I'm Fiending For A Good Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novel Series

Cal said:
I look around. Sometimes I follow authors and look for their works - for example I'm a huge fan of the late Michael Crichton and all of his works. Some I know from movies and I read before the movies such as the Hobbit (one example anyways), and some I just randomly find. I take suggestions every now and then - that's how I got introduced to Game of Thrones (I'd highly recommend this one btw). I'm on book 5 now, although I haven't started it since i haven't been able to go buy it yet. I read a lot though.
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I love Crichton's writing style but I lost interest after Timeline.
 
For Crichton I have on my shelf

  • Jurassic Park
  • The Lost World Jurassic Park
  • Disclosure
  • Next
  • The Andromeda Strain
  • Congo
  • Prey
  • A Case of Need (crichton's first novel under a pseudo alias named Jeffery Hudson)
  • Air Frame
  • Sphere
  • Disclosure
  • Pirate Latitudes
I would highly reccommend any of those EXCEPT Pirate Latitudes. They're all awesome.

Pirate Latitudes was Crichton's last novel before his death and he only got done a quarter of it before he died - granted that quarter of the book is great, but the guy who picked up the story to finish it for the publication company sucked really bad. I don't even think I finished it because it got so bad.

Anyways, I love books, I have several shelves full, so if you need a suggestion hit me up :)
 
Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is fantastic, David Eddings Belgariad and Mallorean are also classics, along with his Elenium and Tamuli series. Terry Brooks Shannara series (also very long and still ongoing) are also an excellent source of fantasy novels.
 
8thos said:
Beyond 4.... so in Book 5: Wolves of Calla, ain't that where he brought in Harry Potter's snitch as a killing tool? Yeah I can see where your coming from with that. lol

Just looked at wikipedia bout the Guardian of the Flame series. So the author passed away. The author of one of my favorite series passed away James Oliver Rigney, Jr. aka Robert Jordan passed away in 2007 and some dude is still making sequels out of his books. Do you think that would happen for Guardian of The Flame?

*looks up Mercedes Lackey, sees something interesting.

Stance on fanfiction

Despite getting her own start as a fan fiction author, she and her agent strongly forbade fanfiction based on her own books for many years, whether distributed offline or online. Lackey stated on her website[3] that this was due to the 1992 Marion Zimmer Bradley fan fiction affair, when a fan accused Bradley of copying the fan's work, and demanded writing credit and remuneration.[4] After several years, Lackey's policy permitted offline fanfic, but only if the author got a release form from Mercedes Lackey that said the author acknowledged that they were using characters that belong to Mercedes Lackey and that the author's work essentially became Mercedes Lackey's property to prevent "infringing on my right to make a living from my own imagination". As of 2009 this policy appears to have changed per the author's official website.

lol!!!
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Oh, don't get me wrong, she's silly as **** with quite a few things, but the books were great.

I very much doubt anyone will take up the Guardian of the Flame series, it just never got much public recognition, and certainly not as much as it deserved.
It was pretty well finished when he passed, I don't think anyone else could do much more with it than he did.
 
Azhria Lilu said:
Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is fantastic, David Eddings Belgariad and Mallorean are also classics, along with his Elenium and Tamuli series. Terry Brooks Shannara series (also very long and still ongoing) are also an excellent source of fantasy novels.
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Terry Goodkind's series started out great but he was inconsistent with the main character's powers (making him God-like in some books then depowering him in others) and the chainfire story arc was wack. I mean everything else was on point but I wish he only kept the chainfire story arc going for one novel. Pissed me off so much. Kahlan is such a wonderful character that I can only tolerate her being forgotten by everyone in only one novel. Yeah I read those David Eddings books. He's really good. The Redemption of Althalus is one of my favorite stand-alone novels too. I wasn't feeling The Dreamers series and lost interest after the first novel. Terry Brook is usually pretty dependable in providing great consistent work. Even so I don't like how quick he ended the Legends of Shannara series. Only two books? Really? How you gonna leave it at a cliffhanger like that? That was wack man. I've never seen him do that before. I thought, a lot of fans thought, that it was a trilogy. Anyway, his latest book is out, so I'll read that in a week or so. http://www.terrybrooks.net/novels/shannara-2/the-dark-legacy-of-shannara/wards-of-faerie/
 
I was fine with the chainfire story :) And I didn't find Richard's powers inconsistent - they actually made sense and balanced humanity and godlike nicely, giving him weaknesses. I didn't like the book in the middle that only had Richard and Kahlan right at the very end though - that should have been a separate book, away from the series. :D
 
DRE said:
I am picky in the sense that I only read books from author's I read when I was a teen, so as an adult I never actually looked for new authors or tried to spread my horizons etc. Because of this, I'm stuck to reading novel series by a small amount of authors who don't publish at regular intervals. I basically go through long periods of drought before I read another book.

How do you get into a new series? Do you just randomly pick up a book and start reading or what? or do you rely on suggestions from your friends or book reviews?
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I find so many books, just like movies, do not not stand up to the test of time. Reading titles again as an adult that I loved as a teen often leads to disappointment. And their authors often haven't improved much with time.

