Discuss/recommend recent fantasy/scifi books

Cafe Society
1

I’ve run out of books to read. So I figured I’d recommend some newish fantasy-scifi books that I’ve read recently, and then hopefully get some recommendations from y’all.

So, books I’ve read and enjoyed in the past year or two:

Red Rising by Pierce Brown. Space opera about a revolt in a class-dominated future society, lots of action and intrigue, and shades of Ender’s Game. Fun, not hugely substantial. It’s the first book of a trilogy, the second (Golden Son) just came out and is also good.

The Paratwa by Christopher Hintz. A trilogy about futuristic assassins where one brain controls two bodies. Again, action-y space opera, solidly entertaining, reasonably original. (I think this was actually written in the 90s.)

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett. A whodunit set in a very original and well thought out fantasy city in which the Gods are real. Or rather, they were real, but now they’re dead.

Lock In by John Scalzi. A whodunit in a near-future society in which a small but significant portion of the population is paralyzed and interacts entirely through virtual reality of various sorts.

Worm by WildBow. A web-published serial (now complete) about an awkward teenage girl gaining powers in a word of superheros. Starts out about what you would expect for a good but not professional bit of fiction, and then just keeps getting bigger and better. Plus it’s free!
Two ongoing series:
The Dagger and the Coin by Daniel Abraham. An epic fantasy series, currently 4 books, fits nicely into the modern era of series that subvert the cliches as much as they embrace them, has some original and memorable characters. Lots of politics and intrigue, some magic.

Lightbringer by Brent Weeks. Hugely ambitious and mostly successful series about politics, war, religion, card games, light, colors, intrigue and just about everything else you can imagine. Three books written so far, and they are getting continually better (but there is just so damn much going on it’s hard to keep track of it all).
And my two highest recommendations:
The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey. It’s a familiar genre story, but told in a fascinating and original way. To say more would be to give things away.

The Martian by Andy Weir. Near-future hard sci-fi about a NASA astronaut stranded on Mars all alone, and what he does. (Soon to be a major motion picture.)
And one special case:
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It’s fan fiction, but not like anything else that I’ve ever read (in fact, I almost never read fan fiction). Massive in scope and ambition, it’s part lecture about the importance of rational thought, part poking affectionate fun at the silliness of the Harry Potter universe, part discussion about the nature of good and evil and life and death, and part thrilling story full of mystery and action. The final story arc is being released right now, so if you start reading today you’ll be able to go straight through.

2

My favorite type of novel these days is one that is humorous but has some serious themes beneath the surface (think recent Terry Pratchett).

The best I’ve read recently include:

Shades of Grey by Jasper fforde. Not to be confused with anything else. It’s set in a world where one’s social standing is dependent on what colors you can see. It’s a bizarre dystopian society of strange rules (the manufacture of spoons is banned and your last name is a color) and where the color green has medicinal and even hallucinogenic effects. And it’s all science fiction – everything is logically explained at the end. The success of the other novel with a similar name has probably quashed any chance of a sequel, and fforde is now writing YA.

Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore. A gonzo alternate history about the French impressionists and especially the use of the color blue and about creativity and art. The hardcover has blue ink chapter headings plus color images of the paintings mentioned. It is ultimately science fiction, too. I’d also recommend anything else by Moore.

Chasing the Moon by A. Lee Martinez is a fantasy novel about a women who moves into an apartment only to discover a monster waiting to devour her. Martinez is badly underappreciated, but any of his books are fun (I found his science fiction books The Automatic Detective and Emperor Mollusk Versus The Sinister Brain weaker than his fantasy titles). Monster is probably his best.

The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach. Not exactly new, but this is probably the best science fiction novel of the past ten years (the book is older, but the US edition came out in 2005). It’s ultimately space opera, set in a galactic empire where the economy and society of a planet is based upon the manufacture of carpets made out of human hair. The men spend their lives making the carpets, using the hair from their wives and daughters, and train their sons to follow them. They produce one or two carpets a lifetime. And no one knows what happens to the carpets, or why they’re being made. Read the first chapter* and you’ll be absolutely hooked. The story is heartbreakingly good, but it is hard to find (Eschbach is German and despite good reviews, the book didn’t earn enough to justify the cost of translating others).

*which appeared as a standalone story in F&SF.

3

The Flora/Califa books by Ysabeau S. Wilce:

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Ysabeau_S._Wilce

4

I’m not usually a huge fan of humorous SF/Fantasy… so most of your suggestions are probably not my cup of tea, but I definitely agree with:

which is fantastic. Definitely would have made my list if I’d gone a bit further back in my Kindle history.