Book Recommendations?

After the recommendations I dove into the Expeditionary Force series. I've just started book 7: Renegades. They're OK. I don't love the Skippy character as much as I'm supposed to. I mostly find him a pain in the arse instead of the outrageous scamp. I'd say in general the humour misses the mark for me in these.

I think the action and the characters do work quite well, even if the aliens feel a bit monocultured and un-nuanced (the Kristang El Classico we've met do help with this though, and the Ruhar have varied a lot from the start).

Despite all this I am still enjoying them. I think I like the stories about the Mavericks more than the Pirates (and yes, I know there are interquels starring them I apparently have to read in the middle of the main books), mostly because I like the characters and scale of the problems better I think.

I should mention that I listen to those at like 1.85 speed, and at that pace they are perfect and I love the voices. At 1.0 speed I think they would be a tough sell.

SallyNasty wrote:

I should mention that I listen to those at like 1.85 speed, and at that pace they are perfect and I love the voices. At 1.0 speed I think they would be a tough sell.

I think some of these series I love in audio I might not like as much on paper. This might be one. I suspect the Drew Hayes stuff may also fit in that category.

Making my way through The Dark Forest, the sequel to The Three-Body Problem. I'm not liking this one as much, and it's hard to tell how much of that is that Tor changing the translator and MacMillan Audio changing the reader on the audiobook version, how much is that a sequel inevitably lacks some of the novelty of the original, and how much is it actually being not as good.

In TTBP, you had a couple of strong viewpoint characters. Ye Wenjie especially; she did some monstrous things, but it takes such care to establish the life experiences that made her the way she was and put it into historical context that I couldn't help but like her anyway. Wang Miao was a little more of a stock everyman sci-fi protagonist more useful as a reader stand-in to explore all the clever mysteries the author has come up with, but he served his purpose.

TDF hops around a lot between characters I couldn't keep straight before seeming to settle on Luo Ji as the main character, and he's... it's hard to tell, is he supposed to be kind of the worst? His whole deal is that he's spent an inordinate amount of time and energy imagining his perfect woman, who is exactly the sort of waifish ingenue child-bride with no particular agency or inner life that a socially awkward academic or science fiction writer would think up; she feels like Hwi Noree from God Emperor of Dune.

Spoiler:

Then, when he's given near-unlimited access to resources with no oversight thanks to the Wallfacer Project, he has The World's Greatest Detective And Only Character I Still Care About find the nearest approximation of his dream girl out of the world's eight billion and change people, and acts exactly as creepy and weird toward her as one would expect, and I keep expecting her to act like an actual human being about it at any point and she keeps not doing it and I keep wondering, is this leading up to something? Is there a point to all this?

Then there's the Wallfacer Project itself, which is... a leap. In the first book, people act like people. The ESO felt realistic given everything that's been happening in politics lately; I find it entirely plausible that a lot of people's reaction to an overwhelming alien force showing up would be to make a weird doomsday cult around it, with lots of weird internal splits and infighting among that cult. So far so good.

But now I'm asked to swallow that all of the world's governments more or less put their differences aside and, with minimal squabbling and nobody coming up with some ideological objection and pointing nukes at each other over it, unanimously settled on four people to grant near-unlimited access to resources.
Even if it is a rational solution to the problem of the aliens' perfect surveillance technology-- which is debatable, it feels a little like a chess player making a big deal about the fact that an enemy that already has them in checkmate can't know for sure where they'll move their king next-- when have we ever known the governments of the world to act rationally?

Also apparently humanity decided to go ahead and invent reliable cryogenics in three years, no big deal.
In the first book, besides the aliens themselves the only big science fiction conceit was the ultra-realistic VR technology, and I was willing to go with that because it made for such a lovely way to explore the aliens' history and society and psychology and general raison d'envahir.

I dunno. I guess I'm still curious to see what happens next, but I sort of wish they'd get on with it already.

hbi2k wrote:

Making my way through The Dark Forest, the sequel to The Three-Body Problem. I'm not liking this one as much, and it's hard to tell how much of that is that Tor changing the translator and MacMillan Audio changing the reader on the audiobook version, how much is that a sequel inevitably lacks some of the novelty of the original, and how much is it actually being not as good.

Personally it's my favourite book of the trilogy. Your point about the weird characterisation is spot on, but I just chalked it up to cultural differences. In terms of the science fiction ideas TDF has some great stuff, things that I still think about even to this day. I'd be curious to know if your opinion changes once you finish it.

Just got to a time jump; it looks like the book is separated into chunks. I'm less than enthused that

Spoiler:

Luo Ji has married his blithe spirit manic pixie dream girl, and that the narration keeps on emphasizing how child-like she is even after she has had a child of her own and is now a mother,

but I'm starting to get a handle on the other Wallfacers as characters and the plot seems to be moving forward again, so that's something.

