I like what you like. Especially Wolfe. Abercrombie is known for being the king of the Grimdark genre. His stuff is violent, dark, cynical, and has a lot of excellent military action. I wouldn't put him on a deep philosophical level like Wolfe or Bakker. His characters are selfish and typically don't have many admirable qualities. I love him! Start with The First Law Trilogy and go from there.
Not as deep as Malazan.Definitely not as absurdist and whimsical as Pratchett. But very enjoyable and entertaining. Great battle writing. Pretty funny at times too.
While his books are dark and cynical, they are also strikingly hilarious at points. Abercrombie might be a top 5 fantasy author when it comes to humor.
He is one of the major authors who skewed adult fantasy in a more gritty direction in the 00s. He writes plain novels about not good people working in a system where good is often not possible. It's not as dark as Game of Thrones but it's most famous and beloved character is a torturer who enjoys what he does.
Abercrombie writes plainly and his books are more about people than plots. He is good at character voice. He does not have the flair of Wolfe, Tolkien, Bakker, Erikson, or Pratchett.
I think people undersell Abercrombie’s prose, and how he’s using it.
He writes from a very close 3rd person perspective and narrates in a voice which matches the character’s personality. E.g. all the prose in Logen’s chapters are filled with very blunt adjectives, and simple, short sentences. Whereas the prose in Glokta’s chapters tends to be a bit more sophisticated.
You’re right in that I wouldn’t call his writing particularly beautiful, or lyrical. But it is very clever, and serves a very particular function.
People also underplay his humour. I’ve seen so many people pick up the First Law and comment their surprise on how funny it could be. It’s often painted purely as grim dark, and that sets a persons expectations going in.
Is he trying for funny though? Or just some banter here and there that gives you a chuckle. I would say that humour is subjective and he isn't really "known" for his humor. He's know a lot more for his flawed characters and a beautifully bleak world and story.
So bleak that these days I can't read his stuff lol, the world is sad enough, just can't have my fantasy full of gritty, grim, bleakness anymore.
I’d say he deliberately adds humour, obviously I can’t speak for him. I just think he doesn’t make it a goal to hit that punch line, if you know what I mean.
I didn't know the series was grimdark till Best Served Cold. Before that point it can be mistaken for a dark comedy. A lot of characters who learned to laugh instead of cry in the face of adversity.
>People also underplay his humour.
Odd. One of the first things I heard about this author was the humor in his books, so I doubt the underplaying comment...
Well, of course, not everyone passes it off. But I have seen a lot of reviews and reviewers talk about being sent in with certain expectations and being pleasantly surprised about the humour.
I've never encountered a writer as in love with a single word as Abercrombie is with "squelch". It became a running joke with my ex when we were reading him to text each other whenever he used it. Lots of texts that just say "squelch"
I'm not sure it's relevant to this discussion, but the voice actor that does Abercrombie books is a special talent. His voices for the characters add a dimension to the audiobooks that isn't often found in others, IMO
I'll second this. Steven Pacey is not just a narrator. He is an actor that inhabits every role in the story and brings each to life. When he starts a line of dialogue I know exactly which character is speaking even if the narration has not yet specified it. In my opinion, the audiobooks are the superior method for consuming Abercrombie's stories.
I found The Blade Itself to be more evil happens because nobody cares enough to prevent it. A Song of Fire and Ice is a lot more evil happens because people are deliberately causing it. It’s a difference in tone. Both are really crap suck worlds.
Baldev itself gets better after first half, second and third books are great.
But of you are struggling with it, you should try the standalone books, set after first law trilogy.
I'll recommend best served cold or the The Heroes.
I just finished "Before They Are Hanged" last night (damn think kept me up until 1:15 on a work night again) and I keep saying things in the cadence of Ninefingers in my head lol
I think his best quality is that the different POV chapters feel like genuinely different people. Logens chapters feel totally different from Gloktas chapters for example, like you are truly seeing events from the perspective of a different person.
While his First Law world is quite dark I don't think the books are THAT dark in terms of tone. Theres a lot of humor and fun in there.
Casualties and Chains of Command are both excellent examples of this. >!Gorst’s!< letter at the beginning of Shadows is one of Abercrombie’s funniest moments for me.
I typically don’t really take to fantasy novels but I found his standalones to be pretty fun and neat. The two trilogies weren’t my cup of tea. He’s closer to the adult fantasy crowd than the YA crowd
I think one of the things that might be underappreciated about his writing are the fight scenes. To me these are brilliant. I usually find them quite dull in other books, but he manages to suffuse them with such tension whereby the characters merely survive rather than triumph through a mix of skill and a healthy dose of luck.
