SMBC Comics Forum

Lethal Interjection wrote:

rustypup wrote: an honourable mention would be Good Omens, (Pratchett and Gaiman collaboration) - the story is as perfectly balanced as the protagonists...

Agreed. A fantastic book. The portrayal of the Horsemen is awesome, and I love two main characters (I forget their names, the angel and demon).
And it is funny at points.

I just finished this book last night (actually I think it was some time around dawn), it was pretty good. Then again I was already a Neil Gaiman and a Terry Pratchett fan, so I don't see how I could have disliked something they wrote together.

Crowley and Aziraphale (the angel and the demon) were my favourites too by far. Especially Aziraphale, then again I always love angels who aren't like the Touched by an Angel ones, or just really simple.

Two works that (I believe) haven't been mentioned yet...

George RR Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" series. it's set in a fantasy world which is similar to medieval europe, with the addition of dragons and magic etc. It's a fantastic story, with a very complex and engaging set of characters and storylines... anyway. he's written four so far and they take up about a foot on my shelf, and he's not even halfway done yet, although it's dubious he'll ever finish (it's taken him three years and counting to publish #5). Still, worth a read. Very violent/profane/etc, and in theory is being produced as a TV series on HBO.

Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" novel. It's one of those "British history plus magic books" except it's actually good; it's about a version of British history where British magic was once widespread, but has collapsed to the point where there are only two actual magicians in the world (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, surprisingly) who have very differing views on magic. It's an exhaustive look at the conflict between them as they go from partners to enemies, and although it loses steam towards the end, it's still a fantastic story.

Sidenote: both of these are very long. Each of the Song of Ice and Fire and the Clarke novel is individually over 700 pages, if memory serves.

Yeah, I own Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. It starts out slow, but it's a really great novel.

Really? I ate up the beginning, thought it went by pretty quickly. It was the end that really stretched for me.

The whole first 80 or so pages where Mr. Norell is discussing the nature of theoretical magic with his chums was just boring to me. It didn't pick up until he awoke the gargoyles in the bailey/church/whatever. Also, I liked the ending because of the imagery of their (Norell's and Strange's) situation.

The very, very ending had some neat moments, but the whole 'slowly descending into chaos' bit wasn't pulled off very well, and the last ~100 pages sort of lost me. As to the beginning, I tend to enjoy those sorts of discussions, and I thought the author did it pretty well.

Oh snaps! I totally forgot that I really enjoyed the book Silverlock, by John Myers Myers. That counts as Fantasy, right?

No doubt she did it well, but it was just wasn't that interesting to read. I liked the footnotes better than the beginning of the story.

Some of the footnotes were really good, though! One of my favorite things about the book was the comprehensive mythology/history she created. I mean, she created a really, really complicated background to this story, and made it clear that what was going on was really nothing more than a continuation of things that had happened hundreds of years ago. All the fairy tales, the historical digressions, etc., where what made this book great.

No, I liked the footnotes a lot. I'm just saying that I liked footnotes (while interesting in their own right, they're not really a part of the direct story) better than the beginning of the actual story.

Oh, I thought you meant that along the lines of "It was so bad, even the footnotes were good in comparison." Still, I think the beginning did a good job at putting the reader in the right mindset for the rest of the book.

It definitely set up Mr. Norell's character pretty effectively.

Rise from your grave!

I just read J.S. and Mr. N.

It was really good, you guys.

I always enjoy it when people like the same stuff as I do.

I'm not sure whether this counts as Science Fiction or Fantasy, but I started reading the Obernewtyn series by Isobelle Carmody when I was about twelve and loved it. Still waiting for the last book to come out though
She really is a great writer, I would also recommend the Legendsong series by her.

Gonna have to mention the Sandman graphic novel series by Neil Gaiman, that was absolutely amazing. I also really enjoyed the spin off Lucifer series that was written by Mike Carey. He managed to make Lucifer a fascinating character in his own right while still staying true to Gaiman's vision.