Maurog
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1501
Registered: 09-16-2004
IP: Logged
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Re: Book recommendation list. (+1)
I've discovered this thread only recently, and I have to say, wow, you people have really good taste. I read many of the books mentioned here. I have to admit, I only like the first book of the Dune series, because I find the quality of the rest one level below the first. Not so about Terry Pratchett Discworld series, whose first two books are weaker than his best ones, and overall, the quality varies. Pratchett is my most favorite author overall, his books are not only funny and inventive, but also very deep, they actually make you think about serious stuff. It's the kind of books I'd like my children to read. Also, I recently read Dan Brown's "Angels And Demons", and the book is simply excellent.
Anyways, the book I want to recommend for you today is pretty non-mainstream. In fact, my recommendation probably won't do you any good, because the book was released in Russian and was never translated to English. It's called "The Many-handed God of Dalayn", by Sviatoslav Loginov, an otherwise pretty average fiction writer. This is the only book of him worth reading, but it's really really, amazingly good. It's a deep philosophical book, depicting a world in which humans live on scarce dryland surrounded by swamps, surrounded by a deadly depth in which resides the ever-hungry eternal monstrous God of the Dalayn, to whom this world was given as home by the Creator. The swamp provides food (no food on the dryland), but it also is the realm of the Dalayn God, who feeds on anything and everything, so humans live in constant fear. Only once in generation, a special human is born, with the gift to raise new land from the depth (which of course enrages the monster, bringing much suffering to all humans).
There is a complicated story, but most notable is the philosophical base, I want to give you a few examples:
(The translation is by me, so the quality may not be the best)
"The storytellers say that after creating the sky fog, and water, and the dalayn (swamp), and the oroyhons (lands), the wise Tenger (Creator) started to put animals to inhabit the lands. He held the animals in his knapsack, and started pulling them one by one and deciding on their place and lifetime. First, He pulled out a zogg (spidery creature) out of his knapsack and spoke: "You will live in a hole inside the swamp and your lifetime will be one week". "Thank you, generous Tenger" - hissed the zogg, "for after this tight bag, you give me a great world and a life deserving it. I will have time enough to cover my hole with nets, and leave offspring, and strike my enemy with my stinger. What else can you ask for from life?".
Next, pulled Tenger out the limbless tayza (snaily creature) and told her: "You will live in a far corner of the swamp and your lifetime will be one month". "Thank you, generous Tenger" - squeaked the tayza, "for after this tight bag, you give me a great world and a life deserving it. I will have time enough to slither around all my corner, and leave offspring, and eat a lowly zogg. What else can you ask for from life?".
Next, pulled Tenger out the prickly tukka (porcupine creature) and told her: "You will live in the upper part of the swamp and your lifetime will be one year". "Thank you, generous Tenger" - snorted the tukka, "for after this tight bag, you give me a great world and a life deserving it. I will have time enough to explore all the paths and corners of the swamp, and leave offspring, and eat as many chawgas (swamp plants) as I can. What else can you ask for from life?".
Next, pulled Tenger out the gvaarnaz (predator creature) and told him: "You will live in all the swamp, from top to bottom, and your lifetime will be a dozen years". "Thank you, generous Tenger" - skreeched the gvaarnaz, "for after this tight bag, you give me a great world and a life deserving it. I will have time enough to lurk in all paths and depths in the swamp, and leave offspring, and terrorize all in my path. What else can you ask for from life?".
And lastly, pulled Tenger the man out of his bag, and told him: "You will live on the oroyhons, the ones that I created, and all that will be created later. And your lifetime will be concealed from you, because otherwise you won't be able to think about Eternity". The man then laughed and said: "Thank you, generous Tenger. It's not that much - five oroyhons when each of them I can circle in half an hour, but I will try hard to make my world bigger and deserving my lifetime, because I'm not gonna die. I will live forever, and this means that the whole world will be mine."
And when Tenger finished inhabiting the world, He returned to his (Creator's Throne), and looked upon the small world below Him which He created, and thought for the first time that the Eternity may be not as big as He imagined."
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Slay the living! Raise the dead!
Paint the sky in crimson red!
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