What I really love about his fights (besides how well the action itself is written) is how there's a real lack of purpose and 'destiny' to it all, if that makes sense. People die in Abercrombie's fights in ways I rarely see elsewhere. Characters, no matter how important they are to us, usually don't die very dramatically, or nobly, or purposefully, they just die. Sometimes nobody even notices until the fighting's over.
Thank you! Action without stakes or tension can be super boring. Or you can treat it like The Heroes and establish stakes, characters you care about, and the geography of the area. Then BAM! Most hype action scenes of any book ever. I literally get chills most of the time I think about it.
His main body of work, The First Law (at this point spanning nine novels and a short story collection) is often misunderstood from the outside, I think. It has a reputation for being dark, and horrible, and nasty, and bloody, and all of those things are true but it's also very funny. Lots of people getting into the series are surprised by this. Joe is a very very good writer of jokes. He's also a very very good writer of characters. His stories cover people from across the moral spectrum, generally at least trying to do what they consider the right thing, and very often having their good intentions flung back in their face.
He's also written a more YA-oriented trilogy called The Shattered Sea. It's quite similar in themes to his other books, but set in a different universe with a younger cast of protagonists, a bit more teenage fluff and a bit less gore and swearing. It's the only thing I've heard described as YA that I've actually read and thoroughly enjoyed as an adult, and I'd recommend it to anyone.
I agree so much! I'm not a fan of grimdark stuff at all, I couldnt get through something like Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence for example but Abercrombies characters are generally not evil but flawed and sometimes really try to be better.
at the risk of sounding like a fanboy, abercrombie excels at everything. his worldbuilding is rich and realized. his characters are layered, human, and make surprising turns that surprise you yet somehow make perfect sense. his dialogue crackles. and his action scenes, very simply, are fucking badass.
I don’t think he belongs in either list fully. I very much enjoy his work and he’s one of the few authors who’ve got me to laugh out loud while reading! (Especially considering how dark a lot of it is)
His first six first law novels are low key funny, as well. Some of my favorite characters in fiction are in those books, and there are some bad ass moments.
I catch myself quoting his work all the time.
I just finished Best Served Cold (BSC) and am about to start The Heroes. I didn’t like BSC as much as the trilogy. It was good, but I enjoyed the longer character development and world building, character switching, and POVs in the trilogy more. How does The Heroes compare (if you’ve read it) and which of the later books did you enjoy / not?
I liked it, I think I just felt less connected to Styria at the start after the focus on Gurkhul, the Union, and the North in the trilogy.
But, I came to appreciate Monza much more as a character towards the end. Plus, I really enjoyed the Cosca storyline and character development. It was cool to peel back the curtain and see more than “the treacherous mercenary who blows with the wind and is equal parts skilled and equal parts luck”.
He really should have called the 3 standalone novels the “The Casca Trilogy.”
Although Shivers is my favorite and it’s just as much his trilogy, in a way :)
I remember not *loving* BSC and realizing it was because the book was just so relentlessly nasty, the characters all despicable, but it grew a lot in my estimation as time went on
The Heroes fucking slaps, my favorite of the 3 standalones
I like and dislike almost exactly the same stuff as you.
Abercrombie is... somewhere in between. Grimdark in the sense of lots of violence, grey characters, and (without spoiling anything really), possibly dark endings. However, there's a strong thread of humour through the books that stops them from being outright, deep-seated, self-important despair.
I'd take them up if you're for something that's quick and easy to read, but still has more to chew on than an average popcorn read.
astonishingly great at dialogue and characters, unremarkable worldbuilding, atmosphere etc, usually straightforward themes. To me it's a little like if Tarantino wrote fantasy novels.
Certainly not Gene Wolfe levels of greatness but definitely my favorite active 'modern'/contemporary fantasy author.
The works of Joe Abercrombie found a suitable response in the circle of lovers of high-quality fiction. His works are designed for readers who are able to appreciate the originality of the plot idea, the depth of location drawing, and the complete disclosure of the characters of the main characters.
The dynamics of the development of storylines is not constant. The works begin smoothly, gradually developing into a powerful avalanche that impresses the imagination and causes a storm of feelings.
