Well, they look pretty great. Guess this'll be my next read after I finish Mistborn.

 

Currently about half way through Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay and loving it. That said, the pacing is a bit odd. While everything so far is interesting and gripping, the plot hasn't really advanced further than what you know from the blurb... I have a feeling the end is going to feel rushed in comparison to the start.

 

Heavily recommending the Fables series by Bill Willingham. I like the alternate take on some of the Fables, and the story, while taking forever to ramp up, has some good twists in it. The artwork is great, and it's one of the few "graphic novels" I've ever bought.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21326.Fables_Vol_1

 

You might like the urban fantasy Pax Arcana series by Elliott James. The main character, John Charming, is descended from ancestors whose exploits are the source of all the fairy tales with a "Prince Charming" saving the day. His family's duty is expressly fighting magical beings who prey on humanity. If you're looking for detailed magical combat this should be good.

It has a very Dresden Files feel, but I somehow get the impression that there will be a much larger mix of other cultures than the Dresden Files. That series started focusing on the vampire courts, Fae, and demons once the over-arching plot kicked in. There's only been one book so far in the Pax Arcana, but that had several different mythologies mentioned, and there are 5 short stories published that give even more variety of baddies faced.

Note: The novel has chick-lit worthy cover art, just ignore it.

 

Just finished The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. It was a... good, solid, read. No spoilers in this post about anything past the first fifteen or twenty pages. It's about Harry August, one of many who live their lives over and over again. He finds out from someone much younger than him, who may also be much older, that the world ends. Repeatedly, and every time, it ends earlier. The novel goes over each of his lives, moving back and forth between them as serves the plot, though it's quite a cohesive read and the flow isn't really confusing, after the first one or two times. There's a great many well developed characters, and he lives each and every life differently.

While the idea of groundhog day/month/year/life is hardly a new one, the way it's executed is, to me at least, new. Highly recommended, though I'm still hesitant on giving it more than a 9/10.

 

Would anyone recommend reading Mein Kampf?

 

Reading the Roma Sub Rosa series, mostly OK, the first prequel, Seven Wonders is pretty good a 4/5, the second, Raiders of the Nile felt too random and Gordianus felt like an idiot, but the plot and side characters were nice, a 3.5. Reading the first book, it's very different, the characters are much flatter and so many faux-philosophical rants, all the time, I want to punch Gordianus, a 3/5. Will update after reading the rest.

I read the Iron Druid Chronicles, and it's not bad, but it isn't good at all and it's very annoying some times. Oberon is unsufferable, more each book, Aticcus is nice but annoys me some times, the vampires and werewolfs are utterly flat even though they get lots of screen time. Granuile is everything annoying in Ginny X100, and I'm serious, the Mythology is very confusing and guess what, annoys me some times but it can be awesome. The lack of in-depth celtic mythology pissed me of, and the only characters I truly liked were The Morrigan (blame Dragon Age) and Coyote, but I really liked them a 2.5/5 overall for the first 4 books, abandoned it after.

About Mein Kampf, it's a shitty but by delusional man who gets most facts wrong or distorts them, you win't get anything except loss of the time or the very assholish merit of saying "I read Mein Kampf". It's better than the Protocols of the Elders of Zion though.

I'm thinking about reading Cornwell, especifically, Saxon Chronicles, thoughts? Also, any recomendations on Roman historical fiction? I loved Rome and can't find any book that's half as good.

 

I had to read about half of it in POLS 230. The only things that really makes MK a noteworthy political publication are the infamy of the author, the disgustingly hateful rhetoric, and the detailed proposals outlining Nazi Germany's future transgressions.

Otherwise, it's slow, exceedingly long, and poorly-written. That's about all I can say.

 

Cool. I'll just skim over Wikipedia.

 

I read both the Sharpe series, which was interesting but got a bit boring towards the end of the series (and I have a problem with rooting for Napoleon which means for my always the wrong side won ;-), and The Saxon Chronicles which was quite good and very entertaining.

The Silver Pigs (Marcus Didius Falco, #1) This is here is the only Rome book that I feel halfway save to recommend. This series chronicles the adventures of a private eye in Rome and how he dreams of reaching a higher "caste".

 

The Saxon and Warlord chronicles by Cornwell were both really good. I still re-read the Warlord books occasionally.

As far as Roman historical fiction, there is Colleen McCullough, who wrote the Masters of Rome series which was pretty good. Goes from Marius through to Augustus becoming emperor, so it reads like an account of the final years of the Roman republic for the most part.

Roma is pretty good as well, follows the same structure as Edward Rutherford's books if you've ever read them. The other Rome books I've read tend to be about random legions getting lost and beating up the Parthians so I wouldn't recommend any of those.

 

I already read the first two books of the Marcus Didius Falcus series, is not bad, but I couldn't get into it. It's not very different from Roma Sub Rosa, and I think that the latter's autor is more competent at getting the reader hooked on the story. I knew about Masters of Rome series, but neve mustered enough will to read it, but now I feel like taking a look at it.

I know that kind of book. I read two books from an italian author, Valerio Massimo I think, he wrote that Last Legion book. Awful, full of clichés and purple prose, horrible flat characters and pathetic attempst at romance. And he describing China, god, he wrote a wuxia film in book form, but it's quite obvious he knows or cares shit about wuxia. Oh, and all protagonists smell strongly of author avatar.

