#Paladin posting original content??? Unheard of!

[paladin-official]

In honour of Invitation to Wine's rerun, I present to the Arknights community: Krooster. You're welcome.

[myupostsheadcanons]

Myu Reads

I am making a list of books/series that I read and enjoyed over the past few years, especially since I began listening to audio books regularly. I am making this list not in order of favorite to least but In The Order of Fluff to Grimdark.

The Wind in the Willows.

Charming characters, each with unique personalities, a classic, well-written series of short stories that has lessons for all ages to learn.

The Wizard of Oz.

Experience the magic of Oz. Much of which was removed in the classic movie adaptation. It wasn’t a dream after all.

Anne of Green Gables.

The tale of a spunky orphan girl being taken in by an middle-aged brother and sister duo.

A family dynamic that is not seen in modern westernized settings any longer.

Slice of Life. Light reading. The first book is the best book.

Howl’s Moving Castle.

Howl is a roguish wizard out to have fun and games manipulating the world around him. Sophie just wants to make hats and live a simple life, but is forced by a curse into adventure and into the path of Howl.  

The movie and book are only alike on the surface. There is more charm in the books and Howl actually has a backstory.   

Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH

A tale of a mom wanting to save her children, told on top of the story of humanity corrupting nature and abusing animals.

A true “strong female protag” without the need of the female being either cruel, cold, or emotionally distant.

A Wizard of Earthsea

The movie Tales from Earthsea used the character’s names only and lifted elements from all the books rather than just adapting the first one.

Honestly I remember more from the sequel books more than I do the first one.

The Chronicles of Prydan (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron)

A hero’s tale of a simple boy, an assistant pig keeper, wanting to become something greater and finding out that being a hero it isn’t all glory and fame. 

Characters and Lands based off of old Welsh mythologies, the same ones that also inspired the Welsh folk heroes that later became King Arthur’s Court.

The Once and Future King

The Sword in the Stone half of the book would have made it closer to the top of the list. But the second half involved some rather graphic deaths and fights (a gory depiction of killing a unicorn among them).

Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars (Barsoom) and Tarzan

Both characters helped define what would later become the modern super hero genera.

John Carter was a direct inspiration to Super Man and the Tharks popularized the idea of little “green men” of Mars. (The entire population of Barsoom are very color-coordinated, tbh. Green, Red, Black, White, Yellow). Many ideas created in this series are prolific in Science Fiction of today.

Tarzan of the Apes can be read by itself, no need to get into the later books. The original character is so popular that any attempt to stray too far from the core characterization leads into disaster. The movie “Greystoke” is perhaps still the best adaptation of the character to screen, and it was a deconstruction of the character.

Redwall

It is easy to get away with whole-sale death when it is done with animals, however many of the animals act human-like and that needs to be taken in consideration

Baby’s first “Dark Fantasy”. Dialog is written plainly for younger audiences, but subject matter is straight out of adult fantasy (mass murder, kidnapping, slavery, war of attrition).

Harry Potter

If you just watched the movies you are missing out on a lot of the descriptions and world-building in the books, especially in the second half of the series: Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix,  Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hollows.

The second half is when the series went from older-child reading to young adult as the characters went from child to teenagers in the books themselves. 

Ready Player One, Armada

An easy introduction to retro 80′s and 90′s pop culture, old computer games, and science fiction dystopia. 

If you are a layman, a young adult, or didn’t pay attention to most of the media during that era the books do gloss over and explain most of the references made.... sometimes too often. 

Armada is not as well seeped in pop culture as RPO, but it is a much more streamlined story and you can get a clearer judge on the author’s actual writing capabilities without the kick-back of nostalgia. 

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

There are just somethings that can’t translate well from text to screen.

One of those series that is best when read in High school or if you are a fan of British Humor.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

A masked hero come to save French Aristocrats and Nobility from the guillotine of the Revolutionist Government. Among one of the first novels to set down the common tropes for heroes with secret identities to come. 

