Feanor wrote:
Alatáriël Telemnar wrote:
What sort of books you wish to be recommended? I mean Adult, Young Adult or Middle Grade and which genre
?
YA or Adult (if you can think of any without the adult content, that is.)
Fantasy, historical fiction, sci-fi, pretty much anything besides romance. (They can have a romance, of course, but I prefer it to be a subplot if it exists.
)
@People suggesting Rick Riordan's stuff:
Meh... I tried reading the Percy Jackson series... it wasn't all that great. Is the Heroes of Olympus series any better?
@Aralas and Bellatrix: hmm... I'll look them up.
More historical fiction apart from Manda Scott's Boudica series I said earlier, would be Bernard Cornwell. His Sharpe series is probably the most well known* but I think his Warlord Chronicles are his best works. It's about Arthur but it's not really the Arthurian legends as most people know them. (His Lancelot is my favourite portrayal of Lancelot ever. )
* Just an awesome thing that I love. Sean Bean played Sharpe in the TV film series they did. In FotR Sean Bean says "Still Sharpe" when he cuts his finger on the shards of Narsil
OK time for me to write a whole lot more about Bernard Cornwell (I've read nearly all of his books) and do a proper breakdown of his works.
The
Sharpe series.
I'm not going to list them all as there's 21 novels and 3 short stories. You might see lists with books in different orders. That's because the first book he wrote was
Sharpe's Eagle but chronologically it's the 8th book. Sometimes
Sharpe's Rifles is listed first but that's because he wrote that due to a request from the television channel for him to write a story for them to then make into the first film. (So
Sharpe's Rifles was the first ever film they made. )
But chronologically,
Sharpe's Tiger is the first book but it's set in India rather that the Peninsular War. (From now on, if I number a book, it's the chronological order)
Anyway, most of the Sharpe books (the 6th book and onwards) are about the Peninsular War. That is, part of the Napoleonic Wars. While Sharpe is the main character, the series tends to follow Arthur Wellesley's (the Duke of Wellington) battles with a few exceptions. The first 3 books follow some of Wellesley's India campagins. The 4th book is actually the Battle of Trafalgar (that's obviously one of the books not following Wellesley), 5th book is the Siege of Copenhagen then 6th books and onwards in the Peninsular War. Apart from the 20th book which is the Battle of Waterloo and the 21st book sends Sharpe off to South America. There is one book which is based in England (the 17th)
OK the books are just brilliant. Basically you're following the battles from a solider's perspective. Sometimes he changes historical facts so he can have Sharpe and Harper thrown in the thick of things but he's very good about expanding on things in his author's note at the end of each book and telling you what he changed and giving a brief overview of what really happened. He also tells you the history books he read before writing the books which I really like.
The Warlord Chronicles:
The Winter KingEnemy of GodExcalibur This series is written in the first person. Derfel (It's Welsh so a v sound not an eff sound) is an old monk who used to be one of Arthur's warriors and a lord in his own right.
I can't really describe how amazing these books are. I've been reading them since I was 9 (they are adult books but I was a little precocious brat with books ) and I still get enthralled in them even though I know what's going to happen.
Saxon Stories:
The Last Kingdom The Pale Horseman The Lords of the North Sword SongThe Burning Land Death of Kings Again told from the first person and again the narrator is an old man looking back at his life.
This time it's Uhtred, a Saxon who was captured by the Danes when he was 9, raised by them, loves them more than the English, but he decides to fight for the English and Alfred the Great.
I don't like them as much as the Warlord Chronicles but they are still pretty good.
The Starbuck Chronicles:
Rebel
Copperhead
Battle Flag
The Bloody GroundAmerican Civil War. Nathaniel Starbuck is a Northerner who is fighting for the South. I only read them because Sharpe's son appears in them as a minor character (he never mentions his father's name but it's obvious who he is ).
I don't know how good they are in terms of portraying the civil war as I really don't know that much about it but I did enjoy them a lot even though I have zero interest in American history.
The Grail Quest series:
Harlequin
Vagabond
Heretic
1356Follows an English archer called Thomas of Hookton. The first 3 are really the Grail Quest ones and it's interwoven with the Hundred Years' War.
1356 is Cornwell's most recently published book, set 10 years after
Heretic and it's not hunting the Grail. I don't know much about it because I haven't read it yet.
Standalone novels (that I've read, I haven't read all of them):
Stonehenge AzincourtI think it's pretty obvious what they're about.
The other standalone novels of his I've read, I'm pretty sure are the only ones with sex scenes in them. I know that
Fallen Angels definitely has one. I can't remember if
A Crowning Mercy or
Gallows Thief have any in them as I haven't read them for years...
Umm.. Yeah, I like Bernard Cornwell
