Book suggestions
-
@Bobotron I wish I could read the entire series, but the local library is missing them. Probably the only way I'll be able to do so is to try and collect the entire series myself.
-
@darksabrz
They're worth picking up. This will be my third reread; something about them just makes me want to build a WoD cityscape filled with corrupt homicide dicks, delicious local regional food (as an avid food lover, the way they talk about and describe food in there always makes me hungry), and a few good-and-tough cops with the odds stacked against them.If you have a Half-Price Books I'd suggest checking there. I got each of them for $2.99 (and I'm a nerd so I reread most everything more than once; once I finish these I'm going to restart on the Cleric Quintet, then start back with Blood and Gold again.)
-
Ready Player One. If you are into audio books, it's read by Wil Weaton.
If you consider yourself mildly geeky and remember any part of the 80's (or really like the 80's even if you don't remember it) , you should read it.
-
@Darinelle said:
@Glitch - You know what else I fucking LOVED was Katherine Kerr's novels of Deverry. I think the first is called Daggerspell and I just found it really a lot of fun.
Yesss! These were a favorite growing up. Convoluted as fuck, but excellent.
I really enjoy the Jane Yellowrock series by Faith hunter for urban Fantasy. Also Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson and Kimm Harrisons Rachael Morgan Series. The latter starts iffy but really picks up.
-
@Bobotron said:
@darksabrz
They're worth picking up. This will be my third reread; something about them just makes me want to build a WoD cityscape filled with corrupt homicide dicks, delicious local regional food (as an avid food lover, the way they talk about and describe food in there always makes me hungry), and a few good-and-tough cops with the odds stacked against them.I loved the first two books and would definitely recommend them. The third one was a hard sell for me, mostly because it feels like Koontz wrote himself into a corner by stacking aforementioned odds too high, and then waved it all away with a doofy and disappointing Dues Ex Machina.
Still, stellar reads.
^_______^
(@_____@)
---|---
/\ -
I'm really digging "Krampus: The Yule Lord" by Brom. I'm reading it slowly, but digging. Very American Gods-y.
-
Ten-Ghost - An odd mix of future/post-apoc?/spirit world, about a woman who isn't real and doesn't really want to be, despite Fate telling her she ought.
The Sparrow - Jesuits go to space and meet the aliens while everyone else on Earth is still dicking around. Has triggery stuff. Good for looking at communication and how it fails.
Daughter of the Blood - Book 1 of a series. High fantasy, tetch of romance, mostly about a girl with too much power trying to reach the point where she can use it to save her peoples.
ES
-
I'll hazard that you may not have read older stuff and recommend Michael Moorcock's series The Cornelius Quartet (which consists of The Final Programme, A Cure for Cancer, The English Assassin and The Condition of Muzak). While they're not urban fantasy in the way I think most people term that, they are definitely urban and fantastical. It's likely easier to get into them if you're British or an Anglophile and if you have some knowledge of twentieth century European culture. (It also helps to have at least once dropped acid and listened to Hawkwind.)
-
Did anyone mention The First Law books by Joe Abercrombie? They're awesome, as are all the stand alone follow ups.
-
@EmmahSue said:
Daughter of the Blood - Book 1 of a series. High fantasy, tetch of romance, mostly about a girl with too much power trying to reach the point where she can use it to save her peoples.
My bestfriend once told me that she thought I was basically a real life 'Surreal'.... and later when she based a character off of me for her novel she made me a sociopath. : |
Ahem.
Anywise.
I'll raise you Daughter of the Blood, and give you Troubled Waters & Royal Airs
They are both a touchy romancy, but Sharon Shinn is so amazing that if you stray away from that for that you're a horrible fucking person. > : |
The world building, everything is amazing. siiiigh
Her Samara series is amazing too. Also a touchy romancey, but still amazing. I have not read her Shifting Circle series yet, but I keep meaning to. 'The Shape-Changers Wife' is amazing, as well.
Oh, there is also Chalice by Robin McKinley.
-
@Wizz
I found the third one to have some weak moments (I don't know how the hell Koontz came up with Jocko, really), but overall I felt it was a good closure to the first three.I'm reading book 5 for the first time, and it... well, it makes me think God-Machine, with the events building Infrastructure and an earthly Angel-incubation facility. So it does the job alright, even if I found 4 (and so far 5) to be the weakest of the series.
(Also, related, I didn't know that those books came about because of a failed USA Network TV show that Koontz was working with, then walked away from, which became a TV-movie of the pilot episodes).
-
@Cobaltasaurus - I love everything by Robin McKinley EXCEPT Pegasus. And that only because it's PART ONE OF TWO AND THE SECOND ONE HASN'T COME OUT AND IT HAS BEEN YEARS WTF ROBIN OMG LEAVE ME HANGING.
For those who love vampire stories - Sunshine was pretty cool.
-
Sunshine /was/ really good. I havn't read anything else by the author, but Sunshine was fantastic.
-
I enjoyed Mark Lynas, Six Degrees. It's a book about the systems we rely on changing by the end of the century due to climate change. It presents a lot of the current scientific papers in a readable, digestible way. It isn't alarmist, but for a gamer, is like a great manual on the types of things we can emphasize in a game meant to portray the world as darker and more dangerous. It's pretty freakin' dark by the 4th degree of C that changes, let alone the horror of 5C or 6C.
I also enjoyed Susan Casey, Devil's Teeth. It's a book about Great White Shark research in the Farallon Islands and the author's quest to learn more about these mysterious monsters of the coasts and our primordial fear and fascination with them.
-
Oh, just about anything by Cherie Priest. First one I read was about Steampunk Zombies in Seattle. Taking place around the Civil War, She also has a series with an OCD Vampire catburgler, and some other odd macabre period pieces. All of it really good stuff, I enjoy her writing immensely.
-
Try China Mieville's The City and the City. I liked it. Most of his stuff did not appeal to me, so I didn't bother reading, but I gave this book a shot and enjoyed it. Not spectacular, but it fits the gritty urban fantasy description you laid out. And the concept is pretty fascinating, actually.
Someone else said Neverwhere already, so I'll just say, yes, most definitely, read that.
Try Night Prayers or Canyons by P.D. Cacek. (Or Leavings, her great collection of short stories.) She's not well known, but she won the World Fantasy Award and Bran Stoker Award a few years back and has done some collaboration with Peter Straub. A different take on the horror genre. (Not quite urban fantasy, but gritty and urban, at least.)
-
@Glitch , go read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.
It will totally change your life.
Bonus points if you read The Second Chronicles, and The Last Chronicles.
You will never be the same.
-
@HelloRaptor I really liked those. Didn't change my life, though.
-
You are a goddamn monster.
I was just fucking with him. Honestly, I felt bad about it as soon as I hit submit. Those books were so bad, so treacherously horrible, that I feel like they don't actually qualify as books. Sure, they're printed text on a page, but it's like calling the torture and mutilation of another human being 'exercise' just because you broke a sweat in the process.
Every now and then I suggest someone read them just because misery loves company.
-
@HelloRaptor Yes, this
I didn't like them, but I was 15 when I read them. And I felt obligated to read the other ones, cause my cool friends like them. And yes, that does say how cool I was in high school that my D&D friends were the cool kids that applied peer pressure! 
