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I was reading the ‘What to watch instead of Mutant X’ thread in the Gen. Sci-fi section, and one of the posts suggested reading a book (heartily recommended).
So, that set me wondering, what good books have you read lately? For me, it’s the Technomage series, and for good ol’ fashioned sci-fi, nothing beats the nostalgic flavour of the scientific romances (think H.G. Wells and Jules Verne). You?
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Originally posted by The Invisible Lunatic:
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You and your wacky responses!
But seriously, there’s no better book than How To Make An Adventure Playground Out Of Dung In Your Own Backyard That Your Kids Will Love!, as briefly mentioned here
The Long Walk by Stephen King alias Richard Bachman…
****in rules!
Very good choice Dragula! And the best of the Bachman books I’ve read. Must have read it fifteen times by now. BTW, what did you think of The Running Man? The movie was quite the departure from the story.
And while we’re talking about Stephen King, I really liked The Talisman which he co-authored with Peter Straub, and I really liked The Tommyknockers, the TV mini-series based on it was lame. My favourite movie based on a King book was actually The Shining; King loathed Kubrick’s version of it. Carrie was good.
I recently started reading the sort-of-sequel to The Talisman but found it so boring I couldn’t finish it. Think it was called The Dark House or something like that.
As for H.G. Wells which I still read and re-read, my favourite is The Island of Dr. Moreau.
I suppose that my all time favourite book though remains 1984.
[ 27-10-2002: Message edited by: Logan ]
Right now, working on Dan Savage’s response to the William Bennett/Robert Bork social conservative faction, the fine and funny Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America. Buy several copies, give them as gifts to all your pals.
–Aleck
As before mentioned by someone speaking of free speech; The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand which so far I have found to be well written.
I may pick up that book tht the movie Abandon was based on for that movie was interesting. A lot films are playing with those washed color schenes; you know it’s color but not bright color; and as in A Beautiful Mind the main character delusions take center stage; but you don’t know that until the end. Well, you can figure that out relatively easy in the film but what made the film interesting is Katie Holmes. She has a presence in this film that instinct tells you to trust at times and at others you know there is something wrong with her. Bratt was okay as the cop; and the dead but reappearing boyfriend was hot. The surprise was Katie Holmes however.Sorry for being OT
Chung Kuo series by David Wingate
Dragonlance series by various authors, most notably Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Anne Rice books
Anne MacCaffrey book – Crystal Singer series, Pern series and that two book-series thingy with dinosaurs…
David Gemmell books
Terry Pratchett books
Traci Harding (no relation) books
That’s part of the collection… [ 28-10-2002: Message edited by: Chamileon ]
I’m a fickle reader and tend to hop from book to book dependng on my mood. So generally I have about half a dozen on the go at any one time (get’s bloody confusing at times).
At the moment it’s ‘Them: Adventures with Extremists’ by Jon Ronson (non-fiction insite into the world of ‘extremist’ groups. No offense guys, but some of you Yanks scare me a lot more since starting this book. And it’s not just the Americans – David Ike is sitting at the top of the looney tree!!!) – Very good book!
For funny stuff – ‘Phule’s Company’ by Robert Asprin. He writes in a very similar style to Pratchett, but I found him slightly more accessible (certainly more so than Pratchetts later stuff). Just as funny. If you Like Pratchett, go out and find ‘Another Fine Myth’ by Robert Asprin. It is the only book I have ever read in one sitting. I literally could not put it down. Absolute genius.
Also Robert Jordans ‘Wheel of Time’ Chronicles. An epic of Epic proportions. After book 3 I thought the main guy was getting REALLY ‘kin powerful. I was a naive fool (no comment’s please, unless you know me). This series just keeps on building, and it really works. The only trouble is that there are so many characters doing their own thing, you can lose track of who’s doing what. But he has written it in the Babylon 5 way… Drop in a plot thread early that you don’t explore until 2 or 3 books later. I absolutely love this sort of writting. It show forthought and planning that isn’t always apparent in literature. Jordan does it well and often enough to keep me happy.
I’ll stop now, otherwise I’ll be here all day. You’ve stepped into one of my favourite subject, so I could end up going on, ad infinitum. And I haven’t even touched on Horror (King, Herbert, Hutson, Banks, et al), Sci fi (Asimov, Wells, and a million and one pulp novelists), the rest of the fantasy collection (Gemmel, Eddings, Tolkien, …)
I do tend to turn into a bit of an annorak when talking books (and music, and films… bad signs all). Which is strange, cos I don’t spend that much time reading, and still have problems with big words. Go figure.
