zex20913
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I saw that people were beginning to recommend books in the "General" section. I thought there should be a topic here for that, because I don't recall any books about DROD. So, this should be a place to recommend books. My rec:

"The Sword of Truth" series, by Terry Goodkind. Starts with "Wizard's First Rule".

Only if: You like both Robert Jordan and Stephen King.

Cons: Bad repeat read; characters may be too soppy.

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Scott
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I dunno I liked them just as much the second and third time though. Wouldn't really compare them to the Wheel of Time. I haven't read any Stephen King thats fantasy although I have heard he has done some.

Now books that I like.
The Many Coloured Land series by Julian May is one of my favourites. I wasn't overly impressed by the Milieu Triology though and Magnificat was a dissapointment.

Magician by Raymond Feist is another great book. Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon too but after that it gets a little off track for me but still is a worthwile read.

And speaking of the Wheel of Time I won't be getting anymore until he finishes the series. Hes just draggging it out for no point now. Half of each book is a recap of what happened before.

There are other books I like but thats enough for now.

Malarame
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The Dune chronicles, by Frank Herbert. Those are the greatest books ever written. Frank Herbert wrote six of them, then he died before he could write the seventh. Now, his son Brian and Kevin J Anderson are writting a bunch of prequels. They're also good books, but not as good as the original six.

I'm also a fan of the Shannara series by Terry Brooks. Also, if you're a fan of science fiction and you like satire, check out the Mission Earth books by L. Ron Hubbard. I highly recommend them. Also, the Hitchhiker's Guide series of books, although I would bet that most of you have read them.

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Oneiromancer
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Oh my, I can make some recommendations, but first let me comment on the previous ones.

Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series: yes, the first two were amazingly good. But then in my, and many other people's opinions, the quality started to suffer. The fifth, sixth, and eighth books are amazingly preachy about some philosophical ideas that Goodkind has, which he has admitted are very similar to Ayn Rand's. Having said that, the sixth book is a very uplifting story about the human spirit, at least in my opinion, so it doesn't seem as preachy. The most recent book, #8, I just finished last week. It started out amazingly slow, as the author tried to explain the entire previous plot for new readers, but the ending was excellent, almost back to his original style. I would say that the Stephen King element in the story is basically the violence and some of the titilation (but not as much as King), not necessarily the bad language or the horror part. More on that later...

I am pretty lukewarm on Raymond E. Feist. The first trilogy was okay, but as Scott says, the later stuff isn't so hot. Basically his writing really deteriorated. However, I think his best stuff is the trilogy he wrote with his daughter Janny Wurts (I think), which is told from the "other side" of the story...the Daughter/Mistress/Servant of the Empire trilogy.

The Dune books are awesome. Actually, Herbert died in the middle of writing the sixth book, which his son finished for him. I honestly think that only the first four are really any good.

Terry Brooks is also excellent...The Sword of Shannara for a long time was the second most popular fantasy after Lord of the Rings, and kind of ushered in a lot of the fantasy we see today. I just got his most recent book from Amazon, I don't doubt it will be a good read.

My first recommendation, just because he was already mentioned and I will reference him again, is Stephen King. The problem is, King gets a bad rap because he is a "horror" writer, when he is so much more than that. Anyone who has read The Stand or Needful Things knows that King excels at writing people. It just so happens that usually those people are involved with supernatural occurrences, with lots of violence and sex and swearing. But if you can handle reading It, you will be amazed at how he can so thoroughly catch the essence of its seven main characters. And how many people know that the movie The Shawshank Redemption is based off of one of his short novels? So was Stand By Me! The only books of his I haven't liked, actually, are the Dark Tower books...I just never got into them. Although the fourth one was much better than the rest, perhaps because there was like a ten year break between them.

Anyway, on to fantasy. George R. R. Martin is one that I recommended in the General forum, and I don't have enough good stuff to say about him. His writing is actually somewhat similar to Stephen King's, but only because he focuses on people (the title of each chapter is always the character who is being focused on), and has "realistic" violence and other adult situations. His version of fantasy is more like the way it probably would have been: not pretty. The good guy doesn't always win, characters you may really like will die, and magic is actually rare and mysterious. Hopefully my summation isn't turning away more people than it intrigues...I really highly suggest picking up a paperback of A Game of Thrones and finding out for yourself. Make sure you read to the end!

