Show HN: Top Fantasy Reads – Fantasy books Reddit is reading
topfantasyreads.com
topfantasyreads.com
However, very cool - any thoughts for other categories (SciFi, etc.)?
Fantasy is more than welcome there.
They were on a planet with incompatible dns, so they couldn't eat anything local. They ended up using some cloning equipment to make "hams" and grafted on extra limbs for travel rations.
Anyone else read this?
Well to add to your data points, I disagree with both statements that the gentlemen bastards and the kingkiller chronicles get worse.
I think they both depart from their source material in the second books but do so necessarily in order to create a standalone story that isn't formulaic.
Especially with regards to Locke, the author made some incredibly bold kill-offs at the end of book one which left the question of how to follow up with a sequel. I'd say his strategy of consolidating the key characters while expanding our knowledge of them through flashbacks is very compelling. I can't get enough of their origin stories and allows me to experience the "dead characters" again, albeit in small quantities. I'm also a huge fan of how powerful wizards are in those books, it seems closer to how unbalanced a mage would be wandering around our world and the fact we follow non-mages really sets the tone for uphill battles.
On the other hand, his pacing worked well in the short story "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" he published on his blog:
https://www.neilgaiman.com/Cool_Stuff/Short_Stories/How_To_T...
Although I did finish the book, I thought it was a slog to get through. It wasn't the fact that it was different than the film, but it had to do with Gaiman's writing style.
I'm definitely not rushing out to read his other novels.
I think the Stormlight archive is Sanderson at his fantasy best. Characters driving plot in a cohesive, complex world. Stormlight has huge tombs of books covering a story that feels like it is really moving and subplots that tie back and resolve.
I'm worried about reading the Stormlight Archive because it's unfinished and ASOIAF and The Kingkiller Chronicle have burned me in that regard.
Does it actually look like he'll finish Stormlight though?
Of course death/accidents can happen to anybody, but I can't imagine he's going to suddenly drop his output, given how prolific he has been over recent years.
One of his nice tricks is to "relax" by writing different kinds of books, which seems to be working out really well for him.
I conciously avoid reading incomplete series, with only two exceptions and he's one of them. (The other is Steven Brust, who I've been reading for 20+ years. Slowly getting closer to the finish-mark there, the waits between books aren't as bad as with some authors, but they're still annoying!)
bookstore.org looks like they just sell their own domain name.
Do that genre next!
The reason I can say that is because it reads pretty much like a greatest hits of fantasy fiction list.
It would be interesting to normalize it in various ways:
Most read book per unit time that has passed since it was released. (Contrast NK Jemisen’s work from last year with Martins work from the 90s with Tolkien etc)
Most commonly read book that is not on the amazon list. (Most surprising book on the list)
Most widely read book that doesn’t have a tv show or movie.
And perhaps other smart variations that you and other readers might think of.
Two Examples:
Daniel Abraham's (co-author of "The Expanse") The Long Price Books, "Shadow and Betrayal" and "Seasons of War".
Also, the truly fabulous and sadly not widely known books by Geoffrey Wilson in which he imagined a Europe ruled by the Indian Empire and their magic: "Land of Hope and Glory", "The Place of Dead Kings" and "The War of The Grail".
In rather harsh words of Arthur Schopenhauer
“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”
top fantasy: #1 urban vampires #2 harry potter
top scifi: #1 star wars book #2 star trek book
recommended for you: author(s) you bought before
They're not going to do better than that. The author is almost the only thing that matters in determining whether or not you'll like a book.
Now, if it's an author you bought before and then you hated the book, there's room for improvement in the recommendation.
I can give you a few examples where there's room for improvement.
If you liked jules verne, maybe you'll like h.g. wells
If you liked isaac asimov, maybe arthur c clarke.
If you liked william gibson, maybe bruce sterling.
If you liked twilight, arrgh!
For example, one idea is to link/embed comments that mention it.
Only other one which I liked was The Sundering series by Jacqueline Carey, and mainly for the dialogue between two of the characters.
I've been mostly reading fantasy books for past 5+ years and /r/Fantasy [1] has been the major source to find books. I like that there are plenty of discussions to focus on different categories, self published, underrated, webserials, etc.
Btw I’ve been reading the robin Hobbs books for probably all of 2019 until now. There’s just so much there. Really enjoyable.
But his tastes are different from mine. There are sections of American Gods that are much too vulgar/crass/obscene/whatever for my taste.
This is also why I never read the sequel to Lies of Locke Lamora.
Do you mean metaphorically like a crass analogy or like full of swear words? The former would bother me much more than the latter tbh , especially since we're following orphan street urchins - seems in character almost.
That's not true of American Gods. The problem is the same, but the details are different.
On the other hand I like Pratchett even more, but did not like Good Omens.
I've heard that a lot of people found "American Gods" tedious, but I've always been into Norse mythology, so it hit a sweet spot for me.