Deykari Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 I think I ask this question to a lot of people on here quite regularly, and I'm going to do it again because I've been recommended some gems by you lot. I'm looking for some recommendations for some books any of you think are particularly good. Most genres are fair game, but I tend not to like traditional fantasy. Sci-fi on the other hand (or sci-fi that blends some traditional fantasy elements like Dune) is a favourite of mine. In a similar vein, if anybody is interested, a few books I have read recently that I have really enjoyed are: American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis. I'm a little late to the party with this one. Most people who haven't read the book imagine it to be like the movie, and they simply cannot be compared. Hyperion - Dan Simmons. Fantastic Sci-Fi book/series. A group of people each with their own stories and backgrounds come together to embark on a pilgrimage. Imajica - Clive Barker. A modern day setting, with alternate 'worlds' of magic and some amazing storytelling. This was recommended to me aaages ago by Goomf. Only just got around to reading it now, and it's one of the best novels I've read. Go ahead, fire some suggestions at me. If there are any traditional fantasy that you really think deserve a special mention, then I won't complain at any suggestions in that vein. Dey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Nameless Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 Try out the Dragonriders of Pern series. Also Dragonlance is a PLETHORA of awesome fantasy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erana Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 If you haven't already, you need to check out Isaac Asimov. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The-Nameless Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 Who cares about drooling dogs. Way to go off topic THAT is a nerd fail. For future referense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enethier Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 To your scattered bodies go Great book. Part of the Riverworld series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imoutgoodbye Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 The Top 20 here. http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.html I'd recommend any of those, particularly Fahrenheit 451. Hmmm...look at how many times that Asimov fella shows up.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demiterracotta Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 Asimov is great. Fahrenheit 451 is one of the best books on the entire planet. Dragonriders of Pern are amazing, may seem like fantasy, stick it out, it's just awesome. Warhammer 40k has some cool Sci-Fi elements, but I don't recommend them much to people, it's really a selective universe to read, but you might check them out. http://www.blacklibrary.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyzarius Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 1984 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elfrosto Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 read The Bible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
f0xx Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 read The Bible Bahahhaaaaaaaaaa!!! Nice one frosty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elfrosto Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 What? It's THE good book, how can you not read it, at least once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mali Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 Deykari Check out Gene Wolfe: Book of the new sun. you won't be disappointed. The four volumes in the series are: Name Published Notes The Shadow of the Torturer Simon & Schuster, 1980 Nebula Award nominee, 1980;[2] World Fantasy Award winner, 1981;[3] British Science Fiction Award winner, 1981;[3] John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee, 1981;[3] Locus Award nominee, 1981[3] The Claw of the Conciliator Timescape Books, 1981 Nebula Award winner, 1981;[3] Locus Award winner, 1982;[4] Hugo Award nominee, 1982;[4] World Fantasy Award nominee, 1982[4] The Sword of the Lictor Timescape Books, 1981 British Science Fiction Award nominee, 1982;[4] Nebula Award nominee, 1982;[4] British Fantasy Award winner, 1983;[5] Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel winner, 1983;[5] Hugo Award nominee, 1983;[5] World Fantasy Award nominee, 1983[5] The Citadel of the Autarch Timescape Books, 1983 Nebula Award nominee, 1983;[5] British Science Fiction Award nominee, 1983;[5] Nebula Award nominee, 1983;[5] John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner, 1984[6] Name Published Notes The Urth of the New Sun Tor, 1987 A coda that takes place years after the events of The Book of the New Sun Hugo Award nominee, 1988[7] Nebula Award nominee, 1988[7] Locus Award nominee, 1988[7] One of the most acclaimed "science fantasies" ever, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun is a long, magical novel in four volumes. Shadow & Claw contains the first two: The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator, which respectively won the World Fantasy and Nebula Awards. This is the first-person narrative of Severian, a lowly apprentice torturer blessed and cursed with a photographic memory, whose travels lead him through the marvels of far-future Urth, and who--as revealed near the beginning--eventually becomes his land's sole ruler or Autarch. On the surface it's a colorful story with all the classic ingredients: growing up, adventure, sex, betrayal, murder, exile, battle, monsters, and mysteries to be solved. (Only well into book 2 do we realize what saved Severian's life in chapter 1.) For lovers of literary allusions, they are plenty here: a Dickensian cemetery scene, a torture-engine from Kafka, a wonderful library out of Borges, and familiar fables changed by eons of retelling. Wolfe evokes a chilly sense of time's vastness, with an age-old, much-restored painting of a golden-visored "knight," really an astronaut standing on the moon, and an ancient citadel of metal towers, actually grounded spacecraft. Even the sun is senile and dying, and so Urth needs a new sun. The Book of the New Sun is almost heartbreakingly good, full of riches and subtleties that improve with each rereading. It is Gene Wolfe's masterpiece. I have yet to find contemporary fiction in any genre that can equal this effort by Wolfe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lowkey Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 I will read just about anything. Might want to try these, all are pretty good reads. A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks Napoleon's Pyramids By William Deitrich Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey