Yeah, yeah, it's kinda shallow, most of the secondary characters go through no development, there are a lot of in-world stereotypes that hold too true, it's pretty formulaic... but I can't help it. It's just too entertaining. When I'm reading it, all the faults fall away because, damnit, it's fun to read.
I might be a bit late on this, but why all this voting stuff? Why not just supply a one or two line mini-review with every suggestion and let people decide for themselves? Seems to me that everyone will just keep adding new stuff, and lots of great additions will end up being lost in a swarm of lime.
Cherrn on
All creature will die and all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai.
!add Gene Wolfe - Book of the New Sun. Fantasy or SF, take your pick.
My favourite novel, and one that seems deeper and better each time I re-read it.
!add John Crowley - Little Big. Urban fantasy maybe?
A huge, sprawling fantasy that should have revolutionised the genre all by itself but probably just ended up terrifying every writer in the field with the prospect of being measured against such an obviously wonderful book. Harold Bloom rates Crowley as one of the best living writers in the English language, and after reading this story of how big things get the further you get inside them it's difficult to argue with him.
!add Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light. Epic SF.
Hindu and Buddhist gods mix with SF staples in a novel from Zelazny's wonder years, when everything he wrote seemed to crackle with unfettered energy and invention.
!add Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination. Epic Sf.
Gully Foyle is an SF Count of Monte Cristo and goes from an illiterate deckhand to the most powerful man in the galaxy in Bester's sweeping and swashbuckling tale.
!add James Branch Cabell - Jurgen. Fantasy, but not like you're thinking.
Jurgen the pawnbroker travels the world, dropping in on Heaven and Hell along the way, chatting with the Devil and having the most casual of affairs with his wife. Cabell gets one tenth the credit he deserves, and this is the gold standard in fantasy for lightness of touch, intelligence and wit.
Are we allowed to nominate enormous series like Discworld in one go?
I might be a bit late on this, but why all this voting stuff? Why not just supply a one or two line mini-review with every suggestion and let people decide for themselves? Seems to me that everyone will just keep adding new stuff, and lots of great additions will end up being lost in a swarm of lime.
Because we need the voting to make lists. However, I do like the idea of descriptions, so I've been trying to put down a bit of something with each nomination.
I might be a bit late on this, but why all this voting stuff? Why not just supply a one or two line mini-review with every suggestion and let people decide for themselves? Seems to me that everyone will just keep adding new stuff, and lots of great additions will end up being lost in a swarm of lime.
Because we need the voting to make lists. However, I do like the idea of descriptions, so I've been trying to put down a bit of something with each nomination.
Yeah. For lesser known stuff, I'm not bothering to do any lime because odds are I'm the only one who's bothered to read them. See: my Saberhagen post.
But for ASoIaF, LotR, MBotF, etc? Let's just get 'em on the damn list and forget about them.
I might be a bit late on this, but why all this voting stuff? Why not just supply a one or two line mini-review with every suggestion and let people decide for themselves? Seems to me that everyone will just keep adding new stuff, and lots of great additions will end up being lost in a swarm of lime.
Because we need the voting to make lists. However, I do like the idea of descriptions, so I've been trying to put down a bit of something with each nomination.
Yeah. For lesser known stuff, I'm not bothering to do any lime because odds are I'm the only one who's bothered to read them. See: my Saberhagen post.
But for ASoIaF, LotR, MBotF, etc? Let's just get 'em on the damn list and forget about them.
I dunno. I could use some convincing on those. Of them, I've only read LotR, and the first book of ASoIaF. I liked LotR. You would have to put a gun to my head before I'd put myself through A Game of Thrones again. *shudder*
I've never even heard of this. I've always assumed Snow Crash was his first novel, and now suddenly Wiki tells me it's the third? There is this one, andthen there is "Zodiac". Anybody read it?
PS: Will sum up votes in a sec and get down a few of my own.
