Favorite, Noteable, Fun

I was talking with a friend yesterday about books - I could talk about books for a LONG time, (and with great intensity) :-). Anyway, we were trading authors, books, series, etc. So, rather than just give her a list, I thought I'd post one so everyone can see the books that make me tick!

Just a forewarning, almost all of these will be Sci-fi, Fantasy, since these have been the genres that I have gravitated to in the past. I know my diet is a little unbalanced, but, I read most what I enjoy most ;-).

I plan on roughly organizing them with my mostest favoritest at the top, but we'll see how it turns out. I'll also link-ify the title/series using www.scifan.com which is my favorite Sci-fi/Fantasy resource for keeping books, series and authors straight. The pages mostly have short blurbs, or at least links to the books on Amazon, where you can get reader reviews, etc.

Guy Gavriel Kay

• The Lions of Al-Rassan
• Tigana
• Ysabel
• A Song for Arbonne

The top four are my favorite Guy Kay books. Honorable mention also goes to The Fionavar Tapestry series, which though it is not (quite) my favorite of his, is still really good. I also quite enjoyed his essay (Home and Away) with some of his ideas about fantasy as a genre.

Lois McMaster Bujold

• Vorkosigan Saga

This is a fantastic sci-fi series - space opera at it's finest! I would advise reading the series in chronological rather than published order. There are also omnibus volumes which contain the earlier novels. Here's the order I would read the books:

1. Cordelia's Honour (Shards of Honor, Barrayar)
2. Young Miles (The Warrior's Apprentice, The Vor Game + 1 short story)
3. Miles, Mystery and Mayhem (Cetaganda, Ethan of Athos + 1 short story)
4. Miles Errant (Brothers in Arms, Mirror Dance + 1 short story)
5. Memory
6. Komarr
7. A Civil Campaign
   
8. Miles, Mutants and Microbes (Falling Free, Diplomatic Immunity + 1 short story)
   

Bujold also writes other stuff, but I have not read most of it. I hope to read it some time though ;-).

David Gemmell

• Drenai Saga
• Rigante Series

David Gemmell is one of my favorite writers of "heroic fantasy". The two series mentioned above are what I consider his strongest works (I've read most, though not all of his stuff). He writes quick paced exciting books, with vivid fights and engaging characters. Most of his heroes are conflicted or anti-heroes (with the exception of Druss from the Drenai series - who is a strong contender for my favorite fantasy hero, and is the archetypal hero - straight as an arrow). A few of his books might be considered pulpy, most have fairly violent parts and a number have demonic forces that some readers might find disturbing.

The Rigante series is a good place to start, being shorter and slightly more sophisticated than the early Drenai books. I'd recommend reading the through both series in published order, though with the exception of the last 2 Rigante books each plot wraps up fairly nicely in one book.

... in progress - more to come!