Favourite books?

[Davinq]

10 Little Indians. Try that, it's one of those rare books that actually has unpredictable twists.

[CSI]

Sherlock Holmes; got all Sir Authur Conan Doyles books on the famous fictional detective

 

No ****, Sherlock...I love that book too...

[Jeff]

I can't remember how many Sherlock Holmes books I've read but the one I remember really enjoying was the Hound of the Baskervilles.

[DarthAve]

Sherlock Holmes; got all Sir Authur Conan Doyles books on the famous fictional detective

Hound of the Baskervilles FTW.

 

Also "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie, "Hannibal" by Thomas Harris, "Kitchen Confidential: Tales from the Culinary Underbelly" by Anthony Bourdain, "The Nasty Bits" also by Anthony Bourdain, As mentioned above "1984" by George Orwell, "Memiors of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden, "Atonement" by Ian McEwan, and "The Debutante Divorcee" by Plum Sykes.

[Bee Hoon]

'Dogs of Babel' by Carolyn Parkhurst is firmly on the list of my favourites. I also love 'The Wind-up Bird Chronicle' by Haruki Murakami; it's so wonderfully dreamy! Well, with some pretty traumatic scenes at times, but anyway:P 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' by Milan Kundera is another great book. It's also somewhat dreamy, how he takes you through the thoughts of all his characters.

 

For sheer weirdness, read 'Cat's Cradle' by Kurt Vonnegut and 'The Master and Margarita' by Mikhail Bulgakov. They are good books, just...weird.

 

My favourite fantasy, oddly enough, and also the book which I have read the most times is 'Wild Magic' by Tamora Pierce. The language is simple, but very effective.

 

Edit: How could I forget Terry Pratchett's 'Nightwatch'?? Read it. Love it.

[JCarter426]

Don't forget Robots and Empire, the last robot novel and the book that ties all of his series together. It's got the one of best if not the best book he ever wrote.

 

I'll have to check it out when I'm done with Robots of Dawn.

[Astrotoy7]

too many to list... I think The Aeneid, Illiad and Odyssey are remarkable pieces of work, as are many of the (classical) Greek tragedies. More recently, I have to say Mike Stackpole's "I, Jedi" is easily my favorite Star Wars book, followed by the mind blowing "Traitor"... I love those NJO h8ters who like to can it, and have never read it... fools are they...

 

mtfbwya

[Jvstice]

EW: As far as OSC goes, I honestly liked his tales of alvin maker series better than the other series.

 

I'll have to check it out when I'm done with Robots of Dawn.

I liked it a lot. It changed my point of view in going back through when I reread prelude to foundation and foundation and earth, as well as being a better story.

 

Did you ever read Isaac Asimov's Nemisis, or the End of Eternity? The plots are both mentioned (and misquoted) within other books within the whole robots/empire/foundation megaseries. Asimov was still wrestling with whether to include them as canonically within the same universe as the other stories or not when he died. A lot of fans were militantly against including them since it was only a casual mention of each within 2 stories, and seemed to contradict established history from other books, as known by the general populance of his world at the time.

 

I think it makes for a better story if they're included. There's no reason that the general populance of earth in I Robot had to be aware of the events in Nemisis, and vice versa. Governments often keep things away from one another as well as their citizens. In I Robot, U.S. Robotics has a contract with the U.S. government at the point where they discover habitable other planets. That does change in later stories as the Machines get given a bigger role, but still no direct contadiction. The only earth government that gets mentioned in Nemisis is the U.N. And the general population isn't aware of easy straightforward travel to other stars. But that doesn't rule out a stealthy method of colonizing those nearby stars mentioned in "I Robot" from taking place concurrently.

 

Likewise, the whole point of The End of Eternity is that it's a time travel story where the goal of one of the characters is to change the past to erase the present they actually live in and erase the method of recreating that present by changing their past. If it served as a prologue to the whole robot series, and it were assumed the specific time traveler with that agenda was sucessful, then it would fit as a decent prologue to everything else.

 

Samuel Dravis: If you liked Douglas Adams, what do you think of Terry Pratchett? He does the same thing with fantasy writing as Adams did for SF writing and is extremely prolific. Too bad he's got altzheimers though, so he's only committing to writing one book at a time while he still has his mind. Kurt Vonnegut was pretty good too, but he's not literally laugh until you cry funny.

 

Till we have faces was great. I would have liked to see what he would have done with his dark tower story that's been published posthumously, as well as that one about helen of troy.

 

Darth Moeller: I liked Doyle's Lost World too. There were others in that series, but I haven't gone beyond the first book as of yet though. It's actually been so long since I've read holmes that I've forgotten most of the stories. I really need to go back through.

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite author was Roger Zelazny.

[JCarter426]

Did you ever read Isaac Asimov's Nemisis, or the End of Eternity?

 

Nemesis was actually the first of his books I read, years ago. That was an odd one. Very good, though. And I've been meaning to get my hands on End of Eternity for a while (after I finish the other two Robot novels, I guess ).

[Samuel Dravis]

EW: As far as OSC goes, I honestly liked his tales of alvin maker series better than the other series.

