LAST EDITED ON Jun-17-13 AT 10:43 PM (EDT)
 
Being a sci-fi/fantasy/detective noir fan (note that I prefer some combination of the former two with the latter) who has read both Nightside and Dresden Files up to their current iterations, along with a fairly broad array of other series, I'm in the market for something new and interesting.

I prefer more active stories, but a good brain teaser is fine every now and then too. As for the occasion, I'm taking a week and change sabbatical from the inferno that is Alabama in July in order to visit family up in the UP of Michigan. A 22 hour drive in each direction, with substantial periods of sitting around not doing much of anything while I'm there (I'm not actually doing the driving, so...).

Cheap or free is preferable, but I do actually have funds available for buying stuff if it's really good, for once.

Edit: Should probably mention that I have one of the early Kindle readers.

Jonathan Lethem's Gun, With Occasional Music. It's a hard-boiled detective story with uplifted animals and mandatory drug use.

Polychrome

And an anti-gravity pen.

My brain is failing to come up with witty banter, so I'm afraid you'll have to settle for 'Oooh, shiny' here, at least until I've slept. *adds it to the list*

LAST EDITED ON Jun-18-13 AT 00:51 AM (EDT)
 
I'm mostly on a nonfiction bender right now (currently on top of the stack: Richard Rhodes's classic The Making of the Atomic Bomb), but a quick glance at my stuff-in-the-last-couple-three-years shelf turns up The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez (basically just what it says on the tin) and Charles Stross's Saturn's Children (which I gather has recently acquired a sequel I have not seen). Both are somewhat wacky stories whose protagonists are robots and... that's about where the similarities end. :)

You want cheap, there are a million-zillion Kindle compilations of Edgar Rice Burroughs out there, as long as you can cope with some pretty poor curation.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>just what it says on the tin) and Charles Stross's Saturn's
>Children (which I gather has recently acquired a sequel I have not
>seen).

Neptune's Brood isn't out yet; July 2nd is the date both here, in the UK, and electronically. It's not really a sequel, per se, at least according to the author; it's just in the same universe.

The first chapter was put out as a preview by Tor, and may be found here. A short story intended to be a linking piece between Saturn's Children and Neptune's Brood, "Bit Rot," was posted by Charlie on his blog and is freely available in the format of your choosing here.

-Merc
Keep Rat

Considering I had Tin Can Hit Man on repeat (okay, so it was alternating with a Megas XLR theme with an AMV montage) for roughly an hour earlier today - well, I guess yesterday now - these two sound like they fit my current mood pretty well.

I'd like to take this moment to plug the Peter Grant novels by Ben Aaronovitch; Midnight Riot, Moon Over Soho, and Whispers Underground.

Precis summary: british Police Constable is recruited into the secret branch of the Met in charge of investigating and solving crimes involving magic. At the moment, said branch consists of a 110-year old WWII veteran with well-hidden PTSD who has been aging backwards since 1975, his not-quite-human maid, and... well, that's it, really. The rest of the Met, those that know about them, view them with suspicion and disdain right up until the point they're needed.

Guest starring the Goddess of the River Thames (a well-spoken west african matriarch, actually), the Goddess of the River Tyburn (who is about as pleasant as you'd expect someone associated with Tyburn to be), jazz vampires (you heard me; jazz vampires), the Faceless Man, who is a very unpleasant man indeed, and the city of London.

It's tough out there for the last of the classically trained Newtonian wizards.

-Merc
Keep Rat

Definitely gonna try and track these down.

As for the Faceless Man, though... I won't say there's never been a pleasant one, but they're about as rare as hen's teeth. If I remember right, the Nightside take on them (the Harrowing) is particularly nasty.

I think you'll enjoy them. The thing that struck me was Aaronovitch's ability to describe his set locations. I've never been to London and I could 'see' exactly where and what he was talking about. Made me feel like I know London as well as I do Minneapolis or Chicago.

Brian

Breaking News-- Aaronovitch's series was just optioned for British TV. Early days yet, but we can keep fingers crossed.

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/06/ven-aaronovitchs-peter-grant-series-optioned-for-uk-tv-adaptation

Charlie Stross' Laundry Files?

I can best describe them as an unholy mashup of John Le Carre, HP Lovecraft, and Dilbert. :)

I was going to recommend the Laundry Files, damnit!

Ah, well. For similar work, try out Simon Green's _Secret History_ novels--there's a list here.

>I was going to recommend the Laundry Files, damnit!

