name YOUR faves

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  • #35779
    SadGeezer
    Keymaster

    name your favorite books and why. I’ll open it up to fantasy books too, because if the publishers don’t see a difference, why should we?

    ——————
    spooooon

    dead thing pie!

    Much Madness is divinest Sense-
    To a discerning Eye-
    Much Sense-the starkest Madness-
    ‘Tis the Majority
    In this, as All, prevail-
    Assent-and you are sane-
    Demur-you’re straightaway dangerous-
    And handled with a Chain-
    – Emily Dickinson

    #42750
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Do you have a couple of years? I have, at the last count, almost five hundred books that I can’t bear to be parted from; about 75% of which are scifi or fantasy.

    The top five (in no order) are:

    Shards of Honor/Barrayar, L M Bujold (Two halves of one story) It’s very angsty.

    Wizard’s First Rule, T Goodkind. How are they going to get it together?

    Restoree, A McCaffrey. Strong female lead

    The Stand, S King. Yes, I know this is technically horror but it was science that killed most of the people at the start and a nuke that cleaned up: sounds scifi to me

    Diplomacy of Wolves, H Lisle. Werewolves, magic, sexual tension, a quest. What more does a story need? (Oh yes, the ending)

    #42751
    Anonymous
    Guest

    If I had to say, off the top of my head, what my favorite books in the world are, I’d have to say the Dragonlance Saga by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman(at least, all the _good_ books in the series are by them). It’s your basic fantasy–warriors, wizards, evil dragons– but the storytelling and the characters put it a notch above the rest, in my opinion.

    Close runner up would be the Death Gate Cycle, also by Weis and Hickman. Now that I’m thinking about it, they’re actually better than Dragonlance, but I love Dragonlance in the way you can only love the first fantasy series you ever read, the one that opened the door for all the others.

    Also, there’s the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and the Ender books by Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, etc.) That’s all I can think of right now.

    ——————
    Gideon: I thought you said you don’t hold a grudge.
    Galen: I don’t. I have no surviving enemies. At all.

    “I’d far rather be happy than right any day.”
    “And are you?”
    “No. That’s where it falls down, of course.”–Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

    “It’s all in the mind.”–George Harrison

    #42752
    Anonymous
    Guest

    My favourite books (in no particular order)are-
    The Dune series a true classic.
    Do androids dream of electric sheep
    The Time machine
    The robot series by Issac Asimov
    Brave New World
    and for a laugh the Discworld series (if its allowed)

    ——————
    The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long and you have burned very very brightly Roy.Endon Tyrell-Bladerunner

    #42753
    Anonymous
    Guest

    I haven’t read some of those, I’ll have to work on it.

    maryavatar- I have the same problem!

    some of my faves are:

    anything by Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, and Andre Norton.

    next, anything by the four D’s or quadruple R’s (David Drake, David Weber, David Eddings, David Brin, Robert Jordan, L. Ron Hubbard, Robert Heinlen(sp?), and Ray Bradbury)

    then, anything by Peter S. Beagle (especially the Last Unicorn), J.R.R. Tolkien, or Marion Zimmer Bradley.

    Marion Zimmer Bradley died a few months ago, it was truly a tragedy. now no one will ever know what happened in the Darkover universe (her last book was a set-up for a sequel).

    #42754
    Anonymous
    Guest

    quote:


    Originally posted by brainplague:

    Marion Zimmer Bradley died a few months ago, it was truly a tragedy. now no one will ever know what happened in the Darkover universe (her last book was a set-up for a sequel).


    Yeah, I felt just horrible when I heard. Firstly because an amazing talent had vanished from the world and secondly because now I’ll never know about the weird world laran that Domenic had.

    #42755
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Puckoon! (Spike Milligan)Laugh? I nearly did!

    #42756
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Here are 20 of my favorite science fiction novels, short stories, etc.-

    A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
    2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
    2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke
    The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
    The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells
    The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
    The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
    Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein
    Man After Man by Dougal Dixon
    Expedition by Wayne Douglas Barlowe
    Alien Nation: Dark Horizon by K.W. Jeter
    Alien Nation: Body and Soul by Peter David
    20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
    To Serve Man by Damon Knight
    Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges
    Chaos in Wonderland: Visual Adventures in a Fractal World by Clifford Pickover
    The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
    The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A. E. Van Vogt
    Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
    Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell

    #42757
    Anonymous
    Guest

    um, I think it’s a butterfly.

    oops- forgot Piers Anthony’s books, especially the incarnations of immortality books. A prime example of dunceness to forget one of the coolest, particularly for someone from xanth. (he’s really less demonic than one would think)

    #42758
    Anonymous
    Guest

    I could make a long list of books and authers too but I will keep it short. I read a lot of Larry Niven in the late ’70s and still think hes great.
    Orson Scott Card, the Seventh Son series.
    TERRY PRATCHET
    And one book to recamend- Tuff Voyaging by George RR Martin. I just like it.
    I am the Monkey!

    #42759
    Aeryn Crichton
    Participant

    Here are a few of my favorite things –
    1.”The Puppet Masters” – the movie was pretty good (although very different from the book), but read the book to get the full experience.
    2.”Starship Troopers” – I read this for my adolescent lit class, and I just loved it!
    3.”Something Wicked this Way Comes” – wow! Bradbury is just a genius. I can’t say enough good things about this book.
    4.”The Catswold Portal” – my brother gave me this book about 5 years ago, and I’ve read it so many times since.

    #42760
    Anonymous
    Guest

    I have two words for all of you: TERRY PRATCHETT. Of all my books, the Discworlds are the ones I couldn’t live without. But, as well as those:
    The Prodigal Sun, The Dying Light, and The Dark Imbalance – by Sean Williams and Shane Dix. Great new trilogy, good female lead, but the last one disappointed me a bit.
    The Serrano Legacy series – by Elizabeth Moon. Written by an ex-Marine. Great characters, really good stories.
    Into The Dark – by Victor Kelleher. Fantasy this time, and not really that in some parts. About Count Dracula. Absolutely fantastic book.
    The Anubis Gates – by Tim Powers. Ancient Egypt meets Elizabethan (?) England. Kinda tricky to follow, but very very good.

    Why stop now, just when I’m hating it?
    Marvin the Paranoid Android

    #42761
    Anonymous
    Guest

    In no specific order…

    Any Steven Brust (“To Reign in Hell,” “Cowboy Feng’s Space Bar and Grill” and the Vlad Taltos series in particular.)

    Joel Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame series. (I know, I know. It’s the old “D&D game becomes reality” theme. But the series was a first for me, so I’ll always feel affectionately towards it.)

    Orson Scott Card’s Ender Quartet (and peripherals).

    Piers Anthony – Incarnations of Immortality.

    Doug Adams – Hitchhikers Guide…

    Joe Haldeman – “The Forever War”

    …and too many more to begin to name.

    I suppose graphic novels don’t really count, since lots of folks regard them as nothing more than glorified comic books, but I love “Sandman” & “Preacher” anyway.

    Peace-
    summerdaysands

    #42762
    Anonymous
    Guest

    I guess mine would follow these other great titles:

    Stranger in a Strange Land (dated now but some very cool sci fi and consepts)

    The Golden Torc (A fantasy series by Julian May. Great fun and the first fantasy stuff I read that didn’t depress me, especially since the badies were only slightly worse than the goodies(I’d just read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant).)

    Lord of the Rings (Nothing has gripped me in terms of epic story since.)

    The Colour of Magic (At first I thought it was a ****-take out of the Ringworld Series, but it soon grew into something much more substantial – The colour of magic is light blue by the way And by the way, colour is spelled with a ‘u’.)

    The Foundation Trillogy ( I know, I know… but it’s still THE definitive Sci Fi novel in my view. If you start a child off with ‘The Foundation Trillogy’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ they will develop a healthy and natural sci fi hobby – HEY! that’s what happened to me! )

    [ 03-10-2001: Message edited by: SadGeezer ]

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