Generally light fantasy. Magic, magical creatures, adventures and an epic battle here and there. Recently I’ve been focussing on series with badass female protagonists with the usual magical powers and monster fighting tendencies.
I cannot claim sophistication is as much as I’m not enthralled by books that centre on intricately detailed political intrigues.
Another set of books you might want to look into: The “Young Wizards” series by Diane Duane. It’s technically “young adult” fiction; I read a compilation of the first three books a long time ago and enjoyed it. I don’t know how strongly to recommend them because I read them years ago, but it might be something you’d like.
Young adult fiction. That stuff is relaxing. I’ll take a look.You can’t go wrong with wizards. (Even if Nicholas Cage gave it a damn good shot recently. Or at least his co-star did.)
She also has a couple of books set in the same universe as the Young Wizards with cat wizard protagonists. It’s got more technical gobbledygook but it’s the same fluffy goodness underneath. Oh and the focus s less on redeeming the universe over and over again and more about business as usual, assuming that business involves dinosaurs and travel to alternate timelines and stuff :)
I find complex political intrigue hard to follow myself. I don’t know whether liking it is a measure of sophistication.
You might like T A Pratt’s Marla Mason novels. They’re a mix of humor and horror, and intelligent. The battles are quite dramatic.
I’ve liked the most recent two Pratchett novels Unseen Academicals and I Shall Wear Midnight.
What’s frustrating is that I recently read some urban fantasy/paranormal romance which had a small unit battle rather than individual combat, but I can’t remember what it was. It might have been Skinwalker by Faith Hunter, but even if not, it’s a pretty good book.
I’ve liked the most recent two Pratchett novels Unseen Academicals and I Shall Wear Midnight.
Unseen Academicals was great, I haven’t read I Shall Wear Midnight yet. I’ve been half hearted about the Tiffany Aching since I lost my respect for the Feegles. The Kender got insecure and forbade the Feegles from protecting or assisting their most important Ally (Tiffany) and the Feegles obeyed. They went from being hilarious tough little faerie guys to a bunch of cowards enthralled by a corrupt power structure. There are a few things more dangerous than an insecure person with power and deference to such people out of respect rather than practical necessity is something I hold in contempt.
Of course, I will no doubt love Midnight when I read it. I’m also hoping Practchett gets around to a third Von Lipvig book. Vetinari was hinting about taxes.
From my point of view, it was a huge improvement to not have the Fleegles talking as much as in the previous books. I was getting really bored with their being stupid at each other. They’re still strong, still chaotic and enthusiastic, and really good as a foil to Tiffany’s seriousness.
I wasn’t tracking the angle that’s bothering you, but the witches did seem bizarrely helpless for a good bit of the book against a rising tide of anti-witch prejudice.
One thing both books had in common was that there was serious prejudice against characters who were committed to harmlessness and extraordinarily useful. It’s a way of saying that prejudice is bad, but I think there’s a falseness to it.
Most people are somewhat useful and relatively harmless [1], but I wonder what would happen if people said, “Everyone’s a public hazard—me, you, any people you’ve got prejudices against. We need to figure out how to live decently (find as many positive sum transactions as possible) together anyway.”
[1] I believe that if the majority of people weren’t doing more good than harm, the human race would have been taken down by entropy.
Agreed, I would also recommend her Nightfall books.
Just for the love of Bayes don’t look at any of the other ones, especially the new ones unless you like characters bursting into tears every five pages.
Ok, that’s the first wikipedia page on someone that looks like it was written for OkCupid:
Mickey Zucker Reichert is a pediatrician, parent to multitudes (at least it seems like that many), bird wrangler, goat roper, dog trainer, cat herder, horse rider, and fish feeder who has learned (the hard way) not to let macaws remove contact lenses. Also she is the author of twenty-two novels (including the “Renshai”, “Nightfall”, “Barakhai” and “Bifrost” series), one illustrated novella, and fifty-plus short stories. Mickey’s age is a mathematically guarded secret: the square root of 8649 minus the hypotenuse of an isosceles right triangle with a side length of 33.941126.Mickey’s claim to fame is that she has performed brain surgery and my parents really are rocket scientists.She has a heart of warm oatmeal for anything living, and cannot seem to say “no” to helping them. She (and her husband) have been foster and adoptive parents not only to children but also to every animal from mice to horses, including some of the weirder ones like large snakes, llamas, exotic parrots, a squirrel, opossums, foxes, pigs, lizards, hermit crabs, peacocks, turkeys, guineas, finches, songbirds, and even rats. They have drawn the line at elephants, although they did once have a Newfoundland and a Bernese Mountain dog. Most of their animals have come to them as finds, strays, and castoffs.
