I read Sword of Shannara after reading some of his later work, and enjoying it. Personally, I did enjoy it, but I agree with a review I read shortly afterward saying that it was very much a debut novel, as you can feel the LotR influences waning throughout the book, and it morphing into a more unique tale as it goes on.

In early parts, the tale feels almost as though it is a adaptation of Tolkien into a different setting, but this slowly tapers off, and I remember the last third being much more unique and interesting.

Honestly? I wouldn't go after SoS as my first Brooks book - he writes most (all?) of his novels and series in the same universe, and I think his later works are superior. Even the second book in that series, The Elfstones of Shannara, struck me as very different and new - I never finished it, but I certainly wasn't feeling the parallels there (apart from the normal parallels most High Fantasy work has) with Tolkien. I would start with Scions of Shannara, personally.

That said, I'm not sure how much I would recommend Brooks in general. I've read quite a few of his books a while ago, when I don't think my tastes and expectations were what they are now, and I found them becoming quite repetitive after a while. I feel as though he only really has one story in his head, and each series feels a lot like the last - well told, if a bit dry, but unoriginal.


Fake-edit: Derp, you've read them already. Well, that's my review anyway. It's quite hazy because I read them several years ago, and I can't recall individual plots - partially because of what I said earlier, that they all merged a bit in my head.

 

It isn't a book recommendation, precisely, because I haven't read it yet - although I fully intend to, because I love the author's other books. However, I thought DLP might be intrigued by 'The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August'.

M.R.Carey called it "an astonishing reinvention of the time travel genre". So, Joe, praise by proxy?

 

Chasing a few reccs for my old man based on likenesses to other series. He has read and enjoyed The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, the Jon Shannow books by David Gemmell, and the Les Norton series by Robert G Barrett. He couldn't get into Storm Front, however. Any suggestions?

 

Tell him to persist until book 4. Then it becomes super duper awesome.

Or make him listen to the audio books. I never liked the first three books of Dresden until I listened to James Masters perform them.

 

I've never tried an audiobook. Is it easy to get distracted while listening?

 

You generally tend to listen while doing something. Driving, cooking, walking, running etc. I really enjoy it, hard to read books anymore. Also good as it forces you to hear every word. I have a tendency to get excited and start skimming otherwise.

 

Read The Barrow by Mark Smylie and not quite sure what to think of it yet. On one hand, I didn't really have fun with the book. Plot was your average dungeon crawl adventure that everyone who has ever played a pen & paper like D&D or similar even just once has experienced to some degree or seen or read enough stories and movies with the same plot.

They get a treasure map at the beginning, try to set up the crew in the next 200 pages, which also develops the world and society they find themselves in, religion, magic, upper class, lower class, history and all, and then they start their adventure. Classic stuff.


I have to mention that the worldbuilding is clunky though, too much useless information that makes it hard to remember the essential stuff. Too many names, too many people who are only mentioned once. You get a good general impression on things but I doubt most people can remember most or even any of the gods or leaders. So, bloated, could have cut a lot of fat.


Most of the characters are deeply unlikeable and really unpleasant people, there are twists you see a mile coming and then an ending that comes a bit out of nowhere, since a) unreliable narrators and b) it comes out of the left field and you don’t really have a chance of figuring that out. And least I didn’t see that coming and seeing I predicted pretty much everything else, yeah, dunno. It is also full with unnecessarily disturbing sex scenes that are only there to shock people.

Yet I did finish the book and am probably going to check out the sequel. More in the spoilers: Beware I do spoil a lot.

Spoiler

What you probably heard about this book is that it is rather gritty and full of uncomfortable sex scenes. A book that is often described as mature. Well, it your baseline for mature is simply fucked up sex scenes like a demon/priestess (was not too clear on that one) using a unicorn horn as a strap-on to fuck a prostitute in front of a large crowd or when an undead corpse is pounding a woman with a dick that is infested with maggots while they are surrounded by ghouls then yeah, sure, it's mature.

Although, I admit, the deep allegorical and symbolic meanings of these acts were a bit lost on me. Rather seemed to be shock for shocks sake. As if it tried really, really hard to be gritty.

The rest of the story, the twists, are negated by the characters who were, for the vast majority, just plain unlikeable.

