Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books You Enjoy?

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are my favorite story-crafters. Pratchett holds a mirror to human nature, Gaiman holds a mirror to human souls.

I highly recommend Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo as an illustration of a complex story done right.

Everyone knows Brandon Sanderson is the master of magic systems, but his ensemble development is also on point.

Mary Robinette Kowal doesn’t shy away from relatable, wholesome characters and does a delightful job gilding a romantic world with a hint of magic.

I really enjoyed Nevernight by Jay Kristoff - it's always neat to have a little girl murderer as the MC. I'm also looking forward to reading Gideon the Ninth. I normally consume my fiction via audiobook because I drive a lot, but the narrator for Gideon just isn't doing it for me.

I agree, Nevernight was a pretty good book. I particularly enjoyed the first book over the later ones, though.

I really loved Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber, though. The world-building was just so well done  

I'm currently listening to Neuromancer. It is brilliant, but peaks in its first line (“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”). There are some spots afterward that echo the first line's brilliance, and I understand a novel couldn't maintain that ... not sure about the right term, 'good purpleness'? ... without being an epic poem, but just a comment I had. I also think it'd be better read than listened to, as there's quite a lot of fictional terms and names in there that would be more easily comprehended (at least for me) if I had seen them spelled out.

It is wonderful though, and I'm not surprised that my last story ended up with a cyberpunk setting.

I just finished Thud! by Terry Pratchett.  Commander Vimes is probably my favorite character.  He's a deeply flawed man, with his strong prejudices, but he's going to see that justice is done, no matter if it he hs to swallow his prejudices, damn it!  Also I think it's the only time I had tears in my eye at a fictional character reading a preschool book.

I also finished up Spellbound by Larry Correia (simlutaneous reading with above).  Man, I think this Grimnoir series is his best work I've read so far, and it's my first time reading a "Dieselpunk" setting.  You can tell he's done some real deep research on the time period, as he references and/or works in real people, and it seems to be thoughtfully done in altering their character to fit the 1930s with magic.

Posted by: @ease

I also think it'd be better read than listened to, as there's quite a lot of fictional terms and names in there that would be more easily comprehended (at least for me) if I had seen them spelled out.

It is wonderful though, and I'm not surprised that my last story ended up with a cyberpunk setting.

I agree, I listened to it a few years ago and felt like I missed some of the flavor of things by the audio. 

That said, I also agree it was wonderful.  It also cool to see how it set up so much of what we now think of as standard cyberpunk fair.

My favorite books over the last few years have been Brian McClellan's Powder Mage series, both the original three and the latest trilogy. I love flintlock fantasy. My all-time favorite was the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks - what a ride that one was! Currently getting back into Brandon Sanderson's work.

I really really enjoyed reading sci fi more when i was not trying to write them too. But my fave just has always remained Octavia Butler. Her very conceptualization of what sci fi means still gets me! I would suggest you begin, if you  haven't read her before, with Parable of the Sower

I really really enjoyed reading sci fi more when i was not trying to write them too. But my fave just has always remained Octavia Butler. Her very conceptualization of what sci fi means still gets me! I would suggest you begin, if you  haven't read her before, with Parable of the Sower

Posted by: @ellisael

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my fave just has always remained Octavia Butler. 

Hear, hear! Her Parable books are masterful. & Blood Child, my goodness, she must have dropped the mic after writing that short story. Should have at least. 

Posted by: @spencer_s

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 My all-time favorite was the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks - what a ride that one was! 

I freaking loved that trilogy! Would definitely be my favorite if not for Robin Hobb and David Farland.

I was incredibly disappointed by Brent's newer series. It was great, but nothing compared to the Night Angel trilogy.

Octavia Butler

I took Wild Seed out at the library at the same time as half a dozen other books, and it got recalled before I'd got more than a dozen pages in.   

Need to try again soon!

@ease I felt the same way about Weeks's next series. After reading the Night Angel, I was hyped for his new books, so I bought all of the hardcovers and abstained from reading any of them until I had most of them gathered. But when I read the first few chapters of the first book, I was extremely disappointed. I had trouble believing it was the same author at first. It just felt wrong. Did you finish the series? Does it get better? Because I absolutely hated the protagonist and had no sense of emotional investment in any of the characters. I'll give it another shot eventually, but I'm reading Sanderson's books, and he has never disappointed me. Either way, Weeks did an amazing job with the Night Angel trilogy, so it set a very high bar. I hear he's writing a new sequel for it actually, so hopefully that one does it justice.

Posted by: @ease

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I took Wild Seed out at the library at the same time as half a dozen other books, and it got recalled before I'd got more than a dozen pages in.   

Need to try again soon!

& you won't be disappointed. & Orson Scott Card agrees, or so I suspect as he uses Wild Seed as an example on how to masterfully start a novel in one of his books on craft. 

@spencer_s - I think I read the first two books, and it did slowly get better, but not enough that I'll read it before a long list of other to-read books. I also heard he was returning to the world of the Night Angel. I'm looking forward to it, but with some reservation. I'm considering this is lesson to myself about maintaining quality between books/stories!

Posted by: @jeschleicher

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 & you won't be disappointed. & Orson Scott Card agrees, or so I suspect as he uses Wild Seed as an example on how to masterfully start a novel in one of his books on craft. 

 

That's exactly why I picked that particular novel! Characters and Viewpoint (or was it How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, whichever) is great!

