re: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Recommendation & Discussion Thread

I'm assuming Regal gets killed in the 3rd one and that will give me enough closure to move on

Ya, I Kind of thought it was picking up at the end of Book 1. But they just sort of hit reset and started doing the same things again in Book 2 plus a whole of Fitz and Molly romantic angst

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Book 4 has definitely been my least favorite, but I understand that Book 5 is really good, supposedly.

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Book 4 is definitely the worst. That series peaks in book 3 to me.

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Now I've decided to reread David Eddings old series The Belgariad. Pawn of Prophecy, the 1st book, was the very first fantasy book I ever read. Finished rereading it last night and man its almost a different genre altogether from current fantasy books. Still its a quick and easy read with enough interesting stuff to make it worthwhile.

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Its really interesting to look back at how fantasy has progressed and developed. Really started obviously with LOTR, see some sword and sorcery and some solid fantasy epics come into play. It seems like the 90's are when you really started to see the epic world-building type series come into their own, along with some darker and more gruesome styles - clearly heavily influenced by ASOIAF. This dark and gritty focus seems to have sort of taken hold by the mid 2000's and really has been carried through still as what a lot of people are looking for.

I think that we may be seeing somewhat of another counter-movement creep up as some authors look to push back against everything being so dark, gruesome and rapey (for lack of a better word). Sanderson puts it well when he talks about his books and how he wants to deal with those themes, but you can sort of work around it in the writing (sort of how Robert Jordan did it as well). I also feel like after so many years of people saying they don't want the same old tropes, there is a group of people who still want some of the same tropes but just done in new and interesting ways as opposed to outright subversion and casts filled with moral ambiguity.

I just find it really interesting to be able to look back on the emergence and development of the sci fi / fantasy genre - I also really think that this is going to explode into hollywood here soon. We've already seen some of it with Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, LOTR, resurgence of Star Wars mania - but to me those are more proving concept and that people want these kind of stories with big production budgets. With a few more successes, I feel like this could sort of be the "hollywood theme" of the next decade or two - kind of like how superhero movies have been dominating for the past 20 years.

I think that is one reason why sci fi / fantasy is so great. Most genre fiction just is the tropes - spy novels, murder mystery, etc. all have pretty defined notes, which can be played with, but overall stay pretty similar. The sci fi / fantasy genre can mix those around and combine them in interesting ways, subvert them so there are a just a ton of different types of stories and it keeps evolving.

Finished 2nd farseer finally, didn't really enjoy that one as much as the 1st - just sort of dragged on for me with a mix of not a ton of action, not much going on setting wise and it just felt very much the same as book 1 almost like they could have been combined. I'll get to book 3 at some point, its not on libby and I don't want to pay for it so i'll probably check it out from the library at some point.


Started The Poppy War audiobook walking my dog this morning. Got through 3 or 4 chapters, kind of a typical YA introduction style at this point - but the world seems to be kind of dark, war torn country, drug use, etc. and i'm enjoying it thus far.

If you are talking Le Guin, yeah her stuff is pretty good. Though admittedly its been a while since I read it, so maybe it wont hold up as much I remember.

I started The Raveling series by Alec Hutson, still early in, but seems solid so far.

Nice, i've never heard of that series. I'll have to check it out.

I am finishing up the Gap Cycle and then have Riyria Revelations lined up next. Also just ordered Going Postal, will be my first Disc World novel and also my first Pratchett book other than Good Omens. Pretty excited, been meaning to try out some of Disc World for a while.

ETA: Just googled and saw that it is The Crimson Queen / Alec Hutson thing that has been recommended before, definitely need to get that one lined up soon, it has really solid scores on GoodReads

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am finishing up the Gap Cycle and then have Riyria Revelations lined up next. Also just ordered Going Postal

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How are you liking the last three of the Gap cycle?

Going Postal is great, seeing you post that one makes realize that I never read the last of the three books with that main character. That book is kinda far down the timeline though, you are skipping past a ton of Ankh Mopork storyline reading it first. It's just the side characters in this story though, probably not a huge deal.

Has anyone read "An Absolutely Remarkable Thing" by Hank Green and the second one "A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor"?

Near future sci fi type thing I just heard about - it has good reviews on goodreads.