What are you reading in 2023?

[Ryujin]

Same. It's quite shocking to me the stuff that I didn't clock back in the day. But hey, we grow as people as we get older, if we're lucky. The dialog back then over racism in fantasy was very different, too.

Small surprise there. HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard were pen pals. Howard also wrote stories based in the Great Old Ones universe.

 

[Zaukrie]

I don't really care, as long as it's good. I find most fantasy to be basically YA fiction - it often relies on predictable tropes and thin characterization with little moral complexity. For example, I just tried to read Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind and couldn't make it past the first hundred pages.

I have enjoyed Tolkien because his world building and story scope are amazing, even if his prose is not. Some Terry Pratchett. George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire books are great. Ursula K. LeGuin.

Lies of Locke Lamora....

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I don't really care, as long as it's good. I find most fantasy to be basically YA fiction - it often relies on predictable tropes and thin characterization with little moral complexity. For example, I just tried to read Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind and couldn't make it past the first hundred pages.

I have enjoyed Tolkien because his world building and story scope are amazing, even if his prose is not. Some Terry Pratchett. George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire books are great. Ursula K. LeGuin.

If you don't mind alternate histories with fantasy elements, I'd recommend The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford and The Drawing of the Dark,  Declare, and Last Call by Tim Powers.

For more standard fantasy, if you like world building, The Malazan Book of the Fallen is excellent, though the quality of prose and characterization can be variable. Maybe the  Lyonesse trilogy by Jack Vance would be interesting here, too. The writing's excellent.

Finally, have you read the Latro books by Gene Wolfe?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't really care, as long as it's good. I find most fantasy to be basically YA fiction - it often relies on predictable tropes and thin characterization with little moral complexity. For example, I just tried to read Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind and couldn't make it past the first hundred pages.

I have enjoyed Tolkien because his world building and story scope are amazing, even if his prose is not. Some Terry Pratchett. George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire books are great. Ursula K. LeGuin.

A lot of folks find the book to be a heavy lift, but I really like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which is Napoleonic era English magicians in a world where magic is once known to have existed but is believed to have died out. It is written like a 19th century novel and is pretty dense, so plenty of people find it a turn-off. I loved it, though.

The same author has a much shorter unconnected novel I loved, Parinesi, that you should avoid reading spoilers for. Just know that it's about someone living in a place that appears to be an endless series of cisterns, some full of water, some not, that appears to be the whole universe. It's a bit of a mystery for a while but then unfolds pretty satisfyingly and is a light homage to a classic fantasy novel you have probably read and enjoyed.

Both are definite books for grown-ups.

And there's always whatever Neil Gaiman books you haven't read. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is probably a fantasy novel, but it's really about growing up, getting older and how we come to terms with our childhoods.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Just finished Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch. It is book 2 in the Rivers of London series. It starts slow. The writing has improved though since the first book. Here the protagonist is investigating the death of a jazz musician.

I prefer the writing from Dresden Files or The Laundy Files though. Might get the next book later though.

Agree with all points. I'll read the 3rd in the series, and if it doesn't super excite me, I think I'm done with the series

Working my way through the LitRPG books "He Who Fights With Monsters" and they are darn good. I listen to the audio books on my daily walk.

Funny, just this weekend the young adult who attended our BBQ was reading this and literally laughing out loud at some parts

Some of them literally are comic books. With pictures! I quite enjoy the entire series, though in a similar vein Charles Stross's Laundry series edges them out for me.

My favourite ongoing series right now is Martha Wells' Murderbot series.

Murderbot is most excellent. I'm looking forward to Witch King once I get around to it. I guess it came out... yesterday!

Witch King

A story of power and friendship, of trust and betrayal,…

www.goodreads.com

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Small surprise there. HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard were pen pals. Howard also wrote stories based in the Great Old Ones universe.

That they were. Lovecraft's racism was too much even for REH, but that doesn't erase the red in his own ledger. A lot of the major pulp authors wrote each other. One wonders if they would've just had a Discord server, had they been writing today.

Lies of Locke Lamora....

Good call. That is a great read. And heck, like ASOIAF, the Gentlemen Bastards series is also unfinished.

A lot of folks find the book to be a heavy lift, but I really like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which is Napoleonic era English magicians in a world where magic is once known to have existed but is believed to have died out. It is written like a 19th century novel and is pretty dense, so plenty of people find it a turn-off. I loved it, though.

