Oh, sure, I'd totally be into Laurence/Temeraire, but obviously you have to change the species of one of them, at least temporarily, for this to work. (And if it hasn't been done yet, well, then I'm surprised.)
I read a fair amount of fantasy, but I'm pretty conservative in picking up new series, because there's nothing worse than only being able to find two books of a five book series, or thinking you're reading a stand-alone and finding it's the first of a projected really-long series in which the novels don't really stand on their own.
I like Tanya Huff a lot, because she's so slashy, even though lately she's been focusing more on her horror series than pure fantasy. (I loved the ones centering on Henry Fitzroy, the vampire; I'm a little less interested in the Tony ones). I had my obligatory Mercedes Lackey phase (again, because of the slashiness), and while I can no longer stand the Valdemar books I still do read her "Elementals" series.
Lately I've mainly been reading fantasy that does interesting things with politics or religion. I really love Kate Elliott's Burning Stone series, because it takes the neo-medievalism of most fantasy and does something actually interesting with it, exploring what it would actually be like to live in a society with no real social mobility. And I adore her alternate dominant form of Christianity, which is sort of Gnostic, and how that plays into all the intrigue and overlapping political struggles of the empire and church. Not to mention the interesting non-humans in that universe.
I also really love Fiona Patton, for similar reasons: fasinating politics, interesting religion (in this case a sort of Celtic paganism, reimagined), densely layered politics, really interesting social structures (though the monarchs all of course have arranged marriages, there is a Companions guild--and it seems like Companions are more likely to be of one's same sex. The first book, The Stone Prince, does a particularly interesting job of exploring the issue of love v. duty both for royalty and for members of the Companions Guild).
And lately I've really been enjoying Jane Linskold, who's been writing a series about a girl who grew up as a wolf in a land where some animals are intelligent, but she may be the lost crown princess. (I hadn't noticed just how much I like intricate and densely plotted court politics, complete with a complicated intersection of different cultures, in my fantasy until I made this list--but boy is this series, which started with Through Wolf's Eyes, full of those things.)
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I read a fair amount of fantasy, but I'm pretty conservative in picking up new series, because there's nothing worse than only being able to find two books of a five book series, or thinking you're reading a stand-alone and finding it's the first of a projected really-long series in which the novels don't really stand on their own.
I like Tanya Huff a lot, because she's so slashy, even though lately she's been focusing more on her horror series than pure fantasy. (I loved the ones centering on Henry Fitzroy, the vampire; I'm a little less interested in the Tony ones). I had my obligatory Mercedes Lackey phase (again, because of the slashiness), and while I can no longer stand the Valdemar books I still do read her "Elementals" series.
Lately I've mainly been reading fantasy that does interesting things with politics or religion. I really love Kate Elliott's Burning Stone series, because it takes the neo-medievalism of most fantasy and does something actually interesting with it, exploring what it would actually be like to live in a society with no real social mobility. And I adore her alternate dominant form of Christianity, which is sort of Gnostic, and how that plays into all the intrigue and overlapping political struggles of the empire and church. Not to mention the interesting non-humans in that universe.
I also really love Fiona Patton, for similar reasons: fasinating politics, interesting religion (in this case a sort of Celtic paganism, reimagined), densely layered politics, really interesting social structures (though the monarchs all of course have arranged marriages, there is a Companions guild--and it seems like Companions are more likely to be of one's same sex. The first book, The Stone Prince, does a particularly interesting job of exploring the issue of love v. duty both for royalty and for members of the Companions Guild).
And lately I've really been enjoying Jane Linskold, who's been writing a series about a girl who grew up as a wolf in a land where some animals are intelligent, but she may be the lost crown princess. (I hadn't noticed just how much I like intricate and densely plotted court politics, complete with a complicated intersection of different cultures, in my fantasy until I made this list--but boy is this series, which started with Through Wolf's Eyes, full of those things.)