Books I Should Read
Amazon has a nice feature where it takes all your purchases and your book ratings and then suggests what else you ought to try. Being borderline obsessive compulsive at times, I’ve given Amazon a lot of ratings to chew in the last 4 or 5 years. And it spits out some interesting suggestions.
The following are recent or upcoming releases that Amazon thinks I ought to like:
Wizard by Gene Wolfe is a surprising recommendation for the top of the list since while I recognize Gene Wolfe’s undoubted talents, his work has rarely given me any enjoyment. Perhaps I should give him another chance though. I was much younger when I read his New Sun stuff. Tastes change and all that. So I’m going to, cautiously, add this to my to read list. Well actually given that it says book two, I’m going to find book one and add that to my to read list.
According to the product description: A novel in two volumes, The Wizard Knight is in the rare company of those works which move past the surface of fantasy and drink from the wellspring of myth. Magic swords, dragons, giants, quests, love, honor, nobility-all the familiar features of fantasy come to fresh life in this masterful work.
The first half of the journey, The Knight — which you are advised to read first, to let the whole story engulf you from the beginning — took a teenage boy from America into Mythgarthr, the middle realm of seven fantastic worlds. Above are the gods of Skai; below are the capricious Aelf, and more dangerous things still. Journeying throughout Mythgarthr, Able gains a new brother, an Aelf queen lover, a supernatural hound, and the desire to prove his honor and become the noble knight he always knew he would be.
Shadowmarch by Tad Williams is a less surprising choice since I did start reading Tad William’s Otherland series. I didn’t finish reading it mind you. But that had a lot to do with the huge size of it and that I had lots of other stuff to read as well. This one is a return to pure fantasy rather than the techno-fantasy of Otherland. To quote the blurb. Shadowmarch begins Tad Williams’ first epic fantasy trilogy since his best-selling Memory, Sorrow and Thorn. Rich with detail and exotic culture, and filled with a cast of characters both diverse and three-dimensional, Shadowmarch is a true fantasy achievement, an epic of storytelling by a master of the genre.
The Ethos Effect by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. Now this one makes perfect sense to me. I’ve read almost everything L. E. Modesitt, Jr. has put out and I actually prefer his science fiction work to his fantasy work. This one is definitely going on my to-read list.
The publicisits say: Set in the same universe as The Parafaith War (but two centuries later, and intended to be read independently), The Ethos Factor is the story of Commander Van C. Albert of the Republic Space Force of Taran, a brave and resourceful officer who once defeated a larger enemy ship but indirectly caused the loss of a civilian liner in the process. Cleared by the board of inquiry, but an embarrassment to the high command, he retains his commission but is given only dead-end assignments. For a time, he must watch helplessly as cold war among economic, religious and political rivals evolves toward interstellar open warfare.
Homeward Bound by Harry Turtledove. Now this is why its worth checking out Amazon’s suggestions. I’ve read only one of Turtledove’s previous books, the first in this series in fact and while it was enjoyable enough I never got round to checking out any more. This suggestion puts him back on my new read radar.
From the PR guys: Alternate-history maestro Turtledove’s conclusion to his Worldwar and Colonization sagas, about how lizard-like aliens known as the Race invaded Earth during WWII and were fought to a stalemate by the major Allied and Axis combatants, lacks the vividly described battle scenes of its predecessors, but more than compensates by closely examining the Race’s culture and society. While the Race have colonized much of Earth, they’re amazed by the human ability to adapt to change. (The aliens’ probe some 600 years earlier led them to expect they’d be facing armored knights.) When an American starship makes the trip to Home, the Race’s planet of origin, the lizards fear the loss of their technological dominance and decide to annihilate Earth, their colony included—until another Earth spaceship arrives, this one with the faster-than-light drive the Race never developed.
Rune of The Earth by Stephen Donaldson. Now this is one I was definitely going to get anyway. Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant books were some of the earliest fantasy books I read and while the darkness of his writing can be almost overpowering at times, they are usually some of the most unique fantasy works as well.
Setting the Scene: At the opening of The Runes of Earth, ten years have passed. Linden Avery comes home one day to find her child building images of the Land with blocks, and senses a terrible foreboding. She had thought that she would never again be summoned to the Land-nor ever again see her beloved Thomas Covenant. But in the Land, evil is unmaking the very laws of nature. . . .
Eoghann Irving is amongst other things the creator and Editor of Solar Flare. He has a life long interest in all forms of science fiction and fantasy and a pressing need to share this interest with anyone who will listen. Find out more at his personal website eoghann.com..
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