Fall Reading Thread

[bfj]

The newest Stephen King book, The Outsider, was a great read. If you read the Bill Hodges series, Holly Gibney returns in this book.

[tennbengal]

To try and preserve some shred of mental health, and to stay off twitter as much as possible, have been diving into epic fantasy series*** for the last few years. The bigger the book, with multiple volumes the better. Pure escapism. The Malazan Books of the Fallen by Steven Erikson were amazing. Had already read Martin. Of late dove into The LIghtbringer Series by Brent Weeks, waiting on the fourth book to arrive tonight. The last in that series will be published next year apparently (unless he Martins it...).

In any event, anyone else read epic fantasy series that has some recommendations? The series I have read over the years:

---LotR (Tolkien)
---Malazon Books of the Fallen (Erikson)
---Wheel of Time Series (sorta, I ran out of steam around book 7 and read the synopses to finish it)
---Stormlight Archive Series (Sanderson)
---GoT (Martin)
---First Law series (Abercrombie)
---Dagger and the Coin Series (Abraham)
---Kingkiller Chronicles (Rothfuss)
---A Land fit for Heros Series (Morgan)
---Lightbringer Series (Weeks)
---Codex Alera Series (Butcher)

About to try:

---Chronicles of the Unhewn Book 1 (Staveley)
---The Traitor Son Cycle Book 1 (Cameron)

***At one point, before nerds took over the world, I would have been loathe to reveal this, and pretend to be reading the latest political non-fiction. Now, after seeing Johnnie's awesome table-top gaming collection pic and the success of the table top game thread, I figure, fuck it, maybe someone else reads this genre and we can compare notes. No apologies.

[Pruitt]

Holy moley - this is so good.

[Johnny Carwash]

In any event, anyone else read epic fantasy series that has some recommendations?

Might be geared to a younger audience, but I really liked Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain as a kid. I might have liked it more than LotR, all things considered—smaller scale, but a more intimate and character-driven story.

[phxgators]

To try and preserve some shred of mental health, and to stay off twitter as much as possible, have been diving into epic fantasy series*** for the last few years. The bigger the book, with multiple volumes the better. Pure escapism. The Malazan Books of the Fallen by Steven Erikson were amazing. Had already read Martin. Of late dove into The LIghtbringer Series by Brent Weeks, waiting on the fourth book to arrive tonight. The last in that series will be published next year apparently (unless he Martins it...).

In any event, anyone else read epic fantasy series that has some recommendations? The series I have read over the years:

---LotR (Tolkien)
---Malazon Books of the Fallen (Erikson)
---Wheel of Time Series (sorta, I ran out of steam around book 7 and read the synopses to finish it)
---Stormlight Archive Series (Sanderson)
---GoT (Martin)
---First Law series (Abercrombie)
---Dagger and the Coin Series (Abraham)
---Kingkiller Chronicles (Rothfuss)
---A Land fit for Heros Series (Morgan)
---Lightbringer Series (Weeks)
---Codex Alera Series (Butcher)

About to try:

---Chronicles of the Unhewn Book 1 (Staveley)
---The Traitor Son Cycle Book 1 (Cameron)

***At one point, before nerds took over the world, I would have been loathe to reveal this, and pretend to be reading the latest political non-fiction. Now, after seeing Johnnie's awesome table-top gaming collection pic and the success of the table top game thread, I figure, fuck it, maybe someone else reads this genre and we can compare notes. No apologies.

Lots of good stuff on your list. I have the Lightbringer series sitting on my nightstand, will be starting that soon I hope. Also, I really enjoyed Sanderson's Mistborn series. He is amazing at world building. I read the first Stormlight book, but I'm waiting for him to finish the series before I read the rest. They are so big, I know I will forget a lot of stuff in between books if not. Right now on book 2 of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temeraire_(series).

The Powder Mage trilogy by Brian McClellan is good, I read that fairly recently. Oh, Peter Brett's Demon Cycle series is pretty good too. It has some ups and downs, but overall worth reading.

Also, if you're in to sci-fi, The Three Body Problem series is pretty amazing.

[phxgators]

Also, if you haven't read Terry Brooks... He's written 25+ books in his Shannara series over the last ~40 years. He's winding down the series so, as he says, he makes sure it ends on his terms while he's alive. The quality has definitely dropped over the last few books, and he tends to repeat some story lines. But they are generally quick, easy reads.

