The Fantasy/Sci-Fi Books Thread Book • Page 34

off topic, did you ever finish Bakkers series? I'm trying to get a box set and prices are outrageous.

 

Oh gosh yes, I hold that in about as high esteem as any fantasy series I've read. Like Malazan I feel like I'm always chasing that dragon. He's suppose to be writing more, it ended in a pretty huge cliffhanger, so I keep holding out hope that we get news on that. I also read his psychological horror thriller Neuropath which was tremendous.

 

Oh man, neuropath fucked with me mentally. I hated and loved it.

 

yeah one of the few book I would consider legitimately terrifying.

 

Tigana was spectacular.

 

Just started Fools Assassin, the last book in the final trilogy in the realm of the Elderling series by Robin Hobb. She is by far my favorite author, and I know this series is going to be a tough bitter sweet read. I'm only like 4 chapters in and I'm totally sucked in as always. I can't describe why her writing is like that for me, but her prose and characters are just so comforting.

 

Got the new Malazan today. Am unbearably excited.

 

FINALLY finished Wheel of Time... Need to collect my thoughts as it's been quite a journey, but overall absolutely worth the massive time investment (especially reading a lot of it twice). I can't wait for the show and to see if characters are cast/written to what I imagined (I almost said expectations but I'm trying not to have those, and enjoy it as it's own thing, but it of course has to feel like wheel of time).

I want to finish Robin Hobb's series, then I need to reread books of Babel... then maybe Malazan??? I'm intimated like crazy by it.

 

Thought about sharing this in the larger book thread at large, but not sure that we have too much overlap:

We Asked, You Answered: Your 50 Favorite Sci-Fi And Fantasy Books Of The Past Decade

Gonna read it, track how many I've read, and put together my thoughts.

 

So many on the list to go and check out! Surprised by the lack of any Brandon Sanderson, honestly. I'm sure there are a lot of other authors I'm forgetting, but the lack of him in particular seems jarring. Though, the note at the bottom says they left off Gaiman because "he didn't need their help with popularity" so maybe it's a similar situation.

ADORED:

Mary Robinette Kowal - The Calculating Stars (of the Lady Astronaut Series)
Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven
R.F. Kuang - The Poppy War Trilogy
Andy Weir - The Martian

Pretty Good:

N.K. Jemisin - The Broken Earth trilogy

Ones I didn't quite care for:

Cixin Liu - The Three-Body Problem

I know this is a hot take around here, but I was not into this very much at all. May give it a chance in the future as I do like sci-fi a lot more now than I did when I first read it.

Jeff Vandermeer - Southern Reach Series

I loved the Annihilation movie, but the book did nothing for me.

V.E. Scwab - A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic Trilogy)

Did not finish this one. The prose was beautifully crafted, but the story was immensely dull by my tastes.

Hated:

Tochi Onyebuchi - Riot Baby

I own quite a few books on the list that I haven't read yet, too:

Ann Lecki - Ancillary Justice/Mercy (of the Imperial Radch Trilogy)
Fonda Lee - Jade City (of The Green Bone Saga)
James S. A. Corey - Leviathan Wakes (of The Expanse)
Tade Thompson - Rosewater (of the Wormwood Trilogy)
Ted Chiang - Exhalation: Stories
Silvia Moreno-Garcia - Mexican Gothic
Seanan McGuire - Every Heart A Doorway (Wayward Children Series)
Micaiah Johnson - The Space Between Worlds
Seth Dickinson - The Traitor Baru Cormorant

Looks like I have a lot of reading to do and even more to check out from the list.

 

Lmao I've read exactly zero of those

 

I haven't checked out the list yet but I can back that Poppy War is fucking great.

 

I've read 9 of those, and own a handful of the others but haven't gotten around to them just yet

 

@Garrett I loved the Annihilation novel, but I laughed in agreement at your take on A Darker Shade of Magic. Honestly, I enjoyed the first book just fine, then read a review where someone pointed out that the girl protagonist is basically just in love with knives to the point of being just an "edgy" caricature, and I couldn't help but notice it from that point on. Schwab can definitely write, but that's one of very few series where I finished it just to finish, not because I was actually invested.

Anyway, from the list:
A Darker Shade of Magic: meh, but she's a good writer.
The Buried Giant: glad I read it, but I wouldn't read it again. I think about it a lot, and I think it's a powerful book, but I'm not sure I actually liked it.
Annihilation: thought it was great.
The Collapsing Empire: big fan of Scalzi, this was great.
The Martian: phenomenal.

At least half of the remaining books are on my to-read list also.

So yeah, an interesting list, and if I made my own probably only The Martian would make it from this list. But I've added a handful of these books to my wishlists, so that's fun.

 

Abercrombie rules.
Expanse is boring.
Memory Called Empire GREAT, everyone should read.
Circe also great.
Remembrance of Earth's Past the best.
Poppy War rules.
Liked Annihilation but was bored to death with the second book.
Traitor Baru Cormorant is the best thing on the list and everyone should read that series now.