Terry Pratchett...probably the best description is a fantasy version of Douglas Adams. If that doesn't mean anything to you, basically he is a humorous, satirical writer whose domain happens to be a fantasy world, known as Discworld. Just because he writes funny stuff doesn't mean he can't have a good plot...far from it. Some of the best themes I have ever encountered in fantasy have been from a Discworld book. I'll lett Mattcrampy spout off more about him, I've made this post too long anyway.

Game on,

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Tscott
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My current favorite book...

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Read only if you like both Stephen King and Douglas R. Hofstadter

A horror tale that gets told through several levels of storytelling. It’s about a house that appears to be slightly larger on the inside than the outside- actually, it’s about someone who saw a film made by the owner of the house who’s writing a critique about it- actually, it about someone who finds the notes of the critique and tries to make sense of them.

Pros: Interesting meta-level storytelling from three different points of view, some of which could be less than reliable. It's sprinkled with puzzles and codes throughout. Lots of fun appendixes to go through after reading the book (and some you may want to turn to when they are referred to in the story). The word "house" appears in blue ink everywhere in the book.

Cons: Some find it too gimmicky, especially the text layout. Some people tend to run away if they see footnotes. If you want all questions answered in your storytelling go somewhere else.


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Malarame
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Oneiromancer wrote:
The Dune books are awesome. Actually, Herbert died in the middle of writing the sixth book, which his son finished for him. I honestly think that only the first four are really any good.

Actually, Frank Herbert did complete the sixth book. It was published in April of 1985, and he died less than a year later, on February 11th, 1986. After he published the sixth book, though, he approached his son about collaborating on the seventh and final book in the Dune series. However, he died of cancer before any work had been done. As far as Brian knew, it was just an idea his father had.

Years later, a safe-deposit box was found that nobody knew about. It contained the full outline of the seventh book, written by Frank Herbert before his death. It also contained thousands of pages of notes on the Dune universe (or Duniverse, as I like to call it). Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson decided to work together on a final book, using Frank's notes and outlines. However, they decided that first they would write a number of prequels, which they are currently publishing yearly. I'm awaiting the fifth prequel to be released sometime next month. Eventually they'll write and publish the seventh book together.

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Oneiromancer
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Well, that's what I get for believing what my father tells me. I could have sworn that Chapterhouse: Dune had a note to the effect that is was unfinished in the Preface, or Author's Note, or something like that. I never questioned it anyway because to me that book was pretty inferior, so it was reasonable that it was because Frank didn't finish it. Maybe if I read them over again now that I am older I will appreciate it more.

Game on,

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Mattcrampy
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I've been working out how to describe the Discworld series for a week or so now, and it's difficult.

Basically, it's satirical fantasy, but that's not quite right. Pratchett's taken the fantasy setting and twisted it to be a parody of sorts of our own world, and its reliance on technology. The standard fantasy Watch have becomes a progressive, modern police force. Little imps sit in cameras. A giant magical device in the magical university has quickly grown to implement ram skulls, small religious pictures and a rodent. Death is one of the best-loved characters, which is convenient because it won't be necessary to kill him off eventually.

The rarest thing is that, of the 29 books set in the universe (the loosely connected series of 27, and two independent young adult books, although deeper than most) they've gotten better over time. Unlike, say, Robert Jordan.

I'd recommend, if you want to read them all, to start with any of these fine books:
* Mort
* Guards! Guards!
* Pyramids
* Small Gods
* Wyrd Sisters
* Soul Music
* The Truth
* Thief of Time
* The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
* The Wee Free Men

I suppose you could start at The Colour of Magic, but it's not as good as the later ones. The beauty of the series, though, is that you could pick up the only one available, and although you'd have to work out the assumed knowledge (there's usually not much), you could enjoy the book just as much.

Matt

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bdcribbs
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I only recently got into the discworld series, I've read but a few and the rest are in my queue of reading.

I wanted to recommend Neil Gaiman's American God's. I like everything I've read of his (he coauthored Good Omens with Prachett). American God's is easily my favorite of his. If you're familiar with Gaiman you know it's hard to summarize his plots... I don't even want to try. I can tell you that Gaiman's not the sort of humorist like Prachett or Douglas Adams... he's a bit darker, but I'll say it's a great read.

bdcribbs
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Tscott wrote:
My current favorite book...

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Read only if you like both Stephen King and Douglas R. Hofstadter

My local libraries have 3 copies of this book, and they are all on hold! Guess I'll have to wait, I'm a big Hofstader fan, and when I was young I was really into Stephen King (when I read It I was about the same age as the kids)...

Oneiromancer
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Of course I have to second the recommendation of Neil Gaiman...my avatar is a depiction of his version of The Sandman...the Dream King. His Sandman comic book series (conveniently collected in graphic novel form) transcend that medium...they are stories about stories, and to say anything else is to deny their magic. And he's also a really neat guy in person.

One author I forgot to mention was Tad Williams...also a really cool guy in person...he wrote the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn fantasy trilogy, the Otherland near-future virtual reality series, and the recent stand-alone novel War of the Flowers, which is also amazingly good...and a good starting point for this author. The rest of his novels tend to be phone books, and his trilogy especially starts out really slow (not bad, but slow).

And back on the subject of comic books/graphic novels, two of my other favorites are the original Elfquest series by Wendy and Richard Pini (I haven't read anything past Kings of the Broken Wheel, and I'm not sure I want to, but I am really referring to the first four graphic novels) and Cerebus the Aardvark by Dave Sim (which is still unfinished...should be done with issue 300 and the death of the main character in 2004 or 2005, I forget when). Cerebus is especially memorable, what with the characters who are perfect caricatures of Groucho Marx and Senator Cleghorn (the guy who inspired Foghorn Leghorn...yes, there was a real person who talked like that). However, Dave Sim is a total misogynist, and it shows in his stories. He also likes to put literary figures like Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway in his stories as characters, and sometimes fills up an entire issue with nothing but text. I know I'm not really recommending Cerebus very well, but it's just one of those things you have to borrow from a friend and read, and you either get hooked or can't stand it.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Daisai
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Most of my current favorite fantasy authors have already been mentioned, so..

Like Peter F. Hamilton for sci-fi. Especially when you observe the contrast of Night's Dawn's spiffy, fast-paced space opera feel with the nitty-gritty of Fallen Dragon. Both very complete, well-structured universes, but in their own, seperate ways.

Oh, and Kabuki by David Mack is nice if we're talking comic books/graphic novels, though I must admit I like parts of it much better than other parts. Maybe that's coz he's covering so much different ground though, and some of it swings outside what interests me about the rest, dunno.

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bdcribbs
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I also heartily recommend Italo Calvino's If on a midsummers night a Traveller...
I don't know how to entice you without spoiling anything, but basically every other chapter is about this guy reading a book (or trying to anyway), interspersed with the chapters from the book he is reading. Sort of. I'll say no more.

Oneiromancer wrote:
Of course I have to second the recommendation of Neil Gaiman...my avatar is a depiction of his version of The Sandman...the Dream King. His Sandman comic book series (conveniently collected in graphic novel form) transcend that medium...they are stories about stories, and to say anything else is to deny their magic. And he's also a really neat guy in person.

Now that I know what your avatar is, I can see it, but before you said that I didn't recognize it (it's so small). I was in the middle of reading the sandman series but the person who I was borrowing them from left town I've got to go buy the next book, I stopped at a major cliff hanger.

I went to a book signing for American Gods at the WTC after giving a great reading Niel handled the huge line of fans very graciously. (I didn't have him sign the book though, I took copies of the two Death graphic novels. He signed one of them: "Bryan- Don't Die.", which is a pretty friendly recommendation I think).

Oneiromancer
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It's okay that the avatar is small...that way I don't have to worry so much about copyright infringement or something.

I met Neil because he was great friends with an English professor at my undergrad school--Frank McConnell. Frank would teach a Science Fiction class every year, and Neil gave guest lectures for at least three years...and then Frank died. Frank wrote the introduction to The Sandman: The Kindly Ones and The Sandman: Book of Dreams, which is a collection of prose short stories by other authors set in the universe of The Sandman.

The year before I took his class, Frank covered The Sandman: Brief Lives, which is arguably the best book in the series, and also one of the easiest to read without having read any previous ones. The year I took his class, Frank taught Mr. Punch, and afterwards Neil had a quick signing session. When I got to him I told him my name was Neil too and he signed the book "Neil - good name." I also asked him a question: "What is Terry Pratchett like?" You see, I had read lots of Discworld books and also Good Omens, so the only other thing I knew about Gaiman is that he knew Pratchett pretty well. Neil was quite surprised by the question, bemused even, and his short answer was, "Terry wears a big hat."

