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AlexisV

Obscure good books

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Don't know if they're particularly obscure, but the Secret Series and its sequel the Bad Books series by Pseudonymous Bosch are pretty good children's books. The former follows the story of Cass, Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji, three middle-school members of the Terces society, as they try to find the Secret of immortality in order to protect it from falling into the wrong hands. If you're looking for an adventure series with some supernatural elements and a Lemony Snicket-esque author, give it a go. For bonus points, it has a female lead, a decent amount of diversity, and bonus stuff at the end like recipes, trivia, and cryptography activities.

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Kenny and the Dragon by Tony Diterlizzi was a cute little read. It had anthropomorphic animals in a medieval setting, where everyone thinks the dragon Graham is a terrifying beast, when all he likes to do is read and make creme brulee or however it's called.

 

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I haven't read it in a long time, but I remember I really enjoyed Sword of the Six. I just finished reading Nightfall a couple weeks ago and it was a good book.

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If you've ever read Gael Baudino, I will love you forever.

 

Love me forever! tongue.gif

 

My favorite from Gael is Gossamer Axe.

 

Christa was a 6th century bardic student, who was captured along with her lover and imprisoned in the fae realms. She managed to break herself free with bardic magic, but was unable to bring her lover with her. Now a harp teacher in 1980s Denver, she still seeks some way to defeat the Master Bard of the fae and win her lover free... and thinks she just might have found a way to do it when one of her harp students brings her to a heavy metal concert. Christa learns to play guitar and forms a band... one that will be playing in much stranger venues than New York or Los Angeles.

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Any Ghibli fans will recognise the name "Howl's Moving Castle", but the book it's based on is amazing! It's a kid's book, but it's hilarious and really fun to read.

Edited by RealWilliamShakespeare

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The City's Son, by Tom Pollock.

Radiant, by Karina Sumner-Smith.

 

Both are great books, each belonging to a trilogy. I recommend City to a YA audience, and Radiant to a more mature audience. They both also have my favorite trope of all, animate inanimate objects.

 

The City's Son, the first book in the Skyscraper's Throne trilogy, is in a nutshell the son of the personification of London vs the personification of gentrification and destruction. In more complex terms, London's son (Filius Viae, or Fil for short) runs into a graffiti artist drop-out named Beth Bradley who wanted to simply lose herself in the neon maze that is London after fighting with her best friend Pen (also known as Parva) over the latter's problem with an abusive teacher. There's Railwraiths- essentially train spirits- and Sodiumites/Blankleits and Masonry Men and oh my! Unfortunately, they keep teasing skyscrapers, but aside from

Reach and perhaps the Masonry Men if you stretch it,

, no dice.

 

Radiant, the first book in the Towers trilogy, is much more mature than TCS. Basically, in a world where you need magic to even be recognized by technology, the colorblind Xhea lacks that critical necessity. She's forced to live in the slums of the Lower City, having to bargain for magic made into money and takes it as a drug if she doesn't need food. She has one ability, though- she can see ghosts. One day, a man pays to get rid of a ghost- but Xhea finds out this is no ordinary ghost. Shai, the ghost, plays an important role to a glimmering skyscraper in the Upper City, Allenai, and it, and its rivals, will do anything to get her back. While the book takes a long while for the book to even acknowledge that the skyscrapers have life and desires, the story is one of the few that ever personify buildings. Haven't read the rest of the trilogy (yet), but the descriptions are tantalizing.

Edited by serce2

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Has anybody heard of the Monster Blood Tattoo series? ohmy.gif

 

It's a trilogy about a strange boy named Rossamund who lives in a dangerous world where humans and monsters, usually referred to as bogles or knickers, clash. Rossamund starts off as a bullied orphan, but as the books progress, you can see him grow and learn, as well as seeing firsthand what kind of events happen in a world split.... There's so much that actually happen in the books, but there are so many things that happen because of this or that and scenarios that change because of this or that, really elaborating would spoil things...

 

Plus, the series has very deep lore, to the point where the author includes a pretty hefty dictionary at the end of each book in the series. Also the language is kinda verbose.

