Favorite Reads

[H2S]

Qfwfq calling...

Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino is one of my all time faves.

never heard of it...
just ordered it...
thank you

gonna read the last story - THE SPIRAL - first.
(something way compelling about a rendering of the life and times of a mollusk)

 

[Tai Chi≈Surfing]

never heard of it...
just ordered it...
thank you

gonna read the last story - THE SPIRAL - first.
(something way compelling about a rendering of the life and times of a mollusk)

You're welcome. Nice. Just curious tho...did you order the original ?, or the "Complete" Cosmicomics..which also contains another collection of short stories of his from t zero? Which btw, I have yet to read, and will get around to do eventually.

But whichever one...I know you'll be in for a treat.

Enjoy.

* also... I'd like to suggest Mr. Palomar as well, it's his final book before he passed.

 

[H2S]

 

[Nascar Addict]

Mine is "Big Red." Three months aboard a Trident nuclear submarine.


Or "The Death of the U.S.S. Thresher". The story of America's deadliest Sub disaster.

Or "In Harms Way." About the U.S.S. Indianapolis. It's sinking at the end of World War II, and the horror afterwards.

I love military stuff. When I'm not reading tech manuals, or playing on the internet.

 

[Midnightangel]

I'm currently rereading, 'Lisa, Bright and Dark' by John Neufeld.

 

[H2S]

To be enjoyed with a handful of anti-depressants...

I'm currently rereading, 'Lisa, Bright and Dark' by John Neufeld.

jebus...I just read the reviews on LISA...

takes a tougher, more clinical disposition to read (re-read?) those kind of stories than I possess these days.

 

[Cave_Johnson]

"Dirty Daddy" by Bob Saget

 

[H2S]

Because the process of driving off water depends on temperature, not all subduction zones will be alike. Some oceanic plates have been sitting below a cold ocean for over a hundred million years, providing lots of time for the rock to cool. At the southern end of the Cascades in the American Northwest, on the other hand, the ocean plate may be as little as 6 million years old when it vanishes beneath the trench. That plate will be significantly warmer, meaning it won’t have to dive as far into the Earth’s interior to heat up enough to start cooking off its water. (Like apple pies, oceanic crust takes forever to cool.)

Magma beneath the Cascade volcanoes might be special blend | Ars Technica

subduction - plate tectonics, where one continental plate slides beneath the another - is the earth's method of recycling & renewing itself...never heard the term until I read Brightness Reef/1995 by DAVID BRIN. Brin's 6-book "Uplift Series" is a (imo - mandatory) bucket list item for serious sci-fi fans. Startide Rising/1984 won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards - deservedly so!

 

[Edonidd]

I mostly (98% ish) read Fantasy, and I don't see a lot of that in this thread, but I'll add some of my favorite reads.

First though, I don't know if you read any fantasy H2S, but skimming through some of the excerpts you posted I think you might like "The Prince of Nothing" series by R. Scott Baker. Personally I've found I'm apparently not smart enough to read it, but a lot of fantasy readers love it. Baker was a philosophy major, and the book is filled with a bunch of existentialist stuff and heavy, HEAVY prose. I just can't chew through it. I bought the whole trilogy and books that size usually take me a week of light reading, or often one long night if I get especially hooked. Both times I've tried reading it, the first book takes me a month to get through, mostly forcing myself to read it. And I have made it part way into book 2 twice before giving up. It's not my style at all, but you might like it a lot more.

My personal favorite reads.
1. Malazan Books of the Fallen series - by Steven Erikson.
Many people actually hate this series. It throws you into a completely unique fantasy world, and does so with absolutely zero background information and no sudden "info dumps" by the end of the fifth book or so of the 10 book series you may understand what happened in book 1. If you're really paying attention. It also has kind of a Dragon Ball Z or Superman vibe, where threats to destroy everything kind of just pop up out of nowhere, and each is more powerful than the last. Also Erikson (and his editors) are horrible with details. A minor character shows up in book 1 and book 2 or 3, but as a different gender, just because he forgot what he wrote. If little details like that bother you, don't even start reading it. Read it for the big picture and the story overall.

