What are you reading -- for fun and inspiration?

[ichabod]

I don't know, as I appear to have wildly different tastes than every one else here, but I'd suggest Lois McMaster's Bujold first, both her sci-fi and her fantasy. Neil Stephenson's sci-fi as always. Sarah Zettel and Martha Wells have good stuff as well. Wells is excellent, although she has started a trilogy (never trust trilogies). Sarah Zettel is not awesome, but solid, and her latest fantasy work is some of the best stuff she's ever written. Robin Hobb is good, if spotty. Check out the assassin's trilogy.

 

[Barastrondo]

I just read Bridge of Birds, by Barry Hughart -- a great read. I'm going to have to get the sequels.

The sequels are long out of print, as I recall; but you can get a compilation of all three books. Since Kaja Foglio did the illustrations, you can pick it up from studiofoglio.com. Very, very good stuff. I second the recommendation; read Hughart! Mythic China was never so accessible.

I just got (contact) hooked on the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser books so bad he wound up hunting down the old TSR Lankhmar modules on amazon.com. If you haven't read those before, do so; Fritz Leiber had the remarkable position of being both a pulp sword & sorcery author and a wordsmith par excellence. There's a new paperback edition of some of the books; the cover art is pretty eh, but the contents are what counts.

As far as new stuff goes, I'd also put in a vote for Mieville's Perdido Street Station; you could build a frightening fantasy campaign out of that world, even if you go with the traditional dwarves and elves instead of khepri and vodyanoi and cactacae. Haven't read the new sequel (The Scar), but I plan to.

And Steven Brust has finally published the first part of the sequel to
The Phoenix Guards and Five Hundred Years After — Paths of the Dead. Some folks like the Vlad Taltos stuff better, but I loves me the Khaavren Chronicles; the language in them is like a long hot soak, luxurious and utterly relaxing. Fine stuff.

 

[apocalypstick]

I wish I could recommend Gibson's most recent book, Pattern Recognition, but it sucks.

The original "sprawl series" (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive) are still good.

I'm also partial to Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun.

 

[Maerdwyn]

We just moved, so I've been reading or re-reading books that had, until recently been stored away 'cause they wouldn't fit in our tiny condo. Some fo the gems:

I just finished Stephen King's The Stand, which I had somehow neglected until now. Thoroughly good summer read.

Before that, I read Asimov's I, Robot to my wife, who thoroughly enjoyed it.

I spent one afternoon with the Chronicles of Prydain, which have held up as a fantastic fantasy series despite the twenty-one year difference in my age since I was first introduced to Taran and the Horned King.

Gates of Fire, by Steven Pressfield is an absolute, no-question-about-it, must read for anyone interested in ancient warfare.

 

[Jeremy757]

I have been in the last year reading a lot of non fiction and in some cases have actually been inspired by it in game sort of way.

Case in point. I in past months read the book Days of the French Revolution. This gave me some ideas for my campaign which takes place in Turmish in the Forgotten Realms. I have loosely based Alaghon off of Paris, and with a plague currently going on just outside its gate the city is in quite a lot of turmoil and packed to the gills with refugees. This book gave me the idea for staging food riots, inventing political groups similar to the Paris Jacobians, plus I have modeled the Assembly of Stars on the Paris General Assembly.

 

[Dave Turner]

What am I reading? Nietzsche right now. Not sure if it's light reading, though. Then again, I think everyone should read philosophy in their spare time.

 

[LostWorldsMike]

I'll second (or is it third?) the vote for China Mieville! Perdido Street Station is fantastic, as is The Scar (which is only a "sequel" in the sense that it's set on the same world and has as its protagonist a character who knew one of the characters from Perdido). His book King Rat is good as well, but not nearly as rich as his already mentioned work.

Mary Gentle's fantasy is very good (she's written some SF, but I haven't read it). Particularly good are the Books of Ash, dealing with a female mercenary captain in an off kilter medieval Earth. Very good stuff about which I can't really say more without blowing cool plot points. Architecture of Desire, and Rats and Gargoyles are both very good also.

Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon is a great contemporary thriller/adventure - with a mathematical bent.

I just rediscovered Keith Laumer's Retief stories, and I love those to pieces.

And I recently reread Dune for the umpteenth time, and that's gotta be one of my top 5 all time favorite books.

Ah, fudge, I could go on about this for hours... but that'd take away from my already limited reading time.

 

[Larry Fitz]

A couple of unusual choices, which I'll explain.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer and The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev. These books give you great perspective on the conditions at high altitude, the importance of team work in a deadly environment, and how people can witness the same events and interpret them differently. They are also both engrossing reads that leave you unable to put them down.

Eyes of the Dragon by Peter Straub and Stephen King is also good gaming inspiration, and of course anything by Poe or Lovecraft (they are both great at painting an emotional canvas of terror).

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

I wish I could recommend Gibson's most recent book, Pattern Recognition, but it sucks.

Unfortunate. Gibson's one of my faves. Is this book going to part of a new series?

I find that historical and pseudo-historical fantasy and fiction in general (Cornwell, Kay, Howard, and, of course, Three Kingdoms) to be an influence on my games.

 

[haiiro]

Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon is a great contemporary thriller/adventure - with a mathematical bent.

See -- I knew I'd forget something. One of the best books ever.

If you like Stephenson, Snow Crash is also awesome, and Zodiac and Diamond Age are good as well.