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Book Recommendation Request Super Topic
So please let me know if I’m not doing this right, I’m still new to forums
Anyone know if any books that are set in the wild west, but has dinosaurs? Like cowboys on Raptors, native Americans on triceratops. That sort of thing. -
65 Replies
Anyone know if any books that are set in the wild west, but has dinosaurs? Like cowboys on Raptors, native Americans on triceratops. That sort of thing.-
You are doing this very right!!! In fact, I’m a little mad I didn’t think of making a recommendations thread myself, since it’s one of my favorite things to do.
That is a specific and intriguing request, I’ll have to do some thinking but I’m sure there’s something out there!!
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I only know of Dinosaurs of the Wild West, but that’s an art book and not a novel. I have to ask…why dinosaurs in the Wild West?
I am incredibly curious now hahaha.-
Well, I have close to 300+ hours on Ark: Survival Evolved, my favorite biome being the desert biome that has very western style tools
and then I keep seeing some art circulate on Facebook that depicts western dinos lol. Like sheriffs on Raptors, and settlers with stegos and whatnot. Plus my wife suggested “The Dinosaur Lords” to me last night which is, according the George R. R. Martin, like Game of Thrones meets Jurassic Park.-
Not dinos, but the guys at Sterling & Stone (fellow indie publisher) have a nine-book cowboys and unicorns series called, appropriately, Unicorn Western.
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Interesting! Ill look into it. Any western novel at this point would be my first foray into the genre lol
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Not dinos, but the guys at Sterling & Stone (fellow indie publisher) have a nine-book cowboys and unicorns series called, appropriately, Unicorn Western.
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If anyone is curious, this is the art I was talking about. It turns out the artist has an etsy.
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I saw that in my digging last night (that I kind of gave up on for sleep)! It looks super cool.
There’s apparently an entire subgenre called weird west where it’s westerns paired with another genre. Supernatural Westerns, Steampunk Westerns… whole bunch of things, but those are the two I remember. Unfortunately the only mention of dinosaurs in any of that was the rise of finding fossils at the time.
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Its a lead lol Ill look into it, thanks!
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I put some feelers out on facebook as well earlier, in a fantasy group that Im in. They came back with “The Year the cloud fell” series.
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Feel free to over take this thread with requests for your own book searches.
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Anyone Know any good science fiction novels ?
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Do you prefer hard or soft sci-fi?
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If you’re into military as well, and video games; the halo novels are great. Also I could recommend Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, though it’s a tough read due to when it was written. It is written very proper and gentlemanly.
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I enjoyed the Halo novels too. I’ve never played the games but I’ve read all the books.
I might be tempted to put those in the “hard” category because of how thoroughly the armour, weapons, and spartan technology is described.
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I would agree with you there. My favorite series from the universe is the Kilo-five trilogy. It’s not from any of the games, and I’d say, based on your description, it’s soft sci-fi
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I think I actually don’t have those ones. Time to scour the bookstores.
my favourite used place can probably find them for me.-
They’re a few years old, so probably.
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My favourite place can get ahold of anything. I told them I was looking for Piers Anthony once. They had 3 books and I bought them all. The next week I came back and the owner brought me into the back room. He’d found 16 more, in one week, and saved them for me. Even some of the rarer Xanth books. Since then, I’ve become convinced they can find anything.
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Oooo, Oooo, I have a really good one! I suggest Hyperion by Dan Simmons. It’s honestly one of the best books I’ve ever read, plus it’s the first in a series (of four, I think. It’s called the Hyperion Cantos). Plus, if you like older, but well-known authors, there’s a lot of references to some (I can think of Chaucer and Keates, specifically).
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on the topic of hyperion,
old mans war.
Its SUCH a good sci-fi series, and it has some decent hard sci-fi in there.
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Not sure about your specific tastes but I have thoroughly enjoyed the Blood on the Stars series by Jay Allen. It has quite a few titles too the series and has a more realistic take of space travel and warfare. The Galaxy’s Edge books are quite a gritty and dark military scifi series. And Edgar Rice Burroughs John Carter of Mars is a classic.
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What’s the difference?
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Hard sci-fi is more about technology. Lots of technobabble, with the importance of whatever technology or machine taking the forefront, and speculation on how the technology would work in real life. Soft sci-fi is more about the human element. It usually turns more ethical, or focuses on how people react to an emerging technology.
If for example, the setting was a group of engineers working on a supercomputer, a hard sci-fi novel would approach it like “this is the computer. this is how the computer works. These are the people building the computer. This is how the computer takes over the world and how the engineers disassembled it.”
A soft sci-fi novel might be more along the lines of “these are people working on a computer. These are ethical dilemmas encountered by the people. This is how the computer influences society. This is why they decided to shut down the computer and this is how people felt about it.”
Nowadays most books have elements of both, but still generally lean towards one or the other.
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I live for medieval fantasy if anyone has any recommendations, or just fantasy in general, since this is probably the best place to find people interested in that genre
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literally any of the stormlight archives or the mistborne trilogy. Darker shade of magic series.
