Books!

[SectoBoss]

If there are any steampunk/alternate history fans (or, indeed, anyone who just enjoys a good story) here I think you'd like The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis. One of the things I like about it is that, unusually for this sort of setting, it's not one of the major European powers who take over the world with clockwork robots (especially not Victorian England) but instead the Dutch. It's also got one of the more chilling depictions of slavery I've seen in a sci-fi novel. I've already spent far too much time reading it when I should have been doing other things...

[IKEA]

I'll have to remember that one. I see it was only published last year too. Since you're a steampunk fan, ever read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series? The first trilogy is fantasy, but the second (starting with An Alloy of Law) takes place many years later and is steampunk with magic. The second book came out only a few months ago.

[Mélusine]

It's very interesting to see a lot of author's name and realize I had never heard about most of them... (Or "Hello, I'm French !")

[IKEA]

It's very interesting to see a lot of author's name and realize I had never heard about most of them... (Or "Hello, I'm French !")

How about Antoine de Saint-Exupery?

[SectoBoss]

I'll have to remember that one. I see it was only published last year too. Since you're a steampunk fan, ever read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series? The first trilogy is fantasy, but the second (starting with An Alloy of Law) takes place many years later and is steampunk with magic. The second book came out only a few months ago.

The name certainly rings a bell - I think I must have spotted them a couple of times in the local bookshop! - but I haven't read them, no. I must admit that I tend to favour individual works over series because my attention span is very short and I often forget who everyone is between books! But I will keep an eye open for it.

And before I forget I should also recommend a book called Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. On the face of it it's a post-cyberpunk romp through the near future with a slightly childish (and by which I suppose I mean quite 'adult') but excellent sense of humour, but scratch the surface and you'll find it taking a good hard look at wealth gaps and the treatment of women in modern society. One of those I'd tentatively put in the 'something for almost everybody' category.

[Mélusine]

How about Antoine de Saint-Exupery?

Haha, I had recorded myself reading a chapter of The Little Prince when everybody was posting in the "What do you sound like" thread ^^

But it's not a problem, just the fact that I recognize maybe one name here or there in the last comments Some books aren't translated, and I hadn't a correct English bookshop before moving in Paris' area, so...

[urbicande]

Haha, I had recorded myself reading a chapter of The Little Prince when everybody was posting in the "What do you sound like" thread ^^

But it's not a problem, just the fact that I recognize maybe one name here or there in the last comments Some books aren't translated, and I hadn't a correct English bookshop before moving in Paris' area, so...

And le Petit Prince is my favorite book.  And bonus, it was written on Long Island when Saint-Exupéry was living in exile.  Just before I moved to London, I went to an amazing exhibition at the Morgan Library in New York City.  There were handwritten pages, original drawings, rough sketches, discarded concepts.  It moved me to tears.

Adieu, dit le renard. voici mon secret. Il est très simple : on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

Or maybe that should be Adieu, dit le Reynir...

[LooNEY_DAC]

Not alone at all! Add D.K. Broster, Jeffrey Farnol, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Evangeline Walton (who did the most accessible retelling of the 'Mabinogi' tales I've read), Madeleine L'Engle, John Buchan, Gene Stratton-Porter, and Kipling's lovely science-fiction stories, including 'With the Night Mail'. Lots of other Kipling. William Hope Hodgson. Algernon Blackwood. Clark Ashton Smith. Maurice Walsh (who wrote, among other good things, the story on which the movie 'The Quiet Man' is based). And yes, H. Beam Piper, Poul Anderson, also William Morris and George MacDonald and Michael Scott Rohan.

And let us not forget George Turner, Cordwainer Smith and John J. Alderson!

EDIT: If you like detective and puzzle stories, how could I forget Poe's detective stories, Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael tales, and the satirical archaeological mysteries of Elizabeth Peters. Those are somewhat better for being read in sequence, so as to keep track of who are all the characters and how they relate to one another at particular points in the story, but 'The Last Camel Died at Noon' is a glorious send-up of a whole genre of adventure stories, as well as a ripping yarn in its own right.

The irony is, of course, that Farnol, the two Peters, and Sutcliffe, as well as Georgette Heyer's corpus and the Lord Peter Wimsey canon, have all been on my mom's very extensive bookshelves for the last few decades, accompanied by a hefty helping of Wodehouse. I haven't read the Farnol, two Peters, and Sutcliffe, but I'll look into them.

If there are any steampunk/alternate history fans (or, indeed, anyone who just enjoys a good story) here...

The name Harry Turtledove failed to ring a bell there?

I have to admit, I was hoping Kiraly or Sunflower would recognize Eleanor Cameron. Oh, well.

It's very interesting to see a lot of author's name and realize I had never heard about most of them... (Or "Hello, I'm French !")

Well, you've been discussing a number of French authors essentially beyond my ken; turnabout is still fair play.

