Anatúrinbor Posted June 4, 2014 Share Posted June 4, 2014 Can anyone recommend anything similar to Nick Harkaway? Didn't want to start a new thread and get flooded with Stanek recommendations.Stanek? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mysterios Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 I just recalled Amazon-related stuff for this thread. Mainly old stuff. There's The Sword is Forged by Evangeline Walton, The Shattered Horse by S.P. Somtow, and The Free Amazons of Darkover by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Some of the stuff I like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frey Filet Posted June 17, 2014 Share Posted June 17, 2014 Blindsight by Peter Watts. First contact story with a unique twist to it. A dark, gritty,and difficult yet worthwhile read. Draws many of its premises from human biology/psychology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoth Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Almost finished with this one: "The Martian" by Andy Weir Did you like the movies "Apollo 13" and "Cast Away"? Did you enjoy the "Macgyver" TV show? Do you enjoy the witty, wise ass posts on message boards like this one? Then this is the thriller for you. Even if you're not heavily into the sciences (if you're not, just skim the technical blah-blah like I mostly did), what an engrossing read. Hope the ending is as good as the first 300 pages. ETA: Finished it up. The ending was terrific. Definitely worth a read! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Killer Snark Posted March 7, 2015 Share Posted March 7, 2015 I'm reading Philip K Dick's Ubik at the moment, on the recommendation it's one of his weirder efforts. It's a remarkable book, zippily paced and surreally hilarious. To be turned into a movie soon that will no doubt be a bodge-job because it appears to be unfilmable, but recommended reading anyway for even the most casual PKD fans. Use as directed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rody Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Almost finished with this one: "The Martian" by Andy Weir Did you like the movies "Apollo 13" and "Cast Away"? Did you enjoy the "Macgyver" TV show? Do you enjoy the witty, wise ass posts on message boards like this one? Then this is the thriller for you. Even if you're not heavily into the sciences (if you're not, just skim the technical blah-blah like I mostly did), what an engrossing read. Hope the ending is as good as the first 300 pages. ETA: Finished it up. The ending was terrific. Definitely worth a read! Came in here just to confirm this. The Martian is so good! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoth Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Came in here just to confirm this. The Martian is so good! Soon to be a movie, too, I hear. I believe a release date in November 2015...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 I recommend everyone who loves fantasy (and who doesn't here?) to check out, Blackguards: Tales of Assassins, Mercenaries, and Rogues. This is a really enjoyable fantasy anthology and a huge one at that, especially if you buy the Kindle version. Glenn Cook gives the Foreward and it contains a massive collection of great rogue stories. It's closer to what I expected the actual Rogues book to be. Here's my review of it The paperback copy is beautiful and I recommend getting it but the Kindle version has a bonus set of stories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.T. Phipps Posted July 24, 2015 Share Posted July 24, 2015 I'd also like to recommend [b]Dirge[/b] by Tim Marquitz. For those who liked the old [i]Thief[/i] games starring Garret, I think this book will appeal to them a lot. It's about a thief who lives in a kingdom which is being overrun by the living dead and who struggles to steal enough to keep the refugees cared for by her monk patrons and friends alive. Then, one day, the nobility comes to Dirge (her nickname since none of them know she's a thoroughly un-intimidating short girl barely into adulthood) and makes her an offer she can't refuse: a fabulous fortune in exchange for bringing back one of the Necro-Lords alive. A rare combination of grimdark and humor. I also really liked the cover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puntificator Posted July 25, 2015 Share Posted July 25, 2015 The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins. A bizarre contemporary fantasy that includes a deranged "family" of demigods and their perverted "Father," dark humor, violence, plot twists and turns, horror, esoteric concepts, and incredible prose. Original and inventive are insufficient words to describe the story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jc1138 Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Some favorite fantasy stand alones: -The Neverending Story -The Last Unicorn -The Wizard Knight (Wolfe, written as stand alone, published as 2 volumes) -The Once and Future King -Jonathan Strange... (PS, I don't consider LotR or TH to be stand alines, though respect that some do. To me it is too connected, in that idiosyncratic Tolkien way, to The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and so forth to be a stand alone.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melx Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 Brave New World Aldous Huxley “A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ants Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 It's the first part of a series. The sequels are: The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, A Conspiracy of KingsThe second book is often considered even better than The Thief, darker though and there is a lot of political intrigue.Oops. Now read the later ones too!If its not mentioned, "This Alien shore". By C.S.Friedman, it is an investigation in the far future, with an interesting look at prejudice and the way minds work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maia Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 Thanks for resurrecting this great thread, Quoth! Let me add "Uprooted" by Naomi Novik. Basically, a one-volume epic fantasy utilizing Polish folklore, with very vivid menacing atmosphere and surprising twists and turns. Well-written and, while not trope-free, for the most part utilizes them very deftly."Moxyland" by Lauren Beukes. A near-future and/or possibly cyberpunk-ish SF novel set in South Africa. Engaging, well-written, remarkably prescient in some respects, full of interesting ideas. Doesn't pull it's punches. Add my vote to "Zoo City" by her too - an urban fantasy/mystery novel pretty much ditto, only even better written, I thought. It is pretty much what I want UF to be (and which it is mostly not) - fresh, bursting with imagination, unpredictable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoth Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 Just started "Saturn Run" by John Sandford and Ctein. About 50 pages into it and I'm very hooked. At times a bit heavy on the techno speak. Regardless, the story really is moving along. Interesting characters, too.For convenience, here's the Goodreads synopsis:The year is 2066. A Caltech intern inadvertently notices an anomaly from a space telescope—something is approaching Saturn, and decelerating. Space objects don’t decelerate. Spaceships do.A flurry of top-level government meetings produces the inescapable conclusion: Whatever built that ship is at least one hundred years ahead in hard and soft technology, and whoever can get their hands on it exclusively and bring it back will have an advantage so large, no other nation can compete. A conclusion the Chinese definitely agree with when they find out.The race is on, and an remarkable adventure begins—an epic tale of courage, treachery, resourcefulness, secrets, surprises, and astonishing human and technological discovery, as the members of a hastily thrown-together crew find their strength and wits tested against adversaries both of this earth and beyond. What happens is nothing like you expect—and everything you could want from one of the world’s greatest masters of suspense.I've read Sandford's entire "Prey" series and his "Kidd" novels (Mystery thrillers) so I knew the story lines and dialogues would work for me. But, who knew he could dive into SF so easily? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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