Rec me stuff!

[oyceter]

OMG people! I have my plot brain back! Not only that, but I am suddenly feeling the urge to read really dense SF with lots of worldbuilding and aliens. This is extremely strange, given my three-year-or-so romance novel spree and my general tendency toward the fantasy side of sf/f.

Rec me stuff! I have been contemplating attempting Cherryh again, as I just reread Gate of Ivrel and could actually figure out what was going on, but I am a little scared of where to start. I've mostly just read her fantasy, since plot-brain abandoned me years ago, but now I want to try more of her SF. I own Faded Sun, Foreigner, and Invader.

... while I'm at it, I should probably read some Ursula K. LeGuin SF too, since I haven't even read Dispossessed.

Mostly I want cool cultures and politicking and alien-ness, although anti-colonialism and feminism are huge pluses. I've already been slightly thrown out of a book or two thanks to the use of terms like "native" and "reservation" and not being sure if the author was aware enough to deconstruct or was just thoughtlessly using it. POC authors also a big plus. Have read Karin Lowachee's Cagebird and have some of her others out, recently went through a fair amount of Butler and mean to reread her Parable books, would like to know if Tobias Buckell's current books fit the amount of denseness I am in the mood for.

This feels so odd, but I figure while I am in the mood, I should read as much as possible, since this seriously hasn't happened for years and years.

Comments

[oyceter]

Thanks for the rec! I bounced off Tepper before in undergrad, but should give her another try...

[thomasyan]

Which Tepper have you tried?

I think Grass is relatively free of stuff that people find problematic with Tepper and has good stuff.

I also like her Marianne fantasy trilogy as a whole lot of fun, but I recall it took me a while to find them all.

I also really liked The Family Tree. There is a plot twist revealed partway through that I thought was really clever, and I quite like a lot of the characters. But papersky thought it was kind of anti-everything, so YMMV (I forget if she still enjoyed reading the book or not).

[oyceter]

I read Beauty when I was looking for more McKinley-esque stuff, and... it wasn't! I vaguely remember it as one of the more depressing books I've ever read, though part of that may have just been when I read it as opposed to the content.

[thomasyan]

Oh geeze, Beauty *is* very depressing. I did enjoy it, but it was definitely a downer, and I know someone who said she was traumatized by that book.