A few science fiction/fantasy series/authors you might want to check out now: anything by Lois Bujold or Robin Hobb, Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series, Kristine Katheryn Rusch's Retrieval Artist series, Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles (only two of them so far, but fat volumes), Mark Lawrence's Broken Kingdom books - well, I could go on, but there's a few to start you with. ;)





 
imno007 said:
I find so many books, just like movies, do not not stand up to the test of time. Reading titles again as an adult that I loved as a teen often leads to disappointment. And their authors often haven't improved much with time.

A few science fiction/fantasy series/authors you might want to check out now: anything by Lois Bujold or Robin Hobb, Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series, Kristine Katheryn Rusch's Retrieval Artist series, Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicles (only two of them so far, but fat volumes), Mark Lawrence's Broken Kingdom books - well, I could go on, but there's a few to start you with. ;)
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I read the first Malazan Book of the Fallen. It was good. I think I spoiled it by reading about all the other books in wikipedia though. :LOL:
 
imno007 said:
I find so many books, just like movies, do not not stand up to the test of time. Reading titles again as an adult that I loved as a teen often leads to disappointment. And their authors often haven't improved much with time.
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My old standby's (and I have read them untold times) are Isaac Asimov (Foundation Trilogy), Robert Heinlein (Lazarus Long, and several other books), Anne McCaffrey (Dragonriders of Pern), Douglas Adams (Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy), Frank Herbert (Dune), Arthur C. Clarke (Space Odyssey series), and (kinda childish but i STILL like them) Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars series.
I haven't gotten into any of the more recent stuff as I (even being retired) just don't have time to sit down and read a good book anymore.
 
A bit of an old school sci-fi geek like me eh @Tracy Perry?
I've got most if not all of Asimov's, Heinlein's and Frank Herbert's stuff.

Some more recent stuff which is worth looking at is Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy.
 
Kevin said:
Holy thread bump, Batman! :eek:

Since the time of our conversation about it Cool Sci-Fi has indeed migrated from vB to XF. http://xenforo.com/community/threads/cool-sci-fi.49700/

If the default style is a bit to pink for you, click on the style selector and use the Detroit Steel theme instead. :D
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Personally, I think something like a midnight blue, or even a sky blue, would be a better color choice, but I really like what you've done with the site. Very nice! :cool:
 
Brogan said:
A bit of an old school sci-fi geek like me eh @Tracy Perry?
I've got most if not all of Asimov's, Heinlein's and Frank Herbert's stuff.

Some more recent stuff which is worth looking at is Peter F. Hamilton's The Night's Dawn Trilogy.
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Yeah, I kick it old school! :p
I have most in paperback, numerous in hard back (those I normally don't read) and and then in the iPad. I'll have to check Hamilton out. I've been needing a fix of GOOD science fiction. I got laughed at about the Dragonriders of Pern when I first started reading it - but several of the kidders read the first one and got hooked themselves. :LOL:
 
imno007 said:
Personally, I think something like a midnight blue, or even a sky blue, would be a better color choice, but I really like what you've done with the site. Very nice! :cool:
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imno007, thanks! :) We were going for a a 50's diner feel with the default colors and the reactions to it have been mixed but more positive than negative.
 
Kevin said:
imno007, thanks! :) We were going for a a 50's diner feel with the default colors and the reactions to it have been mixed but more positive than negative.
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The pink is "too" pink for my taste. Most of the diners I remember from childhood (and they had been around for a while even then) were more red than pink (and the few pink were a much darker shade). The exception was the neon signs/tubes. If you could duplicate that a little closer you would have a hit. Overall tho' I like it.
 
Well, for "old school" there's my old staples: Michael Moorcock, Tanith Lee, Jack Campbell, Philip K. ****, Roger Zelazny, Gene Wolfe, etc. But I thought the OP was looking for some suggestions for newer stuff. ;)

Probably my favorite "new" Sci-Fi writer is Alastair Reynolds.
 
Kevin said:
imno007, thanks! :) We were going for a a 50's diner feel with the default colors and the reactions to it have been mixed but more positive than negative.
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Oh yeah, I get it. I actually do like the red, and if you ever decide to offer up anthing for sale there it supposedly makes people want to buy - according to the latest color science! - just saying that a blue or two might be good alternatives to let users choose from at some point. But again, it's very well done, and as the site owner I'd be pretty happy with it as it is. (y)
 
Tracy Perry said:
The pink is "too" pink for my taste. Most of the diners I remember from childhood (and they had been around for a while even then) were more red than pink (and the few pink were a much darker shade). The exception was the neon signs/tubes. If you could duplicate that a little closer you would have a hit. Overall tho' I like it.
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It's funny you mention the red as that came up in our some of our conversations with different people about what colors "50's diner" means to them. A lot of people answer with the neon blue/pink combination while the 2nd most popular answer was red, white, & black. The red/white/black scheme also happens to be the Coca-Cola colors that are used with a lot diners as well. Digging into the subject the neon blue/pink combination is a popular color scheme that people associate with the time period while in reality the red/white/black combination was more likely to have been actual colors in a diner during the actual time period.

After we were pretty far into the design process it also came up that the "1950's rock & roll diner" theme is mostly a US thing and some reactions from people around various parts of the world were funny. (I'll refrain from posting a running joke we had with it in public but if you're the really curious type PC me.) The "Detroit Steel" selection, with the red & grey/chrome styling, was born out of having an alternative.

You & @imno007 are making me think though that if we ever have some extra time to work on stuff, maybe a third choice of colors may be good. :)
 

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