Favorite Books

[DarkLink]

I love books. And I love lending books out to people so they can enjoy them as well (never getting them back is a small price to pay). Ergo, a list of my favorites, which happen to be almost all fantasy/sci-fi:

Mistborn (Brandon Sanderson)
A thousand years ago, the prophesied hero faced a great evil. He failed.

Now, the god-like Lord Ruler rules over an oppressive empire, his rule enforced by powerful noble houses and his mysterious and powerful Steel Inquisitors. Supporting them are the oppressed skaa, slaves at the whims of their social betters.

So when a young skaa girl with strange powers is found by a master thief with similar abilities, she soon becomes embroiled in the most daring plot the thief and his crew have ever dared: stealing the very empire out from under the Lord Ruler's feet.





Game of Thrones (George RR Martin)
The Hand of the King is dead. Now the king rides north to call upon his old friend and ally Eddard Stark, who helped him overthrow the previous mad king. Lord Stark reluctantly agrees and goes south, but learns that the Hand may not have died of natural causes, and the Queen's family may be to blame. Stark must now try and uncover the mystery of why the precious Hand was murdered, and try to keep the kingdom from splintering while the high lords play their game of thrones.

Across the sea, the exiled son and daughter of the mad king are seeking an army, so they may return and reclaim their throne.

Meanwhile, dark things are stirring far to the frozen north, beyond the Wall. Things that have not been seen for thousands of years, but are still remembered in myths and legends.

It has been summer for a long time, but no longer. Winter is coming.





Name of the Wind (Patrick Rothfuss)
"My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as "quothe." Names are important as they tell you a great deal about a person. I've had more names than anyone has a right to. The Adem call me Maedre. Which, depending on how it's spoken, can mean The Flame, The Thunder, or The Broken Tree.

"The Flame" is obvious if you've ever seen me. I have red hair, bright. If I had been born a couple of hundred years ago I would probably have been burned as a demon. I keep it short but it's unruly. When left to its own devices, it sticks up and makes me look as if I have been set afire.

"The Thunder" I attribute to a strong baritone and a great deal of stage training at an early age.

I've never thought of "The Broken Tree" as very significant. Although in retrospect, I suppose it could be considered at least partially prophetic.

My first mentor called me E'lir because I was clever and I knew it. My first real lover called me Dulator because she liked the sound of it. I have been called Shadicar, Lightfinger, and Six-String. I have been called Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane, and Kvothe Kingkiller. I have earned those names. Bought and paid for them.

But I was brought up as Kvothe. My father once told me it meant "to know."

I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned.

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me. "





Heroes Die (Matthew Stover)
Caine is the most deadly assassin in a world of magic and fantasy creatures. Hari Michaelson is a famous Actor in a caste based dystopian futuristic society. They are the same person. To entertain the oppressed masses, Actors are trained to kill, then teleported to the Otherworlds where they find adventure wherever they can, their thoughts and experiences broadcast back to Earth.

So when Hari's estranged wife, another Actor, dissapears, the Studio's handlers decide this is a perfect opportunity for their star to have another epic adventure. He must assassinate the God Emperor in order to save his wife (and to them, the assassination is really the only important part). Hari just wants his wife back.

Hari must now take up the persona of Caine, because only Caine is clever and deadly enough to rescue his wife while surviving the wrath of both the God Emperor and his own government.





Old Man's War (John Scalzi)
Alien contact has advanced technology so rapidly that Earth is left an irrelevant backwater. To get off Earth, anyone may sign a military contract to enlist with the colonial military. You live out your life on Earth, then at the age of 75 you are given a new, military engineered body to serve for up to ten years. If you survive, you can move to whatever colony you want.

Complicating this is the fact that there are a lot of alien races out there, and very few habitable planets. War is a constant, with inter-species alliances constantly shifting. Surviving ten years may be much harder John Perry originally thought.






Altered Carbon (Richard K Morgan)
Takeshi Kovacs has been revived from digital storage on the bankroll of one of Earth's richest, Bancroft, one of the few both willing and wealthy enough to achieve effective immortality by transferring his consciousness over hundreds of years from one body to the next. Someone murdered Bancroft, and he wants to know who and why. Kovacs must figure out who is responsible, but there is more going on behind the scenes than meets the eye.





American Gods (Neil Gaiman)
Convict Shadow is released from prison, only to find his wife has died in a car accident. Adrift, he agrees when a strange man, Wednesday, hires him as a driver and personal assistant. But Wednesday is much more than he appears. In modern America, are you still a God if no one believes in you?







And the only non-fiction book here, because this is the single most emotionally powerful book I have ever read:

Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood
Donovan Campbell tells the story of Joker Company's efforts to carry out their mission in Ramadi, Iraq in the midst of some of the most intense fighting in the entire war. Politics becomes irrelevant when you're simply trying to watch the back of the Marine next to you, trying to keep a semi-hostile civilian populace safe, all while insurgents willingly take human shields and shoot rockets into groups of school children in the hopes of killing an American.