[tennbengal]

Thanks phx, I couldn't wait on Sanderson to finish Stormight (who knows how long he's gonna take or how many books) so I got the hardback of Oathbringer for Christmas last year (but did have to refresh my memory on books 1 and 2 via wiki). It didn't disappoint. Brooks - I read the initial Shannara books back in HS (the original trilogy Sword/Elfstones/Wishsong), but didn't stay with them, not sure about picking the series back up now if he's grown it that much, that's unreal (although I did read Running with the Demon and Knight of the Word and Angel Fire East about 15 years ago and they were great - are they considered a part of that world?). Actually, I've also read Armageddon's Children, Elves of Cintra and Gypsy Morph, now that I think about it, which were also great -maybe I should keep at that series after all - are there books he wrote that follow the events of Gypsy Morph?

ETA - looks like I want Bearers of the Black Staff - worth it?

Will give Mistborn a read next on your suggestion, and look into Power Mage. I saw a review of Brett's series that Book 1 was amazing but it then really fell apart. You don't agree? It is so hard for me to find good sci-fi (that's a genre that draws some shit writers), but when I find one, well worth it, will look into Three Body Problem on your suggestion.

Carwash, I will look up Prydain too.

[phxgators]

Yeah, I think Stormlight was planned from the start to be 10 books. So I'll be waiting a while...

Bearers of the Black Staff looks like it would be next then, and... you can probably answer your own question about being the same world there. I enjoyed those books, I think it was after that where his work started to slide a little. I think there are only 2 left to come, so I'll be reading them just to finish everything off.

Like I said, the Demon Cycle was a little up and down. It was Brett's first published work, so I that's to be expected. I thought the 3rd and 4th books (I think) were the strongest.

I don't really read that much sci-fi, but a good friend recommended The Three Body Problem and I was glad she did.

[brian]

This is a great book about the previous mass extinctions in the Earth's history, even for someone like me who is pretty horrible with it comes to geology. It's worth it alone for the descriptions of the Permian and Jurassic mass extinctions. (The latter of which most people think they know about, but the truth about how the world ended is even more horrible and devastating than a movie can do justice to. The former of which I knew nothing about previous and makes the Jurassic extinction seem like dying of natural causes.)

It's a great book.

[Square Rob]

tennb, when I do find time to read anymore, I stick to either fantasy or sci-fi. I adore the rothfuss kingkiller books, and supposedly the third is to his editor. With winter coming I need something else so will try the Eriksen series.

Three-body problem is great.

[tennbengal]

tennb, when I do find time to read anymore, I stick to either fantasy or sci-fi. I adore the rothfuss kingkiller books, and supposedly the third is to his editor. With winter coming I need something else so will try the Eriksen series.

Three-body problem is great.

Ooohh, that's good news on the next Rothfuss book being close. Waiting for Kvothe to stop feeling sorry for himself. Also, did you know all this:

In October 2015, Rothfuss announced that Lionsgate would be involved in adapting the series through a film, TV series, and video game.[9] Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda will executive produce the television series along with John Rogers, Jennifer Court, Robert Lawrence and Rothfuss,[10] for Showtime. Miranda also will compose music for the series.[11][12][13][14] In January 2018, Sam Raimi was announced as the director for the upcoming film.[15]

The Erikson series is amazing - a little slow at first as you orient to what he is doing, but once you get your feet set, it is a pretty stunning achievement. It isn't world spanning, it is worlds and era spanning over the main cycle of books.

[sancarlos]

Just finished these two:

Great read for a Wilco/Uncle Tupelo fan


My wife turned me on to this one. One in a series of mysteries set in Quebec featuring Chief Inspector Gamache.

[brian]

How much of Tweedy's memoir was about Uncle Tupelo? I'll end up reading it eventually anyway I'm sure, but just curious.

[sancarlos]

How much of Tweedy's memoir was about Uncle Tupelo? I'll end up reading it eventually anyway I'm sure, but just curious.

A surprising amount of it covers Uncle Tupelo. Unlike most fans, I'm much more a fan of Uncle Tupelo than Wilco (at least in the last 15 years), and the amount of time he devoted to UT satisfied me. I'm a big Jay Farrar fan and I've read the bits he wrote and they've both said about each other in the past, so I was curious about how Tweedy would present the dynamic in this book. He is clearly a very thoughtful writer and I enjoyed reading what he had to say about it. Not just black and white declarations, but he covered the shades of grey, too.

ETA: Ringer review.