The good news on that front is that Sanderson greatly deemphasizes the more annoying traits of many characters. The last three books aren't perfect by any means, but they're a big improvement on 8-10.

 

Don't make fun of renowned Dan Brown.

 

Ship of Fools, by Richard Paul Russo. Genuinely scary scifi-horror.

And The Coldest War, by Ian Tregillis, is even better than the first book, Bitter Seeds. Time travel and Nazi X-men vs. British warlocks who summon Azathoth!

 

On one hand, yeah, Brown's books aren't particularly well written, with rather flat characters, repetitive phrasing and the extremely cheap gimmick of writing really, really short chapters that all end with a cliffhanger to create tension, coupled with his rather annoying habit to pretend as if the historic mysteries were well researched and true.

On the other hand, despite all that, I still had fun with most of its previous books while reading them. Lost Symbol sucked though, which cemented my decision to not read anything from him again.

But damnit, a mystery about Dante's Divine Comedy actually sounds really interesting. Worth paying money for or wait for libraries to get it? >_>


On WoT: The story was interesting, as was the magic, the organisation of the Aes Sedai and all the stuff about the pattern and the three main chars being those who changed the pattern, forgot the word for it but what really put me off and made me stop reading around book 5 or 6 were the impossible to like female characters who all boiled down to being bitchy all the time every time they appeared, generally crossing their arms under their breasts hissing "men".

Moraine, was that her name, the female Aes Sedai who was the Ganfalf to Rand's Frodo, was extremely unlikable too, since her MO was to basically tear into Rand or the others whenever they had legitimate questions and act as if they had insulted and beaten her mother. She is angry at them for being ignorant, even though they were just farmboys and angry at them for wanting to know what the fuck is going on and is extremely reluctant to explain even the simplest things.

Then there was the matter with how three of the females totally attacked Matt when he freed them from captivity and I was never too clear why they did it outside of being ungrateful jerks.

So, I don't know whether the author hated women or just didn't get them at all, but yeah, but the portrayal of female characters was extremely problematic for me and I doubt that changes throughout the next six books. however, if it does, I would be willing to pick them up again, since there was stuff to like.

On that note, Rand wasn't all that likable either, my favorite characters were pretty much Matt, the other boy and the knight who accompanied the Aes Sedai. The woman falling in love with said knight was the most likable of the bunch, if only for the reason that she had to be like that to deal with the citizens of her village.

 

IIRC, Jordan wanted to portray how things would be like if the gender balance was shifted as drastically as it could be towards women as it was towards men in medieval times. Notice how many lords and nobility are queens vis-a-vis those who are kings, and it becomes a bit more evident. And that's ignoring the Aes Sedai, the culture themes in most of the nations, etc...

 

So now instead of reading about a bunch of misogynistic assholes we get to read about a bunch of unreasonable and overbearing cunts. Joy.

I loved Wheel of Time, but if you don't like it by book 5 then you aren't going to like it.


Any other opinions on Inferno? I have really shitty taste in everything so I actually like Dan Brown. How is it compared to his other novels? I really didn't like The Lost Symbol all that much, whereas I loved the Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.

 

I'd put it at about the same level as Da Vinci code personally. Granted neither were what I'd call great books, but they both kept me occupied for a couple of days.

 

Not a book, but Tattúínárdǿla Saga is a retelling of the Star Wars movies as an Icelandic saga, complete with poetry. It was written by a college professor in Old Norse, and then translated into English.

If you ever believed that you were the biggest nerd ever, you thought wrong.

 

This may have been mentioned before, but I can't recall seeing any posts about it. And it's probably a given that many people here are already going to pick it up, but if you hadn't planned to, definitely go out and get Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

I managed to get my hands on a copy a few days early, but it's out on Tuesday. This is the kind of book you want to get as soon as possible. It's a little like Game of Thrones in one way, and one way only - it's fantasy written for people who aren't that into fantasy. In another way, it's the complete opposite. While GoT is about as bleak and adult as a world can get, this book is seen through the whimsical eyes of a child narrator. This doesn't mean it's a childish book; it's a book which slips through the paths that adult writers often neglect.

Gaiman described it best himself: loosely paraphrased - while adults always walk on the path, children are not so constrained. There's a scene where the protagonist, loosely based on a seven year old Gaiman, is contemplating how to get out of a garden. An adult would see one path. A child sees a dozen, including going through the rhododendrons and crawling under a bush. This book takes the reader down these other paths, rather than having a child protagonist walking down the same route as a tiny adult.

Something about seeing these events from the eyes of a child, where the narrator doesn't understand what's happening, but the reader clearly does, is fascinating. Recapturing the imagination and wonder of youth is half the reason that anybody writes, after all.

Don't listen to me. Listen to Patrick Rothfuss. http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/201...ned-reading-the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane/

And buy this damn book.

 

If you like the Dresden Files but wish Harry wasn't so damn nice, then you'll love

Sandman Slim series by Richard Kadrey

Book 1: Sandman Slim
Book 2: Kill the Dead
Book 3: Aloha from Hell
Book 4: Devil Said Bang
Book 5: Kill City Blues

A brief description of book one.

