The Hundred Year Old Man is well worth a read.

I wouldn’t fancy 3 weeks in Reading, though. Get out of town a bit; Caversham’s nice.

Scotland?
Got to be the late, great Iain M Banks, if you haven’t already.

I really wanted to like Game of Thrones, but the cliched place names and lazy stereotyping ruined it for me.

Fascinating, odd, bonkers, but really rather brilliant with it.

Game of Thrones goes downhill very fast. I loved the first few mind.

Just re-reading Peter F Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy, it’s horribly written and paced but still, when it’s good it’s good, proper holiday blockbuster stuff. Should have been edited with an axe not a pen, though. Slow in places so might not hit your mark. Night’s Dawn is his best idea but the older Greg Mandel novels are written better.

And yeah, if you’ve not already, Iain M Banks, when he’s good he’s very very good.

Little bit off the recommendation but I just went through Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London in record time, it might appeal- a cross between a police procedural and a magic-n-monsters fantasy, in present day London. Loads of fun.

Straighter fantasy- Joe Abercrombie, master of the new fantasy subgenre made popular by George RR Martin, “fantasy in which absolutely everyone is a dick”. Absolutely revels in it, The Heroes is maybe the best example but The Blade Itself is probably the starting point. Maybe getting a wee bit repetitive/formulaic now.

Reamde by Neal Stephenson is pretty good. It’s a fat one mind!

not read that one, it’s on the list – but have read and recommend Cryptonomicon and/or The Baroque Cycle, lacking in spaceships but still definitely SF.

The first third of Reamde is bloody brilliant. Rest of it, I don’t know how good it is really but it felt pedestrian and a bit repetitive compared to the early bits. Still good. Welsh terrorism is a genuine fear!

There’s a bit in Snow Crash where he ends a chapter with “After that, it’s just a chase scene”, and it all happens off camera. About half of Reamde is the chase scene.

Oh, and what about trying some Jasper Fforde?

Utterly batshitmental bonkers at times, and hilarious with it. The Big Over Easy is a great crime novel. Someone murders Humpty Dumpty, basically.

Neil Stevenson’s Diamond Age is excellent, as are Charles Stross’ various books. He writes a bunch of different styles, but they’re all hugely enjoyable. Halting State is set in a completely devolved Scotland, and is a high-tech police proceedural, there are others which are a Lovecraft/James Bond crossover…
Kate Griffin’s Urban Magic series, starting with A Madness Of Angelsis also really very good indeed, great characters, and very gritty, too. She’s been brought up in London,and uses the hidden parts of the city to great effect.