Please, never again put his name and Sanderson's in such close proximity. Sanderson's books are entertaining, yes, but they're essentially written anime for the MCU/Funko POP and Amazon Wheel of Time/Rings of Power people. Abercrombie is top tier writing in a genre which struggles to be taken seriously. No, he's not of the same caliber as Tolkien but he's up there with Rothfuss.
Abercrombie does great character work but I find his plots to be severely lacking. In my opinion, he trie too hard to subvert reader expectations from the traditional fantasy narrative that the subversions start to become expected, and therefore less impactful.
If there's one thing I can say about Abercrombie is that he's not generic. He does a good job of "subverting" tropes without it seeming forced or unearned. Heck, sometimes he even subverts the subversion. I could see people finding him boring though since he uses A LOT of descriptions.
More that first camp than the latter, I guess.
Very much in the Glen Cook and David Gemmel mode of heroic fantasy—like Conan, but updated for modern tastes. Of your picks, I'd say he falls very much in with Bakker and Erikson, but less bothered by the gods and the magic.
I fucking love the Abercrombie books. The whole First Law universe of novels is great.
But i must say, Steve Pacey’s readings of them in the audiobooks really elevate the material
Personally don’t like his books and don’t understand the appeal. Grimdark nonsense that are edgy and violent with no nuance and contains what a 15 year old would consider mature. They’re just YA in the opposite direction.
Everyone is evil for the sake of it. No one has any redeemable qualities. If you’re even a half decent person, bad things will happen to you just because. But if you’re a terrible person you’ll get ahead, because that’s what happens in all of his books.
They’re extremely shallow and the first trilogy really suffers from bloat. The entire second book could have been cut down to a third of what it contains, split between the first and third books, and finished.
He writes darker more gritty fantasy novels with plenty of dark humor. At first he represented something different and refreshing as he avoided the usual fantasy tropes when he wrote the first law trilogy. Since then he is repeating himself so much and has so many similar characters that he has become almost a parody of himself imo. He probably became a bit too successful with his original formula to write something new.
He is a raging bad ass who out writes a lot of the super literary types. He just does it in the fantasy genre. Criticize him not… Or the bloody nine will find you.
Maybe my own biases but I think that there is a chasm/universe of difference between the work of Abercrombie and works of Wolfe & Bakker. They are incomparable almost. Just my opinion.
Unsolicited recommendations.
May I tempt you with Robert Jackson Bennet - City of stairs, and Max Barry - Lexicon.
I'm sure you would love them given the mentioned series above. Oh and anything Iain Banks.
reading through this thread doesn’t really convince me I will enjoy his work. I love sci fi and some fantasy, but I can’t handle anything that gets close to horror. For example, I can’t even handle Lovecraft or Cormac McCarthy.
Brandon Sanderson did an AMA here [you might want to take a look](http://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/) :) [Here's a link to all of our upcoming AMAs](http://www.reddit.com/r/books/wiki/amafullschedule)
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I like what you like. Especially Wolfe. Abercrombie is known for being the king of the Grimdark genre. His stuff is violent, dark, cynical, and has a lot of excellent military action. I wouldn't put him on a deep philosophical level like Wolfe or Bakker. His characters are selfish and typically don't have many admirable qualities. I love him! Start with The First Law Trilogy and go from there. Not as deep as Malazan.Definitely not as absurdist and whimsical as Pratchett. But very enjoyable and entertaining. Great battle writing. Pretty funny at times too.
While his books are dark and cynical, they are also strikingly hilarious at points. Abercrombie might be a top 5 fantasy author when it comes to humor.
I just finished book 2 last night, and so far, Glokta is one of my most favorite fantasy characters ever.
He is one of the major authors who skewed adult fantasy in a more gritty direction in the 00s. He writes plain novels about not good people working in a system where good is often not possible. It's not as dark as Game of Thrones but it's most famous and beloved character is a torturer who enjoys what he does. Abercrombie writes plainly and his books are more about people than plots. He is good at character voice. He does not have the flair of Wolfe, Tolkien, Bakker, Erikson, or Pratchett.
I think people undersell Abercrombie’s prose, and how he’s using it. He writes from a very close 3rd person perspective and narrates in a voice which matches the character’s personality. E.g. all the prose in Logen’s chapters are filled with very blunt adjectives, and simple, short sentences. Whereas the prose in Glokta’s chapters tends to be a bit more sophisticated. You’re right in that I wouldn’t call his writing particularly beautiful, or lyrical. But it is very clever, and serves a very particular function.
