Reception: Classic

Jirel of Joiry (Golden Age Masterworks)

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Jirel of Joiry
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Jirel of Joiry is a character created by C.L. Moore one of the only women writing pulp swod and sorcery stories in the golden age of weird tales magazine where her adventures was printed alongside those of Robert E. Howard Conan the barbarian, Clark Ashton Smith Averoigne stories, and H. P. Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos weird fictions

Jirel is the red-headed proud and beautiful ruler of her own domain  somewhere in medieval France.

This book contain all six of her stories

With her red hair flowing, her yellow eyes glinting like embers, and her face streaked with blood, Jirel is strong, fearless, and driven by honor. The fierce, proud, and relentless commander of warriors, standing tall above her enemies and simmering with rage, Jirel bids farewell to the world of treacherous men and walks through a forbidden door into Hell itself in pursuit of freedom, justice, and revenge. These are the classic tales of blood and honor that catapulted C.L. Moore into the legendary ranks of such acclaimed writers as Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs in the golden age of sword and sorcery. First published in the magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s, Moore’s fantastic medieval adventures are heightened by a savage, romantic vision that helped define the genre, earning her recognition as a Grand Master for lifetime achievement by the World Fantasy Convention.

Greyhound (Movie Tie-In): originally published as the good shepperd by C. S. Forester

Greyhound (Movie Tie-In): originally published as the good shepperd by C. S. Forester
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Soon to be the major motion picture Greyhound, a WWII naval thriller of “high and glittering excitement” (New York Times) from the author of the legendary Hornblower series The mission of Commander George Krause of the United States Navy is to protect a convoy of thirty-seven merchant ships making their way across the icy North Atlantic from America to England. There, they will deliver desperately needed supplies, but only if they can make it through the wolfpack of German submarines that awaits and outnumbers them in the perilous seas. For forty eight hours, Krause will play a desperate cat and mouse game against the submarines, combating exhaustion, hunger, and thirst to protect fifty million dollars’ worth of cargo and the lives of three thousand men. Originally published as The Good Shepherd and acclaimed as one of the best novels of the year upon publication in 1955, this novel is a riveting classic of WWII and naval warfare from one of the 20th century’s masters of sea stories.

Mr. Midshipman Hornblower (hornblower saga)

Mr. Midshipman Hornblower (hornblower saga)
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Horatio Hornblower, only seventeen years old, gets his sea legs in this “absolutely compelling” (San Francisco Chronicle) first installment of C. S. Forester’s classic naval adventure series.

The year is 1793, the eve of the Napoleonic Wars, and Horatio Hornblower, a seventeen-year-old boy unschooled in seafaring and the ways of seamen, is ordered to board a French merchant ship and take command of crew and cargo for the glory of England. Though not an unqualified success, this first naval adventure teaches the young midshipman enough to launch him on a series of increasingly glorious exploits. This novel — in which young Horatio gets his sea legs, proves his mettle, and shows the makings of the legend he will become — is the first of the eleven swashbuckling Hornblower tales that are today regarded as classic adventure stories of the sea.

“I recommend Forester to every literate I know.” –Ernest Hemingway

Master and Commander (Aubrey-Maturin, Book 1) (Aubrey & Maturin series)

Master and Commander (Vol. Book 1) (Aubrey/Maturin Novels)
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The beginning of the sweeping Aubrey-Maturin series. “The best sea story I have ever read.”—Sir Francis Chichester This, the first in the splendid series of Jack Aubrey novels, establishes the friendship between Captain Aubrey, R.N., and Stephen Maturin, ship’s surgeon and intelligence agent, against a thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic wars.

Details of a life aboard a man-of-war in Nelson’s navy are faultlessly rendered: the conversational idiom of the officers in the ward room and the men on the lower deck, the food, the floggings, the mysteries of the wind and the rigging, and the roar of broadsides as the great ships close in battle.

