this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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Fantasy books, stories, &c

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This month I've been rereading Halo: Primordium. Good book but just as depressing as I remember. I've also started working my way through the OpenLDAP Admin manual trying to wrap my head around LDAP.

So what have you all been reading? What did you think of it?

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[–] runwaylights@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've started A Memory of Light. The last book in the Wheel of Time series.

And I'm also reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

[–] TheActualDevil@sffa.community 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Oh man, I am so excited for you! That ending is amazing for the series. WoT is how I found my way to Brandon Sanderson. Now that I've read a lot of his stuff I understand that he excels at endings; its probably his biggest strength.

[–] runwaylights@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Thanks, I'm really looking forward to it! It's been a long journey through these 15 books. And Brandon Sanderson is great, I love the Mistborn and Stormlight books, but Elantris is one that really gripped me. Such a interesting and well-written story.

[–] gears@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I also loved Elantris. Warbreaker was similarly great, imo.

I'm on book 6 of the Wheel of Time, after reading all of the Cosmere lol

[–] runwaylights@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Nice! Reading WoT takes a while, but it so worth it

[–] TheActualDevil@sffa.community 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's awesome. Elantris doesn't get enough love from Sanderson fans, I think because his other work is so strong where in Elantris he was still finding his voice as his first published work. But I read it after books 1-4 of the Stormlight books and while it was clearly an early work and in comparison it's not written as "well," a lot of the key things are there. Compelling story, good character work, and compared to most fiction, really well written. It's just when put next to his later works it feels a bit "less." But obviously, his strength is really his character work, and some of them were a bit flat, but that villain... man that really showed what he can do with a character. And of course his story ideas are always just so unique and awesome.

And I don't know how much of Sanderson's background you know but it was the first Mistborn book that got him Wheel of Time. His telling of that story is actually really touching to me as someone who loves books and how they can affect people.

[–] runwaylights@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Yeah it takes so much dedication and practice to become a successful writer, so it's really remarkable that he wrote such a great story as his first novel. It shows his unique mind. And the raw (if you can call it that) feeling of Elantris adds to the charm for me. Its like seeing the writer grow and evolve before your eyes.

Oh wow, I didn't know that! And so far I've enjoyed how he wrotw the WoT series. Keeping in touch with the overall feeling of the books, but still writing within himself and not trying to emulate Robert Jordan.

[–] DarthVi@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago

I'm reading "So You Want to Be a Game Master" by Justin Alexander and "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson.

I also have "Needful Things" by Stephen King and "The Great Hunt" (The Wheel of Time book 2) by Robert Jordan sitting at roughly 50%, but they currently are in pause; unfortunately reading more than 2 books simultaneously is difficult if you also have to work.

[–] PonyOfWar@pawb.social 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've just finished "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell. A sci-fi story where it's the Jesuits who are sending the first mission to contact an alien species. It was a really great book, some of the best sci-fi I've read in recent years. The author really knows how to write great characters you care about, despite the fact that you know it'll all end in disaster from the very beginning.

I've now started "Gardens of the Moon", the first book of the "Malazan Book of the Fallen" series. The series is somewhat infamous for being very complicated and difficult to read, so we'll see how it goes. The author definitely likes to use some very obscure vocabulary, good thing I have an ebook reader with a built-in dictionary.

[–] StrawberryPigtails@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 11 months ago

The Sparrow sounds interesting. I'll have to add it to my list.

[–] gears@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm reading book 6 of the Wheel of Time. It's pretty great, I started the series after finishing the Cosmere books. A friend suggested them since Sanderson finished the series for Jordan.

[–] Rekhyt@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Man, Lord of Chaos is so good

[–] anonymouse@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago

I started on the Tawny Man triology by Robin Hobb, love it so far!

[–] ripripripriprip@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

I just started Children of Memory. I Really enjoyed the first two books.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Swastika Night (1984 but with Nazis and written before WWII)

The Gnostic Gospels (not quite as interesting as The Origin of Satan, but by the same author)

Sh!t Went Down (one page per day of historical events)

Acquired this month: Gaza Writes Back, A Rome of One's Own, The Ugly American, If We Burn

[–] SevereLow@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Carve the Mark and The Fates Divide by Veronica Roth. Wishing that the duology will have a sequel at some point in the future!

[–] nueromancer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 months ago

Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

[–] enshu@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

I am reading The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight by Andrew Leland.

[–] MyOtherUsername@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

The Naked Woman by Desmond Morris.

[–] JaymesRS 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Over December I read Scott Hawkins’ Library at Mount Char, T. Kingfisher’s Paladin’s Faith, Ben Aaronovich’s Moon over Soho, and I just finished Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology last night.

Mount Char was a wild ride. I’m still processing it a bit. I enjoyed it a bunch though.

Kingfisher is amongst my favorite authors right now, and while I’m not typically a Romantacy person, the World of the White Rat books all have a lot of great Fantasy and the romance portions are integrated well.

I started Rivers of London a while ago, but dropped off so I’m trying to pick it back up. It’s good, especially if you’re a Dresden Fan. There’s quite a few similarities in style.

Norse Mythology has always been interesting to me, and Gaiman’s integrates a bunch of disparate sources to make a pretty good set of stories.

[–] shiftymccool@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago

Just started Rise of Empire, Volume 2 of The Riyeria Revelations. I'm normally a pretty picky reader (Sanderson has spoiled me...) but this series is just plain solid so far. It's not great in any area, but it does well in most. Vol 1 felt a bit like a mix of LOTR and Wizard of Oz. Just a quest to find a thing and picking up folks with necessary skills along the way. The character development could use some fleshing-out, but that seems to be happening a bit more in vol 2. Overall, I recommend this series (so far), good fun.

[–] PeWu@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

Light novel named To Be the Eminence in Shadow. Compared to other JP novels out there, this translated version truly has distinction of people in dialogues (that means you can clearly notice who is speaking), which is very pleasing to say the least