Recs Sought!

[jij]

I'll be travelling a lot this summer, and I need to stock my ebook reader!  At the moment I have only seven books left to read in it, and I live in terror of running out (seriously, it's a phobia;  I've been known to INSIST on going book shopping because I only had a few hundred pages left and couldn't bear the prospect of running out).  So I

Comments

[icarus_chained]

Hee! Lots of good recs here! I'll second the Butcher Dresden Files (one of my favourite characters of *all time* comes from those books - keep an eye out for Gentleman John Marcone!). I'll also second Pratchett (the Watch series is my personal favourite of the Discworld subsets), and someone mentioned Perdido Street Station, which I found to be a lot of work (it's *huge*, and a bit dense), but totally worth it.

Also, Diana Wynne Jones is very good, and I will second Eight Days of Luke, but my favourite of hers is the Dark Lord of Derkholm, which is a complete and warm-hearted send-up of every fantasy convention on dark lords, *ever*. It's absolutely fabulous, and manages to address a number of strong issues, as well as having a range of absolutely gorgeous characters.

For myself, I'm currently taking M. John Harrison's The Centauri Device at a leisurely pace, and I'm liking it. It takes a bit of getting into, because his style is oddly opaque, sort of that you know what's going on, but you're reaching for it through a haze, kinda thing? But that's his point in a lot of ways, the kind of aimless nature of life, and the supporting cast kind of drift in, catch your eyes and interests for a few pages at a time, then drift out again. It's odd, as I said, but very effective, and I'm liking it. Plus, it was written in 1974, and is on the Sci-Fi Masterworks list, so I'd imagine it'd be reasonably easy to get a hold of. But then, I know nothing of such things (I'm a public library and backstreet-secondhand kinda girl).

Hope you find something you like!

[jij]

I'm very much a library and secondhand person...when I can be. :) The only secondhand English bookstore in town closed a few years ago... *sniffles*

I'd already been contemplating the Butcher simply because you've talked about it so glowingly, and when everyone else jumped in to rec him I decided I'm just going to have to get my hands on that.

Specific Jones recs are great! I do love her style, like you described it, "warm-hearted."

I think I've heard of "The Centauri Device" as well...it saddens me how many great scifi books I have no inkling of whatsoever! *droops* But I shall try to fix some of that...*looks resolute*

Thanks so much for the recs!