InsaneJournal

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lissiel (lissiel) wrote,
@ 2009-04-20 10:43:00

Book List
For my reference, and also for perusing as a sanity-saving device: a list of books that I will read/re-read once I graduate next month and--for the first time in years it feels like--I will have all the time I want to read books that aren't required for some class or other.

The Illuminatus!trilogy
Book of Lost Tales
House of Leaves
The Japanese Mind: Understanding Contemporary Japanese Culture
Corambris (Doctrine of Labyrinths series)
Haunted Highways: Spooky Stories, Strange Happenings, and Supernatural Sightings
Loveless Vol.9
Swordspoint: A melodrama of manners
Dragonsong/Dragonsinger/Dragondrums
The Perilous Gard
Neuromancer
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

Do you guys have any recommendations? They can but do not have to be great literature (tm)--I imagine I'll have a good portion of time where I want stupid trash too. I'm kind of absurdly excited about this. <3

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regicidaldwarf
2009-04-20 06:57 pm UTC (link)

Oh my god~~~ Swordspoint, you have no idea how much I love that book. Also great are the companions/sequels - Fall of the Kings and Privilege of the Sword.

I'm currently reading a terrible M/M romance called False Colors that's bad in all the right ways if you want to check it out. There's seafaring adventures and dramatic coat tail brushing on page 13 and subtlety like a brick to the face. It's kind of fantastic. :D

Also I'd recommend the Transformation series by Carol Berg, which is about a spoiled prince that has to turn into a Great Leader and the slave (that he eventually frees) that has to put up with him and they become Really Good Friends and seem like they should be making out pretty much the entire book and you get the feeling that the author knows this too, which is great.

Also have you been flailed at about the Nightrunner series by Lynne Flewelling yet? Thievery! And Spies! And Politics! And Plotting! And really believable main boys that eventually become boyfriends! They're kind of fantastic.

-Er, that wasn't supposed to be long. *cough* This is what happens when you get me talking about books. ^^;

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	lissiel 2009-04-21 10:19 am UTC (link)
	No, this is fabulous. You have no idea how long I've put some of these off--the concept of having ALL THE TIME I WANT to read WHATEVER I WANT is still pretty damn exciting. So rec away! Are the first books in those series titled "Transformation" and "Nightrunner," respectively? They sound pretty awesome. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

regicidaldwarf
2009-04-21 10:33 am UTC (link)

Yes and no - it's Transformation/Revelation/Restoration (I think technically it's the Rai Kirah trilogy or something), but the first Nightrunner book is Luck in the Shadows, followed by Stalking Darkness, Traitor's Moon, Shadows Return, and the upcoming White Road that I am so excited for omg. (Also if you like the Nightrunner series you should check out Lynn Flewelling's trilogy with takes place in the same world but a few centuries earlier - Bone Doll's Twin, Hidden Warrior, and The Oracle's Queen. It's about a girl that's been magically disguised as a boy and she doesn't realize it as first but it's not actually as gender bending as it seems, it's kind of hard to explain. But the first one is kind of horrifying and creepy and has people doing Bad Things for Good Reasons and I really should go finish the trilogy. ^^;)

Also, I did like Neuromancer, but I felt like it had a really steep learning curve for the world and had a lot of terminology that the author sort of assumes you already know, so if you haven't read a lot of cyberpunk it could be confusing (I hadn't read any and sort of had a feeling for the first however so many pages that I was late to the party).

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	lissiel 2009-04-21 12:09 pm UTC (link)
	a girl that's been magically disguised as a boy Hello, there, bulletproof kink! Why yes, I believe I will purchase this novel. <3 Horrifying and creepy are pretty much always good. I've read a decent amount, and I tend to pick world-info up pretty quickly anyway, but I'll bear that in mind as I read Neuromancer. Thanks for the heads-up. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

laylah
2009-04-21 12:40 pm UTC (link)

FWIW, Neuromancer was kind of a foundation text for cyberpunk -- it's not so much that Gibson expected people to already know this stuff as that he was making it up as he went along and had a lot of cramming-a-new-genre-into-one-book to worry about.

...It also contains Molly Millions, who is somewhere very near the top of my list of fictional crushes. unf. ♥ (and when I wrote cyberpunk!Bijou? Cobalt's claws totally came from her.)

If you have not yet read Wicked Gentlemen by Ginn Hale, I would add that to your list -- demons, mysteries, m/m romance, scars, religious fetish stuff. wh-which might just be my buttons getting pushed. but. it's a fun read. ^^;

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