The book jumps with its POVs so, we see the perspective of many characters, but the problem is, I really, really wish we didn't. Okay, the roll-call:

The, for the most part, main character is Stjepan Black-Heart, whose name is both, stupid like a care bear villain and oddly unfitting. I do not know if that was intentionally ironic, that pretty much the only character who has even a shred of decency is the one who is titled Black-Heart even though pretty much every other character is way, way, waaaaaaay worse than him. His good points is that he cares at least a bit for people, as much as the situation allows to, as in, he mourns fallen comrades, respects other cultures and peoples, doesn't really discriminate, is open, friendly and polite to people, doesn't rape anyone in the book nor does anything allude to the fact that he raped people in the past (which is, unfortunately, a rarity) and he doesn't backstab people unless they backstab him first. That said, otherwise, he is rather generic, what with a dead sister and mother whom background, being well educated and smart. He is not all good or noble, since he also lies to everyone and is also willing to exploit people to get what he wants but he tries to not be a total dick about it.

Then comes Erim, a young woman who is posing as a man and my favorite character in the book. Another non rapist (2 of 3), interesting perspective in the world, decent person, but we don't really learn all that much about her except that she maybe comes from a background of abuse and that she is a pretty good swords(wo)man. Then there is the subplot with her thinking that she is perverted because of a bit of a longing towards a few sexual acts at the beginning of the book, which made me initially think she had been cursed, blessed or marked by one of the two sex goddesses or something but ultimately not.


That's about it with the likeable people, really. Other characters include an insane and evil warlock who kills innocent people for imagined slights, a man who rapes his abused and disgraced sister and who has led an extensive campaign of abuse against her, a brothel owner who extorts sexual acts by desperate people coming to him, and as said, he is the owner of a flourishing brothel in a really decadent city and society, so, yeah, rapist and human trafficker and whatnot, a group of lawful stupid knights led by a noble lawful stupid lord, who is the brother to the two siblings mentioned above (he also seems to want to fuck his own sister and is also abusive towards her albeit in a different and non-sexual way) who are all poster children as to why knighthood is such a flawed structure in the first place.



Think Kingsguard rather than the Mountain. Not people trapped by their vows like Jaime but rather people who are judgmental, oppressive and "honorable". Their one redeeming fact is that they are not rapists and how sad is that? (3 of 3 but I count that whole group as one as they are basically a single person, the lord. The other knights are interchangeable and unsurprising to exactly no one, die like flies throughout the quest.) They are still assholes and unlikeable though. Lastly, a group of rapist cutthroat mercenaries who are, well, rapist cutthroat mercenaries.


Does it come as a surprise that every single person in the latter group attempts a backstab against the group at one point or another? Did it really surprise anyone that the brothel owner was working for evil? Heck, even the book itself points out that anyone who was surprised that the evil crazy mage turned out to be an evil crazy mage is a moron.


I admit, the brothel owner was initially interesting to follow, more so than the others, simply because his actions and intrigue was interesting but that stopped pretty soon as they left the city since he stopped doing that kind of thing and just became another member of the party.


I left out the sister who was abused, who is also the sister of the noble lord-knight and is 99% of the book a victim without anything to do or say and it was quite a depressing read as one knows that there is no way, no way in hell this book ends without her getting raped at least once more or at least engages in some sort of dubious sexual action. And it doesn’t. She gets two more scenes, alongside an ending that comes out of nowhere where it turns out that she IS a witch, studied magic and sorcery in books, turns the whole ritual around and becomes some sort of demi-goddess/sorceress supreme or whatever.


All I can say is, good for her, although one is never too clear how much left is really her since we never really got to know her, just the facade she tells us she had been putting on. I just feel sorry for her maids, who all died partly because of her and partly because of that fucked up witch-hunt happy society. Never got why it was heresy when a woman attempted magic but they were happy to have a magic university in town, as magic plays a prominent role in society. Seems to me, you either tolerate magic or you don’t, but whatever, decadent and patriarchal societies are hypocritical, news at 11.


The good part is that everyone in the latter group dies, making the Erim, Black-Heart and the sister the only survivors, well, them and the mercenary. Pretty sure the sister is out of the story completely or maybe she appears in the comics, I don’t know. Could be interesting to see her do her stuff but she pretty much said she wants to remain in isolation.


So, yeah, had a lot of trouble with the book and its characters, but I still am interested in Erim and what she will do with the sword and stuff, so, I might check out the next book. That said, can’t really recommend it to anyone except if you are looking for this kind of grim dark with a cast of really unlikeable characters, with really the sole exception being Erim and there is not all that much to her except being the likeable person pretty much by default.