God Luo Ji and his child bride are the worst, though. I recoil at how hard the narrative romanticizes a man with exceptional structural power seeking out a (seemingly much) younger woman specifically selected for being naive, takes her away from her family and support structure, and installs her as his personal emotional support. This is a series that hasn't shied away from the dark side of human nature so I could accept it if it were being presented as more of that, but it's not. Like, at all. There's only so much "cultural differences" can paper over, and this is just... gross.

My reaction to the Remembrance of Earth's Past series was mixed. On the one hand it have very novel and interesting plot points. But on the other hand, it had a lot of what seemed like nonsense to me.

Well, I have not written about F. Paul Wilson since finishing his various series, but I need to, to make the recommendation here. I know some of you have read his stuff. He's written at least one book that has been made into a passable movie.

Wilson's achievement is to write, and complete, a long line of books centering on different characters, all in the same timeline, that converge on a singular endpoint, a denouement he mapped out and spent his entire career working towards. It's come to be called "The Secret History of the World". Each grouping of books and intermezzo short stories moves the overall story further along and at various points characters and story lines twine through tales as interactions, history, prophecy, all sorts of things. It's a very enjoyable series of occult horror full of solid characterization and purpose. I've recommended it before, and I'll recommend it again. If you want perhaps his best-known book, try "The Keep", or if you want a spinal series in the storyline, try the "Repairman Jack" books. The entire series is a whopping, entertaining 38 books and stories, listed here.

Anyway, last year or so I was reading a bunch of urban fantasy and someone mentioned the Daniel Faust series, by Craig Schaefer, the first book being "The Long Way Down". I found it intriguing, with a darker premise than I expected for a character that you can really relate to. Again, great characters, interesting stories and an over-arching storyline that develops complexity and continuity from book to book.

Okay, that's nice. But I hit one book pretty far into the series that mentioned events and characters that I had never run into in the other ones! What did I miss? I quickly hit the Internet and found, to my chagrin, that Schaefer is also working on a set of interconnected stories, and some "minor" characters and major plot lines that I thought were part of the series I was reading, were central to other series that, just like Wilson's, intersect and wind around each other to build the story and advance it along. So I started reading catch-up, as it were.

These are dark urban fantasy books with a surprisingly humorous, light center to many of them, which is kind of a hard trick to pull off. As the stories progress, a sort of Lovecraftian influence begins to show itself. It's a light touch and so very effective; it's hard to tell where the next threat or complication will come from. So I've very much enjoyed the additional books in his ongoing world.

Overall reading order is here. As I said, I've been enjoying them, and while the first book or two in a series might seem to be pretty standard urban fantasy and horror, they really open up as each series gains complexity.

If you like F. Paul Wilson, or really big world-building and solid characters in a fantasy/horror setting, these two series will do it for you. Contains scenes of violence, demonic possession, mental abuse and so forth, of course, akin to many police procedurals or light horror books. So I rate both these series as moderately dark, but not GrimDark. As I noted, though, they do have a very hopeful side to them, in the Light vs. Dark struggle that is central to fantasy literature, so they don't descend into horror for horror's sake.

Recommended with a bullet.

Robear wrote:

Well laid out stuff about interconnected series from a couple of authors...

Reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Discworld reading order. Never sure where to jump in.

Yeah. I mean, I started in the middle, then backtracked to the earlier series. In both cases, that was fine. So both are pretty forgiving, but I included the order lists for purists.

I read all those F Paul Wilson books during my disgraceful horror phase when I was younger (along with Masterson, Herbert and the like).

Spoiler:

I liked The Keep and the one with the Indian Rakshasa things, and then read the ones with the devil getting reincarnated, which culminated with the characters from his other books all being in the same story (I want to say Nightworld, but that may be wrong).

I was very impressed with that interconnectedness concept at the time. I haven't been tempted to go back to them though, since it's not really my thing any more.

Maybe spoiler some or all of that?

I got to interview F. Paul Wilson when I was co-hosting The Library Police podcast. He's an... interesting guy. I really love the beginning of the Repairman Jack books, and while I think they stumble a bit near the end, I loved the whole series. I know he just got dropped by his publisher, and says he may be done with writing, but man, he produced a hell of a catalog before finishing.

Wonder why he was dropped? He's done some great work. I mean, he's not William Goldman, but he really did write in several different genres, all in the same world.

Robear wrote:

Wonder why he was dropped? He's done some great work. I mean, he's not William Goldman, but he really did write in several different genres, all in the same world.

Depends on who you ask. Spoilered for slightly political stuff:

Spoiler:

His publisher says his sales have dropped to the point that it's not financially worth keeping him on. He, in a recent newsletter, claims that it's because he's a Libertarian and publishers nowadays are too "woke".

"Compounding the block is the fact that my publisher has cancelled me. Everyone I've ever known or worked with at MacMillan/Tor/Forge has either died or retired. No matter that I've published 35 books with the company since 1988, I've been kicked to the curb. I'm sure my sales aren't what they used to be back when I was handing in a new Repairman Jack book every fall, but still, you have to wonder if maybe the idea of working with a straight white libertarian boomer seems to have the new management running for their safe spaces."