It also has what may be the single best book I have ever read, and in several spots brought up more emotion in me than I thought possible in reading a book. If you do read it, when you start questioning things in your head and try to piece things together and make sense of things (and you will. Trust me, you will) remember this mantra; "The timeline is not important. The timeline is not important."

2. A Song of Ice and Fire - George RR Martin
The polar opposite of Erikson in almost every detail. Erikson has a beginning and ending in mind, then sits down and writes the whole thing in almost one go. His books went from starting writing to on the shelves in an average of about 11 months. Martin on the other hand may spend 11 months reworking one chapter that he already wrote. And Martin would never confuse any characters gender, in fact he could probably tell you today what each character was wearing, and what they ate at a feast in book 1. Just about the only thing the two writers do have in common is their ability to tell a story. They're the two best in the genre at that. This is what Game of Thrones TV show is based on BTW.

3. Shogun - James Cleveland
Not fantasy, but the best one off story I have ever read that managed to keep my attention. Actually with how alien the Japanese culture is to both myself and the protagonist, one could easily argue that it has more in common with Fantasy books than any other genre.

4. The Stormlight Archives - Brandon Sanderson
A very new series with only 2 (very big) books written of a planned 10. It's very new to my list, but has worked itself way up very quickly.

5. Kingkiller Chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
I really didn't want to like this one. Picture in your head the most annoying hipster guy you can. He probably has a big beard, wears "ironic" t shirts most likely drinks fancy microbrews, and can probably go on for hours telling you shit you don't give a shit about on various mundane things like bicycles and musical instruments. That guy you're picturing? Patrick Rothfuss. But damn it, he tells a good story. Only 2 books are out of his planned trilogy, and he very proudly writes at George RR Martin speeds. But it's already being made into a television series and many people think it may be the next Game of Thrones.

6. Gentlemen Bastards - Scott Lynch
Author had a serious mental breakdown which delayed book 3 by years and years. The love interest of the main character was hinted at for the first two books, and we were supposed to meet her for the first time in book 3. He had stated all along that her character was based on his perfect wife. His "perfect" wife divorced him sometime after book 2 and he ended up battling serious depression. Which I think it's safe to say definitely ended up affecting book 3 when he finally wrote it. Book 1 of the series was as good as almost any other book out there though, and book 2 was way above average. So it will be interesting to see book 4.

7. Dagger and Coin - Daniel Abraham
Abraham is a fun read for me. Erikson was an archeologist and history major. He based his books as a history book of a long dead culture. Baker was a philosophy major and based his stories on that. Rothfuss is a singer or musician or wannabe at least, and used that as a huge catalyst. Well Abraham must have been an Economics major (like me) and uses that (for a second series in a row) as a major point to move the plot forward. It's fun seeing a character who truly understands the big picture in economics becomes more powerful than kings and dragons and generals and magicians and whoever else. Obviously all sorts of liberties are taken to make that character 100 times smarter than anyone else in the world, yet still able to break the plans simple enough to have even the dumbest reader understand them.

 

[Edonidd]

I do not read much sci fi, but if you haven't read Frank Herbert's Dune series, you really should give it a shot. Also Orson Scott Cards Ender's Game series is excellent. There's good news - both are available to watch. Enders game is out in the big screen now, and Dune is out on DVD, not the real shitty one from the 80s, but the newer one from 2000.

I want to give you a zinger here. Pick up "The Black Company" by Glenn Cook. It's a first in a fantasy series about a mercenary military unit that hires on with the bad guys. This is the one series that got me hooked on Dark Fantasy, and spoiled me to the "Everyone comes out Alive and Ok in the end" fallacy.

And why not try Fantasy anyway? Check out Nine Princes in Amber, Malazan Book of the Fallen, or Game of Thrones series. Also out there is The Wheel of Time series. Try the Sword of Shannara series, pretty good for the first seven or so stand alone books.

Dragonriders of Pern, anyone? Excellent story, and can fall into both Fantasy or Sci Fi.

Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn fantasy series is good also.

Shit, this is why I requested a Book Forum. I have so much to share and one thread doesn't do it.

Your post makes me both excited and very nervous.

Excited because I've never heard of Nine Princes in Amber, and you have it listed right next to my favorite two series of all time. And The Black Company while it's not a favorite, I do like some of the books.

