Book Recommendations

[Tom]

I thought there was a thread on this but I couldn't find one so I decided to make a new one.

I'm looking for a good English book. As for the genre...I prefer anything along the Fantasy genre; magic, adventure, action, horror.

OR

a mystery with a lot of evil characters

[mawguy]

in the fantasy genre, (assuming you have not read any) i would recommend:

the lord of the rings, j.r.r. tolkien
od magic, patricia mckillip (all the books i've read of hers to date have been great, so if you like this one, try her other books as well)
discworld books (considered a series but books can be read independent of others), especially hogfather and mort, by terry pratchett
the black swan, mercedes lackey
the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe (narnia series), c.s. lewis
harry potter and the philosopher's stone, j.k. rowling (4th book of the series is one of her best, but you do need to read the book that started it all)
the golden compass (his dark materials trilogy), philip pullman
book of skulls, robert silverberg
hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse, robert rankin
lord of light, robert zelazny
the left hand of darkness, ursula le guin
the illustrated man, ray bradbury
dark cities underground, lisa goldstein
homebody, orson scott card

[douggilmour]

I can't believe u listed all those books without George RR Martin's name in there. "A Song of Ice and Fire" series ("A Game of Thrones" being the first book) is a must if u ever read fantasy. Although, the content is not for minors....

If you like lots of evil (gray) characters, this is for u. Martin makes u root for the bad guys as well as good ones.

[douggilmour]

Beside Martin, you can try:

1) Robin Hobb - The Farseer Trilogy (3 books), The Tawny Man trilogy (3).
2) Sara Douglass - Wayfarer Redemption series (6).
3) Jennifer Fallon - The Hythrun Chronicles(3), The Demon Child Trilogy, The Second Sons Trilogy.
4) Scott Lynch - Gentlemen Bastard series.
5) Michael A. Stackpole - DragonCrown War series.

Wow, I read too much books .....

[atlantean0208]

Fantasy:

Codex Alera by Jim Butcher (writer of Dresden Files).

Set in a similar setting like the Roman empire. So you'll have roman politics, backstabbing etc. The twist is, everybody can control elemental spirit to assist in fighting, sword fighting, flying etc, while the main protagonist doesn't have any. Its like Batman in the company of Superhero, he has to use his wits to overcome people with super power.

The elemental usage is like the Avatar tv series but more advance.

The elemental:

-Water:

Used in healing, communicating over large distances, reading emotions, shape shifting, keeping a youthful appearance, and manipulating water; disrupted by fire.

-Earth

Used to gain strength, manipulate the earth, and inspire lust; disrupted when contact with the ground is lost.

-Wood

Used in manipulating plants, tracking and for camouflage; used by archers to bend massive bows to allow arrows to fly further and faster. Requires nearby wood or plant matter, living or dead, in order to use.

-Fire

Used to control firelight to subliminally manipulate passionate feelings such as joy, anger, and fear; used to create and manipulate flames for either constructive or massively destructive purposes; can be used to create cold by extracting heat from an object; disrupted by water.

-Air

Used to fly, control the wind, and to increase speed and agility; Also able to bend air into a lens to see farther or into an echo chamber to allow voice communication without the need for water, however the effective range is much shorter; strong crafters may be able to bend the air to make objects or people seem invisible or to create lenses of air to focus light into a damaging beam; disrupted by earth particularly in the form of salt.

-Metal

Used in sword play heavily as crafters can change the hardness of metal, allowing them to strike with diamond-hard blades. Shields can also be made more flexible to absorb a greater amount of impact force than normal. Also used in forging weapons and other precise metal objects, and metalcrafters also have dramatically increased pain tolerance and physical endurance. Although they gain speed, accuracy and deadly ability in combat, metalcrafters do not become physically stronger, and still require metal weapons/armor to make the most of their abilities.

Series order (yes I already read all of them!) - must be READ IN ORDER, continuing story arc and interrelated:
1) Calderon Fury
2) Academ's Fury
3) Cursor's Fury
3) Captain's Fury

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Badass character in thriller/detective setting/locked room mysteries

Jake Reacher novel by Lee Child.
Have 11 novels in the series (yes I already read all of them, most of it is HardBack first day release)

Jack reacher is combine might of Steven Seagal, AhNuld and Sherlock Holmes. He is an ex Major and an MP. He killed a lot in every novel with precision brutality and will make you cringe. Not for the faint hearted.

Series order:
- Killing Floor
- Die Trying
- Tripwire
- Running Blind
- Echo Burning
- Without Fail
- Persuader
- The Enemy
- One Shot
- The Hard Way
- Bad Luck and Trouble
- Nothing To Lose (2008) - not yet release

[kamii]

Hey can someone tell me if i have to read the farseer trilogy in order to read the tawny man trilogy?? I managed to get my hands on the first 2 books of the latter, however can't get to other ones....

[LiYuanZhi]

oh oh oh... if you want to read GOOD fantasy, there's no way you could pass up the Obernewtyn Chronicles, by Isobelle Carmody. They're six in the series, and five are out at the moment, and we're just awaiting the last one.

1) Obernewtyn
2) Farseekers
3) Ashling
4) The Keeping Place
5) The Stone Key
6) The Sending (forthcoming)

I guarantee that it will be vastly different to whatever fantasy you've read before, because there is no wizards or witches, no goblins or dwarfs, no 'magic' (as such)... It's highly unconventional fantasy, yet very very original and is a gripping story.

Synposis of Book 1- "Obernewtyn"
In a world struggling back from the brink of apocalypse, life is harsh. But for Elspeth Gordie, born with enhances mental abilities that would see her sterilised or burned if disovered, it is alo dangerous There is only survival by secrecy, and so she determines never to use her frbidden powers. But it is as if they hae their own imperative, and their use inevitably brings her to the attention of the totalitarian Council that rules the Land.
Sent to the remote mountain institution of Obernewtyn where escape is impossible, she must throw off her safe cloak of concealment and pit herself against those who would resurrect the terrible forces of the apocalypse.
Only then will she learn most truly who and what she is...

I won't give you the other synposises in case of spoilers.

But it's truly fantastic, because it's original. The story is set in the future, except there are no crazy advanced technology or space gadgets as we would see in science fiction. In fact, their world has gone backwards in terms of civilisation. Their world is set after an apocalypse (I think some kind of nuclear incident) destroyed our world, which is now lost to them and simply known as the Beforetime.

it's an absolutely gripping series, and I urge you to try it out. Isobelle Carmody is definitely one of my all time favourite authors. However, she is an Australian author, so it is possible that if you live in the US or elsewhere that her books may be difficult to get... I'm not sure. But trust me, they're totally worth it.

[douggilmour]

Hey can someone tell me if i have to read the farseer trilogy in order to read the tawny man trilogy?? I managed to get my hands on the first 2 books of the latter, however can't get to other ones....

No, You don't need to read Farseer in order to read Tawny man. I did the same thing; I read Tawny man trilogy first, then read Farseer trilogy.

Although Farseer starts first, the arc of the stories itself are totally different. Only thing that is similar are the characters.

And although this is a slight spoiler :

click to show/hide spoilers

OMG, I thought Fool was a girl disguised as a guy through the whole series. Boy was I suprised at the end