...sure *sounds* like an aggrieved 70's/80's libertarian. They are uniquely blind to their arrogant sensitivity.

So due to some unexpected hospital stays i've been going through some old series on Audible. Last one was the Alex Verus Series, and going back to back on them i discovered they did something weird with the audio on book 8. The tone is completely different from the previous books. Going through each one as it was released like every other year or so it wasn't obvious.

Geez, hope you get better soon Ranalin.

Robear wrote:

Geez, hope you get better soon Ranalin.

thanks!

It got sorted, but ended up catching Covid my last day there which added a few more. Had my shots so much better off than others our age, but it still does a number on you.

Robear wrote:

...sure *sounds* like an aggrieved 70's/80's libertarian. They are uniquely blind to their arrogant sensitivity.

You know, not everyone I know who self-identifies as a libertarian is an asshole on balance, but their libertarianism is always the most asshole-ish part of their personality.

And a fair number of them pull a government paycheck and seem blind to the contradiction. Like, no, Ron Swanson is not a cool guy taking down Pawnee county government from the inside. Like everyone else on that show, he's a well-meaning but ignorant and ineffectual buffoon.

I have met exactly 2 people who are *nice* small-l libertarians. About a half dozen others were simply narcissists who justified using people by waving Ayn Rand in their faces and smirking.

Robear wrote:

Geez, hope you get better soon Ranalin.

Same!

Wandering Inn is legit my favorite "series". Also the longest it seems. Yet it is never boring!

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/wg5kWuw.png)

Okay, I need some assistance. I'm in the process of pitching my new manuscript, and several agents have told me that my comps are too old. Apparently, anything older than three years is unacceptable. However, I'm really struggling on finding comps from the last few years that will work for my book. They don't have to be books, if you can think of television or film that works, but I'm looking for recent releases that touch on the following themes:

- A bleak and dangerous setting in which people have carved out a life.
- An isolated community hostile to a newcomer.
- A protagonist forced to risk their life for people who hate them.
- A blend of fantasy and horror.
- A protagonist discovering the ugly history of the establishment to which they've dedicated their life.

Any suggestions would be amazing.

Well I just finished Mark Lawrence's The Book of the Ancestor series and it hits several of those points but it's also 3+ years old.

trichy wrote:

Okay, I need some assistance. I'm in the process of pitching my new manuscript, and several agents have told me that my comps are too old. Apparently, anything older than three years is unacceptable. However, I'm really struggling on finding comps from the last few years that will work for my book. They don't have to be books, if you can think of television or film that works, but I'm looking for recent releases that touch on the following themes:

- A bleak and dangerous setting in which people have carved out a life.
- An isolated community hostile to a newcomer.
- A protagonist forced to risk their life for people who hate them.
- A blend of fantasy and horror.
- A protagonist discovering the ugly history of the establishment to which they've dedicated their life.

Any suggestions would be amazing.

I think the closest popular culture in the last 3 years I can get to that is Apostle a film on Netflix I really rather enjoyed directed by Gareth Evans.

The Harmony Black series, by Craig Schaefer.

Spoiler:

Bleak and dangerous in that as a witch, Harmony is both under-powered and yet has to survive in an highly dangerous underground society within the modern one, hunting those stronger than herself in the name of national security. She can not reveal herself to the public and as a "special agent" is hated by the people she would otherwise naturally shelter among.

The community of magic-users is insular, abusive and highly resistant to newcomers.

Harmony and her crew are lied to and essentially forced into their work.

Urban noir fantasy and horror, definitely.

Over time, Harmony and her team discover that everything they thought they were working for, was a lie.

I've been reading "The Deathworlders” by Philip R. Johnson. It is an ongoing series with a new chapter published almost monthly for about 8 years now. The premise is basically that Earth is one of the most dangerous worlds in the galaxy and so to not only survive here but to thrive humans are one of the toughest and strongest species in the galaxy. It is a genre that has come to be known as HFY (Humans f*ck Yea lol). I am about halfway through. The authors writing had improved quite a bit since the early bits. It could really do with a bit of editing and polishing and being broken up into actual books maybe.

Rykin wrote:

I've been reading "The Deathworlders” by Philip R. Johnson. It is an ongoing series with a new chapter published almost monthly for about 8 years now. The premise is basically that Earth is one of the most dangerous worlds in the galaxy and so to not only survive here but to thrive humans are one of the toughest and strongest species in the galaxy. It is a genre that has come to be known as HFY (Humans f*ck Yea lol). I am about halfway through. The authors writing had improved quite a bit since the early bits. It could really do with a bit of editing and polishing and being broken up into actual books maybe.

I don't see this on Amazon so I assume you are reading it all on the web?

Sorry, Trichy, it occurs to me that the series I recommended might be older than 3 years, although parts of it continue today.