kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 6, 2023 13:03:04 GMT
I reckon Terry Pratchett is overrated as well, so I'm glad I'm not the only one (when I last let this point be known, I was subjected to masses of Ad Hominem vitriol about how I couldn't write, wasn't clever, had lost the plot etc.). He's funny but his sense of humour is repetitive and not that intellectual. He seems to me like one of those people who 'likes praise' and doesn't always accept it when people don't agree 100% with him. I believe I did read one or two other Terry Pratchett, one non-Discworld, but the first of his books I read, the one I most enjoyed and remember, was Mort as well, coinicdentally. Nowt wrong with disliking a popular author (or in liking that author for that matter!). Mort is often recommended as a good introduction to the series so perhaps not such a big coincidence. I would agree it's one of his better ones.
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roidhun
Wanderer
Ironic, self-deprecating nerd and geek extraordinnaire.
Posts: 78
Favourite Gamebook Series: The Legends of Skyfall (Yes, really!)
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Post by roidhun on Oct 6, 2023 13:25:40 GMT
He seems to me like one of those people who 'likes praise' and doesn't always accept it when people don't agree 100% with him. Larry Niven has said the same thing in slightly blunter terms about Harlan Ellison. I personally have no doubt at all that he's right.
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roidhun
Wanderer
Ironic, self-deprecating nerd and geek extraordinnaire.
Posts: 78
Favourite Gamebook Series: The Legends of Skyfall (Yes, really!)
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Post by roidhun on Oct 6, 2023 13:28:42 GMT
I tried reading a couple of Dungeons and Dragons books (Dragonlance I think) many years ago, but I gave up on them partway through because, at the end of the day, the plot was originally driven by a power struggle between good and evil gods (who were never seen in person) and you just knew that even if the protagonists who served the good gods were victorious over the antagonists who served the evil gods, the unseen masters of the latter would never be held to account and would just come back and try again in a few hundred years. Not precisely true in Dragonlance's case. The good gods and evil gods do show up quite a lot and interact with the heroes and villains. If you say so. I got about halfway through a trilogy before losing interest. No gods had shown up in person up until that point, at least.
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roidhun
Wanderer
Ironic, self-deprecating nerd and geek extraordinnaire.
Posts: 78
Favourite Gamebook Series: The Legends of Skyfall (Yes, really!)
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Post by roidhun on Oct 6, 2023 13:28:54 GMT
I tried reading a couple of Dungeons and Dragons books (Dragonlance I think) many years ago, but I gave up on them partway through because, at the end of the day, the plot was originally driven by a power struggle between good and evil gods (who were never seen in person) and you just knew that even if the protagonists who served the good gods were victorious over the antagonists who served the evil gods, the unseen masters of the latter would never be held to account and would just come back and try again in a few hundred years. Not precisely true in Dragonlance's case. The good gods and evil gods do show up quite a lot and interact with the heroes and villains. If you say so. I got about halfway through a trilogy before losing interest. No gods had shown up in person up until that point, at least, IIRC.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 6, 2023 13:54:08 GMT
Not precisely true in Dragonlance's case. The good gods and evil gods do show up quite a lot and interact with the heroes and villains. If you say so. I got about halfway through a trilogy before losing interest. No gods had shown up in person up until that point, at least, IIRC. If it was the original trilogy, it's not till the third book that the gods come more properly into the conflict.
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Post by dragonwarrior8 on Oct 6, 2023 15:01:25 GMT
Wow some great material listed here. I have often thought of diving into the Conan books as it seems like it would be right up my alley.
Has anyone else here read The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander? I was fairly young when I read them but they stood out for me as being quite enjoyable. In the 80's Disney even made a movie out of one of the books (The Black Cauldron) of which now I can't recall if it was any good or not.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 6, 2023 15:18:10 GMT
Has anyone else here read The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander? I read the first one - very charming. The others are on my long to-be-read list.
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Post by nathanh on Oct 7, 2023 12:23:02 GMT
I loved Prydain when I was young. I haven't read them again; they're in a category of books that I liked a lot when I was younger but don't want to reread because I think I might not like them so much any more (other candidates in this class: Eddings's Elenium and Tamuli; Aurian by Maggie Furey; Shannara by Terry Brooks).
Feist's work I also liked a lot as a teenager but reread more recently and I think the Riftwar and Serpentwar books are good. Not such a fan of the other ones I read. The collab with Janny Wurts was interesting; wasn't really a fan of the Tsurani in general but the series was probably as good as it could be given that.
