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Suggest me a book or series that...
-Is fantasy and/or sci-fi with unique elements
-Has imaginative fictional races or species with animal characteristics (anthros/furries, if you must)
-Is not intended for the typical "young adult" audience
-Has a plot that's unpredictable and/or original
-Doesn't suck.
I can rarely find novels that don't drive me insane so give me some suggestions. :)
A Song of Ice and Fire
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever
Very dense fantasy series. What sets it apart from most others is that the "hero" of the series is far from a paragon of morality; in fact, sometimes he's downright despicable. The language is difficult, I like to think I have a pretty good vocabulary but I had to look up A LOT of words. It's all worth it, though. The world crafted in the series is possibly the best in any fantasy novel I've read
The Book of the New Sun
Set far, far into the future when the sun is dying out. Sort of a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid. Earth (or as they call it, Urth) has reverted back into a quasi-feudal age. The main character is an exiled member of the Torturer's Guild, and the series chronicles his rise to become the leader of an empire (no spoiler here, iirc this is stated within the first paragraph). I was completely mesmerized while reading it, unlike anything I've ever read before.
Dune would fit just about everything except this. But this criteria is no reason not to read Dune.Quote:
Originally Posted by Laddy
That's more of a preference than requirement.
Also, yeah, Dune is pretty smurfing incredible.
Ender's Game? Your number 2 is going to be really hard to match with the rest of them.
The Sparrow (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
That actually meets all your requirements, I think. Depending on whether or not you think it sucks.
Speaker for the Dead hits all of those bullets and is much more interactive with an alien race than Ender's Game is. (The aliens are called "piggies" for reasons I'm sure are obvious.) I would highly recommend it.
You don't need to have read Ender's Game in order to read Speaker, but it would help to understand Ender's character better and why he's become the person he is.
One of the most powerful sci fi I ever read that could fit those requirements is Hyperion. The aren't other races, but some humans have evolved while others get extreme plastic surgery, both adopting animal-esque features. The plot is incredibly unpredictable with several ongoing mysteries and wonderfully imaginative with all the crazy Ish going on. The first book has been compared to the Canterbury Tales, with the backgrounds of a group of pilgrims told in drastically different genres, from horror and satire to military fantasy and cyber noir. Don't sleep on it.
Right now I'm reading The Dagger and the Coin series and it actually does fit all those requirements perfectly. I only recommended Hyperion first because it's insane and D&C is only good-great, but it does keep getting even better and better. The taxonomy of races is really interesting and builds into the lore really well. They were (supposedly) created by now-extinct Dragon-rulers for various purposes, and the mystery behind them only gets revealed in titillating bits and pieces over time. The plot is fairly unpredictable with something coming completely out of left field a ways into the first novel. The author is a protege of George RR Martin and the books overall read very well. It's also a series in progress, so you can get in on it now and be a hipster about it later.
Books not already mentioned that fit all the characteristics listed except the second include, in no particular order:
- Walter M. Miller, Jr. - A Canticle for Leibowitz
- Isaac Asimov - Foundation Trilogy
- Ursula K. Le Guin - Hainish cycle (particularly The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed)
- Anything by China Miéville (some of these probably fit the second criterion too)
- Kurt Vonnegut - Cat's Cradle; The Sirens of Titan; Slaughterhouse-Five; Breakfast of Champions
- Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; The Man in the High Castle; probably a bunch of other novels as well
- Kim Stanley Robinson - Red Mars trilogy
- Iain M. Banks - Culture series
- Roger Zelazny - The Chronicles of Amber
- Terry Pratchett - Discworld series (Small Gods is the best starting place; Guards! Guards and Going Postal also aren't bad starting places)
- Jasper Fforde - Thursday Next series
That seems like a fair kickoff selection.
ETA: How could I forget Neil Gaiman's American Gods? I should've known I was leaving out something important.
One of my books fits the top two but probably not the last three :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Laddy
P.S. His Dark Materials. Vaguely young adultish but you'll forget it is very quickly.
Pike yours has 4/5 covered!
Seconding His Dark Materials, great books.