Re-reading the Sundering duology by Jaqueline Carey at the moment. I loved it years ago so I’m checking to see if it really was that good or if I was just young. It has held up fairly well. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes fantasy.
Currently reading Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser
The thesis of the book is basically that environmental pollution, particularly lead, might be the thing that caused so many serial killers to pop up during the period of the late '60s to the late '70s. Only half way through it so far, and not quite convinced by the theory yet. Although it’s indisputable that such pollution can damage brains to a severe degree, I’m just not sure how you get from “damaged” to “I’d better serial kill some women”. Random violence and anger management issues, sure. But the highly specific and MO-driven criminality of serials killers seems like something else entirely. We’ll see what evidence comes in later chapters!
My favorite series is Dungeon Crawler Carl . Its so good. I have ALL of the physical books, the audio books (Jeff Hays is hilarious with his takes on the different characters).
My favorite book soap is The Wandering Inn . Its a free web serial and I find it VERY good. But it can have some lulls. I call it a “book soap” because if its size . I am a prolific reader and it took me YEARS to get though around 50% of the series. I have the ebooks, audio-books, and have enjoyed my forever book. The payoff is SO good. Tears of Liscor broke me. I had to take time off of reading for a while due to what felt like a bit of trauma.
When I was a kid, I loved the ring of fire series ( 1632 and such). I dont enjoy it as much, but the older books in the series I still enjoy re-reading from time to time.
currently listening to the 4th book in the children of time series
i love these books
Among my favorites I remember: Gideon the ninth, slavery by another name, worst journey in the world, anything by Ted Chiang, blindsight/echopraxia
Recent reads: little bosses everywhere (excellent), no more tears (also excellent), get in trouble (I really like parts of it but it’s classic Kelly link, super weird and abrupt)
Gideon the Ninth baffled me
The books in that series all seemed to follow the same pattern of something weird, interesting and mysterious happening, having no idea what was going on, spending the whole book getting a slightly better picture of it only for something else totally incomprehensible to happen and the cycle started again. I wanted to like it but I got sick of the antics. Really interesting world though
I don’t think I have a favourite. I have some that I liked enough as to read them more than once: The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarilion, some of the Culture novels.
Then there are long series that I enjoyed quite a bit: Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome, JJ Benitez’s Caballo de Troya series (if you ignore the author’s insistence in that everything in the book is real and you take it as an adventures book or science fiction it is actually enjoyable), I’m liking so far McBride’s detective Logan McRae series.
And I’m about to begin Mikel Santiago’s La Chica del Lago
My favorite are the Kushiel trilogy, anything by Ian McDonald, almost anything by Adrian Tchaikovsky or Michael Carey. Though it’s difficult to pick.
Currently reading The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.
I’m currently between books, I think I’m gonna read The Terror next. But my absolute favourite is The count of Monte Cristo. I read it three times over the past 15 years. And I love Simon Singh’s popular science bookThe Big Bang.
Favourites include Lord of the Rings, Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey & Maturin series, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! trilogy.
Currently reading Bleak House.
A.glass of wine with you Sir!
Favorite\ The 120 Days of Sodom /jk
Reading now\ The Silmarillion
The flowers of evil ( akunohana , Japanese) (manga) by Shuzo Oshimi
Picking up after having finished the above\ Les Fleurs du mal
I read a lot of fantasy when I was younger but gradually fell out of love with the genre. It started to feel really trope heavy and I got tired of everything feeling like it needed to be a 3-5+ novel epic series that was so enamored with its own world-building it felt more like a history lesson. Perhaps my choices on reading material were to blame, but still. I moved onto sci-fi and fiction for a good while.
I’ve been trying to rekindle my passion for it with one off “weird” fiction. Standalone stories that are just interested in doing weird stuff, whatever that may entail. It’s not well-defined and if anyone has any recommendations I’d be happy to hear them but so far some of my best discovies,
- The West Passage, Jared Pechaček. A palace the size of a city ruled over by giant, eldritch ladies and mired in ancient bureaucracies is threatened by a forgotten prophecy. I like it because it doesn’t overexplain its world, it just throws a bunch of interesting events and scenery at you while gesturing at the architecture of the world that holds it up, leading you to speculate on the mystery of it all.
- The Starving Saints, Caitlin Starling. Claustrophobic, horrifying, vaguely sapphic. It follows the storylines of a knight, a nun, and a peasant girl trapped in a castle under siege. As supplies diminish and things are looking grim, their saints miraculously appear to save them but not all is at it appears etc. etc. Just a good read, I liked this one a lot
- Currently reading: Mad Sisters of Esi, Tashan Mehta. This one got off to a bit of an uneven start but it’s an interesting mashup of myth and sci-fi where the universe is referred to as the black sea, planets are islands, and spaceship may be literally ships with sails. Not done with it yet, but enjoying it as it has strong characters and a good emotional core.
I’m currently reading Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett … fantasy, but not like any other.
It’s a nice palette clenser in between all the lesbian smut I usually read :-)
Terry Pratchett is a classic of course. I was making my way through publication order, but can’t remember where I stopped at this point.
As for the lesbian smut, definitely give The Starving Saints a look. Not spicy, but more the painful aching, if that’s your thing.
When you say painful aching … do you mean “lustful longing” or “having trouble sitting down without wincing”?
I’m up to “Thud!” and getting a bit sad I’m almost at the end of the series.
Check out the Bas-Lag novels by China Miéville. Lots of strange and interesting creatures and cultures in those books. Each of them is standalone but they take place in the same world.
Oh yes! I’ve read Perdido Street Station and The Scar and greatly enjoyed them. I should get back to checking out more of his stuff, I know Iron Council is also in that setting but I’m not sure of much else. I tried Un Lun Dun back in the day and while it was fun, it was a little too YA for me.
I’ve been on a scifi binge. MurderBot on audio is worth your time. After Atlas was quite good, stands out from the rest. Timothy Zahn’s Icarus series was fun.
As for fantasy it’s been a slog. We need better search parameters. It took the book people forever to separate scifi and fantasy, but there’s still work to do. Paranormal romance is there for some reason and clutters up Libby’s ability to search. That, and it feels like there’s a glut of books involving either the fae or dragons right now, and little else, not unlike the vampire thing 2 decades ago.
The Expanse by James S.A Corey is also worth your time. Currently reading The Faith of Beasts by the same author, part 2 of The Captive’s War. Enjoying it so far.
I’ve read the expanse twice, it’s always on the lists so I didn’t bother mentioning it. Not so keen on the last book, but that’s a tough landing.
Right now I’m reading Neocolonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah. It’s a really good expansion of Lenin’s work on Imperialism as a stage in capitalism. Nkrumah was coup’d one year after its publishing with support from the US.
As for favorites, I really love both Piranesi and Roadside Picnic! The former is just a really fun mystery with a good deal of whimsy, the latter is excellent sci-fi.
Favourites include Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell, Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series, Ursula K Le Guin’s Hainish cycle.
Currently reading Le Guins Dispossessed.
I always came down on the Hornblower side. Have you read that series? How do they compare?
Hornblower is OK. I enjoy some of it but O’Brian has a knack for humour and tragedy thats mostly absent in the Hornblower series.
I do read new stuff, on occasion, but at the moment they are one and the same: the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I just picked it back up and I already noticed something new. At Bilbo’s 111th birthday party, Tolkien describes the dragon firework as passing “like an express train”, which struck me as an odd turn of phrase that I’d never noticed before.