Stephanie Plumm series, by Janet Evanovich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pali Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 I've been greatly enjoying George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series... which also is about to be a TV show on HBO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magick Posted January 18, 2011 Report Share Posted January 18, 2011 Night Angel trilogy is awesome. And as for Series' to TV, it doesn't always work. In my opinion, the Sword of Truth TV series is painful to watch. I've grown up (more or less) with The Wheel of Time series. And Shadows of the Apt series by Adrian Tchaikovsky I'm currently reading through now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aulian Posted January 19, 2011 Report Share Posted January 19, 2011 Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn series was awesome. i liked the night angle trilogy, I just thought the last book ended a bit too quickly. Kinda like he had all these good ideas and had to fit them all into 200 pages instead of 2 or 3 books lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nekky Posted January 19, 2011 Report Share Posted January 19, 2011 Get some Clive Barker in your life. He's a fellow limey, so you should like him. My favourite books of his are a series of short stories (there's like 30 of them) in a compendium called Books of Blood. His stories are well written, and really macabre and freaky without being cheap and tacked on. He's got elements of horror, sci-fi, fantasy and a really sinister quality. His stories usually take place in modern times, and it's really interesting the way he interplays the modern, or 'real', world with the fantasy world. Definitely not traditional fantasy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imoutgoodbye Posted January 19, 2011 Report Share Posted January 19, 2011 Oooh, those sound freakin' awesome, Mali. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mali Posted January 19, 2011 Report Share Posted January 19, 2011 If you havn't discovered Gene Wolfe yet, you'd be doing yourself a huge favor by starting the series. "I would like [my readers] to better understand human beings and human life as a result of having read [my] stories. I'd like them to feel that this was an experience that made things better for them and an experience that gave them hope." -Wolfe (interview) "My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure." -Wolfe (interview) "Just when I despaired -- she was there, filling me as a melody fills a cottage. I was with her, running beside the Acis when we were a child. I knew the ancient villa moated by a dark lake, the view through the dusty windows of the belvedere, and the secret space in the odd angle between two rooms where we sat at noon to read by candlelight. I knew the life of the Autarch's court, where poison waited in a diamond cup. I learned what it was for one who had never seen a cell or felt a whip to be a prisoner of the torturers, what dying meant, and death. I learned that I had been more to her than I had ever guessed, and at last fell into a sleep in which my dreams were all of her. Not memories merely -- memories I had possessed in plenty before. I held her poor, cold hands in mine, and I no longer wore the rags of an apprentice, nor the fuligin of a journeyman. We were one, naked and happy and clean, and we knew that she was no more and that I still lived, and we struggled against neither of those things, but with woven hair read from a single book and talked and sang of other matters." — Wolfe (Shadow & Claw) "We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance of the special duties and burdens of military life--they are soldiers from that moment, though they may know nothing of the management of arms. I did not know that then, but it is a profound mistake to believe that we must know of such things to be influenced by them, and in fact to believe so is to believe in the most debased and superstitious kind of magic. The would-be sorcerer alone has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people know that things act of themselves or not at all." — Wolfe (Shadow & Claw) "Imagine a man who stands before a mirror; a stone strikes it, and it falls to ruin all in an instant. And the man learns that he is himself, and not the mirrored man he had believed himself to be." — Wolfe (The Urth of the New Sun) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lowkey Posted January 19, 2011 Report Share Posted January 19, 2011 Forgot a recent book I read. Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deykari Posted January 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted January 19, 2011 Get some Clive Barker in your life. He's a fellow limey, so you should like him. My favourite books of his are a series of short stories (there's like 30 of them) in a compendium called Books of Blood. His stories are well written, and really macabre and freaky without being cheap and tacked on. He's got elements of horror, sci-fi, fantasy and a really sinister quality. His stories usually take place in modern times, and it's really interesting the way he interplays the modern, or 'real', world with the fantasy world. Definitely not traditional fantasy. Yeah, I finished reading Imajica recently by Clive Barker. Fantastic book. I'm going to look into him a bit more. Deykari Check out Gene Wolfe: Book of the new sun. If there was ever a sales pitch for a book, it was those posts. I couldn't find the whole 'set' for my kindle so I've bought the first as a paperback. Will start reading once I've finished reading Altered Carbon (a really good sci-fi/action book I'm reading right now). Dey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Imoutgoodbye Posted January 19, 2011 Report Share Posted January 19, 2011 If there was ever a sales pitch for a book, it was those posts. Dey You're tellilng me! I avoid Sci-Fi books like they're the plague and now I want to read those! :eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mali Posted January 19, 2011 Report Share Posted January 19, 2011 I can see my work here is done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Croyvern Posted January 19, 2011 Report Share Posted January 19, 2011 You're tellilng me! I avoid Sci-Fi books like they're the plague and now I want to read those! :eek:While I am not a fan of sci-fi books ussually, I dare say the Red Dwarf Series was AWESOME. Picked it up thinking it was adventure, and never put it down. Just fabulous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
killalou Posted January 19, 2011 Report Share Posted January 19, 2011 Try these: 1. Clan of the Cave Bears Jean M. Auel 2. Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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