It’s been quite sometime since I read anything substantial and so I am planning to take a “reading break” and want to dedicate my free time in the next couple of months for reading.
Since I have a couple of months for this, I don’t want to read short stories or a single novel. Instead, I want to read a series so that once the characters are introduced, they will continue to be present for most of the series. This will be an important factor for me, since it motivates me to complete all the books in the series. This is one of the reason, why I was able to complete the entire Sherlock Holmes series in less than a week 🙂
I am not very particular about the genre very much, but I would prefer either Fantasy or Sci-Fi. The series that immediately came to my mind were Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. I posted about it today morning in Twitter and asked for recommendations.
I am planning to spend a couple of months reading fantasy/fiction. What is your recommendation? Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings
— Sudar (@sudarmuthu) September 26, 2013
Within a few minutes, I got the following good suggestions and now I have the tough job of picking it up from here 😉
- Harry Potter series (recommend by Jithesh)
- The Lord of the Rings series (recommended by Haris)
- Foundation series and I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (recommend by Haris, Jithesh and Praveen)
- Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series (recommended by Kiran)
- Contact by Carl Sagan (recommended by Praveen)
- Freedom (recommended by Subbu)
- Artemis Fowl series (recommended by Ravi Shankar)
- Hitchhiker series (recommended by Ravi Shankar)
- A Game of Thrones (recommended by Raman Dokka)
- Malazan Book of the Fallen (recommended by Sriram)
I have not made up my mind yet, but I am leaning towards Foundation series by Isaac Asimov.
Meanwhile, if you guys have any more suggestions, kindly do let me know.
Update: I have decided to take up Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov first. Thanks everyone for the recommendations.
Dune is a great series although the later books are weaker than the early ones. I really enjoyed The Hammer and the Cross although it is a bit of an alternate history than fantasy. It deals with the value of research and knowledge accumulation. I’ve heard the Foundation series is a tough read. As authors go, I consistently like Michael Crichton and Arthur C. Clarke – their science is more rigorous than many other others. His detailed description of a cylindrical spaceship in Rendezvous with Rama is excellent. It spins so there is no gravity through the central axis. Robert Heinlein deals with the social aspects of science fiction – the social order of a space colony, for example. Stranger in a Strange Land is a favorite of mine. I am enjoying the Dresden Files series right now. A bit light but a great sense of humor throughout it. For hard hitting, especially his short stories, I really like Harlan Ellison. At least one of his stories will resonate enough with you to rattle you. Cities In Flight was a very interesting concept – worth reading.
Thanks for the excellent list of recommendations. I hope that I have enough free time in the next couple of years to finish all of this 🙂
As a physicist my personal choice would be larry niven , try the ring world series as well as neutron star. Emphasis is that the physics form a core of the story rather than just things happen in future.
As for space opera try, peter hamilton’s reality dysfunction series.(forgot the full series name)
For high ficition, i am sure folks would have recommend malazan series and game of thrones, I would like to add, patrick rothfuss to it. Kingkiller chronicles. The premise of the story is not a complicated one. Infact it is our everyday tam movie plot, parents get killed by powerfull foe, prodigy hero is struggle to exact vengeance, but what makes it interesting is rothfuss’s story telling capabilities as well as his linguistic insight with character progression. All in all, the underlying tone is varied perception on a single event (something along the lines of rashomon.).
Thanks for the recommendations. I am reading Issac Asimov now and will pick something from this list once I am done.