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Another Sanderson nerd! My people!
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this is why we’re friends.
well, one of the reasons
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The Hero and the Crown. Princess turned dragonhunter with a dose of mental health undertones.
Or maybe Cry of the Icemark. Warrior princess gathers surrounding countries (elves, werewolves, ice bears) to wage war against the invading vampire army. Large scale battles and diplomatic meetings mostly.
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The dragon rider series by ava Richardson is really good
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It’s technically more contemporary than medieval (by about 50 years, so…), but I will always recommend My Lady Jane. It’s the story of Lady Jane Grey with fantasy and a lot of creative license because rewriting history. I enjoyed it very much.
And non-fiction, but also enjoyed The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England.
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My Personal library Recommend to any poor sod listening…
- Terry Pratchett; Theif of Time, Where’s my cow?, Lords and Ladies, The Last Continent, Thud (all right fine, just all of the discworld)
So many story arcs, on the top of it, light humoured fantasy, look a little deeper for satire and enlightening philosophy
- Brandon Sanderson – The Final Empire (early mistborn trilogy)
Great take commodity based finite magic system
- Brandon Sanderson – The Way of Kings
Not sure how to describe WoK, some beautiful imagery, honour, betrayal, “Journey before destination” (Derdries silver/wool path anyone?).
All of Sandersons work is set in 1 universe with different story arcs playing out on different worlds. This world is big! And interlinked but the sets do work as stand alone so you can go down the rabbit hole or not
- Patrick Rothfuss – The Name of the Wind (kingkiller chronicles)
Clever word play, lots of trouble, fairy tales, learning and music
- Trudi Canavan – Priestess of the White (Age of five trilogy) Gods, healers, power, war
- Laini Taylor – Daughter of Smoke and Bone (trilogy)
Angels and demons, puppets, poison, ~modern day
- Leigh Bardugo – Six of Crows (Grisha verse)
The con is a beautiful thing
- Bridget Collins – The Binding
Books are memories taken from their owner, sacred and protected at all costs, or item for sale the lives others wished and forgot?
- Neil Gaiman – Norse Mythology
Retelling of the eddas, his touch adds to and is also rather faithful to the original stories (as close to original as we have)
- Lian Hearn – Across the Nightingale Floor (4 maybe 5/6 books now… Reread needed)
Historic Japan/China with a pinch of salt, love, death, prophecy and ninja skills
- Johan Egerkrans – Vaesen, Norse God’s and The Undead
3 beautifully illustrated reference books, I’ll share some pics on the Beautiful Books thread
I have other recommendations, but most of my library is currently stacked and unaccessible. The above are from my favourites/new/new to me shelf.
- Terry Pratchett; Theif of Time, Where’s my cow?, Lords and Ladies, The Last Continent, Thud (all right fine, just all of the discworld)
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Anybody got any fantasy (high, gothic,modern, anything is good) with good lgbt+ characters, and that doesn’t involve any main character death (looking at you, Demon Road trilogy and and Blacklight Express…)? I’m not a fan of tragedy. The only books I’ve found so far that fit the mark and aren’t dismal are Rick Riordan books, and I’ve read…pretty much all of them.
EDIT: for clarity, I read mostly kids books or ya novels because… Adult books are often too dreary/violent/cynical for my tastes.
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You could try Bridget Collins – The Binding.
Low fantasy, early industrial era with much of the plot taking place in the country.
It is a little sad in places, but I think that makes the happy sections more prominent, after all to truly understand happiness you must first understand it’s opposite.
I really enjoyed the tale, the discovery, the ups and downs.
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I’ll have to give that a look! Thank you
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Hmm… A lot of the stuff I read probably falls into the dreary/violent/horror category, but here’s some books I don’t recall ending miserably:
- Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
- If you like trashy supernatural/horror novels, Poppy Z Brite. Skip Exquisite Corpse.
- To Summon Nightmares by J.K. Pendragon: Paranormal mystery with a trans main character, it’s kind of dark but I like the book and Pendragon’s work in general a lot
- The Diviners by Libba Bray: 1920s paranormal mystery book with some prominent queer characters
- Brew: A Novel by Dane Figueroa Edidi: A witchy novel, a bit hard to get your hands on, but still quite good
- Kafka on the Shore
- The vast majority of Elliott Wake novels are like…queer power fantasies
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Ooh, thanks for the list! I’ll be sure to look these up… The library here isn’t amazing, but the one back where my parents lives is much better, and I’ll be there for a month soon so I can get some good good searching and reading done then!
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Happy to help! Some of these might be a lil niche for a library, but I imagine you could find Carry On and The Diviners pretty easily. Libba Bray doesn’t always have queer characters in her novels, but I found many of her books to be very feminist. Definitely an author if you ever run out of books to check out.
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I’m currently reading James S A Corey’s the expanse series and I high recommend them for anyone wanting to get into sci fic!
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So for those wanting to share your favourite books you should check out the book share thread!
