If you had someone asking you what novels or short story collections to read, what do you recommend?

Journey to the East - Hermann Hesse. Very concise, yet really made me think about how I approach things.

Dreams Underfoot - Charles de Lint. This is a short story collection set in the fictional city of Newford. It introduces many of his recurring characters. I think anyone interested in Urban Fantasy should read it, along with the rest of the Newford books.

The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien. His best work, IMO. Sets the foundation for much of recent fantasy.

Moon Called - Patricia Briggs. Starts the Mercy Thompson series up. My second-favorite Urban Fantasy series.

Tigana - Guy Gavriel Kay. Outstanding epic fantasy, and not a Tolkien rip-off.

Downbelow Station - C.J. Cherryh. One of my favorite science fiction books.

Gardens of the Moon - Steven Erikson. Starts my favorite epic fantasy series (which I'm still working through, slowly). Caveat that it is a bit muddled, and there's a lot to keep track of, but I think it's worth it.

Some short story collections I've read and enjoyed:

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
Great Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Cyberiad by Stanislaw Lem
Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka
The Non-Existent Knight / The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian and The Bloody Crown of Conan both by Robert E. Howard
Death in Midsummer by Yukio Mishima

From my ongoing foray into fantasy (for the longest time all I'd read was Tolkien and Howard), there are three authors I've come to treasure above all others, for their ingenuity and their skill with the English language.

Clark Ashton Smith. He's getting his opus compiled with the Night Shade Books collection. Read it. It's pretty damn good, and stylistically a cut above his fellow Weird Tales habituals (Lovecraft and Howard).

Jack Vance. The Dying Earth is my favorite, though Lyonesse, too, is really, really good. I'm looking forward to reading his SF stuff.

Gene Wolfe. I've yet to finish the Book of the New Sun series (which I've picked up at the urging of several people in the other thread), but trust me, if you haven't read this, you must.

I also love the Dying Earth books and The Book of the New Sun. I'm sure as more people post, I'll be thinking that I should have listed those books.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;451362Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges

To which I add The Book of Imaginary Beings and The Universal History of Infamy. Two books every self-respecting gamer should read.

I mean, Borges is awesome, and you should read everything he's written that finds its way to you (I'm particularly fond of "The Aleph", "The Zahir", "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "The Garden of Forking Paths", "Ein Deutsches Requiem" and his non-fiction essay "On Kenningar"). But the two I've named above are very acessible and a goldmine of gaming inspiration.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;451362The Non-Existent Knight / The Cloven Viscount by Italo Calvino

What, no Baron In The Trees love?

Quote from: danbuter;451334If you had someone asking you what novels or short story collections to read, what do you recommend?

Superheroes edited by Allen Varney. Not all of the stories are worth reading--but there are gems in there.

Wild Cards. The first two IIRC, and the most recent three, just about everything in between is a miss.

If you don't mind Christianity in your books the Silver John Stories. Most recently collected in Planet Stories: Who fears the Devil?

Quote from: The Butcher;451378To which I add The Book of Imaginary Beings and The Universal History of Infamy. Two books every self-respecting gamer should read.

UHI is contained within Collected Fictions. Everything other than Book of Imaginary Beings is in it (and that is due to his wife somehow, IIRC). It's the omnibus of his short stories, and is probably the single most delightful book I own.

QuoteWhat, no Baron In The Trees love?

Oh, it's great too, but I was only listing short stories. Though if we're doing Calvino's novels, If On a Winter's Night a Traveler is an incredible stylistic tour de force and was the first thing of his I ever read.

Quote from: The Butcher;451374Jack Vance. The Dying Earth is my favorite, though Lyonesse, too, is really, really good. I'm looking forward to reading his SF stuff.

The Demon Princes is amazing, and is my favourite of all his works.

QuoteGene Wolfe. I've yet to finish the Book of the New Sun series (which I've picked up at the urging of several people in the other thread), but trust me, if you haven't read this, you must.

++

There are two good Gene Wolfe short story collections out right now. One is just called "The Best of Gene Wolfe" and the other is "Castle of Days", which is half a set of stories written about holidays from the calendar, and half a set of long essays talking about the Book of the New Sun. Both are worth checking out.

As for novels, a lot depends on taste. If you want genre fictions (fantasy, mystery, sf) or more traditional generic fiction.

Silverlion, whichever floats your boat. If you think some fantasy and some fiction are worth recommending, recommend both.

Also, Pseudo, the thread is for Novels as well.

Deed of Paksenarrion (Collected as a trade, three novels in one book.) Elizabeth Mooth.

Probably the best portrayal of a Paladin in fantasy fiction. Solid writing from a now well known authoress.


Coldfire Trilogy, C.S. Friedman.

Interesting series of novels about a human settled world out on the edge of the galaxy, despite that is a fantasy novel. I'm usually not fond of such types of books, but these are awesome.

Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Trilogy by Tad Williams.

Very good fantasy setting, lots of details, reads well, but is very very dense in terms of material on the page. (Not hard to understand.)


Operation Chaos, by Poul Anderson.

Essentially a series of short stories or "chapters" published in magazines collected into a complete novel. Fantasy America, in a world where magic not technology is the big thing. (Thanks to degaussing cold iron.)  Starts with a werewolf and a witch in there WWII taking on the Caliphate invaders (in what would probably be our 50's..)

Essentially Urban fantasy before such a thing existed.

The Bannerman Solution, John Maxim,  Espionage book. Solidly done, very well written.

It may seem obvious, but those Year's Best Science Fiction collections edited by Gardner Dozois are generally pretty good. And if you haven't read the Best of the Best anthology released in 2005, then go and get it right now.

Oh, also, Luminous, by Greg Egan. Fantastic.