Recommended Reading, Fantasy and Sci Fi

I would recommend the Letter for the King and its sequel the Secrets of the Wild Wood. They’re Dutch novels from the 60s that have only just recently been translated into English - there are some really good characters in there and the two stories are excellent.

 

Agreed - the Hobbit was written primarily as an older children’s novel for one of Tolkien’s sons - he used to send him a chapter every so often to keep him happy when he was at boarding school. The films were made more violent to fit in more with LOTR, and were given more comedy elements to reflect that it was an older children’s novel.

Yes I forgot to mention Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus, but have since given up reading any subsequent series because Riordan keeps churning out more and more and more stuff. Haven’t even thought about reading Magnus Chase but it is basically Percy Jackson with Norse Mythology. A much better modern Norse Mythology series is the Sleeping Army and its sequel the Lost Gods by Francesca Simon. It is actually quite satirical because it is set in an alternative Britain where Norse Paganism is the dominant faith and Christianity went extinct around 2000 years ago, where there is the Fane of England rather than the Church of England, split from the main Fane of Norway, and the sacred book is the Edda rather than the Bible. Really well-written stories and quite funny in places as they take the mickey out of modern culture.

Another good book series is the Goblins series by Phillip Reeve, which is unusual in that it puts things in the perspective of a Goblin called Skarper, rather than a human. It has funny parts and adventurous parts at the same time, and is easily recommendable.

 

Oh. I'll also mention Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series. Best remembered for being the source material for the Black Cauldron, it's based on Welsh mythology.

 

I've only read half of one of his books so far, but I'm really enjoying Guards, Guards! by Sir Terry Pratchett. Great Fantasy while also being absolutely hilarious!

 

Although no longer considered to be canon, there is a lot of Star Wars material making up the Expanded Universe. Some of those novels are pretty bad, but the following two trilogies are excellent in my opinion. Definitely worth reading if you are a Star Wars fan.

 

The latter being Thrawn's original appearance before he was resurrected by fans in Star Wars Rebels?

 

I remember reading Zahn's Star Wars trilogy, There where some of the best.
(Still hoping for a Mara Jade appearance in rebels.)

 

That is correct. Thrawn was first introduced in this novel series and his character was absolutely superb.

 

The Witcher series is excellent

 

https://prehistoricpulp.com/ an interesting blog site about dinosaurs and prehistoric beasties in pop culture. Includes reviews of novels, comic books and games featuring dinosaurs.

 

That's a nice little dinosaur review site there. Bookmarked for later.

I'll definitely agree with a lot of people's lists so far, so I'll add different ones mostly. First, I have loved Terry Pratchett's discworld books that Kitteh mentioned, and Guards! Guards! Is a good place to start reading!

Ranger's Apprentice is now a long running young adult series that might interest an 11 year old as it did me at the time. It's about an orphan learning to become a ranger (archer, rogue, survivalist, and king's secret service rolled into one) in a close to historic setting. Brotherband Chronicles from the same author is also good and follows a crew of young Nordic raider types who want to prove themselves.

I also wanted to contribute a warning that Dinosaur Lords has an amazing cover, but I found the book incredibly dry without considering the usefulness or hardships of owning and using dinosaurs in war or everyday life. The author would rather deal in medieval political intrigue at least in the first book. Also definitely not for younger folks, it has some negative graphic scenes.

 

I am gonna agree with Dinosaur Lords, it had a lot of promise the way it was described to me and...I kept forgetting who the characters were and what was going on half the time. I can read Game of Thrones in three days...it took me a week to read Dinosaur Lords and that is a shorter book.

I would love to recommend "The Lies of Locke Lamora" first of the Gentlemen Bastards series. Its about thieves in basically fantasy Venice (Camorr). It has three books currently. It focuses on Locke, leader of the Gentlemen Bastards gang and how they swindle the nobles of Camorr and how they end up in deep shit. The second in the series is "Red Seas Under Red Skies" in which Locke and Jean after being forced to leave Camorr have to pull heists elsewhere and the third, "Republic of Thieves" is when they get roped into fixing an election. Its got a lot of good background material for the characters and they are all fairly likeable! (except Locke somedays)

Red Rising series I can recommend, young adult but pretty good. My only problem is I like the side characters better than the main character (whose name I am forgetting right now because I am like yes, in this for Sevro the main character's best friend)

 

What kind of sorcery is this?

 

I'm on Feet of Clay now - still enjoying it and would definitely recommend it to anyone!

 

Yea, Dinosaur Lords caught my eye one day at the local B&N, so I bought it and read it. I can't say that I wish I hadn't cause it at least gives me ideas for running a D&D or Pathfinder campaign but I see no reason to read its sequels either.

 

I can read 100+ pages in an hour if the mood strikes me.

Yes, but the others I have read in comparable amounts of time, Dance with Dragons only took me about a week because I had gotten my wisdom teeth removed and was high off my gourd.

Yeah it has some FUN potential there! I might give the sequels a chance if only since my local library has them.

Also wanted to suggest "Name of the Wind" but I think that may have been suggested already. If you wanna read about magic and student loans this is your book!

 

Hopefully this isn't too gauche to share here, but my debut short fiction collection from last year, Telling the Map, has been shortlisted for a new speculative fiction literary prize sponsored by Dartmouth University. See here for details. The stories are mainly science fiction, though one of them, "Another Word For Map is Faith," was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award a few years back. No dinosaurs in the book, alas. Next time!

 

I recently read The Shadow Of The Gods and The Hunger Of The Gods by John Gwynne. Fun, Viking inspired fiction! Also read The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. Also rereading Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks, writer of World War Z.