The need to read.

[Old Father Eternity]

Mnyes, wish i was at home with the bookshelf next to me.
Partial to the Robot series by Asimov, that transitions into the Foundation series. Asimov has many other good stories as well.
As mentioned above, A.C.Clarke has some good ones.
There is the Shoal Sequence by Gary Gibson, pretty decent.
Uplift series by David Brin.
Dune is very good (in fact my name is from there) ... not particularly sure about the prequel stuff done by Herberts decendants.
A lot of the stuff done by the Strugatsky brothers, if you can get your hands on some that are translated into english.
Sea of Dirac by Jeremei Parnov and Mihhail Jemtsev ... bit of an interesting read, though again if you can find a translated version
All Flesh is Grass by Clifford.D.Simak
Gaiman has indeed some great works, recently finished one his graphic novels about Death, quite like his version of it ...sadly for the life of me i can not recall the exact title.
There are surely more that i am forgetting and many that are in all likelihood too obscure to the western world by virtue of having been written during the soviet era in the SSSR.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Damn, is it really that bad? It's only been suggested to me >.>

In a way, yes. The second book, The Wise Man's Fear, more so than the first as in there he really gets some of the superspecialawesome skills, the sword fighting thing being the most egregious example. The love making thing was a fae by the way, not an angel, but yeah that happens as well.

To make it even better, if I'm remembering correctly, it was a succubus Fae and he was good enough (or used magic) to begin with to beat her at her own game while on her own turf (i.e. out-humped a sex demon/elf in her pleasure cave).

Nah, that moment wasn't that bad. Though he did managed to escape, he did it by

Spoiler

using her own vanity against her, as he pretended that she was only an okay screw and not 'the best sex evah.' So the fae released him so he could screw every woman evah so he could see that she was in fact the best screw he ever had. Then he had to write a song about it and return to her with, as he was a trouper. Something like that. That was a pretty clever and fun bit in the books.

EDIT: *scrolls up and reads more* OMG guys, it's not that bad at ALL. What the hell?

Nah, it really is, and that's coming from a fan. Worse so in the second book. The whole bit with the weird sword fighting culture really took the cake, and especially when you take in mind that he does all that he does...in his teenage years.

But yeah you do know that he's going to fall down and fall down hard kept it sort-of bearable for me.

 

[Smygskytt]

I kind of hope he finishes the thing within the next few books, because the bloat is definitely beginning to show and it is starting to drag a bit. Then again, in the original draft Honor was supposed to die in the battle of Manticore, and then the Manpower arc would start with a timeskip and focus on her kids and (presumably) a new batch of officers from their generation. Weber kind of gave into fan-pressure, and I wonder if some variant of the original plan might not have been better.

My wish is that he would have taken the second part about the ancient Greek wars from Herodotus and Thucydides. Most fiction about invented wars borrows from the Persian invasions, from Tolkien to Star Wars. That is because the myth invented by the Greeks resonates so strongly: a collection of old enemies ally against an invading common threat (and you will find few allies as different as Athens and Sparta).

The interesting part is about Themistocles, the leader who defeated Persia at Salamis. After the war, he was banished from Athens and sought political asylum in in Persia.

The second part is about the Peloponnesian war, where Athenian greed and arrogance made them treat their allies as nothing more than as a colonial piggy bank and sowed the seeds for a war that would last for 30 years and ruin both Athens and Sparta.

These are some very interisting points that I wish that Weber would have used. Very few series touch on how the heroes turn out when the war is won. (No, I'm not going to wade through all the trash to find the good bits in the Star Wars EU).

 

[Zhukov]

Well gee Zhukov, why the fuck do you need to ask a forum topic about what to read, when you an just make a simple choice by looking at reviews. This isn't 2010 asshole!!

...

That was an rather hostile response to a decidedly innocuous thread.

To answer your question, because to read a review of a book I must first know that the book in question exists.

Also, I don't know any book reviewers who I trust and have similar tastes to. Which is kind of necessary since it seems any crap author can find someone to say their name-swapped D&D fanfiction is going to be the next big thing.