James Stark spent 11 years killing monsters in Lucifer's arena for the entertainment of fallen angels, but now he's back in seedy, magic-riddled L.A., trying to avenge his girlfriend's murder and hunt down Mason Faim, the black magician responsible for getting him sent downtown. He meets with some initial success, beheading second-rate magician Kasabian (whose head becomes Stark's smart-mouthed sidekick), but he can't find Faim. Instead he encounters Homeland Security agents, a near-psychotic angel and some odd nonhuman, nonangelic beings called the kissi.


Seriously give it a read you won't regret it.

 

Huh, thanks Madeye, I'll have to check that out.

On an unrelated note, does anyone have some good sci-fi recommendations? I'll take anything at the moment, I enjoy well written sci-fi.

For a more specific request, I've been looking for sci-fi written entirely or partially from an alien perspective, an outsider's view of humanity. I recently read some short stories by Asimov that got me interested in the idea, but what I've found so far has not been very good.

 

Try CJ Cherryh and her Foreigner series. It's good fun and vaguely reminiscent of the sci-fi greats.

 

Don't know if anyone has mentioned these, but I enjoyed these 2 very much and there's a third that is coming down the pipe soon.

Reflexive Fire

Target Deck

Guy who wrote these was actual military. The action...the firefights...worth my money. And yours. If you want.

I wrote this book for those of you who are ready for this genre to go to the next level, beyond superficial political messages and stereotypical terrorists wearing turbans on their heads, I hope this book connects with a different breed of reader and action-adventure fan. -Jack Murphy, author and Special Forces veteran.

 

Have you tried the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold

Its basically a series of novels revolving around Miles Vorkosigan, a physically impaired interstellar spy and mercenary admiral from the planet Barrayar, set approximately 1000 years in the future.

My Local Librarian recommended them to me, she is a huge SciFi fan

The books in order, not including novellas and prequels :

The Warrior's Apprentice
Borders of Infinity
Brothers in Arms
The Vor Game
Barrayar
Mirror Dance
Cetaganda
Memory
Komarr
A Civil Campaign
Diplomatic Immunity
Winterfair Gifts
Cryoburn
Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

I hardly ever read Sci-fi but these were quite good.

 

Try The Road Not Taken by Harry Turtledove - one of my favorite sci-fi short stories (it's also from written from alien perspective).

 

If you have trouble finding The Road Not Taken, PM me with an email address, I just might be able to help.


Also, if you know anything about WH40K, then Fire Warrior, by Simon Spurrier, is worth a read. It's been years since I read it, but I'm pretty sure the whole thing is from the PoV of a Tau warrior.

 

Read Sandman Slim, Don't remember the details but I do remember thinking it was meh. Only memorable thing I remember from the book is that

Spoiler

the big bad villain wasn't supposedly all that bad and Lucifer pays the protagonist a visit at the end.

 

Pretty much this, although I hadn't realised there were any sequels; I enjoyed it enough that I might check them out if I can find cheap/library copies.

 

So with summer coming I thought some of you are probably searching for some entertainment.

Among Thieves: Tales of the Kin

Drothe has been a member of the Kin for years, rubbing elbows with thieves and murderers in the employ of a crime lord while smuggling relics on the side. But when an ancient book falls into his hands, Drothe finds himself in possession of a relic capable of bringing down emperors-a relic everyone in the underworld would kill to obtain.

One of the better books I have read this summer. It is dark, gritty and manages to avoid (nearly) all typical cliches with lots of action, intrigue, oaths, betrayals, good humor and fun characters.

4/5 in my humble opinion.

Imager (Imager Portfolio)

Imager is the beginning of a whole new fantasy in a whole new magical world from the bestselling creator of Recluce. Although Rhennthyl is the son of a leading wool merchant in L’Excelsis, the capital of Solidar, the most powerful nation on Terahnar, he has spent years becoming a journeyman artist and is skilled and diligent enough to be considered for the status of master artisan—in another two years. Then, in a single moment, his entire life is transformed when his master patron is killed in a flash fire, and Rhenn discovers he is an imager—one of the few in the entire world of Terahnar who can visualize things and make them real.

The other good book I read this summer but probably more of a guilty pleasure. While it has interesting characters and a intriguing magic system it is also a really slow book which spends a lot of time explaining unnecessary things (like which wine the characters drink when they eat etc.).

3,5/5


P.S Good written Sci-Fi, especially god written military Sci-Fi, is hard to find. Most fail within the first 20 or so pages...
For example: (Space) Marine Corps recruits death row candidates and turns them into soldiers, in fact the whole army is made up by criminals. The next chapter however describes how corrupt and inept the government is and that the Marines Corps is the only institution that is not only incorruptible but also believing in the democratic ideals and willing to defend them. I think you can imagine the rest... And this idiotic idea was the case in the last 3 books I tried to read.
I mean some glorification of the military is ok and expected in that genre but this is absurd. Can anyone explain to me why it is so common?