GenValentine
Destrier
Posts: 93
Karma: 50
Pilot name: GenValentine
MA Pilot ID: 14976873
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Post by GenValentine on Dec 15, 2021 21:52:41 GMT -5
It's called reading." - DeadeyePicking up where it was kinda left off. Thought it would be a nice break to talk about some book recommendations. I tend to favor anti-hero fiction. Here's a list off the top of my head: Chronicles of The Black Company By Glen Cook The Broken Empire By Mark Lawrence Mistborn By Brandon Sanderson Gentleman 「illegitimate child」 By Scott Lynch The Coldfire Trilogy By C.S. Friedman And there's this other series I can't remember the title. It was about a nomad prince, nomad princess and a black paladin acting as pawns in the battle for supremacy by the Gods. One of the very first books I picked up, it has the same premise as American Gods (but I think this one predates AG) where the Deity's power is dependent on the number of their worshippers. The black paladin belonged to a cult of what is essentially a dying God. Breeding worshippers is one of the ways they use to bolster their ranks. Other mainstream books that are actually better read than watched for me are: The Inheritance Cycle By Christopher Paolini A Song of Ice and Fire By George RR Martin If you guys have any recommendations, please post about them!
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Post by OU812? on Dec 15, 2021 22:17:21 GMT -5
The Foreigner series by CJ Cherry
Honor Harrington series by David Weber
The Mote in God’s Eye by Jerry Pournelle and David Niven ( I could not recommend that one enough)
Non-Fiction:
Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson Definitive book on the Civil War and an engaging read.
The Long Fuse, can’t recall the author. Great book on how the British empire lost America. Lots of British perspectives in it and focuses on the political mistakes; very little on the military conflict.
Rise of American Democracy. Dammit I can’t remember authors tonight. Great book on what they don’t teach you in school.
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Post by 7Chandrian on Dec 15, 2021 23:04:01 GMT -5
Two votes for Gentleman 「illegitimate child」s, I guess I HAVE to say "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss too.
The Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King is fun if you are into Sherlock Holmes, first one is "The Beekeeper's Apprentice"
Just started the new Neal Stephenson, Termination Shock, so far so good.
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Post by Koalabear on Dec 16, 2021 8:47:06 GMT -5
The Madness Season and In Conquest Born by C.S Friedman will blow your collective minds. Iain Banks' Use of Weapons was freaking amazing too.
The Madness Season is something I go back and reread every once in a while because it's one of those books that tries does vampires in a realistic way. Premise is a lone vampire trying to live his life through an alien conquest. One of the problems he has is memory slippage where he actually forgets part of his life and basically has lost some of his identity. He goes thru time fugues, where he has realistic dreams that are basically his memories from his past. He eventually meets an alien lifeform that has similar problems and they help each other out.
In Conquest Born tells the long brutal tale between two warring nations and two warriors specifically. One comes from a nation that uses telepaths as weapons and the other raises their children to be warriors from day one.
Use of Weapons, another brutal story of a lifetime of war, fighting and killing with a killer twist at the end.
And, when I need spiritual uplifting, The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay about a young English boy growing up in South Africa during apartheid.
The Sword of Shannara was often criticized to be a Lord of the Rings knock off, but in truth, I enjoyed it much better. The writing was more readable and the premise more relatable. Rather than being set in a fantasy world, it's set in the far far future where the world has regressed to a feudal state due to nuclear wars. The wars broke open closed doors and let in races like Elves and Demons, and mutated some humans into Dwarves and Gnomes. Ancient magic was discovered by Druids and abused by Warlocks. Incredible twist at the end too after a long long never-ending quest. The follow up books just never quite managed to capture the majesty of this first book. The second book, The Elfstones of Shannara was really good too and focused on the war between Elves and Demons and had a similar twist at the end. The last in this trilogy, The Wishsong of Shannara is where it all started to go wrong for me but was still quite good and better than anything that followed. They even tried to make a series out of this, but like many other types of attempts, it failed miserably.
Then, there is the Wheel of Time series....sheesh, I've only ever made it to Book 9....
Oh, and if you want feel good fantasies, anything by David Eddings.
And I would stay away from anything by Piers Anthony....it's only now, looking back, do I realize just how misogynistic and pedo-oriented much of his work was. I did enjoy his Xanth series for a while until the aforementioned pedophilia started.