I liked those as well, although I wouldn't say they were my favorite from him. Honestly I think it's a tossup between A Planet Called Treason and Ender's Game for me.

 

Did you ever read Isaac Asimov's Nemesis, or the End of Eternity? The plots are both mentioned (and misquoted) within other books within the whole robots/empire/foundation megaseries. Asimov was still wrestling with whether to include them as canonically within the same universe as the other stories or not when he died. A lot of fans were militantly against including them since it was only a casual mention of each within 2 stories, and seemed to contradict established history from other books, as known by the general populance of his world at the time.

 

I think it makes for a better story if they're included. There's no reason that the general populace of earth in I Robot had to be aware of the events in Nemesis, and vice versa. Governments often keep things away from one another as well as their citizens. In I Robot, U.S. Robotics has a contract with the U.S. government at the point where they discover habitable other planets. That does change in later stories as the Machines get given a bigger role, but still no direct contradiction. The only earth government that gets mentioned in Nemesis is the U.N. And the general population isn't aware of easy straightforward travel to other stars. But that doesn't rule out a stealthy method of colonizing those nearby stars mentioned in "I Robot" from taking place concurrently.

 

Likewise, the whole point of The End of Eternity is that it's a time travel story where the goal of one of the characters is to change the past to erase the present they actually live in and erase the method of recreating that present by changing their past. If it served as a prologue to the whole robot series, and it were assumed the specific time traveler with that agenda was sucessful, then it would fit as a decent prologue to everything else.

I also found those books fun. And time travel in the Foundation series is very different from the feel you get from the other books - just like the encounter with some aliens that leave later on. Having small parts like that makes the Foundation universe more interesting, at least to me.

 

Samuel Dravis: If you liked Douglas Adams, what do you think of Terry Pratchett? He does the same thing with fantasy writing as Adams did for SF writing and is extremely prolific. Too bad he's got altzheimers though, so he's only committing to writing one book at a time while he still has his mind.

I've read a few of his books. They're good, just not my favorites.

 

Kurt Vonnegut was pretty good too, but he's not literally laugh until you cry funny.

The only book by Vonnegut I've read is Cat's Cradle. I liked that one but it also is not a favorite of mine.

 

Till we have faces was great. I would have liked to see what he would have done with his dark tower story that's been published posthumously, as well as that one about helen of troy.

I never was able to get into his Space trilogy, but reading Till We Have Faces was definitely impressive. Interestingly enough, I didn't even really start to like the book until the last quarter of it.

[Jvstice]

JCarter: I'd like to think that if he'd lived longer we might have seen him tie it all together with the Gain's having found some artifact of the time travelers or Nemisis, and learning that all human history in space was engineered from before the Robots.

 

Samuel: For OSC, most of what I read was his standalone books, and I really haven't looked since 1991 other than picking back up on the Alvin Maker series when I saw than new sequels had come out.

 

You can get Blind Alley and Mother Earth (the story about the build up to the original war between earth and the spacers) in an anthology called The Early Asimov. I got it from Amazon a few years ago. I really liked Blind Alley, but he's done a lot better writing than Mother Earth and that wasn't nearly as compelling as usual for him. Not in the same universe at all, but did you ever read "The Gods Themselves?"

 

Terry Pratchett tends to get funnier the longer he writes, but some characters tend to be funnier P.O.V. characters than others. I used to give out Terry Pratchett books to friends every now and again. And some really loved his writing. Most of those that didn't couldn't get beyond that some of the characters do some very ridiculous things.

 

As for Vonnegut, I read Slaughterhouse 5 and Hocus Pocus. I've meant to get a look as some others, but really hadn't. But those are the two I've heard most reccomended and they were pretty good. Actually, Vonnegut was in Dresden when the Allies bombed it. Slaughterhouse 5 is largely told from the point of view of a survivor of Dresden who's gone a little crazy and hallucinates a good bit. It's kind of pitiful, but there are some pretty funny parts.

 

Hocus Pocus is about a Prison Break across the lake from an all boy's school. I don't think Vonnegut put as much of his own life into that one.

 

I liked the first two of the space trilogy when I was growing up. I've never actually got beyond page 60 on the 3rd. The dark tower did borrow the main character Ransom from the first two of the space trilogy, but was more travel between alternate universes than space travel as its focus. Actually the 1st 2 in the space trilogy I liked to read back to back with Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter of Mars series.

 

I liked the premise of Till we Have Faces. Take a myth where someone is said to have been lying about something they saw for one second in the corner of her eye, and tell the point of veiw as though they really believed what they were saying they saw.

[Samuel Dravis]

Samuel: For OSC, most of what I read was his standalone books, and I really haven't looked since 1991 other than picking back up on the Alvin Maker series when I saw than new sequels had come out.

If you're curious, I do recommend Wyrms and A Planet Called Treason (I don't know whether the rewritten version entitled Treason is good or not - I have the original publication). Another novel I have recently read by him was Magic Street. I liked that one as well, and all the more interesting because he uses the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Worthing Saga are also worth a read, but I don't remember that one being as polished as his later fiction.

