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Book recommendations?
Do you have a moment to recommend some books?
What is the single most memorable thing you liked about it? In other words, which button did it press? :D I am pretty sci-fi/fantasy oriented, though other genres can and have appealed. I'm a sap for a good romantic pairing set in a solid plot. Also world-building. Oh yes.
As for my favorites, these are the current top two winners for pushing all the right buttons:
The Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (basically, historical fiction for nerds who like badasses. There is ALSO a super sweet, ridiculous--and badass, of course--love story in The Baroque Cycle. It hit all of my buttons so hard, oh my god.)
Everything by Patricia A. McKillip but especially In the Forests of Serre, Ombria in Shadow, and The Tower at Stony Wood, etc, etc. High fantasy here, without being inconveniently epic length. Love the way magic appears here -- there is no attempt to make it scientific or anything less than eerie. ♥
ETA: Also, everything by Ursula K. LeGuin (How did I forget her?!), especially The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness,, and all of the Earthsea books, including the new ones with Ged and Tenar.
Some other favorites are:
Ender's Game and Enchantment by Orson Scott Card
Last Call by Tim Powers (haven't read any others of his)
Matter by Ian M. Banks (and various culture novels)
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Alanna and Wild Magic (plus sequels) by Tamora Pierce
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffery (Yes, I like Lessa. And F'lar. And Robinton.)
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (though apparently this is part of a giant book universe I have never read)
Wraeththu by Storm Constantine (which is an angst-heavy love story fantasy epic about gay metahuman sorcerers whose super powers include being really beautiful. Reading it feels sort of like being drugged.)
Archangel by Sharon Shinn (More people need to read this just because every fandom needs an Archangel AU. Pre-industrial society! Watched over by winged individuals who are gifted with heavenly voices and who ask the god for good weather or medicine or for some smiting by singing beautiful music beautifully. EVERYONE HAS A JEWEL IN THEIR ARM THAT LIGHTS UP WHEN THEIR TRUE LOVE IS NEAR--well except for the Edori, who are basically Native American Jewish Tinkers. COME ON, GUYS.)
What is the single most memorable thing you liked about it? In other words, which button did it press? :D I am pretty sci-fi/fantasy oriented, though other genres can and have appealed. I'm a sap for a good romantic pairing set in a solid plot. Also world-building. Oh yes.
As for my favorites, these are the current top two winners for pushing all the right buttons:
The Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (basically, historical fiction for nerds who like badasses. There is ALSO a super sweet, ridiculous--and badass, of course--love story in The Baroque Cycle. It hit all of my buttons so hard, oh my god.)
Everything by Patricia A. McKillip but especially In the Forests of Serre, Ombria in Shadow, and The Tower at Stony Wood, etc, etc. High fantasy here, without being inconveniently epic length. Love the way magic appears here -- there is no attempt to make it scientific or anything less than eerie. ♥
ETA: Also, everything by Ursula K. LeGuin (How did I forget her?!), especially The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness,, and all of the Earthsea books, including the new ones with Ged and Tenar.
Some other favorites are:
Ender's Game and Enchantment by Orson Scott Card
Last Call by Tim Powers (haven't read any others of his)
Matter by Ian M. Banks (and various culture novels)
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Alanna and Wild Magic (plus sequels) by Tamora Pierce
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffery (Yes, I like Lessa. And F'lar. And Robinton.)
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (though apparently this is part of a giant book universe I have never read)
Wraeththu by Storm Constantine (which is an angst-heavy love story fantasy epic about gay metahuman sorcerers whose super powers include being really beautiful. Reading it feels sort of like being drugged.)
Archangel by Sharon Shinn (More people need to read this just because every fandom needs an Archangel AU. Pre-industrial society! Watched over by winged individuals who are gifted with heavenly voices and who ask the god for good weather or medicine or for some smiting by singing beautiful music beautifully. EVERYONE HAS A JEWEL IN THEIR ARM THAT LIGHTS UP WHEN THEIR TRUE LOVE IS NEAR--well except for the Edori, who are basically Native American Jewish Tinkers. COME ON, GUYS.)
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It takes the usual tropes of urban fantasy and puts a dark, and realistic, spin on them. It's gritty and black humour and not at all fluffy, but the characters are driven by their passions and principles and the world built is so very detailed and real, yet there is a lot of world-building that has gone into it. The second book especially builds a world with rich backstory and intricacies that work to explain what's going on. There's no hand-waving or "then magic stuff happened here." Magic doesn't get them out of things with a handwave. It's still work and sometimes things explode and sometimes the magicians are the bad guys and sometimes they're victims and sometimes they're both.
The Inspector Chen series by Liz Williams - more urban fantasy, set in China (or another world China - hard to tell if it's future, alternate universe, or what.) Again, magic and angels and demons from Hell and Inspector Chen is a policeman just trying to do his job, and gets sucked into the goings-on between Heaven and Hell. His wife is a demon who has escaped from Hell and just wants to live her life (with a teapot-badger as her protector.)
