Recommended Reading

[Chancellor Valium]

Yes I do know they're fiction but he still has an unhealthy obsession....

[Vedra]

*Shrugs* He held my interest for a night.

[Chancellor Valium]

I wont tell you what my twisted imagination thought of as an alternative to your meaning......I'll just say :twisted:

[Vedra]

You dirty, dirty man.

[Vedra]

Have any of you read House of Sand and Fog? I just saw the movie and loved it, so I'm thinking of getting the book.

[Chancellor Valium]

Never heard of it. Sorry. But yes, I am twisted and dirty-minded in the extreme - At your service!

[AKAArzosah]

As someone who reads 3 inch books in three hours if given the chance, i must reccomend:

Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders (mentioned earlier)
Phillip Pullmans 'His Dark Materials Trilogy'
Garth Nix's's's Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen
Katharine Kerr's 'Deverry' Series
Sara Douglass's 'Threshold'
Traci Harding's 'Ancient Future Trilogy' and 'The Alchemist's Cat'
The Andromeda Books (Well DUH!)
Bryce Courtenay's 'Jessica' (especially for Aussies)

More will most likely follow.

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Tarn-Vedra

Oh,and have any of you read Atlas Shrugged? I borrowed a copy from my friend and I'm only a few pages in,and I'm not gettin it.lol So help me out?

It's a favorite of mine, for what that's worth. As a caveat, though, it's been my experience that people either love or hate this book; there doesn't seem to be a lot of middle ground.


Recommended reading?

One thing any fan of science fiction worth his/her/its salt should read is Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy.

Others (not necessarily sci-fi):

- Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses (The latter is what got him in trouble with the Ayatollah Khomeini in particular, and Islamic clerics in general.)
- Joseph Heller - Catch-22
- Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Strange Land and Friday (forget Starship Troopers, it's crap)
- Thomas Pynchon - Mason & Dixon
- Douglas Adams - the Hitchhiker's Guide books, as well as the Dirk Gently ones (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul)
- Practically any science fiction short story collections from the '40s and '50s you can get your hands on


That should be enough for a start.

[Edit: code] and to add: read Shakespeare's Hamlet and Othello, though not necessarily back-to-back, as I did.

[Vedra]

Uh oh, guess I haven't been worth all this salt for many years now.

I'm reading too many books already now! Arrgh! At least I have Thanksgiving break coming up so I can make a dent in this stack of books.

[PointyHairedJedi]

Just yesterday I was finally able to lay my hands on a copy of The Years of Rice and Salt. And now I'm a happy Jedi indeed. Wheeeeeeee!!

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Tarn-Vedra

Uh oh, guess I haven't been worth all this salt for many years now.

I was casting no aspersions. It's just that, if any work deserves the designation "Science-fiction Classic", Foundation is it. Try it out when you can find time. The later ones in the series are also enjoyable, for the most part (I'm not including those by other authors than Asimov, because I haven't read them), but the original trilogy is the Real Stuff.

[marplanauta]

I have read all the Foundation series, and you´re right, the first trilogy is the best. I don´t think those are depressing at all, but i haven´t read the robot series, so i don´t know.

As for Dune...is highly recommendable and the 2nd and the 3rd books too, but then it goes downhill, even though it is still very good. More scifi, i recommend "ring world", "solaris" and "do androids dream with electrical sheep?"

[mudshark]

I'd recommend the Robot novels (Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and Robots of Dawn), too, as well as the I, Robot story collection. Essential material for the science-fiction reader.

[Vedra]

*gets back after auctioning away all his Sci-Fi salt on eBay* Oh,NOW you tell me.

[ijdgaf]

My favorite, favorite, favorite novel ever is Brave New World.

I know a lot of people have read it through school. But if anybody hasn't, then get it. It's tremendously well written, and it poses a question I've never quite seen elsewhere "screw distopia -- is utopia truely disirable?"

Damn, now I want to read it again.

[Alexia]

I read a lot of girly books as they require no thought, but there is only one author I would recommend and that is Marion Keyes.

She rocks. Period. Oh crap, I'm typing American :wink:

The best one of hers for making you think is Rachael's Holiday, which is about a woman with a drug addiction.

*awaits pelting for reading girly books* :wink: :mrgreen:

[Chancellor Valium]

I can't remember who the author is, but A Very Private Life is....interesting and horrifyingly realistic portrayal of the future - less depressing than Asimov and more (that was a random MacBeth quote - which I didn;t intend....), read it, READ IT! It will really make you think about our society.....or at least it made ME think....

[Vedra]

Wow....just...wow.

I just read what is probably one of the best books I've ever read up to this point of my life. It's called Like the Red Panda. You should all...I dunno...go read it.

*feels slightly disturbed*

[PointyHairedJedi]

Originally Posted by ijdgaf

My favorite, favorite, favorite novel ever is Brave New World.

I know a lot of people have read it through school. But if anybody hasn't, then get it. It's tremendously well written, and it poses a question I've never quite seen elsewhere "screw distopia -- is utopia truely disirable?"

Damn, now I want to read it again.

It is excellent indeed. Been a while since I read it though.

I've a pair of recommendations - The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, and Starship Troopers by RAH. I mention them together because I feel they both provide a fascinating counterpoint to each other on the subject of war. Now, it's not nearly so simple as one of them being pro- and the other anti-, but they both make you think, which is the mark in my view of a really great book. Catch 22, which I believe has already been mentioned, is also fascinating, but for different reasons.

[Chancellor Valium]

The Not-So-Very-Nice Goings-On At Victoria Lodge is a hilarious and very silly picture-book style publication, with a twist. The twist is that all the pictures are from the Girl's Own Paper from 1891-2 (apparently), but the author has rearranged them and given them new captions, with very funny results

And now, I must away....