Revelation Space: The breath-taking space opera masterpiece

Revelation Space
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“[A] tour de force… Ravishingly inventive.”-Publishers Weekly The highly-acclaimed first novel in the Revelation Space universe-a debut that has redefined the space opera with a staggering journey across vast gulfs of time and space to confront the very nature of reality itself… Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him. Because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason, and if that reason is uncovered, the universe and reality itself could be irrevocably altered…

In the same universe :

 

  • the direct follow up novel to the original trilogy published in 2021
  • two short novellas
  •  a collection of short stories : deep navigation not on amazon unless you want to pay 250$ in which case its here
  • a stand alone novel
  • a new trilogy with last book coming in 2024 contrary to the space opera of the original trilogy it’s a crime thriller in space

Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein

Starship Troopers
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In Robert A. Heinlein’s controversial Hugo Award-winning bestseller, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe—and into battle against mankind’s most alarming enemy… Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job… “A classic…If you want a great military adventure, this one is for you.”—All SciFi

Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, Book 1)

Hyperion
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A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man. On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion “Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant.

In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.”—The Washington Post Book World “An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.”—The New York Times Book Review “Simmons’s own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.”—The Denver Post “An essential part of any science fiction collection.”—Booklist

The Silmarillion (tolkien)

The Silmarillion
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illustrated edition here

The #1 New York Times Bestseller

The Silmarillion is the core of J.R.R. Tolkien’s imaginative writing, a work whose origins stretch back to a time long before The Hobbit. This mythopoetic masterpiece is a must-read before you watch The Lord of the Rings on Amazon.

“Majestic! … Readers of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings will find in The Silmarillion a cosmology to call their own, medieval romances, fierce fairy tales, and fiercer wars that ring with heraldic fury… It overwhelms the reader.”—Time

The story of the creation of the world and of the First Age, this is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back and in whose events some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part. The three Silmarils were jewels created by Fëanor, most gifted of the Elves. Within them was imprisoned the Light of the Two Trees of Valinor before the Trees themselves were destroyed by Morgoth, the first Dark Lord. Thereafter, the unsullied Light of Valinor lived on only in the Silmarils, but they were seized by Morgoth and set in his crown, which was guarded in the impenetrable fortress of Angband in the north of Middle-earth.

The Silmarillion is the history of the rebellion of Fëanor and his kindred against the gods, their exile from Valinor and return to Middle-earth, and their war, hopeless despite all their heroism, against the great Enemy.

“A creation of singular beauty … magnificent in its best moments.”—The Washington Post

“Heart-lifting … a work of power, eloquence and noble vision… Superb!”—The Wall Street Journal

The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again (Lord of the Rings)

The Hobbit, Or, There and Back Again
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Version illustrated by the author here

The adventures of the well-to-do hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, who lived happily in his comfortable home until a wandering wizard granted his wish.

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon.

Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum.

The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings, 1)

The Fellowship of the Ring
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After discovering the true nature of the One Ring, Bilbo Baggins entrusts it to the care of his young cousin, Frodo, who is charged with bringing about its destruction and thus foiling the plans of the Dark Lord.

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien’s three-volume epic, is set in the imaginary world of Middle-earth – home to many strange beings, and most notably hobbits, a peace-loving “little people,” cheerful and shy. Since its original British publication in 1954-55, the saga has entranced readers of all ages. It is at once a classic myth and a modern fairy tale. Critic Michael Straight has hailed it as one of the “very few works of genius in recent literature.” Middle-earth is a world receptive to poets, scholars, children, and all other people of good will.

Donald Barr has described it as “a scrubbed morning world, and a ringing nightmare world…especially sunlit, and shadowed by perils very fundamental, of a peculiarly uncompounded darkness.” The story of ths world is one of high and heroic adventure. Barr compared it to Beowulf, C.S. Lewis to Orlando Furioso, W.H. Auden to The Thirty-nine Steps. In fact the saga is sui generis – a triumph of imagination which springs to life within its own framework and on its own terms.

Illustrated version here