Favourite fantasy series is Malazan by Steven Erikson, at least before book 8 where it really dropped off for me.
I don't read much fiction these days but in the last year or so I read the Prince of Nothing series by R. Scott Bakker and Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, both of which I thought were amazing but pretty disturbing. Definitely not comfortable reads.
I haven't read a lot of the classic fantasy like Conan but I should probably try at some point.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Oct 7, 2023 21:09:23 GMT
Favourite fantasy series is Malazan by Steven Erikson, at least before book 78 where it really dropped off Getting to Book 78 before that happens is pretty impressive 😉
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Post by nathanh on Oct 9, 2023 6:40:22 GMT
Haha, I should have said book 8, but tbh it felt like 78 by the time I'd finished it.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Oct 9, 2023 15:52:28 GMT
Wow some great material listed here. I have often thought of diving into the Conan books as it seems like it would be right up my alley. Do it, dragonwarrior and see what you think. The stories are short enough for you not to feel like you are having to invest days months and years into a massive series. And a lot of his other work is Public Domain by now. This thread has got me raiding the bookshelves, and I've started reading Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber. And am enjoying it a great deal.
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cj
Squire
Posts: 8
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Post by cj on Oct 9, 2023 20:19:56 GMT
I have often thought of diving into the Conan books as it seems like it would be right up my alley. Many of them can be found for free at Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org).
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Post by andrewwright on Oct 11, 2023 12:37:49 GMT
Loads of great books on this thread! :-)
Currently I seem to be on a sci-fi kick, which has actually lasted well over a decade now:
Adrian Tchaikovsky - literally buy anything I find of his - Cage of Souls is absolutely brilliant. Has a LRP/TTRPG background maybe? Andy Weir - Artemis wasn't great but The Martian and Project Hail Mary are both good. Ernest Cline - His last 2 were OK-ish, sometimes the nostalgia is a bit too much. Hugh Howey - Really liked Beacon 23, Sand, and the Wool trilogy, which Silo is based on. Jeff Vandermeer - The Area X trilogy is just weird, and I just finished Borne, which is brilliant. David Brin - Reread his Uplift saga several times. Even have the GURPS supplement. Excellent Iain M Banks - Reread most of his books multiple times. Inversions is the perfect fantasy book that isn't a fantasy book, while Look to Windward has a fantastic airsphere sequence you could strip out and turn into a novel in its own right. John Twelve Hawks - Been meaning to go back and reread his Traveller trilogy. John Scalzi - Really liked Kaiju Preservation Society, need to start checking out his other stuff.
Fantasy-wise, my favorite author of all time is Ursula Le Guin, her Earthsea sequence is just brilliant. Also a big fan of Diann Wynne Jones, especially her guide to Fantasy Land. Other fantasy fave authors: Glen Cook, Philip G Williamson (Firstworld sequence is unfinished, underappreciated and still excellent, Jack Vance. Gene Wolfe, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Lieber, Lord Dunsany, Fred Saberhagen, and Poul Anderson. Harry Turtledove gets an honorary mention for the Videssos Cycle.
New reads: used to be a huge early Pratchett fan, stopped around Soul Music, need to go back and read all the rest. Also, non-male non-white writers - need to start reading lots of these and quickly. Luckily I have no job right now! :-)
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Oct 12, 2023 14:07:18 GMT
I tried reading a couple of Dungeons and Dragons books (Dragonlance I think) many years ago, but I gave up on them partway through because, at the end of the day, the plot was originally driven by a power struggle between good and evil gods (who were never seen in person) and you just knew that even if the protagonists who served the good gods were victorious over the antagonists who served the evil gods, the unseen masters of the latter would never be held to account and would just come back and try again in a few hundred years. Not precisely true in Dragonlance's case. The good gods and evil gods do show up quite a lot and interact with the heroes and villains. Hell, in the last DL series I read by Weis and Hickman, one of the main characters is a goddess who didn't know she was one, and the throughout the story all the other gods are literally scrambling to get her on their side.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Oct 12, 2023 14:16:40 GMT
One series I'd once meant to look for and read but somehow never got around to it is Gregory Maguire's Wicked series. In this case, the musical was so good that it sold me on the story. Although I'd also heard that the tone of the novel is quite a bit different from the musical adaptation, so there might be a good chance I won't like it as much if I ever read it.
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Post by schlendrian on Oct 12, 2023 17:12:35 GMT
Seems like a SF-thread is in order one day
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