to recommend Snooki's "A Shore Thing". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-Lyrium Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Non-shiny emo vampires? What is this parallel universe of which you speak?! What really ticks me off about the whole Twi-Hard phase is that I wrote a short story back in 1995 that was (and I kid you not) an emo vampire diary! Oh, if only I had ambition! Darn you lack of willpower ... oh, I'm gonna take a nap. lol To be fair, in 1995 the world had only just been introduced to the film version of Interview with the Vampire, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer's TV debut was two years away. So... might not have worked back then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThriceP86 Posted January 15, 2011 Share Posted January 15, 2011 Just got done reading Og Mandino's "The Choice" I've read another book by him called "The Greatest Miracle in the World" He's a great storyteller especially since his books make you want to be better. Those are the only type of books I read nowadays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prophet Posted January 15, 2011 Share Posted January 15, 2011 To be fair, in 1995 the world had only just been introduced to the film version of Interview with the Vampire, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer's TV debut was two years away. So... might not have worked back then. I've always been a visionary before my time. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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