Hello there! I'm new, so I come bearing recs... I'd forgotten how hard it is to find good standalone fic - everything seems to be trilogies or part of a series - anyway, here's a couple of books that I've read and really enjoyed that actually deal with everything in one volume, though they're hard to slot into a single genre...

1. 9Tail Fox by Jon Courtenay Grimwood - misfit San Francisco cop Bobby Zha finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy and is fatally wounded. While he lies in a warehouse, bleeding out, he is visited by a nine-tailed albino fox, the jinwei hu his Chinese grandfather told him about. And then Bobby wakes up, finding himself in the body of another man - fortunately he's able to use that man's money and his own memories and experience to investigate. Why does everyone think Bobby Zha was on the take, and where does the killing of a Russian would-be burglar figure into things?

This is not the kind of book you can just skim-read, because there's too much going on to do that, with plenty of sub-plots that all somehow manage to tie together at the end. It's dark and disturbing at times, but well worth a look if you like your science fiction with an emphasis on the science, without crimping the imagination.

2. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly - after his mother dies, strange things start to happen to David. His dreams are full of images and characters from the fairytales he has always loved to read, and he can hear the books he surrounds himself with talking to him. And then one night, David finds himself entering another world, one that is strangely familiar and yet terrifying. Who is the Crooked Man and what does he want?

If there's one thing that's plain about the author from reading The Book of Lost Things, it's that he has a great love for books and appreciates the power of stories. His description of stories only having life because they're read really resonated with me and I wasn't at all sure how things would work out for David, trapped in a fairytale world that seems to be partly of his own creation. I'd definitely recommend this book, and it's also nice to see how well laid-out it is, the artwork on the cover being echoed all the way through it.

Wrote this for something else, but totally counts here, right? :D


The Spearwielder trilogy is by R.A Salvatore, I have it in one big book of three tales (wellz obviously)- The woods out back, The dragon's dagger, Dragon slayer's return.

It can sometimes come across as a bit clichéd if you read a lot of high fantasy ("Gary Leger stumbles into a realm of elves and dwarves, witches and dragons - and takes up the magical spear of the land's lost hero") but R.A Salvatore is a pretty engaging writer, if you like high fantasy, and the characters are interesting as they go through their journey, especially with the way Gary progresses.

This series also continues my fondness for inanimate objects with personalities - the Spear, which is magical AND sentient! and has the ability to direct it's wielder has to put up with a frustrating guy that calls it a "thing". :D

R.A Salvatore I think is a little over rated as a writer, but he still makes for a good read if your after escapist fantasy, and this story is no exception to that.

Well I started this asylum so I should post the first entry and recs. Of the books I have read recently I would recommend Luck in the Shadows, by Lynn Flewelling, I found it well written and a quick read (three days). I also recommend Sea Dragon Heir, by Storm Constantine, it has a well written plot that drags you in and won't let go this one is a slightly slower read for me (a week and a half).

Please remember this is supposed to be fun, if we get enough people reccing different kinds of books I may figure out how to set up a master list, for now just tag your entry with the kinds of books you're reccing.