Looking for a new book/series

[luckyone313]

Hi everyone, just joined the forums here! I am looking for some suggestions for a book to read or a series, I'm not entirely too sure what I'm looking for, and I know theres a lot out there and its pretty overwhelming, so I was thinking I would just list some of my favourites and what I'm currently reading at the moment to see if theres anything anybody knows of that is of a similar style?

My favourite book is George Orwell's 1984, I'm very much into dystopian style books, post apocalyptic future and all that! depressing but pretty interesting, so anything along those lines, I was looking at possibly Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? Any other suggestions?

I do also quite like a good trilogy of books, although I read them when I was younger, I still enjoy a read through of Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials Trilogy and The Wind On Fire trilogy, I was looking at The Hunger Games for this if anybody knows if they are good?

Really I'm up for any sort of dark fantasy book or trilogy to really get stuck into.

Or if there are anymore classics like 1984 that are highly recommended please let me know, at the moment I am reading Catch 22, I would like to be able to read through some classics, but there are so many!

Any help would be very much appreciated!

thank you!

[Atraxi]

The Hunger Games was a pretty good book and is a quick read. The second two books, Catching Fire and Mockingjay are absolutely awful and I wouldn't recommend you bother reading them. The Hunger Games, for the most part, can be read as a stand alone book.

I don't know if you're looking for purely Earth (or Earth as we know it) type dystopian books but Jeff VanderMeer wrote a fantasy trilogy based on a place called Ambergris. Each book can be read on its own but I'd suggest reading it in the order of City of Saints and Madmen first, then Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch last.

Another quick read is The Postmortal by Drew Magary which was nominated for the 2011 Philip K. Dick award. The story follows a man who lives in a time where a cure for aging has been developed and is written almost in a series of blog styled entries.

Battle Royale is a book about a totalitarian Japan which implements a new military research project that allows a teacher to make his class fight each other to death until there is only one survivor.

These are only a few so if they're not what you're looking for, I know some more.

[Fearonsarms]

Try Iain M Banks I think his metaphysical sci-fi horror would be up your street. But start with "The Player Of Games" and don't bother with Consider Phloebas by miles his weakest book

[Atraxi]

...don't bother with Consider Phloebas by miles his weakest book
Consider Phlebas has an amusing legacy. It's pretty much a classic but not many people think it's a great book; just one that you should read at some point in your life.

[Fearonsarms]

Consider Phlebas has an amusing legacy. It's pretty much a classic but not many people think it's a great book; just one that you should read at some point in your life.

Ah right you are already familiar with him-yeah I appreciate it was his first book and it started the whole thing off plus it is not a bad book by no means but it could put you off as none of his other books are anything like it is. It feels very underdeveloped.

[Bob Gray]

The Stand by Stephen King
Swan Song by Robert McCammon
I am Legend by Richard Matheson
A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Eternity Road by Jack McDevitt
The Emberverse series by S.M. Stirling
The Passage by Justin Cronin
World War Z by Max Brooks
The Bridge by John Skipp & Craig Spector
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The Fourth Realm trilogy by John Twelve Hawks
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
The Coldfire trilogy by C.S. Friedman
The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake
The Necroscope series by Brian Lumley
The Conqueror Worms by Brian Keene
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King
Under the Dome by Stephen King
The Descent & Deeper by Jeff Long
The Pine Deep trilogy by Jonathan Maberry
The Deluge by Mark Morris
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons