I was not a fan of the Sword of Truth books. If you read WoT a bunch of it feels like a copy of that, and the characters are all pretty weak and predictable. I read like 5 or 6 books in the series and was definitely entertained, but I would not cite it as good fantasy or go out of my way to read it again.

I've come to see Sanderson as the Stephen King of Fantasy. He'll never win any accolades from literary critics, but he's a fantastic storyteller. I'd recommend anything by him sight unseen.

Black Sun Rising, by C.S. Friedman.

This is part of a trilogy, continuing with When True Night Falls, and Crown of Shadows.

Normally, C.S. Friedman writes sci-f, and it shows through in her brilliantly imagined concept to make magic believable. Colonists from earth are trapped on Erna, a planet infused with a near-sentient substance called the fae. The fae taps into their conscious and subconscious thoughts, fears, and desires in an attempt to integrate this alien species into its ecology. But the fae-creatures spawned by humanity's fears must feed on the minds of their makers, and the mythology of humankind has made those devourers into familiar faces, such as vampires, werewolves, and succubus. Just so, all but the most primitive technology is unreliable, because the fears of its wielder or the greater society make things like guns more dangerous to their wielder than to an enemy.

Over the last thousand years humans have discovered a way to manipulate the fae in ways similar to magic. And humanity itself has begun to evolve to suit the planet, producing "adepts," people who are able to manipulate the fae as easily as the rest of humanity breathes. The dominant force is now religion, most prominently the Church, an off-shoot of Christianity with the mission to spread control of the fae by spreading faith in an omniscient, good-willed God. Centuries ago, Christianity took firm hold in the hopes of humanity when the Church's Prophet said it did not matter if there was no true God, because if there was not then the collective will of the people would influence the fae to make Him.

The series begins with Damien Vryce, a priest of the Church of Human Unification on Erna. The first book is a quest to rescue the stolen powers of Damien's lover, an adept. Creatures have stolen her memories and her powers, a previously thought impossible theft. Along the way Damien picks up allies in the darkest, most surprising places, and realizes forces are massing to destroy the Church and, ultimately, humanity.

The meat of the series lies in Friedman's excellent characterization and religious overtones, though the latter is blessedly never heavy-handed. She has a few quirks in her writing (EVERYTHING is the color crimson, and it seems like no one can ever just say something; they're always murmuring, whispering, or muttering). But for the most part her books rise above many other fantasy writers for her complex ideas held up by beautiful language and wonderful characters.

this sounds awesome...and actually the religious overtones mixed with fantasy and sci-fi is so Sanderson.... I'll probably dig it. Going with one dom recommended a while back World War Z decent so far. Not fantasy I know but it's a cool idea for a book.

agreed... Mistborn, Warbreaker and the last WOT book are some of the best books ive read in a long time. Im really looking forward to THE WAY OF KINGS. Hes claiming its going to be his masterpiece epic spanning over the next 8-10 years.

Im beginning to realize that my taste in books has nothing to do with the prose and actual writing and everything to do with substance and story. I think this is why I disagree with a lot of book reviews in here...and why a lot of people disagree with my choices of books. Maybe im getting something differnet out of them since almost 100% of my "reading" is done on audiobooks. I usually can go through 2-3 books a week depending on the length.

Audiobooks can make things that are otherwise unreadable suddenly easy to make it through. Anne Rice in particular comes to mind. If I read her stuff I zip through it, and if it's an audiobook then it's like the Star Wars prequels, up to the strengths of some magnificent actor to save otherwise vomit-inducing prose.

lolz...anything after Lestat sucks balls....audiobook or not.

My biggest suggestion for titles to read on audiobook would have to be the WOT series. I first read it way back in the day (I think there were only like 6 books out at the time) and it was REALLY hard to get through, I was still in high school at the time but still it was a HARD read. Id have to look at the index i dont know how many times....the audiobook however, I could probably recap the whole series by memory and not miss much of anything.
Its also really nice (especially in fantasy) to know how the author wanted things pronounced.

I think "On writing" is another great audiobook. Its a great book to begin with but King does the narration himself and its just so.... personal...you can tell theres so much heart and genuine reflection in it.

The wife broke out a surprise X-mas present: The First Time I Got Paid for It: Writers' Tales from the Hollywood Trenches

It includes essays on their first big success by writers like Cameron Crowe, Alan Alda, Steven Bochco, and Delia Ephron, and has a foreword by William Goldman.

Going to start reading the new PLO 2+2 book.

Currently reading Lenin: A Biography by Robert Service. Really interesting look at the life of Lenin, and one of the first to take advantage of the opening of the Kremlin records after the glasnost period and the fall of the USSR. Fascinating reading.

I'm also on an anarcho-synicalist / libertarian socialist kick at the moment and am about to read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and Ursula Le Guin's The Disspossessed. I've read very good things about Le Guin's book, hopefully I will be dispossessed... of my boredom (see what I did there?).

By any chance is that the same Robert Service as the poet? You know, The Shooting of Dan McGrew or The Cremation of Sam McGhee?

I'm not sure. I doubt it though.

I read The Dispossessed. I was not impressed. Spoiler explains why (it's a general spoiler about the thesis of the book, rather than a spoiler of specific plot events):

Finished World War Z after Doms reccomendation.
its a cool book. Doms review is much better, but its basically about a journalist that interviews a bunch of survivors of a world wide zombie war. I suck at reviews so I'll just say if you like military stuff and zombies then you'll like this Its not at all cheesy like im probably making it sound like.

