The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

If you haven’t read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by now, you are BLOWING IT!

Sure, there’ve been radio plays, a BBC series in the 1980′s, and a recent full-on movie with some excellent actors. The guide, however, is one of those books – or, rather, well, series of books – that absolutely demands to be read in dead-tree format.

Preferrably with something alcoholic.

In one sitting.

On Sunday, in a hammock, with lots of tissue around to help because you often laugh too hard and expell something from an inconvenient orifice when you don’y intend to.

Douglas Adams’ classic trilogy in Four Parts describes perfectly both the dystopian idiocy of humanity, and the likelihood that if we’re this messed up, everyone else in the galaxy probably is as well. Whether it’s by revealing the hypocrisy of civic planning, the failure of bureaucracy, or the intricacies of broken families strewn across the galaxy.

You might even begin to understand why the bowl of petunias said “Oh no, not again” when falling from orbit. But only if you’re paying attention.

Accept no substitutes. Unless they’re from an alternate reality. In which case, are they really substitutes, or imposters?

Seriously. Haven’t read it. Blowing it. Fix that, right now. Get The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy from Amazon.

Geomancer - Vol.1 Well of Echoes - Ian Irvine

I wasn’t at all fond of Ian Irvine’s first quartet, the View from the Mirror, but Geomancer and it’s subsequent  quartet won me over in a big way.

Irvine is one of those authors who feels best when he’s being mean to his characters. In the initial four books, this failed awfully, because the characters weren’t the right kind to be abused. However, Tiaan, Nish and the other protagonists in the Well of Echoes series are immediately portrayed as flawed, weak humans (just like the rest of us). This humanity lends itself far better to humanizing the world Geomancer takes place in as well.

Irvine shows a great maturity of writing style, beginning with this book. It’s his fifth, which says a lot about the quality of his first quartet – however, given the gap in timeline between View from the Mirror and Geomancer (about 200 years, world-time), and the way Irvine sets his contexts, Geomancer can easily be the first book of his one reads, and one won’t miss a beat.

The only complaint I have about Geomancer is the title; the idea of a Geomancer is introduced in the book, and for some time it appears Tiaan will become the titular hero. However, as we discover in much of Irvine’s writing, book titles are hooks that describe the book’s plot, not necessarily a character or direct event within the book. He, or his editors, know what sells fantasy, and that makes the series all the more endearing.

In all, Geomancer is a great start, introduces (or re-introduces) an excellent world, and breaks the mould for fantasy fiction.

Geomancer is well worth the read – check it out at Amazon.

Richard Morgan - Broken Angels

Following Altered Carbon, Richard Morgan’s second Envoy book makes the jump from sci-fi noir detective novel to full on survival thriller, explains some of the world of the Envoys, and does a significant amount more world building.

Here we find Takeshi Kovacs – a significant time beyond the events of Altered Carbon – in the midst of an archaeological espionage plot to harvest Martian technology from ruins discovered in the middle of a war zone.

There should be no surprises here; this is a violent book, filled with rough language, graphic suffering, and a reasonable dose of sexual innuendo. If we hadn’t expected any of that coming in, after Morgan’s first Envoy book, we wouldn’t have been paying attention. Morgan does an excellent job of putting all the baseness of human warrior mentality in the clothes of high-powered science fiction; his characterization style, intricacy of plot, and the obvious still-undisclosed secrets from Kovacs’ past add to the intensity of the book.

Where his first book was a sci-fi noir detective thriller, Morgan’s follow up is hardboiled war novel, showing the author’s range and capability – overall, it’s quite a powerful book, and a good addition to the Kovacs/Envy universe.

Pick up Broken Angels on Amazon.

The Sword of Shannara - Terry Brooks

Where did I get the book? I picked up the first three Shannara books on the recommendation of a fellow writer.

Why did I choose this book? The Sword of Shannara is a success story for writers, as much as it has become an archetype of fantasy fiction.

The Story’s Strengths: Brooks’ narrative style is entrancing. It’s easy to see why his writing became such an instant hit. From the moment you begin reading, the story draws you in and never lets go.

The Story’s Weaknesses: I found the book’s ending a little muddy. Being a first effort, there was the chance that Brooks wouldn’t get another shot at producing a book. Following a trend I’ve seen with a lot of writers, he left the story open enough to allow for subsequent tales, but wrapped the narrative regarding the Sword itself, and the main characters, thoroughly. This semi-open-ended mode of denouement has a tendency to smack of limp writing.

Why am I recommending this book? Shannara is a seminal classic. It, and the stories that followed, have become some of the best known fantasy fiction works of any contemporary writer. If you haven’t read The Sword of Shannara and its descendant series, you haven’t read modern fiction.

