I felt the same way, and after 2 weeks I picked up Best Served Cold and The Heroes. After reading them Joe Abercombie became my favorite writer. The Heroes is just amazing. You have to give them a try.

 

As soon as I saw Bayaz's name in The Heroes I put it down. Abercombie literally ruined his own books for me in a way I didn't think possible. I don't want to read his books because I'm afraid Bayaz is going to somehow be involved and just ruin everyone's shit.

 

I never really liked "Best Served Cold" but otherwise his books are worth reading.

Anybody here with some good, (military) SciFi?. Something in the lines of Honor Harrington(the first 7 or so books), Gaunts Ghosts, Ravenor, Old Mans War, Armor, Culture or Starship Troopers.
It doesn´t have to be of the best quality if there is enough quantity. And while some believable characters and plot are important I am quite willing to ignore some unrealistic world building.

 

Well, if you're into Gaunt's Ghosts, I'm assuming you're following the Horus Heresy series, but if you're not, I'd recommend them.

Now, I'll be completely honest and say that there are problems with the books - the tone can be uneven, there's a marked difference between the top quality authors and the bottom quality ones, and if you're deeply entrenched in Warhammer 40k, there can be frustrating elements in regards to continuity. But I'll still argue in terms of telling an epic, military sci-fi story that occasionally makes decent philosophical points, I'd reckon they're pretty damn great right now. First trilogy to start off is Horus Rising, False Gods, and then Galaxy In Flames, written by Dan Abnett, Graham McNeill, and Ben Counter (in my opinion, descending order of quality of authors). After that, you've got at least another fifteen books in the series so far, and they haven't even reached Terra yet.

 

Try out John Ringo. But you'll probably either really like his stuff or utterly hate it. He does ALOT of military sci-fi mixed in with some other stuff as well. But some is pretty low-brow male oriented stuff and he makes now apologies for being a gun loving American and writing about gun loving alpha male types.

 

Ah, good old 120 year old nazi super villians. His work is ok as a summer read, just don't expect any brilliant writing and don't think about the plot too much.

I'd recommend reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It's a satirical novel about WW2. I really enjoyed the absurdist humor.

 

Alex Verus Novels by Benedict Jacka.

One of the reasons why I started this series was that the protagonist's talent was pretty interesting. And while I feel like the author can go a little more in depth with the previous wars, it's still pretty enjoyable and a good read.

 

Just started reading Fated, and in the first chapter found this : "I’ve even heard of one guy in Chicago who advertises in the phone book under ‘Wizard’"

Pretty cool.

 

I'm not a big fan of Ludlum for much of anything but books-on-tape when I'm on long drives. Though his writing is pretty bland, he's popular enough that his publishers tend to get good voice actors for the reading.

As far as mindless spy thrillers go, I prefer John le Carré (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and several others), though will read David Morrell in a pinch. The latter's really quite terrible when he's off his game, though--The Brotherhood of the Rose is a case-in-point.

Hate. Fire is too good for a Ringo book.

Some of my vacation reading this year:

The Wind-Up Bird Cronicle by Haruki Muakami was excellent, brilliantly written in places, and mind-fucked in the uniquely Japanese way Murakami seems born to capture.

Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero - technically sound writing from a formalist standpoint (style amplifies theme like few other things I've read), but also one of the most repulsive things I've forced myself to trudge through. At the edge of readable for me, a punch-drunk, disattached narrative of one of the most unlikable characters in fiction.

Papa Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls - Read while I vacationed in Key West (home of Hemingway throughout his most fruitful writing career), so while I forced the sprog to read Old Man and the Sea, I read this sitting by the pool. What to say... it's probably his best work, stronger writing than The Sun Also Rises, and worth reading for El Sordo's last stand alone. Fuck, I wish I could write half as well as Hemingway. Incredible stuff, but damned depressing if you like to pretend you'll be a writer someday.

Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - comic with a deeply tragic theme, I'm still trying to figure what to make of it. At times painful to read, it was masterfully written. Though much of the plot strains credulity, like the comic books from which the story was drawn (and I couldn't help but be distracted by some of the more unlikely plot developments), at the same time I was engaged and moved by the story. Recommended.

 

Dragonlance, Star Wars, and Warhammer 40K licensed fan fiction? Nope, nope, I just cannot take that shit seriously.

No mention of John Ringo is complete without a link to Oh John Ringo No. That boy ain't right.

Pers, if you liked The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, you may also like Kafka on the Shore, as well as The Woman in the Dunes, by Kobo Abe.

Other recent reads: Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. Sequel/companion novel to American Gods.

If you like Stephen King's The Stand, you should check out Robert McCammon's Swan Song.

And since it's cheesy testosterone-filled super-ninja ridiculousness, kind of like the Night Angel trilogy but written by someone who can actually write, DLPers might like Shibumi, by Trevanian.

 

If you're taking any of 40K seriously then you're pretty much doing it wrong.

 

I didnt even know he did another book series.

Will check this out.

 

I read the start of the first book a while back but a friend said it wasn't as good as the Darren Shan series, so i stopped after a few chapters. I should probably pick it back up.

This, this, this, this. This is the best book I have never understood.

 

The trilogy for adults was, to my knowledge, never finished. He wrote the first two, which are very loosely related, and the third was supposed to tie it all together.

I read the second, not realising it was a sequel, and enjoyed it. But it wasn't that great. Although not a kids book.

The Demonata is good, and I would definitely recommend. Slightly darker than the DS series, but still not real horror.

 

I read the first half of the Demonata and enjoyed it, but I fekt that the books were getting worse after Bec. I thought that the series peaked way too early.

 

If you want the nostalgia without having to grind through sixty books, there's a couple of people (I think from Spacebattles) who review them all here. They're up to book 42 now.

(I can't remember where I found it so it may have already been linked here)

 

Fantastic, isn't it?

Honestly I thought the best thing about the First Law Trilogy was that it completely fucking u-turned on anything you expected to happen.

 

That's one word for it. Two more would be mind-fuckery.

Which brings me to the recommendation thread. Anyone have a relatively happy fantasy series they can recommend? Not too lengthy in terms of books?