Sci-fi/fantasy book recommendations

So among the cool stuff I got for Christmas was a Kindle, which was totally unexpected and much appreciated. However, upon booting it up I realized I had no idea what to actually read. This is mostly my fault though, as I have done a terrible job at keeping up with what books are actually out there. My usual strategy for picking books out was usually "go to the library and see what looks cool". So if you could toss a recommendation or two my way it would be greatly appreciated.

So what do I like exactly? A couple of suggestions. These are just rough ideas though, so feel free to suggest things that don't conform to any of these catagories.

-World Building. Characters and plot have always ended up being secondary to a really cool setting to me. I mean the characters and plot are still really important, but if you put them in an interesting and unique setting then a story goes from "hrm, neat" to "WHOA HOLY CRAP I GOTTA READ THAT NOW!"

-Things just beyond our current understanding. The real world is fascinating as it is, but I've always loved stories and speculation about what might lie right beyond the curtain of common knowledge. Ghosts, Aliens, Cryptids, Paranormal stuff, I lap that crap up.

-Lovecraftian themes. Lovecraft is amazing. Yeah, his characters had as much personality as a block of wood, he tended to write an entire page when one sentence would have sufficed, and he couldn't write a single sentence without using the words "squamous", "gibbering", or "cyclopean", but the IDEA of there being beings out there so incomprehensibly alien that we would go mad with their very presence awes me. Bonus points if the story involves introducing said Eldritch Abomination, and then finding a plucky group of individuals to go right up to its face and beat the crap out of it.

A series I am re-reading currently is the source for an HBO mini-series coming this spring. George R. R. Martin has four books in the "Song of Fire and Ice" series. (3 more books are expected, but the 5th book has been promised for several years.) The first book is "A Game of Thrones." It is a very good fantasy series, quite gritty and adult, with some of the most interesting characters I have ever seen in the fantasy genre. And lots of surprises -- no standard plots in this one. It is a very complex story of political intregue and wars and betrayal. In my second reading, I'm picking up a lot of stuff I missed the first time through.

If you like alternative histories mixed in with super heroes, George R. R. Martin also has the Wild Card Series. He edits the books and a bunch of other writers do most of the writing. Most of the books are good. It starts shortly after WWII, when an alien vessel shows up to spread the "Wild Card Virus" on Earth. A war hero tries to stop it, but fails. The virus kills 90% of the people it hits in rather nasty ways. 9% of the remaining 10% become deformed in some way (called "Jokers"), and the other 1% get super powers (called "Aces"). It then follows an alternative history that somewhat parallels our own, but with the effect of super-powered heroes and villains and the sad plight of the Jokers added in.

I would recommend the Skolia series by Catherine Asaro. It involves three empires that each have an established culture for each. Two of the civilizations originate from a bunch of Mayans that were taken by some unknown group thousands of years ago and created an interstellar empire that lasted for a few centuries before it collapsed. Earth which is basically a trader empire that tries to mediate conflicts between the other two. The series version of Starbucks is apparently on every world. The Skolian Imperialate that has an instantaneous communication network powered by telepaths. And the Eubian Concord that are a bunch of slave traders were only a few thousand genetically modified people control trillions of people and enslave telepaths because they are not considered human.

The series deals with FTL travel, antimatter storage, nanobiotechnology, cybernetics, and AI. The Eubian Concord can be considered as Lovecraftian due to the pain they inflict on telepaths and how their brains don't act in the same way as humans do. Although there are no Lovecraftian abominations in this series just humans and genetically modified humans.