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
edited January 2009
!add Tim Powers - Fault Lines Trilogy - Urban Fantasy !add Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash - Cyberpunk !add John Bellairs - The House With a Clock in its Walls - YA Fantasy !add Tim Powers - Declare - Historical Fantasy !add H.P. Lovecraft - The Shadow Over Innsmouth - Weird Fiction !add Larry Niven - Ringworld - Speculative !add William Gibson - Pattern Recognition - Cyberpunk (?) !add China Mieville - Perdido Street Station - Urban Fantasy (?) !add Neil Gaiman - American Gods - Urban Fantasy !add Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere - Urban Fantasy
Every time I see "Book of the New Sun fantasy or SF? IDK take ur pic olol" I think of Tycho's response in the first panel of this.
I've never even heard of this. I've always assumed Snow Crash was his first novel, and now suddenly Wiki tells me it's the third? There is this one, andthen there is "Zodiac". Anybody read it?
PS: Will sum up votes in a sec and get down a few of my own.
Big U and Zodiac are both very good.
One involves a univeristy devolving into honest-to-god civil war.
Zodiac is about responsible environmental terrorism in the titular inflatable boat.
I've never even heard of this. I've always assumed Snow Crash was his first novel, and now suddenly Wiki tells me it's the third? There is this one, andthen there is "Zodiac". Anybody read it?
PS: Will sum up votes in a sec and get down a few of my own.
I heard Zodiac was only so-so. I've heard the Manchurian Candidate-type script/novel he did is quite good, though.
I might be a bit late on this, but why all this voting stuff? Why not just supply a one or two line mini-review with every suggestion and let people decide for themselves? Seems to me that everyone will just keep adding new stuff, and lots of great additions will end up being lost in a swarm of lime.
Because we need the voting to make lists. However, I do like the idea of descriptions, so I've been trying to put down a bit of something with each nomination.
Yeah. For lesser known stuff, I'm not bothering to do any lime because odds are I'm the only one who's bothered to read them. See: my Saberhagen post.
But for ASoIaF, LotR, MBotF, etc? Let's just get 'em on the damn list and forget about them.
I'm Ok with getting those 3 on the list straight away.
Also, I like the idea of descriptions. I'll see if I can format the suggestions list with spoilers holding voter's short description, if they feel like writing one when voting.
And seriously, do lime even on the unknown stuff. People read everything nowadays;o)
I've never even heard of this. I've always assumed Snow Crash was his first novel, and now suddenly Wiki tells me it's the third? There is this one, andthen there is "Zodiac". Anybody read it?
PS: Will sum up votes in a sec and get down a few of my own.
I have read Zodiac. It is amazing. It is present day (or I guess a decade or more in the past now) and about a guy who works for an enviromental group and busts corporations on illegal pollution and stuff. And then plot happens.
It is as well written and as witty and sarcastic and all-together wonderful as anything Stephenson has written, and a not-half-bad ending to boot.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
I've never even heard of this. I've always assumed Snow Crash was his first novel, and now suddenly Wiki tells me it's the third? There is this one, andthen there is "Zodiac". Anybody read it?
PS: Will sum up votes in a sec and get down a few of my own.
I heard Zodiac was only so-so. I've heard the Manchurian Candidate-type script/novel he did is quite good, though.
It's Stephenson before he decided that he needed to write 1000 pages before he forgets to write the ending.
And, better yet--it's actually got an ending. So does Big U, for that matter.
I suppose I'll jump in and add some more. I'll stick with specific books since it's harder to give a description of an author's entire body of work.
!add Robin Hobb - The Assassin's Apprentice. Fantasy.
While not as well-known as authors like George R.R. Martin, Hobb writes some of the highest caliber epic fantasy I have read. Assassin's Apprentice is about the bastard son of a would-have-been king, taken under the wing of the court spy and trained in the arts of subterfuge and assassination. He soon becomes embroiled in the politics of the kingdom, but more than mere internal tension looms--the seeds of a storyline concluded in the other two volumes of this trilogy. Hobb's other work is worth reading, too, but most people seem to start here.
!add Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn: The Final Empire. Fantasy.
