The Sword and Laser discussion

Non-US peeps what are you reading? What is your favorite scifi or fantasy book that doesn't get enough press? Are there an local authors you want to recommend? Please post your recs here, we would love to read them! :)

I love Australian author Jennifer Fallon fantasy series. I have re-read a lot of her series as I enjoy them so much. I also really love another Australian author Fiona McIntosh fantasy series. McIntosh writes historical fiction as well, but her fantasy fiction is awesome.

I can think of German author Walter Moers and his Fantasy books. I haven't read any of his books in a while, but especially The City of Dreaming Books and the follow-up The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books are part of my all-time favourites. It tells a story of an author (who's some sort of lizard I believe) travelling to a city where everything is about books and travels through catacombs filled with old books. Sounds a bit much, but it's really great with great illustrations. Only caveat: As there are a lot of wordplay and allusions to German literature (it's a story about books after all), I'm not sure how well it survives translation.

I have recently read the outstanding work of Claire G. Coleman with Terra Nullius which is an out standing work of an indigenous Australian author.

Dark and disturbing it is a brilliant piece of work.

Another couple of great Aussie authors are Greg Egan, who has written some wonderful and mind-bending hard sf, and Max Barry and tends more to the social/tech interface of things.

Not local, but still great: Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko. It is a book about a magical school, but not like others, the magic is incomprehensible and the price for learning it could be very high.

I can recommend On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis, a great science fiction book by a Dutch author, set in apocalyptic Amsterdam. I love everything about it!

Local: Eka Kurniawan works

Other countries....let me recommend the one I am reading and currently enjoying: The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell - winner of Clarke award last year.

This year I also enjoyed Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho a lot. And let me hype Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang again (finalist for FIYAHCon best novel category).