Looking for a particular type of scifi/fantasy - can you help?

[BlackVoid]

-1 for Simmons

I did not like Hyperion at all. And the sequel is even worse. I was bored to tears.

[BenG]

I liked Hyperion and the first sequel, but I didn't care for the Endymion books.

[Shadowplay]

Now see this is why I was originally turned off to Hyperion.

It may be a non issue at the moment since it's not available in ebook format and even the stormy waters of darknet only turn up something so mangled it's truly not worth the effort.

Things are ridiculously busy with my work right now so it's probably best I wait until my current project is finished anyway.

[HarryPigg]

Liked Hyperion and its sequels a lot - really good SF. His other fiction is well worth investigating too. He's quite versatile.

[Shadowplay]

Ok I gave up on Hyperion for the time being and went against what I recently said about breaking from fantasy...

Trying Lois McMaster Bujold's Curse of Chalion on a whim. We'll see how it goes!

[Shadowplay]

Just finished the 3rd book in Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series. The 3 books were good and worth reading. I can't give them top marks, but can easily recommend them. The 3rd book itself was quite a bit different from the first 2 with no previously introduced characters showing up at all. That wasn't a bad thing, but with that and with the particular plot I ended up expecting a much longer story than I got for some reason. I reached a point with only about 100 pages or so left that when combined with what was happening in the story at that point made me realize "oh. this is going to end very soon actually." Sure enough it did.

Now I've got to dig back through this thread again to find my next read!

EDIT
I'm torn between Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn space opera or Carol Berg's Bridge D'Arnath books. Obviously different literary cuisine there.

[escapetacoma]

Originally Posted by Shadowplay

UPDATE

So I just this morning finished the Fionavar Tapestry series. I got sidetracked with work and some non-reading endeavors so it took me a while to finish it off. It was very enjoyable and certainly emotional in places, particularly the last 30 pages or so. That said, it wasn't quite... I dunno, it just wasn't "it", whatever that means *grin*. I can recommend it as interesting fantasy fiction at least. The whole bit with the "Warrior" and the saddest story ever told, blah, blah, blah... I'm sorry but that seemed really over the top for me. I just couldn't buy into it, but oh well.

Fionavar was over the top. A little too much repetition, a little too much pounding things home. Tigana is better. I like A Song for Arbonne better still, though by that point you definitely see the similarities between his stories. He uses very lyrical prose, does emotional scenes well and it's always fun to watch for his forshadowings.

I like John Crowley as somewhere between Kay and Cherryh - not as intensely emotional as Kay but not as depressing as Cherryh. No idea if his stuff is available in ebook form, though.

[Darqref]

Originally Posted by Shadowplay

Just finished the 3rd book in Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series. The 3 books were good and worth reading. I can't give them top marks, but can easily recommend them. The 3rd book itself was quite a bit different from the first 2 with no previously introduced characters showing up at all. That wasn't a bad thing, but with that and with the particular plot I ended up expecting a much longer story than I got for some reason. I reached a point with only about 100 pages or so left that when combined with what was happening in the story at that point made me realize "oh. this is going to end very soon actually." Sure enough it did.

Now I've got to dig back through this thread again to find my next read!

EDIT
I'm torn between Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn space opera or Carol Berg's Bridge D'Arnath books. Obviously different literary cuisine there.

Good choice on the Bujold, as others have noted, I recommend anything by Lois, and eagerly await whatever is currently being written.

I just had another thought for you: Roger MacBride Allen. He's written a couple of Star Wars books, but I really like his other works. He tends to write large scale SF. An open ended story is the two book series that starts with "The Ring of Charon". For a more action-adventure story, try the duology "Torch of Honor" and "Rogue Powers". And his latest? (that I've got, anyway) is a trilogy about space and time-travel-tunnels and terraforming that starts with "Depth of Time". I think I just saw at least some of that series at Fictionwise. (I got a bit gnarled by the logic of the ending of this trilogy, but its still a good story.)

And hey, the last trilogy has a neat point about ebooks vs paper: Electronic databases are going to be used, but they can be corrupted, and sometimes you need to go back to the archival medium, which seems to be some humongous library with the stacks evacuated of air (you wear space suits, and take your selections back to a small local reading room that can have breathable air....)