 

The Books of Babel should absolutely be on that list and I will not stop telling everyone I know that likes fantasy about that series.

Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel, #1) by Josiah Bancroft

As far as the list goes, I have a lot of it to get through but I enjoyed the expanse (though I lost steam and am behind but i LOVE the show), I have enjoyed Abercrombie but not on his new series (still have 2 standalones to read), and I thought the Broken earth was written very well, but not exactly the best story to me.

 

The hype of Broken Earth vs what the books actually are is a very weird dichotomy for me. I want to give it another chance down the road, though.

 

@Vivatoto so I just finished Rise of Endymion…

 

The expanse is far from boring

 

Also, for the three body problem trilogy, the dark forest is one of the best books I've ever read. Three body problem sets the stage but the dark forest is light-years better.

 

hell yeah, what you think?

 

Fantastic. There really are no words haha. Each book in the Cantos is phenomenal, and I honestly can’t say which one I liked best: they’re all essential and all play a different role in the story.

I have more thoughts but I don’t know how to spoiler tag on my phone so I’ll follow this up in a bit haha

 

yeah really mindblowing stuff. The Illium/Olympus books are just the same level of quality: I definitely recommend those.

I definitely liked the Endymion books more than Hyperpion but I also got better at reading sci fi in the interim. Hyperion was one of the first sci fi books I read, having exhausted all of Simmons horror. I think it even predates my fantasy love.

 

This was my first foray into Simmons' stuff so I'm really excited to get into his other books. I know you're spoken highly of Ilium/Olympus before, so I'll probably start with those. Also, I did the Cantos on audiobook, and honestly I think that really lent something special to the reading experience—there was an urgency to the climactic scenes that really came through via the narrators. I'm going to have to give it some time to see if one of them stands out above the others. The Hyperion books were more impressive to me in terms of pure science fiction (the metasphere stuff, the fall of the Hegemony, the destruction of the farcasters), whereas the Endymion books were, to me, more focused on adventure/politics/quests; but yeah, I loved all four books a whole lot.

As for my further thoughts honestly the whole series was just a wonderful rollercoaster of emotions and revelations. I loved every minute, but the big thing I wanted to mention was that up until like 80% of the way through Rise of Endymion I honestly didn't know how things were going to wrap up. Like there was still so much for them to accomplish and I didn't see how it could all be crammed into such a short space. Aenea's death really rocked me—I honestly didn't see it coming that suddenly. I knew it was going to happen, but it really surprised me and left me reeling. And then the rest of the book was just one revelation after another, with plot elements clicking into place (the music of the spheres/freecasting, the reason Aenea dropped all of her disciples off at different worlds, Raul's solo journey, *&!%#$^ Bettik as the observer of the Lions & Tigers & Bears... the way it all unfolded, with Raul's slow realizations, then freecasting and meeting up with De Soya and the others, and chatting with the priests and then making his final plans... I laughed out loud several times during his final conversations with Silenus when he just wants the dude to die. And then everything concording at the end with Aenea's missing 2 years and their child. I kind of thought that might have been the case earlier in the book, but by the time I got to that point in the story I'd sort of forgotten about my guess, so that was a big reveal. Honestly, the climax of Aenea's death/Raul's imprisonment was heartwrenching and then the multiple layers of conclusion after that were so happy and fulfilling and just perfect. I expected to come away from the book/series changed and affected but not to the extent I was, nor in such a positive manner. Absolutely incredible books.
So yeah, those are my main thoughts. Just loved the books, haha, thanks for tolerating my rambling. I'll keep you posted on other Dan Simmons books when I get to them. If you've got any further recommendations for science fiction, let me know; I've read my fair share but not nearly enough. My next big one will be Dune in the coming weeks to prep for the movie.

 

Oh I love this. Been awhile since I read it so it was nice to read about a lot of the stuff I forgot. I definitely agree with Endymion being more focused on adventure (a quest, if you will) and I think that's one of the reasons I liked those books more.

So my favorite part of Endymion was the unbelievably OP villain. I can't find her name, she was a cyborg, I feel like it was something like Nepth. Anyway I love when a villain or character is so incredibly over powered that you can't possibly imagine how the heroes could over come them. Malazan has like 5 characters like that, another reason I love that series. I also love getting big answers to big questions, something you'll find in Olympos as well.

I'm sorry I can't talk more specifics with you since it's been so long but I loved reading your thoughts!

I wasn't huge on Dune. I enjoyed it, but not enough to continue reading the series, especially since the first book is the famous one.

Have you read George R R Martin's The Dying of the Light? I think that was like my second sci fi book after the first Hyperion. It's pretty great. GRRM always reliable, even in horror and sci fi.

Still though, I feel you should prioritize Illium. It's really something else.