

My #1 recommendation so far is for M. Edward McNally's "Norothian Cycle". It's epic fantasy, set in a world chock-full of political intrigue and magic, but what makes me keep coming back is Ed's fascinating core group of characters. I challenge you to *not* like Tilda Lanai, Zebulon Baj Nef, and Princess Allison.

I've just started Yvonne Hertzberger's Back from Chaos, Book 1 in her "Earth's Pendulum" series. It's pretty good so far, but I'm only 127 pages into the 600+ pages. This is also epic fantasy, but it seems gentler, which characters who are interested in doing the right thing. So far. We'll see how it goes. She has a second book out, too.
For sci-fi, I'm recommending The Dimension Researcher by Chris James, the first book in his "Second Internet Cafe" series. The premise involves time travel into parallel worlds. He's got a problem with punctuation in his quotes, but if you can ignore that, the story line is really good.
I'll update as I run across more. And feel free to post recommendations -- but not for my books, please. We're trying to broaden our horizons here.
