Sci-fi/Fantasy recommendations

[grumbler]

There is the Sword of Truth wich was apparently good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Truth

That series has 14 books & they were not created equal. The first one is pretty good tho.

Oh, for fuck's sake!  That book was most misogynistic crap I've seen!  AVOID! AVOID!

[sbr]

Has anyone read any of the Recluse books by LE Modesitt?

I read the first 7-8 in a row back 8-9 years ago, then was burned out and never went back, even though I own some others.  I thought it was an interesting world he created.

[Razgovory]

Mote Had an interesting alien race in it, but suffered because the "secret" was reveled about two-thirds of the way through to a bunch of guys who get killed soon after and the rest of the characters sit around trying to figure out the the big reveal for the last third of the book despite the reader already knowing it.  The Forever War was a good novel. A much less pro-military version of star ship troopers.  The main character is a bit Mary Sueish though.  I found it fairly melancholy, and you seem to like that.

[citizen k]

I would add Lovecraft for Fantasy/Horror and PK Dick for Sci-Fi. For the obligatory gay author, Samuel Delaney, especially the 'post-apocalypse meets magical realism' novel, Dhalgren. To quote New York Magazine, "It's like Gertrude Stein: Beyond Thunderdome".

[11B4V]

Mote Had an interesting alien race in it, but suffered because the "secret" was reveled about two-thirds of the way through to a bunch of guys who get killed soon after and the rest of the characters sit around trying to figure out the the big reveal for the last third of the book despite the reader already knowing it.  The Forever War was a good novel. A much less pro-military version of star ship troopers.  The main character is a bit Mary Sueish though.  I found it fairly melancholy, and you seem to like that.

Have you read Old Man's War?

[viper37]

There is the Sword of Truth wich was apparently good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Truth

That series has 14 books & they were not created equal. The first one is pretty good tho.

Oh, for fuck's sake!  That book was most misogynistic crap I've seen!  AVOID! AVOID!

Really?  How so?

[Razgovory]

Mote Had an interesting alien race in it, but suffered because the "secret" was reveled about two-thirds of the way through to a bunch of guys who get killed soon after and the rest of the characters sit around trying to figure out the the big reveal for the last third of the book despite the reader already knowing it.  The Forever War was a good novel. A much less pro-military version of star ship troopers.  The main character is a bit Mary Sueish though.  I found it fairly melancholy, and you seem to like that.

Have you read Old Man's War?

Nope.

[Syt]

Thrawn Trilogy

I read that when I was a teenage Star Wars fanboi. I tried reading it again recently and ... ugh.


I second Forever War.

For something lighter, try Toby Frost's Space Captain Smith series. It's kinda like Futurama meets Flashman (for the colonial setting, not the womanizing, unfortunately). It mocks a lot of sci-fi, but the references are usually well known enough, so that non-supernerds can also enjoy them (Blade Runner, Matrix, Clockwork Orange, Thomas the Tank Engine etc.).

[Jacob]

I concur with grumbler that Pratchett is juvenile-young adult skewed, and the same for C.S. Lewis' Narnia and Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea; that doesn't stop me from enjoying them, though.

[Eddie Teach]

There is the Sword of Truth wich was apparently good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Truth

That series has 14 books & they were not created equal. The first one is pretty good tho.

Oh, for fuck's sake!  That book was most misogynistic crap I've seen!  AVOID! AVOID!

The prose was so bad I never made it to the promised rape scenes.

[grumbler]

Really?  How so?

Did you read it?  The power that the "wise women" (or whatever they were called) was to make men "love" them (the author's term, not mine) helplessly, and what they did with this power of "love" was to make men rip off their penises and eat them.  Add the fact that the way for men to neutralize this power was to gang-rape the shit out of the woman.

That's about as sick as sick gets. 

Plus, the writing is crap, but that's kinda beside the point.

[grumbler]

I concur with grumbler that Pratchett is juvenile-young adult skewed, and the same for C.S. Lewis' Narnia and Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea; that doesn't stop me from enjoying them, though.

There's nothing wrong with Pratchett, I agree, except that the humor isn't aimed at adults and the story reveals are all visible a mile away if you are an adult.  He really doesn't work his humor on two levels like, say, Douglas Adams.

[Ed Anger]

Really?  How so?

Did you read it?  The power that the "wise women" (or whatever they were called) was to make men "love" them (the author's term, not mine) helplessly, and what they did with this power of "love" was to make men rip off their penises and eat them.  Add the fact that the way for men to neutralize this power was to gang-rape the shit out of the woman.

That's about as sick as sick gets. 

Plus, the writing is crap, but that's kinda beside the point.

My interest you have gotten. Yes.

[jimmy olsen]

I don't really read sci-fi or fantasy and I think I should, especially after reading the LRB piece on Game of Thrones ( http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n07/john-lanchester/when-did-you-get-hooked ) and Ross Douthat on that piece ( http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/games-of-thrones-and-the-fantasy-authors-challenge/ ).

I generally like genre fiction. I enjoy thrillers, mysteries, comic books and some historical novels but generally avoid sci-fi or fantasy. I don't think writing's the issue either, I don't enjoy a badly written, clunky thriller either.

I think Douthat's right that I normally think I many be interested in a book, look it up online and see it's one of seven in an epic series which worries me. If it gets poor in the middle that seems like a lot of wasted effort and I just may not enjoy it to begin with; though I normally always finish books I start I'm not really keen on reading two books before the author gets into it.

I've read most of the Game of Thrones books (no spoilers, please ) and recently read Hyperion. I enjoyed Game of Thrones a lot. In the end I liked Hyperion but I found bits of it a slog and won't be reading the next book. The only other fantasy-ish book I've recently read was the Rivers of London which I liked.

So I know there's lots of people here who read fantasy and sci-fi. What's good?

Edit: And I've got Cryptonomicon waiting to go, because loads of people have mentioned Stephenson here. I really enjoyed Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell too.

If you liked Star Wars, the original trilogy, there are some pretty decent books.  Some pretty bad too.

There is the Sword of Truth wich was apparently good:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sword_of_Truth

This will be my next reading after the 5th GoT book.  I liked the TV show in the end.

It's ok, but that series is on the whole terrible. Also, there are only 12 books in it.

[frunk]

For Stephenson I wouldn't start with Cryptonomicon unless the setting/story in particular appeals to you.  It was the first of his novels that suffered from story bloat.  Tons of semi-entertaining asides, but with a consequent loss of focus and energy.  I'd start with Diamond Age, Snow Crash or Zodiac, all works that keep the story going but are still geeky interesting.  After that Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque cycle and Reamde in that order assuming you get that far.

Other authors:

William Gibson: Neuromancer, Burning Chrome.  Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive if you want more.
Roger Zelazny: Lord of Light.