Nervous because you thought anyone should see the Enders Game movie, or that it had anything in common with the book of the same name. Nervous because you liked Pern and Shananara both series that I read long long ago, and left to adolescents along with David Eddings 4 series, Dragonlance and other books I grew up reading. Wheel of Time started out with all the makings of being the best series of all time. But it fell way, way off years before Jordan died leaving it unfinished. Although I have Sanderson own series listed among my favorites (well one of them, I didn't care for Mistborn) I thought his writing in WoT was an absolute butcher job.

If you really like that classic Arthurian fantasy formula of boy finds magic sword and saves the world, Raymond e First is the one name that should be mentioned. I think it's been a tired cliche for a whole lot of years, but Feist at least does it well. He found his formula and keeps cranking out books in the same overarching world every year or so. Magician is the original and the best though. The one time he deviated from that simple formula was when he co-authored the Mistress of the Empire trilogy. I liked that one a lot as it seemed to borrow heavily from Shogun by Clavell, another personal favorite.

I guess I'll just apprehensively order Nine Princes in Amber, but I would have been more confident if you had mentioned less of the fantasy that gave fantasy such a bad name for so long amongst other genre readers. Even if it wasn't my favorites, if you would have recommended Joel Abercrombie, Mercedes Lackey, Brent Weaks (Weeks?), Mickey Zucker Reichart, or any of the other big names in modern fantasy I would have felt safer.

Reading fantasy for the last 25 years I read a whole lot of really, REALLY bad stuff. The genre has grown up quite a bit recently, and the Internet has helped a ton too, so there is nothing I hate more than reading bad fantasy now.

 

[Edonidd]

Can't edit last post. Didn't put 2+2 together and realize you meant Zelazny's Amber Chronicles. Which is older (and older feeling) than anything on either of our lists.

 

[beardown07]

Man, it depends on where ya are in life....when I was a youngin', I loved Robert Fulghum....The Prophet by Kahil Gibran is a great read that you can do in a day, but go back to for a lifetime.

Too many to remember.

 

[Caliskinsfan]

Chronicles of Narnia
LOTR trilogy
The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo trilogy
The Count of Monte Cristo
Word of Honor
A Room with a View
Unbearable Lightness of Being
Catcher in the Rye, Franny & Zooey, Nine Stories
Sherlock Holmes
The Prophet
The Tao of Pooh
The Fountainhead
Pride and Prejudice
Outlander

I stuck to the books that immediately came to mind that I've read multiple times and enjoyed.

 

[H2S]

TEXAS RISING is a promising looking 10-hour miniseries starting Memorial Day.
Everyone has time enough to prep for it by reading this:

 

[PatsFan2003]

Someone mentioned Military History and I've always found these enjoyable.

A Bridge Too Far -Cornelius Ryan - Much better than the movie which wasn't bad...
Civil war - Bruce Catton.

I mention them because both write decent histories but won't bury you in the details. Unlike someone like Shelby Foote.

I found this in a used book section for $4. A real find. Very good.

Stalingrad : Antony Beevor

 

[Hank Kingsley]

I read fiction only. Hiaasen, Leonard, Ellroy, Connelly, Lee Child, and Preston and Lincoln Child, etc.

But also:

Military Sci Fi by John Ringo - first in a series titled "A Hymn Before Battle" - A group of pacifist intergallactics come to earth to conscript us for our war like qualities against the Posleen, alligator headed centaurs....

Alternate history - SM Stirling - "Island in the See of Time" - first in a series - Nantucket Island and all "aboard" find themselves in the distant past with whatever they brung with them.....

 

[NickVT10]

I mostly (98% ish) read Fantasy, and I don't see a lot of that in this thread, but I'll add some of my favorite reads.

First though, I don't know if you read any fantasy H2S, but skimming through some of the excerpts you posted I think you might like "The Prince of Nothing" series by R. Scott Baker. Personally I've found I'm apparently not smart enough to read it, but a lot of fantasy readers love it. Baker was a philosophy major, and the book is filled with a bunch of existentialist stuff and heavy, HEAVY prose. I just can't chew through it. I bought the whole trilogy and books that size usually take me a week of light reading, or often one long night if I get especially hooked. Both times I've tried reading it, the first book takes me a month to get through, mostly forcing myself to read it. And I have made it part way into book 2 twice before giving up. It's not my style at all, but you might like it a lot more.

