Book recommendations

Banned & Bannished series by James Clemens starting with Wi'tch Fire. I admire the author for being able to do so many plot twists though the whole series, but I'll admit it's a lot like reading Lost or Heros with all the characters to deal with. Written about 5-10 years ago.

In high school, I liked Lloyd Alexander, both his fantasy books and his sort of 1930s Indiana Jones style adventures. I liked the original works of Robin McKinley such as the Hero and the Crown and Blue Sword, but didn't care for her rewrites of stories like Robin Hood.

For something light and funny, I recommend John Moore, who pokes fun at medieval stereotypes and blends it with the modern world (breaking into a castle via the air ducts). There is also Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles starting with Dealing with Dragons. Not as funny as Moore, but it probably also draws you into the plot more. One of my favorite characters they stumble on is Herman, the grandson of Rumpelstiltzkin who changed his name to something simple so that it COULD be guessed because his house is overflowing with kids. But its obvious he loves them in a grandfatherly sort of way.

For some reason, I started thinking about a book called Master of Five Magics last night, but it took me awhile to come up with the name. Its by Lyndon Hardy.

Feel free to add to this post any books you liked.

I'll post a more complete list later, but I read two really unique books in the last couple of months that I thought were worth mentioning.

The Atrocity Archives Charles Stross, the author has some definite flaws- he can be confusing, too wordy, and he drops a ton of references to pop culture, not all of which I get. However, I really enjoyed the book. If you took an HP lovecraft story, mixed it with an Ian Fleming novel (James Bond) and then added the movie office space, this is what you would get.

Baltimore This is an illustrated novel, by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. It is *not* a graphic novel. Anyway, it's a rather dark, modern day gothic horror novel, and the majority of the story takes place between three men sitting in a bar, sharing stories. Think of a cross between Poe and Canturbury tales, with zombies/vampires thrown in for good measure.