 

[WindKnight]

The main joke of the series is that Ciaphas Cain is an abject coward. He doesn't want to be in the military, he doesn't want to fight, he sure as hell doesn't want to die. He isn't even that religious (which can get you executed for heresy by the humans of that setting). He is extremely cunning though, and he uses that cunning to constantly try to weasel his way out of anything he perceives as dangerous. Unfortunately, that almost always winds up accidentally putting him in more trouble, and through the process of saving his own skin he winds up earning heaps of praise and awards along with this false reputation as a hero. Which only gets him assigned to more important, and more dangerous jobs. Repeat.

It has to be added, Cain is a Commisar, who supposed to improve morale and keep religious purity high amongst the soldiers they serve with, and usually do with brutal and austere methods (the tabletop game includes a rule where commisars can stop a unit running away by 'making an example' of someone by shooting them). In short, Cain is the kind of person a commisar should be shooting on the spot.

In tone your looking something like the Blackadder tv series, or flashman.

In that vein, I'd like to recommend Bill The Galactic Hero by Harry Harrison which is a thorough skewering of just about every aspect of military Sci-fi writing.

Our hero is a schmuck conned into enlisting in an incompetent military, where the 'esprit de corp' is 'its always bowb your buddy week'. He loses his right arm, only to have it replaced with his best friends left arm, and the 11 feet tall alien enemy monsters who we're told eat babies with Tabasco sauce turn out to be 11 inch tall vegetarian pacifists who just turned out to be really good at self defense. Theres a lot of sequels, but your mileage may vary on them.

Also, any of the 'Ship Who Sang' books by Anne Mcaffery (and others working within the same universe). About 'brainships' where crippled children have been made the central computer of starships, with the ship working as their body. Technology has moved on a lot since they were written, so some elements will appear dated, but there's a lot of good ideas and writing.

 

[Noblemartel]

I know this is a bit of a late addition but I would like to throw in some web novels. I know you asked for books but I figure it can be basically the same thing from a phone. Personally I would recommend everything by an author called Wildbow. Worm, his first (and arguably best) series, is a semi-realistic and dark portrayal of what happens when people start getting superpowers. It's pretty long and totally worth a read if that sounds like something that would interest you.

Pact is his second series and it's a modern day fantasy thing that stumbles a bit but is still worth a read. It uses more of a soft magic system that gets toyed with a lot but a lot of the concepts it brings up are fascinating. Once more it's fairly dark (especially later) so you may want to pass if stuff like that bothers you. That kind of goes with all of wildbows stuff though.

The final one Twig is still a work in progress but has one of the most fascinating worlds utilising bio-punk I have ever seen. I won't say too much else because this one deals with a lot of intrigue (I know you said no mysteries but I figured I should explain all three) and such so it's kind of easy to spoil some aspects of the plot.

 

[Zhukov]

Also, any of the 'Ship Who Sang' books by Anne Mcaffery (and others working within the same universe). About 'brainships' where crippled children have been made the central computer of starships, with the ship working as their body. Technology has moved on a lot since they were written, so some elements will appear dated, but there's a lot of good ideas and writing.

Y'know, that rings a bell.

I think I might have read a short story in that setting. The main character was a girl who was one of the computerized kids. Her ship had a single human crew member. They were referred to as the 'brain and brawn'. The two of them were kinda lovers, except not, since she didn't exactly have a body in the ordinary sense. Her 'brawn' had died and she was transporting his body back home.

My memories are vague. I read it well over ten years ago.

Sadly, Anne Mcaffery has never quite done it for me. Her characters all get along a bit too well (apart from the designated arseholes) and everything always seems to fall into place for them a bit too neatly. Nothing ever seems to go seriously wrong. Makes her stories lack tension.

 

[WindKnight]

Also, any of the 'Ship Who Sang' books by Anne Mcaffery (and others working within the same universe). About 'brainships' where crippled children have been made the central computer of starships, with the ship working as their body. Technology has moved on a lot since they were written, so some elements will appear dated, but there's a lot of good ideas and writing.

Y'know, that rings a bell.

