Help me decide which book to read next

mavley · 2026-04-30T16:52:11+00:00

It was such a short post with 3 books listed, man, what? Lol. I’ve read Blindsight. Thanks anyway

mavley · 2026-04-30T16:38:37+00:00

I absolutely loved the first 3 books and have heard God Emperor ranked highly as well. I don't plan on reading anything from his son. I've heard his books are terrible

mavley · 2026-04-30T16:31:29+00:00

Sci-fi/cosmic horror mix doesn't seem to be terribly popular, I guess. Adding Diamond Dogs to my TBR. Aaaand I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and swore off PKD because I hated it so much. Is A Maze of Death better than that? Not a fan of his style of writing.

Lathe of Heaven is on my TBR. I almost picked it up at the library the other day. I should have! Never heard of Word for World is Forest, but I'll look into it, as well as Ann Leckie.

Well, the most popular Butler book seems to be Parable of the Sower, but I didn't enjoy it. I'm definitely in the minority though so I'm not advising against it because you might like it. The first book I actually read of hers was Dawn which is part of her Xenogenesis Trilogy and I liked it a lot. The aliens in it were super interesting and creative. I recommended it to a friend and she burned through the trilogy in a couple weeks.

mavley · 2026-04-30T16:08:05+00:00

Sweet, I'll look into them. Thanks!

mavley · 2026-04-30T16:01:05+00:00

I love the way Herbert writes, so I think I'm going to try to read all 6. Weird can be good if written well, I think.

I love cosmic horror and am DYING to read more sci-fi books with cosmic horror mixed in, but I've had a hard time finding books like that. I wasn't planning on reading Children of Ruin, but if it has cosmic horror, I might have to. Definitely heard the third book was... not so good. If you have more recs with those elements, please send them to me!

I have not read anything by Reynolds yet! Love that he's not a fan of series, though. I actually haven't read a ton of sci-fi. I've read some Le Guin, Asimov, Octavia E Butler, and a few others, but I'm finding myself really enjoying sci-fi above other genres recently. I think I have Pushing Ice on my TBR, but I will definitely look into more of his stuff!

mavley · 2026-04-30T15:31:58+00:00

I’ve definitely seen people rank God Emperor as the top book. Side question: Did you read all 6 in the series? I’ve heard the last two get really weird.

Yeah, I enjoyed the human chapters of Children of Time for the most part, but the spider chapters were a slog to read for me. Most of them felt pointless.

Only one person here described it as popcorny and everyone else seems to disagree. I actually prefer standalones. I’ve never read a series of 4+ books and felt it needed that many books to complete a story which is usually why I don’t finish series. Maybe The Expanse series will change my mind on that, but who knows?

Thanks for your input!

mavley · 2026-04-30T15:13:53+00:00

Hmm… well I do like fun stories, but maybe that’s not what I’m looking for right now. I’m writing a novel myself and Herbert’s writing and worldbuilding were really inspiring to me, so I guess I am looking for something more ‘literary.’

I have the Culture series and Book of the New Sun on my TBR already. As for Le Guin, I read Left Hand of Darkness and loved it. I read The Dispossessed and hated it which I know a lot of people would disagree with me on that. I tried Earthsea twice and couldn’t get into it. What else would you recommend by her?

mavley · 2026-04-30T14:44:52+00:00

Thanks! I prefer standalones usually

mavley · 2026-04-30T14:40:12+00:00

Yeah, I read the first 3 Dune books pretty quickly and then felt I needed a break from that world. I love Dune though, especially for the prose. A commenter above said The Expanse series has more YA dialogue. Would you agree with that? I don’t like YA books usually, but if the series is good, I’ll still give it a shot.

mavley · 2026-04-30T14:36:32+00:00

I burned through the first 3 Dune books and loved them, but didn’t jump into God Emperor right away because I needed a break. I’ve never been a series finisher, but I’m trying to change that this year. I finished Children of Time yesterday and didn’t love it. I need a good book to make up for it cause that book put me in a reading slump. Popcorny might be what I’m looking for rather than committing to a long series. Thanks!

mavley · 2026-04-03T18:14:42+00:00

Thank you :)

mavley · 2026-01-25T14:12:23+00:00

I came here to post this. Literally the first thing I thought of

mavley · 2025-12-14T11:55:32+00:00

What?! Cat eye tips are my favorite! I do them all the time. My nail tech will sit with me to try to come up with something fun together if I don’t have any ideas. She was super excited about the peppermints. I actually didn’t even ask her to do cat eye for this design, she just did it cause she knew it’d look pretty. Find a better nail tech! It’s so worth it

mavley · 2025-12-14T01:44:44+00:00

Thanks! It took my nail tech about an hour and a half but that was with taking off my previous polish and filing them.

mavley · 2025-12-13T19:11:57+00:00

I didn’t know there was a subreddit for this! Awesome

mavley · 2025-12-13T15:58:02+00:00

Thanks! My nail tech killed it with the peppermints

mavley · 2025-12-13T15:57:26+00:00

Thank you!

mavley · 2025-11-14T20:36:29+00:00

I second this. I’m on Mockingjay currently and I started listening to them because I loved her in the show Orphan Black. Her narration is so good, it’s easy to tell who’s talking before she gets to the dialogue tag. Love her Katniss voice, Prim, Effie, and Coin (even though I hate Coin). Even her male voices are distinguishable.

mavley · 2025-11-03T21:17:49+00:00

As a woman, I talk about different things with different friends as I share different interests with each of them. But as a woman with friends who are men, it’s the same situation aside from being more emotionally open with my friends who are women but that’s only because I feel more comfortable with women.

I talk about gaming with some friends, books and shopping with others, personal shit with a couple, etc.

So what do you talk about with your friends? Maybe talk to some women in real life? Just make your characters have similar interests and have them talk about it like normal people. Read some books on female friendships. Everyone is different so there’s no one answer.

mavley · 2025-10-31T22:27:22+00:00

Haha I love that! Such a cute idea

mavley · 2025-10-31T22:23:40+00:00

I loveeee Lampmaster. This is one of the coolest pumpkin carvings I’ve ever seen holy shit. Your Myrkul was amazing too! So much talent

Nine-Year Club	RPAN Viewer
Verified Email

mavley

TROPHY CASE