The next year I did a Directed Study with Frank on the Sandman--the easiest A I ever had. Our school is on the quarter system--10 weeks before finals week. So we covered one Sandman book a week. It was the same quarter that he was teaching the Science Fiction class, which was covering Stardust that year (and there was this whole big debacle because the fourth issue wasn't coming out until after the quarter was over, so the students had to get a transcript of the story from Neil himself and the comic book store that filled the orders got screwed because almost no one went in for the last issue). So Neil and I got to sit down and talk for almost an hour about all sorts of stuff, including (of course) The Sandman. He signed my copy of Brief Lives "Neil - Dream a Little" and drew a little doodle of the Sandman himself. It is most excellently awesome.

After Frank died I e-mailed Neil to tell him, and we e-mailed a couple of times after that, but I didn't want to be a weird fan-boy or something so we stopped corresponding. And that's my story!

Okay, to get back on topic, you must read The Watchmen by Alan Moore. Another graphic novel, this one took the super-hero convention and stood it on its head. In fact, after it came out it was copied so much (from what I have heard) that it practically transformed the entire genre. Alan Moore is also basically Neil Gaiman's main inspiration in the comic book genre, although I wasn't too fond of Moore's Swamp Thing books. But The Watchmen is an amazing story with a crazy ending...The Usual Suspects or Wild Things crazy, if you want to think in terms of movies. I suppose Unbreakable could be another example, but I didn't like that movie too much.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

eytanz
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Oneiromancer wrote:

The year before I took his class, Frank covered The Sandman: Brief Lives, which is arguably the best book in the series,

It´s also the only one I haven´t read - for some reason unknown to me, no store in NYC that carries that other books seems to have this one in stock.

I also asked him a question: "What is Terry Pratchett like?" You see, I had read lots of Discworld books and also Good Omens, so the only other thing I knew about Gaiman is that he knew Pratchett pretty well. Neil was quite surprised by the question, bemused even, and his short answer was, "Terry wears a big hat."

I´ve read in Pratchett interviews that Gaiman and Pratchett had a major falling-out after Good Omens was finished (they were working on the sequel at the time, which is why it was abandoned). I think that they patched things up by now, but depending on when you asked that question, he may not have had much good to say.


[Edited by eytanz on 08-29-2003 at 07:22 AM]

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eytanz
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Reading back in the thread:

Scott wrote:
The Many Coloured Land series by Julian May is one of my favourites. I wasn't overly impressed by the Milieu Triology though and Magnificat was a dissapointment.

It´s true that the second series is worse than the first one, and also that it becomes more and more predictable and less interesting as it goes along (Intervention is great, Jack the Bodiless quite interesting... But the only thing in Magnificat that isn´t already obvious when the book starts is the rather anticlimatic way things are resolved).

That said, it´s still all very readable, and I´d recommend reading all the books to everyone, because while the individual stories towards the end lack something, the overall arc of the two series, and the way everything ties together in the end, and the story comes full circle is really amazing; and if you reread the first series, you realize that either it was all planned in advance, or that May really knows how to maintain continuity.

And speaking of the Wheel of Time I won't be getting anymore until he finishes the series. Hes just draggging it out for no point now. Half of each book is a recap of what happened before.

Do what I do - google for the wheel of time FAQ, and read it. It´s updated a few months after each book is released, contains all the interesting bits, and is a lot shorter.

Once I´m back home I´ll add some recommendations of my own to this list.

Eytan


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Oneiromancer
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eytanz wrote:
I´ve read in Pratchett interviews that Gaiman and Pratchett had a major falling-out after Good Omens was finished (they were working on the sequel at the time, which is why it was abandoned). I think that they patched things up by now, but depending on when you asked that question, he may not have had much good to say.

Huh! I had no idea. This was back in 1997, I think, and Good Omens was published in 1990, so perhaps they had made up by then. I wish I could remember if he said anything else...I think he might have, but all I remember is the hat comment.

Game on,

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Mattcrampy
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Well, if they did have a fallout, Terry's pretending it didn't exist. So if it did, it was stupid.

Matt

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krammer
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Hey, everyone else got to Discworld before me. Not fair.

