I was brought up by hippies. That means a lot of things. We raised our own meat and grew our own food. My dad had (has, truly) long hair and had a record collection like you wouldn’t believe. I was taught to believe in taking care of the world and the community, in doing my best, and in a weird combination of manners and kickass. But mostly I was taught to give back.
Sometimes that means kindness. Other times it means helping out those in need. And sometimes it just means sharing when you have an abundance of things.
I currently have extra copies of three of my recent books: Lure of Dangerous Women and As Kinky As You Wanna Be and Geek Love. And I have a dearth of new things to read. So let’s help each other (and other authors) out with a trade.
Here’s how it works: Take a moment to think about the best author or book that you’ve discovered that you think doesn’t get the attention that it deserves (Any author or book or genre. Just don’t choose me or my books–that’s cheating. And don’t choose yourself or your books–that’s jerky). Write a comment on this post about said author or book, telling everyone why they’re so awesome. Share this blog post with people so that other people know about all of these great authors and books. Read the other comments (I rarely tell someone to read the comments, but in this case, that’s the important part; how else will you find that great author or book that you’ve been missing).
On January 27th, I’ll do a random dice roll and give away three signed books (winners will get their choice of either Lure or Kinky or Geek Love). Now, go forth and spread the love!
Kiss kiss bang bang, s.
I’m a big fan of Bernard Little, the horror writer. With at least a dozen or more novels to his credit, he still doesn’t seem to receive the attention he deserves!
The random number roller has chosen the following people for books:
Jeremy Land
J. Anderson
Stephanie McLeod
YAY!
Here’s how to get your book:
-email me at shanna DOT germain AT gmail DOT com
-tell me which book you’d like
-tell me how you’d like me to sign it (I can do my name, or something more specific)
-give me your snail mail addy
That’s all there is to it! Congratulations to the winners, and thanks so much to everyone for your suggestions. I made a huge list of books and authors, and now have reading material to last me at least until I do another one of these. You’re the best!
David Wong wrote an insane book called John Dies at the End. Absolute madness, some of the stupidest, cleverest, entertaining, bizarre, amazing, terrifying stuff I’ve ever read.
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Lord Dunsany; His influence on the Fantasy genre & writers of Weird Fiction cannot be touted enough. King of Elfland’s Daughter blew me away by its lucid writing. 1924 writing from an aristocrat, I was expecting boredom. I was wrong.
Phillip Jose Farmer is one of my favorites. Author of the Riverworld series and the World of Tiers series both great sets of books
Christopher Buehlman is (among other things) a horror novelist. His books include Those Across the River, The Lesser Dead, and Between Two Fires. They’re all very good and I highly recommend checking him out.
E Gary Gygax is revered for Dungeons and Dragons, but he also wrote some tremendous fiction. The Gord the Rogue series is a good example….
After catching him on an early episode of the Nerdist Podcast (#26 in 2010), I became a fan of Scott Sigler, specifically his Galactic Football League series. It’s fun fiction to be sure (American pro football set 700 years in the future), but what really caught me is how much passion and effort he brings to his writing. It’s not just his writing; he performs and produces many of his audiobooks, and he’s in the trenches building his horde of fans.
Chuck Wendig’s “Blackbirds.” I actually found it by reading your Twitter, so I’m not sure if that’s cheating or not. The main character has a great voice.
It’s remarkably close to the “don’t post yourself” but my friend has written some really good SSC BDSM stuff that deserves a much wider audience. He’s called Emilia Hayes, and her first tale – “Please” is available on Kindle &c.
I can highly recommend “The Lord of All Things” by Andreas Eschbach who is perhaps the most famous SciFi writer in Germany. It is the touching story of a young engineer who tries to build self-replicating machines and ends up in a Numenara like setting.
It was my personal favourite book in 2012. Eschbach wrote some other awesome books as well, but this might be his best so far.
If you’ve never gotten around to it Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys is an excellent book and on my short list of some of the best. That list also includes Joe Halderman’s The Forever War. Even if everyone and their dog has spoken about this I’d recommend reading the original Illiad by Homer if you haven’t. Sure he’s an old Greek guy but there’s something in the simplicity of how he tells a story that I haven’t found since, plus as a bonus it’s short read.
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Iowa City has a Black Angel statue and story. Is the cover a reference to that? Or is that a cultural thing that has spread beyond my hometown?
Peter F. Hamilton. He interweaves complex characters and extrapolates today’s technology to a marvelous degree, into fantastic stories that you want to re-read as soon as your done. Which I happen to be doing right now.
I recommend David Brin’s Existence. It is a book about life and how things change in our lives. He called it Existence because some of his characters are not biologically alive. Dave extrapolates where our society is going and sets many characters in that future world. As time goes along the characters he follows fall away from the story until he is only following two at the end. There are a lot of interesting ideas in this book for readers to ponder. The book has been compared favorably to John Brunner’s 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar.
