Technocowboy and I were talking about books we like/love/recommend. He posted his list (here). Here’s mine:
CS Friedman:
Everything. Start with In Conquest Born and then move right along. Her take on the vampire mythos (The Madness Season) is unique. This
Julian May:
Not everything, sad to say. (I really didn’t like her Rampart Worlds trilogy). But Intervention/Metaconcert and the Galactic Milieu trilogy are amazing. Oh, and she bridges them into her Pliocene quadrilogy (600 millions years earlier) in a way that feels clunky, but works perfectly.
Spider & Jeanne Robinson:
Star Dance, Star Mind, and Star Seed
zero gravity dance.
think about it.
Now go get them
Spider Robinson’s Callahan books:
Fair warning: he delights in word games and puns. But not at the expense of the reader.
A bunch of barflys save the earth. Three times.
Jaqueline Carey
(A recent discovery.) I picked up Kushiel’s Dart, seduced by its cover and the first line: “Lest anyone should suppose that I am a cuckoo’s child, got on the wrong side of the blanket by lusty peasant stock and sold into indenture in a shortfallen season, I may say that I am House-born and reared in the Night Court proper, for all the good it did me”
This is a sexy book, exploring the intersection of pain and pleasure with delicacy for those of us who do not understand (except intellectually) that there *is* an intersection.
I’m in the middle of the follow up: Kushiel’s Chosen (savoring it slowly, as it should be), and am looking forward to the rest of the books. (She’s at five, now, I believe.)
Juliet Marillier
At its core, the first book of the Sevenwaters Trilogy (Daughter of the Forest) is a retelling of a fairy tale (the tale of the seven brothers turned into swans until their sister rescues them). But it also tells a tale of early Celtic Paganism and history in a way reminiscent of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “Avalon” books.
This list is by no means complete. Or finished. But it’s what I have now.