Word, the Legends trilogy was great. I started with it and went back to Chronicles and they got a lot better I have to say. Sure, by today's standards it utilises some things, races and such, that we seem to have left behind, but it was very good.

Get it.

 

Just a request, but when people make reccomendations, can they make mini-summaries for them? Would be a major time-saver.

 

Definitely have to thank DLP for introducing me to the Dresden Files. Books 1-3 go by pretty slowly (Fool Moon and Grave Peril were not too bad, but I can say that Storm Front wasn't the most exciting stuff) - but I think you definitely have to read them if you're to start the series. It starts to pick up pretty well with Summer Knight. Favorite book in the series so far is Small Favor (Summer Knight and Dead Beat are close behind), though I just finished Turn Coat and am starting Changes today. What are people's general impressions of Ghost Story? I know Taure has a thread up, but it has spoilers - I just wanted to know if people were satisfied.

I've more or less just started reading adult fantasy/supernatural/mystery. I read a lot of YA fantasy when I was younger but got sidetracked to political thrillers like Ludlum's work.

Keep in mind the recommendations are probably going to be on the youth side.

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
A Song of Ice and Fire by George Martin (Writing and plot is great, but I like to have some sort of protagonist I can gun for - the books can depress me. I know a friend who just stopped reading after the Red Wedding incident).
The Pendragon Adventure by D.J. MacHale (the series starts off kidd-ish in the beginning but really, really matures once you get to Books 7-10)
Bartimaeus Trilogy by Johnathan Stroud
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
Michael Crichton Books (The science isn't really accurate, but the books are a good read if you just approach them from a thriller standpoint)
Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (Only one I read and it was pretty good, couldn't really get into any of his others)
Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Not a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, but I liked this one)
Michael Lewis Books (Fiction but not Fantasy - I enjoyed Blind Side, Moneyball, and Liar's Poker)
Robert Ludlum's Work
John Grisham's Work (It gets repetitive though - read the early stuff such as The Firm, Street Lawyer, Rainmaker).


I'll probably blow through Changes and Ghost Story this weekend. I'm looking for a new series to start in time though (I hate the feeling after I come to the last published book in a series and feel sad that there's no more). I'm looking for something Dresden Files-like. Preferably something that blends supernatural/fantasy elements into the modern world the way DF, HP do as opposed to high fantasy like Salvatore's stuff and Wheel of Time. I've heard some things about Felix Castor, Glen Cook's Garret P.I., and Simon Green's Nightside series. And yes, I do need a male protagonist. Have serious trouble getting through books focused on female protagonists. Any feedback on those? Thanks!

 

I loved The Rogue Squadron books that Stackpole wrote, although I don't think I've ever read any of his other Star Wars, or novels in general.

I can't belive I forgot the Abhorsen Trilogy, good call Khan, although you left out Abhorsen. As for the Pyrdain Chronicles if you haven't read them yet, get the hell off DLP and go read.

In recent news, I read Otherland by Tad Williams, it's one of those science fiction novels in which people hang out in virtual reality, in all truth, I would consider it to be amongst my top Sci-Fi books, because he does get really involved and detailed with the plot.

Oh, and I'm not sure if this has been recommended yet, although I would think it had been, but if you haven't read it yet, go get Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, there's a whole slew of sequels, but I didn't enjoy most of them. Speaker of the Dead was by the far the best in terms of the sequels he wrote.

 

I too recall fondly reading those Rogue Squadron books. Which is why a couple weeks back I borrowed the New World trilogy by Stackpole from the library. And did I regret it.

From the get-go the characterization was all over the place. The strong female lead that's introduced as being awesome in the first few chapters? Turns into the submissive eye-candy for the two male primary antagonists. One of the main male protagonists seems to fall deeply in love with a new woman every book. And the other was just plain confusing.

And confusing seems to be the theme of the series. Characters for no clear reason randomly turn into gods. The hostile species were poorly described and once I figured out what they would do, they would be replaced with a new variant. Halfway through the third novel, I said "fuck it" and skipped to read the last fifty pages. And there is no good payoff for reading through. Even though I eventually read the whole thing through trying to make sense of the end of the novel, things simply happen randomly.

In short, avoid his original work. It sucks.

 

Ugh, Stackpole's material outside of Star Wars is haphazard at best - but then again, having read I, Jedi and Isard's Revenge, I know that he's haphazard within the Star Wars framework as well. I'll stick with Aaron Allston and Timothy Zahn, both who are consistently good (also, fun fact: Timothy Zahn has two physics degrees - which is fucking awesome).

 

I don't know what everyone else thought, but I found Ghost Story to be a bit of a let down after the awesomeness that was Small Favor through to Changes. It wasn't bad, I'd say it's on par with the middle books of the series, but I found Changes to be so good that I was disappointed when I didn't enjoy Ghost Story as much.

