this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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Asklemmy
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The discworkd series
William Gibson's books
Neal Stephenson's books (except Anathem, too looong)
Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud
Dan Simmons books
The Atrocity archives by Charles Stross (just discovered this one, a must read!)
The master and Margarita
Kunderna (the old ones)
Umberto Eco (especially Baudolino)
So basically sci-fi or fantasy in a plausible heavy setting I guess :-D
Edit: forgot the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy OFC!
My mind got jogged so I'll add Catch 22 by Joseph Heller to the list too. IMO definitely a good read if you liked the HHGTTG.
Discworld is sometimes compared to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That's to say they're both heavily tongue-in-cheek, not "hard" scifi/fantasy. HGTTG is "hard" scifi in the same way Rincewind is Gandalf - ie not at all. They're running more on Rule of Funny, and it works pretty well. Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams were both English, of course, and have quite a bit of overlap in their humor, commentary and writing style.
Yeah a favourite from my youth, actually got hooked when they aired on Swedish radio!
It's just so long time ago I forgot them, perfect suggestion!
Plausible, heavy setting - Discworld π€
Regarding the first, have you tried the Robin Hobb books?
I donβt know many that are similar to discworld though. Maybe Good Omens by Sir Terry Pratchet and Neil Gaimen
π Well people act as (evil, bad, stupid, capricious, vicious, power hungry, but also good in lots of ways) people do and the world itself is quite well built IMO.
Yeah I have one or two Robin Hobb, IIRC it was like okay but a bit meh, I'll check it out again.
Good omens was okay, not my favourite though.
Thanks!
Try some Vonnegut if you haven't. hgttg really feels like a derivative of Sirens of Titan in particular. Slaughterhouse 5 is one of my favorites too
I'll check him out, read some pages of Sirens of Titans and weeelll it feels a tad old if you get what I mean, like even if it was a really good book then, the tropes have worn out now. Will check out though!
The Master and the... MARGARITA??
Edit: Bought.
You are in for a great ride. Great read.
We definitely have similar taste.
You'd probably like 'The City & The City' by China Mieville
Thank you, just ordered the book π.
All of these are very light reading. I think the target demographic for this sort of stuff is teenagers.
Thanks but I'm into more heavy duty stuff :-)
Anything by Ian McDonald.
This is How You Lose the Time War
Black Science, Paper Girls (graphic novels)
The Crow (the movie)