Post your favorites, recent finishes, and recommendations for others!
I recently finished all of Brent Weeks's works, and found them all spectacular. I think his Prism series is bounds ahead of the Night Angel arc, by both series were spectacular takes on alternatives to magic and excellent world building. On that note, I also enjoyed Sanderson's Mistborn series, again for that alternative magic system. I've yet to start his second trilogy though, is it comparable?
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Maou no Hajimekata for how to be an evil overlord
does get sexual as fuck and can have some pretty squick moments but the dude is very much about pragmatic villainy
pic related
pic also related about how he treats intruders
The Ravenrings are pretty good, up to the 3rd book now. Shame they're only in Norwegian yet
It doesn't sound like Veeky Forums at first but 'the Yiddish Policemen's Union' by Michael Chabon is actually Veeky Forums as fuck and really, really good.
Well, according to the Lemegeton that's how Solomon raised his temple.
Demon labour is cheap and easily coerced by the knowledgeable and what are they gonna do?
Unionize?
The Destroyer series. Pulpy as fuck, about a guy learning to become the ultimate assassin from a magical Korean. For its subject matter, it's way better written than it should be.
CHRONICLES OF THE BLACK COMPANY
You take an elite mercenary company from a low-fantasy setting and you throw them into a high fantasy setting and you get the Black Company. Just read it man.
Just finished this series called the Riyria Revelations. It was actually very good, the author seemed to be concsience of clichés in Fantasy and played with it really well, was funny but totally sincere. I highly recommend it to fantasy fans, it's another one of those low-ish fantasy series with little magic, but it was fantastic nonetheless.
Think Gane of Thrones plus Robinhood but better, it's probably at your local Barnes & Noble. First ones called Theft of Swords.
>Gane of Thrones
I'm imagining a Veeky Forums version of A Song of Ice and Fire now.
...
SQUATZ AND GOATZ
>White Walkers never skip leg day
>White Walkers
What's this /tv/ shit doing here?
Lightbringer series is good. Light spectrum based magic is cool and not used enough. Seventh Tower is also cool because of it.
>you don't even lift, Jon Snow
Seriously though, if you're a reader pick it up. It is by far the best series I've read in 2-3 years
2powerfantasy4me
I've been reading Elizabeth Moon's "Vatta's War" series the past couple weeks and loving it. Fun and not-too-deep space opera with a lot of focus on shipboard life and interstellar commerce. Very Traveller-like universe, with relatively advanced ship tech, FTL, cybernetics, but space is still a pretty rough and tumble frontier.
Seconding this.
The Southern Reach Trilogy is also very good and would serve as Delta Green inspiration.
Is this the Lies of Locke Lamora?
Tim Powers for anyone who can't quite figure out how to run Unknown Armies.
Has anyone read The Witcher novels? Would you recommend them?
I'm also looking for something that's medieval horror or close to it.
Although not strictly Veeky Forums, I recommend Jorge Luis Borges because yes. He's so good that there's no way it won't help you in any way. I can't upload any pdfs but if you google "Borges english pdf" you get his complete works.
Fuck yeah.
I like the first one. It's horror, but what was most interesting to me was its deconstruction of tradition fairy tales and beasts.
It's Red Seas Under Red Skies.
Neuromancer.
JORGE LUIS BORGES IS FUCKING GOD
HE
IS
FUCKING
GOD
Johnny Mnemonic
Honestly, you could say anything by William Gibson.
If you want fantasy, sword and sorcery, then get some Conan in your life.
Michael Moorcock's Elric series
Read it faggots!
Sandersons original Mistborn series was a fun read, so I'd recommend that. His superhero one seems okay as well, seems like there'd be a bunch of people here who'd enjoy it
Watership Down
Disregard nature descriptions
Acquire high adventure and rabbit lore
You could make fate games with any of his stories.
I've read the Witcher books without playing any of the games and it is most definitely worth a read. Especially if you know a lot about Grimm and Slavic Fairy Tales.
I just beat Bloodborne and I'm looking for something with a Victorian/Gothic horror edge. Any recommendations?
Malazan Book of the Fallen
It's basically high fantasy with weird races walking around, wizards blowing shit up left and right, and gods personally getting all up in everyone's business, but it has a much more low/dark fantasy feel to it since most of the protagonists are more or less regular guys trying not to get shit on too much.
I especially recommend it to people who enjoyed The Black Company, since it obviously takes inspiration from those books.
It has GURPS written all over it too.
Malazan Book of the Fallen is fucking incredible, would highly recommend.
