Sci-fi/Fantasy recommendations

[Jacob]

Of all the places my thread could end up...

Having second thoughts about having unlocked it?

[Siege]

Yes, it was the American embassy in Iran, not the Iraninan embassy. Sorry for confusing the easily confused. 

What is "the Iraninan embassy"? Do you mean the Iranian embassy?

It is sad to think you probably don't have a better source of amusement. 

I find Jews plenty funny thank you.

Really? Do you find me funny?
What do you mean I'm funny?
What do you mean, you mean the way I talk? What?
Funny how? What's funny about it?
What did ya say? Funny how?
What?
You mean, let me understand this cause, ya know maybe it's me, I'm a little fucked up maybe, but I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you?
I make you laugh, I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?
No, no, I don't know, you said it. How do I know? You said I'm funny. How the fuck am I funny, what the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me, tell me what's funny!

[Eddie Teach]

You're funnier when drunk.

[Syt]

You're funnier when drunk.

At first I read "furrier". I will go have a coffee now.

[Siege]

You're funnier when drunk.

I don't drink anymore.

[Siege]

Wahr the fukc. Dindn I just post on this tead?

[Eddie Teach]

Ok, so it's Drunk > Sober > Fake Drunk. 

[Sheilbh]

Read the first of Kay's Sarantium novels. I enjoyed it. But there is that serial irritation with fantasies. I feel a little annoyed that, while things happened, it basically seem to be a book that was all about setting up another book. Also he writes around things too much. Generally it was okay but I found myself being frustrated at times. I'd read 'half a hundred candles' and think 'why not fifty?' And I think writers should generally decide that if they're going to write about sex then they'll just write about it, or not include it (sexual tension's something else entirely). I found Kay's euphemistic style quite frustrating.

I also wish I'd gone for the book based on China because I know nothing about that. I recognised way too many analogues in this. But I did enjoy it overall and I'll get the second book.

Also just finished C.J. Sansom's Dominion. I don't know if it fits in this thread. I really liked his Tudor crime series, which are mostly pretty fun (I know I found one pretty ropey, but I can't remember which). In this book Churchill gives way to Halifax and Britain negotiates a peace treaty with Nazi Germany. It's now, I think, in the 50s and Britain's along the way to becoming properly fascist and Hitler's apparently dying. A British scientist finds out something about the nuke from his brother who's been working in America, promptly goes mad and attracts the attention of the resistance (who want to get him to the US at the Americans request) and the SS who want his info to help them in their power struggle with the army.

The plot's well done - as you'd expect from a crime writer - but the characters are a bit weak and it's too long by about a hundred pages. Having said that I think the atmosphere and sort of Britain he creates is brilliant. The big political stuff, Mosley in the Home Office establishing an auxiliary police force and beefing up Special Branch with Blackshirts and the role of class, is well-done. But I also really enjoyed the little details, like that the Lyons Corner Houses are now just 'Corner Houses'. I think he gets that sort-of downbeat, depressed Britain of the 50s just made all the worse by not having won the war and creeping fascism.

Edit: Incidentally going to finish the next Sarantium book, then get some Gene Wolfe and read Cryptonicon (which I've had on my shelf for ages).

[MadImmortalMan]

Question: I have avoided Kay after reading Fionovar and one other book (al-rassan?) because I think his settings are bland and mostly empty of anything not directly involving the plot and characters at hand. The latter is an analogue of medieval Spain that's way more boring than the real Spain. Loved the Silmarillion, but I figured that's because it's Tolkien's world. Should I continue to avoid him on that basis, or is there something more to Sarantium than there was for the previous stuff?

[Gups]

I read Tigana recently. Unlike most fantasy novels I've tried recently, it wasn't so horrible that I gave up on it part way through but I've no interest in reading him again.

Shelf - surprised at you. Try to mix some proper fiction in with all the crap (Stephenson excepted).

[jimmy olsen]

Here's a recommendation I don't think I've seen here.

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville.

Great lovecraftian horror in a steampunk & magic 19th century megalopolis.

[grumbler]

Sheilbh, I don't know if you are interested in time travel SF, but some good ones are Time and Again by Jack Finney (the first of two books, though you don't miss a lot by skipping the second), and a bunch of works by Pohl Anderson: his Time patrol series are excellent "classical SF" works on the theme, and his Dancer from Atlantis (which had the distinction of being the first popular work to introduce the "Santorini as Atlantis" theory).  Time travel stories are generally pretty bad, but these are good to excellent (the Finney books in particular have a great sense of place).

[Sheilbh]

Shelf - surprised at you. Try to mix some proper fiction in with all the crap (Stephenson excepted).

I do. Reading Middlemarch again at the minute. But I always have something a bit easier on my phone for bed and bus reading.

[Malthus]

Cryptonomicon isn't science fiction or fantasy. More like straight fiction.

[Sheilbh]

Okay. I'll read it anyway. I bought it after loads of people here raved about Stephenson.

I've since been told it's not the best to start with