Vraith wrote:Here's a NO-gestion: At all costs, avoid Cook , anything related to the "Black Company."
Partial agreement. I didn't like the "Black Company" or "Dread Empire" very much, even though both seem to have been partial inspirations for the Malazan series. However, I did read a book called Passage at Arms, a sort of Das Boot in space, and I thought it was one of the best single-entry sci-fi novels I've ever read. It's about a journalist covering a war between humanity and an alien race who comes aboard a stealth ship filled with soldiers on minimum accommodations. There are a few elements the importance of which I was unable to grasp, but as a whole it's an excellent work IMO. Cook has his moments and in Passage at Arms they dominated the work.
Hiro wrote:Not a series (although a new volume seems to be in the work), but a long and extraordinary novel:
'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell', Susanna Clarke.
One of the best if not THE best of the past decade.
Agreed! I loved it a great deal. The book of short stories she published to accompany it, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, is also very good, even if it's proabably an attempt to milk the original for cash from fans like me.