History and backstory might be a bit too heavy for younger audiences to understand.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection

There are two great audio book versions of this: one by Simon Vance, the other by Stephen Fry. Vance is a long time audio book professional and also narrated the Dune books and in general just having him read the book is a good indicator that it would be done well.  Fry is a famous comedian and colorful character actor and was in the recent Holmes movies as Mycroft Holmes. 

Barns n Noble has a beautiful leather-bound hardback edition of the Complete Collection as well for $25, if you are the type of person that reads the book and listens to the audio at the same time. The book will look nice on your shelf afterwards.

Victorian/Edwardian Horror-Romance: Frankenstein, Dracula, Phantom of the Opera

Classic stories, adapted and retold many times, it is always nice to get a perspective on the original works if you are only familiar with their newer incarnations.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Darker than the movie. 

A reminder that all N*zis are bad. 

Children characters get killed just as often as adult characters

Deals heavily with mental issues and adults/authority figures gaslighting children.

Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Stardust

A couple “lighter” examples of Gaiman’s work. 

Stardust is classic fantasy with a bittersweet ending.

Ocean is told mostly through the POV of an adult remembering his “magical” neighbors as a kid and his traumatic experiences with his parents and babysitter.

The Lost Fleet Series

What the modern space battle genera should be.

The battles are in real-time, using real physics. It may take hours or even days to find out if that heavy ballistics missile is going to hit its target or if the target moved out the way.

The characters are typical for the genera, but are still engaging. Though the love-triangle rears its ugly head.  

NPC’s  (Spells, Swords, and Stealth Series)

A new game is hitting select markets. One that has consequences not only for the characters in the game, but the players. NPCs inside the game find themselves thrust into the role of adventurers when a PC party drops dead in their small town.

Classic “role reversal”  or unconventional class/char combos  (Gnome Paladin?  Half-Orc Wizard? Noble Lady Barbarian?  City Guard Rogue?) It’s kind of the norm now days after the whole “Drizz’t the Ranger Dark Elf” became so popular in the 90′s.

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire (Trilogy)

The first official trilogy of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, now known as the Legacy series.

It is always interesting to read through some of the EU to see what the Cinematic Universe is “borrowing” from.

Grand Admiral Thawn was such a popular character that he survived being rebooted.

2001: A Space Odyssey

If you have no idea what was going on in the movie. The book will help.

H. P. Lovecraft’s Collection of Horror

There are lots of copy cats, but only one original H. P. Lovecraft.

Mild in terms of today’s standards, but still thought provoking.

Good you are still wanting something creepy/spooky with out it being full of gore, swearing, or other ‘adult’ content, or looking for nothing exceedingly long

A “next step up” after reading Dracula, Frankenstein, and other fiction of that era (penny dreadful, or horror romances). 

Heinlein’s Lazarus Long Universe (basically, most of his books)

It is decent until the last 5 books when things really get duct-taped together, then you’ll want to pull your hair out

Time Enough For Love, Number of the Beast, Cat that Walks through Walls, and To Set Sail Beyond the Sunset are some of the worst offenders.

An Incest warning is needed. 

The ideas of these stories are timeless, the writing not so much. Characters are antiquated and firmly in the “men’s club”  of old-school science fiction. (Even the “strong female protag” in some of the stories still find time to be a wife and mother above all else. Many of the relationships are “open relationships,” so frequent wife/girlfriend swapping)

Starship Troopers

If you ignore the rest of Heinlein’s work, make an exception to at least read this one

Warns of the dangers of being in a global totalitarian society.

POC main character. Juan “Johnny” Rico. Something that was unheard of at the time of publishing.

The Silo Series (Wool/Rust)

Post-Apocalypse science fiction.

Not as dark as say something like bleak The Road or the bloody Red Rising, a PG-13 book.

