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A sequel to The Shining? I'm torn between desperately wanting to read it and being extremely dubious about an author writing a sequel decades later to one of his best (subjectively) and most famous (objectively) novels.

It didn't try to be the shining and wasn't over the top fan-service. I gave it a 5 star on all my book social medias and I'm pretty critical of re-makes/covers/sequels, etc.

The best part is that it was told in a way that made it feel like a stand alone book vs. 50% history lesson. You wouldn't have to be knowledgeable in the shining to enjoy this book (but it helps and gives you a bit more understanding to some parts).

I went into it like I did with the new Evil Dead. Pretend you're oblivious to there being something preceding this, and enjoy it for what it is. Thankfully, I enjoy both!

My favorite author right now is Connie Willis. She is a science-fiction author who has written several novels and a number of short stories over the years, the best of which (in my opinion) are based on time-travel.

Unlike most time travel books I've read, Connie Willis's stories are well-researched. She draws attention to parts of history that aren't commonly told, and does so in ways that make you want to know more (which for me is ironic because I've never really had an interest in history). The plots are interesting, suspenseful at times and humorous at others, and I would have to say that Connie has a real knack for describing confusion.

My personal favorites are "Blackout" and "All Clear", a two-part story set during the London Blitz in WW2.



While the story is essentially stand-alone, it includes characters from her previous books, so you may want to read these first just for a bit of backstory:

Never read all 4 pages to see if i am doubling up on anything but eriksons malazan books of the fallen series is spectacular epic fantasy. I am not sure it constitutes light reading. It is a series of 10 books with alot of characters, and doesn't hold back on complexity or get tied up in the constantly reminding you of what happened earlier in the series like Goodkind and Jordan. That being said Goodkinds Wizards First Rule (suggested on page 1) itself is one of the best fantasy books I have read, unfortanetly the series faded by book 5 and I found it a chore after that.

Also on a lighter can be read alone but has alot of continueing characters, if you liked Enders Game, look into Robeert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a strange land, and Job, A Comedy of Justice are good places to start. He has a good collection of teen type novels all very entertaining.

Assuming the necro means you are still looking for suggestions I'd throw up


It's a heavier read and I found the first book a bit on the dull side but 100% worth it imo. Tons of interesting characters, the authors ability to build out his world and make it seem real amazed me and it brings up a lot of interesting points that will make you think.



The warning I have to give is that it definitely needs a stronger stomach and I'd keep it away from children.

Edit: Caraine beat me while I was hunting for the quote D:

What an interesting necro.

Have you ever read any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels or David Gemmell's Drenai books? The former are light satire in a fantasy setting, the latter are classic low fantasy in the tradition of Conan of Cimmeria, and both are highly readable and well-written. I glanced a reluctance (albeit a couple years ago) to leap into a big established thing, but although there are quite a lot of Discworld and Drenai books, they're virtually all written to be read as stand-alone, so there's no reason to worry about having a dozen books to read just to get "the story."

I can't single any good options out with ease, though, as I thoroughly love both authors and their work. For Pratchett, his police novels (Guards, Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo!, The Fifth Elephant, and Snuff -- I may be missing one or two off the top of my head) are a pretty good foothold into the city-state of Ankh-Morpork, which is basically a light fantasy pastiche of modern New York and medieval London. I personally think the Drenai books work best by starting with the original Legend, the story of a castle siege (which was actually a thinly-veiled metaphor for the author's cancer scare) that launched Gemmell's fiction career. After that, most of the books about Druss are solid, but the stories are spread out over a couple decades or centuries with little interconnectivity, so it's a perfect pick-up-and-go option.

Others have recommended Neil Gaiman and I'll just throw my support behind that. If you're the type to read comics, his Sandman series was excellent.

If you like science fiction, you may want to give Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children a try. They are set in present time dealing with an evolutionary crisis. I also quite enjoy Robert Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, but the politics may be a turn-off.

And since I feel obliged to include something that only pretentious students of literature would recommend, Hal Duncan's Vellum and Ink are a spectacular duo of... I think it's called weird fiction. The novels are largely pointless but constructed in a way that makes my literary salivary glands go into to overdrive.

