Scott
New member
Seeing as how people have liked my favourite movies/animes threads, and one of the those threads (movie thread I think) was actually briefly hijacked to talk about books , I thought I'd add a favourite book thread....
I recently just finished Sex at Dawn, a book that I see has been discussed here in the past:
Book: Sex at Dawn
Don't really want to say anything about it right now, just thought that I'd start out with it as one of my favourite books.
My favourite authors:
Frank Herbert
He's my all time favourite writer. Unfortunately, he passed away at around the time that I received the first Dune novel as a gift, but what a volume of work he left behind.
I particularly liked his Dune universe; he wrote 5 books in the series and the first one was also made into a movie, as well as remake that I thought was even better. There were some made for tv movies after that but I never really saw too much of that, would like to see that later.
I've read virtually everything of his that I could get my hands on, with one exception (some novel concerning bugs taking things over, just couldn't get into it). While I've heard a lot of people talk about the Dune books, I also thought that his books (which were essentially a series), The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect and The Ascension Factor, co-authored by Bill Ransom, were awesome. I hadn't tracked down his first book in this series (Destination: Void) until now, I look forward to reading it .
C. (Celia) S. Friedman:
Just an amazing author in my view. I had the amazingly good luck of buying all 3 of her Coldfire Trilogy novels during a time when I spent a great deal of time alone; I devoured them . I believe I've read all of her novels that were entirely her own creations (instead of belonging to a 'universe', I think she's only done one of that type so far), except for her last one in the Magister Trilogy which I'm currently reading. I think she's a bit closer to fantasy then science fiction; I really don't care that much about such things, what I love is deep characters and she's awesome at that. She's made a lot of characters that seem to have vampire like qualities, but only one novel that has the blood sucking kind (it was the one belonging to someone else's universe), which I prefer. I've never been a fan of the vampire stuff, though I did like one vampire novel I read.. though not because of the vampires but because of the highly sexual female character who narrated it, laugh . Friedman did write atleast one book that didn't seem to have any energy tapping creature in it, This Alien Shore, which had a fair amount of Science Fiction in it, definitely liked it as well.
William Gibson
Cyberpunk sci fi, I loved virtually everything he wrote. That being said, I once spoke with a teacher of mine who had a passion for reading fantasy as well, and when I asked her what she thought of William Gibson, she gave a very good answer; he's somewhat sexist; I started thinking about his novels and, well.. I think she may be right to some extent. That being said, I just love his stuff, imperfect as it may be . Although I wasn't too hot about his last novel, Zero history; I read a bit of it, but just couldn't finish it. I think my favourite book of his was Mona Lisa Overdrive. "It was a culmination of his previous two novels, set in the same universe with shared characters, thereby completing the Sprawl trilogy." (Wikipedia, where would I be without you ?)
Neal Stephenson
To me, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson go hand in hand. Their styles certainly have differences, but I think that their similarities overwhelm their differences. However, I must admit that there were only 2 novels from Stephenson that I found to be awesome Snow Crash, and what I like to think of as a type of sequel, The Diamond Age. I just loved both of them. I just looked at his work in the link above, I think I'd like to read the book he just came out with, REAMDE, one of these days
Tad Williams
I loved his Otherland Series, which is set almost exclusively in a virtual world.
Jeff Noon
The first book I read from him was Vurt. Just awesome. I think his writing is something like William Gibson's, but he's got a style all his own. I also read Pollen, the sequel, and Nymphomation, the prequel (but written last of all). Just realized he's written a fair amount more, may be reading more of him soon.
As to comics, my favourite comic series was "The Uncanny Xmen", and my favourite 4 part series in that was the Genosha series, where mutants were essentially treated as slaves; it simultaneously combined the concept of apartheid, slavery and punishing difference.. just awesome in my view.
I liked spiderman, but my favourite book of it was one of the first I ever bought, back when he was wearing the alien costume; he's seen digging himself out of a grave (he's been buried alive), a really strong scene considering my age (11 at the time ).