I’ve wondered about Jacqueline Carey. The Kushiel books seem, well, hard. I’m not sure how much I could empathise with a character whose defining feature is that she takes sexual pleasure in pain, even to the extreme. Yet they do seem to come with some strong recommendations. Eliezer, no less! I expect I’ll have to read her eventually just to see what the fuss is about.
And, of course, if you’ve never read any Terry Pratchett, you need to fix that.
Haha. That would be tantamount to sacrilege! Probably my favourite author. Although in a sense his books seem to fall into a qualitatively different category. They are just different enough in nature that they don’t occur to me when I’m considering fantasy stories except as an afterthought.
I gave up on the Kushiel books because the world-building had defects that got on my nerves, in one case unfairly. IIRC, they do have a lot of political intrigue.
The world-building issues were that Kushiel is a very rare and valuable sort of person, and this is marked by something (a red dart?) in one of her eyes. I find it impossible to believe that everyone would have forgotten about the type of person and the marker, though perhaps I’m applying unduly modern standards.
The thing which was definitely unfair was being annoyed that Kushiel doesn’t make sense as a masochist. Masochists have very definite preferences for the sort of pain they want, and Kushiel doesn’t. I’ve since been told that she’s a sub, not a masochist.
The world-building issues were that Kushiel is a very rare and valuable sort of person, and this is marked by something (a red dart?) in one of her eyes. I find it impossible to believe that everyone would have forgotten about the type of person and the marker, though perhaps I’m applying unduly modern standards.
I don’t get what you mean: there was actually a poem handed down through the ages to describe the mark. I only remember the last line, “pricks the eye of chosen mortals”; the other lines were about Kushiel and something about rod and weal and portals. Anyway, it wasn’t forgotten, it just wasn’t widely known.
The thing which was definitely unfair was being annoyed that Kushiel doesn’t make sense as a masochist. Masochists have very definite preferences for the sort of pain they want, and Kushiel doesn’t.
Kushiel was the Terre D’ange god of redemption through punishment; if you’re talking about the main character of the Kushiel’s Dart series, that would be Phèdre.
The point of the dart-mark in her eye was that she was blessed by Kushiel with essentially the ability to turn any pain into pleasure. She’s not a normal human masochist, like the adepts of Valerian House, but rather an anguisette—something that doesn’t exist in real humans, so far as we know.
(For the most part, however, the character is written as a realistic human with strong masochistic and submissive desires, and only a few pivotal scenes in the novels actually require her to have pain-transforming abilities beyond those that a human could achieve with sufficient warmup. In truth, her gift seems to be the ability to instantly transform pain levels that human masochists have to “warm up” for with lesser quantities of the same type of pain.)
Anyway, the Kushiel’s Legacy series is set in a parallel world to ours where gods and magic exist, so it doesn’t seem especially egregious to have a character here or there with a supernatural talent, especially the main character.
Her earlier works are quite good—very character driven. The morality is very black and white though, so you may not enjoy her universe if you didn’t get into them when you were young. Oh and stay away from the later ones, her characters have gradually gotten more and more Mary Sue-ish.
Her earlier works are quite good—very character driven. The morality is very black and white though, so you may not enjoy her universe if you didn’t get into them when you were young.
Thanks. I’ll take a look. I don’t necessarily mind black and white—up until the black and white presented is wrong (typically either enforcing naivety or valuing authority over justice). I have been known to go from loving a series to being completely disinterested in reading any further when I encounter a particularly intrusive objectionable goal or value in the protagonist. If a counterfactual me in the fictional world would not choose to aid the protagonist then the actual me has no vested interest in what happens to them either.
The naivety could be a problem, it’s been too long for me to remember though. Based on your preferences here I would probably recommend Trudi Canavan over Mercedes Lackey for stronger female protagonist and more ass-kickery.
Based on your preferences here I would probably recommend Trudi Canavan over Mercedes Lackey for stronger female protagonist and more ass-kickery.
I’ve read (and liked!) the Black Magician trilogy. I’ve just looked up Trudi and noticed that as well as having a whole other series out there she lives not just in my country, or even my city. She lives in my very suburb. I expect geographical loyalty will make the series that much more enjoyable. :)
I should note that I don’t actually mind male ass-kicking either, just with the former stipulations regarding naivety. The Eregion books, for example, were borderline. I cut them some slack because the author himself was a child. An awful lot of an author seeps through into their books.