By "weird" fiction, are we speaking in the vein of H.P. Lovecraft? I'm not a pretentious student of literature, more of a pretentious hobbyist, but still.


Edit: also, I know I mentioned it the first time through this thread, but if you want to dabble in low fantasy, you should (in my opinion) start with Robert Howard's Conan work. He's really the first master of the genre and should set the tone for any subsequent exploration of the genre.

A book thread!

Anti-hero books:
Sci-fi:
Fantasy:
Mystery novels:
If you don't already have a goodreads account I would recommend it. It lets you keep track of the books you read and how you have rated them. I read a lot of books and sometimes I can't remember off the top of my head if I'm remembering a author because I really liked their style or because they really sucked.

I mentioned Butcher back in 11/2012 in the original posting as well. But I re-endorse that selection. The Dresden books have been my favorite series of the past decade.

ALWAYS. I still peruse the first pages for some of the ones I missed. I am never with "too much" to read. I just store it away XD

I still have a paranoia of any book series over 4 (monetary investment plus i feel obligated to finish once i start). The fact that you both recommended that series in a row is a good testament to the series. I'm sure It'll be in an order soon.


American Gods and Anansi Boys are literally sitting on my bedside desk right now as the next on the docket!

Also, there's a lot of news today for the work they're doing on making sandman in to a screenplay :x

I just read "Do Androids dream of electric sheep?" while I was on a homicide jury earlier this month (not like READING IN COURT but there's a lot of sitting around outside the court that goes on). I used to say I didn't enjoy the future-fantasy (most science fiction) genre but being that Orson Scott Card's Homecoming Series is one of my favorite book series I have to reconsider. I enjoyed Electric Sheep, and it's probably time to give that genre some more attention. I'll look into some of the Pratchett books at some point. I just really not into that neo-industrial futuristic type MOVIE so i always assume i wont like the literature (still haven't read 1984 just because of that sense i get).

Thank you for the wealth of suggestions! I'm scared that your books will be too "smart" for me based on your avatar and posts :x (seriously though I took your suggestions seriously :<)

I actually have a goodreads but I'm painfully lazy about investing the time to fill in my "have read" section etc. I should just fill it in and go back to review later but i get lost in it. Plus everyone I know knows that I'm a voracious reader and so I feel like they overweigh what i put on there :/



You keep mentioning high/low fantasy. I don't understand. Please elucidate. I am intrigued by the terminology.

It is a little on the daunting side size wise but at the same time all but the last 2 books are written in such a way as to almost stand alone. When you move from one book to the next becomes history in the same way as there is history to the story before the first book. So if it helps you could think of it as 8 single books and a 2 parter, I definitely paced myself with it and read it over the course of 3 years.

I read Anne Rice's works in a 1 month span. The lestat chronicles were like a work week in reverse. By book 6 I was angry I started the series but determined to finish. There's a part in the series where Lestat goes back in time and drink's Jesus' blood (i'm not making this up) and I looked up (alone in my room) and said "why" out loud.

I'm glad I read them but i remember feeling like the last 2-3 books were "endured" so i could move on to a different book.

I'll try these but if I don't like them I'm coming to your restaurant and ordering something large 1 minute before close. (kidding)

I'll suggest a bit of Non-fiction because maybe you'd like it!:

1. The Emperor of all Maladies-(Siddarth Murkajee) The best book I've read this year. It talks about the progression of the discovery of cancer to the subsequent treatments and approaches that scientists and doctors use to combat it. Written in plain vernacular, it is easy to understand and the breakthroughs are insightful and interesting.

2. Where Good Ideas Come From- (Steve Johnson) This is a book about entrepreneurship and how people come up with many of the inventions that lead to the technology that we use today. It gives you an idea of where some amazing inventions come from (GPS, neonatal incubators, air conditioning, Darwin's Theory, etc.) It'll change the way that you look at ordinary objects that we take for granted.

3. The Tipping Point - (Malcolm Gladwell) I like Malcolm Gladwell books because they introduce new ideas and concepts that make you ask questions. You will ask more questions at the end of the book than you know answers. Some people don't like this (so you are warned). This book is about how things become popular. Why do some brands survive while others don't? How do ideas spread? Gladwell makes an argument that when something big happens, it is caused by small critical events that are sometimes tangentially related.