I think it would make one hell of a movie actually.

thanks again dom.

Interesting. Capitalist states have made significant moves in that direction in recent years. Maybe it's not as independent from capitalism (as practised now) as we think. Are you a libertarian by any chance?

I'll let you know what I think of this once I've finished the book.

My sister gave me Nietzsche's 'Twilight of the Idols' and 'Beyond Good & Evil' for christmas. Looking forward to them as I've yet to read anything from him. Starting with Twilight.

I'm a classical liberal but not a libertarian (I depart from libertarians in supporting some government involvement in essential services such as health, education, environmental protection etc).

I didn't have an ideological axe to grind against the book - I was open to reading well-thought-out critiques of capitalist society but feel like Le Guin had an imagination fail on this front. I would have enjoyed an exploration of Marxist ideas of alienation, the vapidity of a materialistic society, the military-industrial complex directed outwards at an invented enemy, private-sector led oligarchy, etc. While some of these ideas are presented in a minor way, overwhelmingly the failure of the society is presented as state-led oligarchy and repressive state violence directed inwards against their own underclass. This book was published in 1974, so the idea that this was where capitalist society was headed seems very naive in view of what we now know about the Soviet Union.

I did read the book 5-10 years ago, so the above is my memory of my opinions on it back then. It's possible the book has become caricatured in my memory. Will be interested to hear your thoughts when you've read it.

Just started Cannery Row - my first foray into Steinbeck. Only a few chapters in but it's really good so far.

I think part of my New Year's Resolution is going ot be to follow some sort of system for reading classic works. I haven't decided what to do.

I like Blarg's idea of the author in-depth reading. It might be too time consuming for me right now, though. It's a possibility, but if I do it, I have to decide which authors to read.

I could try just looking up some literary critic's list (Bloom?) and go from there.

I realized that there is just way too much I know absolutely nothing about, and I want to amend that with some sort of "plan." Otherwise I end up reading whatever comes my way (usually published within the last five years), and I'd like to dive into classics a little more.

Just finished reading Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder the other day and wish to give sincere and utmost thanks to kudz and the other poster who recommended it. It was a really engrossing read and I think it provided a really good overview of the history of Western philosophical thought from the ancient Greeks to today. True, the writing (or maybe it's just the translation) is not the greatest and the characters are really more mouthpieces than real characters, but the author's descriptions and summaries of the nature and history of the various philosophers and their ideas is excellent (though, by necessity, somewhat simplified). The "twist" of the book was good and well-thought out...though I kind of got the feeling that the actual author had no clue how he was going to satisfactorily end the novel either. He kind of wrote himself into a bit of paradoxical quicksand there.

Highly recommend if anyone is interested in getting a broad overview of the development and themes of Western philosophy...it definitely has inspired me to read the original works of some of these philosophers.

I got Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup, the author of Q+A (what Slumdog Millionaire was based on) for Christmas. Looking forward to giving it a whirl.

Only read the last couple pages of this thread, so apologies if some of these have already been discussed. I read mostly sci-fi/fantasy so here are some of my recent favorites:

Scott Erikson - Malazon Book of the Fallen series. Very detailed fantasy universe, currently up to 9 books with the tenth and final expected this year. Gardens of the Moon is book 1 and it works as a stand alone novel or the start of the series.

Peter F. Hamilton - I started reading his Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained which start the story of the Commonwealth Saga. Very long books with tons of interesting characters. Set in a future Earth where the galaxy has been colonized using wormhole travel. Continued in the Void Trilogy.

Alastair Reynolds - Revelation Space books. Hard sci-fi. Some great concepts in this universe where FTL is not possible, yet humans have colonized the galaxy.

R. Scott Baker - Prince of Nothing series. Dark fantasy with a rather unique protagonist. If you like shades of grey, this is the series for you.

Also will second David Brin's Startide Rising series and some of the Larry Niven Ringworld books which were mentioned earlier. Although I preferred Niven/Pournelle's A Mote in God's Eye to the Ringworld books.

I also got The Complaints by Ian Rankin for Christmas. Looking forward to starting it as well.

You don't have to do it all at once. What's most important is that you're building a structure of understanding that can eventually become a sort of node that you can count as part of an expanding foundation of stuff that you really understand and have thought about. As opposed to coming across stuff randomly and, having few bits of connected, grounded knowledge and personal reflection to link it to, quite naturally forgetting most of it fairly quickly and never turning it into a permanent asset.

All in all, I believe it's a big time saver because it tends to make your learning "stick." Isolated bits of knowledge and experience, left alone out in a howling void, tend to just wink out, leaving you with only your original darkness. It's very hard to retain new learning without having a latticework of expanding connections to attach new things to. But the more connections you make, the easier it gets, and the more dimensions become discernible in each new stimulus.

Is Blood Meridian supposed to be this boring throughout the whole book or just the beginning? Seems like a lot of fluff words for very little content so far...dont see the reason for the hype.

God it seems like 75% of the stuff i read from the recommendations here is stuff i really didnt like... I am legend, shogun, count of monte cristo... ugh.

just gimme some trashy fiction...I'll be happy in my ignorance.

About 275 pages into "Needfull Things" by King

Really liking it. I hope it stays this interesting.

Ken