For modern/urban fantasy I'd recommend the The Night Watch series by Sergei Lukyanenko.

 

Yeah same here. My dad, my younger brother and I were all disappointed with GS. It just didn't feel as awesome as some of the earlier stories. I get that it was showing stuff has greatly changed since Changes, but we'd been building up from street gangs to an ancient pantheon of gods.

Greatly agree. Fun to read, just don't watch the films first - they'll ruin the story and confuse the hell out of you.

 

I enjoyed Ghost Story immensely. Sure, it's awesome to see Harry destroy shit every time, but Ghost Story provided the much needed break. Plus, it was really interesting to see all the characters after situation changed in at the end of Changes. I really liked Butcher's writing in this. I've only read it once, when it came out, but some of the scenes are still imprinted in my brain. It was beautifully written.

As far as the story goes. I think I'm alright with the fact that there wasn't much progress in GH. It was basically setting up the stage for Harry's next job, and the mystery was also nicely pulled off.

TBH, between Changes and GH, I prefer the latter.

 

Okay, all these "girls, ick!" comments make me sad.

Some female main characters who won't give you girl cooties:

God's War, by Kameron Hurley.
Chasing the Dragon, by Nicholas Kaufmann.
Tomoe Gozen, by Jessica Amanda Salmonson.
The Newsflesh Trilogy, by Mira Grant.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson.

 

Just finished reading the First Law Trilogy...

I died a little on the inside. This is such a horrible series, and not as it's genuinely bad writing, but there's no point in reading it and hoping for a happy ending. Everybody dies, get's tortured, gets manipulated, is possessed by demons, kill their friends in berserker rages, are thrown off of cliffs for raping peasant women...

Fuck this series.

 

Thanks for the spoilers... I've only read the first one so far, rather liked it. I've been meaning to pick the others up at some point.

 

I loved Animorphs as a kid and hell I still enjoy the books now but fair warning reading that series from the beginning and then finally getting to the end was kind of soul crushing as a kid and still is now. I don't know if a kid murdered Applegates dog or something while she was writing the last few books but she seemed bound and determined to grind any shred of hope and happiness out of as many kids as possible with the ending of the series. She closes on just a severely fucked up note.

 

I completely agree. The series is great, but the ending STILL annoys me, and I have never gone back and re-read them because of it.

However, I remember wanting to find out why she did it. And IIRC, there were two reasons:
1 - she didn't want anyone else writing anything else set in the afterwords (fanfiction).
2 - she got bored, and wanted to be unable to write more of the series herself. Although that could be wrong, because I think from book 25 onwards, she didn't write many of the books herself anyway (according to wikipedia, she wrote books 1-25, the final two, and book 32.)

 

My Friend the Mercenary by James Brabazon

Just finished reading this guy a while ago. It's the memoirs of a foreign war correspondent who was one of the first journalists into Liberia in the early 2000s when Charles Taylor was still in power. He ended up tagging along with the LURD (rebels) during the fighting and was protected by a guy named Nick Du Toit who was pretty high up on the chain of command in Executive Operations before they were disbanded. It also deals with a failed coup d'etat that Brabazon was supposed to be doing a ride along for.

All in all really enjoyed the book. Not as high caliber as Robert Fisk, but it's pretty damn hard to beat Fisk at his own game anyway.

 

Im fairly similar, Ive read some of my favorite books from the series every now and again especially after I read a few series continuation fanfics that I really liked but I could never bring myself to read all the way to the end again, that shit was just traumatizing.

Id heard the first one before and the fact that she didnt actually write a lot of the later ones but Id never heard she just got bored, lovely how she decides crushing the happy out of all of her young fans is a great response to being bored >.>.

 

Bored isn't exactly the right word for it, but I thought it was close.

What I mean is, she had 'written' over 60 of the books. And over 6 years. She had completely immersed herself in the series, and had had to give up time from her other projects. She knew if she left the series open, she'd go back to it at some point, but if she did what she did, there wouldn't be enough of a series to go back to.

A sort of encouragement to write other worlds.

 

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, it's a fairly decent book, perhaps a bit over the top at times, but the writing was solid and overall it was fun to read. It's definitely YA though, so some of you may wish to avoid that.

 

I can now officially say that the Malazan book of the fallen series is the BEST series I have read so far, after having finished the eighth book, Toll the hounds, just last week I am still reeling from the events of the last few chapters, something that Erikson seems to have mastered to perfection.

Wow just Wow, I highly recommend this series to anyone in DLP, doesn't matter if your into urban fantasy or science fiction, give it a chance make it to the third book and you will be in for a ride.

10/10 ratings from me check it out if your looking for something new.