Just finished a book that you want other people to read? Looking for something new? Post about it here! The Saga of Edda-Earth An alternate history/fantasy trilogy set in a world where Rome never fell and magic and all the gods are real. The story follows a diverse cast in their work as bodyguards to an important politician and as they try to avert the end of the world. I love the worldbuilding and I could easily see someone roleplaying in this setting. And I started calling the main cast precious bbys before I was halfway through the first book. There's plenty of mythology too which is basically my jam It's only available through Amazon Kindle but you can get the Kindle app for your computer or any mobile device. I really want people other than @Nochi to read this book and flail about it at. Also Nochi needs to let me read the third book already
Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black There's a small, modern town beside a forest, where fairies still interfere with human lives. The main character is a teenage girl from this town, and while there are knights and bards, changelings, ensorcelled humans, terrifying monsters, and sleepers in glass coffins, but most if not all of the stereotypes about such things are turned totally on their head, and it's fantastic.
necros this thread because i just reread the deepgate codex as i do every so often & i want to rec it a lil bit essentially the series starts out in a weird city hanging over a gaping pit, where there's an angel named dill who lives in the city temple. the pit is the jail of ulcis, one of the seven gods, & the patron of the city (called deepgate, hence the series name), who demands that all the dead of the city are thrown into the pit for him. there's also another angel who goes by carnival, who hunts people & drinks their blood once a month on scar night. the temple assassins, called the spine, hunt her in turn. from here the series goes to hell, where literally everything is made of the souls of the dead, & an illegitimate child of one of the two original gods is trying to conquer all of hell & earth, dill gets to meet my favorite of the seven gods, & also there's some body snatching. the third book gets iffy (i am personally not a fan of time travel but whatev) but! it is still good. there's a dude who carries an entire floating ship around. he destroys buildings with the rope, his name's anchor, he's larger than everyone else by a significant amount. serious self harm warnings for the first book, also some noncon (nothing explicit but implied in a backstory), & for the second book there is a lot of body horror (due to hell literally being made of people). actually these can prob continue through the whole series, but not quite as bad some of the parts are just. 3edgy5me but at the same time super fucked & i luve me some fucked up stuff. now, for my spades ship i mentioned in my status: Spoiler: idk why im spoilering this it just feels right so one of the main characters is a temple assassin named rachel hael, who is the only one not "tempered", which means essentially she's not a living zombie. so she's considered expendable, despite the fact that she's probably more skilled than all her colleagues, & she desperately wants to be tempered even though her family won't sign the consent forms. at one point, the spine use her as bait to trap carnival, who is not known for her sunny disposition. they fight, they throw insults, carnival basically swears to murder rachel, rachel breaks expensive things to escape. later in the book, rachel jumps off into the abyss to get dill to go down, knowing that he would go after her & catch her. carnival is nearby, is delighted, yells something like "she almost hit me", but then realizes dill can't actually catch rachel no matter what because he is a shelter little baby & carnival catches rachel, despite all signs pointing to them hating each other. the next book carnival lurks around rachel killing other assassins so she can escape from deepgate. now kiss then fight
BUSTS IN WE HAVE A BOOK REC THREAD LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU A THING PLEASE LISTEN TO SCOTT SIGLER'S AUDIOBOOK VERSIONS OF THE INFECTED TRILOGY so okay the books are great by themselves he writes the most ridiculous, kinda gross-out, super-great-characters alien invasion sci-fi I REALLY LOVE SCOTT SIGLER and I'm trying not to just chuck everything he's ever written in here please start with Infected but the reason I always recommend people do the audiobooks if they can is because scott does the reading himself, and he does all the voices. for all the characters. and he so very, clearly, thoroughly enjoys it. it's hilarious. I've listened to a few of his other audiobooks like earthcore and blood is red and bones are white and I need to lsiten to nocturnal yet and (oh man, earthcore. EARTHCORE. it's intense it's so good it's not aliens but oh man I love scott sigler please read this dork's books I love him)