Holy shit, Vatta's War was translated into Japanese? Also, that's a nice understated cover for a Japanese niche book series. Check out these Battletech covers. At least Natasha Kerensky got even better-looking in the one on the right.
Speaking of horrid covers, I can throw in an example of a truly heinous cover combined with some of the best scifi stuff written, and that is the cover to a German translation of a Miles Vorkosigan book. Seriously, if you like Vatta's War, you should try the Miles books. They're ace.
absolute trash
amazon.com
Read this, you won't regret it.
Veeky Forums pls go
>hear me yell
>lift strong
>ours is the gains
>New Years resolutioners are coming
Speaking of Veeky Forums, I think Veeky Forums regulars actually have a below average taste in books, insofar as its even possible to rank tastes. It's weird.
You cannot defeat AMRAAMs by flying in a diamond formation. F-4s can't out dogfight F-35s and F-22s. Precision guided munitions can't be both incapable of hitting moving targets and incapable of hitting stationary, dug-in forces, that doesn't even make sense.
Also no military ever had attempted to employ sensors that literally SMELL for troop movements, that's not a thing, this book is the worst.
far as i know, they are /tv/ but with books and etilism
>It's weird.
Not really.
I've had better discussions about anime on Veeky Forums than on /a/.
I've had better discussions about video games on /co/ than on /v/.
I've had better discussions about movies on /v/ than on /tv/.
etc.
I think it's mostly because when you're on a certain board, there's always a bunch of neckbeards hanging around who think they know everything and their taste is king just because they're regular shitposters on that board. Like if you make a threat about some book on Veeky Forums, it's inevitable that a bunch of guys will pop up claiming that your book is shit and you are shit for reading it. But outside of Veeky Forums people are much less likely to be anal about such things, because if they were they'd already be on Veeky Forums shitposting about it.
Also, boards tend to form their own internal canons of what is or isn't good and will verbally assault anyone deviating from that canon. Like Veeky Forums deciding that some books are good or bad even though the majority hasn't even read them, or /v/ deciding certain games are good or bad based on completely arbitrary standards, which is often decided long before the games are even out yet.
It's also because dedicated boards end to have bandwagon hoppers that emulate those who they perceive as the oldfags, despite having never consumed the media in question.
Sometimes they're right by accident, like post 2010 Bioware threads on /v/, but sometimes they're just pathetically obvious in their parroting.
Boards discussing non specialist material will generally have less people trying to appeal to the crowd (the fact that happens at all on an anonymous image board deeply depressed me).
>I've had better discussions about anime on Veeky Forums than on /a/.
>I've had better discussions about video games on /co/ than on /v/.
>I've had better discussions about movies on /v/ than on /tv/.
And then look at Veeky Forums, the discussion is dominated by D&D, magic, and Warhammer.
The unfortunate thing in that particular case is that on any other board the discussion would be about the exact same things.
Working my way through this again; usually try and do so once a year.
It's a great series, but the way it's written can turn you off. If you do pick it up, realize that you're reading the scribbling's of the annalist for said mercenary company, and that everything you're getting is from his viewpoint. Makes much more sense that way.
Also, if you're reading though the whole series, do yourself a favor and fucking skip the Silver Spike. It only features characters that have already become entirely irrelevant, nothing that happens in it has any consequences to the main storyline at all, and it's by far the worst-written book in the franchise.
Only read it if you really can't contain your curiosity about what happened to the guys that left the Black Company after they defeated the Dominator, or if you're eager to see the book shit on Raven like he deserves.
Could do worse than Gotrek and Felix, I feel.
Anything by China Meiville, but specifically the Perdido Trilogy. Grimdark, but in all the right ways, and genre-melding too. The second book has my favourite female protagonist ever.
I only read the first book. I really enjoyed it right up to the end, when it just kind of devolved into full on "but why?"
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Anything by Alistair Reynolds
Yeah, it really is the weakest of the series by far. I did like Case, though, and it was nice to have a bit of closure with him and Darling.
Can't really say this is a section I'd have chosen, but the GB sequence is pretty good. secretly more tumblr than Veeky Forums, though. But not in an awful way.
If you haven't read any of The Dying Earth, you're doing a disservice to yourself. Too many people know nothing more about Jack Vance than a vague idea of his contribution to D&D's magic system.
What sequence?
Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, The Republic of Thieves, and The Thorn of Emberlain (which is out next month). Series is referred to as "The Gentleman Bastard Sequence".