 

Is that the one where the main character and his sister are Caesar's bastard children? Because that was really bad.

Massimo wrote another one called Tyrant, about the tyrant of Syracuse which I would recommend. The other two would be Tides of War and Fires of War which are about the Greeks rather than Rome, but both are a little easier to get through and are more kind of chilling out books than the masters series.

Masters of Rome is dry in parts but I think it does a good job of showing everyone as people, and there isn't any overt cases of the author peddling one of the characters or senate factions points of view.

 

The Saxon Stories are awesome stuff from Cornwell though the amount of utter arm-twisting Uhtred gets tied down with when you just want to see him go a Viking can be really annoying.

 

Any recommendation on alternate history books? Especially ones where wars were won by the other side.

 

Fatherland

Probably the only book with the whole Germany won WW2 I feel comfortable enough to recommend. We follow a police detective who stumbles over a murder with the potential to shake the world. A bit short to explain the interesting alternate setting a bit long for a mystery book.


Tomorrow, When the War Began (Tomorrow, #1)

A more YA themed book. North Korea (or some other Asian Nation) attacks Australia and beats them handily. We follow a group of teenagers who start their own guerilla operation. The earlier books are the better ones but still an interesting scenario.


The Peshawar Lancers

The one the farthest away from your search but my favourite. An Asteroid hit earth in the industrial era and the following winter led to a crash of the European civilization but quite a number of the British managed to escape to India and build a new Empire which heavily incorporates Indian elements. The story plays out 300 or so years after all that and while we follow the story of a young army captain we really get to see how the world has changed.

 

Final review of Under Heaven:

There's a lot to like about it: the quality of the writing, the richness and novelty of the setting (most fantasy/historical fiction is rather European in flavour), the strong focus on character and the exploration of their pasts.

However, the story has two, interconnected, flaws.

The first is pacing. On page 300 we read the sentence "it was beginning". It's not an exaggeration. The first half of the book, while engaging in the way it establishes the characters and setting, does very little in the way of advancing the plot. It takes several hundred pages to catch up with the blurb on the back cover. Several hundred pages of build up, of characters talking about how momentous the following events are going to be.

With that kind of build up, Kay really needs to deliver the goods, and I'm afraid the second half of the story is somewhat lacking in that regard. The ending is unbelievably rushed - in some cases several months being dealt with in a couple of paragraphs - and it's a start contrast to the hundreds of pages it took to cover several days in the first half. Many of the most significant consequences of the story's main plot point - the gift of the horses - are glossed over and just mentioned, rather than depicted. In short, the ending of the story feels like a summary of a much larger book, one that did the tale justice.

That connects us with the second flaw, which is the tendency of the author to tell rather than show. The author has a favourite way of shaping his characters in the reader's mind: he switches viewpoint and we hear the internal musings of one character on another. This is lazy characterisation. So often the reader just receives declarations of a character's abilities and temperament rather than seeing those abilities in action. The same is true of plot points. We're told again and again of the danger of the imperial court, of the way courtesy and formality can be used as a weapon, of how the gift of 250 horses will make Tai's life miserable... but we never really see it. It's just hot air.

Despite all that, the story is an enjoyable read and there are some good moments of characterisation - most particularly those delivered by that most overused of literary techniques, the flashback.

3.5/5

Next book on the reading list: The Shadow of the Wind.

 

Well, if you want alternate history then Turtledove has to be mentioned:

How Few Remain and its follow up 11 book series the Southern Victory Series - this series is about a world where the Confederate States won the US Civil War. How Few Remain takes place a few years after the war, and the 11 books after cover WW1, roaring 20s/Great Depression and then WW2.

Another Turtledove series

Worldwar Series - takes place during WW2. In the middle of the war Earth is invaded by an alien race of lizards forcing the allies and axis to put a halt to their war to defend the planet. He wrote This short story before it and you can see some of the same elements between the two (i.e. despite having advanced space travel capabilities the military tech of the aliens lags behind enough to give humanity a chance)

Turtledove mostly writes AH, but those two series are my favorite.

Island in the Sea of Time series is alright. It's about the island of Nantucket off the coast of Massachusetts that gets transported to the Bronze Age.

Similar to the previous is the 1632 series by Eric Flint and others. It's about a small West Virginia coal mining town that gets transported into central Germany right in the middle of the 30 years war. There are a lot of books and it's still being written iirc.

The Years of Rice and Salt is about a world where the Black Death killed 99% of Europe's population.

The Plot Against America - Charles Lindbergh is elected president in 1940 and signs a treat to keep the US isolated from Hitler and the Japanese while expanding antisemitism at home.

Google also gave me this wiki Here

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12395241-sworn-in-steel?from_search=true

The second book in the Tales of Kin series is available now... so go and read it. Great adult adventure story based in a medieval fantasy world.

Edit:

Both 1632 and Island in the Sea of time suffer from a very pro American perspective. That ideology destroyed at least the 1632 series for me (never got more than 100 pages into it).

 

Seconding a recommendation here. Very little action, but expertly written and a great look at an isolationist USA.