Relatively new on the fantasy scene, Brandon Sanderson's great strength is the way he handles magic. He applies logical systems to the supernatural, making it feel like a logical extension of the real world, even down to the laws of physics. The Mistborn trilogy displays this strength marvelously, with not one but three different complex, rigorous systems of magic, each with very precise rules exploited to great effect in the plot of the series. The story turns on this premise: What if the Dark Lord had won, defeating the great hero and ushering in a thousand-year apocalypse with him as the ruler? And what if a small band of thieves tried to overthrow him? That story is just the first book, which is self-contained, but the rest of the trilogy is heavily foreshadowed, and each book becomes more epic than the last.
!add John Scalzi - Old Man's War. Science Fiction.
John Scalzi's debut novel is military science fiction, but inventive military science fiction, with some nice twists on the genre and a clear, readable style. Old Man's War is about a man who, on his seventy-fifth birthday, enlists in the military. He's sent into space to fight wars against the countless species humanity opposes, given a second shot at life through the military's radical medical advances. This book is great fun and solid science fiction with a lot of interesting situations and ideas. Scalzi's other books are worth a look, too, but I didn't enjoy any of them as much as this one.
That's it for now. Maybe more adds later.
OremLK on
My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
!vote Aflred Bester - The Stars My Destination !vote Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn Trilogy !vote China Mieville - Perdido Street Station !vote China Mieville - The Scar !vote Dan Simmons - Hyperion Cantos !vote Gene Wolfe - The Book of the New Sun !vote George RR Martin - aSoIaF !vote Jim Butcher - The Dresden Files series !vote John Scalzi - Old Man's War (and I mean only the first book) !vote Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5 !vote Rober A. Heinlein - Complete Works !vote Steven Erikson - MBotF !vote Terry Pratchett - Discworld series
...are my votes.
Two quick Q's:
Is Breakfast for Champions actually science fiction? Can we claim it?
Also, I believe there are authors that should consolidate votes for their entire works.(Heinlein & Vonnegut are the two that have come up so far). Should I correct it to "Author - Complete Works" or leave it the way it currently is?
I'm going to add links to the posts/add spoilers with provided descriptions/link to wiki for all books/authors in the current voting list next.
Also, this thread is fucking terrible. I really like to forget how much stuff I haven't read, and so far it's been really rubbing it in.
!vote American Gods / Gaiman !vote Neverwhere / Gaiman !vote Book of the New Sun / Wolfe
!add Acacia / David Anthony Durham fantasy
From The Washington Post
The Akaran royal children in David Anthony Durham's thrilling Acacia bear a passing resemblance to the scrappy siblings from C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Aliver, heir to the throne of the Known World, worries that he doesn't have the stuff to be king; Corinn, his sister, is beautiful, deceptively shallow and adept with a bow and arrow; Mena, the younger sister, is courageous and astute; and Dariel, the youngest, tends to wander off where he shouldn't. But the world that Durham has created for them is far grimmer, and far more sophisticated, than Lewis's charming Narnia.
From the first pages of Acacia, Durham, a respected historical novelist, demonstrates that he is a master of the fantasy epic. He quickly sets out in broad strokes the corrupt world that these unwitting children have been raised to rule. For 22 generations, the Akarans have presided over the empire of Acacia. And for 22 generations, they've sent a yearly shipment of child slaves to mysterious traders beyond their borders, "with no questions asked, no conditions imposed on what they did with them, and no possibility that the children would ever see Acacia again." In exchange, the Akarans get "mist," a drug that guarantees their subjects' "labor and submission." I give nothing away when I say that this empire is doomed. In the opening pages, an assassin from the Meins -- a "bickering people" from the frozen North, "as harsh and prone to callousness as the landscape they inhabited"
-- is on his way to the capital city with his sights set on King Leodan, the children's kind and hapless father. The Akaran children must flee their sumptuous palace for hostile country, with no god-like lion poised to give his life for theirs. The Acacian god, the Giver, has forsaken them. Durham sacrifices nothing -- not psychological acuity, not political
complexity, not lyrical phrases -- as he drives the plot of this gripping book forward. The names of people and places sound as if they've been recalled from a dusty past, not cobbled from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, a far too common practice among fantasy writers. Tropes that sound outlandish -- "dream-travel," for one -- are credible in Durham's telling. And the story always surprises. Characters that seem poised to take center stage are killed abruptly. Evil often triumphs.
