Good Books (Scifi)

[Shadowhawk]

I'd like to recommend yet another urban fantasy series, namely Laurell K. Hamilton "Anita Blake" series. Main character starts as animator (one that raises dead) in Animators Inc., on retainer as specialist to Regional Preternatural Investigation Team and part-time vampire executioner, and her powers grow from book to book... like some other character we know . Further books are "heavier" and have more adult contents.

Starts with "Guilty Pleasures".

[Edengrave]

Yes, Modesitt is one of those rare authors, that never lower the quality of their work. Good fantasy, and excellent scifi. Although I would like to dispute the fact that his fantasy is really scifi underneath Shadowhawk. But this is not the place I guess .Of Tangible ghosts and the following books are pretty hard to find though. I know because I've been looking on and off for 2 years now. You'd probably have to order it. I particularly recommend the forver hero series...It's simply put, a gem.
On a side note, a nice scifi series is Takeshi kovac series By Richard Morgan. Though some might argue it's closer to cyber pulp, that's just a sub-genre of sci-fi anyway. I also recoment Daniel Keyes Moran, "continuing time" series. It's a damn fine piece of work, and less known that it shoul be. Although he's really slow in publishing. hope those help you out.

Ja ne

[afrigeek]

Don't know if this has been psoted before:

Lots of magic stuff at http://www.inserein.com and dark heros kinda like Tarrin...but no non human creatures...

[Shadowhawk]

Don't know if this has been posted before:

Lots of magic stuff at http://www.inserein.com and dark heros kinda like Tarrin...but no non human creatures...

Yes, the link was if I remember correctly posted at Links to good reading... thread. <searches for the post>. I guess not. But it is present at my Sennadar Wiki page Shadowhawk/Links to good reading.

[afrigeek]

oh yeah. Just saw the link to your wiki page on IRC....Let me go through this whole thread and see if I can find anything to occupy me

[Chthonius]

I read through the previous pages, so hopefully I'm not recrossing tread ground with these suggestions.

Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series... at leat the first 3 or four anyway. Being honest here, I lost interest partway through, but then, I had borrowed the full set from a friend and was reading them rather quickly. I know, I know, not something one should really do to enjoy the book, and I plan to give the series a more fair shake at some point in the future.

Laura Anne Gilman's "Staying Dead". This is the only book of hers that I have read, mainly because I read in, then lost it, and couldn't find the thing for an embarassingly long time, preventing me from following up on it. I found it a couple of months ago, and went to buy the sequels that have been released, but upon hearing some rather negative reviews, decided to wait until I could borrow them from the library first. There is an admittedly sappy love element, and some questions that are left questions at the completion of the story, but it also has some very original elements, and a rather engaging writing style.

Tad Williams. I think somebody mentioned him earlier, but I'll expand what they said into "read whatever you can get ahold of". The plots tend to be extremely complicated, with an extremely large number of "main" (by which I mean characters who are pivotal to the story... in sennadar that would include people like Triana, Jesmind, etc., not just Tarrin, even though we don't see the story from some of those character's viewpoints) characters, and that prevented a friend I loaned the books to from actually reading them, but I've really enjoyed every single book of his I've read, which adds up to a fair number. The "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" series, the "Otherland" series, "The War of the Flowers", and "Tailchaser's Song", all told. I haven't bought his newest book, as it begins another trilogy, and he has a rather horrible update rate. Not quite as bad as J.K. Rowling, but pretty often you're looking at two years between books. If you're not ready for the kind of time-commitment that either of the completed series would require, I would suggest getting a copy of Tailchaser's Song. This is shorter than the other stand-alone I've read (and thus can vouch for the quality of) so it should give you an idea of his writing style, and whether you'd enjoy his longer works.

Sorry for my horrible sentence structure. I've always been one to write badly phrased, rather long sentences. :/ I also apologize for any mispellings or other errors there might be. I plead insomnia, and that I'm typing on an unfamiliar keyboard.

[shades98]

I've picked up a series that I've found is really good. It's the A tale of The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson.

[matrix]

The Snow Queen series is three books total 1.The Snow Queen
2. Worlds End (I think?) 3.Summer Queen(Bigger than both book 1 and 2 combined)





Ps Please corect me if I am wrong about book two's titel its been 8 years since I've read it.

[Dragon63]

For "classic" science-fiction, I am surprised no one has mentioned the "Cities in Flight" books by James Blish.

And as much as I love Robert A. Heinlein, and really like "Starship Troopers", ST has a kind of "WWII"-era feel to it... a very good book that is similar in many respects to ST, but has more of a "Viet Nam"-era feel to it is 'The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman.

And for all the psionics fans out there, how about Zenna Henderson's _The Book of the People_ ?

And a similar book (but not quite as well fleshed-out background) is Nina Kiriki Hoffman's _The Thread that Binds the Bones_.

Total newbie here... found a link to Fel's books in Frank Downey's Yahoo Group, and thus stumbled onto this forum. I will start reading "The Firestaff" series tonight. Always nice to find a new source of good reading!

Dave

[Sancria]

How about the books of Elizabeth Moon? Like S.M Stirling, she writes good military-based fantasy or scifi, using her military backgroung to make the novel more realistic.

I am currently rereading her "Deed of Paksennarion" trilogy, a fantasy about the adventures of a sheepfarmers daughter as she joins a military group (mercenaries) and beyond. Very good.


ZC

I read the entire series in the mexican airport during a 17 hour layover. trust me, it's the only reason why I didn't go on a rampage to relieve my boredom.

Very well done, and my new favorite dog earred novel.

[mbeau]

I forgot those two lovable authors David and Leigh Eddings, who brought us the Belgariad, the Mallorean, and Begarath the Sorcerer et al.

And of course Sir Sparhawk saga: Elenium and Tamuli cycles.

Bahh, If you have read one of their series, you have read them all.

Edit - Note I say this as someone who has all of their series except for the latest one about tthe sleeping gods.

Personally, their best book is, IMO, The Redemption of Althalus

[mbeau]

<snip>
for sci-fi i don't think has been mentioned...the deathstalker series by simon r. green was decent, excepting the worst ending i've ever read in any book/series.  that's at the end of the fifth book.  there's a followup series, a trilogy i think, that the author recently put out, and that focuses on a different character.  supposedly owen (the previous deathstalker) returns in book three of that, but i haven't bothered reading those books, since as i said, the ending to the original series was horrible.  simon r. green has other books that a lot of people like, and i'll probably read them if i can ever get past that crappy book five and allow myself to read something else by him.
<snip>

Really?? I though that the end was one of the best endings to a series that I have ever read.

Spoiler

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I really liked how it was different from the "happily ever after" wayt that books like this end. Considering the tone of the rest of the series, it would have felt wrong for Owen and Hazel to end up together.

I am in the process of reading the next three novels (I picked up the first one in HC a couple of years ago, and will be finishing it today) and will probably pick up the next two in the upcoming weeks. While they are, IMO, much weaker than the first series, they is also a lot less action and more focus on the development of the characters, as far as I can tell.

[michaelsuave]

I just read Jack Campbell's "The Lost Fleet: Dauntless," and "The Lost Fleet: Fearless." Great reads. I would highly recommend these books to anybody who liked Subjugation. No, no aliens in the series... yet. But awesome space battles, and great fleet/character interaction.

~Michael

[Wicketklown001]

What a coincidence I just finished dauntless myself. gonna pick up fearless this weekend.

[michaelsuave]

What a coincidence I just finished dauntless myself. gonna pick up fearless this weekend.

Actually, I finished both of them saturday in a couple hours, they are both only about 300 pages. I was absorbed.