The Fantasy/Sci-Fi Books Thread Book • Page 128

I love Dan Brown, haha. Is it good? Do not care; I'm all in for Robert Langdon.

 

Precisely. I have never read a book faster than I did Angels & Demons haha.

 

I realized that I've basically loved everything I've read recently with the exception of a couple of books, so I can't really answer the questions of the day lol. My TBR is basically be catching up on all of the bangers that I've put off.

 

You can just do whatever you want to answer with, doesn't have to be recent.

 

what else has James Rollins written...?? for some reason I was under the impression that he hadn't written a lot of fantasy, and Moonfall was him branching out and doing something different

 

James Rollins is also James Clemens. He wrote 7 fantasy novels like 20 years ago (a 5-book series and the first 2 of another). But his thrillers under the Rollins name took off waaaaay more than the fantasies, so he eventually put the latter on the backburner for a while. Moonfall is his return to fantasy, but under the Rollins name since at this point that’s how people know him.

 

(Neither of those names is his real name haha.)

 

For books that aren’t sci-fi or fantasy - I’m tossing out The Power of the Dog series by Don Winslow. I love that series.

 

I think my favorite non-fantasy or sci-fi would probably be Kurt Vonnegut, or maybe Catch-22

I'll echo the love for Cloud Atlas, and also Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by Mitchell

 

My favorite would probably be between Speaks The Nightbird by McCammon or 11/22/63 from King. Just excellent historical fiction from both.

 

my kids are learning about seals & sea lions at the library in the next town over from us, and I popped over to the adult section to see new books and saw this and got a chuckle -->

 

Haha nice, that is funny. Slightly extra funny because he’s a veterinarian, so the seals/sea lions are on topic as well lol

 

I guess I'll bite

1) you hated - Fourth Wing, but that's low-hanging fruit. I don't read things I don't think I'll like, but I was curious this time. Never again!
2) didn’t mind, but don’t understand the hype - ask me in a year and I'll say Wind & Truth (jk!). Maybe Babel?
3) loved when no one else seems to - The Dark Tide by Dennis L. Mckiernan. This isn't so much a 'no one else likes this' as a 'no one else has read this' answer. It's also a blatant rip-off of LotR in so many ways, but I thought the cover looked cool when I was in middle school, so it is near and dear to my heart in all it's cheesiness.
4) not in the sci-fi/fantasy space, but think those of us regulars in here would like - I'll echo the David Mitchell love. Black Swan Green is my favorite of his I've read. Hilarious and an easy read.

 

1. I’m going to cheat and go with two:

• The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid - I got frustrated with how the romance played out in this and gave up.
• The First Binding by R.R. Virdi - People said this was like The Name of The Wind which should be right up my alley but this was such a slog I gave up.

1. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo - It was fine but I think I went in expecting the main character Kaz to be a bit more “hands on”.
2. I don’t think I have anything for this. I think I go too much by what is popular when picking what to read.
3. I imagine quite a few have read it already but I enjoyed Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo's Mainstream Explosion 1999-2008. It was fun reading about the genre since I only got to watch the scene from afar here in Australia.

 

So I'm not ready to read this as I've got to keep the Sanderson momentum going, but I don't think my previous comment was apt as I hadn't even opened it fully before. Maybe it'll encourage someone else to pick it up so you'll have someone to discuss it with sooner but...

This book is gorgeous and a work of art. It's aged to look like an old book, it even SMELLS like an old book - it has old library stamps on it, and there are multiple pieces of art / additional documents throughout the book that are printed on separate pieces of paper / cardboard etc. I didn't remove any of them, and carefully put them back if they fell out (as I am sure they have a place within the story), and as an overall package, it really is something cool.

As I said, it'll be a while before I'll get into it, but I wanted to add to my thanks now that I've taken the time to actually look at it. There's so much care taken into how the book looks and feels (including all the font choices, and 'handwritten' margin notes).

Ultimately, I feel that what I think of the narrative will be secondary to the enjoyment of the uniqueness of it all.

S.

 

I just got this the other day too on a whim! I somehow missed that jj Abrams was involved in a book, so I just picked it up without looking too into it. It’s really awesome packaging. I’m a bit intimidated to read it, but also really looking forward to getting into it.

 

I feel like this is a good place to bring this story up, but I had always loved reading as a kid all growing up and into college. I had dropped out of college the first time and was working as a courier at FedEx and I hadn't really read any books in years but I couldn't say when I had stopped altogether. I was picking up one of the FedEx drop boxes towards the end of my pickup route one evening, and inside we would typically get a bunch of post office & UPS stuff along with our stuff, but that day someone had tossed a copy of The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton from the library of that town in there. (The library was a good mile or more away from there.) I ended up keeping it for a few days and reading it before dropping it back off at the library in that town, and that got me back into reading, and I've consistently been reading again since then as much as life allows.

Not my favorite book by any means, or even close really, but I gotta give it credit for that.

 

I recently finished a re-read of Charlie Higson's The Enemy series. It's YA, though tbh a bit gruesome/gory for YA I think lol....basic gist is some disease of some sort turns everyone over the age of 16 into diseased filled monsters that try to eat the kids. Not quite zombies since they're not "dead" but same basic idea. It's 7 books and very easy to read. Though I will say on this 2nd time through that the first book, The Enemy, wasn't as well written as the rest, even though the story is really good. That's not something I notice a lot so it was interesting when I was reading it and felt like something was off with the writing. But yeah it's worth it for the story, and then the writing definitely gets better for the rest of the series. It interweaves different stories and characters and connects all these kids throughout London, and I really do love it. Some really heartbreaking moments, some cool characters, some weird twists and turns. One thing I appreciate is each book (American version) comes with a map in the front of the book tracking the characters movements for those of us unfamiliar with London's layout.

My only complaint is that the last book, The End, doesn't really nail the falling action/conclusion after the climax. Seems very short and doesn't give me enough of what I wanted, which was seeing some characters who never met meet, more fleshed out reunions, and etc. I know others have compained about one of the other books because it spends a significant amount of time with two characters we didn't really know well early on and fleshing out one of their backstories up until that time, but I found I enjoyed it on this re-read.

But yes if you like zombies (or what amounts to zombies), YA, and like the concept of Lord of the Flies but applied to London and zombies, you'll probably like this series.

 

Been doing a re-read of the Murderbot series before finally reading the newest one.

 

Finished Tress of the Emerald Sea this morning. Really enjoyed it. Didn't end quite as strongly as the first half, but still thought it was really charming and imaginative.

 

Wondering if Wind and Truth is the longest book I’ve ever read. Certainly read my share of 1000 page books, but breaking 1300? Alan Moores Jerusalem might have a higher word count but thats bound as 3 books so I don’t count it.

 

it's so long

 

Honestly though feels about 20 times shorter than Rhythm of War, lol. I never felt the Sanderson middle drag that I’ve noticed in his more recent work

 

Yeah I bought it on kindle and audible so it doesn’t take me 2 months to finish haha

 

So finishing it in seven days (or less @Nick) isn’t normal? Asking for a friend. *cough*