Two chaps I keep hearing mentioned but whose wares I have yet to sample are Patrick Rothfuss and Peter V. Brett. Happily, both have eBook versions of their books so I’ll probably try The Name of the Wind and The Painted Man shortly.
There’s also the Mistborn Trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve delayed getting it slightly because I didn’t want to buy it right after The Way of Kings, but once I’ve refreshed my memory of the sample I’ll buy it.
One of the downsides of eBooks is that sometimes the formatting can be wrong. Substantial gaps between paragraphs can occur, or it might just be an enormous, unsightly wall of text. The Alchemist in the Shadows by Pierre Pavel is very highly rated, and I enjoyed the sample, but it does have blank lines between paragraphs. To be honest, I think I might end up getting it anyway. I posted a while ago I was looking for some stuff from overseas, after all and, whilst the formatting seems slightly irksome, it isn’t enough to potentially ruin a book for me.
Next year there’ll be new stuff from Joe Abercrombie (provisionally titled [A] Red Country) and Scott Lynch (Republic of Thieves) to enjoy, and there’s a fourth Tales of the Ketty Jay in production as well.
It’s quite interesting to read http://croftfantasyreads.blogspot.com/, which contains many fantasy book reviews. There’s an almost 0% overlap between our reading (well, reviewing) habits, and when I’ve finished the stuff on my immediate to-read list I’ll be checking it for some new authors to try out.
Which reminds me, I want to read some more Terry Pratchett. I’ve only read the City Watch Trilogy (Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, and Feet of Clay) and always meant to read more, but never got around to it. So, if anyone has recommendations (Pratchett or otherwise) do please feel free to offer them.
Thaddeus
I have all of TP's books. Utterly unsure why but I am very fond of the Unseen University and City Watch ones but markedly less enthused by the witch-related books.
ReplyDeleteThe Nac Mac Feegles are (deliberately, I suspect) far too contrived and obvious - and therefore I find them tedious.
That said, I have 'Wintersmith' on my bedside table at the moment and am enjoying re-reading it.
As an aside - and for those of us who still frequent Usenet - pTerry (as he was referred to) was once a regular contributor on alt.fan.pratchett. He dropped out when his lawyers raised the topic of lawsuits from people claiming they had "given" him ideas.
If you are going to plunge deeper into Pratchetts' world I would earnestly suggest you go as deep as you can. Whilst some of his later works are quite fun, e.g. "Going Postal" and "Making Money" (which have to be read in that order if they are to make sense), they are in my opinion not a patch on the earlier stuff.
ReplyDeleteRincewind is one of Pratchett's greatest characters and I thoroughly recommend "The Colour of Magic", "The Light Fantastic" and "Interesting Times" (preferably in that order). When Rincewind meets Cohen the Barbarian you get Practchett at his very best.
Have fun.
P.S. Mr. Eye, what was wrong with Equal Rites? Not a full blown witch book but it introduced the idea.
So, that's Unseen University, City Watch, and Rincewind. Cheers for the suggestions :)
ReplyDelete