Book Recommendations?

ranalin wrote:
Natus wrote:

Large fantasy and sci-fi sale on Audible for Premium Plus members only.

This reminds me... I'm getting very annoyed at Audible relabeling/formatting titles so that books they show now aren't marked as in your library. There's been multiple times I've had things in my cart to remember at the last minute that I actually already have a copy.

Oh wow, I thought that was just happening on Kindle. Audible, too?

Natus wrote:
ranalin wrote:
Natus wrote:

Large fantasy and sci-fi sale on Audible for Premium Plus members only.

This reminds me... I'm getting very annoyed at Audible relabeling/formatting titles so that books they show now aren't marked as in your library. There's been multiple times I've had things in my cart to remember at the last minute that I actually already have a copy.

Oh wow, I thought that was just happening on Kindle. Audible, too?

Yea it looks like when they change publishers they lose track or count it that way.

I think someone here recommended The Last Astronaut by David Wellington? Yah, bad recommendation. I still have about a quarter of the book left but man, these people are poorly written and their motivations are silly. Sorry, but this one is a stinker.

Can't really go wrong with Abercrombie. I also enjoyed the Dresden Files as a whole. Alex Verus seconded, same thing with Laundry files. I'm on a Warhammer 40K kick again and anything by Dan Abnett is gold. The Dread Empire's Fall series is solid space opera and Ken Liu's The Grace of Kings is up in the next reads. I enjoyed Hail Mary as well and look forward to the movie.

I also just finished Hail Mary and enjoyed it.

Ooh! The Sandman is free on audible today!

SallyNasty wrote:

Ooh! The Sandman is free on audible today!

Dope!! It’s really good. I bought it on day one. I wish they would continue the series. Maybe they are… Maybe the freebie is meant to spark interest in the next one?

I just finished Jo Spurrier's Children of the Black Sun fantasy trilogy (Winter Be My Shield, Black Sun Light My Way, North Star Guide Me Home). The frozen northern kingdom of Ricalan (basically Siberia), after a civil war in which a cabal of mages tried to seize control, killed all its mages and outlawed magic. A hundred years later, this turns out to have been a big mistake, as neighbouring empires use armies reinforced with powerful wizards to conquer Ricalan and enslave its people. A small group of outlaws, including Ricalan's few surviving mages, try to fight off the invaders while also trying to convince their people to get over their ingrained fear of magic.

I enjoyed the journey, but be warned that this is a very dark, violent story. I don't know if I'd actually call it Grimdark; there are people here who are trying to do good and sometimes succeed. The work it most reminded me of was RF Kuang's Poppy War series; both trilogies have something to say about war crimes and the consequences of violence. Children of the Black Sun repeatedly brings up questions of guilt, responsibility, and forgiveness. Can someone who has committed atrocities, but is genuinely repentant, ever be forgiven? Points to the author for repeatedly emphasising that forgiveness isn't something you can just ask for; you have to earn it, and then it's up to the people you wronged to decide whether to forgive you. Recommended.

(It's not all doom and gloom. I was two books in before I realised that three of the characters are named Sirri, Aleksar, and Cortana.)

Finished Storm Front this past weekend and thought it a perfectly fine beach read. I know this, because I finished while on the beach. Didn't require much thought, and was the perfect quick read I was hoping it would be. I won't be rushing out to read the entire Dresden Files immediately, but I might read them here and there when I need something light between heavier stuff.

I started The Blade Itself, and I'm actually kind of hooked. Not much has happened yet, 150 pages in, but I'm enjoying learning about the characters. I think I'll finish this one pretty quickly despite the book's heft.

Glad you liked Storm Front!

Bubble, the graphic novel based on the podcast series is fantastic. Great art and new jokes.

The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later is so dull. (For those not familiar with it, it's the second sequel to The Three Musketeers and it's divided into 3 or 4 books, depending on the version. I have the 4 book version.)

The first of the four "books" was much like the previous stories and covered d'Artagnan and Athos in England, and then d'Artagnan goes on a task for the king.

The second book of four, what I'm reading now, is mostly about the court of Louis XIV. Basically a lot of gossiping, romantic entanglements, eavesdropping, and it's really really boring.

I'm just trying to power through it to get to The Man in the Iron Mask which is supposed to be very good.

I got through all those sequels as a teenager, amazingly enough, but they are very dry between The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask.

I just read those two, and walked away quite happy.

I’m almost halfway through East of Eden. Steinbeck is an absolute master.

Robert Evans of Behind the Bastards wrote a pretty good novel with a pretty generic name called After the Revolution, and released it for free serialized on the linked site, but also as an epub and a podcast series. I’m already a big fan of Evans but I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it’s very similar to John Dies at the End, in a setting that varies from low-cyberpunk to Mad Max.

After the Revolution is a novel about North America, roughly twenty years after the collapse of the old United States. In the Republic of Texas, a failing Libertarian rump state, a Christian dominionist militia suddenly sweeps into power, disrupting the lives of our three protagonists.

