dragonjournal | Book Recc post.

Alright, so let me lay this out:

I will read just about anything. I like a lot of different things. I tend to read more fantasy than anything else, but will read just about any fiction. I've gotten into a lot of YA lately and seem to be churning my way through that. Nonfiction I'm very particular on and will read what I want there.

What I want is a list of books/series that you my dear readers think that I should look into. Give me a To Be Read pile. I don't really have one.

Currently I have the following out from the library:

The Warrior Heir Cinda Williams*
The Wizard Heir Cinda Wiliams
Graceling Kristin Cashore
Beyond the Valley of Thorns Patrick Carman
Wolverine: Weapon X Marc Cerasini
The Dark Griffin K.J. Taylor
I am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas Adam Roberts
Shadowfall James Clemens
The Priest of Blood Douglas Clegg

So, that's what I have out right now.

I have read Mercedes Lackey - pretty much everything, really and don't really care for Anne McCaffrey. But, give me books. Again, I'll read just about anything and have plans to be buying the books of a few people I know that are now published. (Katey, looking at you, dude!)

*Just finished this one like... ten minutes ago. It's a good, solid, book and I think a lot of people would enjoy it. There's a wizard society that lives amongst us and they hold tournaments using those born with 'warrior stones' to fight their battles. I found it interesting and will be getting the third book The Dragon Heir when I can.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What are your thoughts on period fantasy, specifically Regency-era England? If that could be your thing, I gesture wildly in the direction of Patricia Wrede and both her Sorcery and Cecelia series (comprising of: "Sorcery and Cecelia, or, the Enchanted Chocolate Pot", "The Grand tour, or, the Purloined Coronation Regalia", and "The Mislaid Magician, or, Ten Years After"), and her Matter of Magic series (comprised of "Mairelon the Magician" and "The Magician's Ward"). The Cecelia books are episiltory and coauthored with Caroline Stevermer, whereas the Mairelon books are more traditional narrative. Both contain fantastic period detailing, a believable system of magic, and prime examples of female characters being Freaking Awesome. Think Pride and Prejudice and magic, with a side-order of me flailing my arms around, and hopefully being backed up in this recommendation by

jehanne1431, because I totally dragged her around Powell's City of Books in search of Cecelia books.

I also cannot flail enough about the books of Walter Moers (he's German, but his books are widely available in translation), specifically "The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear" and "The City of Dreaming Books" (which my darling

eledhwenlin reminded me is actually part of a series of books set in the same delightfully absurbist-but-not world, and the newest one "The Alchemister's Apprentice" has just had it's EU publication. The stories themselves kind of defy description, but they are just so well-written and delightful I pretty much lose the ability to speak about them.

Uh...are you up to date with your Jasper Fforde? If not, the most recent Thursday Next book was published last year and is "One of Our Thursdays is Missing", the Sequel to "Shades of Grey" is out later this year, and the second of the Dragonslayer Chronicles (JF's YA series. Not that that makes it any less weird. If anything there's more weird?), "The Song of the Quarkbeast", was published last month.

Tanya Huff's Gale witches books-- "The Enchantment Emporium" and just-published "The Wild Ways", which I have just started reading are worth a look if you like Huff's writing and fancy some urban fantasy and a novel take on magic and its use. Also, she does a good line in knowing meta-text winks to the reader, something which is usually a trait I conflate with fanfiction.

I...also have my usual raft of non-fiction in various states of on the go, so y'know, if you want a list of a ridiculous mix of pop-science, social science, hard biology, genetics or hard quantum physics, then poke me and I'll totes hit you up :D?

You know, I specifically thought of you when recc'ing The Warrior Heir. Because my thought was: E would get into this, start coming up with wilder theories than I have and then there would be FANDOM.

Which, of course, is how you are indelibly engraved on my brain. (Also, unless the other two books start giving backstory? MY BRAIN HAS BACKSTORY SO MUCH BACKSTORY for a few characters.)

But thank you ever so much! I need to reread JF because I haven't in a while, and thus this must be rectified. :D

*perks up ears and adds titles to the looooong list of "shit I should read"*

I should possibly be upset that many people seem to pimp me into things specifically because they want to witness the inevitable avalanche of wild-mass-guessing and ridiculousd ideas for fusions, but I'd totally be lying because in addition to being freaking hilarious, it also means that I can get away with being almost the laziest fan out there in terms of finding new things :D

*finds her niche and occupies it*

You know how the TN books are ridiculously meta fanfiction? One of Our Thursdays actually goes further. Like. The start of the book is ridiculously meta about the whole of the rest of the TN canon and then we actually go to the fanfiction achipelago of the new BookWorld. Like, there's meta and then there's the latter part of this book, which is like some kind of freaking metafiction singularity trapped between ink and paper (also, JF manages to not completely suck, despite having had previous form being a douche about fandom)

O_o

I need to reread them. like... yesterday. But it'll probably be next week before I get to the library again. Because if I go more than once a week, I'd drown under the pile. However, I might be a mean, mean mom and go without the kids like, next week when I've whittled down my pile a little just to go and browse. Eleven year olds are not conducive to browsing sometimes.

Oh! Another book for you! Graceling. Girl has magic powers, has been using them in one direction, figures out there's another direction they can be taken, doesn't want to get married/have kids, runs this group that handles the 'right things to do' under a whole bunch of kings' noses... :D

Oooooo *adds*

If I were you, I'd go for a full reread of the TN books because man, but there's some funky over-reaching plot arcs going on through the whole series. I've maybe made it my policy to reread the series prior to starting each new book, which was kinda ridiculous with the last book what with it being book 6, but it was undeniably awesome (although I did have to break up the absurbist metafiction with my beloved non-fiction in order that my brains didn't leak out of my ears).

>>>>hopefully being backed up in this recommendation by [personal profile] jehanne1431, because I totally dragged her around Powell's City of Books in search of Cecelia books.

I ABSOLUTELY back this up. The Cecelia books are amazing!

Hey, I have Graceling out from the library too! :D

Hmm, OK, let me think of some stuff that I've really enjoyed lately. (Looking backwards through my Goodreads read list.)
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater--YA-ish (older YA, I guess) fantasy with water horses!
Ash by Malinda Lo--YA fantasy lesbian Cinderella retelling
Far North by Marcel Theroux--frequently surprising and dark post-apoc
Chime by Franny Billingsley--again, YA, with faeries! and... well, it's a hard-to-describe book
Blood Red Road by Moira Young--more YA, this one also post-apocalyptic
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake--YA urban fantasy about ghost hunting
Hex Hall series by Rachel Hawkins; Hex Hall, Demonglass, and the upcoming Spell Bound--YA fantasy with a boarding school for faeries, witches, and shapeshifters (and one vampire)
Divergent by Veronica Roth--YA dystopia, frequently compared to the Hunger Games, but with a decidedly different universe, IMO

And uh... that's probably enough for now, I think? :D

I just finished Graceling this morning. I'd be interested to hear what you think about it.

I keep meaning to read ASH and then not getting it. God my to-read pile is scandalously large :/

You know what I really liked the first of and have been meaning to finish up (since I bought them all second hand at one point): Dorothy Dunnett's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymond_Chronicles><i>Lymond Chronicles</i></a>. Scotland in the time of Mary Queen of Scots, and the characters, no lie, are totally DELIGHTFUL. Strikes me as pretty Cat. (PS: That's very kind of you, but I totally don't mind if my friends don't read my crap, because I know I write some weird, cracked out shit. That said, you can win them at various blogs if you want -- literally all of them are up for grabs here or there :D)

Ah shit forgot open id can't post links. Ugly comment is ugly, sorry :(

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