Your Next Read: Under Heaven & The Dervish House

Your Next Read is a website that makes reading suggestions based on a title, author or genre.

I put in Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay (amazing, amazing book. So amazing I haven’t found a way to review it yet) and it suggested The Dervish House by Ian McDonald.

I am sitting here and trying to figure out what they have in common.

Under Heaven is a historical fantasy; The Dervish House is science fiction set in the near future. Under Heaven takes place in China; The Dervish House takes place in Istanbul. Under Heaven has a few characters, but one is a central character; The Dervish House has six characters, but I have no idea if any of them could be a central character. (I like central characters, they give me something to focus on.)

They both involve politics, but is that really enough to make them similar enough to recommend?

Related articles

• Teaser Tuesday: Under Heaven (storytreasury.wordpress.com)
• Pick up Hugo-nominated novel The Dervish House for $1.99 [Weekend Reading] (io9.com)
• The Dervish House (cityoftongues.com)

Teaser Tuesday: Under Heaven

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser:

It was difficult, despite everything, to picture his brother selecting an assassin. It was painful as a blow. It was a crack, a crevasse, in the world.

- Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay