I would like book recommendations please.

[mimesere]

I want books that are FABULOUSLY cracktastic. Blind princess assassins from another dimension? AWESOME. Vampire assassins for the CIA? Doubly awesome. Mary Sue queen of the moon vampires? Fantastic!

I mean seriously. I want crack. Published crack. I want crack like Thursday Next except maybe EVEN CRACKIER.

Like, okay, you know how Laurell K Hamilton writes some truly awful books with no redeeming value at all except for the LOL-inducing fetishistic description of hair and boots (and oh man, for hilarious good times, go look at her webstore. I've never in my life seen that many ugly t-shirts in one place)? I want stuff that is like that. Where pretty much the only reaction one can have is the choked off laughter as the intrepid heroine has yet more sex with yet another random (and fetishized) dude or five. I mean, I don't need orgies or anything, but I want that sort of AHAHAHAHA SRSLY? reaction. Or um, you know, books that are good. But cracktastic.

And you know where I tend to find this stuff? In the paranormal romance section of the bookstore. Like, there are some good ones, but do I go for those? Not generally, no. I go for the shit with talking cats and psychic soul mates and bizarre pseudo-celtic worldbuilding. I want stuff like *that*. I also really liked um, wossname, the books with the psychics and shapeshifters and people of color in starring roles. CRACK. *grabby hands*

Failing this, I would like recommendations for frothy, delightful, funny books where people are decent and fall in love and maybe they have angst but it's not like, EXCESSIVE or if it is, then at least they are not ZOMG TORTURED AND BROODING. Right now? I would kill for a new Julia Quinn book.

this is always my book desire: delightful and frothy OR hilarity-inducing. Or um, books with capers and explosions. So, pretty much the same as what I like in the rest of my media. rec stuff! Stuff that is frothy and delightful! Or hilarity inducing! I want like, the book equivalent of the video for Guilty Pleasure. Or, really, I would like the book equivalent of Cobra Starship or GCH. But mostly Cobra Starship.

For the record, I pretty much feel that the vampire assassins for the CIA books and the ones with the psychics and werewolves are like the equivalent of FOB and the blind princess assassin book is the equivalent of MCR. I do not generally read books that are the equivalent of Radiohead and I have yet to find a book that really reminds me of Muse, though if you have recommendations for that, I will gladly take them too.

I use this icon because HELLO THERE ARROW FAMILY, YOU ARE STILL THE AWESOMEST. I was re-reading the Green Arrow re-launch trades and some of the early Outsiders v2 stuff and my love for the Speedys was rekindkled. Also, while discussing various DC titles, I had an entire conversation at work that went:
dude reading a GL trade: "I love this, Hal is the best."
me: "He killed the ENTIRE LANTERN CORPS because he's a manpainy douche."
dude: "But it was awesome."
me: "The entire. Lantern. Corps. Because he was a *douche*."
dude: "I take it you don't like Hal."
me: "If I *have* to choose a Lantern, it goes John, Kyle, EVERYONE ELSE IN THE CORPS EVER, the old guy in the Justice Society, that one dude whose name I can't remember who is an enormous sexist jackass, and then maybe Hal if I'm feeling generous."
dude: "Kyle? Really?"
me: "Really. He's got some definite points in his favor, like NOT HAVING KILLED THE ENTIRE LANTERN CORPS."

It turns out that dude also thinks Superman is a goody two shoes (WTF PEOPLE) and so I shun him.

(authors referenced in this post: Richard Kadrey, Jennifer Rardin, Sunny, Jasper Fforde, LKH, Robin Owens)

Comments

[doolabug.livejournal.com]

OK. One of the most cracktastic books I know is Raptor by the late Gary Jennings. Historical fiction set at the time of the fall of the Roman empire and the protagonist is a hermaphrodite. Full of sex and violence and strange eroticism and even some homophobia that the protagonist has to deal with. A sweeping epic of the truly bizarre and at the end you'll want to both weep and fall for the protagonist.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

*puts it on the list happily*

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

I've heard terrible things about Christeen Feehan. Although the horribleness is the unrepentant emo douchery of the heroes. (Oh! There is a darkness in my soooooooooul, etc.)

And Sherrilyn Kenyon has shapeshifters, dream chasers, and immortal vengeance seekers who keep killing not!vampires. And that one guy who was trapped in a book as a sex slave. And a bunch of godly infighting. With really, really terrible dialogue. (Were hunters, Dream hunters, and Dark hunters respectively. Plus that one guy.) Also, she has books about a secret federal agency called BAD. I did not even finish it.

And MaryJanice Davidson has fun, dumb vampires.

