I Need Light Reading Recommendations

nixie said:
I read a lot of grimdark fantasy, horror and recently zombie apocalypse books.
In the current climate I need some lighthearted fun, can anyone recommend something heart lifting and fun? Can still contain violence but has to be optimistic. I hate chic lit.
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Ciaphas Cain novels. Warhammer 40 000, but hilarious.
 
DannMcGrew said:
Yeah! I'm here chanting Terry Pratchett, Terry Pratchett, Terrry Pratchett.
I'm also reading now Terry Pratchett
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You might want to check out James Branch Cabel . He wrote Jurgen 50 other fantasy novels . He was master of Ironic humor , He was the Terry Pratchett of his era. There is an entire subsection of the Forum dedicated to Cabell. :cool:
 
Two books I read recently:

Homunculus by James P. Blaylock: this is a fast-paced, funny adventure about a group of scientists in Victorian London. It's basically steampunk before steampunk was a term. I laughed out loud on several occasions.

The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp: the autobiography of a flamboyantly gay man living in London in the 1950s and 60s. Crisp writes like a cross between Oscar Wilde and Kenneth Williams and has some excellent one-liners.
 
I'd recommend an old favorite - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Mostly harmless?

You can't go wrong!

Bren G
 
Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series is much more optimistic than a lot of science fiction tends to be.
 
Sandy Mitchell wrote the Ciaphas Caine books. They are good.

A second for the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Great fun!!

Also, Posiview resurrected Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" series. I don't know how they've aged, but i loved these books in my teenage years.
 
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Again still not sci-fi or fantasy. James Herriot's vet books:

If Only They Could Talk
It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet
Let Sleeping Vets Lie
Vet in Harness
Vets Might Fly
Vet in a Spin
The Lord God Made Them All
Every Living Thing
 
Not all of these are sci-fi/fantasy: The Princess Bride, pretty much anything by Jasper Fforde, Sir Nigel or The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I've not read them yet (though my brother has and he enjoyed them), but Tom Holt has a large number of really wacky, light-hearted fantasy books.
 
Try books by Jim C. Hines. There are quite a few. Jig the Goblin is fantasy. I've particularly enjoyed the Janitors of the Post Apocalypse trilogy.
 
Not SF, but i think that F. Paul Wilson's "Repairman Jack" series is a great read. Dipping more into Horror, they start out releatively light getting progressively more intense as the overall story gets played out.

Jack is a likeable anti-hero and Wilson has a really easy to read style of writing. Linked into his "Secret History of the World", with two books (the Tomb and Nightworld) being part of his Adversary Cycle. I read the entire series a few years ago and it was great fun.

The books are between 250 and 300 pages.
 
How about the Murderbot chronicles by Martha Wells?
You can get your dystopia with a side of snarky humor from a self confessed rogue killbot. (That's not interested in killing.)
 
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