The Fantasy/Sci-Fi Books Thread Book • Page 27

You’d like Seveneves by Stephenson, @Vivatoto

And, while YA, the Illuminae/Gemina/Obsidio trilogy by Kaufman and Kristoff is absurdly great—especially in the audiobook form.

 

Ooh you're right Seveneves looks really good. Been browsing through Stephenson and I might start there.

 

Ive been slowly working more into Sci-fi. He’s hit a nice sweet spot. His “DODO” book was a lot of fun, too.

 

@Vivatoto Seconding the Illuminae recommendation, i don't know if you've read any of Jay Kristoff's stuff but I bet you'd like it, the Nevernight trilogy is great and his upcoming vampire book sounds super cool.

Also some Scalzi would probably be to your liking, though it's more "space opera/adventure" than "sweeping space epic," but he's very good at what he does.

Maybe Ken MacLeod might be to your taste? Pretty cerebral from what I remember.

Solaris was really good, definitely a classic for a reason.

I too want to read more science fiction so I'll be following your activity closely haha.

 

hmm Illuminae looks like its calling to me as well. Thanks for the other recs, browsing those authors now. Looking at Interdependancy trilogy and the short book lengths seem like they might be nice to breeze through. (and the first author review is from Joe Hill). It looks like this might be what I was hoping from Sun Eater.

 

Well The Wars of Light and Shadow are over until the final book comes out. I believe I’ll finally read Lord of the Rings next, it was my goal for the year but I obviously fucked that up.

 

I listened to LotR a few years ago and somehow never finished the last hour or so and I hate myself for it haha

 

Lol that's the worst. Can't imagine that would be something easy to pick back up just to finish. I read the first two books in elementary school and everything went over my head (obviously) so I'm looking forward to going at it with my newfound understanding of Fantasy. Also haven't read the Hobbit or seen the movies so that entire story will be new to me.

 

Yeah it would feel weird to go back now and listen to the last hour.

Anyway, I did read most of it (everything important happened at that point in the the final book) and I did see the movies and listened to radio plays. It’s really, really good. You’ll love it. I’m actually thinking of asking my family to give me this nice new illustrated edition for Christmas:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0008376107/?tag=absolutepunk-2

EDIT: I read the whole thing as a kid in German actually lol

 

WHAT

 

HOW

 

I know, about time.

 

@Vivatoto I too am utterly baffled that you haven't read The Lord of the Rings (in their entirety) yet. You will very much enjoy them, particularly given how much you enjoyed The Iliad/The Odyssey.

Are you planning to do The Hobbit first?

 

I’m reading The Odyssey right now. It, uh, holds up. Peter Green’s translation is amazing. Unlike The Iliad it really does read like a fantasy novel.

 

Yep, Hobbit first. Lots of dumb reasons why I haven’t, I don’t like reading books after I see the movie, I don’t usually reread books, even the ones I read when I was young, I use to have all the books and lost them and kept hoping they’d show up, lol, like I said dumb reasons. But I think it’s good, I’m happy to go in as a seasoned fantasy reader, like I was with Homer earlier this year.

 

Illuminae was pretty sweet, thanks for talking me into it! I love whatever you want to call those kinds of books, the Mark z Danielewski, JJ Abrams "S" more than just a book sort of stuff. Probably finish the series before years end, assuming they're all out.

 

So yeah...loved The Hobbit, no surprise there, quick comic and a short horror novel and I'm jumping right into Fellowship.

 

I demand a play by play analysis

 

Play #1 “who the fuck is Tom Bombadil?!”

 

I might use the that Encarda app while I read (since I'll be on kindle and glossary's are annoying)

 

Well he might just be my favorite character thus far. Love that super mysterious, "I was here before everything" stuff.

 

So yeah, loved every single second of Fellowship. Not having any of the issues I did when I first tried to read (duh-again I was in elementary school). I actually couldn't believe when it ended just blew by. I kind of wanted to jump right into Two Towers but I ordered the Silmarillion and would like to read that before continuing.

 

As a Silmarillion lover, it's weird to say this, but I'd finish the trilogy first tbh

 

My only thing is I really love the history and lore from these long fantasy series and I'm always more emotionally involved the more I know. Like with the Wheel of Time I love the world so much more after reading the history book, same with the Song of Ice and Fire ones. And with Malazan they have the unfinished Kharkanas trilogy. And although each of those examples I'm sure are different than what the Silmarillion actually is (I'm still not 100% sure of that) they have each made my reading experience exponentially better.

I'm curious of your reasoning though, because like I said I'm still not totally sure what the Silmarillion is in comparison to Lord of the Rings. But if it's stories in Arda that take place before Fellowship, I'm very interested to read Asap

 

Few other thoughts, mainly about things I think the book excelled over the movies (I mean in most ways, but these especially). When they lost Gandalf I really felt the weight of it, consistently, for the rest of the book. Like they really felt lost and truly incapable of coming up with a plan forward. Even Aragorn who's forced into the leadership role laments Gandalf's loss at every decision. Just wonderfully dire.

Also Boromir's speech when he tries to manipulate Frodo was absolutely phenomenal, my favorite moment of the book.