I thought the series started out pretty good, but the more recent books consist mainly of the author hitting you over the head with OMGSLAVERYISBAD! to the point that it's hard to enjoy them. It's a shame, because there was a ton of potential in the idea, but it's basically been reduced to a dragon bitching about not being able to do whatever he wants.

 

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The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie

Ok, if you've read any of Joe's work you'll be familiar with his style. He has a gift for cynicism and very dark humour. This is, however, his best work by a country mile.

The Heroes tells the story of 6 different characters at all levels of command in the prelude to, three days of and then the aftermath of a single battle in a northern valley. It's set in the same world - roughly - as his First Law trilogy, but it tells a far neater story and takes various characters from it to a more developed conclusion.

The two main draws here for people who are not already fans are probably going to be; a) his violence, and b) his characters. Both are some of the best I've read in a very long time. Character and violence also compliment each other incredibly well here - it's like a Tarantino ensemble fantasy.

The only let down would perhaps be story - don't be expecting a sweeping fantasy saga. It's a neater setting within a smaller area than many fantasy readers are used to, but this is purely aesthetic. On the surface, it's a short time within a small area, but even without background reading you'll soon be versed in a world that stretches well beyond what you can immediately see. The intrigue and deception in the Northman ranks (You'll know Curnden Craw like you grew up with him by the end, and Black Dow, the thane and one of the First Law trilogy characters, has an incredibly complex relationship with Prince Calder and his brother, who should rightfully hold the crown) contrasts extremely well with the political power struggles and personal demons in the Union Army (Bremer dan Gorst, a shamed warrior acting as Royal correspondent as he tries to win back his old glory, is one of my favourite characters in the genre, and First Law's First of the Magi is back and written in a far more omnipotent, sinister and harsh manner).

You'll see influences from other fantasy writers past and present, but none to the detriment of the author and his story. It's an immensely enjoyable novel - one of the best standalone fantasy books I've read, in fact - and also manages to be one of the most realistic. Well worth a look - and hard enough to put down that it took me one day, literally, to read it.

Joe's site.

 

The Heroes is awesome and Joe Abercrombie is the best writer of violence/action I have ever read.

 

The Gone Away World by Nick Harkaway (who, it should be noted, is the son of John le Carré).


(Don't let the pink turn you away. For realz.)

This is a bit difficult of a book to explain; it is very much post- (and pre-, I suppose) apocalyptic sci-fi, but doesn't really follow the conventions of tone and speech those books tend to have.

Essentially, it's about a guy trying to survive in world where things have gone deeply, fundamentally, wrong. Where much of the world has simply Gone Away.

In the wake of the Gone Away Wars, the conflict that created this new world, our narrator is essentially a professional trouble-shooter, alongside his best friend Gonzo Lubitsch and the rest of the crew. Many of their jobs concern the Jorgmund Pipe, a literal massive pipe that keeps things...normal. Real. But as we learn more and more about this strange new world, and the politics behind the Pipe and the nature of the Pipe itself, it becomes obvious that all is not well here, and as is so often the case, nothing is as it seems.

...
So. There's your cinematic, drama-filled teaser. I hope it didn't go overboard. But the book is really that good; Harkaway's writing is quite unique and very entertaining and, despite the relative seriousness of the content, his tone is light and entertaining. I encourage all to give this a try - it comes very highly recommended indeed.

 

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey (pen name of two authors).

I was surprised that this hasn't been recommended yet?

The book description on Amazon makes it out to be much more epic than it really is. Humanity has been colonizing asteroids for long enough that the Belters have developed a distinctive physiology adapted for space's lower gravity. The OPA (the actual one) opposes the Earth/Mars alliance, since they import most of their resources from Belt colonies while simultaneously imposing strict economical restrictions on Belters. Tensions have been on the rise for a long time.

Holden is a straight-up good guy captain from Earth, followed by his small but loyal crew. Miller is a lonely alcoholic Belter cop. Holden is chasing after whoever blew up the frigate he was working on, while Miller is hired to chase down a rich girl from the moon who refuses to go home. It turns out that these two men's targets are identical, and their storylines converge about halfway through the book.

