Just finished reading Raven's Shadow by Anthony Ryan, I must say it's quite the enjoyable piece.
The book reminds me of The Name Of The Wind structure wise, a scribe chronicling the life story of the main character who's on his way to a final duel.
Truly a great fantasy book, it's been a while since I finished a fantasy book, I feel it has returned to me something I lost, just for a while...
​

 

The Killing Star. Just got this book off Amazon. Earth is destroyed in the 1st 20-30 pages. Lesson: Looking for alien life might not be the smart play.

 

Just finished Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours, by Jim Butcher. It's pretty good, and Butcher writes Spider-Man about as well as you'd expect. Little bit weird to be reading a Spider-Man novel though.

 

Just started reading The Enemy by Lee Child. So far I cannot put it down. Jack Reacher is a very very captivating protagonist.

 

Actually just finished re-reading that about a week ago. They range from excellent to so-so, but the writing and action scenes in them are top notch. The plots in them aren't bad, but they're nothing great either. Some of them have some aspects of mystery to them and some are pretty straight forward. All except two that I can remember though are absolutely great reads that you don't really want to put down. They also have a nitty gritty realism to them that is hard to find (well-written) in other books.

That said, you don't want to read too many of them in a row. They do tend to get a bit repetitive. The plots in them are different, but they all follow a similar theme. Reacher finds a problem. Reacher tries to figure it out. Reacher pulls off some great investigating work. Reacher finds the bad guy and kills him after an intense fight scene/chase/etc. They're a bit of brain candy for guys. That being said, I absolutely love the books, and the re-read value on them is incredible. I have read most of the books 3 or 4 times and continue to re-read some of them every year.

Overall I give the series a 4/5 and recommend it for anyone that is bored currently and likes an easy entertaining read.

 

Swung by the library today and picked up The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.

It was a fun read, based on the premise that humanity had evolved the ability to Step into alternate Earths, although a cantrip-device is required for the majority of mankind to use the ability. Oddly enough, Datum Earth (our Earth) is the only one where mankind has evolved, so there are unlimited natural resources to exploit. The story itself focuses on a young man who has the ability to Step naturally, as he and the world's first confirmed artificial intelligence go out to explore as far as they can into the continuum.

This book won't blow your mind, but it sure made for a pleasant read for the night.

 

In the interests of brevity I’ll simply say that I’m trying to catch up on my leisure reading and I was wondering if DLP would be able to give me any recommendations for novels which fall in the Sci-fi, Fantasy, steampunk genres. More specifically I’ve recently taken an interest stories which incorporate an element of politics and economics along with the usual dose of magical/technological action.

To help save some time I’ll say that I’ve managed to make my way through a fair number of L.E. Modesitt’s works along with Terry Pratchett, Timothy Zahn, Frank Herbert, Jim Butcher, George Martin, Patrick Rothfuss , J.K. Rowling and a few others.

Also, just to keep on topic, I recently finished the first three books of L.E.Modesitt’s Imager series and I must say I quite enjoyed it over all. The author managed to take the cringe worthy concept of an over powered Mary Stu and turn it on its head by presenting the protagonist with problems he couldn’t immediately fight his way through.

Over the course of three novel we’re shown that, although power may at first seem like a great way to make life easier Modesitt shows that it really only serves to complicate things and creates a world which I feel could be a decent representation of how a near magical subset of humanity could coexist with a more quotidian populace.

I’ll admit this is somewhat short but sadly my time is as well, however I hope this suffices and I look forward to reading any recommendations which are put forward.

 

You could try The prince of Nothing series by Bakker, R.Scott it is a nice mix of what you search for.

You could also try Death Angels by William King or The Rivria Revelations by Michal J. Scullian if you want to read some books that are not from famous authors. Kushiels Dart is also quite interesting.

And the work of Guy Gaveriel Kay like Under Heaven or Tigana should also fit your criteria..

 

Don't know if it was recc'ed before but Iron Druid Chronicles is a good read. While everything involving Celt mythology is somewhat awesome, it applies a new perception to it.

To be honest it made me sometimes feel that the situations were solved too easyly, but than again the protogonist is two thousand plus years old and he managed to survive this long.

Anyway especially the interaction between Atticus and Oberon is hillarious, Widow Macdonaugh herself is different level of win. And the main character is a druid, it's only another good point in my opinion. Some reviewers considered the writer to be the next Jim Butcher but there is not much similarity between them. Still I believe Atticus is enough of a smartass to really enjoy it.

 

I've read the first three books. They are fun to read, nothing too ambitious, perfect if you want to relax and have a quiet evening with a book.

Comparing them to the Dresden files is unfair... Dresden Files is a "from zero to hero" kind of novel. Harry had some crude tricks and improved on them a lot over the series. Atticus on the other hand is over twenty centuries old with a handful of tricks perfected over all of those years and IOUs to collect (or pay). There is not that much of a challenge for him.

Still, I second this recommendation: if you've got some time and will to read, Iron Druid series is a good choice.

 

Started reading Iain Banks "Culture" series. I finished Consider Phlebas a few days ago and now I'm reading The Player of Games. Good shit. I was looking for a good futuristic sci-fi series to read after I finished Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War recently, and apparently I found it.

 

Depends; If your mom likes a little fantasy thrown in with her romance, Gabaldon's Outlander Series would probably float her boat (a woman in a slightly unhappy marriage in post-war England stumbles across a doorway to the 1700's). If she prefers a striaght-up historical tale, anything by Philippa Gregory (she of The Other Boelyn Girl fame). Haven't really seen the wife reading much else...

 

They aren't romance books, but about the only series my mum actually reads is The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. There's thirteen of them, about one a year, and I don't actively dislike the audiobooks when she puts them on in the car.

 

Try The Time-Traveller's Wife, which is excellent (in book form, at least).

 

My wife is reading the second novel now (when she can spare the time from the load of novels she's reading for her Master's in English Lit.) and she's enjoying them so far. It doesn't hurt that she's planning a trip to Scotland two summers from now, but yeah, it's enough romance without being too much, and there must not be much in the way of 'fantasy' or she'd have dumped the books by now.

My wife and her mother both liked The Memory Keeper's Daughter, and I've recommended Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas books as light and quick reads. Some of the themes and situations in the Odd Thomas books are pretty dark, but this was kept at arm's length by, strangely enough, the first-person narrative. The first of the Odd Thomas series is by far the best, and a little heartbreaking, tbh, but I still really liked them.

 

Went and got the first three books. Thoughts:
NOTHING HERE TO SEE

But the overarching plots are good, and much like Butcher, the stories have only improved with time. I'm probably going to get Tricked today or tommorrow and read it, but the reviews I've looked at implies awesomeness awaits.

 

From what I know the fifth book will focus on around the time when Granuille gets her tattoos, so about 12 years into the future.

 

Got book four and read it.

NOTHING HERE TO SEE

Atticus was decent through the book, but continues to suffer from a lack of general awesomeness. He's really not struggling to overcome opposition, or at least it doesn't feel like it.