Asking for a recommendation

[InternalDialogue]

I'm hoping to find a good read that has some of the elements of a book I remember from the '90s.

If you've read "Roofworld," by Christopher Fowler -- that's the book I remember.

I liked the element of realistic fantasy in a recognizable and modern society. I liked the hints of the dark underground that exists in our cities. I liked the introduction of a "normal" character into this slightly unbelievable world.

Any thoughts on other books that explore this general direction? No right or wrong answers; just help me build a little list of recs.

'preciate it!

:hi:

[Bullwinkle925]

1. Are you looking for something sci-fi only?

I haven't read the book you mentioned. My first thought was "Earth Abides", a book I read over 30 yrs. ago and has stuck with me.

[InternalDialogue]

2. Not necessarily just sci-fi.

The sort of story I describe could be sci-fi, but I guess a semi-realistic near-future novel would fit that mold.

Roofworld's basic plot concerns a hidden subculture in London, sort of a semi-occult group, that lives just out of sight of the real London. They have constructed an elaborate system of wires that allow them to zip-line across the city above the streets, and they rarely appear in any kind of visible public setting. Two "civilians" are drawn into the underworld and get caught in a power struggle.

I think what appealed to me was the sense of a culture existing along with our modern society, but out of sight and with its own politics and implications for "real" society.

For the record, I enjoy sci-fi as much as any type of fiction, although I'm a lot less knowledgeable about it than other genres.

What else can you tell me about "Earth Abides"?

[Bullwinkle925]

4. Here's an Amazon link ....with one reader review. Hope it helps.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Z11P2PTHL._BO2,204,203

Reviewer: C. MCCALLISTER "dr dolphin" (The waters of the Great Lakes) - See all my reviews

In 1957, Nevil Shute wrote, "On The Beach," the quietly heart wrenching drama of the graceful farewell of Mankind after World War Three. In 1959, Pat Frank countered with the triumphantly defiant "Alas, Babylon!" telling us of Mankind surviving World War Three, although in a much-reduced way. Stephen King, in 1978, gave us "The Stand," where the near-end of Mankind comes thanks to a Man-made plague.
All of these were preceded by George Stewart's "Earth Abides". The near-end of Man comes from a plague, and the story focuses on the survival of a small, diverse band of people in California. The group is led by a reluctant hero, with the unlikely name of Isherwood Williams. Ish is an introspective, intellectual loner who is prone to rumination. He ends up surrounded by a group of good, ordinary people, who have to figure out how to live in the slowly-decaying ruins of a suddenly-lost civilization.

Whereas "On the Beach" is a graceful farewell and "Alas, Babylon!" is a defiance of annihilation and "The Stand" sees the subtotal extinction of Man as a pruning in preparation for a showdown by Good and Evil, "Earth Abides" is a well-written, character-deep lament for the death of civilization. Technically, the story is a gradual but steady and logical unfolding of the realization, by Ish the protagonist, that, while Homo sapiens might not be dead, the world built by Homo sapiens is gone forever. The book could have been subtitled, "Let Us Mourn For Man As Master of the World."

The book has five sections. First, we see the initial impact of the plague, through the eyes of the then-solitary Ish. He finally finds a small group of fellow survivors, and they form a community. Next, comes a small subsection that summarizes the first years of the community. Then, the third section shows us that, after seeing the little group grow and, in a very limited fashion, find prosperity and contentment, the seeds of decline begin to bloom. After this third (second large) section, there is another small, transition subsection, summarizing a marked group of heart wrenching losses. I found this little section overwhelmingly tragic. The last major section tells us . . . I will not give the end away.

Is this a good, or even a great, book? I did give it five stars. It is well-written and, while there are a few anachronisms (e.g., no cellular telephones, no computers, oil furnaces) and one logical problem inadequately or unrealistically addressed (i.e., where did all the bodies go?), overall, "Earth Abides" is quietly powerful and unforgettable. When I finished reading "Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke, I vowed to never re-experience that brilliantly terrible tragedy again. I make the same vow with "Earth Abides". It is great, and it overwhelmed me.

[Babel_17]

3. Neil Gaiman?

http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/books/

Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but demanding fiancee. Then one night he stumbles across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her--and the life he knows vanishes like smoke.

Several hours later, the girl is gone too. And by the following morning Richard Mayhew has been erased from his world. His bank cards no longer work, taxi drivers won't stop for him, his hundred rents his apartment out to strangers. He has become invisible, and inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.

For this is the home of Door, the mysterious girl whom Richard rescued in the London Above. A personage of great power and nobility in this murky, candlelit realm, she is on a mission to discover the cause of her family's slaughter, and in doing so preserve this strange underworld kingdom from the malevolence that means to destroy it. And with nowhere else to turn, Richard Mayhew must now join the Lady Door's entourage in their determined--and possibly fatal--quest.

For the dread journey ever-downward--through bizarre anachronisms and dangerous incongruities, and into dusty corners of stalled time--is Richard's final hope, his last road back to a "real" world that is growing disturbingly less real by the minute.

If Tim Burton reimagined The Phantom of the Opera, if Jack Finney let his dark side take over, if you rolled the best work of Clive Barker, Peter Straub and Caleb Carr into one, you still would have something that fell far short of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. It is a masterful debut novel of darkly hypnotic power, and one of the most absorbing reads to come along in years.

http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/books/neverwhere

[oldgrowth]

5. Armageddon's Children by Terry Brooks

This is book one and book 2 (The Elves of Cintra)comes out August 28, 2007!!

[elehhhhna]

6. Oryx & Krake by Atwood should do the trick for ya.

[WhiteTara]

7. Paulo Coehlo is my new fav author

I just finished Zahir. What a great read. I ran out and bought every book I could find of his at my favorite used book store and I have a pile of exciting books of his to dive into.

[Crocodile Hunter]

8. Madeleine L'Engle?

They're really for teenagers, but perhaps The Young Unicorns and An Acceptable Time b Madeleine L'Engle?

[Greyskye]

9. Charles de Lint, Charles de Lint, Charles de Lint!

He's pretty much my favorite author. I think I've read just about everything he's written, with the exceptions being some early novels that he released under a different name. Some of his very earliest novels in his own name were OK straight fantasies, but nothing to get too excited about.

De Lint is one of those authors who's writing just keeps getting better and better. His characters are well written, fully 'fleshed out', and give you hope that there is still good in the world. He has truly taken the sub-genre of "Urban Fantasy" and made it his own. You really can't go wrong with any of his "Newford" stories - a fictional city that many of his books and short stories takes place in.

I even love his short story collections - which I normally loathe.

Highly recommended!

[Greyskye]

10. "War for the Oaks" by Emma Bull

Another great magical realism novel.

From the Amazon editorial review:
Emma Bull's debut novel, War for the Oaks, placed her in the top tier of urban fantasists and established a new subgenre. Unlike most of the rock & rollin' fantasies that have ripped off Ms. Bull's concept, War for the Oaks is well worth reading. Intelligent and skillfully written, with sharply drawn, sympathetic characters, War for the Oaks is about love and loyalty, life and death, and creativity and sacrifice.

Eddi McCandry has just left her boyfriend and their band when she finds herself running through the Minneapolis night, pursued by a sinister man and a huge, terrifying dog. The two creatures are one and the same: a phouka, a faerie being who has chosen Eddi to be a mortal pawn in the age-old war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Eddi isn't interested--but she doesn't have a choice. Now she struggles to build a new life and new band when she might not even survive till the first rehearsal.

War for the Oaks won the Locus Magazine award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Society Award. Other books by Emma Bull include the novels Falcon, Bone Dance (second honors, Philip K. Dick Award), Finder (a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award), and (with Stephen Brust) Freedom and Necessity; the collection Double Feature (with Will Shetterly); and the picture book The Princess and the Lord of Night. --Cynthia Ward