Hey Dopers! I am a reading fool and seriously need a new series or author to follow. I would like to hear some suggestions, please, so have listed some of the stuff (in some cases drivel) that I like to read. (Please don’t be too mean, I have very simple tastes and read for escapism.)
I like Stephen King and Dean Koontz, but am not really in the mood for horror right now. Just finished Under the Dome, and that was enough for the moment.
Raymond Feist: Riftwar, SerpentWar, and all those series - freaking loved 'em. Anything along these lines would be super!
Mercedes Lackey is a delightful writer IMHO. Loved the Valdemar series.
Anne McCaffery - loved Dragonriders, and a couple of her other series, though they are a touch old now.
I did like the Harry Potter books, interesting, moved along and a pleasant way to escape the real world.
I have not named everything I have read, just some big themes to make it easier to make suggestions.
So let’s hear it! What good books / authors am I missing?
Do you have a problem with historical novels? If not how about Patrick O’Brien’s Aubrey & Maturin novels. Brilliant and lots of them. Not the same as the ones you list but I like many of those AND I like O’Brien.
I’ll give it a shot! I am totally tapped out - have read everything in the house, and its cold in Iowa, so I don’t anticipate doing anything outside for a couple of months!
For sf, there’s John Scalzi’s great Old Man’s War series, set in a distant future with humanity fighting various alien races to settle habitable worlds. Funny, smart, with great action. If you liked Heinlein’s Starship Troopers or Haldeman’s The Forever War, you’ll love this.
For fantasy, I highly recommend George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, which is about a globe-spanning dynastic war on a world slipping into a long winter. A great mix of action, adventure, court intrigue, moral dilemmas, dragons, zombies and magic.
Terry Pratchett. If the “Discworld” series seems like an awful lot to take on, start with a couple stand-alones and see what you think. I suggest The Bromeliad Trilogy and Wee Free Men.
The twelfth is planned and coming out this year, I believe. This is what I came in to recommend, too. His Codex Alera series also got a thumbs-up by a friend of mine, too.
Oh lord no! Never read these, ever! The series will never be finished, so you will invest days and days and days of time, all for naught. Read Martin’s other work, because he is a great writer, but avoid **Ice and Fire **like the plague.
The above warning is void if he ever finishes the series. Or hell, finishes the next fucking book!
The Garret series by Glen Cook; a private eye in a fantasy world. Sweet Silver Blues is the first.
The Spellsong Cycle by L.E. Modesitt Jr; a trained singer of our world is yanked into another where song makes magic; she rather regrets ever thinking “I’d rather be anywhere than Ames, Iowa!”; the magic required the target be willing, see … Lots of intrigue, war, mass destruction. First book is The Soprano Sorceress.
The Chronicles of the Kencyrath by P.C. Hodgell; first book is God Stalk. Hard to describe without spoilers because the main character starts out amnesiac. She’s a member of a monotheistic race, reshaped and then abandoned by their god who finds herself in Tai-Tastigon, City of a Thousand Gods.
The Young Wizards series by Diane Duane; a magic-in-the-real-world series chronicling the struggles of , well, young wizards against the Lone Power, creator of entropy. The younger a wizard is, the stronger they are; which is why they are so prominent in the struggle. Wizardry can get pretty high powered compared to most versions; feats include everything from yanking iron out of the core of a dying star billions of years in the past, to a plot to stop time over a region of many lightyears. First book is *So You Want to be a Wizard? *
The Keeper’s Chronicles by Tanya Huff. A funny series involving a Keeper named Claire, someone who prevents the supernatural forces of evil from breaking though into the normal world.
Another for Jim Butcher. I LOVE the Dresden books. MrRancher loves the Furies books (by him) but I’ve only read the first one so far.
I really loved the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Especially Wizard’s First Rule. The other books did tend to get more preachy and longwinded, but the first few were epic.
I really like all of Simon R Green’s books and Brent Weeks.
Also the Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson.
I suppose that’s enough for now - I should just friend you on GoodReads and you can see all my books there
