Book recommendations? (sci-fi or fantasy)

Li Kao · **#61**

Elesthor wrote:

A Song of Ice and Fire by GRR MArtin is really really good, It's a bit long (more than 12 books) but it is one of the best fantasy novel i've ever read =)

hm? I don't think he even finished volume 5 by now.

Elesthor · **#62**

[quote]hm? I don't think he even finished volume 5 by now.[quote]

Maybe in english edition, the french one is actually in 13 smaller books =)

serapis · **#63**

The first 2 books of martin's series were good, but then they lost my interest. Reading about character after character you're given no reason to care about gets old, really fast. Still, in the hopes that the series would get better, I pressed on to feast for crows. This...was a mistake as evident by the pointless medieval lesbian bondage I can only assume was put in for some sort of fan service.

Haven't touched the books since.

kirkmc · **#64**

Helel wrote:

serapis wrote:

The first 2 books of martin's series were good, but then they lost my interest. Reading about character after character you're given no reason to care about gets old, really fast. Still, in the hopes that the series would get better, I pressed on to feast for crows. This...was a mistake as evident by the pointless medieval lesbian bondage I can only assume was put in for some sort of fan service.

I can remember some sadistic rape scenes described in minute detail from this series, but no lesbian bondage. In which chapter was this?

LOL...

kirkmc · **#65**

serapis wrote:

The first 2 books of martin's series were good, but then they lost my interest. Reading about character after character you're given no reason to care about gets old, really fast. Still, in the hopes that the series would get better, I pressed on to feast for crows. This...was a mistake as evident by the pointless medieval lesbian bondage I can only assume was put in for some sort of fan service.

Haven't touched the books since.

I read about 3/4 of the first book - like 800 pages or something - before I came to the conclusion that I didn't care enough about the characters to want to read more. I didn't get to the medieval lesbian bondage part, apparently.

serapis · **#66**

kirkmc wrote:

I read about 3/4 of the first book - like 800 pages or something - before I came to the conclusion that I didn't care enough about the characters to want to read more. I didn't get to the medieval lesbian bondage part, apparently.

Yeah, this one was in the fourth book somewhere, i think. Such a disappointing series, but that's the risk you take reading as the books come out instead of when it's all finished so you can research it a bit first. I hope that Patrick Rothfuss's series doesn't take any bizarre turns like this one did because his next book is one of the only two that I'm looking forward to.

schultz · **#67**

flOvermind wrote:

I'm a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned Dune by Frank Herbert yet. Ok, it's not exactly recent, but it's still among my favourite SciFi series so I thought I'd mention it.

Sadly, I never got around to reading the whole series. Perhaps I'll resume it once I finished with my current "to read" backlog

I read the first three books of the six book series. The second book was a bit disappointing in comparison with the first, but it's still a good book. The first and especially the third are really great. I'm not really sure how I managed to stop after that one...

Regarding writing quality, I couldn't really tell, since I only read the German translations of the books.

I can't believe I didn't think of these. I've read all of them and they are very good. (I did read all six.)

I will say that they get into a lot of philosophy of the Dune universe, and what goes on in it, but they are still very enjoyable. Definitely still sci-fi/fantasy.

Elesthor · **#68**

In Sci-Fi, The foundation serie, by I. Asimov?

Chew Terr · **#69**

I don't remember if it's been mentioned before, but Jack Chalker has some really interesting stuff. Sometimes his characters are a little bland or he may not always explain his science, but these are because he is much more focused on the Big Ideas. Both his Well of Souls books and his Rainbow Bridge books are pretty good, for their own reasons. As a kid, I loved the Dancing Gods books, though I should warn that they are both fantasy and satire towards the genre. Couldn't tell you how they have aged, as I haven't read them in quite a while.

freegame · **#70**

I'm reading Perdido Street Station from China Miéville.
It's hard to describe the genre exactly but it definitely has a lot of SiFi and Fantasy elements.

I mostly read (historical) fantasy books, I'm not a huge fan of SiFi books (some writers that wrote books I like are: Pullman, Meyer, Novik, paolini and Hobb) but this is a nice book unlike any book I have read before.

kirkmc · **#71**

freegame wrote:

I'm reading Perdido Street Station from China Miéville.
It's hard to describe the genre exactly but it definitely has a lot of SiFi and Fantasy elements.

I mostly read (historical) fantasy books, I'm not a huge fan of SiFi books (some writers that wrote books I like are: Pullman, Meyer, Novik, paolini and Hobb) but this is a nice book unlike any book I have read before.

I have that book, actually, in paperback, but haven't gotten around to reading it. It's one of those paperbacks that's printed so small that, when I first opened it, I just closed it again. I'll have to check it out, because several people recommended it.

ethanb · **#72**

sumiyaka wrote:

schultz wrote:

kirkmc wrote:

(snip)
"The man in black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed."

