There's so much awfulness happening in the world. I'm looking for interesting escapes that aren't romantic, violent, or hum drum. Humor and non-preachy goodness appreciated. I keep rereading Discworld, and have begun rereading Collin Cotterill's Dr Siri books*.
There are many threads on alternatives to Discworld. Just hoping to cast a wider net and hopefully pick up new suggestions, perhaps outside of fantasy + Douglas Adams.
*15 mysteries set in Laos…Dr Siri is a seventy-somethhing year old doctor, involuntarily reassigned by the communist bureaucracy to serve as a pathologist, and turned quite cynical in the process. Colorful cast of characters in a world apart.
by sandgrubber
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Good guy humorist you root for and don’t feel bad: David Sedaris
Despicable humorist who is terrible but has you on the floor anyway: Charles Bukowski
You might like The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Very dry, cynical narrator but still weirdly humane underneath it.
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett if you somehow have not read that one yet. It is one of the more thoughtful Discworld books.
I also read a short one recently called A Fair System, Probably. It is basically a bureaucratic horror where the end of the world has a front desk and everything runs on paperwork. Very dry humor.
Dry, cynical – First Law, Joe Abercrombie. Not very humane though.
Humour and happiness? T Kingfishers Swordheart.
Georgette Heyer
Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series is dry and cynical and you do end up really caring for the characters, even the most off-putting ones.
Some good suggestions already, I’ll add
Lois McMaster Bujold’s *Vorkosigan Saga*. Also her Five Gods stories, which are fantasy.
Less cynical, but scoring high on humane is Rachel Neumeier’s space opera *No Foreign Sky*
Mur Lafferty’s *Midsolar Murders*
Malka Older’s Mossa and Pleiti Investigations
Victoria Goddard’s *Lays of the Hearthfire* are the opposite of cynical, deeply humane, and utterly heartwarming.
*When the Angels Left the Old Country* by Sacha Lamb