Well I'm definitely going to recommend Malazan book of the fallen and I'm going to disagree with Orm in the sense that I liked from the moment things started coming together in the first book and the world becomes clearer. With Orm it was clearly a case of YMMV.

The biggest hurdle with the series is that the first couple of chapters of the first book are really difficult to get through since you have zero explanations about the world and you're dropped into a situation that's ongoing and you are somehow expected to understand whats going on.

If you can get through that then you are in for an epic tale in a world that is largely unique and has its own distinct voice and interesting characters that range from the great to the common. Its a series that was meant to be re-read as the more you progress the more things start to fall into place.

Honestly if you are on an epic fantasy high right now its the one series that falls into that category that I can honestly say is good and lengthy.

I think the dialogue is just fine. I'll try and look for an example and post it for you so that you may judge it yourself.

Edit:This is one of those series that I can honestly say that it gets better in the next book as the author improves immensely in just about everything. Give it a shot

 

While I would normally wholeheartedly agree with Quick in his recommendation of Malazan, you said in the audiobook thread that you were looking for something happy after the First Law trilogy. Malazan is not happy. Not at all. It's outstanding in many respects, but it remains one of the few works of fiction where I've had to stop reading at some stages due to the distress it was causing me.

 

Malazan is definitely not a happy book and I never really managed to get into it, it was simply to complicated for me.

For recommendations simply go through this thread, many great books are mentioned.

Fantasy:
The Riyria Revelation : A solid fantasy series (that is finished). Good action and an interesting plot with believable characters.

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay or any of his other work if you aren´t interested in Asian themed fantasy. He is a master of historical AU´s and I personally find his style to be exquisite.

Terrach Chronicles by William King, a great series if you have enough of all the epic fantasy and want something a bit simpler. King is the master of Sword and Sorcery and you can be sure that his books are entertaining.

Among Thieves by Hulick, Douglas. The best book of 2013 for me.

SciFi:

Honor Harrington. It is the SciFi epic but sadly has quiet a few weaknesses. But I believe you should be able to get the first few books for free on amazon so worth a try.

Dune. Old but still one of the milestones of the genre.

Old Man´s War. Entertaining SciFi that focuses on characters and not on technobable.

And maybe something from Dan Abbnet like Gaunt Ghost´s or his Horus Series.

 

I would recommend Solaris and The Cyberiad, both by Stanislaw Lem. You probably know what the first is about, it's been made into a movie three times, after all. Suffice to say it's one of the best pieces of sci-fi ever written.

The Cyberiad is a collection of humorous, sometimes satirical short stories taking place in a universe that's populated by robots and other sentient machines. Most of them are anthropomorphic and they live in pseudo-medieval societies.

I've not found another sci-fi book I could read so frequently. On the surface, Lem appears to be writing silly fairytales about two robot constructors and their adventures. However, hidden beneath the silliness is a wealth of philosophical pondering, political satire (Lem lived in pre- and post-Soviet Poland and West Berlin) all mixed with the absurdity of existance.

All in all, heartily recc'ed.

 

Hey guys, I'm trying to locate the title of a book and all I can remember is parts of the back cover blurb. I never actually read the book, but I remember browsing amazon and coming across it and thinking it sounded interesting. Then I lost track of it.

The general idea, if I remember correctly, is that a boy stumbles across another version of himself from an alternate dimension/world/timeline (not sure). They talk and then the alternate version of himself tells the main character that his world is awesome and that they should trade places. The main character agrees and his alternate self gives him some type of device which is supposed to let them trade back at some point.

Then, when the main character and his alt-self do end up trading places, the main character discovers that he was tricked -- that his alt-self gave him a broken device, and that the world he now finds himself in is like a run-down, decrepit version of his own world? Or maybe the alt-self is evil and is trying to destroy worlds? I guess the story is then about the main character trying to find his way back to his own world.

Any ideas, anyone? I think it was YA, but I'm not entirely sure anymore.

 

Yeah, the first two books of Honor Harrington are free on Amazon. The first one starts kind of slow, but I greatly enjoyed the first half a dozen books. The latest ones aren't quite as good, but still worth reading imo.

 

Mirror, Mirror by Lez Edgerton? Though that one has female protaganist.

 

Weird. Similar idea, but not the one I was looking for. Pretty sure the protagonist was a guy.

 

Found it: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125632.Ghost_in_the_Mirror

 

Huh. Did not expect it to be R.L. Stein. That takes me back.

Anyway, first,

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Genre: Coming of Age / Drama
Rating: T
Summary: Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can't stay on the sidelines forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

Not the best summary in my opinion--It was out as a movie a short while ago, with Emma Watson as the female lead, so I wouldn't be surprised if half the people here had heard of it. But people keep being surprised when I tell them it was based on a book, so maybe you will too.
It's not fantasy, it's not sci-fi, but it is a very raw story. It feels real and exhilarating and mortifying at all the times it's meant to be. I haven't found a book written in recent times that so perfectly captures a stunted teen's mentality and psychological development, with the additional baggage of living with your best friend's suicide.

For the people that have seen the movie: How does it compare? ...The movie has a more satisfying ending, only it that it actually gives you closure, which you know you would have craved after everything you read about this kid. Aside from that, the movie is really close, actually. The book simply has more scenes, little scenes, nothing that's a dealbreaker, except for the fact that they were all written with such care, you kinda wanted to seem them in the big screen, down to the smallest detail.
There was one difference that did annoy me, but I can't go over it without spoilers.
Hope it's something one of you will enjoy.

Second,

Have you guys heard of these "Harry Potter" books? Apparently magic's real 'n sh*t! That's bananas.

 

Thanks for pointing this out. I've just finished the first one, and I really enjoyed it. Not great literature, but fun, especially towards the end.

 

I want to read something heavy and interesting like The Chicago School, The Nine, and The People's History of the Supreme Court. I don't particularly care what the topic is. Any suggestions?

 

The Emperor's Blades - Read this last night ... really awesome book.

 

Just read Red Rising by Pierce Brown and loved it.

I don't often read sci fi but thought this was great.

Also Emperor's Blade is great too! There seems to be a trend of new authors arriving with planned trilogies.

*Edit - Was just wondering if it would be possible in the future to make a list of recommended stories with votes from DLPers. This thread is quite hard to go through, it seems that after five pages it repeats and recommends WOT/LOTR/Rothfuss etc etc. I don't mind helping sorting through things but who would be the person to ask?

 

I've been wanting to make a complete list of recommended books and put it on the DLP Goodreads group but I always loose steam after a few pages. Since I have to make sure the links work, separate books into series, etc. I have searched through 30 pages or so of recommendations already.

I can make a Google docs page if more people want to help so we can aggregate all the books, maybe even link back to the DLP post #, etc. Depending on how detailed we want to be.

 

That would be awesome. You should do this, then the rest of us can contribute too.

I know I'd love to see that list, I've just recently got back into reading, and i'm devouring stuff so fast, I feel like I'm already starting to run out.

 

I'd certainly be up for helping edit a google docs thing every now and again, when I've got free time.

And don't worry, Innomine, there's plenty of good stuff out there especially these days.

 

Anyone got some low-key fantasy book recs? Nothing earth-shaking in terms of stakes, something more along the lines of a heroic band doing a quest or something.

 

Have you read The Riyria Revelations?

It sounds pretty much exactly like what you are after. I know I was after something relatively simple and easy to follow a while back, and I read these. They're fun and easy.

 

Goodreads as a final archive would be great. That would make keeping track of books a piece of cake.

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I liked Blood Song by Anthony Ryan. It was a fun read with an interesting world. The band of brothers in the book was pretty good, mostly.