Recommend a book!
Carolus Rex
Join Date: 2011-04-10 Member: 92269Members
Join Date: 2011-04-10 Member: 92269Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Define your desires - Recieve a suggestion!</div>So I am officially out of books to read, it's even gotten so bad that I've just snatched some of my grannies ol' ... well, adventure/romance-ish books aaaaaand now I've almost finished that series. So time to order some new books! And I thought I'd get on here and ask this community, since it is like the only forum that I frequent (if you count lurking at least) that isn't swarmed with trolls or tryhard-comedians.
So here is what I'm looking for:
Genre: Fantasy / Adventure
Setting: Medieval / Historically past tense
Series span: Preferably at least 2 books
So if you have a book you'd like to recommend, feel free to do that, and don't hesitate to post a request of your own if you are also looking for some good reading material.
So here is what I'm looking for:
Genre: Fantasy / Adventure
Setting: Medieval / Historically past tense
Series span: Preferably at least 2 books
So if you have a book you'd like to recommend, feel free to do that, and don't hesitate to post a request of your own if you are also looking for some good reading material.
Comments
There was a recommending thread too but I can't seem to find it yet.
edit: found it: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=105418&hl=books" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...18&hl=books</a>
My intentions with this thread however was leaned a little more towards people suggesting books for others to read based on what they specified, as opposed to a thread where one person recommends a book and then it just sorta carries away from there.
I'd like to add though, the book the OP described in that thread was a good read, and I'm awaiting the next release in it's series :)
EDIT: Ah, your edit is pretty much what I was looking for :) Cheers.
If you haven't read the Song of Ice and Fire series ('Game of Thrones') or Wheel of Time, they're pretty much pillars in the Epic Fantasy genre. Perhaps also The Sword of Truth ('Legend of the Seeker')?
I also read the Night Angel Trilogy a while back (The Way of Shadows, Shadow's Edge, Beyond the Shadows). Bit kitschy and not terribly deep, but entertaining.
The first one is shaping up to be low fantasy, or at least low-ish fantasy. The Night Angel Trilogy is somewhere inbetween low and high fantasy (intermediate fantasy? medium fantasy?), leaning a bit towards high.
Also, because I don't think I've ever reccommended it here, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. That's not "romance" as in "sappy love novels," but romance as in "a novel or other prose narrative depicting heroic or marvelous deeds, pageantry, romantic exploits, etc., usually in a historical or imaginary setting." This one isn't fantasy, but historical fiction with a heavy slant towards the historical. But it reads like a novel, and anyone who likes fantasy should at least give it a chance.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the four great classical novels of chinese litterature, and a riveting read. <strike>Not a book for scrubs</strike> Not to everyone's taste - the language is kind of archaic, and the pacing isn't always perfect due to the limitations of the historical setting (peaceful times are great to live in but make for shoddy reading in a book that is mainly about war), but ultimately it's a tour de force of one of the most interesting and tumultuous periods in China's history, the three kingdoms period. A time where the empire was divided, and ambitious people vied for dominance. What makes it special is the sheer force of personality on display, the grand stratagems and the epic scale (yes, this is actually a case where the word 'epic' isn't painfully misplaced).
You can buy one of the various print editions, or you can download it in pdf format at <a href="http://www.new3k.com/newrotkebook/" target="_blank">http://www.new3k.com/newrotkebook/</a>.
Yes I agree, SoT series was ###### a-mazing, tv serious however was severely lacking,
I kind of try to avoid the Wheel of Time series because in Finland it's sold in very cheap looking bad covers that look like bullshots from some 1996 3D game. It also goes for some 25 books, which kind of feels like someone is milking off money from the old fanbase.
Is it actually worth reading?
Pillars of the earth by Ken Follet?
It's 1200 pages and spans the whole story spans 3 generations and it has tons of juicy subplots that all come together stunningly at the end
if you are feeling frisky go read frederick forsyth "the fist of god" Saddam always makes a great villian, one of the protagonists is incredible (as he cavorts thru early 90's Iraq undercover), and the twist on the ending is a cold pill to swallow.
I have tons more suggestions
Pillars of the earth by Ken Follet?
It's 1200 pages and spans the whole story spans 3 generations and it has tons of juicy subplots that all come together stunningly at the end
if you are feeling frisky go read frederick forsyth "the fist of god" Saddam always makes a great villian, one of the protagonists is incredible (as he cavorts thru early 90's Iraq undercover), and the twist on the ending is a cold pill to swallow.
I have tons more suggestions<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
neither of those is fantasy-adventure as the OP asked.