Currently reading through Red Skies, and while the prose, setting and banter is consistently great, I'm honestly a bit disappointed that there hasn't been a straight up con game played to the hilt yet.
There are plenty of minor cons, both improvised or planned, but they seem to just be getting dicked over the moment they make any headway.
Does that continue in the rest of the series?
The middle section of Red Skies is the bit where that "oh god are they going to get kicked in the dick every five minutes" feeling is really the strongest out of the series so far. I think having more than just the current game going on at a given time is just Lynch's way of structuring things, but I mean, the heist's threads do end up resolving, just not usually in a straightforward way.
The final section of Red Skies (the resolution to Requin sub-plot) is extremely satisfying, though.
>ctrl + f Fire Warrior
>zero results
I'm ashamed, it's a rigorously fun book about xenos interacting with a corrupt humanity. Sure, some 40k is awful, this one in particular is not. Completely captures the arbitary power of chaos, and how a noble bright becomes a grim dark.
it was some serious bullshit that the paintings were fakes imo
It is quite fitting, rhough.
Locke comes up with ridiculously elaborate plans that come through without a hitch, but he forgets to think about a single detail (and to be fair, said detail is so improbable I wouldn't think about it either), and the whole thing comes back to bite him in the ass.
In the first book it was the fact that the wife of the guy he was swindling was acquainted with the real Spider-whatever-secret-police, in the second book it was that painting were fakes etc.
Yeah, but the end of Lies was more gratifying because he twists the situation to sink the fortune as Calo and Galdo's death-offering, which is somehow satisfying enough despite it not really being a huge benefit to Locke and Jean.
Malazan Book of the Fallen.
Holy shit you need to read this series. If you like epic fantasy, you will die happy. He makes every other fantasy author look like an idiot.
Try the Thomas Covenant books, by Stephen Donaldson.
You will either love them or hate them. I'm in the former camp myself, but I realize they're not for everyone.
Throwing in with the Malazan recommendations. These books are off the chain
Currently reading through the gotrek and felix omnibus. Is quite good, although I wish that the stories were a little longer.
Just picked up the Mabinogion and a book on life in medieval Britain.
what are your literature disappointments, Veeky Forums?
Recently picked up a book called dawn of the dragons, expecting an Arthurian high adventure.
What I got was a plot that bounced around like a rabbit on crack, a setting that would have rich detail if anyone bothered to stay in one place for more than 5 pages, and characters that only exist to exposit random details before they a bugger off to the next designated plot point.
Maybe it gets better after the first 100 pages, but a book that can't grip you within that time frame has failed.
Chronicles of Leibowitz
It inspired Fallout
I read Lies of Locke Lamora on this board's recommendation. While I liked it overall, there's a lot of problems with the pacing and plot developments that are really putting me off on a second read.
It's trying to be a mystery, but it's missing any big "oh shit" moments where the truth is revealed, and paints the whole previous story in a new light. The reveal of the Grey King's identity felt flat and disinteresting, and his near-omnipotence in the field of political intrigue made any scene he was in feel more torturous than tense. The book's tendency to introduce important elements one chapter before they became relevant didn't help; it made the whole plot feel awkward and inorganic, instead of a clever, constantly-developing play on a handful of ideas introduced from the start.
And, well... I just didn't care for Locke Lamora as a character. Half of that was probably due to him barely ever utilising his skills as a con artist (the book's climax sees him murdering his nemesis in a straight sword-fight, for Christ's sake), when from the story's outset I was expecting a cheeky tale of duplicity and intrigue, rather like Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal" and "Making Money".
The other half is... well, I couldn't grok what Locke's goals were, or what he cared about. He's the head of a gang of con artists, but I don't understand why he chooses to pursue this line of work, especially once it becomes clear that money is a non-issue. Is he chasing the naughty thrill of a successful crime, like Moist Von Lipwig? Does he see himself as a craftsman, taking pride in a job well done? I don't know, and without that knowledge, it's really hard for me to settle into Locke's head space, and start rooting for him.
Also, the resolution of Locke's first meeting with the Spider, and the whole Bondsmage issue, felt like massive plot holes.
Looking at my shelves for something other than the usual shit like Heinlein and Asimov to recommend.
Artemis Fowl (at least up to Opal Deception)
Snow Crash
Hardwired
The Sovereign Stone trilogy
The Death Gate Cycle
The Chanur Saga
The Chronicles of Morgaine
The Chronicles of the Kencyrath
The Rose of the Prophet trilogy
The True Game
Grunts!
