[QuickTidal]

HoosierDaddy, on 11 August 2011 - 12:13 AM, said:

Duncan's Vellum (first in the Book of All Hours) absolutely stunned me with its first 50 pages or so. Then it utterly lost me. It has such a fantastic premise, but I simply couldn't wade through the myriad mash-ups of mythology all intertwining. That stuff wasn't my cup of tea. Pity, as like I said, the premise was great and the opening was brilliant.

After 100 pages I threw that book at the wall and wanted to punch Duncan in his face for subjecting me to such utterly irredeemable, po-mo garbage. Such a waste in fact that the used bookstore has rejected buying my copy off me 3 times. I can't get rid of the damned thing.

I think I need a garbage can, a lighter, an old priest and a young priest.

[polishgenius]

Pfft. Vellum is well worth the effort. The first time was a massive struggle but the second time it was one of the best things I've ever read. Once you get the hang of the fact that it's still only a couple of plot threads, just told through various iterations of the characters (though on at least one occasion one iteration lives through two versions of the story with different iterations of the others, which does get confusing), it gets easier.
The sequel isn't quite as glorious, but it also isn't as initially baffling.

[sting01]

I would recommand an old novel :

La Plaie (the Plague) from Nathalie and Charles Henneberg. Publish in 1964/1965.

It is , at this day, the most terrific novel I have ever read; certainly because you will never ever be sure if you stand on the side of those who try to survive as individual, those who try to survive as race (the definition of Humans being not defined in the novel, as mutants or colonist who get modified because born on other planets are maybe less or more than humans or even being un humans ...) and those who spead the destruction (willingly or un willingly).

Obviously it is Sci-fi, not fantaisy; but astronautes from outer space are called Angels; the ennemi is often refered as demons/evil spawns ... The authors being russians who imigrate in France have re enacted lot of old slave mythes in that nove.

A must to read, one of the novel who made Sci Fi and Fantaisy became major movements in litterature (before that, they were almost unknow).

[RACHEL]

Dreamsnake by Vonda Mcintyre - post apocalypse world where healers use special snakes and their venom. also post apocalypse by same author The Exile Waiting

Battlefield Earth - aliens take over the planet and kill most humans

Evolutions Shore by Ian Macdonald - the spread of an alien plant life affects Earth in a very interesting way

Anne McCaffery's Dragons of Pern series - people from Earth colonize the planet Pern and are forced to move into caves. This causes them to lose most of their technology which they rediscover in later books

The Remnants series by K. A. Applegate - young readers books but fun and a quick read. Earth is about to be destroyed but 80 people escape on a space shuttle