I would argue his “California” trilogy are his best works, but the Mars trilogy and also the 40 Days of Rain trilogy (if it has a name) are also decent.
I also like the 40 Days series.
I was too dumb to work out whether Blue or Green Mars was next in the series so stopped at Red :/
Icehenge might have been my favourite of his.
In preparation for reading the Keanu Reeves/China Mieville collaboration the book of elsewhere I read the existing three volumes of Reeves’s graphic novel series BRZRKR (which has the same settings as the novel.) It was uh not amazing. I mean it’s basically a hyperviolent Highlander. It’s fine, but not very original. I’m curious how the novel will work.
Getting back to thisI, too, dug Catchpenny. Rather hopeful, despite near-suicidal depression being a focus of the character. I like me some urban fantasy, and this was pretty great. He obviously left it set up for sequels, I’ll be on the lookout if they happen.
Just finished, so I can say I liked The Book of Elsewhere! book! Mieville remains an intriguing writer (and he wrote almost every word of it - Reeves supplied the character story/beats) - its definitely on the more approachable spectrum of his work.
Perhaps I’m the only person who didn’t know there was a series of Gentleman in Moscow on Paramount+
Reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s Green Mars, the middle of his Mars trilogy, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself enjoying it more than I did the first book, Red Mars. This is a continuation of the same story with many of the same characters, but there’s a lot of small differences. Most notably for me, I liked the viewpoint characters a lot more. Sax and Nadia I already liked from the first book, and the additions of Nirgal and Art are good too. (Too bad Maya is still there, but I suppose you can’t have everything.) Also, I preferred the social/economic development stage of this book - we’re past the “first foothold on Mars” stage of Red Mars and into “Mars as a frontier”. Lots of independent, largely self-sufficient actors spread out all over, and trying to bring them all together has a definite “herding cats” feel but Robinson makes the process interesting through the actors involved. And I appreciated that the miraculous “longevity treatments” turned out to have some flaws. It’s still a very slow burn with lots of detailed descriptions of pretty fantastical terraforming advances, but I find that stuff moderately interesting even if it does require a good amount of suspension of disbelief.
There’s a new Bobiverse novel out. Generally another solid entry. I preferred it to the last one, as Book 4: Heaven’s River mostly focused on a single location. The new Book 5: Not Till We Are Lost is a wider ranging story. Overall comparable to previous entries in terms of quality and enjoyment.
The odd bit is currently it’s only available as an Audible Audiobook, which was annoying. Typically Audiobook is my first choice (since I listen a lot while driving and dog walking), but if it’s a good book, I’ll often shift back and forth with the Kindle version — I’m a much faster reader and if I really want to know wants next, I’ll start reading.
I assume it’s coming out in print sooner or later, not sure why it’s Audible only — perhaps some Audible promotional deal involving direct payments to the author? That’s all I can think of.
The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly
This is the fourth book in Connelly’s Mickey Haller series. Haller is a defense lawyer and the books play up his skill, with some interesting plots and characters. The books are from Haller’s perspective as he works his way through a murder trial involving secrets and surprises.
These aren’t classic literature but for a quick, fun read they fit the bill.
Mickey Haller is The Lincoln Lawyer, right?
Yea, I believe that was the first book. In this book the Haller character gets involved in the possible making of a movie based on his client. He suggests Mathew McConaghy (sp) would be good for playing him and the producer tells him they have already talked to him about playing a different character.
I’m gonna post in this thread rather than the LitRPG one even though this is pretty LitRPG. Matt Dinniman’s Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon. (Dinniman is the author of the hugely popular Dungeon Crawler Carl litrpg series which just had its first volume released in hardcover and was optioned for TV.) Holy shit this book. It is brutal and dark filled with black humor, dozens of twists and turns and a hugely imaginative and propulsive storyline. And it really packs an emotional wallop with the hits never stopping all the way through the end. The book is glorious, exhilarating, disgusting (like really disgusting), disturbing (pretty goddamn disturbing), horrifying and fascinating start to finish. (There is not really any sexual violence in the book, but there is torture and brief descriptions of fairly heinous acts that occur off screen.) I’d put the content about on par with the Dollhouse sequence from Sandman.
The book was made into a full cast production by Soundbooth Theater, with music and sound effects and fantastic narration by the inimitable Jeff Hayes. I highly recommend listening to it that way. And as a bonus, it includes an in-narrative warning about the most disturbing content, with the option to skip it.
The sheer audacious imagination here is comparable to–and this is very high praise from me–Perdido Street Station. Highly recommended.