Evening clarets.

Getting back into reading and coming to the end of 'American Gods' by Neil Gaiman shortly. Anyone got any good recommendations for my next read?

Sci Fi is my preferred genre.

Thanks!

Reading Titus Groan right now and it’s very well written.

First book of the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake.

Any good, Claretmatt?

I went old-school and re-read the original Asimov robot trilogy. You'd read a lot of books to beat that quality.

Never read those Rowls, but you've piqued my interest.

A few sci-fi

Children of time - Tchaikovsky, Adrian
Culture series - Iain Banks (I wasn't a huge fan of the first one but they improved)
Sea of Rust - Cargill, C. Robert (I thought this was really good)
Altered Carbon - Richard K Morgan
Neuromancer - Willam Gibson (and the rest of his too but this trilogy was my favourite)
Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits - David WOng (a bit lighter)
Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie

I've got 180 books on my kindle and the majority are sci-fi. It's a difficult genre to come up with a really good original book, I reckon 75% I wouldn't read again.

I've read most on your list aggi.

New guys...

Mark Hodder
China Mieveille

A vastly overlooked classic...
The New Sun Trilogy Gene Wolfe

The Greatest Books Ever Written...
The Aubrey Maturin series by Patrick O'Brien

Old Man's War trilogy are also great.

Agree (in the main) with Gene Wolf and Patrick O'Brien, I'll try and take a look at the other two.

I think Wolf died recently?

dougcollins wrote:Agree (in the main) with Gene Wolf and Patrick O'Brien, I'll try and take a look at the other two.

Start with Pedido Street Station by China Mieville, it'll blow your mind

Will do.

magician by raymond feist
another vote for the culture novels (banks) and the robot trilogy (asimov)
not sci-fi but 'in cold blood' by truman capote is the best book i've read recently.

i just couldn't get away with gormanghast. i read the first book and got part way through the second before giving up. i like things to happen in novels.

I'll give it a go, avoided it til now.

Shark in the park by Mark Watson

dougcollins wrote:Agree (in the main) with Gene Wolf and Patrick O'Brien, I'll try and take a look at the other two.

I think Wolf died recently?

Yes, that's how I discovered him, I'm on the third book and he's an incredible writer.

Damo wrote:Shark in the park by Mark Watson

You'll be pleased to know I finally got an editor to sort out the punctuation and it'll be perfect when I update it

yTib wrote:
i just couldn't get away with gormanghast. i read the first book and got part way through the second before giving up. i like things to happen in novels.

The third book is garbage, he wrote it when he had dementia.

yTib wrote:magician by raymond feist
another vote for the culture novels (banks) and the robot trilogy (asimov)
not sci-fi but 'in cold blood' by truman capote is the best book i've read recently.

i just couldn't get away with gormanghast. i read the first book and got part way through the second before giving up. i like things to happen in novels.

Have got most of the Raymond E Feist novels in paperback and some on Kindle

Claretmatt4 wrote:Evening clarets.

Getting back into reading and coming to the end of 'American Gods' by Neil Gaiman shortly. Anyone got any good recommendations for my next read?

Sci Fi is my preferred genre.

Thanks!

I've got "American Gods" sitting in my to read pile, but it looks a bit fat!!! (And I'm a bit of a slow reader!)

If you want something light and relatable. Pies and prejudice is pretty good reading. Especially he audio book. It’s about the north. And where it actually becomes the north. And our northern habits.

Claretmatt4 wrote:Evening clarets.

Getting back into reading and coming to the end of 'American Gods' by Neil Gaiman shortly. Anyone got any good recommendations for my next read?

Sci Fi is my preferred genre.

Thanks!

Respect to you CM4,I watched the tv series,hadn,t a clue what was happening, to understand it in a book is impressive .

dougcollins wrote:Never read those Rowls, but you've piqued my interest.

I’ve really just started but it’s fun. Set in a “fantasy” world but it doesn’t fit neatly into the genre of fantasy; there is, to my knowledge, no magic or sorcery or witchcraft.

It’s more like an alternative feudal universe. It’s a bit reminiscent of the kind of world(s) terry pratchet built.

I found the Gormenghast novels hard work, I got through the first but gave up at that point.

I really enjoyed Magician but found the other Raymond E Feist ones in the same world a bit average.

Brandon Sanderson is doing some really good fantasy novels at the moment. The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn ones in particular. Plus most of the stuff by Joe Abercrombie (more swords and sorcery).

I also enjoyed the Deathstalker series by Sion R Green for a bit of space opera.

Me and the wife are going further north for a few relaxing days in the highlands,just checked "Lord of Burnley" out on Amazon 6.99 for Kindle edition,anyone read it, anyone recommend it as a good read?

dougcollins wrote:I've got 180 books on my kindle and the majority are sci-fi. It's a difficult genre to come up with a really good original book, I reckon 75% I wouldn't read again.

I've read most on your list aggi.

So you read a genre that you don't seem to like? Why not try something else, you might be surprised.

Bosscat wrote:Have got most of the Raymond E Feist novels in paperback and some on Kindle

I liked the Daughter of the Empire and its sequels that he wrote with Jenny Wurtz.