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Post by T-Town Striker on Dec 16, 2021 9:04:48 GMT -5
My current read , the early time periods for North America has always interested me . About a third of the way through the book and now I’m anxious to be picking it up of which it’s quite enjoyable to get that feeling.  |
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Post by Deadeye on Dec 16, 2021 12:00:47 GMT -5
It's called reading." - Deadeye Picking up where it was kinda left off. Thought it would be a nice break to talk about some book recommendations. I tend to favor anti-hero fiction. Here's a list off the top of my head: Chronicles of The Black Company By Glen Cook The Broken Empire By Mark Lawrence Mistborn By Brandon Sanderson Gentleman ãillegitimate childã By Scott Lynch The Coldfire Trilogy By C.S. Friedman And there's this other series I can't remember the title. It was about a nomad prince, nomad princess and a black paladin acting as pawns in the battle for supremacy by the Gods. One of the very first books I picked up, it has the same premise as American Gods (but I think this one predates AG) where the Deity's power is dependent on the number of their worshippers. The black paladin belonged to a cult of what is essentially a dying God. Breeding worshippers is one of the ways they use to bolster their ranks. Other mainstream books that are actually better read than watched for me are: The Inheritance Cycle By Christopher Paolini A Song of Ice and Fire By George RR Martin If you guys have any recommendations, please post about them! Chronicles of the Black Company - Yes, dark AF, but good. Malzan book of the Fallen - First 4 books are spectacular, but it starts to trail off and get stale and I couldn't even bother to finish the series. But still, classic anti-hero series. Gentleman 「illegitimate child」s series - I enjoyed the first and the second, but again, I didn't want to continue with the 3rd Brandon Sanderson is my favorite author and if you like the Mistborn trilogy, you'll love the Alloy of Law books (they follow the Mistborn books by some 300 years or so and the style is steampunk...my favorite characters of any books I've read) and the Stormlight Archives. Stormlight books are on par with the Mistborn as far as story quality and ingenuity. They are just longer in general and broader in scope. Name of the Wind books are fantastic, but he needs to finish that damn 3rd book already! And of course 7Chandrian threw this book series in the ring. lol As for Anti-hero books, I don't read a ton, but if you are interested in a fun, interesting flawed hero, the Dresden files are wonderful page turners. So much fun. I pick one up whenever I need to be entertained. I think I've read the first 6 and the only reason I haven't kept going is because I would consume them all in a couple weeks and not sleep if given the chance. lol |
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Post by 7Chandrian on Dec 16, 2021 17:40:39 GMT -5
Name of the Wind books are fantastic, but he needs to finish that damn 3rd book already! And of course 7Chandrian threw this book series in the ring. lol There's hope. |
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Post by Deadeye on Dec 17, 2021 9:01:55 GMT -5
Name of the Wind books are fantastic, but he needs to finish that damn 3rd book already! And of course 7Chandrian threw this book series in the ring. lol There's hope.  |
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Post by Jeb on Dec 17, 2021 10:27:23 GMT -5
The Foreigner series by CJ Cherry Honor Harrington series by David Weber The Mote in God’s Eye by Jerry Pournelle and David Niven ( I could not recommend that one enough) Non-Fiction: Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson Definitive book on the Civil War and an engaging read. The Long Fuse, can’t recall the author. Great book on how the British empire lost America. Lots of British perspectives in it and focuses on the political mistakes; very little on the military conflict. Rise of American Democracy. Dammit I can’t remember authors tonight. Great book on what they don’t teach you in school. Pournelle & Niven just never could miss, could they? Such great storytellers. Footfall was amazing fun. I have tremendously enjoyed reading the Ember War series by Richard Fox. It's a sprawling sequence of space opera titles, really entertaining with great action, a lot of humor, and long-term worldbuilding. I've been bouncing around re-reading some of the individual novels, sort of piecing together the early hints at stuff that was going to happen down the line, and there are so many fun or gripping sequences. Plus it's ALL included in Kindle Unlimited - if you use Kindle for reading, that's a subscription service, and it's a lot cheaper than buying the books as long as you're consistent about reading. I also really enjoyed the similarly titled and utterly different Emberverse series by S.M. Stirling, which is also a sprawling series of titles, but post-apocalyptic veering into fantasy. Stirling writes very detailed descriptions (some might say he needs a stronger editor...) and his battle sequences are incredible. |
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Post by ⓣⓡⓘⓒⓚⓨ48 on Dec 17, 2021 13:27:53 GMT -5
I’m a full audible convert… will list more later but just want to give further props to The Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson, Wheel Of TIme - Robert Jordan, Honor Harinton series - David Weber. All three are in my “At least once a year” category. Also, if you want a fun space “rogue-ish heroes save the galaxy” type ride… Omega Force - Joshua Dalzelle is a good series. A recent find, He Who Fights with Monsters was addictive… “LitRPG” is the genre and I have not read any of those types of genre before… but it was enjoyable. I think the gist is “If a real person was sucked into a real life game/book/movie…” A lot more I will list later… but this was all at the top of my small amount of short term memory. Oh yeah, Deadeye, I have read the first of The Black Company (you were referring to that, right? By Glenn Cook?). Good stuff. I will find more of the series and dive in. I like the “Bad Guy” perspective. Good writing all around too… no issues with too much or too little info, and the characters and plot were developed well. |
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