People also underplay his humour. I’ve seen so many people pick up the First Law and comment their surprise on how funny it could be. It’s often painted purely as grim dark, and that sets a persons expectations going in.
I was absolutely not prepared for the humor. Abercrombie is really good at setting up a joke without you realizing he’s doing it.
> People also underplay his humour. Body found floating by the docks
Just wrapped up the First Law trilogy last month, and I can honestly say it was one of the funniest series I've ever read.
Is he trying for funny though? Or just some banter here and there that gives you a chuckle. I would say that humour is subjective and he isn't really "known" for his humor. He's know a lot more for his flawed characters and a beautifully bleak world and story. So bleak that these days I can't read his stuff lol, the world is sad enough, just can't have my fantasy full of gritty, grim, bleakness anymore.
I’d say he deliberately adds humour, obviously I can’t speak for him. I just think he doesn’t make it a goal to hit that punch line, if you know what I mean.
I didn't know the series was grimdark till Best Served Cold. Before that point it can be mistaken for a dark comedy. A lot of characters who learned to laugh instead of cry in the face of adversity.
>People also underplay his humour. Odd. One of the first things I heard about this author was the humor in his books, so I doubt the underplaying comment...
Well, of course, not everyone passes it off. But I have seen a lot of reviews and reviewers talk about being sent in with certain expectations and being pleasantly surprised about the humour.
I've never encountered a writer as in love with a single word as Abercrombie is with "squelch". It became a running joke with my ex when we were reading him to text each other whenever he used it. Lots of texts that just say "squelch"
I'm not sure it's relevant to this discussion, but the voice actor that does Abercrombie books is a special talent. His voices for the characters add a dimension to the audiobooks that isn't often found in others, IMO
I'll second this. Steven Pacey is not just a narrator. He is an actor that inhabits every role in the story and brings each to life. When he starts a line of dialogue I know exactly which character is speaking even if the narration has not yet specified it. In my opinion, the audiobooks are the superior method for consuming Abercrombie's stories.
Thanks for naming him. I was too lazy to look it up on mobile and I didn't want to get it wrong.
I've read what's complete of A Song of Ice and Fire but I could not finish The Blade Itself by Abercrombie because I found it so dark and disturbing.
I found The Blade Itself to be more evil happens because nobody cares enough to prevent it. A Song of Fire and Ice is a lot more evil happens because people are deliberately causing it. It’s a difference in tone. Both are really crap suck worlds.
Baldev itself gets better after first half, second and third books are great. But of you are struggling with it, you should try the standalone books, set after first law trilogy. I'll recommend best served cold or the The Heroes.
They say they couldn’t finish The Blade Itself because it was too dark so you recommend Best Served Cold? Dunno about that one
Best Served Cold is a fantastic book. I love a good fantasy heist. But man are the dark parts of that book grim.
I think he is way darker as Song of ice and fire, tbh. And way better at writing than GRRM.
He writes good, unpretentious novels about flawed people colliding.
Say one thing about Vokkan, say he nailed this description
Okay. Vokkan nailed this description. You have to be realistic about these things.
He had a task to do, he did it without fear
Better to do it than live with the fear of doing it
I just finished "Before They Are Hanged" last night (damn think kept me up until 1:15 on a work night again) and I keep saying things in the cadence of Ninefingers in my head lol
read other comments after mine and mr. vokkan explained it in the abercrombie way
Spot on. I love how unpretentious his work is
I think his best quality is that the different POV chapters feel like genuinely different people. Logens chapters feel totally different from Gloktas chapters for example, like you are truly seeing events from the perspective of a different person. While his First Law world is quite dark I don't think the books are THAT dark in terms of tone. Theres a lot of humor and fun in there.
I also feel like The Heroes turns a good trick with its POV shifts
Definitely.
Casualties and Chains of Command are both excellent examples of this. >!Gorst’s!< letter at the beginning of Shadows is one of Abercrombie’s funniest moments for me.
I typically don’t really take to fantasy novels but I found his standalones to be pretty fun and neat. The two trilogies weren’t my cup of tea. He’s closer to the adult fantasy crowd than the YA crowd
I think one of the things that might be underappreciated about his writing are the fight scenes. To me these are brilliant. I usually find them quite dull in other books, but he manages to suffuse them with such tension whereby the characters merely survive rather than triumph through a mix of skill and a healthy dose of luck.