Damn! The Foundation series! I forgot all about it, and considering that it was the tales of Hari Seldon and Daneel wot started me on sci-fi, it was bloody ungrateful of me. Damn!
And as for Stephen King books, I prefer, in this order:
3:The Stand
2:It
1:Needful ThingsOnce again, Logan inspires with great taste….
Running man was a ****ty movie….
Havent read the book yet, but im getting it soon…
There is another Bachman book, I think its called Rage…..I have only read it in swedish but im trying to find it in english.
the story is about a dude who shoots his teacher and takes his class hostage…..Have you read it???what did you think of it??
Most people say my taste is wack, so thanks!
Rage is a great story! An interesting sort of psychological horror, it even gets you rooting for the murderous juvenile delinquent. Which, of course, is not neccesarily a good thing, good story though. Heard it spawned a copy-cat killer (a student) so I guess it’s really not such a good thing. Still, good book!
Oh and Thinner is another of the Bachman books.
BTW, did I mention that I really like Stephen King’s Pet Cemetary? too? I love his books. He’s such a great creepy writer. It’s no wonder they call him “the Stephen of horror”, ahhh, or do they call him “the King of horror”? I can’t remember, whatever, but he certainly he is a master of terror.
Discworld!!!!1
I like Pratchett, Bujold, Zelazny and Asprin was good in his day. In the past I have enjoyed Clavell (Shogun) and Gary Jennings (Marco Polo and Aztec) amd the publishing epics of the 80’s and early 90’s.
And I am here to tell you that I am not ashamed to admit that I LOVE Harry Potter. 😛 It will be a childrens classic just like ‘The City of Gold and Lead”, Laura Ingalls Wilders stuff, and “A Swiss Family Robinson.”
You watch.I’d win ‘The Long Walk’ if I was given the chance.
One of my favorite novellas. The Running Man was another really good one, the movie sucked pretty bad tho.Right now I’m reading Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb, and just got finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman and The Dispossesed by Ursula k. Leguin, I’d highly recommend both books.
You didn’t specify that they need to be fiction (and these sort of books count because I still take them out of the library on occasion):
As a real film buff, probably my two favourite books are The Oxford History of World Cinema and The Oxford Guide to Film Studies.
Here’s a very funny non-fiction book that anyone who is worried about endangered species should read: Last Chance to See. Actually, you don’t have to even be particualrly interested in the subject, it’s by Douglas Adams and may be my favourite book of his. Actually, there’s a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy forum here, so a lot of you have probably read it already. Wonderful book!
Right now I’m reading Becoming Human by the remarkable Canadian humanitarian Jean Vanier — marvelous! Perhaps one of the best “self-help” books you could choose. I’m just hoping that his wisdom, philosophy and compassion will rub off on me — fat chance! Well, at least I’m making the effort.
Hey, don’t be knockin’ the Wilder stuff since i live a short way from The Little House In the Big Woods. Why that’s what us folks do on a Saturday night in backwoods country along with twisting hay for that “Long Winter”.
Yes, ma’am I’ve read all of those books but I was quite upset when they made that series. That as way too wholesome for me!!! Even I have my limits
!!!!Actually I loved reading the little house on the Praire books. I use to read them to theBrothers, when they were little. And they really got into them I could tell. Especially when one of theBrothers heated up one of my mothers antique irons on the kitchen stove just like the girl in the stories did.
He wasn’t suppose to use the stove of course… nor skorch his shirt, or set a hot iron on my mom’s kitchen table. ROFL!!!!! At least you had brothers that listen to those stories; my brothers would rather cut the hair off my dolls. My brother Len took my prize Barbie doll (an older version which would be worth some cash now) and crewcut her hair; and threw away all of her clothes. I think he wanted her to be GI Barbie or something like that.
I had 4 brothers close to my age while I was growing up so keeping any dolls safe was an impossibility.Yeesh! I guess boys will be boys!
Robin Hobb is good have you read the first trilogy oliviaw?(im prity sure your talking about the liveship books)
Recently I’ve been reading lots of poetry (for year twelve at school) – Roger McGough, Adam Ford, Robert Gray, Zora Cross, Wilfred Owen, John Keats…….. plus lots of Discworld as usual. Just so you all know…..
If I just want to read science fiction I’ll pick up any book on quantum physics because it’s fun to watch physicists pretend they understand it and weave their fictional basis for what’s going on in nature. But for good science fiction, the best thing I’ve read recently is The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem, which reminds me Solaris is going to be released as a movie in a few weeks with G.C. in it. I liked his work in From Dusk To Dawn and I am anticipate good entertainment from his performance so maybe I will stop reading for awhile and bask in some mindwarping sci fi movie fun instead. But if I were forced to pick up another book soon maybe I’d reread Asimov’s Foundation books or go back to EE Doc Smith’s Skylark series, DuQuesne was such a good villain and the series along with the Lensman books was space opera at its best.