I'll third the Laundry Files. (Haven't read the most recent one yet, but I love the others to death.) Also really enjoyed Saturn's Children; I'm sure I'll pick up Neptune's Brood sooner or later.

The Merchant Princes novels are also well worth reading, although they're not the same sort of genre (being a mix of political intrigue and action/adventure involving parallel universes), if you like Stross' other output. Tonewise, they're in line with Saturn's Children rather than the more comedic tone of the Laundry Files.

Also, his novel Accelerando is available online for free, but it's not really anything to do at all with detective novels.

And, speaking of novels you can read for free online, John Scalzi's Agent to the Stars is likewise free in HTML format, and it's a lot of fun.

"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding

Iain Banks' The Bridge is pretty good, as is The Wasp Factory. Something else you might like, which kinda-sorta follows on from Merc's recommendation of the Peter Grant (a recommendation that I wholeheartedly second), is Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May books, about two octogenarian Met detectives solving crimes in London. The supernatural is touched upon (the titular Bryant is rather obsessed with the occult; his partner May, er... not so much) and a lot of the crimes involve a slew of occult and magical references, but it's all very much rooted in the real world and the real London. They're wonderful, hopeful, triumphant stories. They are also my leading cause of laughter-induced spit-takes.

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends

My own next-favorite urban fantasy author after Simon Green and Jim Butcher is probably Ilona Andrews and the Kate Daniels series-- starts with Magic Bites. Seanan McGuire's October Daye books (starts with Rosemary and Rue) and Patricia Briggs's Mercy Thompson books (starts with Moon Called) are close behind. Those are more straight-up urban fantasy than noir, though. Hmm, let's see {checks reading list}...

For fantasy noir, Mike Carey's Felix Castor books are very similar in feel to Simon Green's Nightside. The Devil You Know is the first one of those. Likewise Kate Griffin's A Madness of Angels and its sequels. For sci-fi noir, I just finished Adam Christopher's Empire State, which is very weird but pretty good for a debut novel.

Sadly, none of this is cheap/free; I've rarely found anything in that category that's worth recommending to others.

>My own next-favorite urban fantasy author after Simon Green and Jim
>Butcher is probably Ilona Andrews and the Kate Daniels series-- starts
>with Magic Bites.

Let me second the recommendation. Let me also recommend Andrews' other series, the "Edge" books.

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

LAST EDITED ON Jun-19-13 AT 08:51 PM (EDT)
 
Coming from left field, one of my personal favorites is (don't laugh) Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb. It won the Mystery Writer's of America's Edgar Award in 1988 for Best Original Paperback Mystery, it's still in publication, and available on Kindle. (not noir, though)

So what is it? A murder mystery set at a SF/Fantasy con. And it's obvious the author knows both murder mysteries and what really goes on at cons...

Jeanne

	Jeanne Hedge http://www.jhedge.com
"Never give up, never surrender!"

LAST EDITED ON Jun-19-13 AT 09:26 PM (EDT)
 
Although as I recall, she confused Klingons & Vulcans and misspelled Gandalf. :) And I still wonder if the victim was based on Harlan Ellison.

(The sequel, Zombies of the Gene Pool, is also fun.)

LAST EDITED ON Jun-19-13 AT 09:33 PM (EDT)
 
>Although as I recall, she confused Klingons & Vulcans and misspelled
>Gandalf. :) And I still wonder if the victim was based on Harlan
>Ellison.

Blame it on the editor making changes ^_^, and I have a similar suspicion

>(The sequel, Zombies of the Gene Pool, is also fun.)

honestly, I didn't care for that one much, but perhaps it's more than time to give it another try.

Jeanne

	Jeanne Hedge http://www.jhedge.com
"Never give up, never surrender!"

A couple of suggestions.

David Weber's Oath of Swords. Free book.
Bazhell Banakhson is a clan-chief's son, essentially a Barbarian Prince. Of a species that was, generations ago, genetically engineered by a cabal of evil wizards to serve as shock troops in their attempt to Take Over The World. Needless to say, most humans, dwarves, elves, etc, don't get along with them.

And he's just been personally picked by the God of Justice and War to be a Paladin.

Congratulations, Bazhell.

So far, there are three additional novels and a short story set in the same series.

In addition, there's this page: http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

For a long time now Baen has been giving away free CD's with purchase of the hardcover books, with no-DRM ebook copies of huge swaths of their catalog. They have explicitly granted permission for images of these CDs to be made available for general download online at this site.

Most of the rest of the Bazhell series is on there, as is a good chunk of Bujold's Vorkosigan sequence, Mercedes Lackey's City of Heroes not-fanfic, and more.