Set firmly in the middle-ground of fiction despite the setting, the characters aren’t one-note, a solid little series of books and short stories

With some editing it could have been an other dystopia YA series.

The Great Book of Amber (The Amber and Chaos Chronicles)

High fantasy written with a modern voice. A Shakespeare and Arthurian setting. Avalon, Oberon, The “fairy realm,” Civil War. Court intrigue, back stabbing, fratricide. Unicorns.

Written in the 70′s and 80′s. Likely inspiration for other series like ASOIAF, Dresden, and The Witcher. Suggest reading this one before either of them.

The two main POV characters are enjoyable with a snarky sense of humor. The side characters have personality as well.

Multi-dimensional universe, one of the better ones.

Has a Table Top Game.

Welcome to Nigh Vale: A Novel.

Quarkie, Mysterious, and odd.

Heavily inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, X-files, and other conspiracy theory genera, but treated in a mundane manner which makes it unnerving in itself.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (AKA: Blade Runner)

The book that inspired Blade Runner. To the point that many further publications of the book often call itself Blade Runner instead of its actual name (including the audio version).  

The book and moves are only alike in theme, and some plot points

The book is bleaker, more Fallout than Ghost In the Shell.

Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune

The “Lord of the Rings” of Science Fiction. 

What started out as a “deconstruction” of campy science fiction like John Carter and Flash Gorden, and a “take that” to Issac Asimov and Heinlein’s style of writing shaped all science fiction written afterwards.

GRRM (A Song of Ice and Fire)  is often compared to Herbert... for good and bad reasons.

Neuromancer.

The book that brought us the first REAL Cyberpunk in the 80′s.

It is interesting to see the ways they thought computers would be part of 21st century society back in the Cold War Era.

Mort(e)

Animals take over the world killing most of mankind along with it. 

A mysterious “virus” sweeps through the animal population, and the Ants in charge began culling the animals to remove it.

The Hunger Games Trilogy.

There is a lot less HAM in the books than in the movies.

Upper Young Adult. Class Warfare.  Post Apocalyptic Dystopia.  Children killing children.

You can get into Katness’s head a lot easier, understand her reasons for being emotionally distant with people.   

Jurassic Park, The Lost World

Dinosaurs and Assholes. Perfect Michael Crichton books.

The second one should be read just for the fact that the movie is nothing like it. The first movie had a passable resemblance, with some character tweaks... the second movie barely resembles the book at all.

The second attempt of Crichton writing a series about “high-tech theme parks gone wrong” (the first being Westworld)

Android’s Dream (John Scalzi)

When you find out why the book is called “Android’s Dream”... feel free to be grossed out. 

Let’s just say the book isn’t about androids...

The Illuminatus Trilogy

Written in the 70′s. Plenty of Sex, Drugs, and Rock-and-Roll.

Some of the conspiracy theories will throw you for a loop, then suddenly you’ll remember that this is a comedy/parody book and gods are real.

fnord.

Cryptonomicon

A long fictional account about the invention of computers. Told against the backdrop of WWII and the Early 2000′s internet boon. 

I feel this one is on par with the Illumanatus Trilogy when it comes to tone and feel, but with no magic-chaos-cults involved.

Parodies of Historical figures, large a corporation with their fingers in many-o-pot, main characters that would be considered counter-cultured for their time period finding themselves in over-the-top situations.

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

Personally I found the book to be slow and meandering, but interesting as a whole. 

Basically defines what people think Gaiman’s style is. Dark imagery, weird shit happening, and lots of contemplating your navel.

The Comoran Strike Detective Novels.

What J. K. Rowling is doing whenever she isn’t milking the corpse of Harry Potter. 

Would be a better series in general without the fake love triangle...

The Godfather

The movie is better than the book, but then the movie is like in the top-5 best movies of ALL TIME. 

The movie does follow the book for the most part, with some variation for time and content.

The Guns of August (Non-Fiction, WWI novel)

Accounts what caused WWI and the events of the first two months of the war. 