Pick up The Sword of Shannara on its own, or The Sword of Shannara Trilogy from Amazon.

American Gods - A Novel by Neil Gaiman

Where did I get the book? Having read Neverwhere (review forthcoming) and seen it’s production as a BBC short series, I picked up American Gods and a few other Gaiman stories.

Why Did I Choose This Book? The struggle Gaiman depicts in American Gods, between the Gods of the old world (Europe), and the new things we worship here in the west, is very real to me as a person of belief.  Television, Celebrity, and other modern concerns are edging out the power of the old divinities – and, in this tale, they’re having none of it.

The Story’s Strengths: The world Neil Gaiman portrays in American Gods is dark, as is much of his work, with layers of intrigue hiding behind every surface. The main character, Shadow, is a compelling everyman ex-convict deserving of a second chance. All in all, American Gods plays up the massive cultural subtext of attention becoming worship in a way that’s both insidious and thought-provoking in all the best ways.

The Story’s Weaknesses: At times in the book’s beginning, Shadow’s reactions to the strangeness around him feels a bit contrived. It’s hard to tell, from Gaiman’s writing, just how it’s affecting his characters. This is more a weakness in Gaiman’s style than anything else; he writes very much from outside his characters’ heads, as if he were directing a screenplay rather than writing a novel.

Why I’m Recommending It: American Gods is fantasy fiction blended with real world noir mystery at its finest. Neil Gaiman is fantastic in his portrayal of the war for faith. American Gods is worth reading as a study both in deep fiction, and for those of us concerned about just how our rabid attention to “The New” is affecting our perception of “The Old”.

Find American Gods at Amazon.

The Great Book of Amber - Roger Zelazny

Where Did I Get This Series?: Amber came to me from another collection – unexpectedly. Actually, I found it in my box, after a roommate and I parted presences.

Why Did I Choose This Series?: Amber is one of those rare series which, when finished, you so wish it could be longer. More. It shouldn’t end.

The Story’s Strengths: The Great Book of Amber itself contains all ten of Roger Zelazny’s original works – a great collection of writing. The themes of the Amber series is itself the tale’s greatest strength; the principal characters move between perfect order (the City of Amber), and perfect chaos. Each story moves the narrative ahead in a very specific way.

The Story’s Weaknesses: Unfortunately for the reader, between the first and third books in the Omnibus, the principal character changes – seemingly with no explanation, and without giving the why or wherefore for the change. Given that the series is written in first-person, this change is jarring, and might cause an unaware reader some confusion when it happens.

Why I’m Recommending This Book: Amber is a classic series – and there’s no better way to read it than as an onmibus like the Great Book of Amber. With the primary story ending after book 10, and knowing the author’s completed the tale, Amber also doesn’t suffer the painful waiting period so many current authors seem to rely on to build their hype. It’s a finished product; you know the end is actually the end, not a prologue for another book. Amber is well worth a read, especially as an example of archetypal fantasy.

Get the Great Book of Amber on Amazon.

Black Sun Rising - C.S. Friedman

Where Did I Get This Series?: This is another recommendation from fellow roleplayers.

Why Did I Choose This Series?: Having read only the first fifteen pages of Black Sun Rising, I immediately sought out When True Night Falls and Crown of Shadows – I knew immediately I’d enjoy C.S. Friedman’s writing style, and the major characters.

The Story’s Strengths: The world Friedman builds in this trilogy has a lot of depth – and logic – behind it. As an example of great, powerful mechanism behind the characters moving through the story, the world is a phenomenon in and of itself. Much of the trilogy follows the same characters – and the interplay between hero and anti-hero archetypes is stellar.

The Story’s Weaknesses: There’s a little too much obfuscation near the end of the series – without dropping spoilers, I’ll unfortunately have to say the end of Crown of Shadows is a bit of a let-down. Not because it’s anticlimactic or a failed plot; but because the exposition surrounding the climax of the trilogy seems a bit overwrought. While the final story does a good job of explaining the mysteries of the series, it may be that it does too good a job demystifying them in the process.

Why I’m Recommending This Book: Friedman’s writing style is fantastic. The character arcs – especially that of the anti-hero, Gerald Tarrant – are both human and convincing as fictions. Nowhere, until the last 40 pages of book three, does the suspense of the series break or wind-down in a critical way.

Black Sun Rising, When True Night Falls, and Crown of Shadows are all available on Amazon.

The Fionavar Tapestry - Guy Gavriel Kay

Where Did I Get This Book?: One of my teachers in high school recommended The Fionavar Tapestry because Kay’s writing style and mine are fairly similar (apparently). Having read the book, I agree – and it’s something I aspire to improve upon.

