Fiction Books

Looking for book recommendations.

Something exciting and lighthearted, set in the Middle Ages or Renaissance, in the vein of The Princess Bride, Robin Hood, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court,, or the movie A Knight's Tale.

What are your favorites? Thanks!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/5983777

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate stone

On the forefinger of an alderman,

Drawn with a team of little atomies

Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;

Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,

The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;

Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;

Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;

Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;

Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,

Not half so big as a round little worm

Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;

Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,

Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;

O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on cursies straight;

O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;

O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.

Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail

Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,

Then dreams he of another benefice.

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five fadom deep; and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

That plats the manes of horses in the night

And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish, hairs,

Which once untangled much misfortune bodes

This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,

That presses them and learns them first to bear,

Making them women of good carriage.

This is she...

16k page .PDF, so it may take a bit to load through the web interface. Here's some alternative file formats from Anna's.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6237195

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6237131

Fedipunk means a story in a universe, in which the era of dezentralized social networks is already there, with all its potential consequences - or we see the transition to it.

From what I read in earlier posts and my own thinking I propose the following ones (new suggestions are of course welcome):

• Planet Magnon by Leif Randt (socialism, distributed social network, decentral communities)
• Mars Trilogy Book 2 by Kim Stanley Robinson (collaborative government strategies)
• Half-Built Garden by (socialism, distributed social network, decentral communities)
• His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (decentral factions, openings between different parallel universes which begin to merge, remote communication over magic substance)

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/2911743

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin currently has the rating of 4.44 on Goodreads. The following books are standalones or first books in a series, as it would be unfair to compare it to the last book in a series, for example the fantastic ending to The Faithful and the Fallen series, Wrath, by John Gwynne, which has a Goodreads rating of 4.51.

Unsurprisingly, Brandon Sanderson features three times on this list! I can’t say I agree with any of these titles being “better”, but the all-knowing Goodreads reviewers might just have some interesting recommendations for A Song of Ice and Fire fans.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6112950

What do you think of this? Do you think it is a good idea and could take off?

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/scifi/t/506685

From an authorised sequel to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four to a collection of newly discovered short stories from the late Terry Pratchett, there is a mountain of brilliant science fiction to get through this month

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/742407

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/742102

What are you anticipating?

A year ago, I read the Masters of Rome historical fiction series, written by Colleen McCullough. Before reading this series I only vaguely knew about Julius Caesar (thanks to Shakespeare) and had no idea about Roman history. These books introduced me to characters that felt like real flesh and blood people I know so well, involved in delightfully intricate political manoeuvres. There are also described several military campaigns; some books being heavy on politics and some on military campaigns. Rome, as described in these books, feels like a real place that I wish I could visit, especially the Forum Romanum, the senate house, or the Subura (where Caesar grew up). (I know I can't do this since unfortunately I don't own a time machine!). This book series has made me fall in love with history, especially ancient history. I even went on to read a series set in ancient Greece after this, and enjoyed it.

The first two books, The First Man in Rome and The Grass Crown introduce us to two important characters : Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla. These books talk about their rise to prominence and their interesting relationship with each other. The third book, Fortune's Favorites, tells the story of the early careers of Julius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (or Pompey) and Marcus Licinius Crassus who later go on to form the First Triumvirate. In these books I found the descriptions of military campaigns to be a little boring and preferred it when the action shifted to Rome, and its politics.

It was when I started the next book, "Caesar's Women'', that I really fell in love with the series. Uptil now, the books were interesting, but this book and the next two, during the course of which Caesar's story is told, are especially engaging. The plot of this book is more streamlined and well paced, the focus being more on political intrigue. Caesar comes across as ferociously intelligent, highly capable, self - centred, manipulative, unscrupulous, ruthless, but makes for interesting reading, nevertheless. In the first half Cicero's busy trying to root out the Catilina conspiracy. The eccentric, relentless Cato, totally immune to corruption, coercion or intimidation was entertaining to read about. The constant boni (i.e., the conservative faction) assault over the course of the book, also changes Caesar, making him less easygoing, intolerant and more autocratic.

