The things one finds...

[sholio]

oh my god, this commercial is so, so, SO wrong on pretty much every level that I cannot stop laughing at it (at least partly in horrified amazement that it's an actual commercial and not an SNL parody commercial). The shaved cat! THE TULIPS.

You know what I need, I think? A new series of books to be hooked on. It was so lovely to sink into the new Dresden Files book, but it was all over so quickly and now I have to wait for the next one. *chews nails* My reading has been falling off lately -- I'll start books and then abandon them -- and I think a lot of it is because what I really want right now is to fall in love with some characters and spend a lot of quality time with them. Most of what I've been reading lately have been stand-alone genre and literary-type books, but I'm finding them harder to get into. Since I'm not really following any TV shows avidly at the moment, I think that I need to find me some good, escapist brain candy to satisfy my mental sweet tooth.

Recommendations? I'd prefer books with SF or fantasy elements, but I'm open to anything else, too, if you know of something that's good. If you've been reading my journal for any length of time, you probably know what I go for: ensemble casts with relationships more complicated than just "boy meets girl, love at first sight", strong friendships, quality world-building. I like to be surprised and to have a story take me places I'm not expecting. I like genre-mixing (steampunk SF, mystery fantasy). I'm very character-focused; I like to follow the same characters over years and watch them grow and change. I am an absolute sucker for ambiguous and flawed heroes, ambiguous and likable villains, and enemies forced to work together for the common good. I like explosions, and as much as I adore solid world-building, I get bored with infodumps and florid writing very quickly.

A few of the series that are the sort of thing I'm looking for right now:

- Death Gate (Weiss & Hickman)
- Dark Tower (King)
- Discworld
- Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books
- Coldfire (C.S. Friedman)
- Tobias Buckell's Xenowealth books

I've tried both Lynn Flewelling and Janny Wurts and just couldn't get into either one (sorry, xparrot!). I also haven't tried George RR Martin because I'm scared XD, though I have the first Song of Ice and Fire book sitting in my to-read pile in case I manage to get over the fact that everyone keeps telling me these books will rip my heart into a million shreds and dance on the pieces.

Comments

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I love Janny Wurts' art so much, but I never did finish that one series of hers about the brothers. Have you read Raymond Feist? I really loved the original Riftwar novels, as well as some of the later books (though I have never got into the more recent books).

I'm trying to think of some old stuff I liked, because the only fantasy I read now is pretty much Discworld. But there's also the problem that when I was really into SFF I was not very discriminating, so a lot of what I liked was actually crap and thus I wouldn't recommend it now (Xanth!).

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Xanth, OH GOD. Is it a requisite that every young bibliophile had to go through their Xanth phase and then at some point we all had that disillusioned moment when we realized that the books were total crap? I really hate to psychoanalyze authors on the basis of their books, but Piers Anthony, get thee to a therapist, stat!

I read and loved the Riftwar series as a teen, but haven't read any of his later books. I tried Wurts' first book, but found it awfully dull to plow through. It's odd that I love the idea of fantasy, but in reality I find most of what's out there very self-similar and dull. Authors who manage to breathe life into the genre earn my devotion! And there aren't very many of them.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I went on Wikipedia to see what the state of Riftwar was these days and omg, that man just kind of needs to get a new idea! There are like a bazillion books in the series now.

I really haven't read a lot of fantasy since I 1. stopped reading as much as I used to, and 2. became more critical in my reading, and the reason is both that so much of it is bad and it's so long, both in terms of each individual book, and the fact that nothing is ever a standalone, or even a trilogy. It's like ten books, all of which are 800 pages each, and man, I just don't have patience for that, especially when the reason it's that long is because they didn't have a good editor telling them to trim out unnecessary crap. :p

I do like fantasy and sci-fi in theory, but I just stay away from the genre because the style of the books getting written is just not my thing.

[dragon-within.livejournal.com]

I started rereading Xanth just for the hell of it. I got through five books... and realized my brain was starting to rot. ;D