Here you go. Take four of these and call me in a year. Gentlemen Bastards series by Scott Lynch (3 books out, 4th book not in the series but in the same world on the way) The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss (2 books out, 1 on the way to close the series, a REALLY fabulous short story as well that will give you headaches) (He just signed a deal with Lionsgate for movie/tv series/videogame!) Imperial Radch Series by Ann Leckie. This is the strangest thing ive ever read. (3 books, just won about every sci fi award on the planet) (thanks to @kmoss for the original Rec, along with some other ones in here) Anything ever written by Jim Butcher. Shame on you if you dont recognise the name. Start with the Dresden Files. Webmage and Fallen Blade series by Kelly McCullough. Kelly is a good friend of mine and I beta read for the Fallen Blade series. Webmage is awesome, literally a blend of sci-fi and fantasy done incredibly well - digs alot into myth and computer tech. Equations of Life by Simon Morden (3 books, post apocalyptic world) (on that note, read Freakangels - webcomic available online for free) Anything by Terry Pratchett. Discworld specifically. (I think there are...20 something novels? similar to the Xanth stuff from Anthony in the 80s, very punny and irreverent, but a little more adult) Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman (Dont you dare ask me who Gaiman is) The Acorna series by Anne McCaffery Older sci-fi but really involved. McCaffery is one of the worldbuilding masters. She also wrote the Freedoms Landing series which is a little bit more pulp/harlequin but still enjoyable. The In Death series by JD Robb. JD Robb is Nora Roberts who is kinda the queen of harlequin romance. In Death is about a post apocalyptic rebuilding New New York police officer who solves crime with good old fashioned blah blah blah THEY ARE AWESOME (theres about 50 books too). Jack Reacher series by Lee Child (not spec fiction at all, but these are super enjoyable books). The Dortmunder series by Donald E Westlake and the Spenser novels by Robert B Parker. Parker and Westlake basically invented every single urban noir stereotype that exists and just took it in different directions. Dortmunder has about 15 novels, Spenser has about 90 and the series is still going (pretty well) by Ace Adkins. Hot Rock by Westlake and God Save the Child by Parker are the books you should start with.
I have a lot of books recs, but here're the ones that are forefront in my head at the moment. Nonfiction Anything by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I'm super picky about my nonfiction related to my favorite topics (biology, human health, nature, etc.) and I think Dr. Mukherjee really fucking nails it. I've read The Emperor of All Maladies (cancer) and The Gene (genetics) and there's more that I haven't read that I want to read. TEoAM and The Gene were really excellent, although TEoAM may suffer a bit from its age (cancer medicine and research moves quickly, so some stuff may be inaccurate/out of date). I really love Oliver Sacks and think all of his books are super interesting, especially the later ones. Musicophilia is the book that got me interested in his work. Sam Keans is another kind of "popular" science nonfiction writer, and has written about the periodic table (The Disappearing Spoon). A bit lighter and easier to read than some. Erik Larson does some pretty fascinating stuff about history. The Devil in the White City intertwines the story of a murderer and 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The Drunken Botanist is a fun read about plants and alcohol and the relation between the two. Fiction Anything by Max Gladstone. Super great, original, interesting fantasy in a great setting with a lot of diversity. The Familiar series by Mark Z. Danielewski. This is recommended with caveats: it may be hard as shit to read, he writes in a sort of stream-of-consciousness with odd punctuation that varies from character to character. The format also changes: some parts are told through what look like YouTube screenshots, others are dialogues, etc. The story jumps all over the place, because each chapter focuses on different characters and there are a bunch, but things seem to maybe be drawing together? The "main main" character is a young teenage girl who finds a kitten in a storm. It's very hard to describe, but I'm really into it. There are two books out (The Familiar Vols 1 and 2) and I think it's meant to be a trilogy, but we'll see. If you're familiar (haha) with House of Leaves, then you'll have some idea of what The Familiar is like. The books themselves are just really pretty too, I think. Anything by David Mitchell. I think he's got an interesting premise going on that ties a lot of his books together, as well as recurring characters, and I really like his brand of fantasy, which is very grounded in the world as it is/was (with some forays into potential futures). I don't know, authors that create worlds where their books are set but the books aren't necessarily linked sequentially is a Thing I really love. The Bone Clocks is probably my favorite, but it's hard to choose. Woo I was gonna do more but I suddenly ran out of brain energy and it's long enough anyway. I love reading, it's my main hobby, please feel free to ask me about specifics or whatnot!
Fiction: I'm really enjoying Marie Brennan's memoirs of Lady Trent. They're styled as Victorian-era travelogues written by the first in-universe woman to make a formal study of dragons. I like the stylistic choice, although it comes with a bit of the exoticising/Orientalist xenophobia that actual Victorian travelogues tend to have. But they're fun, and the main character has no impulse control.
Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L Howard is a personal favorite. his YA series, the Russalka Chronicles are another favorite series of mine also, seconding @Saro in reccing Sam Kean and @Dauhawk in reccing Jim Butcher otherwise, for fiction: everything by Seanan McGuire oh my glob her October Daye series is the best urban fae series I've ever read and everyone is queer as shit Charles de Lint has written a lot of really good books and short stories about survivors of abuse the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix is fantastic, as is the Keys to the Kingdom series and I've loved everything I've ever read by Patricia C Wrede for nonfiction: Assassination Vacation, the Wordy Shipmates, and Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell are all hilarious and v well done Brave New Brain by Nancy C Andreasen, Neurotribes by Steve Silberman and Incognito by David Eagleman are all wonderful books on neuroscience
hops back in here with another rec alastair reynolds is a british sci fi writer who's also an astrophysicist, which normally would be an "oh no his writing is super hard to follow" type deal but this guy is really good. he's currently working on a series focused on the intertwining fates of sentient elephants & one particular family from africa throughout the age of spaceflight, starting with a book called 'blue remembered earth'. it's super good other noteworthy books by him include: terminal world (something went wrong with the world, there are zones of technology that people have a hard time crossing, super awesome things implied) diamond dogs, turquoise days (this one is two short novellas i read 5 years ago & i still think about the first one a lot) the prefect (space cops in space + posthuman intelligences, evolved pigs, aliens that aren't aliens) plus many more, but those are my faves! the dude has a way with fiction words for being a physicist
I just finished Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and it's sooooo good. It's a post-apocalyptic (swine flu pandemic) story about a travelling theater troupe that performs Shakespeare plays 20 years after the apocalypse. (a lot of it is flashbacks to before and during the pandemic). The writing is so good (I don't know how to describe writing but wikipedia says it's understated, so, that), and it focuses on regular people problems re:surviving the apocalypse and on how people start rebuilding human culture (through newspapers and museums and whatnot). Relatedly, The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell is a nonfiction book that describes how to recreate various technologies in a postapocalyptic scenario.
i don't know if this really qualifies, but the voynich manuscript is really fun to poke through, even if no one can read it :'D and i never got to finish it because my dad kept stealing his copy back, but i really, really enjoyed what i read of john michael greer's Star's Reach. really interesting and fun read with some concepts in there i got to take away and chew on!
I seem to be on an AI kick lately (or at least, books with AI's). I loved Leckie's Imperial Radch books, and from Goodreads recommendations based off that I wound up reading and enjoying The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet and the sequel A Closed And Common Orbit. Now I'm reading On A Red Station Drifting. I'm already craving more AI's, so please share your favourites with me.
@budgie Have you read Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's Long Earth? It's got a great AI character, and is a really neat take on multiverses to boot! I've also heard good things about Cixin Liu's sci-fi, but I've not read any yet myself.
@lupadracolis I have read the Long Earth! I haven't read anything by Cixin Liu, but I skimmed the Goodreads for the Three Body Problem and that sounds interesting. (No idea if it has an AI; will report back)
the three body problem & sequels are really good! there's even an ai involved (sophon is a beautiful, glorious dick), though not for much.
P.C. Hodgell's Kencyrath books are delightful and that woman now owns my fucking soul. However warnings for incest (consensual and otherwise), accurately depicted mental illness, and CSA must be given. Because. Yeah. Her world building is delightful though, and the tone of the books is similar to a wuxia novel. Also I've never seen pure-o OCD depicted as well as I have in these fucking books. Karen Traviss's Republic Commando and Imperial Commando books are probably the best thing to come out of the Legends EU. If you like military fiction of the sci-fi variety they are lovely. You may also like them if you find the Jedi Council sketchy as fuck. James Luceno's Tarkin seems to be turning out nicely for current canon shit. Based off what little of it I've read. He's a delightful asshole. If you want horror novels about queer women and mental illness that are kind of like what would happen if Virginia Woolfe and H.P. Lovecraft fucked and had a lesbian child then Caitlín R. Kiernan's work may be your shit. The Drowning Girl and The Red Tree are my favorite of her works. But Threshold is really lovely if you love James Joyce. EVERYTHING BY JAMES JOYCE EVER.
Occasionally I go on a romance novel kick—one of the recent ones I've read was the first book in the "A Court of Thorns and Roses" series, by Sarah J. Maas. I think the first book is the same as the series title, and I REALLY liked the take on fae-world stuff, and the various different kingdoms It ramps up into political intrigue in the later books, supposedly, but I haven't gotten to read them yet :( re: the first book? heads up, there's smut, and a decent bit of Blood And Whatnot
Anyone have comedy book recs? As for recs of my own: the darkeye trilogy by Lydia West is wonderful and heartbreaking. Post apocalyptic setting with super smart talking dogs (wild and domestic) in an obviously human made city living a lean existence and on the edge of collapse. Horror elements and warnings for cannibalism and gore. The author is a biologist who has written the best publicly available and accessible histories of the domestication of cats and dogs.
