Looking for book recommendations

[Jeivar]

I'm looking for something to read during those upcoming sunny summer vacation days. I'm making an amazon purchase either tonight or tomorrow, and I'd love recommendations on:

*Werewolf horror. I recently rewatched An American Werewolf in London, and it occurred to me that I've barely read any werewolf stories. I'm curious to see what a good writer does with the concept.

*Fantasy. I'm open to anything that has action and vivid characters and isn't the start of a 12-book series. I do however have a particular fondness for action girls in either the lead or a prominent role, so that's a big plus. NOTE: I am not not NOT looking for urban fantasy romance. I can tolerate a romantic subplot if it is a SUBPLOT. I'm not looking for vampire wank.

*Old school vampire story. By which I mean "scary, evil villain" instead or "poor, sexy misunderstood victim". More "Salem's Lot and Carmilla" and less "Twilight and Any Urban Fantasy Romance."

*Modern action espionage thriller, anti-terror something something. Again, action-girls are a big plus.

I guess that's it. Many thanks in advance for any suggestions. :smallsmile:

[Seerow]

We had this thread just a while ago: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=204653

While it was made to be directed towards children, the upper end of his range (14 iirc) was old enough for just about anything short of softcore porn to be listed on there, so if you look through the topic you'll probably find a few things in there that catch your interest.

[NikitaDarkstar]

I'm not sure if you can tolerate urban fantasy at all or not, but if you can check out American Gods and Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. Granted they only fill your request of strong characters and action. But also has 0 or very, very little romance in them.

Any Discworld novel really. They're by Terry Pratchett, can be read in any order you wish, and they mix comedy and action superbly. And they're stand alone.

Three Days to Never by Tim Powers. It's more along the lines of supernatural spy thriller, but it's a very intense book that might or might not catch your interest.

[Douglas]

*Fantasy. I'm open to anything that has action and vivid characters and isn't the start of a 12-book series. I do however have a particular fondness for action girls in either the lead or a prominent role, so that's a big plus. NOTE: I am not not NOT looking for urban fantasy romance. I can tolerate a romantic subplot if it is a SUBPLOT. I'm not looking for vampire wank.
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson would be a perfect fit for this one, I think.

[Jeivar]

Any Discworld novel really. They're by Terry Pratchett, can be read in any order you wish, and they mix comedy and action superbly. And they're stand alone.

Three Days to Never by Tim Powers. It's more along the lines of supernatural spy thriller, but it's a very intense book that might or might not catch your interest.

Yeah, I've read quite a lot of Pratchett. Never heard of Tim Powers though. Might check him out.


Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson would be a perfect fit for this one, I think.

Oh yeah, it's really REALLY good. Mistborn has become an inspiration to my writing aspirations.

[Aidan305]

Kelly Armstrong's Women of the Other World series sounds like everything you're looking for. Urban Fantasy, strong female protagonist, romance rarely a core part of the plot (There's a couple of books where it's an important part, but it treats it well rather than, say, the Anita Blake series).

I'll also mention the Laundry series by Charles Stross. It can basically be summarised as "If Lovecraft wrote Spy Thriller".

[Asheram]

Let me ask, what do you usually read? If we get a baseline I'm sure we could come up with something similar.

[factotum]

*Fantasy. I'm open to anything that has action and vivid characters and isn't the start of a 12-book series.

"Tigana", by Guy Gavriel Kay--the main protagonist isn't female but there are plenty of strong female characters in it, and the story is amazing.

[Jeivar]

Let me ask, what do you usually read? If we get a baseline I'm sure we could come up with something similar.

My reading has actually dropped a lot in recent years. I'm trying to remedy that. But in the last couple of years I've read the Mistborn series, Elantris, Carmilla, The Strain (by Guillermo del Toro and some other guy), the first Codex Alera book, and back in the day I read all the older Stephen King books.

[big teej]

I'd like to direct you to The Black Library.

Riders of the Dead
Grudgebearer
Fell Cargo
The Daemon's Curse

the list goes on!

[Melayl]

*Werewolf horror. I recently rewatched An American Werewolf in London, and it occurred to me that I've barely read any werewolf stories. I'm curious to see what a good writer does with the concept.
Let me know when you find a good horror werewolf author. I haven't found one yet. (Whatever you do, don't read Wolf Trap. Pluck your eyes out first, it'd be more enjoyable)

I'm afraid I can't be much help with the rest of your request. Most of what I've read (that has been good) have been (rather long) series. Or, parts of long series, anyway.

[Cyrion]

I remember the Wolfen (Whitley Streiber's debut novel) being a pretty good, straight-up scary werewolf novel. I read it about the same time that American Werewolf in London came out.

I also very much enjoyed Tanith Lee's Lycanthia, though it's got a very sensual side to it- it doesn't descend into "vampire wank," it's more like the traditional gothic vampire stories for sexual subtext.

Both books are currently out of print, but Amazon has them available from "other sellers."