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Book recommendations
I have read all my books at home.
Please, recommend some interesting books to me, that I may not have already read.
Ideally, they will be available in paperback, and not tooo heavy; I tend to do most of my reading on public transport, and lugging![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
grrm's "A feast for crows" around was just too hard. It also wasn't that thrilling reading material - it reminds me a bit of Frank Herbert's Dune saga. First trilogy starts well, and then the fourth book* (feast for crows and God Emperor of Dune) just bogs down into politics, dialogue between characters you don't care about, and a whole lot of nothing really happening.. at great length.
Hopefully GRRM will manage to pick up the pace again in the next few books, as Frank Herbert did, before wrapping up the second trilogy (as Frank Herbert didn't, RIP).
[*: I call A Feast for Crows the fourth novel, despite it being the fifth in the series, because the *actual* third and fourth books were meant to be taken as a single book, but just became too large and were split in half.]
Actually, what do other readers think about the two different ways GRRM coped with splitting the books? A song for Ice and Fire was split in the middle chronologically, but A feast for Crows has been split geographically, and we're told the next book will contain the events that occurred in the same time period as AFFC, but in the north and east.
This leads to some odd bits where we hear about news from those quarters, such as the betrayal and death of Davos, and yet will be reading about the events leading up to that from Davos' perspective in the next novel. Hmm. Unintentional spoiler from the author, do you think, or misdirection?
Please, recommend some interesting books to me, that I may not have already read.
Ideally, they will be available in paperback, and not tooo heavy; I tend to do most of my reading on public transport, and lugging
grrm's "A feast for crows" around was just too hard. It also wasn't that thrilling reading material - it reminds me a bit of Frank Herbert's Dune saga. First trilogy starts well, and then the fourth bookHopefully GRRM will manage to pick up the pace again in the next few books, as Frank Herbert did, before wrapping up the second trilogy (as Frank Herbert didn't, RIP).
[*: I call A Feast for Crows the fourth novel, despite it being the fifth in the series, because the *actual* third and fourth books were meant to be taken as a single book, but just became too large and were split in half.]
Actually, what do other readers think about the two different ways GRRM coped with splitting the books? A song for Ice and Fire was split in the middle chronologically, but A feast for Crows has been split geographically, and we're told the next book will contain the events that occurred in the same time period as AFFC, but in the north and east.
This leads to some odd bits where we hear about news from those quarters, such as the betrayal and death of Davos, and yet will be reading about the events leading up to that from Davos' perspective in the next novel. Hmm. Unintentional spoiler from the author, do you think, or misdirection?
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Hm. I'll try to restrain myself.
First, I assume you know that MMS (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/vampires/newstory/smith_p1.shtml) is writing a "crime/thriller" series as Michael Marshall - skin crawling stuff.
In the cyberpunk category, you probably know of Bruce Sterling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Sterling), but if you didn't, he's about halfway between Gibson and Iain M. Banks. The Artificial Kid is fun. Oh, and if you've not read Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Bester#The_Stars_My_Destination), haunt second hand bookshops for a copy. It was originally published as Tiger! Tiger!, but he rewrote some of it for the new title, and it's often considered the ancestor of cyberpunk. It's got wired reflexes, way back in the 50s.
Lois McMaster Bujold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_McMaster_Bujold)'s Vorkosigan Saga (http://www.baen.com/series_list.asp#VS) is heady SF crack. It's now quite difficult to get hold of them here in .au, but Baen seem to be re-releasing them as three book compilations, usually with "Miles" in the title.
She's now writing a fantasy series, which I've yet to get into.
I've been told that Stephen Brust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Brust") is equally addictive, and suspect he'll be the next major drain on my book budget.
Hm. Google Sets (http://labs.google.com/sets?hl=en&q1=Lois+McMaster+Bujold&q2=Michael+Marshall+Smith&q3=Iain+M.+Banks&q4=Neil+Gaiman&q5=Stephen+Brust&btn=Large+Set) offers a pretty comprehensive Who's Who if you type in a few relevant names.
David Brin's Uplift Saga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uplift_Universe) is good solid SF (and was apparently an inspiration for the Star Control games), and his standalone The Practice Effect is one of the most enjoyable books I've read.
(Oh, and keep an eye out for Connie Willis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Willis) and Janet Kagan (http://www.janetkagan.com/)).
For mental bubblegum, Robert Asprin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Asprin) is often compared favourably with Pratchett - go with the Myth series for fantasy, and the Phule series for SF (I prefer the latter series).
His more recent novels are co-authored, for interesting reasons.
Still in the light reading category, David Weber's War God (http://www.baen.com/series_list.asp#WarGod) series is enjoyable fantasy fluff, less interminable than the Honor Harrington novels... although I'm amazed that none of Weber's protagonists have pulled their noses off yet. At least three of them (each in a different series) "pull on <their> nose" every other page, it seems.
Finally, so-called juvenile fiction. This tag causes a lot of people to overlook some good stuff. I should mention Garth Nix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Nix) and Isobelle Carmody (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobelle_Carmody) to support the local market, but really, just go out and buy every Diana (http://www.leemac.freeserve.co.uk/) Wynne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Wynne_Jones) Jones (http://www.suberic.net/dwj/) book you can lay your hands on.
There's more - lot's more - but I've already spent far too much time on this. Enjoy. Oh, and I've had Perdido Street Station strongly recommended to me by a couple of people now, so I'll have to check that out myself. And maybe a few of the others mentioned above...
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Oh, and one more book to look for; it's out of print, rare and hard to find, but if you see a copy of Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds, grab it.
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The tagline is "A novel of Ancient China that never was", which is about the closest you'll get. By parts comedy, detective story, legend, and general weirdness.
One of those books that "cool people know about". Like Only Forward.
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Bastard. (The FOAF, not Neil).
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