Easily one of the most under-appreciated writers I’ve had the pleasure of reading is John R. Maxim.
His books about Paul Bannerman and his band of former operatives trying to not be spies anymore is chock full of memorable characters. However our government and others make that exceedingly difficult in his Bannerman series of books. It is well worth your time to spend your valuable reading time in Paul Bannerman’s world!
My kingdom for more people to read the books in Kameron Hurley’s Bel Dame Apocrypha. It’s frequently billed as sci-fi, but I’d argue it’s more of an alternate universe urban fantasy. It’s dark, it’s gritty, it’s unapologetic, and it’s beautiful. It also features people of color, queer ladies, bugs, and boxing.
“The Elixir of Immortality” by Gabi Gleichmann is simply wonderful
Alice Hoffman’s “The Ice Queen” made me think about so many things I wrote in the margins to remind myself to revisit ideas the story and her way of telling it. I think writing in the margins is a sin, but I couldn’t help it. I’m saving the poor marred copy on the shelf until that day when I will read it again.
One of my favorite, if most likely out of print, books is ‘A Night in the Lonesome October’ written by Roger Zelazney. The story takes place over the space of a month, telling the tale of two groups of people who are trying to open, or close, a gate which allows unspeakable horrors into our world. Each player in the game has a familiar, and the entire story is told from the point of view of Jack the Ripper’s dog.
There’s a great mystery by Rupert Holmes, yeah, the guy who sang If You Like Pina Coladas, called Where The Truth Lies that never got the recognition I thought it deserved. The premise is, that in the 1970’s a young female reporter for Rolling Stone was investigating a long ago murder committed by one of two people who are blatantly fictionalized Martin & Lewis.
Bryan Davis would be my choice. His books are a Christian fantasy series for young adults. It really shows to be yourself and not to let anyone else tell you who to be.
It’s a tie between 2 for me:
Rob Thurman for her Cal Leandros series. Urban fantasy w/ monsters, snark & Robin Goodfellow who makes Capt. Jack Harkness look like a blushing virgin.
and
Amber Benson (yes *that Amber Benson, from BtVS) for her Calliope Reaper-Jones series, a light sometimes quirky look at the adventures of the daughter of the Grim Reaper.
It’s a tie between 2 for me:
Rob Thurman for her Cal Leandros series. Urban fantasy w/ monsters, snark & Robin Goodfellow who makes Capt. Jack Harkness look like a blushing virgin.
and
Amber Benson (yes *that Amber Benson) for here Calliope Reaper-Jones series, a light sometimes quirky look at the daughter of the Grim Reaper.
Shirley Jackson never gets enough love. An absolute master when it comes to subtle, creepy horror–SMART horror–We Have Always Lived in the Castle is like a cold, wet hand being drawn across your neck when you least expect it. Hangsaman is a fine craft example of a close third narration that rivals George Saunders. The Road Through the Wall is beautifully subtle and nuanced. She has been overlooked on a literary scale which is too bad; if you love Tenth of December (Saunders), Roald Dahl’s short stories, Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier), or Flannery O’Connor’s creepier stuff (“A Good Man is Hard to Find”, for example) then you will fall head over heels for Jackson’s work.
Even if I don’t win a book, I’m excited to champion one of my favorite writers! 😉
I think that I have to say Holly Black. She is a YA author who writes simply easy to get lost in YA fiction. Very fantasy-flair. Modern Fairie Tales. I especially love her modern fairie stories.
Or Kathy Reichs. She writes Crime stories from the point of view of a Forensic Anthropologist (the series Bones was loosely based off of them).
Barb Hendee’s Dhampir series is a lot of fun. Well described action in a very fleshed out world. How can you go wrong with your main characters being a half-breed vampire, an Elven assassin, and a hound sent by the Faeries?
I would also second the previous commenter recommendations of both PK Dick, and Mark Danielewski. Though I don’t really count either of them as underappreciated. But instead of House of Leaves for Mr. Danielewski, I would suggest giving The 50 Year Sword a try.
I am a fantasy and sci-fi nerd, but I cannot resist Simon Winchester! His histories are far and above the most interesting and entertaining History Books written. “Professor and the Madman” and “Krakatoa” are my favs.
The Notebook The Proof and The Third Lie by Agota Kristof
or
Hardboiled wonderland and the end of the world by Haruki Murikami.
The Hugh Cook books were very good, if I remember.
I’d recommend Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed. It’s a non-Eurocentric fantasy (the first in a new series) that is truly fantastic AND relatable. It has interesting characters (a swordsman who’s sword divides good and evil, a ghul-slayer, a shapeshifter, etc.).
Highly recommended.