My personal favorite reads.
1. Malazan Books of the Fallen series - by Steven Erikson.
Many people actually hate this series. It throws you into a completely unique fantasy world, and does so with absolutely zero background information and no sudden "info dumps" by the end of the fifth book or so of the 10 book series you may understand what happened in book 1. If you're really paying attention. It also has kind of a Dragon Ball Z or Superman vibe, where threats to destroy everything kind of just pop up out of nowhere, and each is more powerful than the last. Also Erikson (and his editors) are horrible with details. A minor character shows up in book 1 and book 2 or 3, but as a different gender, just because he forgot what he wrote. If little details like that bother you, don't even start reading it. Read it for the big picture and the story overall.

It also has what may be the single best book I have ever read, and in several spots brought up more emotion in me than I thought possible in reading a book. If you do read it, when you start questioning things in your head and try to piece things together and make sense of things (and you will. Trust me, you will) remember this mantra; "The timeline is not important. The timeline is not important."

2. A Song of Ice and Fire - George RR Martin
The polar opposite of Erikson in almost every detail. Erikson has a beginning and ending in mind, then sits down and writes the whole thing in almost one go. His books went from starting writing to on the shelves in an average of about 11 months. Martin on the other hand may spend 11 months reworking one chapter that he already wrote. And Martin would never confuse any characters gender, in fact he could probably tell you today what each character was wearing, and what they ate at a feast in book 1. Just about the only thing the two writers do have in common is their ability to tell a story. They're the two best in the genre at that. This is what Game of Thrones TV show is based on BTW.

3. Shogun - James Cleveland
Not fantasy, but the best one off story I have ever read that managed to keep my attention. Actually with how alien the Japanese culture is to both myself and the protagonist, one could easily argue that it has more in common with Fantasy books than any other genre.

4. The Stormlight Archives - Brandon Sanderson
A very new series with only 2 (very big) books written of a planned 10. It's very new to my list, but has worked itself way up very quickly.

5. Kingkiller Chronicles - Patrick Rothfuss
I really didn't want to like this one. Picture in your head the most annoying hipster guy you can. He probably has a big beard, wears "ironic" t shirts most likely drinks fancy microbrews, and can probably go on for hours telling you shit you don't give a shit about on various mundane things like bicycles and musical instruments. That guy you're picturing? Patrick Rothfuss. But damn it, he tells a good story. Only 2 books are out of his planned trilogy, and he very proudly writes at George RR Martin speeds. But it's already being made into a television series and many people think it may be the next Game of Thrones.

6. Gentlemen Bastards - Scott Lynch
Author had a serious mental breakdown which delayed book 3 by years and years. The love interest of the main character was hinted at for the first two books, and we were supposed to meet her for the first time in book 3. He had stated all along that her character was based on his perfect wife. His "perfect" wife divorced him sometime after book 2 and he ended up battling serious depression. Which I think it's safe to say definitely ended up affecting book 3 when he finally wrote it. Book 1 of the series was as good as almost any other book out there though, and book 2 was way above average. So it will be interesting to see book 4.

7. Dagger and Coin - Daniel Abraham
Abraham is a fun read for me. Erikson was an archeologist and history major. He based his books as a history book of a long dead culture. Baker was a philosophy major and based his stories on that. Rothfuss is a singer or musician or wannabe at least, and used that as a huge catalyst. Well Abraham must have been an Economics major (like me) and uses that (for a second series in a row) as a major point to move the plot forward. It's fun seeing a character who truly understands the big picture in economics becomes more powerful than kings and dragons and generals and magicians and whoever else. Obviously all sorts of liberties are taken to make that character 100 times smarter than anyone else in the world, yet still able to break the plans simple enough to have even the dumbest reader understand them.

Any news on the TV series for The Kingkiller Chronicles? Only thing I have seen is that Fox picked it up 2 years ago. Those books are great and I am pretty excited about the idea of a show.

 

[Edonidd]

Any news on the TV series for The Kingkiller Chronicles? Only thing I have seen is that Fox picked it up 2 years ago. Those books are great and I am pretty excited about the idea of a show.

