OnionAhaiReborn Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 I forgot to answer your original question. Read David Gemmell. Read all 30 or so of his novels. He will offer everything you desire and more. 30 novels? Jesus, I'm far too stoned and apathetic for all that. No thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anatúrinbor Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 nd no-one in their right mind recommends that people start Discworld with the first book, as it's the worst one (a bit like Malazan in that regard). Wait, what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Gogol Posted January 21, 2014 Author Share Posted January 21, 2014 PRatchett: I've read:Colour of MagicLight FantasticEqual RitesFeet of Clay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Abercrombie Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 Bow down before my terrifying grimdarkness, a scourge upon the upright fantasy of yesteryear, poison to your mind and culture etc. etc. Carry on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The BlackBear Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 Bow down before my terrifying grimdarkness, a scourge upon the upright fantasy of yesteryear, poison to your mind and culture etc. etc. Carry on. Get out of here you destroyer of nuclear families! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Marquis de Leech Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 PRatchett: I've read: Colour of Magic Light Fantastic Equal Rites Feet of Clay So you missed the first good one (Mort), and jumped into the Watch series without having read Guards!Guards! or Men at Arms? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Gogol Posted January 21, 2014 Author Share Posted January 21, 2014 So you missed the first good one (Mort), and jumped into the Watch series without having read Guards!Guards! or Men at Arms? Yes! read the 2 first because many years ago, before the internet, I bought the first 2 book of a series I didn't know anything about, which was usual for the time. The later I read equal rites because it was the first of the Witches. Then read Feet of Clay because my sister offered it to me as a gift. It's would not be unusual for me to have blindly stumbled on the 4 worst books of a 30 book "series". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Abercrombie Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 Get out of here you destroyer of nuclear families! Small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, mint humbugs from friendly grannies, jobs for life and final salary pensions, metallic green ford cortinas and cold war paranoia we could all subscribe to, non-threatening trick or treating and graffiti free public spaces, God Save the Queen and a landlord you could trust, all washed away in a tide of cynical filth. The horror. THE HORROR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkynJay Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 So you missed the first good one (Mort), and jumped into the Watch series without having read Guards!Guards! or Men at Arms? To be fair Feet of Clay is the first watch book I read (back when my reading order was 'whatever the bookstore in the mall I was working at had in stock). And I enjoyed it just fine. I say if Equal Rites and Feet of Clay are not good enough, Pratchett just aint for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datepalm Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 Small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, mint humbugs from friendly grannies, jobs for life and final salary pensions, metallic green ford cortinas and cold war paranoia we could all subscribe to, non-threatening trick or treating and graffiti free public spaces, God Save the Queen and a landlord you could trust, all washed away in a tide of cynical filth. The horror. THE HORROR. So a humbug is a kind of candy? I've always wondered. Well, sort of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lummel Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 So a humbug is a kind of candy? I've always wondered. Well, sort of. Yes, they're stripped sweets like these Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lummel Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 Here's another recommendation - The Belgariad. The good guys protect a hidden heir and include a viking, a hussar, some spy guy from a vaguely 17th century pike waving culture, they deal with the Romans, who are a bit dodgy and the ancient Egyptians who are very dodgy because they do drugs - which we are shown are a silly habit enjoyed by silly people. Their enemies are the Russian and their Polish and Czech subordinates, the KGB are a priest cast and beyond them, further east are the Asiatic hordes of communist china. None of the good guys die and even those who we are told are dead at the beginning turn out to be secretly alive. The triumph of good includes victory in the cold war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaircat Meow Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 The Belgariad is good but it is better to be 12. I second whoever said Daniel Abraham. His books are very good and they are not grimdark (well, so far, I haven't finished them). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Richard II Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 Eh, I'm only on Book 6 of Taltos but I certainly wouldn't say the feelings it exudes are nice. It's in no way grimdark but it can get depressing in its own way, at least at the point I am at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Gogol Posted January 21, 2014 Author Share Posted January 21, 2014 Many votes for Daniel Abraham... Interesting. Maybe I'll try him then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 "... ASOIAF is the most traditional story ever. " So traditional it can be an 80 television mini-series, a telenovella, if you will, right down to the necessity of a wedding where Things Happen That Change Everything Else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 You sound like a good candidate for The Nuestrian Cycle, a fantsy series by Leslie Barringer, a colleague - friend of Lewis and Tolkien, though unknown now, for no good reason I can see other than his books must have gotten tied up in some way so rights to newer publishers were unavailable. He has authentically honorable and heroic protagonists -- including women. The antagonists who aren't aristocrats anyway, are also characters in the round, and as interesting as the 'good' ones. It's set in a secondary 14th century country called Neustria, resembling that of France. The books are well-paced and structured. There is much lively action, with outcomes that matter. There are elements of fantasy, but not at all like what Tolkien made expected. I recommend the trilogy highly, and wish it were easily available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Gogol Posted January 21, 2014 Author Share Posted January 21, 2014 I reminds me of this time, a few years ago. We were visiting my girlfriend's aunt in Mexico and she wanted to watch the ultimate grand finale of this telenovella, "la hija del mariachi". We said ok, thinkng at most it would be a 1 hour thing. But no! It went on and on for 3 hours! With the obligatory wedding at the end of the 1st hour, making you think it was finally over. Nope! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Errant Bard Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 I was busy scoffing at Free Northman, and then I understood: Joe Abercrombie sells because the American dream is dead. He feeds from the rotting corpse of free men's ideals, working their despair and anguish into a weave of grim darkness and cynicism. Though he's been getting softer lately, if he does not pull himself together, he won't be destroying any nuclear family. no-one in their right mind recommends that people start Discworld with the first book, as it's the worst one (a bit like Malazan in that regard).I beg to disagree, the worst discworld book is either Equal Rites or Eric, the Colour of Magic may be unpolished, but it has a real nice flow in absurdity and classic references... Even if it has nothing, absolutely, on Small Gods, day and night those. (and while the first Malazan has gross continuity problems with the others, the quality difference is minor; the thing that inflated the most as the story went on was the author's ego.) Many votes for Daniel Abraham... Interesting. Maybe I'll try him then.I'll say, Daniel is cool, but if you find Brienne boring (fie! I scoff at your judgement too.) you'll likely find there is a lack of things blowing up spectacularly in the fantasy he writes. Though maybe The Dagger and the Coin is more Eddings-y than the Long Price, I don't know, it's in my TBR pile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted January 21, 2014 Share Posted January 21, 2014 I was busy scoffing at Free Northman, and then I understood: Joe Abercrombie sells because the American dream is dead. Though he's been getting softer lately, if he does not pull himself together, he won't be destroying any nuclear family. Yeah there's been an incorrect understanding of the direction of causality of the phenomenon I was referring to. I'm certainly not suggesting that these authors are the cause of the malaise that grips modern society. I'm saying that the younger people of today in particular are far more cynical as a rule, hence their enjoyment of more cynical styles of writing. So these authors have a ready market, and good for them for exploiting it. It just happens to be the spirit of the age. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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