Books!

[Róisín]

If you like dystopias, have you read Le Guin's novella 'The World for World is Forest'? Part of the Hainish cycle, dark but good, despite being what she called a 'preachment' on the subject of war.

[Lazy8]

These are closer to historical fantasy, so they're more enjoyable if you have a bit of a history-nerd side.

*remembers how much I enjoyed the Temeraire series*

Sure, I'll check it out!

In high school, we had a project to prepare during the year, two years on the three, and it had to combine two classes. When I was there, the subjects were more vast than what they are now. (For example, I remember my subject for the second year was "Memory".) The first one, I've worked with The Giver, Farenheit 451, 1984 and Brave New World (which was the more chilling for me). Probably one of my best memories from high school
BUT I don't know the two other titles (I've read Animal Farm too.) you're mentioning. Hmmm... interesting

The Handmaid's Tale is a Christian extremist dystopia that explores things like rigid gender and class roles, enforced religious principles, and control over women's reproduction. The Lathe of Heaven is another Le Guin novel, with a theme somewhere along the lines of "How many different ways can we mess up the world by trying to fix it?"

Oh, that's a good question! That first story is not really a romance, actually. The man in question is literally a monster (as in, something not-human which has taken over a human's body... not much of a spoiler, since it's revealed near the beginning) so the story does not go the "redeem the villain" route at all.

Okay, perfect! Thanks for elaborating.

If you like dystopias, have you read Le Guin's novella 'The World for World is Forest'? Part of the Hainish cycle, dark but good, despite being what she called a 'preachment' on the subject of war.

It is on my shelf. I have not yet read it, but I finished the book I was reading earlier tonight and that just happens to be the one that got slipped into my backpack in its place...

[Fen Shen]

I can't precisely put to the point why this comes to my mind, but maybe you would like Ken Scholes' "Psalms of Isaac" series.
It is a very complex and long story (and since the German translation stopped mid-series, I haven't gotten to read all books yet), with a complex worldbuilding of a society that has one had a very high technological level - robots, airplanes etc. - but receded into a more simple society centuries (ages?) ago, and part of the plot is the rediscovery of what happened and why. But I mostly liked the series for the characters and the ongoing sense of mysteries all around.

[urbicande]

• Dystopias. On my have-read list are The Giver, 1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World, A Handmaid's Tale, The Lathe of Heaven, Fahrenheit 451, and... I'm pretty sure there are also plenty of others that I've missed. But yeah, technological dystopias, cultural dystopias, failed utopias, I eat them up.
• Post-apocalypses. Though funnily enough, I've discovered that while I like dystopias and I like post-apocalypses, I'm not a big fan of most post-apocalyptic dystopias that I've encountered. Rather, I prefer post-apocalypses like SSSS where society has started to recover and work toward a new equilibrium without being awful about it.
• Fantasy that draws on non-Western mythology (in other words, that doesn't just rip off Middle Earth). I've already seen a few recommendations for Japanese-mythology-based fantasy, which I'll have to check out. I also have to ask whether anyone knows of good stories that draw from Native American/First Nations, ancient Egyptian, or Middle Eastern cultures, to name only a very, very few of the many that interest me? *looks around hopefully*
• Recent authors who stick close to the original, non-Disneyfied portrayal of fairies (or "fey", as I say when I want to distinguish the two).

I'd add "The Handmaid's Tale" as quite dystopian.  I also recall "Colossus" being that way, but it's been ages since I read it.

For post-apocalypse, hmm... "A Canticle for Liebowitz" and "On the Beach" should be there.  "Marooned in Realtime" is sort of post-apocalyptic.  And "Logan's Run" (almost entirely unrelated to the movie)

[Lazy8]

I'd add "The Handmaid's Tale" as quite dystopian.  I also recall "Colossus" being that way, but it's been ages since I read it.

For post-apocalypse, hmm... "A Canticle for Liebowitz" and "On the Beach" should be there.  "Marooned in Realtime" is sort of post-apocalyptic.  And "Logan's Run" (almost entirely unrelated to the movie)

You might have missed that Handmaid's Tale is already on my list of have-reads.

Marooned in Realtime definitely caught my interest. And I've seen the cheesy Logan's Run movie, but never read the book - I'll have to check it out.

[Róisín]

Ooh yes! 'On the Beach!' It was filmed out here too, but I think the book was better. And by the same author, Nevil Shute, 'What Happened to the Corbetts'. That one is interesting, because it was published just before the outbreak of WWII. The Brits, at the time, had no accurate estimate of just how bad air-raids were going to be, because nobody had experienced one before, anywhere. Those who had been thinking about it expected that every air raid would be as disastrous as Dresden or Coventry, and the book is written from that basis. Shute also put a lot of thought into the stuff not generally considered in such novels - water supply, epidemics, social disruption and the like. Gives a fascinating picture of the era and its social assumptions too.

[urbicande]

You might have missed that Handmaid's Tale is already on my list of have-reads.

Marooned in Realtime definitely caught my interest. And I've seen the cheesy Logan's Run movie, but never read the book - I'll have to check it out.

Ah, yes, I missed that!

[Yuuago]

Soooo I just read The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, and I must say, I love it. Sure, it basically amounts to Iliad fanfiction with an emphasis on the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. The responses I've read have been mixed, but eh, it hit the right spot with me.

...Aaand it made me want to read The Iliad for the Nth time. MAYBE I WILL.

[Vafhudr]

Soooo I just read The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, and I must say, I love it. Sure, it basically amounts to Iliad fanfiction with an emphasis on the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus. The responses I've read have been mixed, but eh, it hit the right spot with me.

...Aaand it made me want to read The Iliad for the Nth time. MAYBE I WILL.

Oh yeah. I read that. I never thought I would find yaoi fanfiction in the new release section of the library.

[Yuuago]

Oh yeah. I read that. I never thought I would find yaoi fanfiction in the new release section of the library.

Feels a little odd to use that term for something without a Japanese source, but I know what you mean. I was pleasantly surprised.

[Lazy8]

Feels a little odd to use that term for something without a Japanese source, but I know what you mean. I was pleasantly surprised.

"Yaoi" is Japanese. The word you're looking for is "slash".

[Yuuago]

"Yaoi" is Japanese. The word you're looking for is "slash".

Never liked the term slash, either (unpleasant associations, to be honest. Makes me think of slasher films! xD). M/M romance is what I prefer to call it. xD

Buuuut anyway, back to the subject - I'm just glad something like this novel is so popular at the mainstream level.

[Juniper]

So, I just finished the last book I was working on so time to start on House of Leaves. It'll be my first horror novel I've read in a long time mostly I'm interested in it because of its experimental nature that most people I know who read it talked about in great length, including some very bizzare typography at certain points.

[Mélusine]

So, I just finished the last book I was working on so time to start on House of Leaves. It'll be my first horror novel I've read in a long time mostly I'm interested in it because of its experimental nature that most people I know who read it talked about in great length, including some very bizzare typography at certain points.

I've read it several years ago. One of my strangest experiences as a reader...

[Q]

I've just started Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland and I'm really liking it despite expecting not to! It was a last-minute-whim library shelf grab and I'm reaaally picky with personal travel memoirs, but the writing is actually quite evocative and touching, so I'm digging it.