Posted by: @markwilx

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An unusual book I stumbled across that I really enjoyed is, "The Carpet Makers," by Andreas Eschbach.  He's a German author, and this book was translated to English.  It is not a very long read, and I found it to be very clever.  It is a collection of vignettes across a galactic empire, which are seeming unrelated.  When you get to the end of the book, you see how they are all tied together.  It is one I've really remembered.

I like stores told as collections of vignettes over a long span of time.  Usually great things happen over years, woven in a complex story of interrelated events, not in an afternoon (as seemingly "Star Wars, A New Hope" does).  I wrote my first novel (unpublished) this way, but all the vignettes follow the same small group of characters.  Eschbach had different characters in each of his.  Each was its own story that didn't make a whole lot of sense on its own.

Anyway, that's my recommendation for a story you may not have heard a lot about.

Mark

"The Carpet Makers" sounds like a fascinating discovery! I appreciate the unique storytelling approach of interconnected vignettes, providing a mosaic view of a galactic empire. It's intriguing how seemingly unrelated stories converge, creating a tapestry of interconnected events. Your preference for narratives unfolding over time aligns with my own love for the depth and complexity such stories offer. I'll definitely add "The Carpet Makers" to my reading list it seems like a gem that deserves more recognition. Thanks for sharing this hidden literary treasure.

fledgling - Octavia E. Butler

The story begins with a lone, injured, amnesiac, ten-year old, black girl. She is lost outside, somewhere in the USA, and doesn’t know who or what she is.

Vulnerable, or what?

Butler’s brilliant idea is to give her small protagonist significant power, tempered by a virtuous character. Shori turns out to be a vampire and doesn’t mean anyone any harm, but hey, a girl gotta eat.

Shori doesn’t recall anything and so we find ourselves along for the ride of finding out with her, all the while knowing that ignorance spells danger. Protective and loving of those whose blood she craves, Shori is brave and self-assured, but at risk.

She is 53, but a child in appearance, so that when she and Wright have sex, you’d expect all kinds of alarm bells to be going off, but Butler has the delicacy and the skill to present it as legitimate and adult. The vampire is the stronger, the faster, the one in charge. She has a robust intellect and it is her choice. Rather than innocent or mature, Shori has an ageless self-possession.

Butler is superbly organized and deft in the unforced way that she presents new information and characters, so that one is always clear about what is going on and why. I admire this as a writer as much as I appreciate it as a reader. She also achieves the difficult feat of making ethical leadership not just admirable, but interesting.

Fledgling is a book for truth, and respect for justice, and diverse consensual relationship arrangements. The vampire-human symbiosis is a reflection on human interdependence and the responsibility that corresponds to power over others.

But primarily, or ultimately, it’s a stirring human story, of a plucky young woman with the chance of a life, if she can but survive.

<a href=" removed link " target="_blank" rel="noopener">guysimpson.com/readings

Pretty much anything William Gibson authors. He is a master craftsman of sentences and a vivid depictor of dark and gritty alternative futures.

Tales - E.T.A. Hoffmann

What makes for interesting fantasy literature?

For me, writing or reading it, there is a clear answer: when it is set in a recognizably real world, grounded in the everyday. Everyday existence being, on the least reflection, absolutely astonishing. This is precisely what the wild-angled lenses of fantasy and science fiction can suggest.

The best writing in these genres is always talking about the real world and reflects an experience of it. Even Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin, whose tales take place in imaginary lands, made sure to create consistently believable worlds in which mature “human” stories play out, and characters must grapple with similar limits and laws of nature to our own. Magic, when available, is used sparingly by the wise because every action has a consequence and exceptional power is an exceptional responsibility.

E.T.A. Hoffman’s gothic stories are extravagantly imaginative treatments of mundane reality. In this, he is a precursor of the likes of Tim Powers and Neil Gaiman. His modern fairy tales take place in settings such as Hoffman’s early 19^th century Dresden or Paris, which the author renders with deliberate faithfulness. Strange powers and creatures break through from an immanent, parallel reality, bringing opportunity and mischief. It’s a rich seam to mine, one that has a compelling appeal for me.

Two centuries before Philip K. Dick and The Matrix, Hoffmann was positing the falseness of the familiar world and long before Freud, he was portraying split personalities/doppelgänger and individuals in dire conflict with repressed subconscious desires, battling with dreams. Fantasies presented as quite real might be psychological projections of dark, hidden urges and exasperation with humdrum quotidian existence.

In some stories Hoffman makes long narrative detours and plot construction can be weak, but don’t let that put you off. Go into Hoffman’s rousing urban tales and encounter the macabre and demonic, the sinister and the erotic: all, gentle reader, at a street near you.

The Faithful and the Fallen-series by British author John Gwynne. Four books called Malice, Valour, Ruin and Wrath. Think A Song of Ice and Fire from GRRM, but more accessibely written, with less sex, less graphic violence, fewer viewpoints and every viewpoint from the perspective of a likable character. Unpopular opinion maybe, but I often got annoyed while reading A Game of Thrones if I suddenly had to switch from a character I liked (= Arya) to one I didn't (= Catelyn).

John Gwynne definitely doesn't shy away from tropes though, so you may want to skip if you're bored of giant wolves and talking crows. It does have a cool Norse-mythology inspired system of afterlife and purgatory that makes for an incredibly satisfying finale.

There are two more trilogies in the same universe a couple of centuries later (Of Blood and Bone and The Bloodsworn Saga). I haven't read those yet but I heard they are amazing too.