It's a very fun book, and easy to read. The chapters alternate between only Holden and Miller's perspectives, and the timing is nearly perfectly synchronous, so chronology is not an issue. I feel that it would translate seamlessly into a summer blockbuster - in a good way.

Despite the cover and setting, this really isn't a space opera. It's a detective story in space, with some explosions for good measure. The "hard science" is more like common sense, e.g. flying at 25 g will probably kill you. Anything harder than that tends to be a bit erroneous, but its so minor and enhances the drama, so who cares!

The book is rife with cliches. You get space battles, space zombies, corporate proselytism, (possibly) evil aliens, a nasty virus, etc. I don't think that cliches are inherently bad. If they've been overused, then it's because they have or had mass appeal at once point. It's the execution that matters, and while the authors didn't exactly have a brilliant execution, it simply works.

I think the reason it works is because the entire novel has got simplistic dichotomies set up all over the place, so you can just pick one side to relate to.

Holden is 100% a good guy, while Miller does bad things for good reasons. Earth/Mars and the Belt go to war because they want each other's stuff. Fred Johnson is either a champion of equal rights or a traitorous bastard on paper, but when we actually meet him, he turns out to be a sharp and honorable man. We're told (by the characters) that the "possibly evil aliens" are trying to kill humanity, but its implied at the end of the book that it may have actually been a benevolent (or neutral) act gone awry. The correspondence between the one of the corporations' CEOs and his runaway daughter reflects deep concern (as in the I'm-worried-because-I-love-you and not the I'm-worried-because-I-still-have-uses-for-you type) while simultaneously proving that he doesn't give jack squat about the rest of humanity. The CEO that engineered the massacre of an entire planet just might be trying to save the rest of humanity (hundreds of billion of lives by this point, I'm guessing), but it comes at the cost of a million lives on some impoverished asteroid whose main selling point is its cheap casinos.

Either the motivations or end goals in every dichotomy are noble, but the methods vary radically. Hence, it's easy to pick whatever side you want, because "good" things happen at the end of the day. It also "helps" that the authors manage to leave out every qualifying detail that would make these dichotomies real issues, instead of leaving them at vague concepts that the reader can adapt for themselves. Some people consider this a criticism, since both the world/character-building is so sparse, but I see it as a clever way to suck in the widest audience.

That's really reading too much into it, though. Leviathan is a good story, so read it if you have time

 

It's the American Revolutionary War... IN SPACE!!!

 

You forgot the echo. Fixed.

 

The Gone-Away World is one of my favorite reads of the last few years.

(John Le Carré ain't too shabby either.)

And on the other end of the spectrum, I just have to share the pain. Do you like technothrillers? Political intrigue and bad-ass sekrit squirrel G.I. Joe teams taking down nefarious bad guys? Then run screaming from Hostile Intent by Michael Walsh.

Leviathan Wakes on my TBR list, once I get through Children of the Sky.

 

The Emberverse trilogy, by S.M Stirling, is excellent. Some unknown entity makes just about all of modern civlization stop working: electricity, internal combustion engines, gunpowder... The story follows three different groups of people: an ex-marine pilot and his tourist passengers, a wiccan coven, and the nerds from the Portland Society for Creative Anacronism. Each group sets out to rebuild society form scratch, but, inevitably, the nerds ruin everything. Armor made out of washers, archers riding into battle on bicycles, the Eye of Sauron used as an actual National flag: it is a lot of fun.

Another recommendation is everything Scott Westerfield has ever touched. Light YA fiction is his forte, although I understand he has done some hard Sci-Fi stuff. Peeps is great vampire story, where vampirism is basically a cannibalism-inducing parasite, transmitted like an STD. The Uglies series is about a dystopian future where coming-of-age means radical cosmetic surgery. His newest series is Leviathan, which can best be summed up by the art.
You click the link? Well, the books are almost as cool as that image.

 

Read the first one, liked it enough to rcommend to a friend. Watching society fall apart is always fun and interesting.

Read the second one, fell asleep repeatedly. Also, the title "The Protector's War" was rather misleading since nothing fucking happens in that book, let alone a war. Watching a bunch of people talk about how they'll have to fight later is rarely fun or interesting.

