trying to remember how much of the first paragraph shows up on mouseover... i know, i'll put an image ok i think we're safe. EVERYBODY HELP ME FIGURE OUT WHAT TO GET SEEBS FOR XMAS!! i'm thinking books, but our tastes differ just enough that it's hard for me to find the right stuff. seebs likes fantasy that gets creative with worldbuilding on a meta level, but is accessible and light to read. so like, not so much with the hal duncan or china mieville. more linear storytelling and likeable characters. and since i'm way out on the hal duncan china mieville end of spec fic, i have a real hard time figuring out how to tell light-but-clever from insipid if it's not pratchett. which, of course, we have read all of six times. seebs also likes sci-fi but i have an even harder time figuring out what their criteria are and what they haven't read, since aside from a few exceptions sci-fi's not my thing. they do seem to like space very much, and particularly Big Weird Extreme Future space stuff like the Culture series. help?
There´s a series starting with Unsouled by Will Wight which i enjoyed, it´s Fantasy with some scifi elements and very nice world building. (You might also like it.) I enjoyed the protagonists and how they play off each other, especially because the viewpoint character is such a slytherin. The facvt that the world starts off stacked against him makes it very sympathetic when he finds way around problems, especially because the narratives never fingerwags him for it. His solution is considered perfectly legitimate, just unexpected.
I've heard some good things about Terra Ignota (it's a three-and-apparently-soon-to-be-four-book series, the first is Too Like the Lightning), but I don't know if it really fits - I haven't personally read anything from it, so I can't tell you much about the characters or reading accessibility.
Okay, given everything I know about you two I am nearly positive the answer is yes to both, but has seebs ever read The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy? Or the works of Neil Gaiman?
@Codeless the 'kid levels up' sounds about right, i'll look into that. @Acey yeah, we've both read those.
ohhh abhorsen trilogy by garth nix has incredible worldbuilding with a magic system based on music and its so incredibly good imperial radch books too but those are more popular i think so u guys might have read em already
Figured as much, but thought it was worth checking at least. :P Do you have any examples of some of their favorite books/authors?
uhhh i would have to get out of my comfy chair and i'm lazy there are several whose titles/authors i've forgotten that are grouped around the concept of a 'magic' world where the magic is actually Sufficiently Advanced Science. also the Laundry series where supernatural stuff is treated in a kind of sciencey and espionage way.
Oh oh oh! Arcane Acension series by Andrew Rowe! The world started in a another series and is based on tabletops but taken in a different direction, and it mixes tabletop stuff into a real feeling world well.
If they like Pratchett, how about Ursula Vernon’s books as T Kingfisher? They scratch a similar narrative itch for me.
The machineries of empire series by Yoon Ha Lee (Ninefox Gambit being the first book) is very much in the Big Weird Future space opera category! It is a bit boggy before you are familiar with all the faction names and how the magic/science/math system works, as a good deal of the big weird future technology is based on math generated magic, and a whole lot lot of factional interactions, but that seems like something Seebs would be into.
here's a semi-decent blurb from goodreads: "Sent to a boarding school in Ancelstierre as a young child, Sabriel has had little experience with the random power of Free Magic or the Dead who refuse to stay dead in the Old Kingdom. But during her final semester, her father, the Abhorsen, goes missing, and Sabriel knows she must enter the Old Kingdom to find him. With Sabriel, the first installment in the Abhorsen series, Garth Nix exploded onto the fantasy scene as a rising star, in a novel that takes readers to a world where the line between the living and the dead isn't always clear—and sometimes disappears altogether." it's....so good............theres also a talking cat demon and cool ancient bloodlines - one built the wall, one in the royal family, one in the abhorsen, and one in the clayr who live in a glacier and can see the future?? i think. it's so so good blease more people need to read these books binding the dead happens thru bells and chimes and i still find that so compelling and delightful ............im gonna go reread these books after my finals it has been too long edit: also the way that the series handles death as a concept and a worldbuilding mechanic?? so good. so so so good
so you want to be a wizard has always been my go to for "sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science" ngl but I'm guessing you guys have already read through most/all of the young wizards series?
long way to a small angry planet? murderbot series, yes for sure seconding the abhorsen series! good smart worldbuilding
