THE BOOK THAT WOULDN’T BURN is my 16th novel to be published and starts The Library Trilogy.
You can read all about my work in this handy Guide to Lawrence.
THE BOOK THAT WOULDN’T BURN is a whole new thing not connected to any of my other works - jump in here.
The trilogy is complete, I’ve written another book since (a space comedy!), and am writing two others (a fictional tale about AI & something in a traditional fantasy vein).
In other news the SPFBO just finished and on May 17th the 9th annual contest is opening to entries.
I’ve been a scientist, author, carer for a disabled child, and master of many dungeons.
Ask Me Anything!
EDIT - hitting the hay now - very many thanks for all the questions - will try to get to the rest tomorrow
Hi all—I was peer pressured to read this series by the hype surrounding it & friends promising me it’ll be the best fantasy series I’ll ever read.
I’m halfway through the second book and I truly cannot finish. These books are so tragically juvenile, the characters are written like angsty teenagers, and despite my curiosity about the world-building, I can’t read anymore. Whoever told me it was filled with smut (sorry, guilty pleasure) doesn’t know the definition of the word.
Does this sub have any recommendations for books that are similar in nature and theme but are actually well-written, deep, enticing, and just generally intelligent? Like in a perfect world I would eat this series up it been written similarly to like, Game of Thrones mixed with True Blood. A delightful combination!
EDIT: The recommendations don’t have to be only smut! Lol! I’m just saying that ACOTAR was sold to me as such, and it’s not. I’m just looking for mature, intelligent series that are similar to …
When I was thirteen years old, I read a book that changed my life forever. That book was the Name of the Wind.
For the first time, I’d seen poverty portrayed in a realistic way in a fantasy novel. I’d seen this fragile self important young guy both succeed and fail. And - because sometimes I’m a sad boy - I resonated with this shell of a man in the frame story too.
It drove me on to become the first member of my family to go to university. It gave me the confidence to be the precocious working class kid I was. And it ultimately showed me what’s important in life: faerie sex beautiful nights with your friends and pursuing your passions.
It wasn’t the first book I’d fallen in love with and it wasn’t the last. But there was something in the Name of the Wind that resonated with me like nothing else. It rang my heart like a bell.
Who wouldn’t want to feel like that again?
So, of course I’ve looked up every recommendation. But I feel …
Kinda like these, i don’t know if this is the weight sub to ask. Also sorry if this is a dumb question i almost never read sci fi and fantasy and want to get into the genres.
I ranked all the books, but obviously taste is subjective, so I also did a little breakdown on what kind of reader is likely to love (or hate) each book. Curious to hear what y’all thought of the list and who you think will win!
#6 / Not Ranked: Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Mostly fantasy with a few sci-fi elements, this book follows a sweet, confused girl named Nona who was born six months ago into a nineteen year old body into an elaborate world of death magic, people taking over each other’s bodies, and lots of factions fighting for reasons that never made any sense to me - didn’t rank this one because it’s the third book in the Locked Tomb series, I haven’t read the others, and you absolutely can’t read this one as a standalone
I always thought I wasn’t into Fantasy, magic, gods, all of that.
Then I read a few SF books that read like Fantasy, and end up explaining the magic as lost tech, lost knowledge. And I’m really into that!
Books like Elder Race & The Expert System’s Brother by Adrian Tchaikovsky were awesome.
Any book recommendations on that theme?
Colonies that forget their origin and tech, events that seems to be caused by magic and monsters, but are really caused by lost technologies? Civilisations rediscovering their past? Tech so advanced it appears to be magic? Civilisation collapses and rebirth?
The only time I’ve ever cried from a book was when I was rereading Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Dispossessed.” It was a dark time for me, and I was revisiting a book I had loved years ago but didn’t fully understand. It was during a very depressing and lonely period for me. I felt physically sick from my mental troubles, and when I read it, it truly described what I was feeling in the depths of despair. It was this verse in particular that made me stop in my tracks,
”. One of the old men, the sick old men, came and sat on the side of the cot and patted his shoulder. “It’s all right, brother. It’ll be all right, little brother,” he muttered. Shevek heard him and felt his touch, but took no comfort in it. Even from the brother there is no comfort in the bad hour, in the dark at the foot of the wall. “
It made me stop and weep. “The Dispossessed” may be the loneliest book ever written. Even when the protagonist is …
What would you recommend in the style of let say “conceptual hard scifi” and by that I mean hard scifi books that focus on philosophical, sociological and psychological themes. So far, my top of the top is: 1. Blindsight by Peter Watts 2. Three body problem 3. Children of Dune and God Emperor 4. early stories of Ted Chiang (e.g. Tower of Babylon) 5. Children of Time by Alexander Tschaikovsky
pretty common list, though recently I have had hard times finding books at similar level and in similiar style.
Just to add, I dont look for books/authors like Hyperion, Quantum Thief, Dukaj, Strugatsky Brothers, Philip Dick, Asimov, Zelazny, Reynolds, Lem, Arkady Martine. They are obviously top of the top, but either this is not the type of scifi that I am looking for or I already read them ;)
Both major and minor spoilers below. Only major spoilers will be in the spoiler thingies.
This is the first Culture novel I’ve read. I understand that its generally considered one of the weaker novels in the series but I tend to read books in publication order. It just feels a bit wrong to jump around, even in a series like the Culture where the books aren’t sequels to each other, just novels in the same universe.
I had always expected the Culture books to be philosophical in the vein of Ursula K Le Guin. Just with more space opera. Titles like ‘Consider Phlebas’, ‘Excession’, ‘Matter’, ‘Look to Windward’. I dunno, just gave me a vibe of some heavy philosophizing. But while there is some type of philosophical take aways from the book, it wasn’t what I was expecting at all.
The book opens with a Horza, a shape shifting being about to be executed only to me rescued at the last moment. It turns out Horza is a …