The Harry Potter main series, for which I have a major case of nostalgia. I’ll happily and accurately slag JKR off for being a dimwit with terribly stupid opinions, who would need to be both smarter and more committed to make her “make it up as you go along” worldbuilding make any sort of sense at all. Which, bluntly, it doesn’t.

But considering how much of a turnip she is, parts of her worldbuilding is strangely compelling while others fail basic self-consistency.

The Percy Jackson series. You can tell Riordan likes taking his liberties, and there’s a lot of Americanism mixed in with the Greek way of thinking that is supposed to come from tales of Greek gods, but it says something that I like it better than the actual legends from Greek culture.

We are Legion (We are Bob). It’s probably the most fun I’ve had reading science fiction. It’s not a masterpiece, but damn is it entertaining! The whole series is pretty great, and there’s another book coming any month now.

I liked the Dresden Files. Just campy magic gumshoe stuff.

Also a fan of Lamb and Blood Sucking Fiends. Good reads, but not any big huge life shaking moments like other books. But I remember loving the style.

Oh man, that’s a lot of what I read.

Maybe the ‘My Teacher Is An Alien’ series by Bruce Coville, the ‘Blood Oath’ series by Christopher Farnsworth, and the Serpentwar Series by Raymond Feist.

Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward. After the ultimate triumph of good over evil, a group of villains save the world from good. It’s a total inversion of the standard fantasy trope. Highly recommend it for any fantasy fan, doubly so for Dragonlance fans.

Oh sweet I get to vent about The August Few: Amygdala by Sam Fennah.

So Sam is primarily a youtuber, he makes animations with these very unique and somewhat disturbing characters and over time he made a bit of a narrative using them, eventually he made it into a 1000 page book. As one might expect looking at his animations this book is very weird, it’s got some extremely interesting and alien worldbuilding which challenges the reader a lot. As a piece of art this book is incredibly effective in that it makes the reader reflect on it’s far reaching themes, but as a book I really kinda hate it.

At the core of the book is the question of what the ideal society is, but only one option is ever really presented, what I can only describe as anarcho-dawinism. When one character opposes this state and proposes the possibility of a kinder and more inclusive society she is betrayed, hung from a balcony over a crowd, she orgasms while choking to death, and “When the body was lowered, it was groped, defiled, spat upon, split.” This is not presented as a bad thing, simply as the people rejecting her idea, the language used is very “marketplace of ideas.”

At the start of the book Sam tries to disavow himself of what he wrote in an author’s note, part of which reads: “The views of the characters are not the views of the author. This book is not a promotion of ideas, but an exploration of ideas.” Sam did not need to make the characters orgasm when they died, he did not need to make them reproduce via necrophilic rape, he did not need to make every characters a literal baby eating cannibal, and he did not need to present social-darwinism as an ideal society, but he did, he choose to write these things.

I hate this book, I read it over a year ago and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, it is a great piece of art.

The Long Earth series

Diane Duayne’s Young Wizard series, at least the first three books. I have really good memory of books and so it’s difficult for me to read any book more than once but I’ve read them tens of times.

There’s always something new to discover. It’s honestly a really good and well-written series.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind. I read it years ago and still remember how gripping it was, not sure how well the movie has aged, but it was a fantastic book.

The Redemption of Althalus. Genre - fantasy. I don’t know why it holds such a dear place in my heart, though I read it the first time as a kid.

Fun fact! Erin Hunter is a pseudonym for a collective of authors including Tui Sutherland! She wrote Wings of Fire after she stopped writing/editing Erin Hunter books. I found out while I was working in an elementary school library.

Not my favorite, but I recently finished the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas. Nothing in them is original, and she heavily borrows from folk tales and mythology, but she makes it very satisfying. She’s REALLY good at knowing what her audience wants, imo, so it was fun to read.

“Night Soldiers” by Allan Furst. After his younger brother is killed by a fascist mob, a Bulgarian fisherman is recruited to join Russian intelligence. Trained as a spy in Moscow, he begins to question his trainers and their motives. After being sent to fight in the Spanish Civil War, he makes his way to Paris.

Great book. Reads like Franz Kafka and Ian Fleming decided to collaborate.

Daemon and it’s sequel/conclusion Freedom^TM. Pure popcorn techno-thriller but I couldn’t put them down. It’s been a number of years since I read them and I’ve been thinking about reading them again.

I’m a big fan of all the David Endings series…

Just fun fantasy novels.