Forum: Story Recommendations

Thanks. Will add to reading list.

Thank You for your suggestions.

I have read New Past, Grim Reaper, and a Fresh Start already (all are already on my continuous re-read list). Gruinard's Living 2 Lives ticked me off because I didnt realize when I started that it was an on-going serial. I do not have the money to purchase the remainder of the books from Bookapy so I am forced to wait for the remainder of them to be posted...ARGH!. LOL. I have not read the Anthony Carter series yet but have now added it to my reading list.

Thank You for refreshing my memory of Project Gutenberg. I had forgotten all about it (but have it bookmarked now). The main problem I have with Project Gutenberg is having very few guidelines to filter the 70,000+ books by. Pretty much can only filter by language and general category. No brief synopsis, no size filter, etc. With that many books in the library, makes it difficult to find a good read (by my standards) unless I know the name of the book in advance. But it does give me access to a lot more content (especially the classics) so thank you again for reminding me of it.

Thank you for those suggestions. I was unaware of their existence. I will check into getting a library card and exploring those apps.

One place to look is Amazon. Mainly only top tier authors, but it never hurts to look to get a description.

Good idea for getting descriptions of books. I can't afford to purchase any through Amazon (I live on a strict fixed budget) but that will allow me to at least get an idea about book premise and possibly size.

Like I mentioned in my post, I can't seem to get into fantasy stories unless I have them in dead tree format. So although I have other Brandon Sanderson works (like his Mistborn saga) in epubs, I still haven't been able to get into reading them. That being said, I do have complete WoT in dead tree and re-read them often (at least every other month..think I am well over 100 complete reads through the series, and many more partial read-throughs from when the books were being published). I also have the Deverry cycle on my want list for dead tree but haven't had the opportunity to read them yet.

I will check out Jay Cantrell. Thank you for the suggestion.

I was thinking you should get the Brandon Sanderson in deead tree.

On Dual Writer, I would second most of the Florida Friends, with the exception of Bare Assets, which was unreadable owing to the amountof sex.

Also, if you like baseball, Oh Boy might appeal. There is also Recluce and Ghost, which many rate highly but I can't seem to get into.

Finally in the long and moribund category, there is LA Fun, which has ties to late Florida Friends stories.

Love the Xanth series but am behind by about 10 or so books due to my needing to read fantasy novels in a dead tree format versus epub. I liked the Foundation series but not enough to add it to my continuous re-read list. I have read the entire DiD universe and several of those are on my re-read. All of the Swarm Cycle stories I have read seem to just be excuses to write a harem tale in space with no redeeming plotline (sorry if this is inaccurate to some stories but it does fit every one that I tried to read). I have Florida Friends and Stupid boy on my read list already. Will add Horny Monsters to the list as well but I think that series is still being written if I am not mistaken.

Thank You for the suggestions.

I will check it out. I believe I saw somewhere that Kid Wigger is definitely not completing that story (dead? long time inactive?). As long as I know in advance that the story is incomplete AND not going to be added to later, I am willing to read it. I just hate getting to the current end of a serial release and having to wait for a new chapter. To me that waiting period is worse torture than hot irons.

Thank You for the suggestion.

Kid has been inactive since 2019, life got in the way according to his blog/ In the Swarm I would advise authors Allan Joyal, Lordshipmayhem. There are other but those two are on my re-read list. Allan with his Ishtar series and Lordship has the power play, frozen chosen I&II. I would agree on the bare assets.

love this story; I don't think of it as incomplete as it did sort of come to a resolution. In my head I prefer to think of this as 'Book 1' of a series. It concluded when he brought the two story lines together. To be fair though I didn't care much for the planet side story and preferred reading about the activity on the spaceship.

I thought VOAT finished with Book 4... So I went on and read all 4 as soon as I saw Book 4 final chapter post...only to realize that GW was going to continue the story into their college years...argh! Hindsight and Nick series both are on my re-read list... And got something like 22 of Lazlo's stories on my re-read list (Millionaire is prob my fav of his works overall).

Black Tide Rising is more:
4 book main series.
2 book spin-off branching from side character in the first main book
2 book independent spin-off
3 (so far) guest author short story compilations.

Is it just me, or is Ringo just kinda mid?
- sentence structure/reading level is third-grade (however you interpret 'third-grade')
- plots are gimmicky and contrived (ex deus machina)
- breathless gushing about the humanity/worth/morality (of, say, a sniper shooting a king from ~1km away). I know this is kind of a trope for the genre, but still...

I get the sense that he's hamming/slamming the trope-button and there's not a lot of real effort. I also thought that what he did to Weber's Honorverse was just too... extra (today's slang for 'over the top').

I stopped reading Baen when Ringo took over. At the time I didn't realize it was his influence so much, but after a few decades, in retrospect I can easily connect cause and effect.

I've tried reading this three times. So slow! Couldn't do it.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was written by John le Carré, the pen name for a former officer who worked for both MI5 and MI6 during the '50s and '60s.

His writing style isn't for everyone and the books are definitely dated, but if you even want a fairly realistic view of the espionage during the Cold War, his books are probably the closest thing you'll find other than actual mission reports.

Even the events of the book are loosely based on real events, specifically the discovery of the Cambridge Five and the defection to the USSR of Kim Philby, former MI6 operative.

lol...that was actually the first story that I ever read on SOL way back when...lol

LOL... I have gotten slower as I age.. used to be a lot faster.
But absorption rate is not the same thing as retention. I absorb prob close to 98% or so when reading that fast. My retention (which is what remembering Jeff's wives' names would be) used to about the same for up to a year after I read a story... now it is prob around 95% for up to 2-3 weeks after a read, then rapidly dropping to around 75% over the next month or 2... after that my retention depends on how often I re-read a story and how much I liked it.

Of course, CRS whacks me upside the head a lot more frequently these days and that plays havoc with my retention sometimes (getting old sucks).

But as for the question at hand, having last read A&J about 6 weeks ago, these are the names of Jeff's wives that I remember at the moment: Diana, Arlene, Ann, Nicky, Whitney, Nat, Caitlin, Joyce, Helen, Kayla, Jennie, Melissa, Kei, Tosha, Laura - and fiancee/prospective mates Selina, Little One, Ship

Ones that I remember but whose names I forgot: the alien female (fiancee), the excavator and her mother, Kei's mother, the medic-archaeologist/anthropologist (prospective) {author initially introduced her as an archaeologist with medic training but a chapter or 2 later switched it to anthropologist with medic training}

I might have missed one in there ...but I don't think so... I did forget 5 of the names...I do remember the alien female's name started with an A and wasn't common...

...oh well, judge for yourself.

They're not canon but they seem to be fanfic at in the Honor Harrington universe.

Lonny

Thank You for the recommendations. I have added them to my reading list.