Fiction Book Recommendation Thread

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I read a lot of science fiction, so I'll offer my two cents on the genre.

I would unequivocally recommend Greg Egan's Diaspora, William Gibson's Neuromancer, Ted Chiang's The Story of Your Life, Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, and Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix to anyone with a passing interest in the genre. Obviously, people read for different reasons, but these writers demonstrate the intellectual and aesthetic capabilities of the genre above and beyond "pop" novelists like Wells and Scalzi.
 
Pretty much anything by Haruki Murakami (I have his newest (The City and its Uncertain Walls) queued up for my next read), but I especially loved "Kafka on the Shore," "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" and "1Q84". I also really liked "Killing Commendatore" but that one is something of a commitment and largely about the meaning of art, so probably strikes many readers as extended navel gazing with a very creepy painting, strange tunnels and a weird dwarf.

He writes magical realism, but 1Q84 is also something of a sci fi novel.

Other SciFi I loved includes "The Memory Police" by Yoko Ogawa and "The Gold Coast" by Kim Stanley Robinson and "The Bone Clocks" by David Mitchell & "Never Let me Go" by Kauo Ishiguro & "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Not sure where "2666" by Roberto Bolano fits excactly, but putting it in SciFi, though that is an imperfect choice to be sure.

If mysteries are your jam, I adore Tana French for both her Dublin Police series of police procedurals (particularly "Faithful Place"), each of which focuses on a different cop who also appears in varying degrees in the other novels, and for her more recent American cowboy/fish out of water in Ireland novels, "Searchers" & "The Hunter". The "Redbreast" by Jo Nesbo is my favorite Harry Hole novel.

A great American Western/crime novel (trying to keep most of these books other than Murakami this century) is "The Ploughmen" by Kim Zupan.

Recently I read Kristin Hannah's "The Nightingale" about two sisters in occupied WWII France and it was terrific. But I loved "All the Light We Cannot See" and "Gentleman in Moscow" and "The Sympathizer" and "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Juhot Diaz and "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" (Richard Flanagan), for an idea of the sorts of historical(ish) fiction I like for reference.

For Horror fans, I highly recommend "The Reformatory" by Tananarive Due, "Wylding Hall" by Elizabeth Hand, "The Spite House" by Johnny Compton, "The Fisherman" by John Langan, "Dark Matter" by Michelle Paver, all three novels of John Darnelle (of the band the Mountain Goats) -- Devil House, Wolf in White Van and Universal Harvester; and, of course, "House of Leaves" by Mark Danielewski [have a copy of Poe's album, "Haunted" by Danielieski's sister handy -- Mark reads from his book in "Hey Pretty" from that album]

For Southern Gothic/horror-ish, "Dark Places" by Gillian Flynn; "The Devil all the Time" by Donald Ray Pollack is dark as shit, but so well written.

I don't read a lot of comedy, but "Fool" and "Lamb" both by Christopher Moore are laugh-out-loud hilarious to me. Like I can't read them in public b/c I laugh too loud and long at passages.
 
I've pretty much been hooked on the Fantasy/Sci Fi genre since I discovered Dragons of Autumn Twilight in 1984. Some of my favorite authors are: Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, and Raymond E. Feist to name but a few.
I've read just about everything Dean Koontz has ever written. The Odd Thomas series is awesome. He's probably one of my favorite authors. I was finally able to finish The Wheel of Time saga on my last deployment (I had a ton of free time to read during the transit). My dad also got me into W.E.B. Griffin.
 
Octavia Butler is a good read. Lois MacMaster Bujold writes what is ,on the surface, mostly military science fiction but there is always a large subtext about the development of future society and the affect of technology. L.E. Modisett, Jr is a great fantasy world builder.
 
nycfan said:
Pretty much anything by Haruki Murakami (I have his newest (The City and its Uncertain Walls) queued up for my next read), but I especially loved "Kafka on the Shore," "Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" and "1Q84". I also really liked "Killing Commendatore" but that one is something of a commitment and largely about the meaning of art, so probably strikes many readers as extended navel gazing with a very creepy painting, strange tunnels and a weird dwarf.

He writes magical realism, but 1Q84 is also something of a sci fi novel.

Other SciFi I loved includes "The Memory Police" by Yoko Ogawa and "The Gold Coast" by Kim Stanley Robinson and "The Bone Clocks" by David Mitchell & "Never Let me Go" by Kauo Ishiguro & "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. Not sure where "2666" by Roberto Bolano fits excactly, but putting it in SciFi, though that is an imperfect choice to be sure.

If mysteries are your jam, I adore Tana French for both her Dublin Police series of police procedurals (particularly "Faithful Place"), each of which focuses on a different cop who also appears in varying degrees in the other novels, and for her more recent American cowboy/fish out of water in Ireland novels, "Searchers" & "The Hunter". The "Redbreast" by Jo Nesbo is my favorite Harry Hole novel.

A great American Western/crime novel (trying to keep most of these books other than Murakami this century) is "The Ploughmen" by Kim Zupan.