Anyone else want to chip in with recommendations of their own?

[Lord Azaghul]

Interesting...I've only read two on that list, and was every sure if I liked then or not.

The Mistborn - I stopped on the 2nd book - Liked his whole concept of buring metal though

Old Mans War - just read the first book - it was ok.


Fav of all time for me:
Enders Game
Dune
Lotr
Harry Potter
The Founding -abnet
And a ton of star wars books - but many of those are hit or miss.

[DarkLink]

The second Mistborn is a touch bit slow in parts, which is pretty common for the second books in trilogies. Still very good though, and has plenty more awesome action and intrigue. The third Mistborn book, however, is amazing, and has one of the most epic finales in any media I've ever seen or read. Well worth continuing the series. Plus, there's a whole lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that will change everything you thought you knew about certain characters and events.

Old Mans war is probably the weakest book on my list, I just liked it a lot. I cannot recommend the other books highly enough, though.

Forget Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and the rest of the books in the Song of Ice and Fire series are the best gritty epic fantasies ever written. I do hesitate to recommend just one, since they aren't self-contained books. A Song of Ice and Fire is not five books, it's one giant book with five volumes, and two more to go. Unlike the Wheel of Time series, though, A Song of Ice and Fire does an amazing job of keeping your eyes glued to the pages.

[Old_Paladin]

The Song of Fire and Ice series, are easily the best books I have ever read (and that's quite a lot).
Going back and reading Tolkein afterwards (and probably being my third or fourth read-through at that point) made it seem dull.

For quick, guilty pleasure reads; Gotrek and Felix series, the GreySeer series, the Space Wolve series.
For similar reads at higher quality; The Gaunts Ghosts series and the Time of Legands.

Lovecraft is very good; and is free, the copyrights are all expired.

If you can find it 'I have no mouth, and I must scream' is short, but powerful.

[scadugenga]

Glad you took my Kovacs series rec, Dark!

And in return, I have to agree--Rothfuss' books are every bit as good as you said and more. The intro for Kvothe really didn't inspire me much, but the actual storytelling throughout was a huge win.

Stover's Caine series is really good. I think I like Heroes Die the best, with Caine Black Knife coming in second. (And hey, ya gotta support a home town author...)

I agree re: Martin's Song of Ice and Fire--but he needs a tighter release schedule.

On to other recommendations:

1) Jim Butcher's Dresden series and Codex Alera series. Jim tells an amazingly good and fun story. Easily my favorite author overall from the last decade or so.

2) SM Stirling's Emberverse series (Dies the Fire, Protector's War, Meeting at Corvallis, etc.) No one does post-apocalyptic as well as Steve Stirling. No one. Plus, he uses Heather Alexander & Sooj song lyrics in his books. A definite plus.

3) Steve Perry (not the 80's musician...) The Matador series kicks serious ***. Steve is a lifelong dedicated martial artist and he's perhaps the only writer who has translated martial arts into a storyline effectively and beautifully. (Stover also does a very good job at this--but I need to give Perry the nod for being the best.)

4) Jonathan Maberry: Patient Zero, Dragon Factory, King of Plagues. Modern Thriller/horror writer. Joe Ledger (main protagonist) is simply...the ****. He also bears in mind the real psychological trauma that happens from being a kick-*** action hero type. Fairly unique in the fiction world. His writing and characterization is so tight the series got optioned for TV. Let's hope that don't **** it up the wa Syfy did the Dresden Files...(though the show did have merit--was just too disparate to the actual novels.)

5) Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child: Pendergast Series. Wow. Morbid, macabre, intelligent, wry, and always tripping on the edge of sliding into the horror/supernatural genre but not quite getting there. These guys are on my must-buy-in-hardcover list.

6) Dave Gemmel (RIP, Dave) He is kinda the cornerstone of epic fantasy with hard truths. Brilliant stuff, just don't get attached to any character...like Martin, no one is safe in his novels...

Honorable Mentions: Joe Abercrombie, Patricia Briggs, Faith Hunter, Kim Harrison, Glenn Cook (Garrett PI is awesome, as is the Black Company) Tolkien, David Drake & Simon Green

Now here's the post-script caveat:

You'll not find a lot of "traditional" literature on my list. The easiest reason to explain this is that I was a English grad student focusing in literature (both modern and Old English (pre 1066) eras). The funny thing about being a graduate student in a literature based field as they pretty much do their damndest to indoctrinate you and basically brainwash you into never being able to read for fun. There's a reason I opted out of a PhD program--I love to read, and it's one of my pillars of stress relief. I could not bear to stop loving reading. So you'll find fun authors, but not necessarily pulitzer-prize winning ones. That kind of literature is sadly dead to me--I shift into automatic analytical/dissection mode when I get to that stuff.

[eldargal]

Well, lets see, in no particular order:

The Hobbit
Lord of the Rings
Everything Conan by R.E. Howard.
Harry Potter
The Discworld series, particularly the City Watch books.
The Falco series by Lindsey Davis
The Phryne Fisher series by Kerry Greenwood
Pretty much anything by H.G. Wells.
Selected Dickens that I can't be bothered naming individually.
Anything by Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin.
The Chap books and Magazine
Britains Lost Cities by Gavin Stamp. Most other things he has written, too.