Does it get better or worse after the Game of Thrones? I read it and quite liked it, but it was in no way anything to make me rush to the nearest bookstore for the sequel. For example <span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>do characters like Arya and Sansa actually get somewhere in the sequel? Neither of them felt that interesting as characters and they were only starting to get pushed into interesting storyline in the last few of their narratives. I can understand if they're being built up for the later parts of the series, but does that actually happen?</span>
<span style='color:#000000;background:#000000'>do characters like Arya and Sansa actually get somewhere in the sequel? Neither of them felt that interesting as characters and they were only starting to get pushed into interesting storyline in the last few of their narratives. I can understand if they're being built up for the later parts of the series, but does that actually happen?</span><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes it does, all characters go somewhere in the book but it takes a while to get there, the series is quite slow, theres even instences of characters changing personality , or rather having hidden personality that you wouldn't quite expect them to have.
Uhm, yes there is.
Cersei Lannister, that is all.
I have all his stories in three collected books, if you google 'hp lovecraft omnibus ediiton' you should find them.
Personally I recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/H-P-Lovecraft-Omnibus-Mountains/dp/0586063226" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.co.uk/H-P-Lovecraft-Omni...s/dp/0586063226</a> the first book as the best, as it includes at the mountains of madness (easily my favourite) and the case of charles dexter ward, his other long story, and also an excellent whodunit.
And as it was fantasy/adventure (I read that as either-or rather than and), can never go wrong with the collected Sherlock Holmes, or the collected Oz.
Wheel of Time... is okay. It's just incredibly, PAINFULLY slow at least for the first three books (at which point I lost interest/decided that I'd rather spend the time wasted that way on learning to write backward, teach a meerkat how to whistle, or ANYTHING even *remotely* useful). It's clearly just one large book split into multiple volumes, rather than individual books. It's like their editor tried... then gave up when the author REFUSED to cut ANYTHING out.
...so I guess it's not okay. It's a horrible, mind-numbing series. If it improves after the first three books, I somehow doubt it can overcome just how much reading those first three SUCKED ROCKS. I'd rather read the Silmarillon.
Basically the books are REALLY polarizing, people tend to love them or despise them with a passion (see above).
I personally don't find them to be slow, but that's because what I find slow are authors who go in for the massive descriptions for each scene (ala Tolkien). Yes, there are a lot of plots/sub plots in the books, and yes it takes just about forever to resolve some of them. Some that are introduced in the first book, still haven't been officially covered, however, reading between the lines will give you some very good ideas as to what is up (ex: a plot that has been bugging me since book 2 (Verin) got resolved in book 12, however, there were enough hints that it wasn't one of those "PLOT HOOK OUT OF NOWHERE!" moments some authors like).
While, yes, it is true that the books are going to cap out at 14, and it takes that long to cover the main plot, each individual book DOES have a distinct major plot point it is working up to, and concludes at the end of the book. The format tends to be that you know what the book is working up to, it eventually happens, and there will be a very short afterwards of the event. The next book will start up directly after the large event, and continue from there.
I suggest reading the first 2 or 3 books and seeing if you enjoy them. If you do, great, go get the rest, you will continue to enjoy them. If you don't? That's fine, don't bother. If you don't really enjoy them, however have a horrible compulsion to know wth ends up happening, you can read the cliff notes on line via one of the wikis about it :P
some random other complaints people often have:
His female characters are all whiny stupid ######. Well, it's true, he does cut back on that some time around book 9, and they tend to be fine if there are no men around. Still, he apparently hated women for all I can tell (supposedly all the women are based off of women in his life).
The main character is an idiot. Also true. He does the emo idiot thing for far longer than I would have liked, but that is made up for by the rest of the characters.
Why people tend to enjoy the books:
They are very internally consistent. For a series that has been going since 2004, it was obviously completely planed out a head of time, and has stuck to the plan (or at least the adaptations worked).
It IS massive. I enjoy the fact that there are generally at least 3 to 5 major plots being advanced per book, as well as a main point, and a dozen other minor plots. It's fun to try and follow these things.
His character development is great. I like most of the characters, they each have really interesting plots surrounding them, and he mixed each character's story with the others.
The next on my list is probably going to be Song of Ice and Fire. A number of my friends have been reading it since it started, and for some reason I never got into it.
<img src="http://www.box.net/shared/static/a6omcl2la0ivlxsn3o8m.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Something I really liked about The Lies of Locke Lamora is that it didn't end on an obvious <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SequelHook" target="_blank">sequel hook.</a> Instead you get an almost entirely conclusive ending, something that is far too rare nowadays - particularly in games that often never get a sequel. I'M LOOKING AT YOU, HL2 EP. 2!
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b6/Wizard,_the_Life_and_Times_of_Nikola_Tesla.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />