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Ok so all my favourite authors are currently between books and Im looking for a new author to get into. I am an avid HH reader btw.
I thought since many of us share at least 1 similar taste then there may be a chance of finding a great suggestion from fellow dakka users.

I prefer fantasy, historical fiction and crime thrillers. And my favourite authors are as follows:
Fantasy - Terry Goodkind (sword of truth series is the best series I have ever read, pity about the tv series), Terry Pratchet, George RR Martin and of course Tolkein (but books further than the hobbit and LotR have bored me, and whenever I reread LotR I find myself skipping frodo-samwise chapters)
Historical fiction - Bernard Cornwell, Conn Igulden, Simon Scarrow, Anthony Riches, currently reading a Douglas Jackson.
Crime Thriller - Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, James Patterson, Lee Childs, Karin Slaughter, Val Mcdermot, and whilst not a huge fan of Tom Clancy, Rainbow Six rates amongst my top 3 books.

May have missed some/mispelt some.

Do you have any suggestions that have a similar style to my favourite authors? I've often spent lots of money on authors that I just haven't got into.

I'm a super picky reader (I don't even like Tolkein - don't get me started), but I have managed to make it through a few fantasy books over the last few years.

I managed to get through "Destiny's Road" by Larry Niven, and I've been told his other stuff is pretty good. Likewise, I managed to get through "Empire" by Orson Scott Card (and I know a lot of other nerds really like his work, especially the ender series). I also managed "Redcoat" by Bernard Cornwell. Wow, I hadn't ever noticed that the only things I've read from some famous authors are some of their most obscure works. Huh.

Anyways, I've also read through the Ice and Fire series by Martin, but you already mentioned that. I've also reread Dune like three times in the last five years (which is nearly the only book I've ever read more than once).

If I'd want to add something to this rather general list, I'd add a work that's not, technically, a work of fiction: "Infantrie Greift An" by Erwin Rommel. I have an english translation I got from eBay thanks to a library getting rid of it somewhere, and I'm sure you could find a "real" copy of it somewhere, but I also just found out that you can get it from Scribd. They're sort of like real-world 40k battle reports.

Off the top of my head:

Fantasy: Terry Pratchet, RE Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tolkein's Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit (though the rest of his stuff gets very very dry).
Historical Fiction - James Aitcheson, Jack Ludlow (his Guiscard family series starts off slow, but is quite good by the end), Justin Hill's Shieldwall (look forward to his future books, as long as he doesn't paint Harold as a tragically noble hero, the Saxons were anything but tragically noble), Bernard Cornwell's Winter King trilogy, and some others including Judson Robert's Strongbow saga
Spy/Thriller - Ian Fleming's James Bond series. Most of the subsequent authors have been lack luster, or gotten lack luster over time (i.e. started okay, and then went downhill). That said, Sebastian Faulk's Devil May Care was fantastic.

If you enjoy sci-fi and are a Pratchett fan, I'd also recommend Robert Asprin's Phule's Company.

I will say, I found Martin's Game of Thrones to be mediocre, as if it couldn't decide what it wanted to be fictionally (felt like a D&D hodge podge, without the comedy that Pratchett used to bring to such silliness)

If you're a fan of Pratchett, check out Douglas Adams' 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. Entirely different setting but very much the same kind of dry and witty humour.

Cheers guys. I'll look up all you suggest. I agree - both redcoat and the winterking/excalibur series are amongst Cornwells best - and that's saying something!
Someone had suggested Dune to me in the past so I will definitely order that asap.
Keep them coming!


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Ah yes hitchhikers guide - I have that somewhere... haven't read that in years. Might just go dig it out now - good call!


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Thing about game of thrones is A) the time between the books coming out takes forever. B) He always kills off any character you start to like - which is great until it starts becoming predictable. And C) Whenever you find someone who has read up to dance with dragons, you cant discuss it with them because there is always somebody in the room who only watches the series (which is undeniably awsome) and doesnt want spoilers!

Another recommendation for Dune. Pretty much a must for fans of the 40K setting, but also just a great novel in its own right.

You mentioned historical fiction so I will recommend Wilbur Smith. He does epic, sweeping adventure stories about family trees that span from the 16th to the 20th century. Arcs about the Anglo-Dutch war on the high seas, ancient Egypt, the Zulu and Boer war, WWI, WWII... something for everyone. Yes, you'll have noticed his stuff is focused on African history, and the colonial powers that influenced it's course and conflicts, that's because Smith is a native descendant of such. His stuff is well researched, detailed, but also fantastical. And very entertaining, one of the perks of "writing what you know". A warning; quite graphic violent and sexual themes, including sexual violence and torture, horrific injury, things of that nature... just in case you're not into that sort of stuff, then maybe give his work a miss.

If you're interested, though, you can start with pretty much any era, or "arc" that takes your fancy, the starting novels of which are;

Birds of Prey (1600s Anglo-Dutch naval war)
When the Lion Feeds (1800s Anglo-Zulu war)
Power of the Sword (1930s/40s build up to WWII and Apartheid)
River God (ancient Egypt)

I've always been interested in the zulu war (ever since I've seen zulu the movie and when white dwarf did a rourkes drift battle report with guard vs orks many many moons ago). So I will definitely check that out. Tbf though any of those eras will most certainly perk my interest. Cheers!