I actually like the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, but Sookie is, I think your sort of heroine really. She's not superpowerful but she does the best she can and she only takes shit from people she thinks are planning to kill her. So, that's not a badfic recommendation, just a recommendation.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Oh dude, I have read Christine Feehan. She is as terrible as you have heard. I don't even remember the plot of the one I read and I'm usually pretty good about that, but it was seriously filled with emo douchitude the likes of which I have not seen since I took British Lit.

Sherrilyn Kenyon. *thinks* I have...a lot of her books? I definitely have the book sex slave one and like, five or six of the others. But then they all started getting regrettably similar and OTT in a way where I just wanted to smack everyone and wish them all to perdition.

I tried Mary Janice Davidson, but she ended up not being for me, though I can't remember why.

And I *love* the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, as you are entirely right in that Sookie is my kind of heroine.

The most awful -- and I mean AWFUL -- crack I've read was the Brotherhood of the Dagger? Something like that by JR Ward. OMG they are terrible. And like, I had these hopes that the BIG GAY SUBTEXT which briefly became text was going to go somewhere but then no. ZOMG they are the worst things I have ever read, they make no sense, the world building is awful, the gender roles are insulting to everyone, and there's some truly shitty dialogue and yet I have happily spent something like $30 on them. Which I have stopped as the last book was SO BAD it practically made my eyes bleed. I can't even articulate how hilariously awful they are. They make LKH seem like high literary art.

[debchan.livejournal.com]

The Brotherhood of the Black Dagger. OMG, yes. There was a week or so where I could not stop reading them. Finally book five cured me, probably because I was mostly in it for the Big Gay Subtext that Ward killed dead. Still, I sometimes wonder how book six will turn out with that technically a virgin guy and his forty or so new brides.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, technically a virgin guy. I too was in it for the bizarre big gay subtext that just magically went away. And then there are whole threads of plot that are just WTF inducing.

And yet I read them laughing the whole time.

[voleuse.livejournal.com]

I have no idea if these will qualify, aside from being filed under paranormal romance, but I have become horribly addicted to the books by Meljean Brook, Marjorie M Liu, Christine Warren, and CT Adams & Cathy Clamp. They all have series featuring secret societies of superpowered beings, were-beings frequently being the stars.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Christine Warren didn't do a lot for me, but the others I will totally try. I've seen them in the book stores and they *look* like my kind of crack, but until now I have been distracted by all the other shiny ridiculousness on the shelves.

WOO BOOKS.

[thornsilver]

Keri Arthur books. You cannot go wrong with an oversexed redheaded vampire/werewolf with a gay twin brother.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Ahahahaha. It's true! Plus she saves the world a lot! I am very fond of those books and how utterly wonderfully over the top they are. Sexed up vampire/werewolf spy twins ftw!

[donella.livejournal.com]

They're maybe not total crack, per se, but I love the Jacky Faber series by L. A. Meyer. Scruffy orphan from Cheapside disguises herself as a boy and joins the navy to hunt pirates. Her navy boyfriend's name is Jaimy. She fights pirates, becomes embroiled in a GOTHIC MYSTERY OMG at an all girls boarding school, leads a mutiny against an evil captain, accidentally becomes a pirate, gets sold into slavery, and opens floating casino-showboat that rafts down the Mississippi. She spends the series getting into hilariously cracktastic trouble. I, um. They're very good.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Ooooooh. That does sound totally up my alley!

[donella.livejournal.com]

I've gotten half my AP Lit class hooked on them, including my teacher. Let me know if you like them!

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

I am guessing you may have already read these, but Laura Kinsale and Anne Bishop are my queens of crack. Outside of Yuki Kaori, but she is manga crack and Yuki Kaori is not just the queen of crack, but may have possibly invented cracktasticness.

Laura Kinsale - white ninja assassin boys raised in Hawaii! Shipwrecks complete with penguins and fake European kingdoms!

Anne Bishop - magical cock rings! Also a lot of other stuff, but I feel magical cock rings takes the cake.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Laura Kinsale I am kind of iffy on, 'cause I read one of her books yeeeeears ago and came out of it confused and wanting to punch people, but OMG Anne Bishop is *wonderfully* cracktastic. Magical cock rings! Disappearing chests of fetish clothes! 10,000 year old hookers! Slightly younger hooker-assassins! Sometimes all I can do is flail and make ridiculous faces as I am reading her books. And yet, they are totally on my annual re-read pile because it's hard to find books that make me do the flaily ridiculous face thing.

[springgreen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Kinsale can be pretty iffy, though I love her Shadowheart (OMG! gender politics I like! Assassin who is a masochist! BDSM-flavored sex scenes with the girl on top!) and Seize the Fire (shipwrecks and penguins!), which is sadly out of print.

