Here are 5 books that New Rock fans have personally recommended once you finish the New Rock series.
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The best stories are the ones that take very silly ideas seriously. This doesn’t mean that they’re not funny; on the contrary, you don’t really hear the truth until it makes you laugh. These books all lean heavily on tropes, specifically B-movie tropes. I used to write detailed reviews of terrible movies, afterschool specials, and creature features. I host a podcast all about the funnier parts of TV criticism. Figuring out how something simple speaks to the core of us is the height of fiction, and all five of these do that and do it with humor.
Liking Terry Pratchett is a bit like liking pizza: not terribly remarkable.
Pratchett is a master storyteller who commands not only tropes but the idea behind them with such skill that I can read one of his books and never realize I’m getting the most profound lesson of my life. I could have recommended any of his books, and more to the point, any of his City Watch books, but I single out this particular book for a reason. I’m a humanist, like Pratchett, and this book explores his humanism most effectively.
And it’s also an amazing mystery and incredible comedy.
Vimes is back, in all his curmudgeonly glory, in this classic, perceptive and laugh-out-loud Discworld mystery that will keep you turning the pages.
'In my opinion, this is the book where Pratchett *really* hits his stride in terms of the city watch books . . . Is this book worth your time? Yes. A thousand times yes' Patrick Rothfuss, New York Times bestselling author of The Name of the Wind
THERE'S A WEREWOLF WITH PRE-LUNAR TENSION IN ANKH-MORPORK. AND A DWARF WITH ATTITUDE AND A GOLEM WHO'S BEGUN TO THINK FOR ITSELF.
But for Commander Vimes, Head of Ankh-Morpork City…
I’ve now completed four books in my New Rock fantasy series; and, while the stories are full-on adventures in a strange (but strangely familiar) new world, they contain lots of comedic characters and situations. I come from a background of comedy writing. Comedy isn’t nice people telling jokes. That’s a dinner party. Comedy is all about pain, fear, misery, confusion, suffering, mistakes, betrayals, accidents, dangers, and things going horribly wrong—and what good adventure doesn't have those? And why wouldn’t any strange new world be full of them? New Rock New Role, the first book in the series, is published on December 12th 2023 by CAEZIK SF & Fantasy.
Robert Sheckley stands out from his contemporaries of the golden age of science fiction by being not just great but also often very funny.
Sheckley has a wry, insightful wit, which puts him in a class of his own among the giants of the post-WW2 era. Start with his eight stories of the AAA Ace Interplanetary Decontamination Service. Great idea, great characters, great settings (two shysters running a fly-by-night planetary fixer-upper service, on the cheap): they are light, effortless, unpretentious, insightful, and brilliant.
It’s basically Ghostbusters in space. What more could you want?
Robert Sheckley (July 16, 1928 – December 9, 2005) was a Hugo- and Nebula-nominated American author. First published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950s, his numerous quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical. Sheckley was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001.This volume has the following great stories: Warm, Ask A Foolish Question, Beside Still Waters, Cost of Living, Forever, Keep your Shape The Leech, Seventh Victim, Watchbird, Warrior Race, One man's poison, The Perfect Woman
As a child, I was a maladaptive daydreamer. I could often be found crafting elaborate fantasies in my head featuring fully-fledged worlds and characters that I would actively interact with and speak to as if they were real. I was a strange child, and I kept that strangeness with me when I went into fiction. Since then, I’ve always wanted to encapsulate the feeling of giving a movie-like experience in book form. I want the people who read my work to feel like they’re experiencing something real.
Peake writes with the experience of someone who paints and that has a remarkable effect on his use of imagery. There are certain figurative turns of phrases he uses, such as “a face like scrunched up paper” or describing a cat purring as “the sound of an ocean inside a shell,” that click in my mind like—yes! You’ve put that into words! And Titus Groan is, once again, full of that amazing and immersive wordsmithery that elevates the text into something cinematic.
The first volume of the GORMENGHAST trilogy of fantasy novels. Titus Groan is born the heir to Gormenghast castle, and finds himself in a world predetermined by complex rituals that have been made obscure by the passage of time. Along the corridors of the castle, the child encounters some of the dark characters who will shape his life.
Sci-fi has been part of my life since Sunday afternoons in front of the radio listening to Journey to the Moon and the original Quatermass serial. Then it was Doctor Who and Star Trek. Despite this, I have never written a serious sci-fi book until now, but I can boast of knowing all the characters in both the radio and TV sci-fi shows. I guess I can admit to being a Trekkie.
Another pioneer writer and the writer who started the cyberpunk genre. I loved this book because it is different, and if you are a true sci-fi nut, this one is for you.
I think Adams must have been on another planet when he wrote this. It is sci-fi comedy, and unlike many others who try and fail with comedy in this genre, this is a giant of a series. It is funny and serious with unforgettable characters. I love it.
This box set contains all five parts of the' trilogy of five' so you can listen to the complete tales of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Bebblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android! Travel through space, time and parallel universes with the only guide you'll ever need, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Read by Stephen Fry, actor, director, author and popular audiobook reader, and Martin Freeman, who played Arthur Dent in film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is well known as Tim in The Office.
The set also includes a bonus DVD Life, the Universe and…
I’ve always been drawn to portal stories where a character is magically transported to another world. As a child, I loved Where the Wild Things Are. Now, as a parent, I can see how cleverly Maurice Sendak builds a fantasy around a core emotional truth. This fascination stayed with me through books like The Phantom Tollbooth and Alice in Wonderland. I believe there’s something very powerful about using fantasy worlds to explore the inner lives of characters.
This is utterly unique in the way Norton Juster is able to build a fantasy world out of words, logic, and math.
As a young adult, I loved the idea of receiving a magic tollbooth and driving into a magic world. But, immediately, I found the book challenging because Milo ends up in the doldrums (a word I had never heard before). This is not just a fantasy adventure, but a cautionary tale, a character study, and a world full of puns and puzzles.
Returning to the book as an adult, I was amazed at how seamlessly Juster puts it all together.
With almost 5 million copies sold 60 years after its original publication, generations of readers have now journeyed with Milo to the Lands Beyond in this beloved classic. Enriched by Jules Feiffer’s splendid illustrations, the wit, wisdom, and wordplay of Norton Juster’s offbeat fantasy are as beguiling as ever.
“Comes up bright and new every time I read it . . . it will continue to charm and delight for a very long time yet. And teach us some wisdom, too.” --Phillip Pullman
For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only…