The rickety supports that grand empires rest on clearly fascinate Durham -- the long-time advisers who have grown resentful, the client states that fake their willing submission, the trading monopoly that sees profit in regime change. And the Akaran aristocracy is deaf to the rumblings beneath them. Hanish, the clear-eyed leader of the Meins and architect of the coming disaster, relishes their complacency: "Better that his coming shock them to the core and leave them reeling and grasping for meaning, too late to recognize the true shape and substance of the world they lorded over."
When the empire falls, it does so quickly and horrifically. Palace guards and household servants slaughter their masters. The Meinish have allied with the Numrek, "screaming, stomping, mirthful agents of carnage," who cut a gruesome swath through the land. Plague strikes the Acacian army, and its soldiers sweat blood and "lay prostrate in writhing intimacy with the earth." The dead are past counting.
But as exciting as all this is, the collapse of the Akaran empire is only the beginning of this grand tale. Aliver, Mena and Dariel, raised anonymously and separately in quiet corners of the fallen empire, become warriors eager to redeem "the rotten heart of Acacia," while Corinn, a captive in the palace where she grew up, plots bloody revenge from within. How will it all end? If the first volume of this projected series is any indication, in brilliant -- and brutal -- defiance of fantasy conventions.
Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
These might not be the "best" in the genre, but they're a bit off the beaten track and definitely worth reading.
!add Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover
In a dystopian future, actors travel to another dimension of medieval fantasy and have adventures there for the entertainment of the masses. Hari Michaelson AKA Caine is one of the biggest stars and is also a total dick of a human being. It's a fun action-adventure/commentary on today's "reality" TV and violence culture. It also has some pretty interesting takes on magic and the traditional fantasy races. Stover is a god-king when it comes to writing fight scenes.
!add Good Omens by Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett
A comedic take on the apocalypse by two true fantasy masters. An angel, a demon, a boy who is unknowingly the Antichrist, the four horsemen, a witch, and an apprentice witch hunter collide in a very funny and ultimately heartwarming tale.
!add The Knight/The Wizard by Gene Wolfe
A two-part novel that's broken down into two books. Wolfe manages to take the typical hero's journey through its paces in a way that's both familiar and utterly groundbreaking. The book is based around a boy who has been transported to some sort of fantasy world, where he is magically aged to adulthood and becomes a knight. The book is a series of letters that he writes to his brother to tell him about what happened. I'm told that this series, along with Latro in the Mist, are his most accessible works. Latro is also a really cool story, featuring a Greek soldier who receives a head injury and is subsequently able to see and converse with the gods. Due to his injury, every morning he forgets what's happened to him and who he is and has to look at what he's written to remember.
!add Grendel by John Gardner
The tale of Beowulf told through Grendel's eyes. The best way I can describe this book is as Catcher in the Rye if Holden Caulfield had been a giant monster.
!add Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
The story of Jesus as told by his screw-up of a best friend. If the Bible had been a buddy movie action-comedy, this is what it would be like.
!add Grendel by John Gardner
The tale of Beowulf told through Grendel's eyes. The best way I can describe this book is as Catcher in the Rye if Holden Caulfield had been a giant monster.
This was a good book, but it was tarnished for me because I read it in school and we had to overanalyze things.
Also, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was better, in a similar take on an idea. At least from what I remember.
I might be a bit late on this, but why all this voting stuff? Why not just supply a one or two line mini-review with every suggestion and let people decide for themselves? Seems to me that everyone will just keep adding new stuff, and lots of great additions will end up being lost in a swarm of lime.
Also, I'm going to vote against Ender's Game, mostly because of the dualistic idealist philosophy it has, which is one of the most messed up ideals that exists.
Ethan Smith on
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BobCescaIs a girlBirmingham, UKRegistered Userregular
edited January 2009
!Vote Terry Prachett - Discworld Series.
This has to go on the recommended list....it's amazing!
I suppose I'll jump in and add some more. I'll stick with specific books since it's harder to give a description of an author's entire body of work.
!add Robin Hobb - The Assassin's Apprentice. Fantasy.