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I know that Redwall is pretty popular but Brian Jacques other series, Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, is very impressive as well. One of the novels in the series has an amazing amount of diversity and the things Jacques describes about the world around the main character could easily be reality.

 

There is also The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart; The kids in the book get up to all kinds of shenanigans and it is ultimately an amazing older child/young adult book.

 

Lastly, on a more adult tone, the novel A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe, although difficult to describe, delves into some pretty interesting stuff about race, sense of identity, joblessness, philosophy, and the changing view of art in the late 1990's. Although it is incredibly long and full of heavy material, I really enjoyed reading it and it makes you really think about things.

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ya know what, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is a really good book and I have not seen a lot of talk about it. It has a sequel, too, called Crooked Kingdom. It is a YA fantasy novel, and it's not like, "Oh, we gotta save the world because if we don't everybody dies! we're doing this for the good of the world!" It's more like "guys, we gotta save the world. if we don't, we don't get paid." it's beautiful and gay and i absolutely love it. six teens have to break into the most secure place in the world to keep the secret of a really bad drug from getting out, and they're (mostly) only in it for the money. it's the best book ever and has pretty much ruined other ya fantasy books for me, because none are as good as SoC.

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The muirwood series by Jeff wheeler is really good. so are Marissa meyer's Lunar Chronicles series. 

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I have a book I bet no one here has ever heard of:

 

The Beast Hunter: A Keltin Moore Adventure by Lindsay Schopfer

 

The story takes place in a sort of 19th century steampunk type of setting. The main character, Keltin Moore, hunts beasts for a living. We're not talking wolves or bears or whatever; we're talking nightmarish creatures straight out of the realm of the Horrorterrors netherworld, amalgamations of body parts that should never be combined (like tentacles and pigs).

 

The atmosphere is very serious, a cold, harsh world. The book and its sequel Into the North, are frightfully descriptive, whether it's the beasts themselves or the unfortunate victims of them. A tale of hardships, guns, big scary things, and friends who are by your side to the end, this is a little known book you won't regret reading.

 

The book was self-published by the author, which is why very few people know about it. My family knows him pretty well, and one of my really good friends painted the cover. There's nothing cooler than knowing people like them. It's books like this one that inspire me to sit down and write.

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Seven Sorcerers by Caro King

Bet no one heard of it before, though it's been ages since I read it. But it had amazing plot twists and really was well put together.

 

This is apparently the summery on Goodreads, but it is so much more than that simple string of sentences:

Nin had never liked Wednesdays, but this one took the biscuit. On this Wednesday she woke up to find that it was raining buckets and that her brother had ceased to exist.

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Some of my favourites have already been mentioned, Anne McCaffrey's works (my favourite out of her non Pern books is the Catteni series); Dragon Lord trilogy & Death Gate Cycle among others.

I'll add these:
Chronicles of Galen Sword -- by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens -- Trilogy -- Fantasy / Modern Earth
A young man tries to return to an alternate world, that's populated by werewolves, vampires etc., from New York, after he's exiled there as a child.


Mag Force 7 -- by Margaret Weiss & Don Perrin -- Trilogy -- Sci-fi (I'd also recommend Weiss' other series)

It's actually a spin off to her Star of the Guardians 4 book series, which I also recommend, but IMO you don't need to read SotG first, I didn't. The team in the spin off trilogies is actually somewhat different to those seen in SotG.
A team of 7 mercenaries doing a mission per book. 
-----
The only thing wrong with this series, is I want more books.

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Storm Thief by Chris Wooding

Two thieves and a golem stuck on a steampunk island attempt to escape with reality changing storms that affect the entire island at random. I read this years ago, but only recently got my own copy to keep.

 

The Complete Circle Series by Ted Dekker

It's honestly so weird and wacky that I'd have trouble explaining it with or without spoiling the plot. Religion, romance, war, and time all fall and twist amazingly. I grabbed one at the library and just had to read the rest. Now I keep all 4 on my shelf, it's a good series to read on a quiet day.

