recommend some modern fiction for someone who's lost her way...

[bmd]

Didn't like Donaldson... he took the monsters and trolls shit too far for my taste.

Started reading Tad Williams once I think, does the Dragonbone Chair ring a bell? Not sure why I didn't get much further than 2nd chapter, will have another look.

Yeah that's the first in the Memory, Sorrow & Thorn trilogy. I found it reeeeeally dragged for the first few chapters and then just ripped me into its world.

Donaldson is a bit 'singing-ringing tree' stylee but I like the way his character refuses to believe in the world he's in and acts accordingly.

'Iron Council' by China Miéville was the last fantasy novel I read that had me fired up. It's in the "Fifty Fantasy & Science Fiction Works That Socialists Should Read" list so clearly everyone should read it.

I suppose fantasy is the last bastion of socialism these days.

 

[Pieface]

And China Miéville, his books are very good, even though he sounds like a Mills & Boon author. 'Iron Council' is excellent.

didn't onemonkey go to school with him? Or was that you, Chris??

I really want to read some phantasie - get in the mood for christmas

 

[Dubversion]

Donaldson is a bit 'singing-ringing tree' stylee but I like the way his character refuses to believe in the world he's in and acts accordingly.

yeh, i just thought the initial rape element and then Covenant's torment about it throughout the trilogy (and i did just read the first3!) was pretty interesting. When I think about the amount of shockingly bad sci-fi and fantasty I used to read (even toss like McAffrey), Donaldson is the only one who doesn't make me shudder at the memory.

Oh, and Moorcock. Cos it was funny, intentionally pulpy and just a lot of fun.

 

[bmd]

yeh, i just thought the initial rape element and then Covenant's torment about it throughout the trilogy (and i did just read the first3!) was pretty interesting. When I think about the amount of shockingly bad sci-fi and fantasty I used to read (even toss like McAffrey), Donaldson is the only one who doesn't make me shudder at the memory.

Oh, and Moorcock. Cos it was funny, intentionally pulpy and just a lot of fun.

Yeah the rape and how it changed his perception was what stayed with me from that series.

The books I read when I was younger and used to think were great I now have no time for and I think that's what made Donaldson's stay with me, they were accessible to me at that time and also marked, for me, a kind of maturing into more adult themes. Unfortunately decent 'grown up' fantasy is quite hard to find but I love the genre so I keep trying.

 

[Mation]

Quick, easy and entertaining:

Timoleon Vieta Come Home by Dan Rhodes
Beyond the Great Indoors by Ingvar Ambjornsen
The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill
Isabel and Rocco by Anna Stothard

 

[DotCommunist]

Dan Simmons Illium: fantastic re-working of Homers tales

 

[omlette]

Life of Pi by Yann Martell

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Not to sound ungrateful but have partially read (more than half) both of those and HATED them (or at least couldn't get interested), despite them being recommended by absolutely everyone.

 

[omlette]

nowt wrong with nick hornby have you read his new-ish one - long way down? read it yesterday, cried with laughter for about 50 pages and then it got really sad

Well...it's a bit of a guilty pleasure, to me. I can tell it's a bit crap/crass, but still enjoy his stories, if not the prose.

 

[omlette]

you said you'd lost your way. think about it

doh!

enjoy Six Feet Under (if you haven't seen them all already) - I watched the entire show (all the seasons) over a few weeks on DVD a year or so ago, and when you watch them like that the final episode hits you like a sledgehammer, the best closing montage EVER.