Robert Harris' books Imperium and its sequels: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_(novel) are a fictional novel about Cicero's live. I only read the first one so far and it was good.

Lindsay Davis' thrillers are taking place in the 70ies / 80ies (the reign of the Flavian Emperors), and aside from the Falco series she also wrote some about Falco's adoptive daughter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ides_of_April - though I didn't read that yet.

Steven Saylor wrote some Ancient Rome thrillers (Roma sub Rosa) as did John Maddox Roberts (SPQR) - both series are settled in the first century b.c. (the age of Cicero and Caesar and the beginning of the reign of Augustus). I have read parts of both, and I think Saylor is the better author and better historian.

Roberts also wrote an alternate history: What would have happened if Hannibal won the second Punic war? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal's_Children apparently tells the story about the Romans fighting back 100 years later (around 100 b.c.)

 

Heh, the author of that book is actually a fanfic writer. He wrote Alexander Harris and the Shadow Council which is an HP/Buffy xover. He also wrote the journeyverse series, which was Xander centric Buffyverse with a huge amount of crossovers.

From your review, his writing doesn't appear to of changed much.

As for roman recs... Have you read Codex Alera? It's not set in rome, but the basis of the human civilization in that fic is a lost roman legion. So the culture in the fic is based on roman civilization. I found it interesting, and really enjoyed it.

Though it's not Jim Butcher's best.

 

The Albia books are nowhere near as good as the Falco books, IMO. I don't think the writing is as good, and you don't get into Albia's head as much; it's a definite case of too much tell, not enough show.

 

Imperium is a great read, I definitely second this.

 

Colleen McCullough wrote a series called the Masters of Rome which basically chronicles the lives of the five major men in the late republic and covers the civil war between Octavian and Mark Antony. It's mostly about Caesar, who is in most of the books, but Marius and Sulla are the protagonists in the first two or three. Pompey is present for a lot of it as well.

They're obviously not female point of view, not that I've ever read, or seen a female PoV set in Rome. But there are chapters with The various woman who played a role in Caesar's life from his aunt and mother through to Cleopatra (who in the later books is one of the principle characters) and a few of his other mistresses. His daughter has a chapter too although it's pretty short from what I remember.

It's a good series that covers the decline of the republic and the empire pretty well, the only criticism I'd have is she white washes Caesar a bit, especially in regards to the Rubicon and subsequent civil war but they're well written and cover all of the major events from 110 BC up until about 37 or so.

 

For books on Romans, I quite liked Conn Iggulden's Emperor Series when I read it years ago. It's a fictionalised account of Julius Caesar's life from childhood to becoming the emperor of Rome. It takes some liberties (nothing egregious IIRC) with history for the sake of story, but the author clarifies the changes at the end of each book, so that's good enough.

 

Augustus by John Williams is supposed to be quite good. Was on my to read list for the next week so will come back on this next week.

 

Was reading some of the old...humanity!Fyeah! Blurbs. Are there any good scifi novels out there with some of those premises?

 

This may not be the best location for this, but I'm not sure where else to put it (unless I make a new thread).

I'm looking for good audiobooks.

I drive about an hour to an hour and a half a day. I'm looking for some great audiobooks to listen too for my commute.

That or podcasts.

 

Podcasts:

Serial (you're seriously missing out if you haven't listened to Serial yet. Very compelling)
This American Life
Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
Radiolab

Audiobooks: Only ever tried Dresden Files. Brilliantly narrated.

 

A good few of the Discworld series of novels by Terry Pratchett have been made in to audiobooks. A few have been made into audioplays too, but I'm not as big a fan of those (much of Pratchett's genius is in his wordplay).

Otherwise you can pretty easily pick up audiobooks from every major book series. It's a pretty big industry these days.

James Marsters narrates the Dresden Files, for example.

 

I know I could get just about any major series in audiobooks. I'm wondering if there are any great audio works, such as the brilliant but incomplete audiobook for World War Z.

 

If you're into movies the Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo film review podcast is fantastic.

 

As I said, James Marsters does the Dresden Files and he's really good. He really captures the feel of Harry's character and his snarkiness.

 

Audio books are my thing. I haven't read a book in years, I only listen to them now.

