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[chaoticag]

After reading pretty much everything by Terry Pratchet, the Night Angle Trilogy and Stranger in a Strange Land, I'm looking to find a new book to read. I'm planning on reading Dune and maybe Starship Troopers, but I have no idea if I will be able to find them, and would like a fallback plan. So, what books do you recommend? I'd read anything except Romance, not that romantic subplots are out of the question.

[redacted123]

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[Il Palazzo]

You might want to check this out:
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=28541.msg361036#msg361036
(unless you prefer being addressed personally, that is)

[chaoticag]

You might want to check this out:
http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=28541.msg361036#msg361036
(unless you prefer being addressed personally, that is)

This works, but I'd still encourage people to recomend books in this thread as well.

[Armok]

Fantasy:
Have you read LotR? Otherwise do that. If you have read them, have you read the Simarilion?

I actualy reacomend the Inheritance Cycle, (the first book Eragon might be more well known) I know it has quite a few bad revievs, and it DOES "borrow" a lot of concepts and mechanics from other series but the writing and characrerization is great. I think maybe peaple are just looking at it the wrong way; unlike most fantasy work it does not invent new and unseen things, and prospect ideas for how magic and so might work if it was real. Instead, it picks and choses the best peices from different wors, polish them and fit them togeter, extrapolate and fill in holes. It is nor revolutionary, because it dosn't try to be, it's EVOLUTION, it keeps to what peaple alredy expect of fantasy, and focus on the details, and the normal workings within that framework. The books are not abaut magic, or dragons, they are about politics and drama. Actualy, sort of like DF, the setting itself is generic, what is different is the detail that it is show in, and the intrigue that take place there. [/rant]

David Eddings.

Science Fiction:
It you liked Pratchet, you'll like The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Is you are looking for classical scifi, maybe something by Asimov?

If you are looking for something more modern, a suggestion is something by David Brin.

[Onlyhestands]

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. I can't really sumerize so I'll let wikipedia do it for me.

The Dresden Files is a series of fantasy/mystery novels written by Jim Butcher. He provides a first person narrative of each story from the point of view of the main character, private investigator and wizard Harry Dresden, as he recounts investigations into supernatural disturbances in modern-day Chicago. Butcher's original proposed title for the first novel was "Semiautomagic", which sums up the series' balance of fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction. [1]

In the world of The Dresden Files, magic is real, along with vampires, demons, spirits, faeries, werewolves, and other mythical monsters. Harry Dresden works to protect the general public, who are ignorant of magic and the dark forces conspiring against them. This makes it difficult for Harry to get by as a working wizard and private eye. The Chicago PD's Special Investigation unit, when led by Karrin Murphy, regularly employed Dresden as a consultant to help solve cases of a supernatural nature.

Anyway I think the series is excelent, there are 11 books so far, and they are written at a consistant pace. It didn't sound very interesting to me at first, but as soon as I picked up the first book I was hooked.

[Helmaroc]

I highly recommend the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It's unlike anything he's ever written. It's an epic, not a horror (so if you're one of those people that thinks all he writes is horror-pulp, don't let that influence your decision with these). I seriously rank it among stories like the Lord of the Rings or maybe The Chronicles of Narnia. The first in the series is called The Gunslinger, if you want to look for them. The first two are a little harder to get through, but if you can make it to the third book (The Waste Lands) I doubt you're going to stop until the end. There are seven books in the series, so plenty to read.

[chaoticag]

Fantasy:
Have you read LotR? Otherwise do that. If you have read them, have you read the Simarilion?

I haven't read LotR, I tried to start at the hobbit but the discriptions got in the way of the story.

Science Fiction:
It you liked Pratchet, you'll like The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy.

I read that, it was a good book, but the last book ended horribly

Is you are looking for classical scifi, maybe something by Asimov?

I've read part of iRobot, which was interesting, but lost interest after a while. Not much focus on recurring characters was what put me off. I haven't read any of his other books, but I think my understanding of science might get in the way of the Science!.

If you are looking for something more modern, a suggestion is something by David Brin.

Which one of his books would you recommend? At the moment I can't be too bothered to do much reasearch.

[Enzo]

Is you are looking for classical scifi, maybe something by Asimov?

I've read part of iRobot, which was interesting, but lost interest after a while. Not much focus on recurring characters was what put me off. I haven't read any of his other books, but I think my understanding of science might get in the way of the Science!.

Asimov is actually pretty light on the science for 'hard' scifi, which is why I like him. As I recall, he's not big on the pages and pages of scientific justification, he's more "The brain runs on...positrons!"

Random suggestions :
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson (instant classic)
The Great Gatsby - F.S. Fitzgerald (classic classic)
The Areas of my Expertise - John Hodgman (funniest. dude. ever.)
Charles Dickens. (just because.)

[Armok]

If you are looking for something more modern, a suggestion is something by David Brin.

Which one of his books would you recommend? At the moment I can't be too bothered to do much reasearch.

Kiln Peaple, Heart of the Comet, the Uplift trilogies, if you are a feminist then also Earth and Glory Season.

[chaoticag]

So under what does "The Areas of my Expertise" fall under? Fiction?

[Enzo]

So under what does "The Areas of my Expertise" fall under? Fiction?

Not really fiction, more like...Lies. To give you an idea, the full title of the book is actually:

An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by myself, John Hodgman, a Professional Writer, in The Areas of My Expertise, which Include: Matters Historical, Matters Literary, Matters Cryptozoological, Hobo Matters, Food, Drink & Cheese (a Kind of Food), Squirrels & Lobsters & Eels, Haircuts, Utopia, What Will Happen in the Future, and Most Other Subjects

I don't know, I guess it's not for everybody. But I thought it was absolutely hilarious.

[LegoLord]

Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, by Brandon Sanderson is a good book.  Scratch that, a brilliant book.  You might like it if you've read (and enjoyed) Terry Pratchett books.  And it's merely one of his childrens books.  It's a fantasy book.  At least, it is if you don't live in the Free Kingdoms mentioned in the Forward.  I swear though, it's so hard to get a copy of a book in that series that one almost wants to believe the story is true.  Almost.

[TheNewerMartianEmperor]

My recommendations are:

A dirty job by Christopher Moore is strange, funny and charming, the Sherlock Holmes books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle should be read by everyone, even if it's just to remove the awful portrayal of him as a bumbling moron that is far too common, Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell will depress you, but are still brilliant, More Information Then You Require (sequel to Areas of my expertise) is just as crazy as its predecessor, Lord of the Flies is one of those works that have seeped into the subconscious of popular culture, Larry Niven's known space books are a must for any science fiction fan, Issac Asimov and all his many, many stories are found in such amounts as to almost be overwhelming, The Riftwar series by Raymond E. Feist is fantastic fantasy, even through it does not have enough of the dwarves (to be fair, these are the kind that live on top of mountains, as opposed to the foot of them) and then there is the vast collection of stories written by HP Lovecraft, most falling into the Cthulhu Mythos, available online.

[Vester]

Ooooh I second reading stuff by Isaac Asimov.

Also? Jeff Vandermeer. The Ambergris books are seven kinds of awesome.

And Stephen King especially.

Well, if you're not worried about something a little trashy (although I've always felt this is an unfair description), Stephen King is a great author, probably one of my favourites.

Well, if you're not worried about something a little trashy

trashy

RAAAAEG.

"Trashy" is Stephnie Mayer. Stephen King is a maestro.