Galactic North - Terrific outing into Reynold's Revelation Space universe. Glacial and Nightingale as personal favorites. The original Revelation Space trilogy was alright (Reynolds is weak on characterization there) but the last book was a giant non-sequitor.
GG - Abnett is one of the few authors to have hacked it outside of Black Library and I dare say Triumph and the original Eisenhorn Trilogy make it all the way up to entertaining. As Band of Brothers in space its a fun romp, and Abnett changes up the formula every other book so it doesn't get stale.
40k fiction, while still franchise fiction, occasionally rises above the level of dreck expulsed for the likes of Star Trek, Star Wars, or D&D tie-in novels (bland and banal). I think the Horus Heresy series, for sheer length, vast cast of characters, scope and its frequent emulation of historical and mythological events, has some merit as a work of fiction, for whatever illusionary literary currency we are currently adopting.
D&D tie-in novels are the worst. I have seldom read fantasy that was less fantastic.
Dante's Inferno (wordsworth classic edition)
The Silmarillion
The Complete Hammer's Slammers Volume 1
Elric of Melniboné (The Tale of the Eternal Champion Vol 1)
The Razor Gate by Sean Crag
Heroes by Lucy Hughes Hallet (nonfiction)
The Inferno - Interesting and beautiful but alien in the manner of a feverish dream. The frequent allusions to Greek Mythology I can follow, the references to figures in 15th century Florence are much harder to track, and were it not for italized synopsis above each Canto and a glossary in the back I fear I would be lost in archaic couplets and dreamy visions of afterlife.
Silmarillion - Has a reputation for being dense and unreadable but nothing could be further from the truth. As a child I would read books of Greek and Norse mythology from my parent's shelves and be filled with wonder, and later I read the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Mabignogion. No fictional work but the Silmarillion ever managed to evoke the same feeling, of reading the mythology of an imaginary world. Tolkien creates an entire mythology. Terrific.
The Complete Hammer's Slammers Vol 1. - Robust and manly tales of Mercenary Tank Combat in a future Age, in stark, robust prose, sometimes hampered by overuse of jargon. A surprising amount of care is put into the world building, economical considerations and technology and Drake's passion for history and combat experience help render the whole a compelling read. Recommended for Stars Without Number fans (there is a reason Hammer's Slammers was made into a Traveller Campaign Setting).
Elric - Moorcock is one of the few fantasy authors that gets progressively worse as time goes on but his earlier stories are nightmarish dark fantasy excursions that are so metal they almost come with a riff. Comparing Sailors on the Seas of Fate with tales like The Revenge of the Rose one would be forgiven to think they were penned by different authors. I still have not decided whether Moorcock is taking a dump on his own character in Elric at the End of Time, but as a parody of his own work it is very entertaining.
The Razor Gate - Has anyone ever played Max Payne? This is essentially Max Payne: The Novel. A cop on the wrong side of the law (drink) loses a partner to the mysterious organization (drink) behind the Curse. People get taken, wake up with a note saying that they will die in one Year, and the City is Covering it up (drink)! The evil rich people that are running the fictional town of Newport (drink) behind the scenes want the secret of the Curse. Newport is a neo-noir monstrosity of endlessly downpouring snow, corroding ship graveyards, gleaming obelisks of glass and steel, squalor, neon and cigarette smoke. By the time the hovercraft shows up and a dude in a business suit has taken Detective Garett's Girlfriend hostage as "insurance" and reveals that he never cared about the money, he cares about power and utters lines of dialog like "I can't die. The World Needs People Like Us!" you should already be diving over tables with double ingrams in slow-motion to techno-beats and distorted guitar riffs. PAH-DAH-DAH-DAAAAAAH! NA-NA-NAAAAAW!
Heroes - Very interesting look at 8 historical badasses and society's on-again-off-again relationship with them, occasional pearlclutching and muh equality aside. The inclusion of Achilles and Odysseus as as framework for the examination of real life heroes and all their flaws is effective and does not come across as jarring. Read about
Alcibiades (real life Gaius Baltar), Cato (history's first autist), El Cid (assholish mercenary lord turned saviour of the west), Wallenstein (Great Man with all caps), Drake (history's first troll), Garibaldi (the tales of a Cha 18 Wis 6 high level fighting man with a dream of free Italy and terrible strategic and political acumen).
Early Brooks is almost universally reviled. Eddings's first five books are fairly well regarded even today.
