Mine is the wings of fire series, it is a “kids” novel (think like warrior cats age range)
But Tui T sutherland is so good at writing characters and introducing and describing worlds and characters that i reread it every so often. Like, she managed to write a book from the pov of a mind reader and it works.
Every book is from a different character’s pov and each character feels wholly unique.
The main issue with the series is that the plot is kinda average at best, the characters really carry the story.
I liked the Dresden Files. Just campy magic gumshoe stuff.
Also a fan of Lamb and Blood Sucking Fiends. Good reads, but not any big huge life shaking moments like other books. But I remember loving the style.
I was going to offer another Jim Butcher series, the Codex Alera. It’s a hack-and-slash mix of Roman fantasy and Pokemon. Fantastic stuff.
We are Legion (We are Bob). It’s probably the most fun I’ve had reading science fiction. It’s not a masterpiece, but damn is it entertaining! The whole series is pretty great, and there’s another book coming any month now.
I love this series as well. Definitely not a masterpiece, but it is great sci fi.
In a similar vein I’m really enjoying the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. It has a similar feel and it has an addictive action pace with snippets of deadpan humor and wit. If it was a movie it would be a popcorn muncher.
Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll check that out after I finish A Little Bit of Hatred.
I just found this can be downloaded from archive.org. Does anyone know whether this is legal / OK? https://archive.org/details/taylor-dennis-e-bobiverse-1-we-are-legion/Taylor_Dennis_E_-_Bobiverse_1_-_We_Are_Legion
I have no idea. Sorry. But if you can’t afford to buy the book in a better format, then just read it from there! I don’t think Dennis will miss nine dollars or whatever the book costs.
The Percy Jackson series. You can tell Riordan likes taking his liberties, and there’s a lot of Americanism mixed in with the Greek way of thinking that is supposed to come from tales of Greek gods, but it says something that I like it better than the actual legends from Greek culture.
Oh man, that’s a lot of what I read.
Maybe the ‘My Teacher Is An Alien’ series by Bruce Coville, the ‘Blood Oath’ series by Christopher Farnsworth, and the Serpentwar Series by Raymond Feist.
Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward. After the ultimate triumph of good over evil, a group of villains save the world from good. It’s a total inversion of the standard fantasy trope. Highly recommend it for any fantasy fan, doubly so for Dragonlance fans.
Orconomics (Dark Profit Saga, Trilogy) for the exact same reason!
excellent fun to read, incredibly funny!
The Harry Potter main series, for which I have a major case of nostalgia. I’ll happily and accurately slag JKR off for being a dimwit with terribly stupid opinions, who would need to be both smarter and more committed to make her “make it up as you go along” worldbuilding make any sort of sense at all. Which, bluntly, it doesn’t.
But considering how much of a turnip she is, parts of her worldbuilding is strangely compelling while others fail basic self-consistency.
I was thinking about this. JKR is really a terrible writer. All of the later ret-conning to fix the plot holes is worse than just letting the plot holes lie. (like breaking all the time turners so they don’t get used again).
But it is amazing how captivating these books are inspite of the fact of how poor they are. It’s an imaginative world with exceptionally clear flaws, but one I want to revisit regularly.
But fuck JKR and her shitty politics.
Edit: maybe it’s not technically ret-conning. But the whole two book gap or whatever is just so lazy.
If you really think about those books as a grown up some of the plot holes are big enough to drive a goddam truck through.
As a kid having their first experience of a magical universe though they were goddam incredible
Fool by Christopher Moore
I just utterly adore this book in every way. I’m sure it has problems but I am a shallow reader, so it’s fine for me.
I loved Fool even if it is lower on my list of Christopher Moore favorites! The first time I read a Moore book was when I was still in the Army and deployed with a copy of Fluke and I loved it so much I wrote to him to praise it. He ended up sending me a bunch of his books, all signed, with a note that said “thanks for reading, I hope you don’t die” in his humorous tone.
Fluke, the Bloodsucking Fiends trilogy, A Diety Job, Lamb, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, Lust Lizard, and Sacre Bleu are my top favorites for just being so darn entertaining, humorous, clever and an absolute joy to read.
To anyone wondering about Fool, it is written in a similar vein to Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead (which retells Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the point of view of the two titular minor characters). Fool re-tells the story of King Lear but told from the perspective of the king’s jester, the professional fool. It is hilarious and does a great job at showing the significance of the jester and all the things he’s doing when not shown on stage during King Lear.
I read it with just the faintest recollection of the events of King Lear and still enjoyed it, but for anyone unfamiliar it might be worth watching something like Anthony Hopkins’ King Lear beforehand to see how cleverly Moore put his version together, but it is not a requirement by any means!
Ah! That’s really cool that he replied to you!
I have a difficult time reading and Fool is one I return to often and read from front to back. It’s definitely my favorite of his so far, but I haven’t read too many others.
Fool really does define itself out of a lot of his other works since it is based in Shakespeare’s world. If you like that kind of pre-existing, historical type of setting, I might recommend Sacre Bleu. Moore explores Vincent Van Gogh’s superstitions about using the color blue in his paintings and how it connects to his maddening and unusual death. Even without knowing a ton about art or famous artists, he really did a good job bringing in every major player from Monet to Degas as characters in the book in a way that explained who they are and what role they play, all with an inventive and entertaining supernatural explanation as to why so many 19th century artists were a bit bonkers.
That said, I just found out Moore created a Fool trilogy with Pocket going on to be the main character in the sequels The Serpent of Venice and Shakespeare for Squirrels (I also just found out he did a sequel to A Dirty Job which I’d always longed for)! Needless to say, now that I know they exist, they’re all going on my reading list!