[Róisín]

Urbicande: Le Petit Prince is amazing. Yeah, it made me cry too. Such a beautiful, beautiful book!

SectoBoss: I'll look out for 'The Mechanical'. Sounds fascinating.

Ikea: I take it you've read the 'Instrumentality' books and short stories? But all Smith's stuff is great. Australian SF writers tend to get forgotten, but we've produced some good ones. It's worth hunting down Paul Collins' anthologies to get a taste of Australian fantasy and SF.

LooNEY: yeah, Harry Turtledove's 'Guns of the South' is excellent. Some of his more modern AUs are a tad bit depressing (the horrible tiny-print edition we saw doesn't help).

Eleanor Cameron's essays should be essential reading for any aspiring writer. I've recommended 'The Green and Burning Tree' right along with Le Guin's 'From Elfland to Poughkeepsie' to anyone who wants to write fantasy or kid's books. And Cameron's 'Mushroom Planet' books are great.

[LooNEY_DAC]

Cameron's 'Mushroom Planet' books are great.

They recently reprinted "The Wonderful Flight" and "Stowaway", so I managed to replace the hardback library discards that vanished some years ago. I still have the hardback "Time and Mister Bass", though (and a desire to visit Llanbedr).

EDIT: I actually homaged "Time and Mister Bass" here. I'd forgotten I did that.

[urbicande]

Oh, and since Róisín plugged my favorite author of all time up top (that would be Cordwainer Smith), I strongly recommend "The Rediscovery of Man" from NESFA Press, which contains Smith's complete short SF.

[Purple Wyrm]

I've never actually read any Cordwainer Smith, but I've heard him mentioned in connection with Terry Dowling, whose Blue Tyson series is amazing (and very weird) Australian sci-fi. His Wormwood books (I think there's two of them now?) are similarly weird and he's also written some very good horror stories.

I've just finished reading my way though S.M.Stirling's Nantucket trilogy, which I would recommend to any Turtledove fan.

[Athena]

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned already, but for LOTR/fantasy fans, the Eragon series is very good, and a longer read, if you like that sort of thing. The series is finished, so no cliffhangers there either. 

[Róisín]

Wyrm, if you like Terry Dowling, you might enjoy Rick Kennett's work. Occult detective stories, mostly urban, set around Melbourne, at least one in the Goldfields area. Funny, and good.

[Sunflower]

…And here's where LooNEY_DAC kvetches and whinges about being part of small or passé fandoms.

Has anyone not related to me on this forum ever even heard of Eleanor Cameron? Jay Williams & Raymond Abrashkin? Hopefully more of you have heard of Stephen Manes, Clifford B. Hicks, E. W. Hildick and Donald J Sobol.

So much for the obscure children's series authors. Moving to sci-fi, I tend towards the originators: Jules Verne (in translation only, I'm afraid), and H. G. Wells (though I haven't managed to read most of his political and/or historical writings). In later sci-fi, I prefer "Doc" Smith's Lensman series (not so much his others, though), everything H. Beam Piper ever wrote, some Poul Anderson, some Harry Turtledove, most Timothy Zahn, and some Larry Niven.

So, how alone am I?

The irony is, of course, that Farnol, the two Peters, and Sutcliffe, as well as Georgette Heyer's corpus and the Lord Peter Wimsey canon, have all been on my mom's very extensive bookshelves for the last few decades, accompanied by a hefty helping of Wodehouse. I haven't read the Farnol, two Peters, and Sutcliffe, but I'll look into them.The name Harry Turtledove failed to ring a bell there?

I have to admit, I was hoping Kiraly or Sunflower would recognize Eleanor Cameron. Oh, well.Well, you've been discussing a number of French authors essentially beyond my ken; turnabout is still fair play.

Heard of  Eleanor Cameron?  I knew people who knew her!  (My grandparents lived near where she did, in Monterey, and I'm familiar with many of the settings of her novels.)  Her books were among my favorites growing up, and I still have "A Spell is Cast" on my bookshelf.

The sad thing is I've been kind of AWOL from the Forum since the start of the year, between work pressures and time-consuming things on the home front.  So I'm sorry I wasn't around to respond in real time to your post, LooNEY.  (As it is, it's long past my bedtime but I couldn't resist talking about her.)

What were some of her books that appealed to you -- the "Mushroom Planet" series?  As for the "Danny Dunn" books, they appealed more to my brothers than me, but I'm sure they inspired many a future scientist or inventor.  Likewise the Alvin Fernald books. 

Holy cow, am I having flashbacks now, to all those yellowing little Scholastic paperbacks, so cheaply printed with the pages falling out, which my brothers and cousins and I bought by the dozens at garage sales and left around the house until they got thrown out or sold at a garage sale in turn....

Thanks for bringing back some fond childhood memories, LooNEY!