The next book in the series, "Caesar", covers events leading to and after Caesar's historic and momentous crossing of the Rubicon. Throughout the book, the narrative switches between events back in Rome and Caesar on campaign. The accounts of Caesar's campaigns are brilliantly written and even more riveting than the usual fun Roman politicking. Besides Cato (the leader of the boni), Bibulus, Ahenobarbus, Pompey and Brutus from the boni camp, Labienus and Mark Antony play secondary roles. We are also introduced to Cleopatra. The pacing never flags even for a bit and this book is my favourite in the series.

Narratively, the next book, "The October Horse" is a continuation of "Caesar". It marks an end of the Roman Republican era, the Republic entering its death throes as Caesar lay in the Curia of Pompey, stabbed twenty three times. Several other personages, including Cicero, Cato, Brutus, also meet their ends in this book. Just as this book signals the end of the Republic, it also heralds the beginning of the Empire, in the person of Caesar's heir: Octavian. Enter Octavian, master manipulator extraordinaire, onto the stage of Roman politics. His rise from a mere teenager to a member of the second Triumvirate is very engagingly depicted. The next and final instalment in the series is "Antony and Cleopatra". It covers events from the Battle of Philippi to the downfall of the Second Triumvirate and the renaming of Octavian to Augustus; the first Roman Emperor, in everything but name. It focuses on the love story of Antonius (Antony) and Cleopatra, right up to its tragic end.

Even though I have loved and enjoyed this series, I would like to make note of one con: at various points of the books, the author goes into a lot of historical detail making me feel that I was reading a history textbook. The books are factually dense and feature a huge cast of characters with a very confusing naming system. I used to think that it's just Russian characters in the books I read that have confusing names. Turns out, ancient Romans also had quite a confusing naming system. Nevertheless, I really liked this book series.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/2520063

This got me wondering - do you pair up books like this?

Woah what! Reminder that there are other communities on this instance that you can find via !411@literature.cafe as well as some writing communities!

I am forever bitter about Eragon..

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/3300814

Yet another slice of pure gold from her. She's become my favourite author of horror/weird/thriller fiction. I'm not going to say anything about the plot but the book itself is another one of her multi-layered descents into a place where you're unsure what's true and what's not until the very final reveal. Dark, quiet and measured with slices of genuine horror, her style always reminds me a lot of Peter Straub's best work like Koko or Ghost Story.

'Holly' is also very good, but for different reasons. I always have preferred King's shorter works like Revival or Carrie to his big monster doorstopper novels, which always feel flabby and overwrought to me. And he struck gold when he created the character of Holly Gibney. She's as immensely likeable as ever and has more shit to go through in this one. It's pointless talking about King's style as everyone already knows what they're getting so if you appreciate it when King reins in the worst of his tendency to waffle, you'll like this one.

Like books that got very popular but you never really could get into.

Could be translated from english to another language you speak or translate to english from another language

I have way too damn many lol. probably at least 400

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/2644486

Don't know if people know of this site or not but just in case you don't, it's pretty damn good. All they require is an email address (I used an anon one with no issues). You can follow up to 100 authors and get alerts when new stuff is announced and published.

It's also got a decent future search, showing up everything being published in the next 7 or 30 days which you can also narrow by genre.

They do use Web Beacons on their site and in their emails but uBlockOrigin will handle the website and DDG Email Protection can handle the emails.

I used to enjoy participating in book clubs (be it in person or online), but between emigrating, the pandemic and life changes I haven't been in one in quite a while. What about you? Do you enjoy reading groups? If so, in person or digital?

cross-posted from: https://lemmings.world/post/759157

What the title says, I'm tired of the trope where humans are the least advanced in the universe.

I'd like to read something different where we're the more advanced ones (not necessarily the most advanced). As an example I quite enjoyed the Ender's Game sequels and the angle of us being the more advanced ones was quite interesting.

Do you have any recommendations?

Basically, title