Never bothered with part three or the follow-up series.

 

Yeah, the second book definitely had Two Towers syndrome. The third book is noticeably better.

 

I really enjoy anything by Harry Turtledove. Almost all of his books are alternate history stuff. I particularly like the WWII one where aliens come in the middle of it and all of humanity turns against the invaders. It's really interesting.

 

Harry Turtledove is the God-king of Alternative history. It's too bad the entire genre is written by bearded white men with a large degree of sympathy towards the south.

And on that subject: The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad. It answers that immortal question: What if Hitler wrote American Sci-Fi pulps? It's a bit dated, as it was mostly a commentary against the fiction of the time, but you have never read anything like it before.

 

I'm halfway through the series.

Maybe I don't have much experience with well written books...or maybe Jack Campbell > God. These books are amazing.

 

^ Seconded. Just started them myself. Only have access to the first 4, but it's extremely well done so far.

 

Finished The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson while I was at work yesterday, fantastic book. Would like to leave a better reveiw but Skyrim is calling.

 

Read about halfway through the first Emberverse book on recommendation and had to give up. I don't know what it is the book is just missing... something.

Perhaps it's the gratuitous Finnish and Gaelic and Wiccan bullshit that made me feel that I was reading about a bunch of hippie larpers or the fact that the characters are lacking something undefinable, idk, I'm just turned off by it.

The impression I got was that the author wanted to do a post-apocalyptic novel but left behind the characters.

It's sad really, because this is right up my alley, and the author also wrote Island in a sea of time apparently, which I also wanted to read but I'm having second thoughts now.

Also: Why the fuck do writers insist on putting lyrics in their works. Yes lyrics not songs, not poems, lyrics to songs we do not know the tune to and serve no real purpose in the story except to make characters look batshit insane when they burst into song while saying goodbye to someone or because a blade of grass caught their attention.

 

^ Yeah, S. M. Stirling is one of those writers who has a lot of bullshit mixed up with cool ideas. Unfortunately, the Emberverse is probably the mildest offender. Island in the Sea of Time has worse problems with weak characterizations and an absurd antagonist. His Draka series... actually has interesting bits of grey, mixed in with an uncomfortably pro-slavery stance and some masturbatory bits about lesbians.

This may or may not have been recced before, but The Magicians and its sequel The Magician King by Lev Grossman are both very books. It's equal parts Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, and Less Than Zero, and if you dislike any one of those, you probably shouldn't read it. A deconstruction of escapism that get a bit too obvious in some places, but is worth a look.

What the hell: Bret Easton Ellis's work. Depressing books about isolation, materialism, and ennui. My personal favorite is American Psycho, simply because stuff actually happens(or seems to) throughout the story, but Less Than Zero and Rules of Attraction are worth a look as well.

 

Battle Royale



Finally got around to reading this. My review is here. It's a good read, and I figure most DLPers will probably find it to their tastes.

 

I've just re-read So You Want To Be a Wizard, by Diane Duane. Holy shit.

It's summary comes across as pretty cliched: two teens find magic, discover a hidden world, and beat the big bad. Ho hum. But the worldbuilding and magic system are breathtaking.

Basically, it's magical Sci-Fi. Talking trees, carnivorous cars, and a white hole named Fred with a bad case of the hiccups. This is just the first book. It gets crazier. The characters are pretty standard YA, a bit wooden, but generally readable. Christian mythology is a central element of the story, although it doesn't come across as preachy. The devil, here called the Lone Power, added entropy to the universe, and now runs around in a number of different forms trying to make the universe fall apart faster. Wizards are basically tapped on the shoulder by God to go out there and make him stop all that ruckus. This works really well as an ongoing series, because each installment has a powerful antagonist and really high stakes, but the setting can be anywhere from ancient Ireland to the mindscape of an autistic kid.

This is the first book in the ongoing Young Wizard series, which Duane has been writing since the 80's. Since its been years since I last read them, I can't vouch for the later ones, but I'll probably edit this once I've gotten around to re-read them.