While not as well-known as authors like George R.R. Martin, Hobb writes some of the highest caliber epic fantasy I have read. Assassin's Apprentice is about the bastard son of a would-have-been king, taken under the wing of the court spy and trained in the arts of subterfuge and assassination. He soon becomes embroiled in the politics of the kingdom, but more than mere internal tension looms--the seeds of a storyline concluded in the other two volumes of this trilogy. Hobb's other work is worth reading, too, but most people seem to start here.
!vote for this
also, maybe we can just put down some baseline ones that people are obviously gonna suggest and should be up there?
like LOTR? you know it should be up there, and people are gonna vote for it... maybe it would save time?
its like having a thread about religious books and have people vote to add the bible to it.
I dunno. I found it a bit preachy.
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Grudgeblessed is the mind too small for doubtRegistered Userregular
edited January 2009
!add Iain M. Banks - Feersum Endjinn
Description:
Set on an almost unrecognizable far future Earth, this book is Iain. M. Banks' second non-Culture SF endevour. Earth is past it's golden hour, and technology has fallen into the realm of mysticism and ritual. The story follows four different people living in the remains of what can only be described as an disproportionately scaled super-city as they are reluctantly dragged into a plot involving a threat against the entire Earth. They face a conspiracy of powerful individuals with their own agenda, not necessarily interested in averting the looming threat.
What's really special is that one of the protagionist's (Bascule, a young Teller (hacker, more or less)) viewpoints is written almost phonetically in first person perspective, which could potentially annoy some readers, but adds another layer of flavor to the already very thick atmosphere of the book. Here's an example of how it reads:
"Well I no that, thilly, tho u r a very feerth old hok, & gettin less blind ol thi time. I woth jutht kiddin. O luke anuthi thee-gull. Or ith it? Lookth moar like a albino cro, akchooly. Well, i cant thtand awound hea ol day chattin with u; i 1/2 2 fly, Dartlin sez, & hops down off thi perch. Ith ther anythin i can get u, Mr Bathcule?"
(this makes more sense when you have actually read the book)
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Grudgeblessed is the mind too small for doubtRegistered Userregular
edited January 2009
!vote Gene Wolfe - Book of the New Sun
!vote Alastair Reynolds - the Revelation Space series
Someone earlier in the thread mentioned Christopher Moore's Lamb, you might like that if you like Pratchett. You could also look into Robert Rankin. He can be a bit hit and miss, but The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse is good, as is the series that starts with The Book of Ultimate Truths.
!vote Good Omens by Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett !vote Terry Pratchett - Discworld series !vote Dan Simmons - Hyperion Cantos !vote Dan Simmons - Ilium/Olympos
UPDATE 11/01:
The lists are fully linked to wikipedia(should I link to best forums/fansites/fan wikis instead?), users posts providing information about a series when voting - short description or similar are also linked in the lists. Rules:
1 vote = the book/series makes it on the lists. I'll maintain three lists:
Alphabetical, votes->alphabetical and genre->votes->alphabetical.
You can vote for a series, or for a single book in a series. Your choice.
Acceptable ways to vote:
Really, anything you like as long as there is lime.
On reading. I'm currently fighting my way through Excession by Banks. I don't understand why I'm having such a trouble with the whole Culture setting. I love SF, I honestly do, but Banks non-culture novels are way, way more fun to read.
Posts
Damn fine shit there.
Comes out this spring - plenty of time to catch up on the series Houn!
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
I changed one of the votes for my own reasons.
I've only read one Heinlein book, "Stranger in a Strange Land", and it was fantastic. I'd give it a !vote.
Also, while I'm thinking about it, if I might indulge a bit of a guilty pleasure...
!add David Eddings - The Belgariad series (Fantasy)
Yeah, yeah, it's kinda shallow, most of the secondary characters go through no development, there are a lot of in-world stereotypes that hold too true, it's pretty formulaic... but I can't help it. It's just too entertaining. When I'm reading it, all the faults fall away because, damnit, it's fun to read.
My favourite novel, and one that seems deeper and better each time I re-read it.
!add John Crowley - Little Big. Urban fantasy maybe?
