Books, Books?, Books!, Books...What are YOU reading? aka the WoT, GoT, Orson Scott Card thread

[Intrinsic]

I read the Night Angel books last year, didn't love them. Was hesitant to read Lightbringer but started last night and halfway through the first book and it's already better than the entire Night Angel series.

[BaneTheBrawler]

good call on Forever War. Very, very similar to Starship Troopers. Also along the same sort, a more recent author: Richard Fox's Ember War series. It's not quite the same sort of story, but it might feel familiar. It's got a similar military ethos to it.

(though I'm having a hard time seeing the similarity to Banks, who is also awesome, but, uh, different)

the similarity is mostly just epic sci fi and being really fucking good. personally, while I enjoyed the foundation series, they didn't really strike a chord with me, so they're not one of my favorites. Banks, now. Banks is my jam. I pretty much always recommend Banks.

Other really good sci fi authors that haven't been mentioned yet in no particular order: C.J. Cherryh (one of my absolute favorites, right up there with Banks for me; still working through her work tho. Foreigner series is my favorite so far.), Daniel Abraham (The Expanse, extremely good series, now has a TV show), Elizabeth Moon (a few different series, all pretty good), David Weber (Safehold and Honor Harrington- Weber is a lot like GRRM. Some people find his work annoying for the same reasons some people find GRRM's work annoying. Lots of detail, stories so huge it seems impossible he'll ever finish, etc. Except Weber doesn't generally slaughter your favorite characters.), Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan series- insanely fun books), aaaaand.... Kevin J. Anderson (Saga of the Seven Suns, which has a new set of sequel books I haven't had a chance to read yet). Pretty sure there's more authors I love who I forgot to mention but those are the ones I have bookmarked in my browser. Anyone know how to see a list of which authors you've followed on Amazon?

also, confession. I haven't actually read Clarke yet. You may notice I tend to prefer longer series, and Clarke's work is mostly short stories, so I just don't bump into it much when searching for new stuff. Rama is on my list tho.

Anyway, my GF got me into the Percy Jackson series. It's fun. On book 3.

[Gustave]

I read the Night Angel books last year, didn't love them. Was hesitant to read Lightbringer but started last night and halfway through the first book and it's already better than the entire Night Angel series.

I also started Lightbringer yesterday but I'm only on Chapter 6. Enjoying it so far. It's a different world compared to any others I have encountered.

[Deftscythe]

good call on Forever War. Very, very similar to Starship Troopers. Also along the same sort, a more recent author: Richard Fox's Ember War series. It's not quite the same sort of story, but it might feel familiar. It's got a similar military ethos to it.



the similarity is mostly just epic sci fi and being really fucking good. personally, while I enjoyed the foundation series, they didn't really strike a chord with me, so they're not one of my favorites. Banks, now. Banks is my jam. I pretty much always recommend Banks.

Other really good sci fi authors that haven't been mentioned yet in no particular order: C.J. Cherryh (one of my absolute favorites, right up there with Banks for me; still working through her work tho. Foreigner series is my favorite so far.), Daniel Abraham (The Expanse, extremely good series, now has a TV show), Elizabeth Moon (a few different series, all pretty good), David Weber (Safehold and Honor Harrington- Weber is a lot like GRRM. Some people find his work annoying for the same reasons some people find GRRM's work annoying. Lots of detail, stories so huge it seems impossible he'll ever finish, etc. Except Weber doesn't generally slaughter your favorite characters.), Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan series- insanely fun books), aaaaand.... Kevin J. Anderson (Saga of the Seven Suns, which has a new set of sequel books I haven't had a chance to read yet). Pretty sure there's more authors I love who I forgot to mention but those are the ones I have bookmarked in my browser. Anyone know how to see a list of which authors you've followed on Amazon?

also, confession. I haven't actually read Clarke yet. You may notice I tend to prefer longer series, and Clarke's work is mostly short stories, so I just don't bump into it much when searching for new stuff. Rama is on my list tho.

Anyway, my GF got me into the Percy Jackson series. It's fun. On book 3.

I find your lack of Herbert disturbing.

[BaneTheBrawler]

I find your lack of Herbert disturbing.

I tried Dune as a teen, couldn't make it through the dense prose. Haven't tried again, but like Rama it's on my list.

[Cantih]

who I forgot to mention

I can co-sign much of Bane's recommendations. (2 more months to the next Foreigner, gdi)

Also going to add in Vernor Vinge, Larry Niven, Charles Stross, and John Scalzi.

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Slightly underrated for Sci-Fi is Piers Anthony. Bio of a Space Tyrant, Blue Adapt, Incarnations of Immortality, Mute, Tarot, and Of Manta and Ray are various good series of books. One word of caution is he gets a bit thick with the sexual shit. Space Tyrant has probably the most and has a good heaping load of rape, murder rape, cannibalism, veiled incest, and sex sex sex. Also probably not the hardest of hard science like what Foundation puts out but definitely does make use of the setting.

