There's always Neil Gaiman. His style is definitely different, but you can feel some similarities. He and Pratchett wrote Good Omens together. Check out Stardust, the Graveyard Book, or American Gods. And of course The Sandman, but it is darker.
Neil Gaiman - More on the Fantasy side than irony. His works are still a pleasure. And ofk his collaboration with Terry "Good Omen". Also check "American Gods" and "Anansi Boys".
Kurt Vonnegut - Not what you would call "Fun and laugh" works, but his stories are crazy, well written and full of irony and smart social critics.
Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Craddle is a wonderfully satirical novel.
American Gods is very good as well, I did not try the other books by Neil Gaimlan you mention but will definitely give them a try, thanks for the recommendation.
Good Omens was like my favourite cake spiced with bits of oh-so-ironic-and-absurd British humour.
I finished A Crown of Swords (wheel of time book 7) and loved it but now I’m taking a short break from the series.
Currently reading Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton. Thrillers are not generally my cup of tea, but it’s nice to read a fast paced book to break up the super long epic series.
Once that’s done, I’m going to reread To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Haven’t touched that book since middle school so I think it’s time for a revisit.
Afaik, if you’re into fantasy, you might as well read it in English since that’s what the majority of fantasy is published in originally. Waiting for translations is a pain in the ass, and might not even happen.
And, like any translated book, it’s not usually the same experience because not everything translates well. Certainly not as well as being able to read the original language fluently.
That goes both ways, btw. English translations of books from other languages are a crap shoot.
Now, if you’re ignoring authors in your language, that seems a poor choice, but it’s your choice, and not inherently negative (imo). You may have very good reasons to make that choice.
If I wasn’t totally brain dead when it comes to other languages, I’d definitely prefer to read most poetry in the original form. Most fiction too. There’s an older book I enjoy, The Master and Margueritta. It’s originally in Russian, and the translation has some clunky bits that I suspect would be better in Russian.
Besides, one of the best ways to achieve fluency and maintain it is by using the language.
Ah, litRPG. How are you liking them? My experience with them has pretty much all been in web novels, with one exception of Cradle novels, or is that a different genre?
Honestly, it’s a pretty broad category. Overall enjoyable, but after so many I start looking for the unique aspects between them. Psychokinetic is fairly average so far, but I’m quite fond of Dakota Krout and the puns and terrible jokes.
Technically, Cradle and the preceding series to Dakota Krout’s Completionist Chronicles, Divine Dungeon, are in the cultivation genre rather than LitRPG. That said, the two are so closely related that they can often be interchangeable. The biggest differences would be that cultivation uses energy/essence to gain power while litRPGs use experience points to gain levels. I think cultivation books tend to have looser rules(principles maybe?) binding them whereas litRPGs have more rigid video game constraints/rulesets (although the best litRPGs lay out rules early on that allow for a great flexibility in how a player can operate within them).
Speaking on both, I think the a lot of people gravitate towards the power fantasy of the genres which has led to them being oversaturated with a lot of sub-par series. There’s some good gems in there. Cradle is pretty good, I didn’t get super far in the series but I respect it. I do think Dakota Krout writes the best series in Divine Dungeon and Completionist Chronicles, although you do have to accept the puns, and that all of the main protagonists have very transactional personalities. The Life Reset series has an interesting premise and town management. If you want straight video gaming, I think Ascend Online is pretty good at capturing the best parts of the MMORPG grind, or there’s Awaken Online if you need to embrace your inner edge-lord.
I agree with “lots of sub-par series”, which is kind of why I have gravitated away from these. I will look into the recommendation you have shared though. Thanks!
Cradle is great once you get past book 2. Completionist is one of the best besides the super cringe opening and just like divine dungeon the further it goes the quality seems to be dipping.
I’ve really enjoyed the Ripple System it’s probably of the same quality as the completionist chronicles.
It almost feels like a one off, but Jake’s Magical Market was a pretty fun time as well. The scaling gets out of hand pretty quickly.
Though, in my personal opinion, instead of creating niche communities, if there is a bigger community that covers the topic, and is not very busy, it’s better to get the discussions going there, and only create a separate community when there is enough people and content. Or when there is too much other discussion overshadowing your discussion.
Not saying this because I am a mod here, but because there aren’t enough people here (on lemmy) yet, so having too many communities don’t always work well.
Some good old fashioned hard sci-fi usually does the trick for me. Especially when there’s a healthy dose of optimism involved (which is a bit rare these days). Project Hail Mary was perfect in that regard.
Have you ever read Revelation Space? I wanted to like it but didn’t quite make it halfway, the characters felt really flat and I thought maybe hard sci fi isn’t for me. I do love Andy Weir, though
It looks interesting! How “dense” is it…like are there lots of names to remember or world building to understand? I struggle a bit with that if the plot isn’t moving quickly enough.
I’d say there’s a fair amount of names. Not at the beginning but if you get to the later books, yeah there is. I wouldn’t say the world building is too out of hand. If you can keep up with an anime like DBZ I’d say you’d be fine.
Just finished Nuclear war, a scenario by Annie Jacobsen. This nonfiction book about a fictional scenario about what a nuclear war would be really shaked me. I strongly recommend it. Read it in a few days because it was really gripping (ok this week have been a bit hard with the few sleep hours each night).
Not yet found what I’ll start reading now but something lighter for sure (perhaps a crime/mystery/thriller, has been long since I read a good one). If you have some recommendations, they are welcome.
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