There's more, but I think this is a good starting post...
I recently just finished Sex at Dawn, a book that I see has been discussed here in the past:
Book: Sex at Dawn
Don't really want to say anything about it right now, just thought that I'd start out with it as one of my favourite books.
My favourite authors:
Frank Herbert
He's my all time favourite writer. Unfortunately, he passed away at around the time that I received the first Dune novel as a gift, but what a volume of work he left behind.
I particularly liked his Dune universe; he wrote 5 books in the series and the first one was also made into a movie, as well as remake that I thought was even better. There were some made for tv movies after that but I never really saw too much of that, would like to see that later.
I've read virtually everything of his that I could get my hands on, with one exception (some novel concerning bugs taking things over, just couldn't get into it). While I've heard a lot of people talk about the Dune books, I also thought that his books (which were essentially a series), The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect and The Ascension Factor, co-authored by Bill Ransom, were awesome. I hadn't tracked down his first book in this series (Destination: Void) until now, I look forward to reading it .
C. (Celia) S. Friedman:
Just an amazing author in my view. I had the amazingly good luck of buying all 3 of her Coldfire Trilogy novels during a time when I spent a great deal of time alone; I devoured them . I believe I've read all of her novels that were entirely her own creations (instead of belonging to a 'universe', I think she's only done one of that type so far), except for her last one in the Magister Trilogy which I'm currently reading. I think she's a bit closer to fantasy then science fiction; I really don't care that much about such things, what I love is deep characters and she's awesome at that. She's made a lot of characters that seem to have vampire like qualities, but only one novel that has the blood sucking kind (it was the one belonging to someone else's universe), which I prefer. I've never been a fan of the vampire stuff, though I did like one vampire novel I read.. though not because of the vampires but because of the highly sexual female character who narrated it, laugh . Friedman did write atleast one book that didn't seem to have any energy tapping creature in it, This Alien Shore, which had a fair amount of Science Fiction in it, definitely liked it as well.
William Gibson
Cyberpunk sci fi, I loved virtually everything he wrote. That being said, I once spoke with a teacher of mine who had a passion for reading fantasy as well, and when I asked her what she thought of William Gibson, she gave a very good answer; he's somewhat sexist; I started thinking about his novels and, well.. I think she may be right to some extent. That being said, I just love his stuff, imperfect as it may be . Although I wasn't too hot about his last novel, Zero history; I read a bit of it, but just couldn't finish it. I think my favourite book of his was Mona Lisa Overdrive. "It was a culmination of his previous two novels, set in the same universe with shared characters, thereby completing the Sprawl trilogy." (Wikipedia, where would I be without you ?)
Neal Stephenson
To me, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson go hand in hand. Their styles certainly have differences, but I think that their similarities overwhelm their differences. However, I must admit that there were only 2 novels from Stephenson that I found to be awesome Snow Crash, and what I like to think of as a type of sequel, The Diamond Age. I just loved both of them. I just looked at his work in the link above, I think I'd like to read the book he just came out with, REAMDE, one of these days
Tad Williams
I loved his Otherland Series, which is set almost exclusively in a virtual world.
Jeff Noon
The first book I read from him was Vurt. Just awesome. I think his writing is something like William Gibson's, but he's got a style all his own. I also read Pollen, the sequel, and Nymphomation, the prequel (but written last of all). Just realized he's written a fair amount more, may be reading more of him soon.
As to comics, my favourite comic series was "The Uncanny Xmen", and my favourite 4 part series in that was the Genosha series, where mutants were essentially treated as slaves; it simultaneously combined the concept of apartheid, slavery and punishing difference.. just awesome in my view.
I liked spiderman, but my favourite book of it was one of the first I ever bought, back when he was wearing the alien costume; he's seen digging himself out of a grave (he's been buried alive), a really strong scene considering my age (11 at the time ).
There's more, but I think this is a good starting post...