I recently finished "The Hunger Games" trilogy, by Suzanne Collins. (The link is to the Wikipedia article on the first book in the trilogy). The story is set an undetermined time in the future, after some great calamity (hinted at is war, pollution, etc.). The North American continent is home to a country called Panem, which consists of the ruling city-state (The Capitol) and 12 Districts. Each district has its "thing", such as coal mining, agriculture, manufacturing, etc. 75 years before the time of the story, the Districts rebelled against the Capitol, and were harshly repressed, with one district (District 13) being completely obliterated. As punishment, every year each District must randomly choose one boy and one girl, each between the ages of 12 and 18, to "participate" in The Hunger Game. This is a fight to the death in a huge outdoor arena (which is configured differently each year), and there can be only one winner. The winner is set for life, with riches bestowed upon them. (Don't worry about spoilers here, what I've written here is revealed in the first 2 chapters or so of the first book).The books are technically "young adult" novels, but I found them very well-written, with good characterization, pacing and the action sequences are very well done.

As for your "Things just beyond our current understanding" criterion, check out the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series by Rick Riordan. These are also "young adult" books, but they are a fun read and man, Riordan *really* knows his Greek mythology!

I just finished "The Passage" by Justin Cronin. Not too much detail, but it's an "undead apocalypse" novel that is supposedly going to be a trilogy eventually. It is, IMHO, an interesting take on the undead genre.

Also in the "Things just beyond our current understanding" category, check out "American Gods" and "Anansi Boys" (in that order), by Neil Gaiman. I won't even try to describe these books, but they're quite good; "American Gods" won both the Hugo and the Nebula.

"world building":

the "Riverworld" series by Philip Jose Farmer
the "World of Tiers" series, also by Philip Jose Farmer
the "Ringworld" novels by Larry Niven

ok, someone already mentioned George R. R. Martin, the first book in the wild card series finally re-released and in digital format... Yay!!!!!!

i would recommend Black and White, and the second book in the series, Shades of gray. superhero fiction, and pretty darned good. authored by two ladies, neither of which i remember the name of. but i just finished the second book on my Nook.

i would highly recommend Simon R Green's nightside series, 9 or 10 books in all, the first 7 of which are GREAT. it's urban fantasy stuff, very much like neverwhere (Neil Gaiman), so if you've read that and liked it, try simon's stuff. great world building, interesting characters, and a ton of fun in an easy read.

i'll think of some more soon and update my post, gonna go eat now before i starve to death....

Well, since you did just get an e-reader first I want to direct you to the Calibre E-book program. It lets you take txt, pdf and several other formats you usually find text in online and converts it into any number of formats you can sideload onto your kindle. Then there's inkmesh.com which is a very easy way to find all sorts of free promotional e-books. Sure most of the ones they put out there are pretty lousy, but sometimes you'll find some real gems. Also remember the Baen free library. Bunch of free books from good authors under the Baen imprint that you can use calibre to convert into a format you can read on your kindle.

All that out of the way, the best book that meets your criteria that I immediately think of is sadly not available on the Kindle, but if you really do like the whole Lovecraftian/paranormal thing I'd suggest you give it a look at some point anyway. It's called The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes. It's not perfect by any stretch, but the few people I know (including myself) who also liked the whole Lovecraftian thing all rather liked the book. And hey, if you're going to have a book with an unreliable narrator, at least they manage to tell you upfront that they're an unreliable narrator.

Notable if you like the whole 'Lovecraft' thing is the author Brian Lumley. Most of the stuff I've seen of his outside of that Necroscope series is pretty heavily Lovecraft influenced. Heck, he even has a book called The House of Cthulhu. I can't really recommend him as I've not read anything of his outside of a couple of the Necroscope books (which weren't bad I guess) and that was about ten years ago.

You might also try doing a search amongst for the 'new weird' subgenre of books. I've not read a lot within that genre, but the couple I have (such as The Somnambulist) are very reminiscent of Lovecraft and the whole Weird Tales sort of thing in general.

