Where many people would see an empty package of Oreos, I see the remains of a lost civilization, an artifact crafted galaxies away by beings who flit in and out of existence in order to build rainbows for lonely children and who have left the empty bag, filled with dog poop, flaming on someone’s front step and are laughing uncontrollably as the person stomps on it to put it out. I want to find authors who see more than the bag of Oreos. I want them to be wildly imaginative and to paint what they see with cleverness and humor. I try to do the same.
It’s the last day of 10th grade. Annie Gomez’s biology teacher informs her that aliens are trying to control her mind. “Why not?” she thinks. “Everyone else is!”
The adventures of a group of brilliant but weird (too short, too tall, too artistic, too ethnic, too mature, too extraterrestrial) teens trying to save humanity. Their trials take them from a fairy dimension hidden within Earth to a far distant planet inhabited by intelligent rhino-like space travelers. As they try to save Earth, their lives are in continual danger, but, hey, it’s better than gym class.
I love all of Pratchett’s books. I love this one in particular. The storyline is insanely intriguing and more than tickles the imagination. I’m not sure what “more than tickling” is but I do know what it feels like! The title characters – the wee free men – are, as far as I can tell, unrivalled in literature. Tiny, blue, drunken, thieving fairies (in the most diabolical sense of the word) who speak mainly in Scots swear words.
Terry Pratchett is the author who has most influenced my own writing. He has taught me to stretch my imagination to the borderlands of absurdity and yet to stay true to human nature, with its endearing foibles. Crivins! The Truth is bleedin’ hilarious, do ye ken?
A nightmarish danger threatens from the other side of reality . . .
Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle - aka the Wee Free Men - a clan of fierce, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men.
Together they must face headless horsemen, ferocious grimhounds, terrifying dreams come true, and ultimately the sinister Queen of the Elves herself . . .
Kage Baker is an Isaac Asimov compared to Terry Pratchett’s Marx Brothers. In the Garden of Iden is more sci-fi than fantasy, including time travel, cybernetics, and nanotechnologies. And love and loss. This book is part of a series of novels that Baker crafted about time-travelling enhanced humans who carry out critical tasks throughout history.
What I loved most about this book is how very human her main characters are. Like Pratchett and Bill Shakespeare, Baker is a master at showing us human nature. Her comedy is high comedy. I laugh because I recognize myself in her characters. Baker has a fine eye for the subtle and the absurd. And yet unlike many humorous authors, the tragedies of the heart are always at the core of her stories.
This is the first novel in what has become one of the most popular series in contemporary Science Fiction, now back in print from Tor. In the twenty-fourth century, the Company preserves works of art and extinct forms of life (for profit of course). It recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to serve the Company. One of these is Mendoza the botanist, who is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden. Her quest is jeopardized by Nicholas Harpole, who stirs unfamiliar emotions within her about her…
Connie Willis and Kage Baker are, in my mind, kindred spirits. Both are outstanding in their ability to capture human nature, both in its glory and with its pants down. And with sparkling humor. I love many of Willis’s books but this little one is so fun, clever, and intriguing that it has to be my favorite.
It also features time travellers - British historians from the future who are documenting historical events while trying desperately not step on that one butterfly that destroys history.
This book is doubly funny because it is inspired by an equally hilarious novel by Jerome K. Jerome entitled Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog. Victorian romantic misadventures with a bad case of time lag.
Ned Henry is a time-travelling historian who specialises in the mid-20th century - currently engaged in researching the bombed-out Coventry Cathedral. He's also made so many drops into the past that he's suffering from a dangerously advanced case of 'time-lag'.
Unfortunately for Ned, an emergency dash to Victorian England is required and he's the only available historian. But Ned's time-lag is so bad that he's not sure what the errand is - which is bad news since, if he fails, history could unravel around him...
This is a classic story (they made a movie out of it) by a classic author. To me, this was a wonderfully imaginative love story. Like my other choices, this book captures something intimate about the human condition. The humor here is much subtler than in my other choices but that makes it, for me, all the richer. The story is pure fantasy, not sci-fi, and has the feel of an old fairy tale.
Now a major motion picture—this charming fairy tale by the #1 New York Times bestselling author, weaves a magical story set long ago in the tiny English village of Wall, a place where things are not quite what they seem.
Go and catch a falling star . . .
Tristran Thorn promises to bring back a fallen star for his beloved, the hauntingly beautiful Victoria Forester—and crosses the wall that divides his English country town from another, more dangerous world of lords and witches, all of them in search of the star. Rich with adventure and magic, Stardust is one…
The first thing I noticed when I started reading Jasper Fforde was how funny and clever he was. This is what I’m looking for, I thought, smiling broadly. The heroine of the series of which this book is a part is a literary detective named Thursday Next. Need I say more? You know immediately the kind of humor you are getting into.
I am not easily entertained by stories with average complexity and imagination. When I find a writer like Fforde who can push my boundaries, I am so grateful. In this book, he creates a delightful alternate world in which real and imaginary figures interact and sometimes exchange places. And always a good crime to solve here.
The sixth installment in Jasper Fforde's New York Times bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England-from the author of Early Riser
Dazzlingly funny and imaginative, Jasper Fforde's books have won him the affection of readers, reviewers, and-dare we say it-booksellers alike. Fans can breathe a sigh of relief because Thursday Next-or at least one of her-is back. At a time of great unrest in the BookWorld, only the ace literary detective can avert a devastating Genre War-thing is, Thursday has vanished. Now the written Thursday must answer the call, save…
Burne’s been hiding out in the forest since deserting the King’s Guard. Each time he tries to return to the village, he begins to panic. And then one day, he encounters a handsome stranger picking flowers and hides behind a tree instead of talking.
He wants to be braver—and he’s about to get another chance. Because the stranger is Gray, a fairy and master of illusions who’s now following Burne home. And Gray’s got more on his mind than talking. Would a fairy that beautiful ever want someone like him? Stranger things have happened.
Burne hid behind a tree. He wanted to talk to the handsome man picking flowers at the edge of the forest, but he'd only flub it if he tried-he'd stumble over his words and blush bright red. And now the man is gone.
He tries to continue on to the village, but the same thing happens as always: his hands start shaking and panic wells up inside him. What if he runs into the bullies who tormented him in the King's Guard last spring? Ever since he deserted, he has hidden out in the…
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