The Science Fiction Book Club back in the day would periodically present the wanderings and comic escapades of the wizard Kedrigern. This character was the creation of John Morressy and was included in an actual book entitled, “The Questing of Kedrigern”. A “must read” for anybody that has or needs a sense of humour. Morressy’s Kedrigern is to fantasy literature as is Adam’s Arthur Dent is to science fiction literature.
Anything by the wonderful Tristan J. Tarwater [ @backthatelfup ], novelist and comic writer.
This is easy!
I want to read Stina Leicht all the time while jumping up and down, because her novels are just that good.
Her first novel, Of Blood and Honey grabs urban fantasy and puts it in a bold new direction. She sets her story in Northern Ireland, during the troubles, and weaves in the folklore of Ireland to combine the frightening (and very real) violent political struggles going on with equally violent high stakes supernatural struggles that skillfully mirror each other.
Her second novel, And Blue Skies from Pain continues the story. The third should be out this year.
Plus magical leather punk rock jackets, road rally races, tribes of sidhe, redcaps off the leash, and nuns with guns.
If you’re a gamer then PWNED by Matt Vancil is a great fun read.
When Reid’s life is going to hell all he wants is attention from his girlfriend but she is too busy with playing her favorite MMO 24/7. When he finally blows up at her over the game she leaves him. Not knowing where she has gone and determined to win her back he delves into the world of MMOs trying to find her. What he really finds is a surprise.
You get a thoughtful yet funny look at many of the various MMO player types that we all know exist.
Trudi Canavan’s Magicians Guild Trilogy. Medieval Fantasy about a young natural magician’s rebellion against the elitist magical community. The first book had me hooked, I won’t tell too much about the rest of the trilogy for risk of spoiling the first book. But the social ranks aren’t her only enemy.
I loved the story telling that Trudi uses throughout the books. It’s told through the protagonists eyes and communicates the logic of that worlds magics very well.
People need to check out The Cold Cash War by Robert Asprin. In a future where corporations are very powerful and challenge governments. It centres on corporate espionage, and corporate military armies using non-lethal means to resolve disputes. The Killsuit immobalises the person wearing it when it detects a lethal shot.
Robert Aspring has also written the M.Y.T.H. comedy fanatsy book series as well as the Phule’s Company series of SF comedy books.
he is an author worth checking out.
A.J Maguire – she writes wonderfully well-written books in a variety of different genres from steampunk to sci-fi. She always writes strong, interesting women who have purpose and drive. The plots are well-thought out and have you asking for more at the end.
Tressa Green – Her work is agonisingly beautiful. It’s dark, it dives into people’s very souls, but it’s stunning in its honesty.
For my money one of the best under-appreciated writers is Thomas Pluck and especially his fast moving action novel Blade of Dishonor. This is one of those books that delivers everything it promises and more, knows the genre that it’s written in so well that it can completely re-work it, and manages to be a tough as mails action story without belittling women or becoming morally vile. It’s an absolutely solid book.
One of the greatest books I ever read was House of Leaves. The author, Mark Z. Danielewski, designs his pages to reflect what is happening in the story–for instance, a chase scene might only have a couple words per page, so you’re quickly leafing through to keep pace with the participants. Or when a character is crawling through a narrow tunnel, the words are only printed in a two-inch square in the middle of the page. It’s a fascinating story-inside-a-story with elements of mystery and horror. I’ve never come across another book that does what it does.
Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora) writes cerebral and visceral fantasy as good as it gets but doesn’t have the prominence I think he deserves.
I hope I am not cheating or braking the rules too much since I cannot do this without mentioning 3 authors that I adore reading.
Chris Fox – There is No Such Thing as Werewolves
He is a long time friend of mine who I have reconnected with via Facebook. He has written a new take on werewolves, undead and a myriad of legends and myths of the past creating an alternate history for all.
Erik Scott de Bie – Shadow of the Winter King
I used to read a lot of Fantasy as a kid/youngun but have not read much in many years. Skewing more towards the crime novel since they were so much more mature as works than what I read in the fantasy when younger. Erik brought new life to the genre for me. He has so much going on with the world and rich characters it was a delight to read. Very much looking forward to his next work in the series.
Clinton Boomer – The Hole Behind Midnight\
When reading Clinton’s book I was transported back to the first time I read “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” when I was about 12. I have never laughed so much when reading that book at 12. Clinton has such a rye sense of humor and a clever wit to keep one riveted to the book to see what happens next. The subject matter is deep and serious to boot.
I love Jim C. Hines Libriomancer series. The books focus on Isaac Vainio, who belongs to a group that can use magic based on books- including pulling magical objects out of a book, and various species of vampires existing due to the popularity of the genre in recent times. The series is delightfully nerdy and funny. I also love how Hines continually works to be a great ally, including posts on his site and on twitter.
I would have to say that Philip K. Dick gets forgotten more than he should. Ever seen Blade Runner? His novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, was the basis for the film.