I would like to recommend "The Warded Man" by Peter V. Brett. http://www.amazon.com/Warded-Man-Peter-V-Brett/dp/0345503805/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2

It is an awesome fantasy novel. It's dark and gritty and the style the author has written the story in is engaging.

 

'A Madness of Angels' by Kate Griffin. Might appeal to the Dresden nuts on here; it deals with a sorcerer living (kinda) in London. The plots fairly standard - evil business, conspiracy, etc etc - but the imagination and writing is great. Some awesome action scenes as well.

 

This past weekend I read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its sequel The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Finished both books (about 1,000 pages) in two days. They were so engrossing that all I did was read, shit, eat, and sleep. The third book is coming out in May and I can't fucking wait.

Great series. It's good that the author turned in his manuscripts for all 3 books before he died, but it sucks because he could have potentially written more awesome books.

Stieg Larsson ftw.

edit: just noticed I passed the 1k post mark. Sweet.

 

Just picked it up, and is surprisingly good and a bit twisted. Jose Saramago's Blindness. Its apparently got a sequel called Seeing. Not read it though..

 

I haven't read the book, but I did see the movie. It was a decent movie, so the book is probably really good if the standard movie/book awesomeness ratio applies.

 

Finished reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series some time back and have to say it's fucking amazing. First book isn't all that great but the other six, especially the seventh, are epic.

 

House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski, may just be the weirdest book I've ever read. Essentially, it's a story about a haunted house (well, kinda). But the story is told through a critical analysis of a documentary about said haunted house. And there's an entirely different story being told through some of the footnotes. It's pretty much the ultimate Marmite book, but I guarentee you'll never read anything else like it. Highly recommended, especially if you've ever studied literature. The bulk of the book is a satire on critical and theoretical analysis, so it gets extra points for that.

 

I've just finished reading this awesome book about wizards. It's got magical creatures, escaped convicts, trains, castles, and some pretty neat magic. I believe is it titled Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I think you guys would really like this book although you may want to read the first two books in the series to get an idea of what is going on. I wouldn't bother continuing with it after the fifth book though. Books 6 and 7 are elaborate pranks by the author. The actual 6th book can be found on ff.net under the title Wastelands of Time by an author named Joe (adding an 'e' to the end of that name isn't fooling anyone missy). It's pretty epic. I think she is planning on a seventh book as a follow up to WoT.

 

You're trying tooooooooooooooo hard.

 

Thanks for the great recommendation, I am just reading the first book and I am loving it, but I have two questions though:

1. Is Viserys going to get a cruel death in the first book (unless that is too good to be spoiled, in that case don't tell)

2. Is it possible to make a TV show out of this with all the themes going on? Incest, pedophilia and rape are not exactly themes you can show on TV, at least not if you try to make a series that they try to market at everyone or will it be a very faithful adaptation? Those themes are not exactly overwhelming the book (why I wrote manga I will never know <_<) but still, taking them out would take away from the "realism" if you know what I mean?

 

HBO's Rome was pretty epic for the entire first season. Octavian screws his sister, if I remember right, Anthony rapes a sheep girl while marching...

Granted, they aren't hardcore porn moments, and its more traditional of HBO's softcore shit, but its there.

I'd be more worried about writers maintaining the series epicness, rather than them squirming away from the more touchy stuff...

 

Those aren't that hardcore moments in the book either, but they are there and shown a bit, enough that you know that the person who is raped does not like it and doing that to a teenage girl is probably something they would hesitate on TV.

But well, if they do that too I wouldn't have any complaints, I just hope they don't get pressured into taking all that out and making it PG-13 and stuff.

Is Rome worth of checking out? I heard it was only good for a few episodes but got old pretty fast so I was hesitant to look it up.

 

I liked the entire first season, so yeah I'd check it out. But to each his own. And season two kind failed to live up to Season One since they knew they were gonna be canned... >_>

 

I'm actually really looking forward to what HBO does with this series. Don't forget that GRRM got his start in television and is actually working quite closely with the writers/producers. His contract also reserved the right to write one episode a season. The dailies(unedited takes ) look absolutely gorgeous, and I'm really looking forward to getting my grubby fingers on that pilot in a couple of weeks (depends on whether or not HBO officially takes the series or passes etc)

 

Thanks for the rec, CheddarTrek.

I'm going to recommend one myself despite only being halfway through it, one that I believe will belong here when it's done: Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis, published by Tor. The novel is a little hard to classify, but the best description I can come up with is "steampunk alternative history fantasy" set in WWII, a literary treatment of Nazi mutants vs. British warlocks:

Ian is a member of Critical Mass, arguably New Mexico's most famous writing critique group, which includes folks like George R. R. Martin, Walter Jon Williams, Daniel Abraham, Melinda Snodgrass, and S. M. Stirling. The guy has serious literary chops. His prose is rich and descriptive, yet the novel is paced well. It doesn't drag like, say, one of Gene Wolfe's tales, and he gets the little things right.

Bitter Seeds is the first of a trilogy and the kind of fantasy literature I'm not ashamed to read. It's great stuff and I highly recommend it. (I'll probably write a proper, longer review when I'm finished).