[dragonbone]

Originally Posted by Shadowplay

Just finished the 3rd book in Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series. The 3 books were good and worth reading. I can't give them top marks, but can easily recommend them. The 3rd book itself was quite a bit different from the first 2 with no previously introduced characters showing up at all. That wasn't a bad thing, but with that and with the particular plot I ended up expecting a much longer story than I got for some reason. to find my next read!

Me too! I was a little disappointed when the 3rd book had nothing to do with the others. I enjoyed them all anyway!

[Shadowplay]

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

You know what I just realized? I had two of her series lumped together. I remember I enjoyed the Bridge D'Arnath series better.

Well now I'm reading the Bridge D'Arnath series by Carol Berg and it's all because of you.

I'm almost done with the first book in the series, Son of Avonar. It's good, but not great. Good enough I'll read the whole series though. The first book is plagued by too many flashbacks which you'll find are a common complaint in user reviews on Amazon and the like. I feel I'm done with those so now it's picked up quite a bit.

[lilac_jive]

Originally Posted by Shadowplay

Well now I'm reading the Bridge D'Arnath series by Carol Berg and it's all because of you.

I'm almost done with the first book in the series, Son of Avonar. It's good, but not great. Good enough I'll read the whole series though. The first book is plagued by too many flashbacks which you'll find are a common complaint in user reviews on Amazon and the like. I feel I'm done with those so now it's picked up quite a bit.

If I remember rightly, it picks up at the end of the book and the series gets better after that.

[Shadowplay]

UPDATE

Wow I've been out of touch again for a while. But I'm back for another update!

I finished the Bridge D'Arnath series by Carol Berg and it was another enjoyable, but not great series. There were things about it I really like and characters I really liked, but overall it was just just "ok". Now that I've read 2 series by this author that each left me with the same sort of feeling I think that's about all I can expect from her. As always, this is completely just my own very subjective opinion.

So what next? Time for some HUGE scale sci-fi as a break. Actually I just finished this next one as well so we'll go straight to the mini-review.

"House of Suns" by Alastair Reynolds - loved it. I've really liked everything I've read by him (ok it got a little iffy with Revelation Space.) This one is a nice, new set of ideas coupled with his use of sub-light travel limitations.

Very sketchy synopsis:

Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every two hundred thousand years, to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings. Campion and Purslane are not only late for their thirty-second reunion, but they have brought along an amnesiac golden robot for a guest. But the wayward shatterlings get more than the scolding they expect: they face the discovery that someone has a very serious grudge against the Gentian line, and there is a very real possibility of traitors in their midst. The surviving shatterlings have to dodge exotic weapons while they regroup to try to solve the mystery of who is persecuting them, and why - before their ancient line is wiped out of existence, for ever.

Hmm that makes it sound much more like an action-adventure kind of thing, but it's very much laced with some hard sci-fi concepts. I dunno, I don't want to give too much away so I'll just leave it at that. Good book!

So I'm back to being bookless! ...or rather I haven't decided what to read next. I'll be back once I figure it out.

[queentess]

This is a great (old) thread! Thanks for bumping it!

Originally Posted by bigmoney

Ender's Game is great, but IMHO it's better if you read it as a young adult. I re-read it a couple of years ago and found it kinda silly sometimes. There's a new book in the series just released, Ender in Exile, I read half of it but found it boring, again, great for a teenager but not so engaging for a 35-yo who has been reading hard sci-fi for 20 years.

I originally read Ender's Game sometime in high school, and I still enjoy it. It's my ultimate comfort book that I can always pick up and put down whenever I want.

I tried to read Ender in Exile earlier this year, and I found that not worthy for consumption by anyone. As a gauge, I'm about 10 years younger than you. I maybe got 1/4 of the way through it (I usually devour anything by OSC, so this is unusual) and was just fed up with the whole "you're not worth anything unless you make babies" culture. And it really didn't help that I had read some of the chapters before in his Interactive Medicine Show vol 1 book. I was reading along thinking "oh my god, I swear I've read this before!", which made it that much more boring.