"Heavy lift" works on multiple levels. Just like the book itself. Would agree, it's a huge commitment to read, but deeply rewarding.

 

[overgeeked]

A recent Facebook discussion of AI in writing reminded me of a book I meant to read from 2016, The Bestseller Code. A couple of lit majors and computer programmers set various computer programs loose on analyzing the New York Times' bestselling books for the last 30+ years along with a few thousand non-bestsellers to see if there are any predictive elements of a bestseller. Spoiler: yes, there are quite a few exclusive elements that make for a bestseller. Note: this isn't a how to write book.

Having tore through that book in a few days, I decided to try out a NYT bestseller. I picked up a few of James Patterson's Women's Murder Club books. Patterson seems to have cut a lot from his writing to ruthlessly up the pacing. The description is minimalist in the extreme. The chapters are all short scenes of the "start late and get out early" variety. Maybe a few printed pages at most. I'm just halfway through the book but already on chapter 63. When he does transition between locations or times it's with a sentence at most. I can't tell if I like his style or not, but it's definitely a fast-paced, page-turner of a mystery/thriller.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A recent Facebook discussion of AI in writing reminded me of a book I meant to read from 2016, The Bestseller Code. A couple of lit majors and computer programmers set various computer programs loose on analyzing the New York Times' bestselling books for the last 30+ years along with a few thousand non-bestsellers to see if there are any predictive elements of a bestseller. Spoiler: yes, there are quite a few exclusive elements that make for a bestseller. Note: this isn't a how to write book.

Having tore through that book in a few days, I decided to try out a NYT bestseller. I picked up a few of James Patterson's Women's Murder Club books. Patterson seems to have cut a lot from his writing to ruthlessly up the pacing. The description is minimalist in the extreme. The chapters are all short scenes of the "start late and get out early" variety. Maybe a few printed pages at most. I'm just halfway through the book but already on chapter 63. When he does transition between locations or times it's with a sentence at most. I can't tell if I like his style or not, but it's definitely a fast-paced, page-turner of a mystery/thriller.

If you look at fast-paced comic books, you'll discover a lot of them are doing the same trick, with the last panel on any page, especially on odd-numbered pages, being something that's going to make you want to flip over just one more page and see what happens. It's a classic technique for a reason.

 

[overgeeked]

If you look at fast-paced comic books, you'll discover a lot of them are doing the same trick, with the last panel on any page, especially on odd-numbered pages, being something that's going to make you want to flip over just one more page and see what happens. It's a classic technique for a reason.

Absolutely. Ending a scene or chapter with a twist, along with cliffhanger endings in serial fiction, are quite effective.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

A recent Facebook discussion of AI in writing reminded me of a book I meant to read from 2016, The Bestseller Code. A couple of lit majors and computer programmers set various computer programs loose on analyzing the New York Times' bestselling books for the last 30+ years along with a few thousand non-bestsellers to see if there are any predictive elements of a bestseller. Spoiler: yes, there are quite a few exclusive elements that make for a bestseller. Note: this isn't a how to write book.

Having tore through that book in a few days, I decided to try out a NYT bestseller. I picked up a few of James Patterson's Women's Murder Club books. Patterson seems to have cut a lot from his writing to ruthlessly up the pacing. The description is minimalist in the extreme. The chapters are all short scenes of the "start late and get out early" variety. Maybe a few printed pages at most. I'm just halfway through the book but already on chapter 63. When he does transition between locations or times it's with a sentence at most. I can't tell if I like his style or not, but it's definitely a fast-paced, page-turner of a mystery/thriller.

He definitely has a style. I liked those books, but finally bailed on the series around number eight or nine (those are the ones that take place in San Francisco, right?)

Note that when Louise Penny teamed up with Hilary Clinton to write State of Terror, they basically took a page out of Patterson's playbook (not coincidentally, Patterson teamed up with Mr Hilary (ie, Bill Clinton) to write his best-seller The President is Missing). The technique works - I find myself consuming the books in record time. I read State of Terror - 495 pages - in one sitting; bringing it home from the library around 2pm, thinking "Oh I'll read the first few pages..." and looking up at around midnight having finished it.

However by the time I noped out of the Murder Womens' club, I felt manipulated in the extreme. I've got no desire to read any more Patterson