Confession time - I haven’t read any novels in a long time, and over the last few years and several attempts at trying to get into Malazan books I’ve realized that the number one thing that makes me lose focus is the purple prose and the glacial pace of the stories that’s usually the consequence of such writing. So I’m wondering if there are any good writers out there that like to get to the point, sort of making the books read like movie scripts I suppose.
Not sure if he quite qualifies, but I would recommend checking out Jim Butcher’s books. I’ve enjoyed all his series, but The Dresden Files is my favorite. If you start there, I will say the first book is the weakest, it was his first, but the series grows from there.
A lot of John Scalzi’s stuff qualifies, too. I haven’t read much of his, but his style strikes me as pretty direct and to the point.
The you gotta be realistic series ermm… the blade itself by Joe Abercrombie fits your criteria. There is an active thread or two. He’s literally a Hollywood screenwriter. He does not waste your frocking time with descriptions of flowers and scenery and whatever.
Thanks everyone for suggestions, I’ll check them out at first opportunity.
This one is a bit wordy. It’s not as dense as Malazan, but isn’t particularly light either. Scalzi is a good recommendation. His stuff just flows and is lightning quick to read. His only real problem is that all of his characters are the same kind of smart-ass smart person. His ventriloquism is pretty poor. Here are some other recos, if you want:
Scott Hawkins - The Library at Mount Char - hilarious, slick, fantasy thriller, extremely fast-paced
https://www.amazon.com/Library-at-Mount-Char/dp/0553418629
Max Barry - Lexicon - slick, contemporary sci-fi thriller, extremely fast-paced
https://www.amazon.com/Lexicon-Novel-Max-Barry/dp/0143125427
Charlie Jane Anders - All the Birds in the Sky - madcap contemporary fantasy/sci-fi
https://www.amazon.com/All-Birds-Charlie-Jane-Anders-ebook/dp/B00W190RPG
Andy Weir - The Martian and Artemis - both are fast-paced hard sci-fi
https://www.amazon.com/Artemis-Novel-Andy-Weir-ebook/dp/B06Y55SB48
Thanks! The more the merrier.
This really began to bug me by the end of Redhats. It reminds me of Whedon dialogue. Not necessarily in tone or quality, but in the way that it inevitably rubs against the back of my brain and makes me angry :-D
Really enjoyed this one, too bad it’s the only non technical book the author has written yet but it’s completely stand alone.
This was fun and quick to read. Even my wife liked it. Not so much for Artemis, that was just ‘ok’.
David Gemmell
I am enjoying The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. It is my first Chinese science fiction novel and it involves Chinese scientists making contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life form during their Cultural Revolution and the impact of that. And the plot touches on an RPG! Though I wouldn’t say it moves at a brisk pace the translation seems tight to me. When I read SciFi I go for Hard SciFi.
Maybe short stories are more for you?
The Year’s Best Science Fiction tomes edited by Gardner Dozois always deliver gems, IMHO.
Can’t help you with fantasy.
Do you mean Redshirts? Red Hat is a Linux distro.
I would recommend this series too:
It’s a lot like First Law series in tone. (Well, maybe a little less brutal combat.)
I’d recommend Steven Brust’s Vlad Taltos books. His Vlad Taltos book’s prose have a spare and careful prose style that reminds me of, like, Dashiel Hammet and Chandler (and I believe, IIRC, that the first couple of books were written in conscious imitation of detective fiction). They are anything but glacially paced…they tend to be brisk reads that clock in at between 250 and 300 pages each.
Yep, and woops!
A very good friend has been bugging me to read these things for a couple of years now. I should really get off my lazy butt and do so. . .
This is very true. I enjoyed the worldbuilding of The Collapsing Empire, but it’s certainly the case that every character sounds like a twentysomething or thirtysomething 2010s American.
This thread makes me want to write a science fiction novel in the style of Hemingway.
“There was a spaceship. It was big and round. It made a slight humming noise as it drifted through the cosmos.”
Just pick up The Book of Jhereg, which is a collection of the first three books. It’s like 420 pages. If you’re not hooked by the end of that, you probably won’t be.
Goddamn man. Get thee to the Two-Sentence Stories thread, stat! I AM HOOKED
Oh wait it’s three sentences what garbage nevermind leave pls
The pilot checked his watch. Still a long way to go, he thought.
Sweet Christmas I’m back onboard. So many questions! How much longer? Can he survive the journey? What compels him onward so? What awaits him at the other side? What’s his NAME? Is he a prince? Is he sexy? Is the ship sexy?!