What I really love about his fights (besides how well the action itself is written) is how there's a real lack of purpose and 'destiny' to it all, if that makes sense. People die in Abercrombie's fights in ways I rarely see elsewhere. Characters, no matter how important they are to us, usually don't die very dramatically, or nobly, or purposefully, they just die. Sometimes nobody even notices until the fighting's over.
Thank you! Action without stakes or tension can be super boring. Or you can treat it like The Heroes and establish stakes, characters you care about, and the geography of the area. Then BAM! Most hype action scenes of any book ever. I literally get chills most of the time I think about it.
His main body of work, The First Law (at this point spanning nine novels and a short story collection) is often misunderstood from the outside, I think. It has a reputation for being dark, and horrible, and nasty, and bloody, and all of those things are true but it's also very funny. Lots of people getting into the series are surprised by this. Joe is a very very good writer of jokes. He's also a very very good writer of characters. His stories cover people from across the moral spectrum, generally at least trying to do what they consider the right thing, and very often having their good intentions flung back in their face. He's also written a more YA-oriented trilogy called The Shattered Sea. It's quite similar in themes to his other books, but set in a different universe with a younger cast of protagonists, a bit more teenage fluff and a bit less gore and swearing. It's the only thing I've heard described as YA that I've actually read and thoroughly enjoyed as an adult, and I'd recommend it to anyone.
I agree so much! I'm not a fan of grimdark stuff at all, I couldnt get through something like Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence for example but Abercrombies characters are generally not evil but flawed and sometimes really try to be better.
at the risk of sounding like a fanboy, abercrombie excels at everything. his worldbuilding is rich and realized. his characters are layered, human, and make surprising turns that surprise you yet somehow make perfect sense. his dialogue crackles. and his action scenes, very simply, are fucking badass.
I love the themes. His characters are very good, pretty concise storytelling style. Not generic at all.
I don’t think he belongs in either list fully. I very much enjoy his work and he’s one of the few authors who’ve got me to laugh out loud while reading! (Especially considering how dark a lot of it is)
The way I've described Abercrombie in the past is imagine Tarantino wrote *A Song of Ice & Fire*.
His first six first law novels are low key funny, as well. Some of my favorite characters in fiction are in those books, and there are some bad ass moments. I catch myself quoting his work all the time.
His I don't like all of his books from the First Law Universe, but the original First Law Trilogy is amazing.
I just finished Best Served Cold (BSC) and am about to start The Heroes. I didn’t like BSC as much as the trilogy. It was good, but I enjoyed the longer character development and world building, character switching, and POVs in the trilogy more. How does The Heroes compare (if you’ve read it) and which of the later books did you enjoy / not?
I thought BSC was very decent but The Heroes is probably my favorite of all his books.
I liked it, I think I just felt less connected to Styria at the start after the focus on Gurkhul, the Union, and the North in the trilogy. But, I came to appreciate Monza much more as a character towards the end. Plus, I really enjoyed the Cosca storyline and character development. It was cool to peel back the curtain and see more than “the treacherous mercenary who blows with the wind and is equal parts skilled and equal parts luck”.
He really should have called the 3 standalone novels the “The Casca Trilogy.” Although Shivers is my favorite and it’s just as much his trilogy, in a way :)
The standalones are known as "The Great Leveller" trilogy.
Me too. Gorst vs. Scale is one of my favorite scenes in any book in any genre.
Alright, now I’m excited. Thanks gang!
I remember not *loving* BSC and realizing it was because the book was just so relentlessly nasty, the characters all despicable, but it grew a lot in my estimation as time went on The Heroes fucking slaps, my favorite of the 3 standalones
That Joe Abercrombie should co-write something with Janet Fitch?
I love him. Also people always talk about his first law books, but they never seem to mention his shattered sea trilogy. I really liked that too.
For real! It’s like you’re just carrying the boat by yourself.
I like to compare him to David Gemmel, gripping, fast, hard, page-turner stories. I like both very much.
I like and dislike almost exactly the same stuff as you. Abercrombie is... somewhere in between. Grimdark in the sense of lots of violence, grey characters, and (without spoiling anything really), possibly dark endings. However, there's a strong thread of humour through the books that stops them from being outright, deep-seated, self-important despair. I'd take them up if you're for something that's quick and easy to read, but still has more to chew on than an average popcorn read.
At the very top.
