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Duologies, what would you reccomend?


LongRider

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I spent this fall and early winter reading the sixteen books of THE REALM OF THE ELDERLINGS by Robin Hobb which consists of four trilogies and one four pack, all in one go.   Kinda exhausted now, but still want to read some more fantasy, but not a long series, not even a trilogy.  So, what good duologies of fantasy and SF are out there that you would recommend?  Wouldn't mind rec's of standalones either, if you have them.

 

tia

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Have you any further specifications? Just to narrow my suggestions a bit.

in the meantime, to stick with Hobb you have The Reindeer People/Wolf’s Brother duology. Written as Meghan Lindholm its a fantasy focused on a mother/son who have joined a tribe of wandering herdspeople. Having read her Fitz stuff already you will no doubt seecertain similarities!

same goes for her stand alone “Alien Earth”

Wizard of the Pigeons is also a wonderful urban fantasy by her.

The Wolf in the Attic by Paul Kearney is an excellent and rather beautiful novel.i think he is working on a sequel

The Buried Giant is a weird but moving tale

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I think Guy Gavriel Kay's Sarantine Mosaic is one of his best works, although it does feel a bit like a very long novel in two parts rather than a 'proper' duology.

There is of course Peadar's The Call and The Invasion.

Leigh Bardugo's Dregs is a fun duology of heist stories.

I thought Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained was a great space opera.

I haven't read it yet, but I'm intending to start N.K. Jemisin's Dreamblood duology soon.

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Thanks for your suggestions, as for narrowing it down, I don't like grimdark.  I have read Bakker and Abercrombie and their type of grimdark is not for me.   YA and UF is OK, except for vampire stories, can't take all the blood drinking, otherwise, I try to be open.  I'll have to look for Peadar's The Invasion as I've read The Call last year.

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Felix Gilman's books and Jemisin's Dreamblood are great recs.

Michelle West - Hunter's Oath and Hunter's Death(Sacred Hunt Duology).  This is cheating a bit as it leads to a much longer work featuring some of the same characters.  I'm a Michelle West fanatic, though, so what can I do?

 

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1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

Ooh here's a fun design twist on this: design a book that is basically the two parts of a duology, but constructed in such a way that you flip it over like an album for the second part.  I'm basically imagining two books glued back to back and upside down. 

'Apologies' for derail #sorrynotsorry

I think my Dad had a book like that when I was a little kid but damn if I remember what it was. I do think that there are books out there like that tho'. 

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11 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Ooh here's a fun design twist on this: design a book that is basically the two parts of a duology, but constructed in such a way that you flip it over like an album for the second part.  I'm basically imagining two books glued back to back and upside down. 

'Apologies' for derail #sorrynotsorry

They do this with kids books a bit.  My kid has a pokemon book and a Captain Underpants with two books set up just this way.

I second (third?) Gilman and Jemisin

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22 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Ooh here's a fun design twist on this: design a book that is basically the two parts of a duology, but constructed in such a way that you flip it over like an album for the second part.  I'm basically imagining two books glued back to back and upside down. 

'Apologies' for derail #sorrynotsorry

I can't speak to how good a book it is but:

http://www.laurenoliverbooks.com/Replica.php

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On 12/24/2018 at 1:44 AM, larrytheimp said:

Ooh here's a fun design twist on this: design a book that is basically the two parts of a duology, but constructed in such a way that you flip it over like an album for the second part.  I'm basically imagining two books glued back to back and upside down. 

'Apologies' for derail #sorrynotsorry

Isn't this what the old Ace Doubles were? Although the books may have been written by two different authors...

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On 12/22/2018 at 5:18 AM, Inkdaub said:

Felix Gilman's books and Jemisin's Dreamblood are great recs.

Michelle West - Hunter's Oath and Hunter's Death(Sacred Hunt Duology).  This is cheating a bit as it leads to a much longer work featuring some of the same characters.  I'm a Michelle West fanatic, though, so what can I do?

 

I agree that's cheating because IIRC, it doesn't give you any proper closure and I went onward and tried to keep going to get some of that and bounced off of it in total bewilderment.  I've been told if you can power through it coalesces, but...YMMV.  I still have those paperbacks, maybe it's time to give it another try.

Carol Berg has a set of two duologies wherein you can read one and not the other, but if you put them together you get a fuller picture of both events: Flesh and Spirit/Breath and Bone, Dust and Light/Ash and Silver.  I do recommend reading in that order, although it'd be interesting to do it the other way around.

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3 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Jacqueline Carey's the Sundering duology.  Also, Tolkein's Fellowship of the Ring and the Two Towers. There may be a subsequent volume too, can't remember :)

I have a big thick paperback that has those two stories and long epilogue all bound together.  Perhaps I should dig it out, no?

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It's funny how rare the two book series is. I suspect that is because more than ever sci-fi/fantasy authors like to crank out 1000+ page tomes so what might have been a two volume set in the days of Zelazny or Niven are now one big book. Once the book gets too unwieldy or the production to publishing lag gets too long, then you get trilogies and beyond.

 

My snarky answer is of course the Rothfus books.  

 

The first two Dune books are a great pair of novels which, IMO, tell a complete enough arc that there's no 'need' to read the rest of the series. Unlike say GRRM, the major plots are tied up enough that there is a sense of closure at the end of the second one. 

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