Young Wizards: Yes.

The worst thing about the series for me is some occasionally weak writing. And it would've been nice if Duane had described what the two lead characters looked like in a little more detail (like, say, hair color) than she did.

Each of the books works on a simple, quirky level with pseudo-fantasy logic, and the stories play out well on an emotional level. The themes of death and redemption work far better in this series than they did in the later Harry Potter books. The mythological (and Sci-Fi) references and cameos are abundant and joyfully written. The Doctor makes a brief appearance in the third book in the series, and there are rampant Star Trek references (fair enough, I think she writes for Star Trek) that kept me occupied on my latest far-more-enlightened-than-my-fourteen-year-old-self reread of the series.

The books are written (intentionally or not by the author) for 8 to 14 year old girls. They're ripe with trite, unwarranted sentimentalism, and could possibly stand a good prose pruning for redundancy. I adore them on an overly emotional girly level that is just shy of a sappy slash fangirl just as much as I like the settings and the oddball characters (that are not the two lead characters, but nonetheless have ridiculous amounts of personality) and the tendency for there to always be an almost happy ending (but not quite because there's always more work to do).

 

So, after two days of doing little besides reading, I just finished Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings. Time well spent.

In a sense, the book reads a little like Homer's Iliad, since the majority of it takes place in a siege setting, although a rather unconventional one. At times the story also has a Spartacus-like feel to it thanks to one of the main characters. Maybe other people would categorise its influences very differently, but since mythology and ancient history are things I'm interested in, I saw a lot of them in The Way of Kings.

I enjoy epic fantasy, so this book worked well for me. There were quite a few flashback sequences and the narrative skipped from character to character, which annoyed me, but in the end it was a rewarding system, since I got a good insight into the characters and a lot of world-building was involved.

The end of the book left a lot of ends open for the sequel, but was nonetheless satisfying. I'm eagerly anticipating the next in the Stormlight Archives series, which will hopefully come out sometime in 2012.

 

Apologies if this has been discussed at any point previously, but despite trawling through the thread looking for series that interest me (I have found quite a few and purchased many of the first books in the series, so thanks for that), I don't recall coming across KJ Parker. I've heard good things from quite a few other places, and I confess the complete mystery as to whom the author is has me interested. Seems pretty rare these days that writers are anonymous.

Has anyone here read Parker's work? Any good?

Edit: Add to that the Felix Castor series by Mike Carey. Another paranormal investigator series.

 

I am the author!

Now what was the series about?

 

So have $500 or so to waste and thought about buying some new books off of bookdepository.co.uk, and due to every thing being so cheap was looking to get a whole heap of new titles. So far Ive ordered:

American Gods - Neil Gaimen
Mistborn Trilogy - Branden Sanderson
Elantris - Branden Sanderson
Warbreaker - Branden Sanderson
Night Angel Trilogy - Brent Weeks
The Painted man, The Desert Spear - Peter V Brett
A Song of Ice and Fire books 1-4 - George R R Martin
Comes to a total of $124 Australian so as you can see still alot more I can get.

I have only a small collection of books so Im definetly looking to expend on that. I have Dresden files 1-13 and Codex Alera 1-6. I also have Notw and WMF aswell as Way of kings. Also have Raymond E Feists Magician/Silverthorn/Darkness at sethanon.

So any must haves you guys think I should pick up? Heard the Dark Tower series is pretty good so might pick that up too.

 

I quite enjoy the Rogue Agent series, by Karen Miller. They aren't incredibly epics, but I have re-read the first two a couple of times, and plan on re-reading the third at some point over Christmas. If you can, the first one could be good fun.

The first book is a semi-classic wizard storyline -

Spoiler

slightly inept, and in a bit of trouble, with a wise, older friend. Due to some misunderstandings, he has an adventure, but it ends up being darker than he first realises, and quite a lot of people die. He then gets a new job, and the book ends.

Second book is more of the same, but with higher stakes, and slightly less ineptitude. Third book REALLY confused me for a while, and I had to go back and re-read the first two to make sense of it.

But I would definitely recommend picking them up if you have spare cash.

 

Try looking at this thread, or any of the other threads asking roughly the same thing. Saves people reposting the exact same things they've already posted multiple times.

 

Is the culture series by Banks worth my time?

 

I have no way of predicting whether or not you'd enjoy it. I have, literally, nothing to work on.

But as a Banks fan, yes. Buy all of his books. And word-wise, try to maintain the 'less than double digits' and overall vagueness every time you ask something like that.

