More Book Recommendations!

One of my friends requesting book recommendations. Now, since I could give a very long list of book recommendations, I asked what genres, and she said urban fantasy and space opera. Here, then, are my recommendations if you want some excellent urban fantasy or space opera.

 

Space Opera

What I mean by space opera is if you took a really good action/adventure movie, and the setting happened to be space. Think of the novel equivalent of Star Wars or Indiana Jones in space. 

 

Trading in Danger (the first book in Vatta's War) - Elizabeth Moon - Ky Vatta is kicked out of the space military, starts trying to be a space merchant, has adventures, and also happen to be a woman. Some of the best space opera I've read. The Serrano Legacy series is also quite good.

 

The Human Division - John Scalzi - More excellent space opera, but this time centered around diplomats and told in a series of linked short stories, some serious, some amusing. 

 

Urban Fantasy

I am loosely defining urban fantasy as fantasy that happens in a modern, urban setting.

 

Little (Grrl) Lost - Charles DeLint - DeLint somehow manages to pull together all kinds of disparate elements and mythologies and make it work. Also, all of his novels have a wonderfully rich and complex backstory that is only hinted at.

 

Spiral Hunt - Margaret Ronald - I was blown away when I read this trilogy, and wish she'd written more. The author has very clear ideas about what her fantasy is (instead of throwing everything in), and it is Celtic with a decent dose of literary theory. I was also pleased to find that instead of a stock love triangle, it is about people trying to figure things out. The protagonist is a woman who freelances on the side as a private detective.

 

Discount Armageddon - Seanin McGuire - (the first Incryptid novel) This takes place in New York and presumes that all the urban legends of things like chupacabras and Bigfoot and such are true, and that they are living normal lives (except for that pesky secret order that tries to kill them). It also features the Aeslin mice, a group of intelligent mice that have their own rituals and wear squirrel skulls and say things like "Hail the taking out of the trash!" and are completely adorable. (Small warning that the author works as a waitress in a strip club, if that would bother you.)

(Joel also suggested Dresden, but I've heard such problematic things about it (from Charis and Sharon, who have excellent taste), and I've never been able to get into it myself, that I have trouble recommending it, and probably won't in the future.)