I think I might have read a short story in that setting. The main character was a girl who was one of the computerized kids. Her ship had a single human crew member. They were referred to as the 'brain and brawn'. The two of them were kinda lovers, except not, since she didn't exactly have a body in the ordinary sense. Her 'brawn' had died and she was transporting his body back home.

My memories are vague. I read it well over ten years ago.

Sadly, Anne Mcaffery has never quite done it for me. Her characters all get along a bit too well (apart from the designated arseholes) and everything always seems to fall into place for them a bit too neatly. Nothing ever seems to go seriously wrong. Makes her stories lack tension.

The first book was pretty much collecting all the early short stories together, so you may well have read one of those. Also, many of the sequels are written by different authors, just set in the same universe (though Helva from the original tends to pop up in cameos), so the writing may be more to you liking

 

[DoPo]

Kvothe who is taught to be the best lover in the world by an angel.

Oh man, that sounds hilarious. Also just a tad Mary Sue-ish.



Anyway OT, I've got few recommendations:

John Dies at the End - it's a book by David Wong[footnote]who was at one point the head of the Cracked.com writers, dunno if that's still the case[/footnote] and it's an urban fantasy-horror-ish mixed in with humour. I found the combination works out, even though I thought it's an odd one. At any rate, it's about David (as in, Wong) and his friend John (yeah, the one from the title[footnote]Also, it's another Cracked writer that David decided to throw in - John Cheese. It's not ACTUALLY the same guy...neither it's the same "David Wong" in the book. But, you know, just mentioning it[/footnote]) who stumble upon some rather creepy stuff and end up being...for a lack of a better explanation - the Winchester brothers from Supernatural. Only, not really brothers. And without all the drama those two inflict upon the world. The book has a sequel called This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It - if you liked the first one, you can get the second.

Jam by Yahtzee. Dunno if you read it but I thought it was good. It's about an apocalypse...made of jam. Strawberry, if memory serves, or maybe it was raspberry. At any rate, I liked it. Avoid if you're not into zombie apocalypse settings. There are no zombies but there is an apocalypse.

Strata by Terry Pratchett. I know you said you've read all of Discworld, but I don't know if you've read this. It's technically the "discworld before there was discworld". Or that's how it was explained to me. It's not actually anything like Discworld - it's a sci-fi novel that happens to feature a flat disc shaped world. Nothing to do with the later series aside from looking like that. No elephants, turtles or wizzards. It's a good sci-fi novel, though - I'd readily recommended. And it's also written by Pratchett.

The Laundry Files series by Charles Stross. It starts with the Atrocity Archives, so you can give that a go and if you like it go for the others. A brief overview - it's a contemporary setting with magic. But the magic is hidden away from most of the world, it's also heavily reliant on mathematics to invoke it. So, it's more of techno wizardry. It can also be described as James Bond with Lovecraftian monstrosities, as the main character works for a secret British agency (the Laundry) which is there to keep the magic a secret and to also try to deal with some situations like if somebody happens to try and call Cthulhu by accident. I...have mixed feelings on the books. On one hand, I really like the world that's portrayed, I really dig almost everything about magic in general and this one just embeds it in smart phones and PDAs. That's great. But on the other hand the writing style feels a bit...off. I don't really like it but it's not bad enough to make me stop reading. Hence it's a hesitant suggestion.

...

I FOUND IT! I FOUND IT! I FOUND IT!

Oh my gods, while I was writing stuff, I randomly remembered the name Clifford Simack. And in the same moment it hit me - it was him. I've been trying to remember a name of a book I read a long time ago and I couldn't remember the author or the full title. I thought the book was "Goblin Farm" but searching that got me nowhere. But as soon as recalled the author name, I managed to find the name of the book

The Goblin Reservation by Clifford Simack. Do you want sci-fi and humour? Well, here it is, I'll just paste the description I found:

A traveler teleporting home learns he was murdered a week before by either sneaking aliens or their rivals, the leprechauns and trolls of the local reservation.

That's just the start - it got wackier as it went on. I really need to find it and read it again.