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Recommend a sci-fi/fantasy?


risingdawn

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Yeah, Lord of Light is my favourite of his that I've read so far  :smile:

 

My TBR list just increased :) About the chronicles of Amber it seems many of you read it but just didn't like it so much. Do you mind sharing why? It's one of the first fantasy book i've ready and perhaps that's why it has so special meaning to me.

 

A couple of books to recommend:

Le Talef d'Alkoria by Dan Dastier - couldn't find the english name. Very short and easy to read book.

 

The Star Diaries of Ijon Tikhi by Stanislaw Lem - 7th voyage is my favourite.

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Yeah, I'll never understand that, just daft :rolleyes:

 

Anyway, yes, they are great books.  The Belgariad will always be close to my heart as it was the first fantasy series I read - I have very fond memories of reading both it and the follow up, The Mallorean.  I also liked the Sparhawk trilogies, The Elenium and The Tamuli.  I have to say, though, I thought The Redemption of Althalus was pretty poor.

 

Oh yes, the Sparhawk series.  That was one of the ones I forgot.  I quite like that one as well, though not as much as the Belgariad.  Haven't tried Athalus yet, and may not as it seems to not have great reviews from a lot of folks.

 

I have remembered another couple of series that are again, quite old in terms of when they were published - 1980s and 90s.  For the first one, the Sunrunner's Fire series, there are two trilogies in the complete series and each one spans a generation.  It is a world of magic, intrigue, politics and dragons.  Below is a link to her website:

 

http://www.melanierawn.com/books.php

 

Rawn has published several other fantasy books, but I've only read one other of her series and though despite being her peak of popularity when the first two of a trilogy when they were published in the 1990s, the final book - The Captal Tower - is still not out.  Sadly she suffered some kind of family trajedy which led to a breakdown and several years without any writing.  Happily though, she has returned to writing now and has some new books out, which you can read about in the above site, but the Captal's Tower is still in the works.  She has repeatedly said in the last couple years that she is working on it, so we can expect to see the series wrap up at some point.  Personally though, I've forgotten much of the storyline and will hold off on another re-read until the final book's release date is announced. 

 

Note that unlike the WoT and the Sword of truth sagas, the Belgariad, Sparhawk and Sunrunner's Fire series' are not huge reads.  At least not in comparison to the marathon size books from Jordan/Sanderson and Goodkind.  All the books in each are a few hundred pages each.

 

The Exiles trilogy's first two books were quite large as I recall, around 400 to 500 pages (approximately), I think.  I can't think of a way to nicely summarize the series plot after all this time, so have just copied the blurb directly from her site as listed above:

 

Exiles Blurb:

 

A thousand years ago, Mageborns fled prejudice and persecution to colonize the planet Lenfell - pristine, untouched, a perfect refuge for those whose powers were perceived as a threat by people not gifted with magic. But the greater the magic, the greater the peril -- and Lenfell was soon devastated by a war between rival Mageborn factions that polluted the land, sea, and air with Wild Magic, and unleashed the hideous specters known as the Wraithenbeasts.        

    

Generations after that terrible war, with the land recovered from crippling wounds and the people no longer threatened by genetic damage, Mageborns still practice their craft - but under strict constraints. Yet so long as the rivalry between the Mage Guardians and the Lords of Malerris continues, the threat of another war is ever-present. And someone has been planning such a war for many long years, the final strike in a generations-old bid for total power...

 

That's about it for now.  Cheers. :smile:  :readingtwo:

 

Wordsgood

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The Player of Games looks intriguing. Audible has it as book 2 of the Culture series, is it a good idea to read the first book, Consider Phlebas?

 

It doesn't really matter as they are stand alone stories.  Consider Phlebas is okay, but it's fairly ordinary in comparison to The Player of Games, imo  :smile:

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After a quick read through all the post I´ve not seen a single post about The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, which is my humble opinion one of the best fantasy books I have read up to today.

You could describe it as Oceans Eleven set in a fascinating fantasy world with a little drop of The Godfather in it.

 

The Name of the Wind was already mentioned earlier, so I can only repeat how awesome that book is. ;)

 

As an addition I would like to recommend The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko and all books from that series (and in general from that author). Modern fantasy (or urban fantasy, even if I don´t know the exact meaning of that term) as a catchphrase may describe them the best.

 

To say something about sci-fi, too:

The one book that springs to my mind is Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding. It´s more steampunk than sci-fi, but since I like books with exotic settings, that´s only a postive point for me. Additionally: Pirates. Everybody likes pirates. :D

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Is there an explanation for you hating it or is it a principle thing?

 

Nah, I was only joking - I don't take it that seriously although - as VF knows - the term 'sci-fi' is one that feels, to me, quite dismissive of the genre as a whole, like "oh it's just sci-fi". 

 

Harlan Ellison gets a lot more annoyed about this than I do :lol:

 

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Nah, I was only joking - I don't take it that seriously although - as VF knows - the term 'sci-fi' is one that feels, to me, quite dismissive of the genre as a whole, like "oh it's just sci-fi".

 

I've never thought of it as dismissive... just shorter :)

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I've never thought of it as dismissive... just shorter :)

 

I'm with Tim: it's just shorter! And if you want to be Finnish-friendly, you'd say sci-fi, because we recognise that as the abbreviation of the genre. SF just means Suomen Filmiteollisuus, meaning a Finnish movie production company, and now that I googled it can actually also mean Svensk Filmindustri, meaning a Swedish movie production company :)

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I've never thought of it as dismissive... just shorter :)

 

To quote from Wikipedia:

 

"As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech "B-movies" and with low-quality pulp science fiction.  By the 1970s, critics within the field such as Terry Carr and Damon Knight were using sci-fi to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction, and around 1978, Susan Wood and others introduced the pronunciation "skiffy". Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers". David Langford's monthly fanzine Ansible includes a regular section "As Others See Us" which offers numerous examples of "sci-fi" being used in a pejorative sense by people outside the genre."

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To quote from Wikipedia:

 

"As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech "B-movies" and with low-quality pulp science fiction.  By the 1970s, critics within the field such as Terry Carr and Damon Knight were using sci-fi to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction, and around 1978, Susan Wood and others introduced the pronunciation "skiffy". Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers". David Langford's monthly fanzine Ansible includes a regular section "As Others See Us" which offers numerous examples of "sci-fi" being used in a pejorative sense by people outside the genre."

 

And then came Syfy, and everyone had a "eh?" moment.

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hi,

 

i have read percy jackson, star force by b v larson and brian s pratt's unsuspecting mage series . what should be my next read ? plz recommend

 

 The Blue World Jack Vance.

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