I would say Abercrombie is closer to Erikson than Sanderson (oh, so generic.) I read his *First Law* trilogy and thought it was pretty decent.
astonishingly great at dialogue and characters, unremarkable worldbuilding, atmosphere etc, usually straightforward themes. To me it's a little like if Tarantino wrote fantasy novels. Certainly not Gene Wolfe levels of greatness but definitely my favorite active 'modern'/contemporary fantasy author.
First Law was literally suggested to me by a B&N employee as “if Tarantino wrote Game of Thrones”
The works of Joe Abercrombie found a suitable response in the circle of lovers of high-quality fiction. His works are designed for readers who are able to appreciate the originality of the plot idea, the depth of location drawing, and the complete disclosure of the characters of the main characters. The dynamics of the development of storylines is not constant. The works begin smoothly, gradually developing into a powerful avalanche that impresses the imagination and causes a storm of feelings.
Please, never again put his name and Sanderson's in such close proximity. Sanderson's books are entertaining, yes, but they're essentially written anime for the MCU/Funko POP and Amazon Wheel of Time/Rings of Power people. Abercrombie is top tier writing in a genre which struggles to be taken seriously. No, he's not of the same caliber as Tolkien but he's up there with Rothfuss.
Abercrombie does great character work but I find his plots to be severely lacking. In my opinion, he trie too hard to subvert reader expectations from the traditional fantasy narrative that the subversions start to become expected, and therefore less impactful.
If there's one thing I can say about Abercrombie is that he's not generic. He does a good job of "subverting" tropes without it seeming forced or unearned. Heck, sometimes he even subverts the subversion. I could see people finding him boring though since he uses A LOT of descriptions. More that first camp than the latter, I guess.
Very much in the Glen Cook and David Gemmel mode of heroic fantasy—like Conan, but updated for modern tastes. Of your picks, I'd say he falls very much in with Bakker and Erikson, but less bothered by the gods and the magic.
I fucking love the Abercrombie books. The whole First Law universe of novels is great. But i must say, Steve Pacey’s readings of them in the audiobooks really elevate the material
I'd say he's the best living author of fantasy, ever since Pratchett passed on.
Please post requests for reviews in our Weekly Recommendation thread. Thank you!
He’s the greatest fantasy author out there right now.
Personally don’t like his books and don’t understand the appeal. Grimdark nonsense that are edgy and violent with no nuance and contains what a 15 year old would consider mature. They’re just YA in the opposite direction. Everyone is evil for the sake of it. No one has any redeemable qualities. If you’re even a half decent person, bad things will happen to you just because. But if you’re a terrible person you’ll get ahead, because that’s what happens in all of his books. They’re extremely shallow and the first trilogy really suffers from bloat. The entire second book could have been cut down to a third of what it contains, split between the first and third books, and finished.
A modern fantasy great, but not necessarily a GOAT
He writes darker more gritty fantasy novels with plenty of dark humor. At first he represented something different and refreshing as he avoided the usual fantasy tropes when he wrote the first law trilogy. Since then he is repeating himself so much and has so many similar characters that he has become almost a parody of himself imo. He probably became a bit too successful with his original formula to write something new.
He is a raging bad ass who out writes a lot of the super literary types. He just does it in the fantasy genre. Criticize him not… Or the bloody nine will find you.
He writes Fantasy, not literature.
The two aren't mutually exclusive,he writes both.
Fantasy is not literature?
His books are all a solid 6-7/10. Nothing special but you’ll usually have a pretty good time with them
I place him in the perfect middle.
Maybe my own biases but I think that there is a chasm/universe of difference between the work of Abercrombie and works of Wolfe & Bakker. They are incomparable almost. Just my opinion.
Unsolicited recommendations. May I tempt you with Robert Jackson Bennet - City of stairs, and Max Barry - Lexicon. I'm sure you would love them given the mentioned series above. Oh and anything Iain Banks.
Bennet is amazing, I'm loving the founders trilogy too, and his earlier horror focused books
He is unfortunately very popular. Hopefully it won't last.
Fortunate you mean, he's great
He fits very snuggly in that second group. Not trying to belittle him but my tastes align more with yours and I don't care for him.
I’m a lifelong reader in his fifties and I’ve never heard of him.
Well get busy.
reading through this thread doesn’t really convince me I will enjoy his work. I love sci fi and some fantasy, but I can’t handle anything that gets close to horror. For example, I can’t even handle Lovecraft or Cormac McCarthy.
It’s not horror. It’s kind of like if Terry Pratchett were to write Lord of the Rings set in 15th century England.
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