SciFi & Fantasy recommendations

 It’s not just you. SciFi and Fantasy died in the 1980’s, and was buried under a mountain of dreck in the 1990’s. However – There are a few bright spots in the market these days.

The “Garrett, P.I.” fantasy gumshoe detective series (complete at 14 books) by Glen Cook is very good. You can read any individual novel with no background, but you get more by starting at the beginning (Sweet Silver Blues). Things that happen stay happened, and the world around Garrett changes along with him. Especially after the great war (having lasted three generations) abruptly ends.

If you have any interest in fantasy humor, then please read the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett. They’re the finest works in English since Kipling. Each one stands by itself, by they run in series by main character. Again, things that happen stay happened, so you’ll get more by following along. A couple were turned into pretty decent made-for-TV short serials in England – “The Color of Magic” (based on the first 2 books in the setting) and “Going Postal” (a much later and less farcical novel).

I will recommend without reservation anything published by Raconteur Press (headed by LawDog). They started up three years ago or so, and have published dozens of anthologies and novels. They proudly publish pulp fiction (in various genres) for men and boys.

If you want some light SciFi, try starting with the “Quarter Share” series by Nathan Lowell (a Coast Guard veteran). There are no battles, no aliens, no galaxy changing events. These are novels about a young man (“Call me Ishmael.”) pulling himself up by his bootstraps on a Solar Clipper cargo ship. Ishmael can make a good cup of coffee, so he is not without skills. (There are 15 books written as 5 trilogies, plus another trilogy, a stand-alone novel, and a short story that all tie-in as background.) Nathan has novels in other series, as well. “The Wizard’s Butler” is an excellent stand-alone story. (Now with a sequel that isn’t as good. He had a stroke and his daughter is “helping” him write.)

I am quite partial to the “tactically correct romance” (anything beyond kissing happens off-screen, but the blood is all on-screen) novels by Dorothy Grant. Her husband Peter Grant (a South Africa bush wars vet) writes really good action in SciFi and Western genres. I’ve enjoyed everything J. L. Curtis has written (SciFi, Western, and modern SpecOps/Western). I immediately purchase and read everything Alma Boykin and Cedar Sanderson publish. (These folks, along with LawDog, are “the North Texas Troublemakers, a shooting club with a writing problem”, are friends or co-conspirators with Raconteur Press, and have their own blogs.)

For cozy humor, try “The Chronicles of Luna City” by Celia Hayes and Jeanne Hayden. Richard Astor-Hall, a celebrity chef on the run from a very public disaster, wakes up with a hangover in a tiny Texas town full of history, personality, and personalities. Now complete as a 12 volume series, you really do have to start at the beginning.