If you like thrillers then i wood recommend Tom Clancy's Without Remorse. It is in the jack Ryan universe but is not a political intrigue novel like a lot of the other books more of a revenge novel hears a link http://www.amazon.com/Without-Remorse-Jack-Ryan-Clancy/dp/0425143325/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392075598&sr=1-1&keywords=without+remorse . but if you are interested try the other Tom Clancy novels as well. I have not read this one but I have heard it is good is the book Sworn Sword here is a link http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16235128-sworn-sword. Enjoy hope you like them

Edit: warning Without Remorse is violent and sexual at some points even more so then Game of Thrones, just so you know.

+1 for Dune.
Ender's game isn't as grimdark as 40k but worth reading.
Also, Game of Thrones is a biggie! Despite some X-rated moments, the massive amount of characters and names provides a huge source of inspiration for creating your own characters/fluff.

Yeah...I'll leave myself out of this discussion. Let's just say I couldn't make myself finish Dune but I think Honor Harrington is the best science fiction series ever. That should give you some idea of how applicable my reading interests are to a wider audience.

The Wheel of Time is my favourite book series, followed closely by A Song of Ice and Fire. I've started reading the Discworld books recently and am finding them to be quite enjoyable, although the 30-odd list of books is a bit daunting even if they are quite short. As you can tell, I mostly read fantasy.

I'm going to go ahead and recommend Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, as well as Brave New World by Huxley. Books that, IMO, should be read by most, especially those inclined towards Literature.

The No Man's World books are good and if you don't mind urban vampire stories then the Redlaw books are pretty good too. Obviously Starship Troopers is a must read and the Forever War as well although I didn't care for the third book too much. I read Metropolis recently and whilst it was an interesting story I found it very disjointed and pretty odd.

If you like Pratchett then you will like a very good book called Grunts! by Mary Gentle.

My all time favourite trilogy of books (unfortunately, the third one is hard to get a copy of) are the Once Were Warriors books by Alan Duff. They are modern day fiction but the books are just brilliant (in my opinion of course).

Michael Moorecock is a good choice if you like eldar or chaos as GW ripped those right off of him with only slight spelling changes. Good to see the single largest sourse of inspiration for the game.

Ah, speaking of Pratchett, try Good Omens by Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It's quite good (set in modern day, but a fantasy story about the end of the earth). Death is sort of similar to DEATH of Discworld fame, which makes him entertaining.

Douglas Adams also did the Dirk Gently series. They are much more bizarre than HHGTtG, but I liked Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. Thor and bubble baths...

Cheers for all the suggestions guys! I now have a long list to check... :-)

Joe Abercrombie - First Law Series, start with "The Blade Itself", Got then on audiobook, perfect entertainment while painting. If you like A song of ice and fire you are gonna love this!
Reading order is:

The Blade Itself
Before they are hanged
The last argument of Kings
Best Served Cold
The Heroes
Red Country

Smaller scale than ASoIaF but more grim dark, and loaded with black humor, some really great action sequence writing here, 40k writes could learn alot from this.

More grim dark than a song of ice and fire? Whenever anyone is remotely good and starts making a difference they die. Wow - it must be good :-)! Cheers!

Well for me this is what I like to read, Ernest Hemmigway, Henning Mankel, Jo Nesbø, Unni Lindel and such. I dont read much fantasy these days due to that I dislike the current trend of story telling most authours sems to go for in said type of fiction these days.
But I can vouche for Dune,

Oh, has anyone mentioned Kafka and Palahnuk yet?

I love how many have fed back. Thanks for all the suggestions!
I will check out every name mentioned. Dune seems like it should be the next book on the list!

If you want humor, try Terry Pratchett. His diskworld series is hilarious.

Robert A. Heinlein: Starship Troopers and a bunch of other stuff.
Edgar Rice Borrough's Martian Chronicles
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
C.J. Cherreh (sp?)
Patrick O'Brien's Master and Commander series is up to something like 15 books. The naval battles therein are all taken from actual engagements described in British logbooks.
Robert E. Howard, of Conan fame.
Anne MacCaffery, the Dragonriders of Pern series

Robert A. Heinlein: Starship Troopers

A word of caution with this one - a lot of people read it assuming it's going to be like the movies/tv show - jam packed with action and adventure. It um ... isn't. It's a good book if you know what you're in for, just don't go into it thinking there's going to be lots of fighting/combat.

For my own recommendation -

I'd like to put forth "Gust Front" by John Ringo. You can probably pick it up fairly cheap on Amazon. It's not only one of the best Sci-Fi books I've ever read, it's one of themost fun and entertaining books I've ever read period. A good dose of action/adventure/plot and character development while mainting at least somewhat of a link to the science part and only over-doing the fiction part where it would make an entertaining plot point. It's actually the second book in that series (the first being "A Hymn Before Battle" by the same auther), but I read it first and didn't suffer for it. The other books in that series are extremely hit or miss, but "Gust Front" is just insane. imo

Have you ever looked into urban fantasy as a genre? It's essentially a fantasy story set in a modern setting, typically with crime/detective elements (but not always). Some of my favorites include:

The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher. This one really sort of defines the genre, in my opinion - the books blend the mix between fantasy and modern life very nicely, and there's a fair emphasis (at least in the early books) on how much of a struggle it can be to live as a modern-day wizard. The main character is a perpetual smartass, meaning that every novel is just an absolute joy to read, but there are also some fairly dark themes of morality and the struggle of using power responsibly later on in the series. I recommend starting with the first book, Storm Front, and if that doesn't grab you, give the third book, Grave Peril a try - the third book is really where the series takes off.

The Iron Druid Chronicles, by Kevin Hearne. I think what makes this one so interesting is how detailed it is when it comes to the supernatural forces. The story is entertaining, and the characters are pretty strong - although in the first book, Hounded, the main character (Atticus O'Sullivan) is ridiculously overpowered. Still, I found that Hearne's writing was consistently good from the first book to the last, whereas Butcher sort of stumbles around until he gets to the third book.

Kate Daniels, by Ilona Andrews. This book has a fantastically interesting world that's very similar to Shadowrun, in a sense. Basically, the story starts some time after magic came back into the world, wiping out technology in the process, and now the two forces wash back and forth over the world like a pendulum. Sometimes magic works and tech doesn't, but sometimes technology works while magic doesn't. I haven't read past the first book yet, but I greatly enjoyed what I did read when I did.

Tycho wrote:

Robert A. Heinlein: Starship Troopers

A word of caution with this one - a lot of people read it assuming it's going to be like the movies/tv show - jam packed with action and adventure. It um ... isn't. It's a good book if you know what you're in for, just don't go into it thinking there's going to be lots of fighting/combat.

Too true. I've never bothered to watch the movie simply because the previews made it obvious that the movie had very little in common with the book.

Just started getting into David Weber in the last year.
Honor Harrington series and Safehold Series. Both great military sci-fi and he just pumps out books.

On the sci-fi side, check out Iain M Banks. Some stupendously good reads there. Pity he's dead now :( If you like the original Starship Troopers then also check out Joe Haldeman's Forever War series. Pretty cool stuff.

 Locclo wrote:
The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher. This one really sort of defines the genre, in my opinion - the books blend the mix between fantasy and modern life very nicely, and there's a fair emphasis (at least in the early books) on how much of a struggle it can be to live as a modern-day wizard. The main character is a perpetual smartass, meaning that every novel is just an absolute joy to read, but there are also some fairly dark themes of morality and the struggle of using power responsibly later on in the series. I recommend starting with the first book, Storm Front, and if that doesn't grab you, give the third book, Grave Peril a try - the third book is really where the series takes off.

This...and the tv show is decent if you can get past a few cheap/old effects.



Also surprised that there's been no mention of the Shrike or Endymion yet.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Ok so all my favourite authors are currently between books and Im looking for a new author to get into. I am an avid HH reader btw.
I thought since many of us share at least 1 similar taste then there may be a chance of finding a great suggestion from fellow dakka users.

I prefer fantasy, historical fiction and crime thrillers. And my favourite authors are as follows:
Fantasy - Terry Goodkind (sword of truth series is the best series I have ever read, pity about the tv series), Terry Pratchet, George RR Martin and of course Tolkein (but books further than the hobbit and LotR have bored me, and whenever I reread LotR I find myself skipping frodo-samwise chapters)
Historical fiction - Bernard Cornwell, Conn Igulden, Simon Scarrow, Anthony Riches, currently reading a Douglas Jackson.
Crime Thriller - Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, James Patterson, Lee Childs, Karin Slaughter, Val Mcdermot, and whilst not a huge fan of Tom Clancy, Rainbow Six rates amongst my top 3 books.

May have missed some/mispelt some.

Do you have any suggestions that have a similar style to my favourite authors? I've often spent lots of money on authors that I just haven't got into.

Stephen Bein has a series, currently at two books that actually combines all 3 of those categories. The first book is called Daughter of the Sword. The second book is Year of the Demon. The story is a cross of modern day Japanese crime thriller interespersed with historical fantasy pieces about mystical swords and other items that appear in both parts of the story. Entertaining reads to be sure. If you have even a passing fancy in Japanese history, especially around the time of the 3 great unifiers, these books are a fun read.

Currenlty waiting on Lee Child's latest Reacher book to hit paperback myself. Recently picked up a bunch of series starting novels in the hopes of adding to my queue. Bein was one of those and after reading the first book had I run out and immediately acquire and read the second book right away.

On the more specific Urban fantasy genres, I highly recommend both the Kate Daniels series and the Edge series by Ilona Andrews. Also the Cal Leandros novels by Rob Thurman are a lot of fun to read as well. I'm not too big on a lot of typical fantasy because too much of it reads like Tolkien wannabes or too many D&D campaigns novelized.

Skriker