The Barbed Coil
The Redemption of Althalus
My list of recommendations:
>Guy Gavriel Kay - everything, except the Fionavar Tapestry and Ysabel
Beautifully written "historical fantasy" set in places resembling Reconquista Spain (The Lions of Al Rassan), Cathar Heresy France (A Song for Arbonne), the Byzantine Empire (the Sarantine Mosaic books), Saxon England and Wales (The Last Light of the Sun), Tang and Song China (Under Heaven, The River of Stars). Absolutely fantastic.
>Elizabeth Moon - the Paks books
Paksenarrion shows how to paladin. The Deeds of Paksenarrion trilogy and the Paladin's Legacy series are the main bit, the Gird books are prequels.
>the other Liz, or Elizabeth Bear - the Eternal Sky trilogy
Featuring Not-Mongolians, something you rarely see in other roles than enemies.
>Barry Hughart - The Bridge of Birds and its sequels
Master Li and Number Ten Ox solve mysteries in Fantasy China. Brilliant if you know the Judge Dee stories, great even if you don't.
Oh, and the Spellsinger series.
Grunts!
For all the Welsh mythology and history, there's a bloody shortage of fantasy books based on them. 90% of genre is based on Anglo-Norman stuff. Damn, the only Welsh-based fantasy I remember is the Chronicles of Prydain.
You've got a bit more than that. The second Corum series is heavily welsh inspired, as are the Deryni series.
And Susan Cooper's books are heavily based in Welsh Arthruriana.
>Deryni
Damn, I'd forgotten about those. I've actually read a couple of them but it was years ago.
I left the Dark is Rising books out deliberately because they're more urban fantasy than sword-and-armour fantasy, but I do remember them - in fact I have the first three. The two things that I remember after all these years are the chapters where the heroes and their families are besieged in a house by the big bad's minions (during Christmastime if memory serves) and the bit where the Welsh boy teaches the Anglo-Saxon hero boy how to pronounce the names of Welsh places.
Also, I mentioned the Guy Gavriel Kay books upthread: The Last Light of the Sun has not-Welshmen in it, but there are also not-Saxons and not-Vikings so it's more of a cross section of the British Isles of the 800s than pure Welsh tradition based stuff.
>MFW when one of your assholes suggested The Culture and War against the Chtorr to my girlfriend.
Books than were better than expected anyone?
Spaceship mage for me. Well done, fast paced and fun series about magic in Spaaace, with hard sci fi like ships and low level adventures for the first book.
Or books than not everyone could like, like the second apocalipsis.
Very cool setting, with the right amount of familiar for the wierdness of it all to hit stronger. I really don't like nearly anyone of the books, but it's a cool read, if disturbing.
Wheel of Time.
Got about six books in, and realized I hated the protagonists and wanted them to fail.
>implying the Culture books are bad
m8 pls
What's so bad about either of them?
Mistborn.
First parts and online descriptions made me think it'd be a rebellion storyline as told through Ocean's Eleven.
Instead, got a cliched story of a young poor girl becoming rich, beautiful and successful while training in fantasy superpowers, and a hackneyed as hell romance subplot. Still read the other two books and Alloy of Law though.
>The second book has my favourite female protagonist ever.
She's a shit person done excellently, I agree
Wheel of time is one of those series where I'm never sure if I like them or not. Jordan had a serious case of pen diarrhea, and having that many characters be that relevant (and consistent) through that much content I would think is beyond most folks.
Then again, I really do like the over-arching story, even if it has plot holes and inconsistent characters, and asspulls out the...well, ass.
Cool setting, magic and ideas, it dragged to much and many characters were too unlikable/had too many protagonism (Than I remember I liked, the not-ogre, Scythe guy, the Swordmaster and the wolf guy when not henpicked). The prota was too weak willed for what he was, Aes sedai must burn too.
The War Against the Chtorr series by David Gerrold. Still waiting on the fifth book.
I agree that the over-arching story has potential, but good LORD do the characters make it hard to sit through. Sure, a couple of them aren't too bad (Mat started being curiously likable around the time I quit), but I can't even imagine slogging through eight more books with those assholes.
The Edge Chronicles.
Start with Escape the Deepwoods.
Most any book by A. Lee Martinez I'd recommend Gil's All Fright Diner, Too Many Curses, Helen& Troy's Epic Road Quest and In the company of Ogres.
>The Edge Chronicles.
How that one got by as a YA, or even childrens, novel is beyond me.
That shit is Nightmare inducing.