On my bookshelf(Kindle) that I'm reading:
Killing Kennedy (Bill O'Reilly)- Mostly about JFK's infidelities. It gives you a prospective of what type of troubling time period this was (Cold War). I'm on the last few chapters and I'd only give it a 3/10, but it's a fast read and you can finish it in a day. Very cheesy foreshadowing at the end of each chapter. (As if we didn't know what happens on the last chapter /facepalm)

Guns, Germs, and Steel- This is about the development of civilization and "racial superiority". How did some civilizations gain advantages over others? I can't believe I haven't read this book yet but this is #1 on my list. I have the hardcopy and it's just a pain to lug around.

The Black Swan- Similar to the Tipping Point. It's about how seemingly insignificant events can make a large difference.

Zealot - Not your Starcraft type of Zealot. This is a historical account of Jesus the Christ. Who was he? How did he become so famous? This book had a lot of media coverage because Fox News criticized the author for writing a book about Jesus while being a Muslim. To spite Fox News, I went out to support the author by buying his book. Halfway done and I learned a lot of history (Roman History).

I'm probably going to type this and someone may scold me for over-simplifying, but high/low fantasy basically gets broken down as such:

High fantasy: elves, dwarves, mystical creatures both good and evil, knights, princesses, lyrical langauges and the like. There's nearly always clearly-defined good and evil, recurring themes that you would consider typical of "fantasy". Tolkien, Goodkind, the Zelda games, the Feist novels I mentioned way back earlier in the thread.

Low fantasy: I've seen various definitions, some of which cross over into high fantasy. It's probably easier to borrow from Wikipedia: "Low fantasy places relatively less emphasis on typical elements associated with fantasy, setting a narrative in real-world environments with elements of the fantastical. Sometimes there are just enough fantastical elements to make ambiguous the boundary between what is real and what is purely psychological or supernatural. The word "low" refers to the level of prominence of traditional fantasy elements within the work, and is not any sort of remark on the works' quality."

Conan, for instance, is a man. He by and large interacts with other men (that is to say, humans; he "interacts" with plenty of women, too). He's "grittier" than your high fantasy hero. There are sorcery elements, but they're almost always antagonistic in nature. The supernatural elements are present, but not primary.

I don't know how well I did there. A lot of it is just playing by feel.

Edit: coincidentally, Stephen King is a completely different type of low fantasy, as he often sets things in the real world with just enough supernatural to tell the story. Lovecraft could probably be lumped in there too in some ways.

A lot of suspense/horror really falls into this category too. Conan, thinking on it, is probably not a great example because it in many ways bridges high and low fantasy.

Nah, when I read fiction it's for fun not serious :) That doesn't mean I like badly written novels (I really hate being talked down to, or repetition, which editors suck at editing out recently) but if the plot is interesting enough I can ignore it for the most part.

Yeah, goodreads I use as a reference for myself, not full on reviews (I think I've written 5?) but just the 1-5 star rating. I think I have one "friend" and that is Patrick Rothfuss.

I've been unemployed since December and have spent a considerable amount of that time reading.

Simple/Light:

All were very different standalone stories. The Ocean at the End of the Lane was my favorite book in the last year, and Elantris is my favorite.


Shorter Series / Trilogies:
Most of these are 3-4 books and are fairly close to the beginning of their run. I have read at least part of all of them and quite enjoyed them. Kingkiller especially as you have no doubt seen from all the prior recommendations of its first book, The Name of the Wind.

Longer:
As for the other matter Fantasy is usually split into about 9 categories that spill over and through one another.

High Fantasy is usually defined as Fantasy that takes place in a world all its own, or at least contains one. Think how Harry Potter takes place in Earth, England whereas Narnia or Middle Earth are a world all their own.

Low Fantasy is usually more set in the real world where things that are fantastic or supernatural seem to occur. Think superheroes or television like Buffy, Supernatural, or Fringe.

You applied to my FC > I vouched for you and you didn't even visit me ONCE D:

You could've had this convo in person maaaan.

I haven't picked up any of the Codex stuff but I almost feel like it doesn't matter and this is blasphemous.

