No speculative fiction recommendation thread is complete without mention of Peter Watts’ Blindsight. Truly alien aliens, and some very interesting exploration of the nature of consciousness.

There’s a lot of religion in the books. People are always praying for this and that. Biblical names. Some thinly veiled biblical references. Any character who expresses agnosticism or atheism is eventually proved bad or wrong in some manner. There are some very angelic-like beings that pop up later. Some fallen ones as well. Every single woman character pines over the guys at some point and really just wants to settle down and pop out kids. Oh, and everything is wrapped up neatly in the last book when the very obvious Jesus figure confronts God on top of a tower, sacrifices himself, is subsequently resurrected, and they fly in on a literal airplane and save everyone in the 11th hour. It’s trite and disaffecting and pretty much assured I won’t be reading anything from Weeks ever again.

Yeah, the manga is eminently worth reading. Especially if you enjoy the movie at all (it’s my favorite of Miyazaki’s.) The manga somehow manages to be even better.

Glen Cook’s Black Company novels come close for me. They’re smaller scale, but they’ve got some heft. Erikson has said the series was a huge influence on him, too.

If you continue with the series, just about every character carries over. Malazan is crazy intricate and complex. I’ve read the ten-book main series a few times and notice new connections every time through.

I’ll add that I hated the Lightbringer series. It starts out alright, gets progressively worse, and ends with a big fat literal deus ex machina. Weeks is a flaming Mormon, and if you know anything about the faith, you can see its stink everywhere.

I did like his Night Angel trilogy.

Cradle is pretty amazing.

Yes and no? The treatment of women gets less cringey, but the books get more-and-more convoluted. That said, I just read the recently released 18th book, and I’m still enjoying them enough to not drop the series.