Just what the title says: share a book or a series of books you’ve just loved recently
Personally, I just finished Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series and wow! She manages an astounding storyline full of incredible characters over the course of nine books and keeps everything moving, engaging, and crystal clear on the action.
The premise is almost ludicrous: the Napoleonic Wars (turn of the 19th Century), but with dragons forming a significant military service branch.
I was skeptical, but the character work she pulls off makes it all not just worthwhile but amazing
Oh man me too!
I dig the notion of the Allomancy, but (and maybe it’s too early to judge entirely) there’s something in the presentation of Kelsier’s nighttime raid and subsequent tutelage that’s too perfect knowledge of how to use the magic.
Like, idk branderson, either show us how he uses it or tell us how it works but please don’t do both in exactly the same way
EtA: currently at 8% of the collected trilogy ebook
I’ve been listening to the audiobooks of the Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock and enjoying them quite a bit. Very puply sword-and-sorcery stuff, but every story has an intriguing amount of depth, very weird magical stuff, and an albino anti-hero swinging a massive black sword that drinks souls. It’s fun stuff.
As a BIG Sanderson fan I think he has certainly improved on his craft through the years. Mistborn OG trilligy is fairly early in his career and to my recollection lacks some of the depth and masterful pacing/buildup of later novels. Personally I am a much bigger fan of Stormlight Archive and also some of his standalone novels from the Cosmere. IMO all 4 of his novels from his post COVID Kickstarter (aka money grab) were absolute bangers. Yumi being the standout IMO.
I am actually working through his Skyward series right now. It’s a bit more YA than the thicker tomes and not the most original piece, it actually strikes me as an homage to Enders Game/The Last Navigator but dammit it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
I have not read Emp Soul, I actually probably should get that on my list.
The Way of Kings and the rest of the Stormlight Archive are his masterpieces. They are DENSE though and a commitment as Chris alluded to.
The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook is a fun romp for sure and is a complete stand alone. It really showcases that Branderson does not always have to be deep and moody. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter and/or Tress of the Emerald Sea are both within the “Cosmere” of Stormlight Archive and IMO enjoyable as stand alone. Both are not nearly as dense as Stormlight Archive (1stbook Way of Kings) and have a healthy dose of whimsy.
Also while i know my opinion on this matter is not without controversy: “Wheel of Time” as completed by Branderson made the series accessible and better. Many of my friends from back in the day had made it through some (maybe 2-4 books) but fell off as Jordan’s books started to meander and lose the threads of the weave. For the most part any Jordan reader was able to hop back on to ride out the WoT series which impressed me for sure.
Ok, I’ve worked my way through The Final Empire and it was overall good and memorable and a worthy influence to future generations of fantasy writers.
I have some small number of notes about the content and lore of it, but nothing absolutely deal-breaking.
The only real problem I’ll voice is that it’s 541 pages long and could have been losslessly compressed to 300 for a better overall product.
I also managed to tear through Annalee Newitz’s latest non-fiction Stories are Weapons (~200 pages in all) and learned a good bit about different psychological operations and influence campaigns through US history.
They even managed to work in an utterly fantastic anecdote about Hugo Award Winning author N. K. Jemisin, who is an absolute favorite of mine and I cannot recommend highly enough. Akron-Summit County Public Library has loads of Jemisin’s novels - you should check them out.
Annalee Newitz writes both fiction (Autonomous, The Terraformers) and non-fiction (Four Lost Cities) that are also available at the library