But I must admit that the Dresden books, aside from just being great, strike not just a single chord, but a harmony of them for me. And I came upon them at just the right time. So I'm a bit dedicated to the mythos.

I love the concept and idea of Dresdin but his magic is too limited for me. The potential of magic in Alera is absolutely insane. That and the scope is too small. I tend to love things when full blown wars and armies get involved far more than when its a few small characters versus evil unless it is executed in a really fine toothed way. There has to be a balance, and mob style hits on supers just really isn't my bag as much as a magicless boy duking it out with a blood magic wielding dog-man in a battle of wits in the midst of a war.

And sorry to Ash about 7th... there really just isn't anything to do in that game at the moment. I've been clearing TwinT since like mid Nov. I didn't wanna level a new combat class, crafts had been capped since Oct and I didn't see the point in paying just to sit there and wait. My headset should be back from Bestbuy's Geek Squad people soon so I can hop on mumble if people tell me they are around.

Thanks for the list. The books seem to be just to my liking. I'm going to check them out.

Regarding "Zealot", IIRC, when the Fox News "controversy" happened & they invited the author, he mentioned that Jesus was crucified, despite stating that he converted from Christianity to Islam (the Muslim faith is very clear on stating that he was not crucified). I thought it was interesting.

I can't. I almost tear up just reading the word Cancer. There's nothing I hate or fear more and i've stopped reading some books just because they hit too close to home. It sounds interesting from a science perspective but awful for me emotionally.


The guns and steel stuff sounds up my alley. I'm not terribly big on non-fiction unless its slightly satirical.

Also, I understand Fox News isn't really news (not that any media outlet is news anymore) but were they aware that 1) muslim people still revere Christ as a prophet 2) spiritual opinion should have no bearing on a historical account?

Guns, Germs & Steel was required reading for one of my classes freshmen year of college as a history major.

I hated it.

I still don't agree entirely wit all the conclusions drawn by Diamond. But the bottom line is that even if you don't agree with all his theories, it makes you think.

Kei, let me know what you think of it. I've been thinking of going back and reading it again now that I'm *gulp* almost 14 years removed from those heady days of being a high school graduate. I think I may enjoy a reread.

Since you keep mentioning that you don't think you're able to read the heaviest stuff, Ashman, may I suggest picking up some of Diana Wynne Jones's work. She wrote for children but in the same approachable all-ages way that J.K. Rowling made her Harry Potter books. Her novel Howl's Moving Castle was the inspiration for Studio Ghibli's adaptation (I love them both but think the novel is the superior, by the way) and her Crestomanci books are great fun.

Uh... and please don't interpret that recommendation as an insult or anything. I want everyone to read her work in spite of it being aimed at the young adult audience. I'll be buying copies for any nieces or nephews my brother eventually fathers, which is pretty much the highest compliment I can pay a piece of literature.

Sorry, forgot to check back on this thread. I just double-checked and I got the name slightly wrong. Apparently they call it the "New Weird." It definitely has some ties with Lovecraft and similar writers from the pulp magazines, but don't read Vellum and Ink expecting a psychological horror story. It's sort of a mish-mash of many genres. Duncan's work was declared part of it after publication and I'm not sure that genre can be applied to what he made.

The short explanation about the duet is... ***, this is hard. Ok, if you know anything about Jungian psychology, there's the idea of the archetype, that is, a memetic or stereotypical character profile that crops up repeatedly in different cultures' storytelling. The Young Hero is a very basic version. Duncan, in the framework of people who have learned how to slip past the paper-thin veneer of reality, basically spends two books retelling various mythological archetypes, as well as many iterations he made up himself, using a cast of six. It's a lot like reading a transcript of a dream or hallucination.

I once suggested the two of them on NPR, since I figure that's where its audience is most likely to be found. They're definitely not books for the average person to carry with them on a beach holiday.

And yet you don't have Rothfuss's work in your suggestion list? I've only read The Name of the Wind and was honestly kinda lukewarm on it, but I have heard other people are more into it. I find the Gary Stu nature of the character a bit cloying, but I'll swear that was intentional and I need to get around to reading the later books.

I think you do a little disservice to high fantasy by suggesting it is all good-versus-evil in a very black-and-white way, but it is a bit of a bad habit that creeps into speculative fiction of all genres as they veer away from real life.