A huge, sprawling fantasy that should have revolutionised the genre all by itself but probably just ended up terrifying every writer in the field with the prospect of being measured against such an obviously wonderful book. Harold Bloom rates Crowley as one of the best living writers in the English language, and after reading this story of how big things get the further you get inside them it's difficult to argue with him.
!add Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light. Epic SF.
Hindu and Buddhist gods mix with SF staples in a novel from Zelazny's wonder years, when everything he wrote seemed to crackle with unfettered energy and invention.
!add Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination. Epic Sf.
Gully Foyle is an SF Count of Monte Cristo and goes from an illiterate deckhand to the most powerful man in the galaxy in Bester's sweeping and swashbuckling tale.
!add James Branch Cabell - Jurgen. Fantasy, but not like you're thinking.
Jurgen the pawnbroker travels the world, dropping in on Heaven and Hell along the way, chatting with the Devil and having the most casual of affairs with his wife. Cabell gets one tenth the credit he deserves, and this is the gold standard in fantasy for lightness of touch, intelligence and wit.
Are we allowed to nominate enormous series like Discworld in one go?
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Because we need the voting to make lists. However, I do like the idea of descriptions, so I've been trying to put down a bit of something with each nomination.
Yeah. For lesser known stuff, I'm not bothering to do any lime because odds are I'm the only one who's bothered to read them. See: my Saberhagen post.
But for ASoIaF, LotR, MBotF, etc? Let's just get 'em on the damn list and forget about them.
I dunno. I could use some convincing on those. Of them, I've only read LotR, and the first book of ASoIaF. I liked LotR. You would have to put a gun to my head before I'd put myself through A Game of Thrones again. *shudder*
Note: Lord of Light is so far out-there in the "Far-out SF" genre that it may as well be "Total Fantasy." It was awesome though.
I've never even heard of this. I've always assumed Snow Crash was his first novel, and now suddenly Wiki tells me it's the third? There is this one, andthen there is "Zodiac". Anybody read it?
PS: Will sum up votes in a sec and get down a few of my own.
!add Neal Stephenson - Snow Crash - Cyberpunk
!add John Bellairs - The House With a Clock in its Walls - YA Fantasy
!add Tim Powers - Declare - Historical Fantasy
!add H.P. Lovecraft - The Shadow Over Innsmouth - Weird Fiction
!add Larry Niven - Ringworld - Speculative
!add William Gibson - Pattern Recognition - Cyberpunk (?)
!add China Mieville - Perdido Street Station - Urban Fantasy (?)
!add Neil Gaiman - American Gods - Urban Fantasy
!add Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere - Urban Fantasy
Every time I see "Book of the New Sun fantasy or SF? IDK take ur pic olol" I think of Tycho's response in the first panel of this.
Big U and Zodiac are both very good.
One involves a univeristy devolving into honest-to-god civil war.
Zodiac is about responsible environmental terrorism in the titular inflatable boat.
I heard Zodiac was only so-so. I've heard the Manchurian Candidate-type script/novel he did is quite good, though.
I'm Ok with getting those 3 on the list straight away.
Also, I like the idea of descriptions. I'll see if I can format the suggestions list with spoilers holding voter's short description, if they feel like writing one when voting.
And seriously, do lime even on the unknown stuff. People read everything nowadays;o)
I have read Zodiac. It is amazing. It is present day (or I guess a decade or more in the past now) and about a guy who works for an enviromental group and busts corporations on illegal pollution and stuff. And then plot happens.
It is as well written and as witty and sarcastic and all-together wonderful as anything Stephenson has written, and a not-half-bad ending to boot.
It's Stephenson before he decided that he needed to write 1000 pages before he forgets to write the ending.
And, better yet--it's actually got an ending. So does Big U, for that matter.
!vote Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere - Urban Fantasy
This was a fantastic book.
!add Robin Hobb - The Assassin's Apprentice. Fantasy.
!add Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn: The Final Empire. Fantasy.
!add John Scalzi - Old Man's War. Science Fiction.
That's it for now. Maybe more adds later.