It’s hard to like the sister since she isn’t really much of a character. As said, 99% of the book she is a victim, with zero agency or chance of even a bit of happiness, with the threat of another rape hanging over her, then she gets apparently mindfucked by the map and controlled, and then, bam, she had been putting on an act for every scene we had with her, so, all of that was useless and we get to “know” her for all of a few pages before she fucks off at the end of the book, after having raped Black-Heart and being raped/having sex with an undead corpse (one would assume she didn’t want that or was mind-controlled or something but she did say she was putting on a show so who knows) so, yeah. Good for her having escaped that hellhole of a city and her asshole family but now she gets to chill with ghouls in a cursed barrow so, success is relative there.


Overall, it does have a happy ending, really. All the assholes save the mercenary are dead, girl is free of her family and society, Black-Heart got what he was there for (and boy, did they try to make the “’Things are never what they seem. Never get distracted by the bright bauble.’” thing into a catchphrase. So much so, you stop believing anything as there is nothing stopping to author to come back and say, this was also a trick, the truth is X ad infinitum) and Erim was alive and got a kick-ass sword out of it. Not sure where the bittersweet ending comes from.


Oh, one “twist” that I called bullshit on was that they revealed that the guy who forced his sister into oral sex at the beginning had second thoughts on the whole necromancy thing and had a change of heart on which is hard to believe, seeing that, well, he has been described as evil through and through.

So, if you don’t mind explicit and messed up sex scenes for the sake of shock value, like to explore a decadent society and follow a group made up of stupid and evil people, and excessive, hard to follow world-building with too much pointless information on the world, religion and history then yeah, check it out.


Everyone else, yeah, there is better stuff out there.


That is not to say that I can't follow villain protagonists or hate smut in books, it's just that both need to have a point and have appealing stuff besides their amoral actions. Here, the character were just props doing bad stuff, and you don't really get a feel for most of them at the end of the book beyond their initial impression.


I saw people compare this with GRRM because of grimdark but nothing could be further from the truth. There is no comparison, really. Yeah, GRRM's books also have villains, sex and rape and all, but there is a reason the Mountain and Ramsay Bolton are not POV characters while Cersei, Jaime and Theon are. There is a difference between being a villain and being a vile, psychotic piece of shit. The former are interesting to follow, the latter not so much.


2.5/5


Sorry for the ramble.

 

I enjoyed the Shannara series when I read them. I don't keep up with any of the newer ones simply because I don't have the time and got behind so it would take forever to catch up on the state of the world.

Is it like Tolkien? Yes. Is it copy/paste of Tolkien? Not at all. For one, Tolkien never dealt nearly as much with magic as Brooks does. Further more...as you read more of the series the backstory of the world is entirely different. His Word and the Void series build up to the creation of the Shannara series.

It's not a huge spoiler by any means, but essentially this world is post-apocalyptic earth.

The characters he writes can sometimes be considered tropes or archetypes, but for the most part it's a lot of fun.

Its been years since I read the series, but I enjoyed them. Calling it a ripoff of Tolkien is kinda silly since nearly -every- fantasy novel takes ideas from Tolkien who himself took ideas from Beowulf etc.

 

I read a few of them last year but didn´t really like them but I don´t think that the books are a (bad) copy of LotR, at least not more than any other simplistic and idealistic fantastic story in the last fifty years. (And like Pasta says, it is not like Tolkien was the first to use those ideas. Hell most of the traditional fantasy tropes can be traced back to the Gilgamesh epos.)


Ok my next suggestion is really a guilty pleasure. Blades of winter
It is an alternate history where the US didn´t partake in WW2 and where the cold war is between four superpowers(China, Germany, the US, and Russia) instead of two. Those four states are loosely aligned in two camps (US/Germany+Russia/China), mostly because they fear that going alone means that the other three will gang up on them. Germany developed super soldiers but the technology git stolen and now all four states use their "Supers" in their semi-secret activities. We follow the escapades of one such US agent and the mayhem she causes.

It is an action packed novel with a plot and characters more at home in an action movie than a book. The writing is solid and the action scenes are entertaining and I p like the setting so for me it is an entertaining enough read but don´t expect anything special.

3/5

@ Nemrut
I mostly agree with your review but I liked the perversity and amorality of their characters, especially since os few of them have any redeeming features. It is a nice contrast to the typical RPG cast.


Also anyone here who knows any good historical fiction, preferably AU`s? I am mostly interested in either Roman or early/mid medieval ages but everything before the industrial revolution is ok. (And it doesn´t have to be located in western Europe)
Really great would it be if you have something located in the era of Alexander the Great that isn´t yet another biography but I have no high hopes there.

 

The Pillars of the Earth may be something you would like. I haven't read it myself but some friends have said it is quite good and it gets good reviews.

Also, just do a couple of google searches and see what goodreads has. Maybe This has some books that might interest you.

