SF/Fantasy/Magical realism anyone?

Do you know, I cannot bear any of this sort of literature. It just doesn't hit my button! I even can't stand Tolkein.

Convince me chaps - what is there to like!?

I like the Nalini Singh books the psy-changeling series. The changelings are the good side and are various animal/ humans, mainly wolf, leopard and rats. The Psy side are a race of humans who have abolished emotion and live within a psychic type network. I found them so good that as soon as I finished one had to download the next.

Love Pratchett. Find Tolken unreadable. Love Robert Rankin...

Imaginary worlds? For me the 'Culture' series of sci-fi books by the late Iain M Banks are unbeatable, but you'd need to start with the earliest ones like The Player of Games to get into them.

Tolkein is too sexist in the 21st C methinks. I went out for a walk in the middle of the second film I was so bored.
The Long Earth etc by contrast have some wonderful female characters.
Two written for children maybe mishap The Northern Lights (and 2 others) by Phillip Pullman. A parallel universe story in which the main character is a courageous girl. As the trilogy goes on he brings in references to Paradise Lost. I cried at the end of the 3rd book.
And A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett. Another brave girl and another series - he grows her up during the series from a brave child to a young midwife who has to make difficult choices.

I hated Phillip Pullman's trilogy. I just didn't like any of the characters, except perhaps the hare and her human - I was sorry when they died. I do love Pratchett though. His writing is so clever and funny and the books work on so many levels.

Gosh, Deeda did you struggle all the way through it not liking it? The film was a disaster on so many levels, which I thought a pity. Do you have a favourite Pratchett?

Mishap
try Dark Eden by Chris Beckett.
No dragons, fairies, or magic swords etc.
Just a terrifically well written story set on a very different world.
The dilemmas the (likeable) characters face will have you sucking your teeth.

Although there was a time when I enjoyed reading all those Dragon rider books by Anne McCaffrey. Until she flogged the formula to death.
Ursula le Guin wrote some great books. Influence by anthropology. The Wizard of Earthsea and others set in that world, for kids. The Left Hand of Darkness... And then there is Octavia Butler, who brings the perspective of an African American woman to the genre.

I was disappointed in 'The Long Earth'. Like the Felix Francis books, it just wasn't the same.
I like Lois McMaster Bujold for fantasy/space opera. I think I have all of them!

Oh, and Ursula.

I liked Ursula le Guin's post disaster novel, 'Always Going Home' though it's about half a century since I read it.

What about Alice Hoffman? Generally women with magical powers.

Yes I did JessM I think I kept hoping that I would finally find something I liked (really must get out more!) I have several favourite Pratchetts - Mort and Soul Music and The Wyrd Sisters which I read while I was involved in a production of Macbeth. And I like all the Tiffany Aching books.

anno I looked it up and it's 'Always Coming Home'....and sounds like something I should read.

I don't go for too much magic and weird powers and dragons.....so why do I like Pratchett? I really don't know! ......
I think because it's funny! Other books are rather too serious about these things.

Uh, oh. Alie. I obviously don't know if I'm coming or going! I tried Terry Pratchett but he didn't quite gel with me.

Game of Thrones is fantastic! (literally I guess) (as I may have mentioned before)

AlieOxon I think Pratchett's secret is that he just treats all his characters as normal people. They may have magical powers or be an odd shape but he's much more interested in their personalities and most of the things that happen to them are down to their own personalities rather than anything supernatural.

Think you're spot on there Deedaa.

Downloaded a sample of Game of Thrones jo and couldn't get into it. Finished the Long War. Yes it is a bit of a meander, and not so much TP as time goes on, but a nice bedtime read. Tried to download some samples of recommendations as above, last night. Kindle in uncooperative mood.
Ended up reading a Father Brown story which was astoundingly racist. Some people think he ought to be a saint apparently - not FB, but Chesterton.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-23769750
I enjoyed reading all the Sam Vimes stories, in order, on holiday last year.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-23769750

People are weird.

I just remembered and reserved 'Always Coming Home' at the library.
Also the latest Kathy Reichs, 'Bones of the Lost'.

I'm in the middle of a Pratchett I hadn't read - 'Snuff'.

I agree, Jess. I also downloaded a sample of 'Game of Thrones' and found that I really wasn't interested in finding out what happened next.
The best magic realism author I have come across is Isabel Allende whose House of the Spirits and Eva Luna are in that genre without being in the realm of fantasy.