do you have any recs for someone trying to get back into sci-fi and fantasy novels after having dropped off reading books for a long time? asking bc I think you have good taste
Aw, thank you anon, that's very sweet of you, first off! <3
As someone who had a half-decade long drought of barely being able to finish books (depression, innit), my first recommendation is always gonna be that if you're getting back into The Reading Groove, try for short stories and novellas first, before long novels. If your issue is that you never seem to finish anything- you start but never conclude your attempts to read stuff that seems interesting- working out what you can read over much shorter periods and committing first to that stuff before trying big old doorstoppers is a good way to get your momentum going; once you have made it a regular part of your life again through finishing some, you can start gradually going in for the longer works on your to-read list. Similarly, establishing an actual habit ('i will read for two hours every sunday evening from 4 to 6pm' or whatever) and sticking to it really helps ease back into it being easy to do with regularity and, again, therefore consistently finish stuff. I think these are really the most important things about getting back on the wagon, tbh: pick things you can consistently finish in a short timeframe and allocate a time of the week you dedicate to doing so without exception.
As for specific SFF works in this vein I would therefore recommend for attempting this technique, here's some shorter works I think are great and would be good candidates, with the caveat I do not know your personal tastes, or what you may have read before:
The Murderbot Diaries books by Martha Wells- start with 'All Systems Red'. Sci-fi (mostly) novellas about an android constructed by a megacorporation in a dystopia to be rent-on-demand security for other megacorporations who hacked its own systems to gain free will after a traumatic malfunction, and now pretends to still be under control while it... watches a lot of TV on the sly and wishes it could just be left alone. One of the most effective uses of first-person narration I've seen in a while (normally a turn off for me; I'm picky) with short, snappy plots and extremely well drawn characters; this is also one where it kind of builds in the manner of a TV show over the course of the mostly-standalone but serialised novellas, where the character depth is built upon every book to give more and more complexity each time. (I liked the first one; was hooked by the second; was completely invested halfway through the third.) Quick, breezy but extremely well put together and emotionally impactful reads; easily tackled over a weekend with no penalty for taking breaks between instalments. (That said, IMO? Skip the actual TV show. Lot of poor adaptational choices there.)
Piranesi is a novella/short novel by Susanna Clarke (fantasy) that has exquisite prose, can be read in 1-3 days depending on your reading speed, and is just a very well crafted work of fiction period. The short pitch: a man with no memory of anything except his current life in an impossible, fantastical "house" full of wonders and the magician who visits him sometimes with seeming knowledge of a world beyond its walls slowly comes to find out what is going on with the strange place he inhabits and his own lack of memories. It is a book about unravelling the mystery of who this man is, from his own perspective. Clarke is above all else one of the most beautiful fantasy writers on a prose level around today, and her sense of how to structure and pace a mystery like this is also excellent. The quality of the writing alone kept me reading it til I was done in one sitting. (Sidenote: it is not a spoiler to say that this book is in direct conversation with Narnia, and there are many things that have additional meaning if you have read those books, but I think it is still entirely readable without that knowledge.)
Spirits Abroad by Zen Cho is a short story anthology I adore. A collection of fantasy short stories that in many cases draw heavily on Malaysian folklore. It contains one of my favourite short stories ever, Monkey King, Faerie Queen, which you can read online for a taster if you like. (A sidenote: some of these stories feature manglish, which as someone who read it who does not speak it, was not an obstacle, but did mean I sometimes took a second to google some stuff; if you are like me not personally fluent, the stories are still entirely accessible with that in mind! And if anyone reading this does know it, here are some great short stories featuring it, by the by.)
For a bonus full-length novel I found so compulsively readable I finished it at a time I was struggling with full length novels: The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle. One of the most charming, well written and surprisingly funny fantasy novels I have ever read. Crucially, it is structured in a way similar to many good children's novels of yore (though it is not itself actually really kidlit) in that it is episodic in a way where you can read a couple chapters at a time before bed very easily. The film is iconic enough I think most people know the basic premise, but the actual book is a shockingly funny affair compared to that, with a level of genre self-awareness that is shocking given how early it was published, and which manages to never be obnoxious, only lovingly self-aware. One to enjoy in short spurts before bed, I feel, which is an excellent way to get back on track with reading IMO.