I don’t think the morality should be particularly objectionable. It’s “black and white” because the heroes tend to be nice people and the villains are almost invariably dog-raping monsters.
I found Mercedes Lackey to be fun to read, but not particularly deep or profound; they seem to have a bit of the romance novel in them. If you have some free time and want some feel-good entertainment, they’re fine, but don’t expect anything amazing; Mercedes Lackey is no Jacqueline Carey.
Oh? Should I read them? I’ve been looking for new authors.
It’s also sounds really cute. Perhaps I’ve forever been biased by the first fantasy books that I read in my formative years...
What sort of fiction are you looking for?
Generally light fantasy. Magic, magical creatures, adventures and an epic battle here and there. Recently I’ve been focussing on series with badass female protagonists with the usual magical powers and monster fighting tendencies.
I cannot claim sophistication is as much as I’m not enthralled by books that centre on intricately detailed political intrigues.
Another set of books you might want to look into: The “Young Wizards” series by Diane Duane. It’s technically “young adult” fiction; I read a compilation of the first three books a long time ago and enjoyed it. I don’t know how strongly to recommend them because I read them years ago, but it might be something you’d like.
Young adult fiction. That stuff is relaxing. I’ll take a look.You can’t go wrong with wizards. (Even if Nicholas Cage gave it a damn good shot recently. Or at least his co-star did.)
Duane is especially good about the universe being full of interesting things and the pleasures of being intelligent.
I’d say that the series started losing narrative drive long about book four or so—too many subplots, perhaps. However the first few are excellent.
And you might want to try out her Door into Fire series, too. (Adult fiction, more magic.)
She also has a couple of books set in the same universe as the Young Wizards with cat wizard protagonists. It’s got more technical gobbledygook but it’s the same fluffy goodness underneath. Oh and the focus s less on redeeming the universe over and over again and more about business as usual, assuming that business involves dinosaurs and travel to alternate timelines and stuff :)
I find complex political intrigue hard to follow myself. I don’t know whether liking it is a measure of sophistication.
You might like T A Pratt’s Marla Mason novels. They’re a mix of humor and horror, and intelligent. The battles are quite dramatic.
I’ve liked the most recent two Pratchett novels Unseen Academicals and I Shall Wear Midnight.
What’s frustrating is that I recently read some urban fantasy/paranormal romance which had a small unit battle rather than individual combat, but I can’t remember what it was. It might have been Skinwalker by Faith Hunter, but even if not, it’s a pretty good book.
I’m pretty sure that the book with the small unit battle was Black Blade Blues by J. A. Pitts, which is a pretty good book in general.
Thanks. These recommendations should keep me going for a good while!
Unseen Academicals was great, I haven’t read I Shall Wear Midnight yet. I’ve been half hearted about the Tiffany Aching since I lost my respect for the Feegles. The Kender got insecure and forbade the Feegles from protecting or assisting their most important Ally (Tiffany) and the Feegles obeyed. They went from being hilarious tough little faerie guys to a bunch of cowards enthralled by a corrupt power structure. There are a few things more dangerous than an insecure person with power and deference to such people out of respect rather than practical necessity is something I hold in contempt.
Of course, I will no doubt love Midnight when I read it. I’m also hoping Practchett gets around to a third Von Lipvig book. Vetinari was hinting about taxes.
From my point of view, it was a huge improvement to not have the Fleegles talking as much as in the previous books. I was getting really bored with their being stupid at each other. They’re still strong, still chaotic and enthusiastic, and really good as a foil to Tiffany’s seriousness.
I wasn’t tracking the angle that’s bothering you, but the witches did seem bizarrely helpless for a good bit of the book against a rising tide of anti-witch prejudice.
One thing both books had in common was that there was serious prejudice against characters who were committed to harmlessness and extraordinarily useful. It’s a way of saying that prejudice is bad, but I think there’s a falseness to it.
Most people are somewhat useful and relatively harmless [1], but I wonder what would happen if people said, “Everyone’s a public hazard—me, you, any people you’ve got prejudices against. We need to figure out how to live decently (find as many positive sum transactions as possible) together anyway.”
[1] I believe that if the majority of people weren’t doing more good than harm, the human race would have been taken down by entropy.
The Fleegles present a difficult problem in plotting. They’re extremely strong and numerous, and there’s no way to keep them from showing up.
How does the author restrain them enough so that the bad guys have a chance to build drama?
Unfortunately, in a way that breaks the story for me this time. :)
Actually, there’s another set of books that I should have remembered some time ago: Mickey Zucker Reichert’s Renshai series.