Best opening line in genre fiction. (If you've read the entire series, you understand why.)

Just one more recommendation for me to pick this up and finally read it. I'll get there eventually.

The first book "drags" a bit the first time you read it. But, its worth it to get into the series. Others I know have read the series more than once, and say the first book is better the second time around.

Isn't it required to read the first book again immediately after seeing how the seventh one turns out?

*whistles innocently*

Spoiler for people who have read the series:

Javaness · **#73**

John Wyndham is a lasting favourite for me

kirkmc · **#74**

ethanb wrote:

Isn't it required to read the first book again immediately after seeing how the seventh one turns out?

*whistles innocently*

Well, you don't _have_ to...

I started the series again a couple of days ago; almost finished with the third book. The first four are pretty quick, then the last three are very big and take a bit longer. I'm going to try and read it all over a couple of weeks, which will make it easier to appreciate the many characters, locations, and links among them. (Because it is rather complex.)

Jedo · **#75**

I just finished the Gunslinger! Definitely an entertaining book, and it was enough to convince me to pick up The Drawing of The Three, which I just started. I don't know if I can commit to 7 books yet, but so far so good. Does the series really stay consistent the whole time, or does it lose steam somewhere along the way? 4500 pages is a lot...

And of course, nothing that remotely resembles spoilers!

ethanb · **#76**

Jedo wrote:

I just finished the Gunslinger! Definitely an entertaining book, and it was enough to convince me to pick up The Drawing of The Three, which I just started. I don't know if I can commit to 7 books yet, but so far so good. Does the series really stay consistent the whole time, or does it lose steam somewhere along the way? 4500 pages is a lot...

And of course, nothing that remotely resembles spoilers!

If I recall correctly, it does lose steam a bit in books 4+5. Picks it back up by the end of 6 though. It doesn't become a total slog, and even if it did, I'd recommend finishing it.

kirkmc · **#77**

Jedo wrote:

I just finished the Gunslinger! Definitely an entertaining book, and it was enough to convince me to pick up The Drawing of The Three, which I just started. I don't know if I can commit to 7 books yet, but so far so good. Does the series really stay consistent the whole time, or does it lose steam somewhere along the way? 4500 pages is a lot...

And of course, nothing that remotely resembles spoilers!

I found it satisfying enough to re-read it.

You need to know this: King wrote the first four books, then there was a very long lapse before he picked up the series. So book 5 is a bit different in style, and in the last two books things get pretty complex. Nevertheless, the series holds together quite well, in spite of some unexpected storytelling techniques.

I don't feel that it loses steam at all, honestly. But you need to be prepared for a story that branches out quit a bit in the second section (books 5-7), but which comes together quite well at the end.

The Drawing of the Three really sets the tone for the next few books, though; it's quite surprising, in that it shows just how non-fantasy the series is (if you consider fantasy to be Lord of the Rings related, as most is).

Jedo · **#78**

I finished The Drawing of The Three recently, and just started The Waste Lands.

volume 2 spoilers:

It was a very exciting book, onto volume 3! I like how each volume is longer than the last, it's like a videogame :cool:

kirkmc · **#79**

Jedo wrote:

I finished The Drawing of The Three recently, and just started The Waste Lands.

volume 2 spoilers:

It was a very exciting book, onto volume 3! I like how each volume is longer than the last, it's like a videogame :cool:

Each of the first four books are very different. The fourth, in particular, is very, very different. Then came the hiatus; more than twenty years until King picked up the series again, and the last three have a much different tone, but continuing the story that gets fleshed out in books three and four.

I'm glad you're enjoying them. It's one of those truly great series that I recommend as often as I can.

ethanb · **#80**

kirkmc wrote:

Jedo wrote:

I finished The Drawing of The Three recently, and just started The Waste Lands.

volume 2 spoilers:

It was a very exciting book, onto volume 3! I like how each volume is longer than the last, it's like a videogame :cool:

Each of the first four books are very different. The fourth, in particular, is very, very different. Then came the hiatus; more than twenty years until King picked up the series again, and the last three have a much different tone, but continuing the story that gets fleshed out in books three and four.

I'm glad you're enjoying them. It's one of those truly great series that I recommend as often as I can.

(text hidden with color for spoiler - DON'T HIGHLIGHT UNLESS YOU'VE FINISHED THE SERIES)

I can't remember whether it's book 6 or the 1st half of #7 that this was in, but I really liked the way the part taking place in the concentration camp for psychics was so intense and all the interactions were so well fleshed out without even involving any main characters for such a long period of time.

Book recommendations? (sci-fi or fantasy)

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