Edited by MangoMaraudr

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The Monster Hunter International books by Larry Correia. Modern Fantasy(?), Not for the kiddos

They have no connection to the Monster Hunter video games. Think an Agents of SHIELD and Supernatural mix, and you have a good idea of the books. The author is a 3 gun competition shooter, so his action scenes involving firearms are *very* accurate (Thank goodness). 

The Covenant of Muirwood books by Jeff Wheeler. Fantasy 

 Cinderella-y, but with way more magic and intrigue. The author based some of it on the marriage/divorce of Henry VIII and Catharine of Aragon.

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Dark Fantasy/Sci Fi/Horror/Western, not for the kiddos

I know y'all have probably heard of/seen the movie with Idris Elba. But the books are incredible. The writing however is a very different style than what I'm used to.

The Liveship Traders series by Robin Hobb.  Fantasy. Not for kiddos in the same way as GOT

Think adult Pirates of the Caribbean, with living, magic ships. And dragons/sea serpents. 

The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series. Fantasy

Dragons. So many dragons. And other things I won't spoil. Very reminiscent of Narnia and Tolkien's works, but the reasoning behind it is loud and clear by the end of the first book (Here, There Be Dragons)

 

 

Edited by AncalagonTheBlack

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i have read  a two obscure books, this two books  it a reckelss and heartless of conelia funke.

for many persons these book it only fantasy but for me have a many dark components.

i hope in the store arrive the fourth book of the saga, but for the moment not exist any news.

i have checked the official site of cornelia funke but the only news present is a book for baby child

i hope not have dropped this saga....

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The Empire of Ashes by David Weber- humans are actually aliens and the moon is the ship we came from after it suffered a mutiny 40,000 years ago.

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Robert Aickman’s short stories are very good. There are several collections published. 

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On 8/14/2018 at 2:04 PM, AncalagonTheBlack said:

The Liveship Traders series by Robin Hobb.  Fantasy. Not for kiddos in the same way as GOT

Think adult Pirates of the Caribbean, with living, magic ships. And dragons/sea serpents. 

Excellent series! :)

 

The Great Library series (five books) by Rachel Caine. What if the Library at Alexandria still existed? It starts off strong, finishes well, though I found a bit of a slump in the middle, but was glad I had kept reading.

 

On 4/13/2017 at 10:38 AM, RealWilliamShakespeare said:

Any Ghibli fans will recognise the name "Howl's Moving Castle", but the book it's based on is amazing! It's a kid's book, but it's hilarious and really fun to read.

I couldn't believe I hadn't read it, given how many other books by Diana Wynne Jones I have read. It's a fun read. Castle in the Air is a follow-up to it, of sorts.

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On 10/10/2021 at 4:08 PM, Lagie said:

Excellent series! :)

 

The Great Library series (five books) by Rachel Caine. What if the Library at Alexandria still existed? It starts off strong, finishes well, though I found a bit of a slump in the middle, but was glad I had kept reading.

The Rover by Max Odem - also involves a Great Library, but it's definitely hobbits and dwarves, although they're not called hobbits - part of a trilogy

 

The Hatbox Baby by Carrie Brown - historical fiction, 1933 World’s Fair

 

Feather Crowns: A Novel by Bobbie Ann Mason - historical fiction (loosely based on a real historical event) with a sad ending, but humor in it, too. One memorable scene was a very young girl being told to help shoo the chickens out of the vegetable patch. 'Shoo, chicken, don't poo on the greens.'  Later, she shrieks at the dinner table that she doesn't want any cooked greens because the chickens pooed on them. Another is when a husband is avoiding answering his wife's question and when he bends over to do something, she tells his rear end to speak since mouth won't.

 

 An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson - fantasy/romance

 

A Horse For XYZ by Louise Moeri has been a favorite since childhood. 

Edited by Long_Before_Sunrise

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A book series I thought was really fun that I couldn’t find anyone who had read was The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy. It’s a fun and silly series about an island full of people with super powers, and the one boy who doesn’t have any powers. It’s full of shenanigans! 

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Prince Ombra by Roderick Macleish. 

 

Reading under the covers to find out how it ended, good.

 

It's an end of the world if the hero fails situation, so trigger warning on some dark tactics used to win.

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