Grab Bag of Goodies

...and have deduced that whatever recommendations you could make would more than likely be worth investigating. Sitting on my bedside table at present are Jonathan Strange, Douglas Coupland, Rushdie, Connie Willis and Alistair Reynolds.....so not really limited to anything.

Okay, forgottenmachine asked me to give some speculative fiction recommendations and since he didn't put any limitations, here's some off the top of my head. Of course I'm going to forgo the usual big names both in modern and classic fantasy and try to cite lesser-known ones. (Unless I really want to...)

A look at the right side of my blog would produce a list of names under the category of Authors: Lucius Shepard, Graham Joyce, Elizabeth Hand, and Sean Stewart. These are the authors who I truly admire for their great writing. These four combine a good story, scintillating prose and an insightful read in all their books. A ten-times-ten recommendation on my-- or in any-- reading list.

For a sampling of the above (except for Stewart) check out this site for a directory of their short stories on the web. For books, Joyce's Smoking Poppy is a haunting tale about fathers while Stewart's new book, Perfect Circle, is a funny yet sentimental horror story on what to do when you see ghosts. For Shepard, try out his short-story collection, The Jaguar Hunter, especially "Nights at White Bhairab", "The End of Life as We Know It" (a riff on Ernest Hemingway, I think), and "How the Wind Spoke at Madaket".

Three authors I would also give two-thumbs up are Michael Swanwick (whose inventiveness in turning ideas upside down are fascinating), Tim Powers (whose secret histories are an orgiasmic pleasure) and China Mieville (the man is a veritable font of fantastic ideas). I've presently read and can recommend Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter while Powers, On Stranger Tides, Declare and The Anubis Gates. Likewise with Mieville's Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council.

Others I would also cite are Argentina's own Angelica Gorodischer and her first English-translated work, Kalpa Imperial, Neil Gaiman's American Gods (though his comic book work is still better), and Matt Stover's hard-hitting (both physically and philosophically) Heroes Die and Blade of Tyshalle.

If you like something light-hearted, try Jasper Fforde's look at a literary-conscious world, The Eyre Affair. Terry Pratchett is also good (said the late convert) though I'm partial to his Night Watch books: Men at Arms and Night Watch. Pratchett's collaboration with Gaiman in Good Omens is also fun. (Though it's mostly British humor, mind.)

In science-fiction, there's Dan Simmons' grand-scale space-opera Hyperion that riffs on Chaucer, John Keats, and Raymond Chandler. On the other hand, there's also Peter Watts' excellent Starfish, which takes the reader down into the deeps of the sea and the depths of the human soul.

*huffpuffpuff*

I think this post is getting way too long (for something from the top of my head) so I'll stop here. Anyone who would want to give recommendations, fire away!