Manny is a fixer, ferrying journalists across the sundry hotspots of North Texas. Sasha is a suburban teenage girl, bent on joining with the dominionists. And Roland is an old revolutionary and U.S. army veteran, with a body full of high-grade cyberware and a head full of broken memories. Together, they’ll confront the nightmare that is the ‘Heavenly Kingdom’ and try to rescue Manny’s home of Austin from the flames of damnation.

ruhk wrote:

Robert Evans of Behind the Bastards wrote a pretty good novel with a pretty generic name called After the Revolution, and released it for free serialized on the linked site, but also as an epub and a podcast series. I’m already a big fan of Evans but I thoroughly enjoyed the book, it’s very similar to John Dies at the End, in a setting that varies from low-cyberpunk to Mad Max.

After the Revolution is a novel about North America, roughly twenty years after the collapse of the old United States. In the Republic of Texas, a failing Libertarian rump state, a Christian dominionist militia suddenly sweeps into power, disrupting the lives of our three protagonists.

Manny is a fixer, ferrying journalists across the sundry hotspots of North Texas. Sasha is a suburban teenage girl, bent on joining with the dominionists. And Roland is an old revolutionary and U.S. army veteran, with a body full of high-grade cyberware and a head full of broken memories. Together, they’ll confront the nightmare that is the ‘Heavenly Kingdom’ and try to rescue Manny’s home of Austin from the flames of damnation.

I like his journalism writing much more than his fiction, but he is a great writer. I plan on listening to this soon.

Just finished Becky Chambers “A Psalm for the Wild-Built”, and it’s a balm for the mind, for sure. Absolutely delightful, thoughtful and evocative. Highly recommended. It is, however, the first book of a trilogy, with the other two yet to come. But it is complete in itself, setting the stage and having it’s own revelations and resolutions.

I finished Joe Abercrombie‘s The Blade Itself and thoroughly enjoyed it. The tonal consistency was a lot easier to deal with than Locke Lamora’s whiplash. I’m off to the library to pick up the follow-up now!

Read Battle Royal which is a book about a group of kids being put on a island and are forced to kill each other. Don't get to attached to anyone. Death count is high and no one is safe. Kind of reminded me of those horror mangas that are hopeless. For a bit anyway it seems like everyone except maybe the "winner" is going to die. Maybe a bit of hope comes in at points.

The world the game takes place in is interesting. Definitely making a statement on governments with to much control over the people.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Read Battle Royal which is a book about a group of kids being put on a island and are forced to kill each other. Don't get to attached to anyone. Death count is high and no one is safe. Kind of reminded me of those horror mangas that are hopeless. For a bit anyway it seems like everyone except maybe the "winner" is going to die. Maybe a bit of hope comes in at points.

The world the game takes place in is interesting. Definitely making a statement on governments with to much control over the people.

That's an oldie but...goodie? I mean, I enjoyed it when I read it. There are some sadistic characters to deal with. I remember the story, though, being well told. Still, I'm not really sure I ever need to go back and reread it.

Finished Bubble this morning. It is a graphic novelization of the podcast of the same name. Basically a funny sci-fi story about a domed city and the gig economy people who fight monsters encroaching from the outside. It is gently mocking Millenial culture (by Millenials) and is really funny. If you've already listened to the podcast, there is almost nothing new, but the art is great.

beanman101283 wrote:

I finished Joe Abercrombie‘s The Blade Itself and thoroughly enjoyed it. The tonal consistency was a lot easier to deal with than Locke Lamora’s whiplash. I’m off to the library to pick up the follow-up now!

Abercrombie is very talented at subverting tropes and expectations.

Wow, Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth, incredibly entertaining. Tamsyn Muir is the real deal, easily the best new stuff Ive read since Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.

AcidCat wrote:

Wow, Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth, incredibly entertaining. Tamsyn Muir is the real deal, easily the best new stuff Ive read since Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.

I enjoyed those as well. The very modern use of language felt a little out of place at points though, specifically some of Gideon's insults and stuff. Looking forward to the third book though.

Rykin wrote:
AcidCat wrote:

Wow, Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth, incredibly entertaining. Tamsyn Muir is the real deal, easily the best new stuff Ive read since Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy.

I enjoyed those as well. The very modern use of language felt a little out of place at points though, specifically some of Gideon's insults and stuff. Looking forward to the third book though.

This was just expanded to a "quadology" from a trilogy!

After Patrick Rothfuss and GRR Martin I just have a hard time starting series before they are finished.

Just finished Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, and Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson (i.e. the Mistborn Era 2 books) all within a week and they were pure pleasure to read. It was a bold move to take the extant magic systems from the Mistborn Trilogy (i.e. Era 1) and bring them forward to a 1800s America-like setting, but I thought it worked really well. I think I like the characters better than the Era 1 folks too. Looking forward to reading the final volume in this Era when it's published in 2022.

If anyone enjoyed Peter Clines 14 and The Fold I recently checked and there is a 3rd and 4th book in that universe to read.

Math wrote:

Just finished Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, and Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson (i.e. the Mistborn Era 2 books) all within a week and they were pure pleasure to read. It was a bold move to take the extant magic systems from the Mistborn Trilogy (i.e. Era 1) and bring them forward to a 1800s America-like setting, but I thought it worked really well. I think I like the characters better than the Era 1 folks too. Looking forward to reading the final volume in this Era when it's published in 2022.

Agreed. Not as dark as the first set of books. Much more fun for me.