Yeah it's the premise that appealed to me as well, I wouldn't say it's the best book ever but it's entertaining enough and an easy read. Starts off very like Jurassic Park did but it adds a good bit more to the plot later on plus Dragons of course.
I read the first few chapters of The Great Zoo of China in a bookshop. It seemed like fun but not something I'd want to buy as I knew I wouldn't ever read it again. My top 3 books: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood House of Leaves by Mark Danielewsky
There's this new one called "Catcher in the Rye" that I'm enjoying. And "The Time Machine" is a great modern sci-fi novel
I've always loved The Time Machine. H.G. Wells was ahead of his time. Along with Jules Verne, it's amazing the things they came up with over 100 years ago.
Not sure if this has been listed, but Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. There are 2 books currently and they are,hands down, my favorite epic fantasy books of all time. Can't wait for him to finish the full series!
I really hated house of leaves. To be honest I only read it because of claims it was scary, personally I didn't find anything scary about it (pretty much the plot of the Lion the Witch and Wardrobe in my opinion), to me it was a very frustrating read because I'd say at least half the space was literally filled up with lists of City names and other non relevant junk. Not joking either like several pages in a row just with lists of cities, christian names, corporations and other seemingly random stuff that looked like it was copied and pasted straight from Wikipedia to fill space. For some reason it gets praised all over the net which I really can't figure out but I really thought it was to be blunt complete junk and I tend to not hate many books, Probably the only book to ever make me angry though so it's unique in that regard. I don't think the Navidson story part was really that bad but the rest of the book really just frustrated/annoyed me.
From reading reviews, it seems to be very polarizing. Reviewers either say it changed thier life or they hated it.
Yeah obviously some people like it, my opinion seems the minority. To move on though I started reading Jim Butchers - The Aeronauts Windlass yesterday and I'm really enjoying it. I think he's my favorite current author I've honestly liked everything he's created be it the Dresden Files, Codex Alera or even his Spiderman (Darkest Hours) book was really good (best superhero novel I've read).
This looks pretty good. Sounds like the story from a Final Fantasy Game. Airships, a war, and an ancient enemy. It's going on my list. I just want to thank everyone who has made recommendations on this thread. I've discovered so many great books. I'm reading Wool at the moment and it's really good.
I ready The Girl on The Train and didn't like it it that much on the other hand I also read The Murder of Roger Ackyord from Agatha Christie and it completely caught me off guard with it's ending so if you wanna enjoy a good mystery I'd easily recommend it.
I love Agatha Christie. One of my all time favorite books is And Then There Were None by her. That's one of the few books I've read in one sitting. All her Hercule Poirot books are great, too.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - If someone asked me to suggest the names of best books, I prefer these two books. These books influenced me a lot. It changes my point of view and thinking level. As a writer, these authors helped me to change my angle of view.
John Connolly's Charlie Parker series If you like a good detective story or a good supernatural tale try the Parker series from Connolly. The books are a blend of detective novels with elements of the supernatural in them. That sounds like an odd pairing at first but the supernatural elements are toned down somewhat giving the cases bad guys a deeper evil nature than your average thug. The first book is Every Dead Thing and it's kind of a two-in-one deal that switches halfway through to another story. It's a little odd at first but the writing and characters more than make up for it. He's also done some other books and short stories not tied to the Parker books that are also great if you like his style. https://www.amazon.com/Every-Dead-Thing-Charlie-Thriller-ebook/dp/B000FCKB98/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1466661891&sr=8-5&keywords=john+connolly
Recently read the two released books of Brandon Sandersons - Stormlight Archive. It seemed risky to start an unfinished series when it's meant to be eventually ten books in length but I think it's the best fantasy series I've yet read in short very enjoyable. While of course the overall plot carries on the books do each have pretty self contained stories so reading them was worth it and I'll be reading the next one as soon as it's released. Best books I've read in a while.
I do read other genres too - classics, historical, crime - but as this thread seems mainly about sci-fi and fantasy, I'll throw in some authors. I suspect some, if not all, of these have probably been thrown out there before. For fantasy, I don't think anyone out there is writing better than Robin Hobb. Just read all her releases chronologically from Assassin's Apprentice. She's like George RR Martin with more heart. I also really like Scott Lynch (just read The Lies of Locke Lamora). Then there's Joe Abercrombie, who is pure hokum. Sci-fi, beyond the obvious William Gibson and Neal Stephenson (who seems to get better with every book), I can recommend Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy for a more realist approach. And Michael Marshall Smith, before he started writing mediocre crime novels, wrote three of the best sci-fi novels ever: Only Forward, Spares (read it now!) and One of Us. If you want to extend beyond there, David Mitchell is one of my favourite writers. It's magic realism in the style of Haruki Murakami (Mitchell's earlier stuff) and Margaret Atwood (Mitchell's later stuff). Particularly loved Number 9 Dream, which is almost a tribute to perhaps my favourite author, the aforementioned Haruki Murakami. He set the standard for offbeat magic-realist weirdness, especially with The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. I also like Ryu Murakami, for gruesome comic-book violence. Not really fantasy, but certainly fantastical.