Why Did I Choose This Book?: Kay is a master of attention direction – his writing, whether fantastic fiction or historical revisionist fiction, draws the reader along eloquent paths of focus; Fionavar’s a great example of this.

The Story’s Strengths: Fionavar is a perfect world, as far as Fantasy books are concerned; there’s an enemy (Rakoth Maugrim), the nobility, the magic man, and an assortment of out of place heroes all tasked with specific sacrifices. Kay does an amazing job of laying out every trope in the Fantasy fiction world, without pushing anything over the edge. Not a single word is out of place, not a single portion of the story overdrawn.

The Story’s Weakness: At times, Kay’s writing might set off some of the less aware readers’ cliche alerts. While much of the archetypes Kay uses (right down to invoking Arthur and Lancelot) are entirely intentional, the density of mysticism and volley of fictional trope can easily seem overdone if you don’t read with the expectation that Kay is creating an archetypal world, and using an archetypal story as its engine.

Why I’m Recommending This Book: Kay’s writing doesn’t quite fit the mold of most fantasy authors. While fewer readers might know his name, his writing – and Fionavar in particular – stand up to the most diligently read classics easily.

Get The Fionavar Tapestry through Amazon.

Gardens of the Moon - Steven Erikson

Where Did I Get This Book?: I picked this up at random based on the first paragraph, read at the shelf in the book store. With the kind of explosive beginning Gardens of the Moon has, I had no other option.

Why Did I Choose This Book?: When I found Gardens of the Moon I had stopped reading for a number of years. I’ve been writing and gaming – mostly text-based roleplaying – for nearly eleven years at this point, but there was a gap, a significant one. So when I found the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, I wasn’t expecting to dive back into books. In three weeks I had read the first six novels in the series. It helps that the author, Steven Erikson, comes from where I live.

The Story’s Strengths: Each of the Malazan series can be taken as a self-contained story, which is a big deal for those of us frustrated with the George RR Martins and Robert Jordans of the world for whom the last page is just an excuse for a terrible cliffhanger. While there are repeating characters and a well-defined, over-arching story arc, the ability to put the entire series down at the end of a book and say “if that’s all, that’s ok” is absolutely massive in the fantasy fiction arena. The beauty of Erikson’s writing is that, of course, you don’t really want it to be all. Once you’ve engaged the characters, you’re stuck, and it’s wonderful, because Erikson’s biggst strength is his characterisation. These people are people, not plot devices.

The Story’s Weaknesses: Gardens of the Moon specifically suffers only frm being a siege novel. The locale of the book is interesting, Darujhistan is a beautiful city. But the entire tale, all 900+ pages of it takes place there it seems, and sometimes that can be overwhelming, or at the least come across as dragging. Thankfully, the characters address much of this. The other issue is Erikson’s repeated use of Twenty-Five-Cent words like “conflagration” – however, this cleans up in his later writing, which is interesting to see.

Why I’m Recommending This Book: Simple; I loved it. It got me reading again after a long period of ignoring any written word that didn’t come from my keyboard, and with the experiences I’ve had since I started working thoroughly on my writing, the first and best way to grow your skill is by exposing yourself in an aware manner to the skills of others. More specifically, good writers are consistant readers.

Get Gardens of the Moon on Amazon.

The Belgariad, Volume One - David Eddings

Where Did I Get This Book?: The Belgariad is one of those sempiternal classics of fantasy, I have no idea when I first heard of the series, nor who suggested I buy it. I found the two-volume Omnibus edition about eight years ago, and I’ve read it about four times since, front to back of both books.

Why Did I Choose This Book?: Eddings is widely accepted as a seminal fantasy author. The Belgariad raised a number of the walls that the House of Fantasy is built on, and for good reason; the story is classical in its construction, the narrative is clear, and the character archetypes are very visible.

The Story’s Strengths: Being one of the first of its kind – an expanded series which eventually became an Ennead in twelve parts. Even though the individual books are fairly short, the series itself has a truly massive scope, following a wide breadth of characters.

The Belgariad, Volume Two - David Eddings

The Story’s Weaknesses: Being such a pillar series, The Belgariad is filled with cliché and overblown archetypes. When the series came out, it was very original. However, as with all things epic, over time much of the material of the book has been repeated in certain directions, the devices Eddings used have been adopted, adapted and re-adopted. It was, and is, a wonderful story, but for well-read fans of fantasy these days, the series can seem a little weak specifically because of its copycats.

Why I’m Recommending This Book: No one claiming to be a fantasy fan should miss this series. It’s among the very few books I keep a hard copy around, and plan to for some time because of its inspirational nature; it, and not more than twenty others, can be considered the pillars of modern fantasy and, sadly, not enough people know about the Belgariad.

The Belgariad, Volume One and The Belgariad, Volume Two are available on Amazon.