The world-building is astounding, full of Chinese mythology and traditional magic, all in the setting of a cop-thriller mystery.
I love Cryptonomicon. I re-read it about every other year - sometimes I read just one character's chapters all the way through then go back and read another set.
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When I started Quicksilver for the first time, I got a hundred pages in before I walked over to my friend asked him very seriously, "Where is the Shaftoe?" Oh, Jack. ♥
Bobby Shaftoe was my favorite character in Cryptonomicon, but my favorite scenes are probably the one with Laurence Waterhouse and the Marine band and his pipe organ computer. Oh, and the bits about Athena or the human race as descendants of stupendous badasses. XD
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Mostly I just love the fact I can read the book for a nineteenth time and *still* discover something I'd missed!
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And oh, God, I spent my childhood and youth reading books, quite a bit of it fantasy. I'll go through it in my head and let you know. :)
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If you liked the realpolitik, I highly recommend The Baroque Cycle because you get the feeling that the whole mass of complicated politics in the 17th century is in fact driven by real people who get hungover and wonder if their coat is still in fashion, and then send a nation to war because their stocks are bad or their cousin called in a favor. Some of them are just better at it than others.
Anyway! Thank you for the rec. I guess the fact that I'd read it means you're good at guessing what I'd like. I would love to hear more suggestions!
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Whhhhhaaaaaaaaa?????????
(Will make some recs after I'm done DANCING WITH GLEE.)
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...I'm afraid to go to Amazon and have it tell me I'm lying.
...
(Are you talking about Tehanu or the one with the dead coming back or is there ANOTHER book?)
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I adore Ged & Tenar, and I always want to glare at people who love the original trilogy but hate on Tehanu.
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It's two stories told in alternating chapters - one a cyberpunk thriller/mystery about a man who's a human encryption machine; and the other a fantasy/magical realism about a man trapped in a walled town at the end of the world, with unicorns and mysterious libraries. The two stories eventually converge. It's one of the best books I've ever read, both in the sense of being amazing literature, and in being fucking awesome genre fiction. From the books you listed above, I think you'd like it.
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They're humans-only fantasy set in a Renaissance level culture where the stars really DO influence your life, and magic is expensive and academic but by no means un-heard of. The stories are crime investigations that end in swords and sorcery in the first book, and an action denouement in the second.
Extra Bonus: The two male protagonists from the first book end up getting engaged in at the end of the second, and the authors made females the dominate gender without shoving it in your face or over-explaining (or voyeur lesbianism.) If you have social equality buttons, this will hit them like a hammer in the good way.
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I keep telling people to read Kate Elliott, but people fail to listen to me. The Crossroads trilogy starts with Spirit Gate and it has fabulous cultures, really interesting characters, adventures, neat world-building, and it's just cool. I also have great fondness for the Jaran novels, starting with Jaran, which is kind of a romance and also kind of a space opera--what do you do when a space traveling linguist accidentally lands in the middle of a nomadic tribe led by the local equivalent of Genghis Khan? The later novels are much more political and complicated but the first one hits the spot if you're in the mood for adventurous cross-cultural romance. Elliott's latest is Cold Magic, the first in a projected series--it's post-colonial icepunk with magic and romance as well.
If you're a big McKillip fan, you might enjoy Pamela Dean, whose magic also works mysteriously and unpredictably. I don't love her prose as much, but she's really creative. Tam Lin is considered a minor classic, although I might prefer Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary. And The Dubious Hills is just cool.
For a total change of pace, the Merrimack novels by R.M. Meluch are slashy classic old-school-type space opera, and she even manages to justify having her space-traveling marines use swords during battles. They're not great on gender issues, but they are quite entertaining.
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I feel like I've been handed a challenge re: Kate Elliot. I'll definitely at least read a few pages in the bookstore and see if they pull me in. Thanks again for the recs and the great descriptions.
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Set 1 is Cordelia's Honor (two novels, now bundled), which tells the story of Cordelia Naismith, a totally awesome captain of a survey vessel, who ends up trapped on a planet with Aral Vorkosigan, a member of a traditional military (read: highly patriarchal) caste from Barrayar, and their burgeoning romance which is hampered by war and politics. The second book in that set tells of the early years of their marriage and politics and intrigue on Barrayar. And how Miles was born.
Set 2 is the Miles novels, which start when he's 17 or so, and he's a disabled, hyperactive, hyperintelligent little git, who ends up accidentally in command of a space mercenary army at 17. Among other things.
The novels are very funny, exciting, more thoughtful than you'd think on the face of it, with lots of interesting women and awesome characters. I love them so!
Also, there's a growing fandom for them--lots of stuff on AO3.
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I'll keep this tab open for a few days to see if I can think of any book recs I want to throw out there. (Have you read Stardust? The Last Unicorn?)
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(The Inception idea in particular is brilliant. People would constantly be saying "wait, /you're/ the archangel?" )
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