OMG Anne Bishop, how I love you. I only wish her non-Black-Jewels series were as good -- I mean, the penis-shaped breadsticks with creamy white sauce were amusing, but nowhere near the same as magical cock rings.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

She's coming out with more books in the Black Jewels universe! I was very excited when I saw that. The ones with the succubi/incubi and the breadsticks were hilarious though yeah, not as awesome, and the witch hunting ones were just...not as cracktastically fun.

I think the Kinsale I read was something with a Puritan? Or something. It was odd.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

It's not paranormal romance, but for crack, you can't go past Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series, a lot of which has been released in the US. It's a historical detective series about a crime-fighting aristocratic Flapper feminist. The actual mysteries are pretty bad, but Phryne is a hoot. Every outfit is lovingly described! Men shag her! Women want to shag her! But she doesn't do that sort of thing even though lesbians are really really awesome except when they're not! Her father is randomly promoted from viscount to duke, then demoted again a couple of books later! Characters change surnames!

Seriously. Crack.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Oooooh! Aristocratic Flapper feminist crimefighting FTW!

[buddleia.livejournal.com]

All the Thraxas stories by Martin Scott. CRACKTASTIC BUT GOOD.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Hee! Yay! *puts on the list*

[oh-mumble.livejournal.com]

I have recommended Mark Gatiss to you before, yes?

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Lucifer Box, yes? The bi Edwardian spy?

If so, yes :)

[oh-mumble.livejournal.com]

\o/ Did you read it? Have you got the second one yet? Oh wow, so good. AND OMG. RELEASE OF SYNOPSIS FOR #3!

With the young Queen Elizabeth newly established on her throne, Lucifer Box Esq is now by Appointment to Her Majesty. But the secretive Royal Academy seems a very different place and, approaching retirement, Box decides to investigate one last case... A series of bizarre accidents has claimed the lives of some of the world's most important people. Lucifer Box discovers that they were all members of the mysterious Widows' Circle, headed by the delectable Melissa Ffawthawe. He soon finds himself in the Transylvanian forests on the trail of boy assassin Kingdom Come and his deadly masters in the Anarcho-Criminal Retinue of Nihilists, Incendiarists and Murderers - A.C.R.O.N.I.M! What is the mysterious Black Butterfly? Who is Gottfried Clawhammer? Why is the world's biggest scout jamboree taking place on a fortified island in the Caribbean? All will be revealed as Lucifer Box takes his artistic licence to kill into the sleek, bleak era of the Cold War...

IT NEEDS TO BE NOVEMBR NOW, OKAY?

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

*giggle* I have not read the second one yet, but I will keep an eye out for it the next time I am at a bookstore.

And AHAHAHAHA. ACRONIM. *snorfle*

[oh-mumble.livejournal.com]

It's not as good as the first, but is ridiculously bonkers :D

LOL I KNOW! omg.

[vampyreranger.livejournal.com]

Hal? Ew. John Stewart all the way! Though I must admit, I rather despise Superman because he has such a narrow perception of the world around him.

I suggest the Nightside series by Simon R. Green. It's cracktastic with awesome mythology references and insanely awesome characters like Shotgun Suzie, Max Maxwell the Voodoo king, and Razor Eddie, Punk God of the Straight Razor.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Superman is my forever and always favorite. He tries, he inspires others to try, and he genuinely believes that the world can be a better place, and he believes in justice for everyone, and he could take over the world, he *could* impose his worldview on others, but he *doesn't* because that's not how things are supposed to work. I just. I love him so much.

And I liked some of Simon Green's stuff, but I haven't read it in years.

[vampyreranger.livejournal.com]

At risk of sounding patronizing: Aw! *hugs* It's wonderful to hear how you view Superman. I see where you're coming from, but he's not my cup of tea. I have always and will always go for the ambiguously moral, the Batmans and the Rorschachs of the world.

Did you read the Deathstalker series? I have the first two but haven't gotten around to them. He's a truly entertaining writer.

[coniraya.livejournal.com]

Cracktastic Polyamory in The Compass Ross by Gail Dayton. I haven't read the second book in the trilogy yet but I did really love the first one. Magic Users who're 10-1 female fighting a sexist invading nation! A world where any relationship with less than four people is considered unnatural! Magical Tattoos! Claiming two of the sexist men and retraining them! Bonds that cause orgasms when they touch at all! It's kind of fantastic.

[mimesere.livejournal.com]

Hee! I love the first book, the next two are a little iffier, though I like the third book for taking place in the middle east. I mean, the south.