About half of what you called low fantasy would better fit in as magical realism, though that term is notoriously hard to pin down, too. King's books, for instance, I would hesitate to call "fantasy" just because most of them take place in the real world. The discombobulated mess that is the Dark Tower series being an exception.

I find that the biggest distinguisher is largely in how much power is involved, which usually means magic (it could easily be technology, but few people write stories about a technologically superior race curb-stomping primitives -- though, come to think of it, I just described one of the Witch World books that Andre Norton wrote). If magic is limited, difficult, and rare, it's probably low fantasy. More often, though, it seems to matter more the nature of the hero. If the hero isn't a wizard and doesn't use magic or magical gear, with the possible exception of his legendary weapon, and most or all of his companions are similarly mundane, even having a fireball-slinging, shapechanging, immortal wizard as the bad guy won't necessarily drag it into high fantasy.

On the other hand, for all that magic is a part of Middle Earth and Tolkein's epic fantasy is used as the go-to point for describing high fantasy, I'm not really convinced that it is. Even the great wizards, who are few and not even mortal, are surprisingly subdued in their power compared to, say, the Mistborn characters in Brian Sanderson's eponymous series or basically any magic user based on D&D. If The Lord of the Rings was inexplicably written today, Gandalf would be leveling armies with the Flame of Anor and the Giant Eagles plot hole would never have a chance to see the light of day. Which isn't to say the story couldn't be the same: the whole point of Frodo's being the hero is that he's literally insignificant and is best equipped to hide and smuggle.

No offense taken at all. I can and will read anything but I get a lot of suggestions for "heavy stuff" and then need a break. I'll literally go back and read something lighter just to refresh my palette for a big read. I've read HP books like 10 times. (my guilty pleasure is having read the twilight books a dozen times. they're better than some give them credit for.)

My favorite reads of the recent years are books 1 and 2 of the "magician" trilogy by lev grossman. It's kinda like harry potter as a college instead of a high school. The themes are a bit more real world and darker (one girl essentially becomes a heroin addict in her quest to "get back to the magic school").

I also highly enjoy books that illicit an emotional reaction. If i laugh out loud at a part of a book, I consider it 5-star already. There's a part of a book I recently read where a guy finds out his gf is cheating on him. The description of the intimate noises she made and how he knew it was her by them struck something inside me and i was mad/sad/furious/heartbroken enough that i had to put the book down for an hour (it was one of the lev grossman books i was talking about btw, if you're interested).



I actually own this and choke. I still have yet to read them because I saw parts of choke (the film) and thought the movie was awful. I'll definitely give it a reconsider.

@Onorgul you're right and the more I've thought back on that post the more I dislike trying to qualify any of it or the way in which I did so. Though I would still hold to LOTR as high fantasy, if only because it introduced so many themes that are represented as such.

I tend to do poorly with sticking things into neat genres.

On another note, between Thursday when it was brought up and today I reread The Shining for the first time in years and I reflected on how great it is, how great the movie is, and how they somehow manage to convey entirely different things telling the same story.

I didn't mention him because I saw at least 3 posts mentioning his books at the beginning of this thread. I was trying to give different options (although I think I had some overlaps besides Butcher and Pratchett).

His Kingkiller series is good but so is his blog, 'childrens' book ("The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed"), and "Clash of the Geeks"**.

**This was a donation only book not sure if it still is. ...
Yep, free to download with a request for donations
http://unicornpegasuskitten.com/

In between reading a lot of the items Kara has up there (and Patrick Rothfuss, Sam Sykes, etc), here are some of the non-fiction reading:

Mauve, by Simon Garfield
IGNITION! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John D. Clark.
Fastener design manual, Richard T. Barrett, NAsA Reference publication 1228
Spacecraft System Failures and Anomolies Attributed to the Natural Space Environment, NASA Reference Publication 1390
Using Sorties vs. Flying Hours to Predict Aircraft Spares Demand, Craig C. Sherbrooke

A good number of the above are freely available in PDF form. NASA reference manuals are usually pretty interesting if somewhat narrow in focus.

And yes, I do realize that I might be a bit odd.