Most of them are good, but a few really stand out for their quality. Listed in no particular order.

1) The Dresden Files. James Masters IS Harry Dresden. One of the first series i listened to, reamains probably the best.
2) Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne by Brian Stavelely. New books, read by Simon Vance who does a fantastic job of Narrating.
3) The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, read by the Author Douglas Adams.
4) The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy radio show. Very different, just as good as the books. Availible from the BBC website last time i checked. Google it.
5) The Stormlight Archives read by Michael Kramer. Michael Kramer is one of the bigger names in audio books, and while his style can appear dry at first, he does all the different voices spectacularly as far as I am concerned.
6) The Ryiria Revelations. If you're after something light and easy, I really enjoyed this series.
7) If you like The Wheel of Time, I think the narration of these books is excellent. Certainly a lot more enjoyable than reading the series, which can definitely get dry. Umm, the whole series is around 430 hours long though, so settle yourself in for a long ride. Took me so long to finish, but well worth it in the end.

These are some of my favorites. All of them have excellent narrator's in my opinion. Honestly though, there are very few books I've ever put down simply because of the narrator, I really thought there would be a lot more terrible narrators out there than there are. I haven't listed other books like Name of the Wind, because while the narration isn't bad, it didn't stand out to me really. Still enjoyed the hell out of the audio book though.

Pretty much any book series you enjoy will have an audiobook version, and most of them will be well read.

 

We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen

It's an epic novel telling the story of Marstal, a seafaring danish town, and its inhabitants from World War I to World War II. It's being called the best Danish novel in the last 25 years and, while I don't read many Danish novels, I must agree. It has become one of my favorite books.

It's written in a particular POV. I've been told it is the greek "we", as in "we, the town", and it fits perfectly into the story. It's around 650 pages long and it's definitely worth checking out. Also, the cover is pretty damn beautiful.

 

Replay by Ken Grimwood is essentially a Peggy sue fic done in original fiction. Kind repetitive and overly philosophical at times, but an interesting read nonetheless.

 

So, just finished The Emperor's Blades by Brian Stevely, the first book of the Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne series.

So, yeah, high fantasy book, that is decent but has its fair share of problems.

Spoiler

Three POV's, as said in the summary, all children of the Emperor. The eldest child, Adare, and after the death of the father she has become Minister of Finance and has to deal with the murderer of her father. She has, by far, the fewest chapters, like 6 or so, compare to the shit-ton the other two have. In a way, hers were the most interesting, if only because the character she interacted with who seems like a proxy of Marc Anthony from the HBO series Rome. Since she is female, she can't inherit the throne, so she has to hold out for her brother to return. Kinda wish we were done with these sort of plots but whatever. I will role with it if this leads to her becoming Empress in the next few books.

At the same time, since she appears so little, she also doesn't really leave much of an impression. At the very least, the other two brothers reference each other, but she is kinda the odd (wo)man out, as it is obvious that she lacks a connection to either one. So, I hope that gets better in the next book. She shows some promise, but ultimately, don't think I will remember her for long.

The next one is Kaden, the heir, who has spent the last eight years in a monastery, receiving monk training, which prepares him exactly zero percent for his role as the Emperor and he knows it. He is kind of bland, but then again, in a way, he is supposed to be, being a monk and all. I didn't resent his POV's, but I wasn't too thrilled with them either. They had their moments. His supervisor was annoying at first but reveals himself to be a good source of entertainment in the climax.

Valyn, the third child, spent the last eight years becoming a member of an elite fighting unit/order, training his ass off. He has a thing for for a girl whose name I forgot because she reminded me way too much of Astrid from HTTYD. Heck, she pretty much was Astrid. His portions were two things, interesting due to the side cast and depressing because that guy spends 97% of his time in this book suffering. There is really nothing satisfying about his story line and he is just as forgettable as the other two.

The beginning was interesting, the middle of the book dragged a lot but the climax, the last 50 pages or so, were pretty fun and I quite like the situation they find themselves at the end of the book and all of the side characters are really interesting.

3/5 from me, but I do want to read the next book, so, there is that.

 

I enjoyed the first one enough to read the sequel as well. Some parts of the sequel were much better, others not so much, but overall I think book two was well done.