Posted on 09/15/2013 8:09:44 PM PDT by Kip Russell
For those who are into this sort of thing...what sfnal or fantasy literature are currently reading or have just finished?
I'm working my way through the series, "The Dresden Files" by Jim Butcher, having read the first 10 novels of the 15 published so far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dresden_Files
The Dresden Files is a series of contemporary 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.
In the world of The Dresden Files, magic is real, along with ghouls, vampires, demons, spirits, faeries, werewolves, zombies 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 employs Dresden as a consultant to help solve cases of a supernatural nature.
The White Council, the recognized governing body of Wizards, has decreed the Seven Laws of Magic, which all magic users are expected to follow. Breaking any of the laws, even without knowing of them, carries a death sentence except under very rare and special circumstances.
In The Dresden Files universe, each species (humans, faeries, vampires, etc.) has its own political and societal rules and organizations. The human wizards depend on the White Council, while faeries may belong to either the Summer or Winter courts, or they may belong to neither court, in which case they are known as Wyldfae. Vampires may belong to any of three vampire Courts, be it the White, Red, or Black Court. There are rumours of a Jade court based in the far east.
I'm enjoying it quite a bit...the main character takes the snark level up to 11, and frequently has to pay the consequences for doing so. Characters grow and change, and one of them is the best portrayal of a (modern-day) paladin I've ever seen.
The author also portrays the faeries of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts as what they should be...downright scary, for which I give him major brownie (sorry) points.
So...what are you reading?
Re-reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. My favorite fantasy novel, and favorite of the many friends and family I’ve loaned copies to. Mistborn scores 10 out of 10, the sequels a solid 8.
If you like seriously *hard* science fiction, I can’t recommend Alastair Reynolds highly enough. The Revelation Space series is a good place to start, but you’ll want to read everything he’s written.
There's still hard SF being written, although not as much as there used to be. The works of Greg Egan (specialises in stories with mathematical and quantum ontology themes) and Stephan Baxter (stories about cosmology, naked singularities, evolutionary biology, and the conflict between baryonic and dark matter lifeforms) come to mind.
I love hard SF! After I finish The Dresden Files, I’ll definitely give the Revelation Space series a try!
You won’t be disappointed.
I read fantasy books with my kids. We are caught up with Percy Jackson, etc. We are also caught up with Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go. We are killing time with The Alchemist series, which is not great lit (they could make a drinking game out of every time something is described as “gossamer”.)
I recommend the Heck series because it is informative in the way it weaves real historical people into the narrative, and because it is dense with bad puns. Also, it roughly follows Dante’s Inferno and is morally straight. It sparks discussion with the kids.
Dragonflies by C.S. Rock...fantasy book about a nerdy prince who gets suckered into killing a dragon by his vile uncle. 99 cents on kindle. Author seems conservative.
Dragonclaw by C.S. Rock not Dragonflies...stupid incorrect.
I have heard that before and been burned.
About half way through the “Obama Care Maxi Series”.
POS pelosi is completely wrong.
Unless the thing stops ‘running in circles’ your statement “You have to read it to see what is in it” is just some more Pol Double/triple/quadruple etc Talk.
This could be written in Greek and make more sense than it does now.....
I just started Hitchhikers Guide last week. My daughter is finishing Zoe’s Tale from the Old Man’s War series.
the news
“My plan for the economy” by Barry Hussein Obama
Whipping Star - Frank Herbert
Naw skip that, you want really hard Sci fi read Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee Sequence. Might want to take a physics class beforehand.
I'm a huge fan of Baxter! I've already read every single short story and novel in the Xeelee Sequence, and am eagerly anticipating his next novel, "Proxima", which comes out any day now (not Xeelee, but still hard sf!)
The very far future: The Galaxy is a drifting wreck of black holes, neutron stars, chill white dwarfs. The age of star formation is long past. Yet there is life here, feeding off the energies of the stellar remnants, and there is mind, a tremendous Galaxy-spanning intelligence each of whose thoughts lasts a hundred thousand years. And this mind cradles memories of a long-gone age when a more compact universe was full of light...The 27th century: Proxima Centauri, an undistinguished red dwarf star, is the nearest star to our sun - and (in this fiction), the nearest to host a world, Proxima IV, habitable by humans. But Proxima IV is unlike Earth in many ways. Huddling close to the warmth, orbiting in weeks, it keeps one face to its parent star at all times. The 'substellar point', with the star forever overhead, is a blasted desert, and the 'antistellar point' on the far side is under an ice cap in perpetual darkness. How would it be to live on such a world? Needle ships fall from Proxima IV's sky. Yuri Jones, with 1000 others, is about to find out...PROXIMA tells the amazing tale of how we colonise a harsh new eden, and the secret we find there that will change our role in the Universe for ever.
Might want to take a physics class beforehand.
Guess my college major :-)
I’m revisiting Heinlein’s juveniles. Finished Time for the Stars and am now on Space Cadet.
Fine stuff!
cheers,
Jim
Great series! I have all three in one paperback volume, so I hope they weren’t edited down for length.
I love his Stainless Steel Rat, too.
cheers,
Jim
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