The Book Thread

After reading through the recruitment threads i saw that many people have an interest in reading and that some of us have similar tastes. i thought we could make this thread to talk about the books we're reading and recommend books that you find interesting.

I am currently reading The Highlord book three of The Black Magician trilogy by Trudi Canavan, i bought the first book, The Magicians Guild on monday, i'd finished it by tuesday and bought the other two straight away.
The story is extremely good, with plenty of twists and turns in the story. The constant switching between the views of the different main characters may put some people off, but helps show an overall view of the situation. A great read and i am definately going to look into Trudi's other 5 book series once i've finished this one.

"A richly developed fantasy novel, with a nice line in earthy dialogue and many instances of grotesque violence. Lies of Locke Lamora is just like it's anti-hero - bold, witty and likely to catch you off guard. The Lies of Locke Lamora layers a series of daring scams, one on top of the other, in a complex and highly entertaining mix of magic, manipulation and mayhem"

And, it is not a trilogy (or dodecalogy). Although Scott Lynch wrote a pre-quel and also has in mind another book for November, they can be read as stand alone.



Lies of Locke Lamora

Good idea for a thread .

For the moment as I can't be bothered to type much, here's a list of my favourite authors:

Andrzej Sapkowski
Brian Jacques
Brian Ruckley
Conn Iggulden
David Eddings
David Gemell
Douglas Adams
Fiona McIntosh
Gail Z. Martin
George Orwell
Hal Duncan
Ilona Andrews
J.K. Rowling
J.R.R. Tolkien
Karen Miller
Patrick Rothfuss
Philip Pullman
Richard Dawkins
Robert Jordan
Robin Hobb
Stan Nicholls
Stephen King
Trudi Canavan

Li: if you like "The Black Magician" Trilogy you will like the book series "Age of the five" by the same author, and i happen to have heard a rumor that she is working on a sequal to "The Black Magician" - which I am looking forward to read when it get's published... She is a captivating author...

My absolute favorite fantasy author will always be Mercedes Lackey! She has written about the realm of Valdemar for ages - which is an incredible series of books, titles worth mentioning:

"Arrows of the Queen"
"Arrow's Flight"
"Arrow's Fall"
"The Oathbound"
"Oathbreakers"
"Oathblood"

Besides her realm of Valdemar, she also writes stories about a psychic detective named Diana Tregarde (also amazing to read),magic fairy tales based on the fairy tales we all know from childhood (ex. sleeping beauty) and magical tales spun around the scene of the real world...

Another of my favorites is Anne Rice - for the time being I am reading "Pandora", for perhaps the 10th time since I bought the book several years ago... All her vampire novels are worth reading...

Of course I have to mention Anne McCaffrey... Her dragons of Pern series is truely amazing, although I am not the biggest fan of the books written with her son in this series... She has also written a series about the unicorn girl Acorna (this series is one of my favorites as well) and a trilogy about the crystal singer Killashandra (I read it so often it's about to fall apart)...

Another fantastic novellist is Jaqueline Carey - I actually ended up buying her first book out of curiosity and the lack of anything in the bookstore of interest - but read the first book in an afternoon and bought everything else ever since... Her first book is called "Kushiel's Dart" and is a somewhat erotic fantasy novel without ever becoming cheap in it's language... I find the series amazing and look forward to reading the next book she releases...
Every fantasy lover has read something of J.R.R. Tolkien (or at least most have) and I have a lot of his books on my book shelves...

I have the whole Harry Potter series, although not such a big fan as to be saddened by the en of the series... I've loved every book in the series and loved them, especially the fact that there is nuances in the stories that appeal to kids and others to adults...

other authors on my favorite list:
Robin Hobb (both under her own name and under the name of Megan lindholm)
Jonathan Stroud
Ian Irvine
Kate Mosse
Jude Fisher
Steven Erikson
Scarlett Thomas (The end of Mr. Y)
Diane Setterfield (The Thirteenth Tale)
David Eddings
Douglas Adams
Christopher Paolini (the series about Eragon)

I have a passion for fantasy novels and would that I could write one myself and fantasy novels including dragons are my alltime favorites

I've just finished reading all the Harry Potter books. I tried to read them years ago, thought they were rubbish, and gave up.

The wife insisted and I forced myself to try again, and damn I'm glad I did. They are amazing. Book crack. It's not till the 3rd book that it starts getting really interesting, but the pages cannot turn fast enough after that.

They do live up to the hype, and they've got more mature and original ideas that most adult books I've read.

Currently reading Peopleware by DeMarco & Lister. Management type book with emphasis on building strong software development teams, It came highly recommended and for anyone in the field I highly recommend it. Last time I actually read a story (to the end) was many years ago, can't recall what it was. Generally just read tech books these days, and usually just for reference.
Favourite author: Brian Lumley, /lick his necroscope series.