God do I love this Rosen. She is the Queen of Bitch. And I mean that in the most complimentary way! http://www.yarddogpress.com/Bitch.htm. Unfortunately her book is not sold on her site. Sigh… but Queen of Denial is sold here http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1892065061/qid=1037453679/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-9330584-8691212?v=glance&s =books&n=507846
She has some other books on her own site from the small press publishing company she runs. I was particularly taken with the book ‘Stories That Won’t Make Your Parents Hurl.’ Which is described as collection of stories that will scare any 20th or 21st century child into behaving, just as those of the Grimm Brothers have scared so many previous generations straight.
No more sugar coating. No PC Garbage. Just plain, simple, if you misbehave in this way, the consequences will be dire!!! http://www.yarddogpress.com/stories.htmI only wish the nieces were little still. This sounds like a fun book.
I can’t wait to meet her at writers con in February. http://www.sadgeezer.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=22&t=000104
good place to ask about recommendations is http://www.sffworld.org/forums – if a mod thinks the link is inappropriate for whatever reason feel free to edit the post(i just put if here because u don’t have a reading forum on this site and i read for longer than i watch tv)
Have a try of some of the following if you’ve already read lord of the rings- you may hate these- make up your own mind on reading them- I prefer books with characterisation over hard physics (well depends on how it’s presented). There’s hundreds of books out there and I’m not even going to pretend this is a definitive list- my bookshelf has a few hundred books on it:
Ender’s Game (OS Card)- was one of my top science fiction novels before stars my destination (see below)
Gateway- Frederik Pohl
Forever War- Joe Haldeman
The Stars My Destination- Alfred Bester (if you liked this one, try The Demolished Man by the same author- rewrote the thinking on telepaths, and some of you may spot the in joke with the author in B5)
Quite a lot of the books and short stories by Philip K. Dick
A song of ice and fire – G.R.R. Martin
Tigana – Guy Gavriel Kay
Earhsea Quartet- Ursula Le Guin
Dune- Frank Herbert
The Book of the New Sun (Gene Wolfe)
Lord of Light- Roger Zelazny
A lot of Gemmell is good- I personally like lion of macedon best, but each to his/her own
Little, Big- John CrowleyGetting a bit more technical:
A lot of Ian M. Banks- start with player of games, since some of his stuff is difficult to get into straight away
William Gibson- Neuromancer
Books by Greg Bear, Asimov, David Brin, Ben Bova, Dan SimmonsComics/graphic novels-
Depends what you’re into, but top one I’d recommend even to non-comic fan is watchmen- one of the best stories in a comic period- never found anyone reading comics who found it crap[ 26-11-2002: Message edited by: fluffy bunny ]
quote
good place to ask about recommendations is http://www.sffworld.org/forums – if a mod thinks the link is inappropriate for whatever reason feel free to edit the post
i did a quick check of the site and it seems like a interesting site to visit. i didn’t see anything unacceptable. the main things that we edit here are personal attacks on other Sadgeezers, racial slurs or something that is just repulsive and offensive to the majority! we like to encourage ‘lively’ discussions, and for the peeps to give their opinions on a wide variety of topics!
Welcome the the Sadgeezer BB Fluffy Bunny! quote:
Originally posted by fluffy bunny:
A lot of Ian M. Banks
Agreed, but don’t get him confused with Ian Banks. Same guy, different genres. Ian M. Banks quite heavy, but rewarding Sci-fi. Ian Banks some of the most unpleasent horror that I have had the revolting pleasure of reading.
Not the sort of mistake you want to make if your not a fan of really rather sick stories. He sure is a twisted puppy. Don’t believe me? Read the Wasp Factory. Amazing book, extemely unpleasent, but a superbly written story.
The books that are based upon the game Starcraft is reall, really good!!!
I suggest the book ‘Jennifer Government’ by Max Barry, and also the website nationstates.net, based on the book (somewhat).
for the harry potter fans if you havent preordered the next book already i recomened amazon.co.uk (im not sure if the .com has the offer)
ive preoreded it for half price £8.50 +p&p (cant remember how much that was) for the hardback edition to to be delived to my door the same day as everyone trys to kill eachother to get a copy in the shops.
and the pirce is for the book not just the preorder (i know placed that are charging c couple of quid just to preorder it)
David Wingate is a very good sci-fi/drama author, he wrote the Chung Kuo series. I’d definately recommend it 🙂
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