Edit: Forgetting Harry Harrison of the Stainless Steel Rat series, Alastair Reynolds (House of Suns, Revelation Space trilogy) for a darker hard science bend, and Dan Simmons of Hyperion (A++ top shelf quality space opera), and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

Fuck, my Sci-Fi shelves do not fuck around.

Bonus Edit: L. Ron Hubbard's Final Blackout. Short story with a solid military theme and some of his better works before shit like the Mission Earth dekalogy happened. Jesus christ I regret reading that series more than WoT.

[BaneTheBrawler]

oh, I just remembered. another book in the starship troopers/forever war style is the Orphanage series by Robert Buettner

[Souj]

I tried Dune as a teen, couldn't make it through the dense prose. Haven't tried again, but like Rama it's on my list.

I didn't much like Dune either and I read it just a couple years ago.

[Aumaan_Kujata]

also, confession. I haven't actually read Clarke yet. You may notice I tend to prefer longer series, and Clarke's work is mostly short stories, so I just don't bump into it much when searching for new stuff. Rama is on my list tho.

For the love of God, don't pick up Rama specifically because you like longer series. The first book is both short and excellent (and also very dry/Asimovian, like The Sentinel/2001, so you might not like it if you're not a fan of that kind of thing). The rest of the series is just ghastly bad and mostly written by someone else anyway. His strength really is mostly in short stories, but regarding novels Childhood's End is pretty solid, particularly if you avoided the recent miniseries that did some damage to it, as well as Fountains of Paradise (a very early conceptualization of space elevators) and 2001 of course.

As long as we're listing good SF authors in general, I'll add in CS Friedman (In Conquest Born and This Alien Shore), Peter Hamilton if you want more Banks and don't mind if it's somewhat less thoughtful/more pulpy, Dan Simmons' Illium/Olympos thing in addition to the already-mentioned Hyperion Cantos, and some of Zelazny's stuff like Lord of Light. There's also Gene Wolfe, but there's a bit of a learning curve involved. He writes very opaque, complicated stuff, usually first person with unreliable narrators, but he's really good at it. Shadow of the Torturer is the place to start there. Or Fifth Head of Cerberus if you really want to suffer. He wrote a short story titled "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories" just so he could title a collection "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories". That's the kind of smug asshole we're talking about here. I love it, but your mileage may very.

Seriously, though, I can't stress enough how awful the Rama sequels are.

[Iono]

Just started the wheel of time ;x Just finished all the Gunslinger.

[Gustave]

Thoughts on Mistborn? I couldn't get I to The Lightbringer so I jumped over to Mistborn series.

[Souj]

Well, the problem with that is, most people here will probably say it's a really good series. They'd also say the same for Lightbringer.

I'm only a quarter through the first Lightbringer book but I'd say that Mistborn focuses a lot more on characters at first and then the powers are added and explored as a personal thing for the character whereas Lightbringer starts off mostly just seems interested in the powers and how they work.

[Zetanio]

Well, the problem with that is, most people here will probably say it's a really good series. They'd also say the same for Lightbringer.

I'm only a quarter through the first Lightbringer book but I'd say that Mistborn focuses a lot more on characters at first and then the powers are added and explored as a personal thing for the character whereas Lightbringer starts off mostly just seems interested in the powers and how they work.

Original Mistborn was a solid trilogy. Wax and Wayne was fucking awful. Alloy of Law was the worst thing I've seen Sanderson write by quite a bit.

[Gustave]

Original Mistborn was a solid trilogy. Wax and Wayne was fucking awful. Alloy of Law was the worst thing I've seen Sanderson write by quite a bit.

I prefer books that start out with some character development first. I'm already attached to Vin and Kelsier. The same with TV series. It doesn't matter how good the world is if I'm not invested in the characters.

[Zetanio]

I prefer books that start out with some character development first. I'm already attached to Vin and Kelsier. The same with TV series. It doesn't matter how good the world is if I'm not invested in the characters.

I agree.

Finished The Expanse Book 6. It's getting slightly plot armor-y.

Starting some Brent Weeks. Gonna reread Lightbringer and get into Night Angel.

[Wulfgang]

http://io9.gizmodo.com/after-17-year...-hi-1792385526

Pullman drafting a follow-up sequel to his original Golden Compass trilogy.

[Iono]

Just finished reading that one too. Kinda sad the movie sequels didn't get made.


Any thoughts on "Wheel of time" series?

[Zetanio]

Just finished reading that one too. Kinda sad the movie sequels didn't get made.


Any thoughts on "Wheel of time" series?

There's a lot of discussion on it in this thread, the summary would be:

Read 1-7. skip 8,9,10,11, read the rest.

[Rhyis.]

Man, I haven't read WoT in a decade.
My favourite one was

Spoiler: show

when Perrin had to defend their home village from the army of trollocs or whatever they were called
I always liked Perrin's stuff the best

Never did read the newest ones. Think I stopped at 11