Recently I read Kristin Hannah's "The Nightingale" about two sisters in occupied WWII France and it was terrific. But I loved "All the Light We Cannot See" and "Gentleman in Moscow" and "The Sympathizer" and "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Juhot Diaz and "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" (Richard Flanagan), for an idea of the sorts of historical(ish) fiction I like for reference.

For Horror fans, I highly recommend "The Reformatory" by Tananarive Due, "Wylding Hall" by Elizabeth Hand, "The Spite House" by Johnny Compton, "The Fisherman" by John Langan, "Dark Matter" by Michelle Paver, all three novels of John Darnelle (of the band the Mountain Goats) -- Devil House, Wolf in White Van and Universal Harvester; and, of course, "House of Leaves" by Mark Danielewski [have a copy of Poe's album, "Haunted" by Danielieski's sister handy -- Mark reads from his book in "Hey Pretty" from that album]

For Southern Gothic/horror-ish, "Dark Places" by Gillian Flynn; "The Devil all the Time" by Donald Ray Pollack is dark as shit, but so well written.

I don't read a lot of comedy, but "Fool" and "Lamb" both by Christopher Moore are laugh-out-loud hilarious to me. Like I can't read them in public b/c I laugh too loud and long at passages.
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Love Murakami. I actually find it hard to read “regular” novels after being immersed in one of his books for a while.
 
A LOT of great stuff here. Sorry for the drive by post yesterday... got pulled into some family drama right after I poasted. Will go through all of this thread in detail later tonight.
 
tarheel931 said:
I've pretty much been hooked on the Fantasy/Sci Fi genre since I discovered Dragons of Autumn Twilight in 1984. Some of my favorite authors are: Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, and Raymond E. Feist to name but a few.
I've read just about everything Dean Koontz has ever written. The Odd Thomas series is awesome. He's probably one of my favorite authors. I was finally able to finish The Wheel of Time saga on my last deployment (I had a ton of free time to read during the transit). My dad also got me into W.E.B. Griffin.
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I've read pretty much all of these. Have not read the Odd Thomas series. Oddly enough, I know I read a ton of Koontz's books... but just looking at titles I can't recall for the life of me which ones.
 
UNCatTech said:
Hey BlueBlood, hope you had a nice holiday.
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It was a bit of a tough one. I went to visit my dad and stepmom in Florida because of all the deaths they've had to deal with over the last 4 or 5 months... on top of my sister in August, my stepmom lost her sister, her father, her uncle, and 3 other cousins I did not know. Been a shitty year for them, and this was the first holiday since they lost all of them. Didn't want them alone. But was not much of a holiday.
 
One of my all time favorite fantasy series is The Black Company series by Glen Cook. His Garrett series is pretty good as well.
 
NYCBlueBlood said:
It was a bit of a tough one. I went to visit my dad and stepmom in Florida because of all the deaths they've had to deal with over the last 4 or 5 months... on top of my sister in August, my stepmom lost her sister, her father, her uncle, and 3 other cousins I did not know. Been a shitty year for them, and this was the first holiday since they lost all of them. Didn't want them alone. But was not much of a holiday.
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Wow, that is a lot to deal with. It's good that you were able to be there. I know it meant a lot to them.
 
Hey team, didn't want to start a new thread and this seems like a logical place for this question.

Do any of you have audible accounts? Or any other service where you can get audio books to listen to?

I'm driving 1.5 hours each day and would like to use this time listening to books. I've cut out political podcast, so I have more time now. 😁
 
nycfan said:
Limiting to one’s I’ve read in the last 3-4 years

A Gentleman in Moscow
The Passenger & Stella Maris (Cormac McCarthy)
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My sister-in-law highly recommended A Gentleman in Moscow. As for The Passenger & Stella Maris, what did you think? I read about 10 pages of The Passenger and was like "what??", and I revere McCarthy. I'm sure I'll give it another go eventually...
 
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hedge said:
My sister-in-law highly recommended A Gentleman in Moscow. As for The Passenger & Stella Maris, what did you think? I read about 10 pages of The Passenger and was like "what??", and I revere McCarthy. I'm sure I'll give it another go eventually...
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Not his best but top 10 and an amazing final set of novels IMO. Not sure why Stella Maris wasn’t folded into The Passenger.

But The Passenger is … divisive. I thoroughly enjoyed it and some of the prose in certain passages ranks among his finest. But don’t come looking for a linear story.
 
nycfan said:
But don’t come looking for a linear story.
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I definitely got that from the 10 or so pages I managed to get thru. My sister-in-law's mom (she's 90) told me she was reading it for her book club, I was like "good luck"...
 
Thanks, All. I added these to my Kindle for the upcoming trip based on recos here:
  • In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad, Book 1) - Tana French
  • The Reformatory: A Novel - Tananarive Due
  • The Martian: A Novel - Andy Weir
  • Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas (Hugo Award Winner - Best Novel) - John Scalzi
  • All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Well, after getting the 4th book in Peter May's Lewis Trilogy... cause how can you not read a 4th book in a trilogy...
 
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