What are you reading in 2024?

[Ruin Explorer]

But I would say, more than favorite, perhaps, Imajica is an important book for me.

Yes exactly. Personally I'm not even fully sure why it means so much to me but it does.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I finished reading Gibson's Burning Chrome. Great stuff, and the short stories that venture beyond cyberpunk are just as memorable. The Ballardesque Gernsback Continuum and The Belonging Kind (with John Shirley) easily stand next to Burning Chrome, Dogfight, and Johnny Mnemonic.

Now I'm reading Hannes Bok's Beyond the Golden Stair. I don't like that there are spiders on the cover, but some authors are worth making an exception for.

I'm past the halfway point, but I'm excited to dig into the compilations of the Discworld ephemera, like Nanny Ogg's Cookbook, etc., after my run through. Those portions will be shorter, but they'll be new to me, which will be fun.

That is one good thing....Sir Terry was prolific.

Yes exactly. Personally I'm not even fully sure why it means so much to me but it does.

For me, it's a bunch of things. It was probably the first book I read that gave my LOTR feelings while still being entirely its own thing. It's the age at which I read it. The way it opened vistas and challenged established views (inasmuch as a teenager can have an established view). The depth of imagination on display.

 

[prabe]

Yes exactly. Personally I'm not even fully sure why it means so much to me but it does.

I should probably see if I can find a copy and reread it. I bounced off a lot of Barker, then I didn't--the turning point for me seems to have been The Thief of Always, after which even things I'd bounced off worked. It was like reading that little book unlocked Barker for me.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Question for fans of red wall. I was watching king fu panda 3 yesterday and I realized there haven’t been many series of books with anamorphic animals in them? Anyone know of any other than redwall (could be syfy etc) that are geared towards adults. Looking more for the weapon bearing/clothes as opposed to say water ship down type animals

Graphic Novel selections, in addition to Mouse Guard and Mice Templar
Usagi Yojimbo (don't see it on overgeeked's list, maybe it was pretty far down there)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - the comics, not the shows
Blacksaad
Wild's End
Also, while not for kids, the Disney comics are funny animal comics - Uncle Scrooge, Mickey Mouse, TaleSpin [edited to add: The Rescuers]

Novels not yet mentioned
There are uplifted animals (Gorillas, Chimps, Dogs, Dolphins) in the Uplift series of novels, although the novels don't really center the uplifted animals - they are more typically side characters
Wind in the Willows is for older kids and is a satisfying read for adults imho
Robert Lawson wrote or illustrated several anthro books: Rabbit Hill (more along the Watership Down angle); and then animals living in the human world: Ben and Me; Mr. Revere and I; I Discover Colombus

Also, you may find some interesting examples here:

Civilized Animal - TV Tropes

Civilized Animals exhibit some form of cultured, well-mannered behavior, but otherwise occupy their species's natural role in the ecosystem and (especially) the food chain. They generally display half the mannerisms of a civilized human character …

tvtropes.org

and here

Talking animals in fiction - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

For an RPG setting, you may like Historia. If for no other reason than the art is amazing (Italian RPG designers are legend for their art and design)

Historia - Mana Project Studio

Welcome to merciless Vesteria Historia is a Dark Fantasy Renaissance setting for the 5th Edition of the world’s greatest roleplaying game that introduce the setting of Vesteria, a merciless land, full of intrigues and populated by anthropomorphic animals. The characters will find themselves...

manaprojectstudio.com

 

[Nellisir]

I couldn't sleep last night, and read much of Cold Welcome, by Elizabeth Moon (of Paksenarrion fame). Finished it today (I wrote off today and just stayed home). I wasn't sure if I'd read it before, but I definitely have. It...was fine, I guess. I finished it (again). Very much the whole "genius out-of-box-thinking bootstrapped military commander forced into unfamiliar situation (but better than going to see family like planned haha) but has lots of lucky breaks and stumbles across Really Big Secrets" cliche. Nothing about it makes me want to read the first 5 Vatta books; I only want to read the sequel so I (maybe) find out about the Really Big Secret.

I probably would've been better off going back to the bedroom & grabbing a different book, but at least that one's off my "to-be-read" shelf and I won't be rebuying it again.

The Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy really is excellent though.

 

[prabe]

I couldn't sleep last night, and read much of Cold Welcome, by Elizabeth Moon (of Paksenarrion fame). Finished it today (I wrote off today and just stayed home). I wasn't sure if I'd read it before, but I definitely have. It...was fine, I guess. I finished it (again). Very much the whole "genius out-of-box-thinking bootstrapped military commander forced into unfamiliar situation (but better than going to see family like planned haha) but has lots of lucky breaks and stumbles across Really Big Secrets" cliche. Nothing about it makes me want to read the first 5 Vatta books; I only want to read the sequel so I (maybe) find out about the Really Big Secret.

I probably would've been better off going back to the bedroom & grabbing a different book, but at least that one's off my "to-be-read" shelf and I won't be rebuying it again.

The Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy really is excellent though.

In another lifetime, I contracted with GraphicAudio to adapt novels into scripts for them. I adapted that series. I wouldn't want to go read the earlier novels, either--though I will say they were quick, easy, and painless to adapt, unlike some of the other dross.

 

[prabe]

Unrelated to the above, the last three books: The Second Shooter by Nick Mamatas, a weird conspiracy thriller where the conspiracies are real and have magic, more than a little gonzo but an engaging read; All the Beautiful Sinners by Stephen Graham Jones, a vaguely deconstructed serial-killers-versus-profilers thriller, where the serial killers arguably at least don't lose, a novel that grabs even if it doesn't treat your disbelief-suspenders all that well; Kill Show by Daniel Sweren-Berger, a novel told in the form of the things the characters tell a single interviewer, an indictment of true crime as a genre and an interesting exercise in multiple variously unreliable narrators, if perhaps not so familiar with its real-world setting as it should be.

 

[wicked cool]

Graphic Novel selections, in addition to Mouse Guard and Mice Templar
Usagi Yojimbo (don't see it on overgeeked's list, maybe it was pretty far down there)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - the comics, not the shows
Blacksaad
Wild's End
Also, while not for kids, the Disney comics are funny animal comics - Uncle Scrooge, Mickey Mouse, TaleSpin [edited to add: The Rescuers]

Novels not yet mentioned
There are uplifted animals (Gorillas, Chimps, Dogs, Dolphins) in the Uplift series of novels, although the novels don't really center the uplifted animals - they are more typically side characters
Wind in the Willows is for older kids and is a satisfying read for adults imho
Robert Lawson wrote or illustrated several anthro books: Rabbit Hill (more along the Watership Down angle); and then animals living in the human world: Ben and Me; Mr. Revere and I; I Discover Colombus

Also, you may find some interesting examples here:

Civilized Animal - TV Tropes

Civilized Animals exhibit some form of cultured, well-mannered behavior, but otherwise occupy their species's natural role in the ecosystem and (especially) the food chain. They generally display half the mannerisms of a civilized human character …

tvtropes.org

and here

Talking animals in fiction - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

For an RPG setting, you may like Historia. If for no other reason than the art is amazing (Italian RPG designers are legend for their art and design)

Historia - Mana Project Studio

Welcome to merciless Vesteria Historia is a Dark Fantasy Renaissance setting for the 5th Edition of the world’s greatest roleplaying game that introduce the setting of Vesteria, a merciless land, full of intrigues and populated by anthropomorphic animals. The characters will find themselves...

manaprojectstudio.com

It’s funny but there’s video games and comics with mutant animals with guns etc and yet the book medium is empty of these stories. No mutant year zero type novels or burrows and badgers or gamma world/thundercat themes. Just suprising

 

[Nellisir]

In another lifetime, I contracted with GraphicAudio to adapt novels into scripts for them. I adapted that series. I wouldn't want to go read the earlier novels, either--though I will say they were quick, easy, and painless to adapt, unlike some of the other dross.

Yeah, they're just...not that interesting. Not bad, but not a lot of emotional involvement.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Its funny, I quite liked them, but then, I don't read all that much military SF (used to read the Honorverse books but fell away from that years and years ago now) so maybe they seemed fresher to me.