!vote Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn Trilogy
!vote China Mieville - Perdido Street Station
!vote China Mieville - The Scar
!vote Dan Simmons - Hyperion Cantos
!vote Gene Wolfe - The Book of the New Sun
!vote George RR Martin - aSoIaF
!vote Jim Butcher - The Dresden Files series
!vote John Scalzi - Old Man's War (and I mean only the first book)
!vote Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5
!vote Rober A. Heinlein - Complete Works
!vote Steven Erikson - MBotF
!vote Terry Pratchett - Discworld series
...are my votes.
Two quick Q's:
Is Breakfast for Champions actually science fiction? Can we claim it?
Also, I believe there are authors that should consolidate votes for their entire works.(Heinlein & Vonnegut are the two that have come up so far). Should I correct it to "Author - Complete Works" or leave it the way it currently is?
I'm going to add links to the posts/add spoilers with provided descriptions/link to wiki for all books/authors in the current voting list next.
Also, this thread is fucking terrible. I really like to forget how much stuff I haven't read, and so far it's been really rubbing it in.
!vote Neverwhere / Gaiman
!vote Book of the New Sun / Wolfe
!add Acacia / David Anthony Durham fantasy
The Akaran royal children in David Anthony Durham's thrilling Acacia bear a passing resemblance to the scrappy siblings from C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Aliver, heir to the throne of the Known World, worries that he doesn't have the stuff to be king; Corinn, his sister, is beautiful, deceptively shallow and adept with a bow and arrow; Mena, the younger sister, is courageous and astute; and Dariel, the youngest, tends to wander off where he shouldn't. But the world that Durham has created for them is far grimmer, and far more sophisticated, than Lewis's charming Narnia.
From the first pages of Acacia, Durham, a respected historical novelist, demonstrates that he is a master of the fantasy epic. He quickly sets out in broad strokes the corrupt world that these unwitting children have been raised to rule. For 22 generations, the Akarans have presided over the empire of Acacia. And for 22 generations, they've sent a yearly shipment of child slaves to mysterious traders beyond their borders, "with no questions asked, no conditions imposed on what they did with them, and no possibility that the children would ever see Acacia again." In exchange, the Akarans get "mist," a drug that guarantees their subjects' "labor and submission." I give nothing away when I say that this empire is doomed. In the opening pages, an assassin from the Meins -- a "bickering people" from the frozen North, "as harsh and prone to callousness as the landscape they inhabited"
-- is on his way to the capital city with his sights set on King Leodan, the children's kind and hapless father. The Akaran children must flee their sumptuous palace for hostile country, with no god-like lion poised to give his life for theirs. The Acacian god, the Giver, has forsaken them. Durham sacrifices nothing -- not psychological acuity, not political
complexity, not lyrical phrases -- as he drives the plot of this gripping book forward. The names of people and places sound as if they've been recalled from a dusty past, not cobbled from J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, a far too common practice among fantasy writers. Tropes that sound outlandish -- "dream-travel," for one -- are credible in Durham's telling. And the story always surprises. Characters that seem poised to take center stage are killed abruptly. Evil often triumphs.
The rickety supports that grand empires rest on clearly fascinate Durham -- the long-time advisers who have grown resentful, the client states that fake their willing submission, the trading monopoly that sees profit in regime change. And the Akaran aristocracy is deaf to the rumblings beneath them. Hanish, the clear-eyed leader of the Meins and architect of the coming disaster, relishes their complacency: "Better that his coming shock them to the core and leave them reeling and grasping for meaning, too late to recognize the true shape and substance of the world they lorded over."
When the empire falls, it does so quickly and horrifically. Palace guards and household servants slaughter their masters. The Meinish have allied with the Numrek, "screaming, stomping, mirthful agents of carnage," who cut a gruesome swath through the land. Plague strikes the Acacian army, and its soldiers sweat blood and "lay prostrate in writhing intimacy with the earth." The dead are past counting.
But as exciting as all this is, the collapse of the Akaran empire is only the beginning of this grand tale. Aliver, Mena and Dariel, raised anonymously and separately in quiet corners of the fallen empire, become warriors eager to redeem "the rotten heart of Acacia," while Corinn, a captive in the palace where she grew up, plots bloody revenge from within. How will it all end? If the first volume of this projected series is any indication, in brilliant -- and brutal -- defiance of fantasy conventions.
Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
That and there actually being
!vote Old mans war
!add Heroes Die by Matthew Woodring Stover
In a dystopian future, actors travel to another dimension of medieval fantasy and have adventures there for the entertainment of the masses. Hari Michaelson AKA Caine is one of the biggest stars and is also a total dick of a human being. It's a fun action-adventure/commentary on today's "reality" TV and violence culture. It also has some pretty interesting takes on magic and the traditional fantasy races. Stover is a god-king when it comes to writing fight scenes.
!add Good Omens by Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett
A comedic take on the apocalypse by two true fantasy masters. An angel, a demon, a boy who is unknowingly the Antichrist, the four horsemen, a witch, and an apprentice witch hunter collide in a very funny and ultimately heartwarming tale.
!add The Knight/The Wizard by Gene Wolfe
A two-part novel that's broken down into two books. Wolfe manages to take the typical hero's journey through its paces in a way that's both familiar and utterly groundbreaking. The book is based around a boy who has been transported to some sort of fantasy world, where he is magically aged to adulthood and becomes a knight. The book is a series of letters that he writes to his brother to tell him about what happened. I'm told that this series, along with Latro in the Mist, are his most accessible works. Latro is also a really cool story, featuring a Greek soldier who receives a head injury and is subsequently able to see and converse with the gods. Due to his injury, every morning he forgets what's happened to him and who he is and has to look at what he's written to remember.
!add Grendel by John Gardner
The tale of Beowulf told through Grendel's eyes. The best way I can describe this book is as Catcher in the Rye if Holden Caulfield had been a giant monster.
!add Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
The story of Jesus as told by his screw-up of a best friend. If the Bible had been a buddy movie action-comedy, this is what it would be like.
This was a good book, but it was tarnished for me because I read it in school and we had to overanalyze things.
Also, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead was better, in a similar take on an idea. At least from what I remember.
!vote Chernn
oh wait
See how many books I've read so far in 2010
This has to go on the recommended list....it's amazing!
!vote for this
also, maybe we can just put down some baseline ones that people are obviously gonna suggest and should be up there?
like LOTR? you know it should be up there, and people are gonna vote for it... maybe it would save time?
!vote LotR
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
i mean in the quote boxes. just take it off the list and put it down there because its going to get enough votes anway.
its like having a thread about religious books and have people vote to add the bible to it.
I dunno. I found it a bit preachy.
Description:
What's really special is that one of the protagionist's (Bascule, a young Teller (hacker, more or less)) viewpoints is written almost phonetically in first person perspective, which could potentially annoy some readers, but adds another layer of flavor to the already very thick atmosphere of the book. Here's an example of how it reads:
"Well I no that, thilly, tho u r a very feerth old hok, & gettin less blind ol thi time. I woth jutht kiddin. O luke anuthi thee-gull. Or ith it? Lookth moar like a albino cro, akchooly. Well, i cant thtand awound hea ol day chattin with u; i 1/2 2 fly, Dartlin sez, & hops down off thi perch. Ith ther anythin i can get u, Mr Bathcule?"
(this makes more sense when you have actually read the book)
!vote Alastair Reynolds - the Revelation Space series
And are there any recomendations for something similar to Pratchett's style?
!vote Terry Pratchett - Discworld series
!vote Dan Simmons - Hyperion Cantos
!vote Dan Simmons - Ilium/Olympos
The lists are fully linked to wikipedia(should I link to best forums/fansites/fan wikis instead?), users posts providing information about a series when voting - short description or similar are also linked in the lists.
Rules:
1 vote = the book/series makes it on the lists.
I'll maintain three lists:
Alphabetical, votes->alphabetical and genre->votes->alphabetical.
You can vote for a series, or for a single book in a series. Your choice.
Acceptable ways to vote:
!vote Author - Series/Title
!vote Author - Series/Title in Genre
!add Author - Series/Title
Really, anything you like as long as there is lime.
On reading. I'm currently fighting my way through Excession by Banks. I don't understand why I'm having such a trouble with the whole Culture setting. I love SF, I honestly do, but Banks non-culture novels are way, way more fun to read.