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 Dan Simmons. (Well, I loved him years ago. I am planning to reread the Hyperion books so I can finish the series, and we'll see if I still love him now that I'm a more critical reader.)

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I loved Hyperion and whatever the sequel was called, though it's been many years since I read them. It would be interesting to see how they hold up now that I'm 33 instead of 15.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I also read a bunch of his other books, Hollow Man, Prayers to Broken Stones (which is short stories), one about Hawaii and volcanoes, and one about Eastern European orphans who were vampires or something. I liked all of them at the time, but...

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

I read Prayers to Broken Stones first (which has the Hollow Man novella in it) and then I read the Hollow Man novel, and OH MY GOD, it's like a textbook example of how not to expand a short story into a novel. Did you get that sort of feeling from it? I loved the novella so much, and then the novel was a sprawling mess with this crazy subplot about a farm widow who killed men and hung them on meathooks (WHAT.) that just seemed to be in there for padding, and the final meeting between the two main characters, which made so much sense in the novella, was just random and coincidental in the novel. I was very disappointed!

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Man, I seriously don't remember any of it. XD One reason I hate series (where the books are one long story, rather than like Discworld where they're just all set in the same universe) is that I have such a bad memory for what I read. The only way I managed before was to actually reread an entire series before each new book came out, but that was just because I had crazy amounts of free time and almost all I ever did was read. But now I have much less free time and many more hobbies, so it's totally unfeasible.

I didn't even remember there'd been a short story version of Hollow Man.

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Heh, see, I remember books fairly well, but not movies! My friends can quote from movies and TV shows, but that is just not an ability that I have. I am doing well if I can remember the major plot points from movies that I really liked (and usually I can't).

I also notice that I remember books from 10-20 years ago better than I remember books that I've read in the last few years, maybe just because my brain has more to keep track of now.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Yes! I felt that way. I did not like the Hollow Man novel at all and in fact resisted reading Hyperion for years because I disliked that novel so much.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Hyperion is amazing. I really think you'd like them just as well now. And Josh just read The Terror, which came out not long ago, and he says it's phenomenal. Simmons's latest book is called Drood and Wilkie Collins is the narrator and I'm just beside myself because I can't read anything for pleasure until I've taken my Comps and I want to read that book so badly.