It doesn’t demonize the Germans, Russians, or any of the sides in particular. It explains quite clearly as to what all their motivations were getting into this war and how the war ended up becoming a complete slog.

Realm of The Elderlings Series (Robin Hobb)

If you ever want to experience “the feelz” in book form.

The relationship between FitzChivalry and the Fool is one of the most anguished you’ll ever read about.

There is a lot of ship baiting however, as the Fool is genderfluid and Fitz refuses to believe their relationship is anything other than close-brotherly love...

About 60% of the entire series is seen through FitzChivalry “head as thick as a brick” Farseer ‘s POV, be prepared for lots of PTSD.

The Mists of Avalon

The classic tale of King Arthur imagined and told through the eyes of the women of the court.

There are no real villains in the series, even the most morally dark among them have justifiable reasons for what they are doing. Unlike something like Once and Future King. Mordred, Morgause and Morgan are not evil stereotypes, they have human real-world reasons for what they do.

The Red Rising Trilogy

The Adult Fiction version of The Hunger Games.... In SPACE.

Color-coded for your convenience.

All the surrounding characters are more interesting than the main character.

Your favorite character is likely going to die.

Darrow always reminding you about his fridged wife... even after he finds a replacement goldfish.

The Cycle of Arawn, The Cycle of Galand

In a world of black magic and white magic, it isn’t always clear on which side is good or evil.

Plot holes you can drive a truck through, or at least hope will get resolved/remembered in later installments.

Most of the charm of this series is the relationship between Dante and Blaze. The way they both converse with each other and the people around them is very reminiscent of Buffy Speak.

The Dresden Files (Harry Dresden... Wizard) 

Dresden has a great mix of humor and cynicism.

Plenty of action, not entirely predictable in plot, and a heaping helping of stopping the forces of evil from destroying all existence.

A modern-era fantasy with plenty of demons, fairies, vampires, and ghost. Never loses the feel that it is set in the modern times. 

Stephen King’s Horror-Fiction (The Stand, Under The Dome, IT, The Shining/Doctor Sleep)

The human condition at its worse told in speculative horror fiction.

The Forgotten Warrior Series (Son of the Black Sword)

Future Earth, brought back to an age of magic (or science-like magic) when demons fell from the sky and ravaged the planet. An entire race, the last survivors of the people that turned away the demons and drove them to the sea, are forced to live as slaves, vagabonds, and in perpetual poverty.

The Witcher Novels

Books are published OUT OF ORDER in America. Please read The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny short-story collections before the Saga books.

CDPR Games are a Fan-created sequel to the books, so the games spoil the books (especially the third game).

Netflix is making a (new*) show adaption of the novels with the author’s approval and getting advice from the game makers as well.

*we don’t talk about the old show.....

The First Law Trilogy

It will get worse. When ever you think things can’t get any worse. It always does. And you watch the characters struggle all the way through it and everybody around them dying along the way.

Don’t get too attached to anybody without a POV.

A Song Of Ice and Fire

The modern “Gold Standard” for Dark Fantasy when Game of Thrones brought it to the mainstream.

Just about everything black and grim can, has, and will happen.

Nothing is glorified, everything is awful. When something problematic to our modern society happens within the narrative, it is often treated with the weight that these issues are a problem and part of their corrupt society (things like incest, child murder, rape, abuse....)

Hannibal Lector Series (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal)

humanizes the most horrible of mankind.

if you had at least watched any of the movies and/or the show, read the books as well.

Dogsland Trilogy (J. M. McDermott)

Nothing good will come out of this.  There is no hope for any of the characters. It starts out black and will end just as black. It is like a slice of life for the dirt poor and shunned. Forever on the run from hunters and discriminated against just because of being born. It ends where it began.

The Road

A story about a father and son at the end of humanity. There is nothing that can be done, a harsh struggle to delay the inevitable death of man kind.