What Are You Reading When You Aren't Reading Me? (Recommend a Book)

[merlinscribe]

In another thread, Terry had a great idea: recs for books that readers who are enjoying the World of Obsidian might also like. I'm looking forward to your ideas and suggestions for reading material, and I may be back with some of my own ideas later on.

Post your ideas below.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I particularly enjoy reading Brandon Sanderson's books with the Stormlight books and the Alcatraz books being my favorites. I also loved Warbreaker and Elantris by him. Another author I very much enjoy is Michelle Sagara/Michelle Sagara West/Michelle West (she has books under all three names). I especially enjoy the Chronicles of Elantra series and the Sunsword/House War series. If you like books with more romance in them, I recommend C.L. Wilson and the Weather Mages of Mystral or Tairen Soul series.

My preference for books is excellent characterization, complicated and far reaching plots, and a world that feels like it has history and depth. Obviously the Obsidian Mountain Universe books fit in there as well :)

I also loved the Wheel of Time series, especially the last few books. Robert Jordan was a master at creating a world and setting up a complicated plot but Brandon Sanderson really made the characters come alive in the last few books (though he might have overdone Mat a little bit).

I hope others post what they enjoy reading - I'd love a few new books to read while waiting for what Vieliessar does next!

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you! You've mentioned two authors new to me and I'm going to check them out.

Sanderson's writing ability is astounding - compelling characters and plots.

I agree wholeheartedly with your reading preferences, and it's been my experience that those concepts are most easily found in fantasy fiction. Another thing I appreciate about fantasy fiction is that each world has its own paradigms, which often cause me to think outside the box in terms of my own world, and I'm repeatedly amazed at how often the fantasy writers present some pretty compelling and profound truths in terms how people interact and ways for living a better life (often just a sentence here and there), so it seems that fantasy writers tend to display depths of understanding that are not as clearly evident in modern fiction. An example of what I mean is the time Kellen felt he needed to explore the cave, but was struggling with the honorable thing to do, where he realized that the only way to maintain his honor was to act according to the Wild Magic, even though that went against what others might deem honorable. In the movie 'Rob Roy', the main character tells his young sons that honor is the only thing no one else can take from you and losing it is something you do to yourself. I understood that at the time (though I'd never heard it expressed so well), but James Mallory's writing of the Kellen incident opened my eyes to how one needs to examine honor in order to keep one's honor.

Hope you find books you enjoy from my recommendations (comment below)!

Terry