 

And the Mountains Echoed

Very interesting and, most of all, moving book. It actually got me quite emotional when I read it.

 

Loved And the Mountains Echoed. Here's a review I wrote:

 

I especially liked the scene with Nabi and Suleiman. The feelings his letter evoked were unreal. Also, after this book, I'll do my damn best to get my grubby hands on his other two books, 'The Kiter Runner' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'.

 

Just finished reading Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson. Cool bit of Caribbean flavor afrofuturism. The slavery allegories get a bit heavy handed... but it doesn't detract from the work.

I highly recommend it.

 

Second the Rec on "the Barrow", 2.5/5 seems about right. But will read the sequel if it comes out because there are some pretty interesting plot hooks littered around in the Worldbuilding.

 

Just finished The Martian. I can't recommend it enough, in all honesty. It's essentially 'Gravity' spliced with 'Robinson Crusoe; an astronaut, Mark Watney, is left stranded on Mars after an aborted NASA mission, and has to find some way of surviving until the next Mars mission...roughly four years later.

The idea alone made it a must read for me, but it's well written, surprisingly funny, and had me on the edge of the seat everytime I picked it up. I won't claim to be an expert on the science etc in it, but it all seems about as realistic as the concept will allow, which seems to be the general consensus. It isn't perfect - the secondary characters are walking cliches, for instance - but overall, it's one of the best books I've read all year.

 

Dyna of Sparta, apprentice to Heron of Alexandria, finds herself in a tight spot during the riots set off by the Israelite uprising around 60CE. Born to Spartan nobility, trained as warrior and scholar despite the fallen values of her people, Dyna isn't one to roll over and play dead. Her choice to fight will have consequences.

Burned through Steam Legion by Evan C. Currie last night. I had a lot of fun with it, but it was popcorn reading at best. It probably wouldn't even make it into the DLP library if it were a fanfic and in fact, I have read tons of fanfiction that was of a better quality in every possible regard.

Also, while it had a lot of the steam, it lacked all of the punk of steampunk but it worked well enough. Not the best take on steampunk but serviceable. I liked it, actually.

Steampunk in Roman times is a lot more interesting to me than in Victorian settings. However, it really was barebones, mainly focusing on military devices.

Regardless, it had a female noble commanding Roman legions in battle and using steam technology in military battles. It's as if someone took a few of my favourite things and decided to write a novel about it.

The writing was clumsy and awkward at times, repetitive with a lot of information and phrasing, had more than a few typos and mistakes scattered in the text, and I can't say the characters were particularly memorable or well written. It also uses the Hollywood take on "strong female character" and the book starts with a rape attempt, although that ends in the violent death of the attackers.

I will say this though, I quite liked that she was even more of an engineer/scientist than a soldier. Normally you see her type of character defending the eggheads and using their inventions in the best military way but here, she herself made alterations to them, simply because she was an egghead herself and the protoge of the top Alexandrian inventor and scientist. So, her enthusiasm and appreciation for science and building things, mainly weapons, was entertaining.

I think the best way to describe Dyna would be that she reminds me a lot of Azula from Avatar the Last Airbender, only if Azula had been born merely a noble and not princess. And thus had taken a tad more scientific and academic route. Arrogance, ruthlessness and sense of entitlement are there but not quite to the degree of Azula.

But it had a female noble commanding Roman legions in battle and using steam technology in military battles.

Which made me forgive a lot. Curse my love for female nobles and roman legions.

Honestly, it's a 3/5 at best, however, I enjoyed it.

Edit: Do you guys know of good books about Rome and the Legion? Female protag is not a must but would be appreciated. Doesn't need to be historical, AU, fantasy and stuff is also fine.

 

Misplaced Legion:
AU/Fantasy
A Roman legion (and a barbaric) warlord gets transported to a fantasy world and decides to hire on as mercenaries.

Wounds of Honour (Empire)
Historical fiction
Marcus Valerius Aquila has scarcely landed in Britannia when he has to run for his life - condemned to dishonorable death by power-crazed Emperor Commodus. The plan is to take a new name, serve in an obscure regiment on Hadrian's Wall and lie low until he can hope for justice. Then a rebel army sweeps down from the wastes north of the Wall, and Marcus has to prove he's hard enough to lead a century in the front line of a brutal, violent war.

I, Claudius
Historical fiction
The fictional biography of Claudius


And lastly- the recs I got when i asked that question on goodreads

 

I second this, as well as anything else by Robert Graves.

 

Thirded for I, Claudius. Lindsay Davis' Falco books are good too.