 

You can get Blind Alley and Mother Earth (the story about the build up to the original war between earth and the spacers) in an anthology called The Early Asimov. I got it from Amazon a few years ago. I really liked Blind Alley, but he's done a lot better writing than Mother Earth and that wasn't nearly as compelling as usual for him.

I'm not sure I remember reading Mother Earth, so I can't comment. I looked around for The Early Asimov on my shelf, but I can't find it, which is strange - I've got like twenty Asimov anthologies and novels on my shelf.

 

Not in the same universe at all, but did you ever read "The Gods Themselves?"

Yes I have. That was a fun read, but definitely strange. I thought the pump-thing was an interesting plot device.

 

Terry Pratchett tends to get funnier the longer he writes, but some characters tend to be funnier P.O.V. characters than others. I used to give out Terry Pratchett books to friends every now and again. And some really loved his writing. Most of those that didn't couldn't get beyond that some of the characters do some very ridiculous things.

Oh, I appreciate the rediculous. Pratchett and Douglas Adams use the best kind of humor, IMO.

As for Vonnegut, I read Slaughterhouse 5 and Hocus Pocus. I've meant to get a look as some others, but really hadn't. But those are the two I've heard most recommended and they were pretty good. Actually, Vonnegut was in Dresden when the Allies bombed it. Slaughterhouse 5 is largely told from the point of view of a survivor of Dresden who's gone a little crazy and hallucinates a good bit. It's kind of pitiful, but there are some pretty funny parts.

Same problem here - just haven't gotten around to reading the others. I've had Slaughterhouse 5 on my list for a while. Some day!

 

I liked the premise of Till we Have Faces. Take a myth where someone is said to have been lying about something they saw for one second in the corner of her eye, and tell the point of view as though they really believed what they were saying they saw.

Yes, it's definitely a different take. I've loved mythology for a long time (as you might be able to tell from my favorites above), and I just couldn't pass it up. Often if you just read myths without imagining them they sound stale and lifeless, but Lewis has shown it doesn't have to be like that.

 

Another book I've enjoyed was Soul Catcher by Frank Herbert. Yes, it's the same guy that wrote Dune, but it has nothing to do with science fiction. It was excellent. While I'm talking about Herbert, The White Plague was also good - it was about a genetically engineered plague. It was eerily, unsettlingly realistic.

[Serpentine Cougar]

If manga counts as books, then I'd also add FullMetal Alchemist. Very interesting characters and setting, and you never know what's going to happen next.

 

I'm currently making my way through A Tale of Two Cities by the master storyteller himself, Charlie D.

Yeah, its kind of long and drawn out, but his writing is so good. The ending makes it all worth it, though. Tale of Two Cities is one of my favorite classics.

 

I'll wholeheartedly second this, and add books 2-8...

 

Speaker for the Dead

Xenocide

Children of the Mind

Ender's Shadow

Shadow of the Hegemon

Shadow Puppets

Shadow of the Giant, all by Orson Scott Card.

Yeah, I need to read those sometime; haven't gotten around to it yet. My sister loved Ender's Game as well, but she doesn't want to read any of the rest of the series because she thinks it'll ruin the feel of the first one. Do the later books take the story in a completely different direction?

[Samuel Dravis]

They're different, but I think Speaker for the Dead was just as good as Ender's Game. The others are slightly less interesting, but seeing as how they're direct sequels to Speaker for the Dead, you'll want to read them anyway.

 

The Shadow books are concurrent with Ender's Game. Ender's Shadow is the best one, and reads very much like Ender's Game.

[JCarter426]

Yeah, its kind of long and drawn out, but his writing is so good. The ending makes it all worth it, though. Tale of Two Cities is one of my favorite classics.

 

Excellent analysis. I'm sure you wouldn't be surprised to hear that Charlie got paid by the word. Still is a classic, even if it is a lengthy one (or is it a classic because it is lengthy? ).

[Marius Fett]

I like The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings books, i've read Star Wars: Shatterpoint, which was good, I also like anything related to history. Especially WWII.

[Gurges-Ahter]

The Ender series was great, especially Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. Ender's Game was more sci-fi in nature while the next 3 were more philosophical.

 

As for fantasy/sci-fi series, nothing compares to A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin. So far only 4 of the 7 intended books have been released, and they are amazing. They are lengthy, for sure, but in my opinion are better stories and better written than LOTR.

[Salzella]

I have few favourite single books, so I'll list some authors, and their highlights instead

 

Terry Pratchett - Monstrous Regiment, Going Postal, Night Watch

Chris Brookmyre - Sacred Art of Stealing, A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away, One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night

Carl Hiaasen - Sick Puppy, Stormy Weather

Iain M. Banks - Use Of Weapons, Consider Phlebas, Against A Dark Background, The Algebraist

And the Legacy of the Force series, the only Star Wars EU books i can bring myself to read.

[Serpentine Cougar]

*Adds the rest of the Ender books to his list of books to read someday*

 

Still is a classic, even if it is a lengthy one (or is it a classic because it is lengthy? ).

I think that's just the style of writing back then. People spoke in longer sentences, too.