I'm giving Song of Fire and Ice an honorary mention, I enjoy it but I don't think it is as great as people make out and I don't think it is improving as time goes by either.

[Psychosplodge]

Yay, a books topic lol.

Right where to start?

Alternative history scifi type stuff

Anything by Harry Turtledove - the list is too long to write out but there's two main threads (aliens invade during WWII and history as it could have been had the confederates won the american civil war) and some others.

1632 series started by Eric Flint - some cosmic accident throws a town back in time.

World war 2.1/2.2/2.3 - John Birmingham A weapons test throws a future fleet into WWII

Historical fiction

Most of Bernard Cornwell's stuff is worth reading though too much at once can get a bit "samey"

Simon Scarrow's "Eagle" series is good.

Conn Iggulden's Mongol series is worth a read, prefer that one to his Julius Ceaser series.

Giles Kristian's viking series

Sci-fi

40K stuff - very hit and miss

Star wars -again hit and miss and contradictory where later authors are trying to "retcon" stuff to fit with the prequals that clashes with stuff written pre-prequal

Jack Campbell's "the lost fleet" picked up first book and worked straight through all six.

Jeff Somers "Avery Cates" series is probably the books I get most excited about atm.

non-fiction

Apache dawn about the Army air corps in Afghanistan is a good read.

Making a killing is about a private military contractor in Iraq.

both are more entertaining than I expected.

[DrLove42]

No one has mentioned Hithchikers Guide the Galaxy (1-3 only....4 and 5 were a bit hit and miss, and 6 (written by a different author) was frankly ****e)

I'm a big fan of Military Fiction....read a lot of Clancy

[Necron2.0]

Hmm. I haven't read much for entertainment in years. When I do read, it's mostly by author and not so much by series or individual title. My favorites have been (in no particular order):

C J Cherryh
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ben Bova
Keith Laumer
Joel Rosenberg
Tolkien
Heinlein
Bradbury
Wells
Verne

I had to step back from Cherryh a bit - too misandrist. I could never get into either Asimov nor Clarke, too preachy ... made me want to say, "Alright, off the high horse, you little bastich. I don't care about your personal philosophy. Entertain me or go the F*** away."

I also like to read a lot of old SciFi pulp anthologies from the 50's and 60's, back from the days when women were women, and men should have been locked up for sexual harassment.

One book that sticks in my mind quite a bit is "Bolo: Annals of the Dinochrome Brigade." It wasn't a particularly great anthology, but I found the idea of the evolution of a self-aware battle tank into something more noble and in some cases moral than its commanders to be intriguing.

A book that I thoroughly enjoyed, which you've probably never even heard of, was "Dragonworld," by Byron Preiss and Michael Reeves.

Probably my favorite short story is "Call me Joe," which Cameron "borrowed" heavily (stress HEAVILY) from in the making of Avatar. I remember watching the movie and thinking, "I know this story."

[DarkLink]

Glad you took my Kovacs series rec, Dark!

Ah, I was trying to remember who recommended it here. Found it at Borders while everything was on sale, along with American Gods and a bunch of other random books.

And in return, I have to agree--Rothfuss' books are every bit as good as you said and more. The intro for Kvothe really didn't inspire me much, but the actual storytelling throughout was a huge win.

They're hard books to describe, beyond 'they're really really good'.

Stover's Caine series is really good. I think I like Heroes Die the best, with Caine Black Knife coming in second.

Same here. And Caine Black Knife is one of best origin stories I've read, without being just an origin story.

I agree re: Martin's Song of Ice and Fire--but he needs a tighter release schedule.

As long as it's not five years until Winds of Winter comes out. A Song of Ice and Fire has so many cliffhangers and running plotlines that you almost have to read straight through.

You'll not find a lot of "traditional" literature on my list. The easiest reason to explain this is that I was a English grad student focusing in literature (both modern and Old English (pre 1066) eras). The funny thing about being a graduate student in a literature based field as they pretty much do their damndest to indoctrinate you and basically brainwash you into never being able to read for fun. There's a reason I opted out of a PhD program--I love to read, and it's one of my pillars of stress relief. I could not bear to stop loving reading. So you'll find fun authors, but not necessarily pulitzer-prize winning ones. That kind of literature is sadly dead to me--I shift into automatic analytical/dissection mode when I get to that stuff.

I could never stand that part of english class for similar reasons. Most of the classics I never liked because they were so busy trying to be philosophical or some crap that they just weren't that enjoyable, and too many literary people are too obsessed with trying to sound scientific about why they really liked this book it got really annoying. This [URL="http://xkcd.com/451/"]XKCD[/URL] sums it up pretty well, I think.

Not to say that I don't like difficult plots and symbolism and the like, but there has to be an enjoyable story along with it, and you have to sit back and enjoy that story, then come back later and figure out why.