Fantasy, SF, and Horror books you'd recommend

[Statius]

Strong thumbs up for Ghost Story. One of the best horror novels I've ever read. I read it and thought, "Damn, that's what a well-written horror novel can be."

Agreed, and I don't even like horror, but that book was so well done.

 

[HordHolm]

There also doesn't seem to be any Arthur C Clarke according to a quick scan of the big list. 2001 and Rama are the obvious choices, but my nerd-hipster choice is A Fall of Moondust about a group of ordinary passengers trapped under a dust avalache on the moon.

Big thumbs up for A Fall of Moondust. Childhood's End is very interesting, too.

 

[PennyThompson]

Alright - off to a room, you two.

Surely you mean, off to a dark recessed corner of the library stacks

 

[Statius]

Surely you mean, off to a dark recessed corner of the library stacks

Oh Library sex, never did that. Should write a story about that, can't be like 10k of those already here though, right? Could be a fun silly story though.

 

[SimonDoom]

Sci Fi: My favorite Neal Stephenson novel is Cryptonomicon. His novels are hard to explain, but I enjoy the extreme degree of world-building and research that goes into them, as well as his sense of humor and whimsy. His most fun sci fi novel is Snow Crash, which I strongly recommend. It's definitely ahead of its time as a "cyberspace" story and his vision of the future is a lot of fun.

If you like fantasy I recommend Roger Zelazny's Amber series. It's a little bit like a precursor to Martin's Game of Thrones books in that it's fantasy full of characters who are full of ego and paranoia and the things that concern real people, as opposed to Tolkien, whose works I love but find a little lacking in character development.

As "hard" sci fi, I thought The Martian was terrific. Same thing with Arthur C. Clark's Rendezvous with Rama.

 

[PennyThompson]

Oh Library sex, never did that. Should write a story about that, can't be like 10k of those already here though, right? Could be a fun silly story though.

Well, I personally am responsible for 1.5 of them, but there is definitely room for more!

 

[PennyThompson]

My favorite Neal Stephenson novel is Cryptonomicon. His novels are hard to explain, but I enjoy the extreme degree of world-building and research that goes into them, as well as his sense of humor and whimsy.

I also really really liked Stephenson's Anathem

 

[Statius]

Well, I personally am responsible for 1.5 of them, but there is definitely room for more!

Wait. One .. and a 1/2? So 1/2 a story?

 

[SimonDoom]

My favorite Stephen King novel is the first one I read: Salem's Lot. The suspense is wonderful. A small cast of characters figure out that their small Maine town is being taken over by vampires and they fight against time to destroy them.

The best Stephen King read might be his collection of short stories, Night Shift. So many good stories in that book. You'll never think of plastic army men the same way again. Or rats. Or bad-tasting beer.

 

[THBGato]

Has anyone mentioned Freya Markse's "a marvellous light" triology? This is, afterall, an erotica site, as those three books have some seriously scorching sex scenes in them.

It's a fantasy triology set in Edwardian England, building on the idea (cf Harry Potter, The Magicians) of a magic-using society existing in secret alongside the mundane world. A bookseller told me that she started off as a fan-fic writer on AO3 so, you know, squad goals people!

 

[onehitwanda]

I also really really liked Stephenson's Anathem

Anathem is fantastic. It's where I stole the term "Artificial Inanity" from.

 

[PennyThompson]

Wait. One .. and a 1/2? So 1/2 a story?

One of them doesn't actually involve full-blown sex in the library, just some make outs... but the inherent eroticism of the library is fully intentional

 

[PennyThompson]

Anathem is fantastic. It's where I stole the term "Artificial Inanity" from.

oooomg I have thought about that passage at least once a month for the last three years

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I listened to the audiobooks a few years ago, and they hold up better than (for instance) The Wheel of Time. The writing, as @TheRedChamber notes, is excellent.

I also think the overall plot holds together very well. It's far less fragmented than WoT, and while the worldbuilding is less novel, and leans heavily on LotR, it all feels very natural. Nowhere does the story drag, or feel like the author was making it up as he went along. It feels like a tapestry, compared with the patchwork quilt of WoT or ASOIAF.

