List Your Guilty Pleasure Reads

[ArtNJ]

For me, my guilty pleasure reads are typically action packed, fun, with a (modest) helping of cheese to add to the fun (but not too much, I've grown out of stuff like Hitchhiker's Guide and cant go back), but lets use this thread to discuss our guilty pleasure reads, regardless of what type of books fall in there for you.

My most recent "guilty pleasure" reads are:

(1) Monster Hunters series (urban fantasy in a buffy-like world with way more guns) and the Grimnoir series by Larry Correia (super hero powers lensed through magic). (The Grimnoir series has a tighter plot than Monster Hunters to the degree that maybe it doesnt qualify as a "guilty pleasure".) Highly recommend both series.

(2) Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy: A "level 4 mutant" with unusual density (he is hard to hurt) has a series of misadventures and ends up saving his space station. Really enjoyed it.

(3) Bill the Vampire series: When Bill gets bitten, one in a million luck turns him into an ultra-rare type of vampire, and a variety of adventures and misadventures await. Liked this series a lot too, although maybe not quite as much as the first two on the list.

 

[chris777]

This was just posted on reddit as well. I dunno if I feel guilty about it, but fantasy as a whole is my guilty pleasure. Because the more dorky it is, the more I generally like it. Give me wizards, goblins, elves, dragons, lots of magic and battles and I'm happy.

 

[Ochos]

This was just posted on reddit as well. I dunno if I feel guilty about it, but fantasy as a whole is my guilty pleasure. Because the more dorky it is, the more I generally like it. Give me wizards, goblins, elves, dragons, lots of magic and battles and I'm happy.

I agree, people ask me what I'm reading on my kindle and i just tell them its a fantasy/sci-fi book, without going into any detail. some people just don't get the escapism

 

[Igor]

Can't say I feel guilty about reading ...
Igor

 

[Lucas Thorn]

eddings.

every time i get a flu. i can't help it. it's almost compulsive. it's so fuzzy and cheerful that i can't not read it when i'm sick.

otherwise *looks around hesitantly* pulp westerns.

 

[PeteMC]

I don't feel guilty about anything but even though they're naff I must confess to enjoying some of the WH40K books, mostly Dan Abnett's stuff.

 

[Eddy Gemmell]

I don't feel guilty about anything but even though they're naff I must confess to enjoying some of the WH40K books, mostly Dan Abnett's stuff.

Me too, I am wading my way through the Gaunts Ghosts series.

 

[ArtNJ]

I think people are being a little too literal with the word "guilty" but admittedly perhaps "guilty pleasure" is not the best phrase. What I'm after is the books that you wont read on your lunch break because you dont want your co-workers to see, that you'll put away no matter how long the spouse's friend stays over the house, even if your not expected to talk to them the whole time, the books that when your spouse asks what the book is about you are deliberately vague, the books you feel funny reading in a suit on the train, and most especially the books that even in private, you feel slightly sheepish or at least surprised about enjoying so much.

I dont feel this way about compex fantasy or sci-fi. After all, fantasy and science fiction is becoming fairly mainstream and accepted, especially compared to when some of us were kids. But something like Monster Hunters International, where the world is not so different from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, thats different for me -- its a "guilty pleasure" or whatever the best phrase is.

 

[Igor]

You mean like the copy of 50 shades of Gray I keep inside the cover of Ultimate Jungle Survival for Tough Men?
Igor

 

[ArtNJ]

You mean like the copy of 50 shades of Gray I keep inside the cover of Ultimate Jungle Survival for Tough Men?
Igor

Your obviously kidding but that would definitely qualify!

I did read The Host, cant recall why, but that is as far as I've gone down the romance road. I'm sure I was embarassed while reading it, but its actually not bad.

 

[Igor]

Me kidding, now that was uncalled for. Sarcasm is the weapon of the hopeless.
Igor

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I'd probably feel a little guilty sitting in a fantasy convention if I pulled out a copy of one of my Shanarra books... but there you have it!

 

[Santaria]

Probably generally anything considered YA. Hunger Games comes to mind. Maybe Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, still meaning to finish that series.

 

[Imrannan]

Probably generally anything considered YA. Hunger Games comes to mind. Maybe Cherie Priest's Boneshaker, still meaning to finish that series.

How is the Boneshaker series so far? I've seen it, read the back cover and inside a little, and it sounds interesting but there wasn't a huge pull towards it because it felt YA. The second in the series sounds the most interesting, but you can't start with the second book in most series.

 

[Santaria]

While the writing wasn't terribly complex, it didn't feel YA to me. It just felt like a good fun read with good characters.

 

[N. E. White]

I wrote a huge long post about this and then the internet promptly ate it. For good reason, I'm sure.

My current guilty pleasure:
Lee Carlon's The Bastard Cadre series. I just bought the fourth one... (hangs head in shame)

 

[Hobbit]

Looking over the list, I think most of these qualify!



http://www.sffworld.com/2014/02/hobbits-50-50/

M.

 

[JunkMonkey]

I really don't think I have any guilt about reading anything. The only thing I think I would hastily shove out of sight if I was holding it when someone walked into a room would be porny erotica. But I don't read porny erotica. (What I have read was so godawful I got no pleasure from it. Not even bad enough to be good.)

 

[PeteMC]

porny erotica

Is it bad that I read that as pony erotica at first glance...

 

[Igor]

Well, no not really. We love you, mr. horsewhisperer.
Igor