The Fantasy/Sci-Fi Books Thread Book • Page 79

Loial forever.

 

This really appeals to me:

Revealing Gogmagog & Ludluda, a New Fantasy From Jeff Noon and Steve Beard

Introducing Gogmagog and Ludluda from Jeff Noon and Steve Beard

Knew nothing of this series but just saw the cover reveal and description and I’m hyped!

From Tor:

Jeff Noon and Steve Beard have created a surreal and visionary fantasy of dream England. Like Wonderland, Gormenghast and Perdido Street Station, the world of Gogmagog and Ludluda is a unique feast for the imagination.

Gogmagog and Ludluda are forthcoming from Angry Robot Books on February 13, 2024 and November 26, 2024, respectively. Check out the full covers and descriptions below!

Gogmagog tells the story of an epic journey through the sixty-mile long ghost of a dragon. Travel is by boat, a rickety steam launch captained by veteran taxi pilot Cady Meade, on the river Nysis. In her heyday Cady carried people and goods from the thriving seaports of the estuary into Ludwich, the capital city. Now she’s drunk, holed up in a rundown seaside resort, telling her bawdy tales for shots of rum. All that’s about to change, when two strangers seek her out, asking for transport, one of whom—a young girl—is very ill, and in great danger. The other, an artificial being of singular character, has secrets hidden inside his crystal skull. So begins the voyage of the Juniper.

The Nysis is unlike any other river. Mysteries unfold with each port of call. Not many can navigate these channels, not many know of its whirlpools and sandbanks, and of the ravenous creatures that lurk beneath the surface.

Cady used to have the necessary knowledge, and the powers of spectral navigation.

But her glory days are well behind her now.

This might well be her final journey.

 

I’ve finished the Will of the Many and doubted people saying it’s incredible. I never should have doubted. This was AMAZING!

 

My surprise of the year so far, glad you enjoyed it! I would highly recommend checking out some of the reddit threads around it. A lot of great discussions.

 

I just hit the halfway mark on The Will of the Many. I've loved it from the beginning, but each new major plot milestone just ramps that up. Fantastic book so far.

 

Thanks to @Garrett for bigging me up to The Broken Binding in an attempt to have me as a rep! Doubt it'll happen but it'd be a great opportunity !

 

Also Ryan Cahills new novella is out soon!

 

Well 31 books later and I have finished The Riftwar Saga. Fuckin hell. I'll post a bigger rundown of it at a later date because I want to talk about it a little bit. There was a time about halfway through where I wasn't sure it was going to be worth it, but the last 3 arcs (7 or 8 books) were absolutely phenomenal and delivering on the long term promises that only something of that length could make. A fucking great journey.

But now I get to read some other fantasy! to Ryan Cahill!

 

31 books hot damn

- the guy halfway through the Malazan 22

 

Shannara is technically 32 books haha.

@Vivatoto nice going! I have very fond memories of the few Feist books I've read, and I've always meant to go back and actually read the series as a whole—it's nice to have corroboration that it's worth it.

 

Goddammit, lol. I might do Shanarra at some point. For one thing, I'm pretty sure those books are longer, Riftwar tended to be 300-400 a book, with the last being the only real exception. I'm also weary of how cohesive the story is, which is what I was hoping for, and got, from Riftwar, an epic conclusion that it was all leading to.

Well my later post will have info that I wish I would have known before starting, and might spark you to go back, and also make it clear that if you want to, there are books you can skip.

 

I think I only read 3 Shannara.

 

Yeah I've read 2 or 3. I liked it enough.

 

Haha that about sums them up. Terry Brooks is absolutely one of my favorite living fantasy authors, and I have more books by him than anyone else, but I can't deny that nostalgia plays a role there—he was one of the first fantasy writers that I read after Tolkien and one of the first that I can remember catching up to and then reading new releases on day one, that sort of thing. I know I've talked about him before, I've met and chatted with him a few times, and he's an absolute angel of a guy. But anyway, there's a lot to love about Shannara, but also a fair amount of repetitive characters/plots, and they're more adventure-focused than, say, high fantasy. While not every single book in the series was gold, many were excellent, most had really great moments/characters in them, and finishing the entire series was satisfying.

Oh and they tend toward the 400-page mark before too long. Only the first few are much longer than that, riding the high of fantasy trends, but the back half of the series is a lot shorter in general.

Didn't mean to get carried away talking about Shannara, haha. I won't be getting to Riftwar anytime soon, but they're for sure on my radar, so I'm excited to read your writeup and will definitely use it as a guide when I get back to them. Glad you enjoyed the series.

 

Honestly, I have missed adventuring so fucking much, I swear I've been reading a lot of fantasy recently that doesn't have a proper adventure, so that sounds pretty nice to me right now. Well Riftwar had a good amount of adventuring, but anything else I've been peppering in hasn't. That was one of the reasons I was reading the Drizzt books for a little bit.

 

I hear you. I've been reading a lot more 70s/80s stuff lately because I've been craving that too. Like I'm down with modern movements toward philosophical debates and political maneuvering and whatnot, I really am, but... just give me a couple of misfits and point them in the direction of a talisman and throw a bunch of weird monsters and terrain in their way and I am happy.

 

Yeah all depends what I'm in the mood for. Of course there's the best of both worlds, I think of Tolkien's books as the quintessential adventure fantasy, and it's not like anything else is being lost in the process. Technically, The Prince of Nothing/Aspect Emperor books hold a lot of adventuring, but that's about the deepest thing I've ever read (add a few Thomas Covenant's to that list).

I like your list but there's one more thing I'd add that I need, and that's a good villain. Someone to hate/sympathize with (depending). Preferably for a long time.

 

Adventure fantasy is the best fantasy. Give me tropey farm boy who knows nothing and has to save the world all day every day.

 

I am admittedly over the coming of age fantasy main characters (which Riftwar had a llllot of). I've said it in the thread recently but give me the grizzled war vets who thought they put their past behind them, or whatever.

 

Have you read Kings of the Wyld?

 

I actually had to check my Goodreads to make sure because I've been aware of the novel forever, but no I haven't. I know everyone was talking about it, at least in the grim/dark spheres, for awhile. I really should.

I think when I was thinking about reading it I'd read a lot of grim/dark stinkers, so the genre was falling flat at the particular moment for me, then I just forgot about it.

 

I wouldn’t say grim, but definitely grizzled veterans.

 

just bought Malice by John Gwynne, haven’t read a big fantasy book or series since I was a kid

 

Some of the websites I found using that genre label were pretty damn lenient with it.

 

Honestly, That's actually a sort of perfect introduction to modern fantasy. Like if you're not going with a big name like Sanderson or Martin, that's the way to go. Excellent series.