As I’ve said before, I don’t watch a lot of TV. Lost, BSG, Fringe, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Fringe,The Daily Show and Colbert are the extent of my shows. Lost and BSG are coming to a close. I don’t watch a lot of Colbert or the Daily show. Sarah Connor is probably getting canceled. This leaves the Doctor–new Doctor? Really?–and Fringe and lots of additional time.
What should I replace this free time with? What books should I replace this with?
I hear Sanctuary is good. Haven’t seen it myself. I really liked the book/series “Nightwatch” that came out some years ago – there was also a movie (but it wasn’t as good as the book series).
…it’s dangerous to ask me about books.
Off the top of my head, you might like Lois McMaster Bujold, especially the space-opera-ish Vorkosigan books. Twisty plots, interesting worlds, howlingly funny one-liners, and characterization that makes me turn green with envy. Good place to start is “The Warrior’s Apprentice”, which is an early book and shows, but is probably the simplest of the bunch. A better one would probably be “The Mountains of Mourning”, which is a novella in the collection “Borders of Infinity”. She’s also done an alternate history (mostly-Renaissance mostly-Spain) starting with “The Curse of Chalion”, and what I can only describe as, um, post-apocalyptic romance as written by Mark Twain. The first volume of which is up for free here while her publishers push #4.
Also, “Dogland” by Will Shetterly. Beautifully written magic realism, heavy on the realism unless you really know your mythology. Set in 1950s northern Florida, and has a special place in my heart for 1) dealing with racism more subtly than “magic negros vs. terrible horrible evil white people” and 2) having a walk-on role for a kuvasz. Nobody ever writes about kuvasz. Possibly because they can’t spell it.
Nonfiction, there’s “Becoming a Tiger” by Susan McCarthy, which is about animal cognition and learning. Informative and hilarious. “Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady” by Florence King is one of my favorite reads as well – she describes herself, accurately, as “slightly to the right of Attila the Hun”, but this is a politics-less autobiography.
S.M. Stirling’s good for over-the-top, B-movie adventure, some of which is actually turning out to be thoughtful and have foreshadowing and stuff these days. Not great literature by any means, but good popcorn books – “Dies the Fire” is a good start there. (In which Apocalypse Happens, and people deal. Out of the four main people-who-deal, one’s a die-hard Wiccan, two are die-hard Tolkien fanatics (OK, one of them just wants to be Sauron) and one of them is sane. Schlocky but hellaciously fun IMO, and some interesting stuff on rebuilding a society from the myth/culture standpoint as well as nuts-and-bolts.)
I did mention that this was dangerous, right?
Want the new Mike Carey?
We also need to get you started on Joe Abercrombie. I’ve read his standalone, Best Served Cold, and need to pick up the trilogy that preceded it, according to Reuben.
Someday, I need to get back into Steven Erickson’s Malazan: Book of the Fallen series. I devoured the first three, then something else big must have come out just as I started the fourth, because I don’t know why I’d have put it down. (A Feast for Crows, maybe?) Amazing world-building, a huge, sweeping history — millions of years, I think. The pantheon alone is incredible — houses based on a deck of cards — and the way the gods become gods is very cool (I can’t remember if it’s a spoiler or not to state how it happens, so, I say no more.)
Anyway. First book is Gardens of the Moon. If you do pick it up, let me know; if I’m getting back into the series I need to do a reread of the first three.
Hay Lauren. You go read Beguilement now, kk? Is linked in my comment, and I’m reasonably sure you’d like it. 🙂
Absolutely read Joe Abercrombie. The first book of the trilogy is The Blade Itself and it is fucking AWESOME.
I’m a big fan of R. Scott Bakker’s Prince of Nothing trilogy, but it’s hard to get into – really dense in terms of content and subject matter, and he’s absolutely brutal to his characters. If you want some weighty reading with AMAZING prose whoever, I recommend the first book, The Darkness That Comes Before.
I’m also supposed to recommend Richard K. Morgan’s Thirteen as near future good dystopian sci-fi.