I just recommended the Brain Ship series to someone the other day , humans installed as the mind of a space ship . It ' s scifi by a fantasy author , Anne McCaffrey , and good fun . If you want to read a series that everyone rightly loves to hate , try the Sword of Truth series . Where absolutely everything bad that happens is because the characters are self righteous idiots . The philosophy is infantile and the author is obsessed with torture porn , but once you force your way through all 17 books , and rage at the most unsatisfying , lazy ending ever written , you can enjoy a lifetime of conversations about all the unbelievably varied ways this story went wrong . If you want to read something so good you will buy it for every friend you have , and randomly give copies to strangers , try The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon . The Lies of Locke Lamorra by Scott Lynch is a fantastic story about an outrageous scam . It ' s the first book in The Gentleman Bastard series , and the second book has the most excellent swearing I have ever read .