Recommended reading

[skellywag]

A friend of mine mentioned that his younger sister would like me to recommend her some books to read. And seeing as I have been meaning to make a list anyway (because I have a ridiculous OCD love for lists), I thought this was a great opportunity to do so. I am going to organize it by genre at least (I'm not sure I'm feeling ambitious enough to

Comments

[rei_c]

Have you ever Ilona Andrews and/or Lilith Saintcrow? I am a big fan of the former's Kate Daniels books and the latter's Jill Kismet series.

[skellywag]

I haven't heard of the first one, but I had looked at Lilith Saintcrow's Dante Valentine series (I think that's the one) at the bookstore a few years ago, and I think I remember being vaguely interested. >_>;; *ninja-adds them to recs*

[rei_c]

The Dante Valentine books are good but the main character starts to get a bit annoying around book three. That didn't stop me from buying them all, reading through them in a weekend, and then giving them all to a friend whilst saying YOU MUST READ THESE, though. *Grins* I prefer Jill, half because I think I prefer Jill's world, but her character development is much better, IMO.

[skellywag]

Not going to lie, there's a few in my list of recs where I don't necessarily love the main character. I don't let it stop me if the side characters and universe are interesting.

[mnerosav]

Robert Silverberg is definitely good; he's one of the great old masters of 20th-century sci-fi, though he doesn't get nearly as much name recognition as Asimov, Clarke, and the like. One of his better known works is the Majipoor series ("Lord Valentine's Castle" is the first book), which is kind of science-fantasy -- definitely in the far-future and with interstellar travel, but with a lot of the trappings of regular fantasy. If you can find it, "Invaders from Earth" is a good short SF novel he wrote

[skellywag]

The last time I put Stackpole on a list, you mentioned you thought they were brilliant. But that was before I took a minor hiatus on reading things :/

I read the first Discworld novel. I decided I didn't like him nearly as much as Gaiman, and the series didn't really do it for me.

I think Elantris was on one of my previous lists... I'll have to look into that as well because apparently there are quite a few that I didn't actually get around to reading.

The Coldfire Trilogy by C.S. Friedman is kind of like the science-fantasy you mentioned, and it's about the only way I'll read anything sci-fi related. >_>;; That's why standard sci-fi isn't on the list.

[mnerosav]

Early Discworld is some of the weakest, to me. It gets kicking a few books in, when he stops parodying popular fantasy directly and turns it gradually into social satire. The Guards novels are my favorites on that, and the later books can be especially powerful as novels, not just satires and parodies (Night Watch has some very sad, very moving stuff about the feeling of futility in a corrupt society when you're a normal person on the ground, and the costs of making change that may not actually matter).

(Mind, this is something of a fanboy speaking, of course.)

That said, I really need to get into Wodehouse, of whom Pratchett is something of a literary descendant. However, I suspect that ultimately I'll just end up watching stuff derived from him, particularly "Jeeves and Wooster" with Fry and Laurie.

I'm The Friend's Little Sister. :)

[feathereyes]

Hiya, I'm Jamie. Thanks a ton for creating this list. Now my summer will be filled with reading instead of just sleeping and bugging Zach. I can tell we have the same taste in books because I have read a few of the things you have posted on this list, so I'm excited to look into the other books. My brother said if I posted a comment with my e-mail you would send me the links to some of your amazing stories, I would absolutely love that. Brat.X.Pack@Gmail.com And thanks again. :)

-Jamie

P.s. Anything Kelley Armstrong writes is amazing. The Darkest Powers Series are her Young Adult books, but in venturing into her adult books, I have realized that they are actually filled with better story lines and some interesting dynamic characters. The Otherworld Paranormal Suspense Series is really good, especially Living With The dead. I would recommend it to anyone who likes suspense, mixed with a little crime fighting, mixed in with a lot of paranormal fantasy.

[skellywag]

Well, I don't really know how amazing my fics are, but I'll totally email you a bunch of links hahahaha

And thank you for the rec. If you've got any others, feel free to email them.