 

I bought 'The Heroes' by Joe Abercrombie on audiobook, awesome book. Can anyone recommend any other books by Abercrombie? I'll probably buy most of them to keep myself entertained at work, but it would be nice to know if some of them are better than others

 

The Blade Itself and its two follow ups are excellent. I haven't actually read The Heroes, so I couldn't say if it were better, but I thoroughly enjoyed his first trilogy. I would give you the standard disclaimer that they're pretty dark and all that, but I'm betting you know what you're getting into.

*goes back to lurking*

 

Best Served Cold is excellent as well.

Rusty, I'm sure by lurking you mean "Working on Ectomancer", right?

 

Island in the sea of time

This is a great book, the first of a trilogy and the inspiration for most of the newer "ISOT"- genre books like "1632", "Destroyermen" or even "Axis of time". Great stuff! 5/5

 

^ I am a massive sucker for S.M. Stirling, and the Nantucket trilogy is probably his best series to date. That said, it has some problems. Stirling has a massive hard-on for lesbians, and while he avoids obvious exploitation, it still feels a little weird. The antagonist is little more than an evil sodmizing caricature, with a masochistic sidekick to boot. The material is more than a bit technical: if you don't like hard military fiction, this is not for you.

It is still a good book. Stirling did his homework, and so the stuff that he more or less pulls out of his ass seems both real and reasonable. His characters and plot develop nicely. And how often do you get to read about charioteers with bazookas?

 

Has he gotten over his characterisation problem? Because technically his work is good but as long as his characterisation is dogshit, his work is intolerable. Especially if his villain is that one-dimensional.

 

Just read Richard Morgan's The Steel Remains, and now I'm reading the sequel The Cold Commands. I'm liking this series so far, but I don't think it's on the level of his Takeshi Kovacs trilogy. However, aside from all the things I could say about the novel that I don't feel like getting into, I feel that he does handle the main character being gay really well. I'm usually not a fan of slash or homosexuality in fiction, but he makes it work. It doesn't feel like an exploitation though, or that he made the main character gay simply for shock value. It's very interesting considering that the culture and society in this fantasy world is deeply homophobic and anti-gay; it sure does drum up a lot of conflict between the protagonist and various people/factions. Overall I would tentatively rate the series a 3.5 so far (subject to change). They are good reads but I don't feel like they just aren't as good as Morgan's other works. I'm only at the beginning of the second book though, so it's possible that my opinion will change when I'm done with it.

 

@Scrib: Some characters are more fleshed out than others. The major protagonist and her lover are decently done, as are a handful of other supporting characters. He suffers from trying to do too much at once as the series goes on: sub-plots in California and Africa focus on irrelevant or unnecessary characters. In my mind Stirling is, more or less, a pulp writer. Swashbuckling and adventure is central, and character is of secondary importance. This is as good as he gets, if that counts for anything.

 

Just finished Brandon Sanderson's The Alloy of Law, and I thoroughly recommend it. It's a little more 'lightweight' than his other recent books - it's not an epic fantasy, but an action packed adventure story, far more light-hearted and fun. It's well written, funny, and highly entertaining.

 

I was browsing Inverarity's blog for book recommendations (always a great source!) and came across I Am Not a Serial Killer, by Dan Wells.

I'll start off by saying that I enjoyed the first book enough to read the other two installments, Mr Monster and I Don't Want to Kill You, the same day, which is about as high a recommendation you can give a series, in my opinion.

While not exactly the most surprising mystery/thriller (most long time readers will have the killer picked out within minutes) the many other aspects come together to make it an engaging and interesting read. Looked at by themselves, the protagonist would be completely unsympathetic, the supporting cast hopelessly dull and the villain cliche and melodramatic. But, when put together by an author who clearly knew what he was doing, they make each other come alive and grip you 'till the end.


The series isn't without it's flaws (the author's portrayal of sociopathy will probably be a strong sticking point for many) but I felt that they were easy enough to overlook, and certainly didn't detract enough from it to garner it anything less than a hearty recommendation.


Anyway, I'm off to stuff some food down my face, finish the cleaning I kept swearing I'd finish when I started this series, and then pass right the fuck out.

 

Didnt want to start a whole new thread so I thought Id ask here.
So, I just finished the first book in Stephen Kings the dark tower series and to be honest it was a struggle to get throu. I cant find a better way to describe it other then the whole book just felt Hollow. Half the time I felt like he would randomally skip from halfway in a scene to a whole new one.

In saying that Ive got the next 2 in the series sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. Should I stick with them? Do they improve and is it worth perservering with it?