As far as world building goes, my current favorite world-builder (who also happens to be a fairly good writer to boot) is Brandon Sanderson. His most recent (non Wheel of Time) book, The Way of Kings, is easily one of the most solid and entertaining fantasy novels I've had the pleasure of reading in the past few years. It's the start of a terribly long series though so you might want to hold off on picking it up. He does, however, have a free downloadable version of his stand-alone novel Warbreaker on his website which is also kind of a fantastically fun fantasy novel. To be honest, pretty much all the rest of his books are good reads in one way or another too, but Warbreaker and The Way of Kings are the two standouts in my opinion (and one of them is available for free to boot). Also notable about the guy is that his website has a ton of stuff on it. Scenes he had to edit out of the books for space that he still liked, a lot of annotations for most of his books, and even a couple draft comparisons for Warbreaker.

Edit: I can't believe I forgot this book, but An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe. It's a massive homage the old pulp stories heavily dosed with some Lovecraftian themes. If you like the old pulps like The Shadow (an actual historical figure in the novel) you'll most likely enjoy it at least somewhat.

The Amber series by Robert Zelazny. The great city of Amber is the only real world, and all other worlds are merely shadows. At the other end of reality lies the Courts of Chaos. And all ten books are shorter than two Robert Jordan doorstops.

The Night Watch series, Sergei Lukayenko. Modern urban fantasy, set in modern Russia. The translation can be a bit awkward at times, but it's fascinating stuff.

Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion stuff. Moorcock coined the phrase multiverse.

The Black Company series, Glen Cook. The later books draw heavily on Hindu myth, a largely unmined area in western fantasy.

The Jhereg series, Steven Brust. A professional assassin who takes down wizards. Many of the books are great swashbucklers, though there is at least one major dud in the series.

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series, Fritz Leiber. Another bunch of fun swashbucklers.

Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman. A short story collection, but the first story is a Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu crossover.

Boneshaker, Cherie Priest. Alternate US history steampunk with zombies.

Anathem, Neal Stephenson. Worldbuilding and a meditation on the quantum nature of consciousness.

The Deed of Paksenarrion, Elizabeth Moon. Mercenary becomes a paladin, and a fine read.

That should keep you busy a while.

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin

The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. IMO the best of the "contemporary fantasy investigator" genre. His fantasy series Codex Alera is also pretty good, a world where the humans are descended from a lost Roman legion and use elemental magic. The themes are pretty boilerplate fantasy but the world, details and execution are pretty good.

Visit the Baen Free Library, lots of great books to read. The point is, if you like them you'll buy other books that the authors wrote. Give it a try, its FREE.

Well Mr. Squid, I would have to recommend The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It's got all that good stuff!

My stock answer for fantasy books is always Terry Pratchett. Most notably the ones starring Death or the Watch.

One series I've enjoyed are the Artemis Fowl books. They're more for younger readers, but are well written enough that adults can enjoy them too. Plus they have a really novel twist on fairies, dwarves, and other such mythical creatures.

Of course, my suggestions lack the darker overtones of the Lovecraftian themes you mentioned, but they ARE very good at world-building. And something a little lighter is always fun once in awhile.

I got a Kindle for Christmas as well, and loving it. I started with all 5 e-books of the Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith series. They're all free.

Also grabbed Star Trek: Countdown, a couple Starfleet manuals (yes, seriously), and another book that'll remain nameless so as to not start anything. Next paycheck I'm looked to add the Star Trek: Typhon Pact novels, and possibly the EVE Online novels.

Magic Kingdom of Landover Series by Terry Brooks - always enjoyed these books about a depressed lawyer who buys a magical kingdom out of a Christmas catalogue.

For Lovecraftian themes meets espionage meets tech geeks i recommend the Bob Howard - Laundry series by Charles Stross.

For all around epic space opera with interesting premises and characters i'd recommend the Revelation Space books by Alistair Reynolds and the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks.

Honestly i like everything i've read by those authors.

I just picked up the first book in the Culture Series (Consider Phlebas), American Gods, Snow Crash, Helix (I wanted to get Ringworld but it isn't on kindle yet, so I went for another "big things in space" recommendation), and Halo: Contact Harvest.

Thanks for the recommendations all! But more are always appreciated! I'll start reading them all shortly.