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Thread: Need something new to read

  1. #81

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    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)

  2. #82
    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    Thanks! There's a few on there I haven't read yet

  3. #83
    Guild Expert jbgibson's Avatar
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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...

  4. #84
    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    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


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  5. #85
    Administrator Facebook Connected Diamond's Avatar
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    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...

  6. #86
    Guild Journeyer maxsdaddy's Avatar
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    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.

  7. #87
    Community Leader Jaxilon's Avatar
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    Thanks to Gidde for the "Ready Player One" by Earnst Cline read by Will Wheaton --- That was Awesome!!
    “When it’s over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? If so, the score does not matter. But if you find that you did your best you were capable of, you will find it to your liking.” -John Wooden

    * Rivengard * My Finished Maps * My Challenge Maps * My deviantArt

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