Agreed, I would also recommend her Nightfall books. Just for the love of Bayes don’t look at any of the other ones, especially the new ones unless you like characters bursting into tears every five pages.
Ok, that’s the first wikipedia page on someone that looks like it was written for OkCupid:
That’s probably copy/pasted from an author bio on a book jacket.
May I recommend Jacqueline Carey? I don’t know if her writing is quite what you’d like, but it’s some amazing stuff. (Eliezer is a fan too!)
And, of course, if you’ve never read any Terry Pratchett, you need to fix that.
I’ve wondered about Jacqueline Carey. The Kushiel books seem, well, hard. I’m not sure how much I could empathise with a character whose defining feature is that she takes sexual pleasure in pain, even to the extreme. Yet they do seem to come with some strong recommendations. Eliezer, no less! I expect I’ll have to read her eventually just to see what the fuss is about.
Haha. That would be tantamount to sacrilege! Probably my favourite author. Although in a sense his books seem to fall into a qualitatively different category. They are just different enough in nature that they don’t occur to me when I’m considering fantasy stories except as an afterthought.
I gave up on the Kushiel books because the world-building had defects that got on my nerves, in one case unfairly. IIRC, they do have a lot of political intrigue.
The world-building issues were that Kushiel is a very rare and valuable sort of person, and this is marked by something (a red dart?) in one of her eyes. I find it impossible to believe that everyone would have forgotten about the type of person and the marker, though perhaps I’m applying unduly modern standards.
The thing which was definitely unfair was being annoyed that Kushiel doesn’t make sense as a masochist. Masochists have very definite preferences for the sort of pain they want, and Kushiel doesn’t. I’ve since been told that she’s a sub, not a masochist.
I don’t get what you mean: there was actually a poem handed down through the ages to describe the mark. I only remember the last line, “pricks the eye of chosen mortals”; the other lines were about Kushiel and something about rod and weal and portals. Anyway, it wasn’t forgotten, it just wasn’t widely known.
Kushiel was the Terre D’ange god of redemption through punishment; if you’re talking about the main character of the Kushiel’s Dart series, that would be Phèdre.
The point of the dart-mark in her eye was that she was blessed by Kushiel with essentially the ability to turn any pain into pleasure. She’s not a normal human masochist, like the adepts of Valerian House, but rather an anguisette—something that doesn’t exist in real humans, so far as we know.
(For the most part, however, the character is written as a realistic human with strong masochistic and submissive desires, and only a few pivotal scenes in the novels actually require her to have pain-transforming abilities beyond those that a human could achieve with sufficient warmup. In truth, her gift seems to be the ability to instantly transform pain levels that human masochists have to “warm up” for with lesser quantities of the same type of pain.)
Anyway, the Kushiel’s Legacy series is set in a parallel world to ours where gods and magic exist, so it doesn’t seem especially egregious to have a character here or there with a supernatural talent, especially the main character.
Her earlier works are quite good—very character driven. The morality is very black and white though, so you may not enjoy her universe if you didn’t get into them when you were young. Oh and stay away from the later ones, her characters have gradually gotten more and more Mary Sue-ish.
Thanks. I’ll take a look. I don’t necessarily mind black and white—up until the black and white presented is wrong (typically either enforcing naivety or valuing authority over justice). I have been known to go from loving a series to being completely disinterested in reading any further when I encounter a particularly intrusive objectionable goal or value in the protagonist. If a counterfactual me in the fictional world would not choose to aid the protagonist then the actual me has no vested interest in what happens to them either.
The naivety could be a problem, it’s been too long for me to remember though. Based on your preferences here I would probably recommend Trudi Canavan over Mercedes Lackey for stronger female protagonist and more ass-kickery.
I’ve read (and liked!) the Black Magician trilogy. I’ve just looked up Trudi and noticed that as well as having a whole other series out there she lives not just in my country, or even my city. She lives in my very suburb. I expect geographical loyalty will make the series that much more enjoyable. :)
I should note that I don’t actually mind male ass-kicking either, just with the former stipulations regarding naivety. The Eregion books, for example, were borderline. I cut them some slack because the author himself was a child. An awful lot of an author seeps through into their books.
I don’t think the morality should be particularly objectionable. It’s “black and white” because the heroes tend to be nice people and the villains are almost invariably dog-raping monsters.
I found Mercedes Lackey to be fun to read, but not particularly deep or profound; they seem to have a bit of the romance novel in them. If you have some free time and want some feel-good entertainment, they’re fine, but don’t expect anything amazing; Mercedes Lackey is no Jacqueline Carey.
Worse than Louise Lawrence? I don’t think I can take something more moralising than that.