Can someone recommend some science fiction or fantasy?
I haven’t read anything new in a couple decades in these genres beyond GRRM.
Once upon a time i used to read every new book my library brought in. Amazingly i was much more busy back then and still found more time to read than i do now.
Its easy to get comfortable and reread stuff you are familiar with. In Lieu of any such recommendations i’ve began re-reading Mary Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy and Le Morte D’Arthur. I never finished the Winchester version and i figure i might as well finish the second half of that. I’ve read the complete Caxton.
I’m very late to this, but two sci-fi books I read last year I really liked: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and The Dispossessed by Ursula K Le Guin. Oryx and Crake (definitely the more well-known of the two) chronicles a man’s life story before and after an apocalypse, heavy on the science and with some of the best worldbuilding in a novel I’ve experienced; it’s also morbid as hell and if you’re desperate to avoid anything that reminds you of the pandemic, I’d maybe give it a miss. The Dispossessed is a sci-fi book that FEELS more like fantasy, at least to me - in fact, I thought it was until Earth is mentioned near the end. In a solar system of two neighbouring, opposing planets, it follows Shevek - a galactically famous physicist - as he becomes the first man to travel to the other planet to spread his theories and open minds. He gets caught up in a political game, and the novel is packed with thoughtful political commentary - but it’s never obtrusive or dull. The Dispossessed is one of my favourite books now. There are other novels set in the same universe, but they’re all distinct and you don’t have to read those to understand this book.