I might also mention that my recommendations are all better books than HP. So there.

[sabotabby]

Once the shock of reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the fifth time in a row wears off, some readers may be wondering what they can read next. So why not start a meme of suggestions? So here are the rules:

1. You must copy and paste the directions, rules, and the list so far into your blog and then add three (and only three) books to the list.

2. These three books must NOT already be on the list so far. They must be fantasy or science fictional in nature that those who enjoyed Harry Potter may also enjoy. You must provide your name and a link to your blog and/or website so that people may contact you to ask for more information about the books, if they want. They must be books that you have actually read yourself.

3. You cannot recommend a series; instead, recommend the first book in the series. Terry Pratchett's Discworld would NOT be considered a series; but Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time would. Use your best judgment about whether you're recommending a series or not.

4. You must label the books as either YA (young adult, suitable for the younger fans of Harry Potter) or A (adult, suitable for the not-so-younger fans of Harry Potter). Please be clear about this. It will be understood that anything labeled YA is also recommended for A.

5. If you are an author, you CANNOT recommend your own books. (You can however hound your friends into recommending your books.)

6. Providing a link to information about the books you are recommending is optional.

And here's the list so far:



Jim C. Hines (jimhines.livejournal.com) recommends:

1. Pat Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind (A)
2. Raymond E. Feist's Magician: Apprentice (YA)
3. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game (YA)

Janni Lee Simner (janni.livejournal.com) recommends:

1. Lene Kaaberbol's The Shamer's Daughter (YA)
2. Robin McKinley's The Blue Sword (YA)
3. Tamora Pierce's The Magic in the Weaving (Circle of Magic, Book 1) (YA)

Joshua Palmatier (jpsorrow.livejournal.com) recommends:

1. S.C. Butler's Reiffen's Choice (YA)
2. Jim Hines' Goblin Quest (YA)
3. Patricia Bray's The First Betrayal (A)

Booniecat (booniecat.livejournal.com) recommends:

1. Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1) (YA)
2. Diana Pharaoh Francis' Path of Faith (Book 1 of a trilogy) (A)
3. Mercedes Lackey's Magic's Pawn (Magic Trilogy, Book 1) (A)

Erin (erinlin.livejournal.com) recommends:
1. Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men (A Diskworld Book, Tiffany Aching book 1) (YA)
2. Laurence Yep's Dragon Of The Lost Sea (Dragon Series Book 1) (YA)
3. Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle (YA)

Sabotabby (sabotabby.livejournal.com) recommends:
1. China Miéville's Un Lun Dun (YA)
2. Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) (YA)
3. Nalo Hopkinson's The New Moon's Arms (A)

Comments

[mistersmearcase.livejournal.com]

I devoured The Golden Compass and then was a little less enamored as the series went on. Did you feel this way at all?

[sabotabby]

Utterly. It's funny, because it was all a response to the Narnia books, and Pullman did the exact same thing at the end of the series that annoyed him (and me) about The Last Battle—hitting the reader over the head with religion. Or, well, lack thereof in Pullman's case. And there were elements that I found downright creepy.

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

Completely. Book One is transcendently good -- Lyra's narrative perspective, the boldly drawn Norse/Germanic world, the fresh fantastic elements, the atmosphere of growing dread and unease; Book Two is OK, more mundane, more scattered, more telling, less showing; Book Three loses focus entirely, episodic, polemic, no longer caring about the story as much as scoring some meta-literary points off the people Pullman is writing in reaction to. Very disappointing.

It was still better than much of the other pablum being published, but the series doesn't live up to its own early promise.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

1. The Eye In The Pyramid - Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea
2. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
3. The Atrocity Archives - autopope (that's another pint you owe me, Charlie)

[sabotabby]

Ah, I've only read #2 (and loved it).

[florence-craye.livejournal.com]

Heh, I can't participate in list-making. I haven't read much sci-fi or fantasy apart from LotR and HP. Although, I've been meaning to check out Wee Free Men on a suggestion by ironed_orchid. Maybe I'll check some of these out, too.

[sabotabby]

The only Pratchett novel I've read is Wyrd Sisters. Given that, I'm surprised I'm even allowed to use the internets.

[begundan.livejournal.com]

Are you actually freezing, because it's 34 in Jerusalem today, and if so, I'd trade your immediate physical environment for mine.
I have nothing to say on the subject, for I am pretty much a person of one book - Rilke's "The Notes of Malte Laurids Brigge" (as I am a person of one film - Wim Wenders' "Wings of Desire").

[sabotabby]

The A/C in here is turning the Comma Mines into an icebox. I'm sure it's perfectly fine outside, but I feel like I haven't had a summer because I spend all of my time in an air-conditioned office of doom.

I loved "Wings of Desire" so much. Haven't read any Rilke, though I know I should.

[nom-de-grr.livejournal.com]

Ah, I love Wings of Desire. What a kick it is to see a young Nick Cage peform, and the film is so beautifully shot. Haven't seen the sequel, though. Have you?

[maeve66.livejournal.com]

Surely I can do this meme, if not provide great links? I read YA fiction and sci fi all the time.

Mary Frances Zambreno's A Plague of Sorcerors, which is right in the same ballpark, and the start of a series. I think the kid's familiar is a skunk, if I recall correctly.

Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci series, which starts with A Charmed Life, and also her ongoing series that starts with Dark Lord of Derkholm.

Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, which is also a romance, and is set at a college something like Carleton, as part of that semi Goth Tor fantasy series. This one shouldn't be confused with Jane Yolen's more YA fiction one; it's on the border of YA and A.

God, there are so many that are better than Rowling's, although I read and enjoyed hers, and appreciated the crazy publishing phenomenon that they were.

Here: I'll make an anti-recommendation, too: the Charlie Bone series is an even lower-level ripoff of the Harry Potter stuff, mixed with some theft from Roald Dahl. It's aimed younger, too.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Tam lin!

[holy-chao.livejournal.com]

1. A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin (this is the first book in my favorite fantasy series so far)
2. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - Neil Gaiman
3. Enchantment - Orson Scott Card

[sabotabby]

Everyone keeps telling me to read Martin. I guess I should read Martin, huh?

I am so loving this meme.

Drive by pedantry

[zingerella.livejournal.com]

I believe Good Omens is a joint effort of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

Oh, so many of my favourites have already been mentioned.
but:

1. Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones. Nominally YA, another retelling of Tam Lin


2. Magic, Inc., by Robert Heinlein. YA


3. Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransome. YA or even younger. Not fantasy, but there are Amazon Pirates (who are ruthless) and parrots and stolen treasure.

[sabotabby]

HEINLEIN?

[sadie-sabot.livejournal.com]

I did the meme! here's my additions:

1) Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls, by Jane Lindskold (A...maybe ok for YA)
2) The Family Tree by Sherri Tepper
3) A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula LeGuin, first in a series (YA)

lots of good reading ideas here! I think, though, that I might read the harry potter books-- I read the first couple and then lost interest,, but apparently if I am to be at all culturally literate, I need to read them; so...

[sabotabby]

Oh wow—this got to nearly 40 comments before someone brought up LeGuin. Though I don't think Earthsea is her best (I prefer her adult sci-fi), it's the sort of thing I'd definitely recommend to a bright, imaginative kid.

[woe-cruel-world.livejournal.com]

or you could write an essay on the metaphors/analogies and varying placements of social responsibilty that take place in Harry Potter?...One could touch on the debate of whether or not/how/which of those roles/placements, dipicted in the novel, are actually influentional our merely record of the world around them; i.e., can/does violence influence or depict.

[sabotabby]

Oh! Don't get me started.
[spoiler] There's the Unforgivable Curses. What the fuck is with that? They're suddenly forgivable, at least if the good guys do it. I mean, if I were waging a war, I'd probably authorize Avada Kedavra, or at least use it in self defense, but you never see any of the Order doing it. But Harry is Crucioing and Imperiusing all over the place.

And then there's bloody Griphook and this justification of colonialism and bourgeois property rights.

And the whole stupidity of having a child's fate decided when it's 11, and what? A quarter of all 11-year-olds are naturally evil? I mean, yes, probably 3/4 of 11-year-olds are right fuckers, but they tend to grow out of it. [/spoiler]

I liked the books, don't get me wrong. But as soon as one starts drawing real world parallels they get really creepy.

i.e.,i.e.

[woe-cruel-world.livejournal.com]

Does Harry Potter depict a Jesus figure?

Re: i.e.,i.e.

[sabotabby]

...yes.

But Jesus was an Osiris/Horus figure. So I don't fault JKR for that.

[lopukhov.livejournal.com]

Do graphic novels count? I'm totally on a Gaiman/Moore kick right now.

[sabotabby]

They should. Another book I'd recommend is Coraline, obviously.

[kchew.livejournal.com]

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper (YA)
The Thief by Meghan Whalen Turner (YA)
Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey (YA)

kchew.livejournal.com

[sabotabby]

I'm surprised I didn't get more into McCaffrey as a kid.

[fluffworld.livejournal.com]

Cunning plan. Smoke out the people who would recommend Robert Jordan so we can SMUSH them. My fantasy fluff recommendations are;

1) Robin Hob : Ship of Magic
2) Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman : Good Omens
3) And one tough one - George R R Martin's Game of Thrones. heavy but worth it.

[sabotabby]

You know, I've never read Robert Jordan. I'm thinking I need to, just to do something similar to what Slacktivist did with Left Behind. People keep telling me how bad he is.

[machinarex.livejournal.com]

Hey there...saw your entries to the list via mat_defiler and was inordinately upset that you'd snagged two of my intended ones.

Don't know if you're a member of goodreads or not, but if you are, feel free to add me!
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/218555
(and if you're not already, you may enjoy the site)

That's all.

ooops, that wasn't all...

[machinarex.livejournal.com]

since your friends are sharing their entries here:

The Etched City by KJ Bishop (A)
Coraline by Neil Gaiman (YA)
Abarat by Clive Barker (YA)




and City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer