Sci-fi & fantasy genre smasher books?

[nposecznick]

I'll have to check out the descriptions on these bad boys in time. I haven't made enough time to read so it's slow going for me. I'm still in the midst of Dashiell Hammett novel compilation and a guilty pleasure of a beautiful hardcover Calvin & Hobbes collection.

I have a large stack of books to be read including (from memory): William Gibson's "Zero Hour," China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station" and "The City and the City," Mark Chadbourn's "Age of Misrule," a 4 book set of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories with Mike Mignola covers (bonus), Liz Williams' "Snake Agent," some non-fiction and a Thomas Pynchon book.

I can tell sometimes from how books/writers are talked/written about, who I will like. And I expect I will like China Mieville, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe and Iain M. Banks' The Culture series. I suspect I'll like the Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan saga and "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi. I'm less into medieval fantasy but my friend has been after me re: Game of Thrones for years and I may like that as well. I may give Kazuo Ishiguro down the road.

I also know I'd like to read some chinese classics - Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Outlaws of the Marsh, and Journey to the West.

RE: Asimov's Robot series. I'm not a big fan of the robot-based sci-fi. They are classics so I may get around to them, but they aren't high on the list. I did very much enjoy the Foundation series and I even read a couple of non-Asimov foundation books. I tend to like relatively near future sci-fi based primarily around how technology influences exclusively human culture.

So it may be awhile before I can read any of these, but I appreciate it. In part this post was about wanting to read Joss Whedon/Hellboy meets Neuromancer meets Five Deadly Venoms, but its also about seeing if there is a genre niche I can fill as a writer. Checking out what's been done, as I work on my own genre smashing fiction. I just want to put all my favorite stuff in one big fun pulpy world. And your suggestions are great research to see what kind of thing has been done before.

Thanks.

Nick.

[HeclaBull]

Tim Lebbon's Dusk fits perfectly into this criteria. It's a great fantasy novel that has a lot of horror and sci-fi elements to it. It also has a truly unique and weird setting.http://www.amazon.com/Dusk-Tim-Lebbo...687797-7371148

[ebusinesstutor]

You may want to check out John Ringo's There will be Dragons.

http://www.webscription.net/p-412-th...e-dragons.aspx

You can download it free and legal from the publisher.

I second this one, it was a good read and a good blend of science fiction with fantasy.