I agree that it's mostly good writing in those books, certainly better than Jordan's. But as I said, I feel that his plot wasn't coherent, and worldbuilding was basically just borrowing a few things from LoTR, and absolutely zero actual lore.

It's been a while since I read those books, but I remember not being able to figure out, for example, why the princess was raped on the ship, why that scene was even in the story. I remember expecting something to come out of it, but no, it just happened, a pointless plot point. Maybe the author is a fan of Lit's NC section, fuck knows.

 

[lovecraft68]

Not technically a horror novel but one of the most disturbing books you can find in its depiction of violence and depravity

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

The big bad Judge Holden is as evil of an entity as you'll find.

 

[SimonDoom]

I also really really liked Stephenson's Anathem

That book hit me the way his Baroque Cycle trilogy did. I often enjoyed it, I appreciated the extraordinary work that went into it, but I often felt he could tell the story more succinctly. He's an author who enjoys his words, and there are a lot of them.

 

[Statius]

One of them doesn't actually involve full-blown sex in the library, just some make outs... but the inherent eroticism of the library is fully intentional

I figured it was something like that, just sounded funny.

 

[PennyThompson]

That book hit me the way his Baroque Cycle trilogy did. I often enjoyed it, I appreciated the extraordinary work that went into it, but I often felt he could tell the story more succinctly. He's an author who enjoys his words, and there are a lot of them.

I'm with you for the baroque cycle, I did eventually finish it but I think it took me like two years off and on some delightful passages and ideas, in need of a stricter editor

 

[onehitwanda]

That book hit me the way his Baroque Cycle trilogy did. I often enjoyed it, I appreciated the extraordinary work that went into it, but I often felt he could tell the story more succinctly. He's an author who enjoys his words, and there are a lot of them.

True, but he does have phenomenal moments of Upsight.

Like the discussion between Erasmas and Yul over how Yul worked out that Arbre was old - by working as a canyon guide, seeing all the tumbled boulders at the feet of cliffs, but never seeing a rockfall in all the years he was working that river.

Such a simple concept, and such a succinct way to explain the scale of Geological age.

 

[SimonDoom]

Not technically a horror novel but one of the most disturbing books you can find in its depiction of violence and depravity

Blood Meridian buy Corma McCarthy

The big bad Judge Holden is as evil of an entity as you'll find.

Part of me thought, "That is a great work of literature," and the other part thought, "What the fuck did I just read?"

He's very dark. A bit too much for me. But he's a genius with words.

I'm not surprised they've never figured out how to turn that book into a movie. It's too weird. But I recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind extreme violence and surrealism.

 

[MillieDynamite]

It's a long list, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus (1818 addition), The Last Man, The Mortal Immortal, all by Mary Shelly. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis (pronouced Louie like it should be) Stevenson, Dracula by Bram Stoker. And we're moving on, H. G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The War of the Worlds (1897), and The Invisible Man (1897). Again, we're moving on, Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870). Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884). Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Henry James' The Turn of the Screw (1898). W. W. Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw (1902), William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland (1908), Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera (1911), and H.P. Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space (1927).

And still moving on, Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men (1930), Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris (1933), and Robert E. Howard's Pigeons from Hell (1938). This era also includes Isaac Asimov's I, Robot (1950), George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), and Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles (1950).

Stopping to let my fingers and brain sync again. Yes, I've read every one of these.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm with you for the baroque cycle, I did eventually finish it but I think it took me like two years off and on some delightful passages and ideas, in need of a stricter editor

I enjoyed the characters, but I thought the ending was an anticlimax. A long climb for a short slide.

 

[onehitwanda]

I enjoyed the characters, but I thought the ending was an anticlimax. A long climb for a short slide.

A trial many women have to face.

WANDA NO

 

[MillieDynamite]

Only if they have men in their love lives.

A trial many women have to face.

WANDA NO

 

[AwkwardlySet]

A trial many women have to face.

WANDA NO

Damn it, how do you know my ex-es?