Thanks! There's a few on there I haven't read yet
Here are a few suggestions:
Eye of the Dragon - Stephen King (I could read it over and over again)
Songmaster - Orson Scott Card
Interview with a Vampire - Anne Rice (I'm not really in to vampires; I just LOVE her style of writing)
Acorna series - Anne McCaffrey
Dragonlance series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dragonlance_novels)
Thanks! There's a few on there I haven't read yet
Gidde's just zis girl, you know?
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Now, farbeit from me to list stuff that would take you from mapping, Gidde, but your initial list included a bunch of stuff I have enjoyed, so here's others I have liked. No guarantee that many of them will be out in audio. Though I guess that if you're partaking via audio, what I list is just reams more inspiration WHILE mapping?
* The Green and the Gray - atypical Timothy Zahn, but really really good. Then read everything else he has written - haven't found any I actively disliked. Well, I can't remember some of the Star Wars ones - after a while all Star Wars books started to blur together so I gave up the genre. Really good series of his include the Dragonback books, Cobra & Blackcollar books, I didn't get into the Conquerors set hugely, but some of my family rereads it every few years.
- China Mieville was mentioned - also read UnLunDun. Mine had some pix, so audio may not be best. Or wait - am I just remembering vivid imagery brought to life by the story? Hmmm.
- Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books. You say WHAT is underneath our feet? He also did something that was a young adult mystery if I'm not mistaken - it was a good read too. Benefit for QuantityHasItsOwnQuality (tm) readers - there's a *bunch* of Artemis Fowl.
- Speaking of a long list, try a Brian Jacques Redwall book on audio - I understand he has read some himself.
- Larry Niven - much of his catalog; I grew up reading his early stuff, so the Known Space setting is a favorite (bunches of books and short stories). The series he edits on the Man-Kzinn wars is fun. Way more recently his pair with Jerry Pournelle are good: The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand
- Speaking of that earlier era, have you sampled Poul Anderson? The Polesotechnic League stories (Nicholas van Rijn?)
- Gordon Dickson's Hoka books, and The Right to Arm Bears. The latter deserves a try based solely on the title, and it winds up being a delight.
- Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron's Gandalara Cycle - reread this two or three times
- Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth books, Flinx books (14 of them), Icerigger trilogy
* Everything Christopher Anvil wrote - many were tongue in cheek old SF that has held up well. The Steel, the Mist and the Blazing Sun is postapocalyptic USA (well, and world) with a different spin than most - that I reread every 5-10 years.
- I'll second (third?) a recommendation for SM Stirling's Dies the Fire series. Also his three Flight Engineer books were written with James Doohan, and are good. I didn't like his Draka series; a bit too harsh for my taste. The Peshawar Lancers is delightful - a book I wish there was a series of. What's this - there's a related short story; Shikari in Galveston - now I gotta find that!
- Paul O. Williams' Pelbar Cycle (7 of them!) is better in recollection as a far-post-apocalypse setting than, say, the Horseclans books (which I did enjoy in college) I seem to recall it needed more/ better maps :-).
- Robert Adams' Horseclans books had the benefit that if you liked them there wound up being eighteen of them :-).
- David Brin's The Postman. Skip the movie, read the book. I liked his Uplift series of SF more than some of his other work, though The Practice Effect was a good read.
- Hmmm - while I'm thinking postapocalyptic, Neville Shute's On the Beach was good. Again, the book, not the movie.
Enough of that genre. Stuff you may not have run across...
- Thomas J. Ryan's The Adolescence of P1 (sentient computer virus, anyone?)(you wind up rooting for the virus...)
- Fletcher Knebel's Dark Horse (now, WHY did the truck driver get elected president?)
- Harry Harrison - Bill, the Galactic Hero (cheerfully, intentionally pulp-story-awful stuff... I still buy them as labels on gifts to my brother Bill :-) ) . His Stainless Steel Rat series are honestly good reads (as opposed to guilty ones, like Bill... ).
- Bill Bryson - engaging travelogues
- Thor Heyerdahl' Kon-Tiki & Aku-Aku. Norwegian adventurer (one wonders if the Foglios' Girl Genius http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php Gentleman Adventurer! character Othar Tryggvassen might be just a little related. C'mon, balsa raft across the Pacific, secrets of the Easter Island statues - what's not to like? Well, besides the iffy science. Still are good reads. And he describes tunnel/caves the most jaded roleplay adventurer could get the willies about....)
- Sharyn McCrumb's various Appalachian mysteries - Rosewood Casket is good, the Songcatcher is even better.
- Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael medieval murder mysteries
- Zizou Corder's Lion Boy trilogy - why yes, of course he can understand cats - can't everyone?
- Philip Reeve's Larklight & Mortal Engines series. The former is, hmm, aetherpunk? The latter starts with mobile, ravenous cities and builds from there.
- Trenton Lee Stewart's Mysterious Benedict Society - plucky genius kids save the day - ones with setbacks, real character quirks and real hang-ups, not just comic-book cardboard cutouts.
- EE Doc Smith's Lensman series - golden age SF
- Lester Dent ("Kenneth Robeson")'s Doc Savage pulp novels. Face it, there were 181 of them - any ten might do you :-). But they were fun.
More mainstream - or at least more widely read :-)
- James Schmitz' various Telzey Amberdon books
- James Gurney's Dinotopia books (NOT for audio - simply the most lavishly imagined sentient dinosaur milieu ever)(he even does maps. Drop-dead gorgeous maps)
- Eric Flint - prize for best at letting others play in his sandbox - 1632 series, including spinoffs and fan-written additional material collected in short-story form. He's responsible for other goodness too - Belisarius, for example - alternate modern-Roman history.
- Jack Campbell - Lost Fleet Series - grand scope military SF - fair warning; not yet done :-).
- Same guy, writing as John G. Hemry, wrote the Judge Advocate General SF series - good stuff, and an angle not often covered among militiary SF writers
* CJ Cherryh - Chanur series, any of the Alliance/Union books (Downbelow Station won a Hugo - is that cred?)
- Have you read Weber's Safehold series? It manages to be medieval and SF both
- Lois McMaster Bujold's stuff is fun
- Travis Taylor's work is really rolicking hard SF. "Rocket City Rednecks" is sort of a schtick - he really IS an aerospace/electrical/optical engineer pilot scuba diver mountainbiking martial artist physicist. Not a Buckaroo Banzai, but almost.
- Andre Norton's catalog has much goodness; dozens...
And for a dollop of Map Inspiration Relativity - a bunch of those deserve way better maps than they got in print... if they had maps at all...
Wow thanks! What a great list! I have indeed read the safehold books (at least the first few) and I love Bujold. And yeah, as you inferred, I love listening to books while mapping
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Gidde's just zis girl, you know?
My finished maps | My deviantART gallery
My tutorials: Textured forests in GIMP, Hand-Drawn Mapping for the Artistically Challenged
One that I just read that was great fun is Jane Carver of Waar by Nathan Long. A send-up/satire/tribute to ERB's Barsoom books, and frankly much more fun, well-written and awesome than those books ever were. Only bad thing about is it's too darn short...
kudos jb, great list. This thread has some legs. For a sci-fi fix I like Iain M Banks culture books (Excession is my favorite)
A good fantasy fix could get filled by "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss.
Thanks to Gidde for the "Ready Player One" by Earnst Cline read by Will Wheaton --- That was Awesome!!
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