This is the last thing I saw about it.

Kingkiller Chronicles TV Show: Can the Next "Game of Thrones" Come from the Creators of "The Bernie Mac Show" and "Roswell"? Hint: No

I'm thinking it will be more like Sword of Truth tv show rather than Game of Thrones. Nobody really cared that Sword of Truth tv show was shit, because the books were pretty much derivative shit anyways. But I think a lot of people are going to be pissed off when they turn Kvothe into the next Hercules or Xenia.

 

[rfjeff9]

Your post makes me both excited and very nervous.

Excited because I've never heard of Nine Princes in Amber, and you have it listed right next to my favorite two series of all time. And The Black Company while it's not a favorite, I do like some of the books.

Nervous because you thought anyone should see the Enders Game movie, or that it had anything in common with the book of the same name. Nervous because you liked Pern and Shananara both series that I read long long ago, and left to adolescents along with David Eddings 4 series, Dragonlance and other books I grew up reading. Wheel of Time started out with all the makings of being the best series of all time. But it fell way, way off years before Jordan died leaving it unfinished. Although I have Sanderson own series listed among my favorites (well one of them, I didn't care for Mistborn) I thought his writing in WoT was an absolute butcher job.

If you really like that classic Arthurian fantasy formula of boy finds magic sword and saves the world, Raymond e First is the one name that should be mentioned. I think it's been a tired cliche for a whole lot of years, but Feist at least does it well. He found his formula and keeps cranking out books in the same overarching world every year or so. Magician is the original and the best though. The one time he deviated from that simple formula was when he co-authored the Mistress of the Empire trilogy. I liked that one a lot as it seemed to borrow heavily from Shogun by Clavell, another personal favorite.

I guess I'll just apprehensively order Nine Princes in Amber, but I would have been more confident if you had mentioned less of the fantasy that gave fantasy such a bad name for so long amongst other genre readers. Even if it wasn't my favorites, if you would have recommended Joel Abercrombie, Mercedes Lackey, Brent Weaks (Weeks?), Mickey Zucker Reichart, or any of the other big names in modern fantasy I would have felt safer.

Reading fantasy for the last 25 years I read a whole lot of really, REALLY bad stuff. The genre has grown up quite a bit recently, and the Internet has helped a ton too, so there is nothing I hate more than reading bad fantasy now.

Don't be nervous. Everyone should see Enders Game for the movie alone, bad as it was. But it fell short of the book. And I liked Pern and Shannara way back when I read them. I do not know if I would now, but it doesn't mean that they shouldn't be mentioned. As far as David Eddings goes, he wrote the same freaking story 4 times, and YES, I read his same freaking story four times! Won't read it again.

The Wheel of Time was on track to be the best fantasy series epic of all time, until after book 5 (when he came out of the Aiel Waste) and things seemed to stop moving forward. Too many different storylines got created and the author became bogged down in telling each one such that a 4 inch thick book only told a few days storyline for 15 different threads. I could never finish it, he totally lost me.

FWIW, I see something similar happening in Game of Thrones.

I read Raymond E Feist back in high school long ago. Riftwar originally then Serpentwar, then another one on top of that with some kid that was an expert swordsman, Talor I think was his name. I eventually lost interest. The books are good though. I would recommend. The Empire trilogy was even better IMO.

Dragonlance I gave up in high school, though the twins trilogy was pretty good as I recall.

I am having a hard time finding good fantasy now that I haven't already tried. There a couple series out there I have read what is out so far. I am partially through king killer Chronicles, Stormlight Archive and Lightbringer series. They all are decent reads.

I read The Night Angel trilogy recently, it was good, a little darker than normal. You try Farseer books with the Assassian theme? That was good if only for the take on the tragic hero.

Sherwood Smith "Inda" series I have not finished, but it is not too bad. I only liked it because they went to sea and entered piracy.

 

[rfjeff9]

Can't edit last post. Didn't put 2+2 together and realize you meant Zelazny's Amber Chronicles. Which is older (and older feeling) than anything on either of our lists.

Yes, but sometimes older is better.

If you tell me now that you didn't like it, Then we have nothing further to discuss.