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Oh @Rimor! You’re bringing back some good memories. Myst and Riven used to PC games and then finally hit on Playstation before they died. Some of the premier beautiful scenes + puzzles games. They were a favorite of mine. Thanks for the memories!
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oh hey how havent i EVER recommended the rangers apprentice?!
THE RANGERS APPRENTICE IS REALLY GOOD.
there.
On that topic, the brotherborn series is also incredible.
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After the Rangers Apprentice finished up I tried to get into Brotherband but stopped after the…second book I think. Maybe I should give it another go!
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you should!
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Okay so I’ve just finished this book and oh gosh is it good. I never wanted to put it down while also not wanting to keep reading it as I never wanted it to end. Urg this book, I’ve never cried or smiled so much before.
I really hope they write a sequel to this book and I’m definitely gonna be read reading it like a madman. I really want there to be a sequel but for now I guess I’ll have to wait for the film adaptation of the book to come out!
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Oh my god a topic where I can gush about my favorite books; I’m in heaven. Some of my favorites:
A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J Maas- faeries, fairytale retellings in the first 2 books but really expertly done, has some LGBT representation, deals with trauma and mental illness (again, very tactfully and realistically), best series evER
Furyborn series by Claire Legrand- fantasy, elemental magic, 2 povs and timelines but surprisingly easy to follow and very gripping
The Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel – Sci-fi, absolutely brilliant, aliens but not over the top, shady government stuff, really unique narrative style
American Gods by Neil Gaiman – modern reality of mythological figures, but not typical Greek mythology (like Odin and Ostara and Ansansi etc.) and their struggle to survive in the modern age
That’s just the ones off the top of my head but those were all books I read in like a day each, I was so hooked
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Furyborn is so good!!! I haven’t read Kingsbane yet though because I think I want to wait until the third book is out to spare myself the pain of having to wait
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Omg! Yeah that’s a good move, very smart. I somehow read and finished Furyborn 2 days before Kingsbane was released, so I was like “oh this is fantastic I only have to wait 2 days to read the next one!” and then I finished that one in a day when it came and I realized…now I have to wait…eons…
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I got an ARC copy of Furyborn and finished it the day I got it. The immense pain I suffered when I realised how long I had to wait for the next one was enough to put me off reading currently-publishing series in favor of finished ones
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Honestly I have no self control when it comes to books, I feel like I could probably spare myself a lot of suffering if i did but alas
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The number of people who have mentioned A Court of Thorns and Roses in this category is the sole reason it’s now on my to-read list, it sounds so neat!
American Gods is so good, as are pretty much all of Neil Gaiman’s novels! I’ve always liked modern takes on mythologies, and his is probably one of the most interesting and creatively done that I’ve seen so far, along with some pointed social commentary. Haven’t seen the show adaptation yet, but it also looks really good.
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ACOTAR is 1000% worth the read, the second book in the series is by far my favorite tho. And yeah I love books that totally immerse you into the constructed world but also give you a lot of points where you’re like “wait, that really messed up thing is totally applicable to the world I live in… WAIT” lol in other words I feel like the best books do it so subtly that you think back on it and are like “GENIUS!”
I haven’t read him but thank you so much for the suggestion!! I will definitely check some of his stuff out
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Neil Gaiman is an old favorite. Have you read any Charles DeLint? Similar mixture of reality and mythology.
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So I’m not sure… dinosaurs are involved. However, I remember books called… John Carter? About a cowboy who can access mars, or gets sent to mars or something… but you can find them as they were written via newspaper articles or as compendiums.
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Just finished “The Starless Sea” and am looking for my next read. Does anyone have any fiction recommendations?
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Hi @Honeyscone – I haven’t read The Starless Sea, so I’m not sure what books might be similar. I just finished a book called The Library of Legends by Janie Chang and I found it delightful.
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Thank you, I’ll check it out!
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I don’t have any recommendations about the OP but I was wondering if anyone has read Wool by Hugh Howey? It has been on my To Read list forever. I am on a sci-fi binge and it keeps popping up as a suggestion to read next.
I have been listening to Dune on audio- so, so good!
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I got Dune in the mail as a gift, heard it’s good (but legitimately have no idea what it’s about lol).
Wool is a great book, definitely recommend it.
If anyone has any recommendations along the lines of Naomi Novik’s “Uprooted” or Mary Brown’s “Pigs Don’t Fly”, in the market for more fantasy wander-about’s.
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I haven’t read “pigs don’t fly” but I really liked “uprooted.” Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is maybe not entirely similar but has the same quality of prose and otherworldly vibes she does so well, though maybe slower and darker.
Graceling has a similar feel to it or Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. Or maybe I read them all around the same time and they flow together in my mind.
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I am incredibly curious now hahaha.
and then I keep seeing some art circulate on Facebook that depicts western dinos lol. Like sheriffs on Raptors, and settlers with stegos and whatnot. Plus my wife suggested “The Dinosaur Lords” to me last night which is, according the George R. R. Martin, like Game of Thrones meets Jurassic Park.
my favourite used place can probably find them for me.