Surprised Dune hasn’t been mentioned as a excellent series of books.

Not sci-fi obviously but I’m enjoying Crime and Punishment at the moment, once I’ve got my head round the Russian names.

andyh wrote:I liked the Daughter of the Empire and its sequels that he wrote with Jenny Wurtz.

Surprised Dune hasn’t been mentioned as a excellent series of books.

Not sci-fi obviously but I’m enjoying Crime and Punishment at the moment, once I’ve got my head round the Russian names.

Herberts original Dune book was brilliant but it got very laboured by the 3rd and 4th book in the series.....

Bosscat wrote:Herberts original Dune book was brilliant but it got very laboured by the 3rd and 4th book in the series.....

I agree. Certainly started well but didn’t get better. I thought the same about the Gormenghast books. I think Peake was going through some mental episode whilst he was writing the third one in that series.

I liked ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep’ too.

andyh wrote:I liked ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep’ too.

Philip K Dicks short story collections are ace and lets face it look at the number of Films they have inspired....

Total Recal
Minority Report
Adjustment Bureau
Blade Runner

Plus the "Electric Dreams" TV series

Must admit I thought Edge of Tomorrow (live die repeat) was one too untill I looked it up.....

Number9 dream by David Mitchell also Bone Clocks by the same author.Also afor a good biography Story Teller the life of Ronald Dahl an absolute fascinating read

Bosscat wrote:Herberts original Dune book was brilliant but it got very laboured by the 3rd and 4th book in the series.....

I liked the prequels much more than I liked the sequels.

There's only one book you need to read and that's the Bible.

ClaretAndJew wrote:There's only one book you need to read and that's the Bible.

But just the Old Testament stuff right?

Peter F Hamilton

Judas Unchained
Pandoras Star

If you like your Sci-fi, you'll love them

Just finished extremely loud and extremely dangerous by Jonathan Safran Feur. So different and brilliantly written. I then read here I am by him and was laughing out loud at some of it, then struggled to finish it.
Currently reading the shipping news by E Annie Proulx. Pulitzer prize winner in 94. Again it is really different and unlike anything I have read before but it is really gripping.
The other Pulitzer prize winner I recently read was Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtery. The first cowboy book I have read since Shane, and maybe the best book I have ever read.

Foulthrow wrote:But just the Old Testament stuff right?

Beat me to it m8

Steve1956 wrote:Respect to you CM4,I watched the tv series,hadn,t a clue what was happening, to understand it in a book is impressive .

The book was really well written. I deliberately avoided the series until now for that reason. It's a little 'out there' in terms of the idea but I got the gist... The ending was really good too, pushed it up from 7/10 to 8.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'll see what I can find and let you know how I get on!

girl with the dragon tattoo and rest of the trilogy

Just finished reading 'the psychopath test' by Jon Ronson. A real eye opener and very easy to read. Would recommend it!

I'm going to take the plunge on the Iain Banks Culture series next. I think it's ten books? Might be done by 2021!

Masham Ale wrote:girl with the dragon tattoo and rest of the trilogy

I found that difficult to read/enjoy at first but eventually I got going with it and read the rest of them pretty quickly.

Highly recommend them.

Just finished The North Water by Ian McGuire and it was superb.

andyh wrote:I liked the Daughter of the Empire and its sequels that he wrote with Jenny Wurtz.

Surprised Dune hasn’t been mentioned as a excellent series of books.

Not sci-fi obviously but I’m enjoying Crime and Punishment at the moment, once I’ve got my head round the Russian names.

New Dune film coming out soon, cant wait.

Another vote for Ian m Banks, my favourite books must of read them all 3 or 4 times each.

Recently re-visited War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Amazing story considering it was written in the 1890s.

Claretmatt4 wrote:Just finished reading 'the psychopath test' by Jon Ronson. A real eye opener and very easy to read. Would recommend it!

I'm going to take the plunge on the Iain Banks Culture series next. I think it's ten books? Might be done by 2021!

Start with "The Player of Games" and then do "Consider Phlebas"

Shore claret wrote:Another vote for Ian m Banks, my favourite books must of read them all 3 or 4 times each.

Such a shame he died relatively young as well, but I have to admit to not liking his later work as much as his earlier stuff

"The Hydrogen Sonata" I couldn't get my head around at all

Claretmatt4 wrote:Just finished reading 'the psychopath test' by Jon Ronson. A real eye opener and very easy to read. Would recommend it!

I'm going to take the plunge on the Iain Banks Culture series next. I think it's ten books? Might be done by 2021!

They're pretty discrete books. They're linked but they don't follow directly from one to another.

I'd also probably agree with leading off with "Player of Games"

The Malazan series by Stephen Erikson. Excellent

Absolutely not Sci Fi so maybe a bit OT, but the book I've most enjoyed in the past 2 years is "The Light Between Oceans" which is a somewhat unusual story to say the least, but really good. (The film, as often happens, doesn't do the book justice imo) I also very much enjoyed "The Immortalists" too and that's also very different.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll get started on the player of games first!