Well, I second the recommendation, although I can't add much to Mattcrampy's post except that the award Maurice won was the Carnegie, possibly the best known British children's book award. Perhaps an indication of Terry Pratchett's popularity is that five (well, 4 and a half really, because Good Omens was cowritten) of his books made the recent BBC Big Read Top 100, voted for by the public, of the best books of all time. The only other author to get five books voted in was Dickens.

Anyway, other than a regular dose of Pratchett I read a host of weird stuff. Books I enjoy or enjoyed when I read them include:

The His Dark Materials Trilogy, by Philip Pullman (Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass).
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O'Brien.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.
Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham. One of the best sci-fi authors.
1984 and Animal Farm, George Orwell. Got to have something serious in there.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a trilogy in five parts by Douglas Adams. Unfortunately I only have the first two. I need to get the rest.
And finally, a book which is old, wonderful, and currently out of print, The Land of Green Ginger, by Noel Langley, a humorous sequel to Aladdin.

Plaenty of others I'm sure. Haven't heard of many of those so far, but I don't really like fantasy. Pratchett doesn't count.

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krammer
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eytanz wrote:
Note that Northern Lights is known as "The Golden Compass" in some editions. Just in case you were wanting to start the series and couldn't find a book by that title where you live.

Oops. I did know that, but I forgot. I can never understand why they change titles when publishing English books in America, it makes no sense. Life is full of little mysteries.

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eytanz
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Hmm... I thought I double-posted, so I deleted my post - but apparently I didn't. Anyway, the quote that's in Krammer's message is the only important part of my deleted message anyway.

On topic, I just finished reading a couple of days ago Patricia A. McKillip's trilogy "The Riddle Master's Game" (published in one volume by the Fantasy Masterworks series in England. Not sure where to get it in the US). It was really good.

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Mattcrampy
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I had to revive this thread because I found another author through financial mismanagement. (One of the few recorded instances where financial mismanagement has ended up with you having enough money to buy a book.)

I'm in the middle of Ian Irvine's second quartet and it's quite good. His characters defly avoid the trap of being sudden superstars - they're basically quite talented people thrust into extraordinary situations, so they suffer a fair amount before they finally get to kick ass themselves. Of course, some do have their weird unexplainable powers, but awakening their use is far more gradual and works quite well.

Interestingly, his second quartet, set in the same world, has a markedly different feel to the first one, in part because he throws the world a fair way into the future and retools the social structure. It's also not complete, so I'd go with the View from the Mirror quartet because he's not so goddamn hard on those characters.

But yeah, it's good.

Matt

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(Adventures of)The Good Soldier Švejk (during World War) by Jaroslav Hasek

This book kicks ass. It's a very good satire about many things, including military and beaurocracy. And many others. And not just satire. It doesn't look like much in the beginning, but it keeps getting funnier. I don't want to spoil too much, but, for instance, "dialogs" are great and very specific. You'll see. And not many books allow you to read about 1-year volunteer (soldier) anarchist who says he won't even shoot. One of my favourite characters

Unfortunatelly Hasek died before he finished his work. Full book was to be called "Adventures of good soldier Sveik during World War and Russian Revolution".

I write so little because I don't want to spoil, but trust me - there are reasons why people call it classic.

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Strabo
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Mattcrampy wrote:
I'm in the middle of Ian Irvine's second quartet and it's quite good. His characters defly avoid the trap of being sudden superstars - they're basically quite talented people thrust into extraordinary situations, so they suffer a fair amount before they finally get to kick ass themselves. Of course, some do have their weird unexplainable powers, but awakening their use is far more gradual and works quite well.

Interestingly, his second quartet, set in the same world, has a markedly different feel to the first one, in part because he throws the world a fair way into the future and retools the social structure. It's also not complete, so I'd go with the View from the Mirror quartet because he's not so goddamn hard on those characters.

But yeah, it's good.

Matt

I was going to suggest him. He's my favourite author, I've read the whole of the 'View From The Mirror' quartet, and thought it was pretty good, though the first book was a bit slow.

But 'The Well Of Echos' is amazing,the best fantasy series ever, in my opinion. The fourth book has just been released, and I've read the first 150 pages, which are the best 150 pages I have ever read. If you read and remember the end of the third book, you'll remember that it ended on a massive cliffhanger, where it seems that all the (many, varied and intersting) good guys are certain to die. But Ian manages to write himnself out of a very difficult corner in a awesome and beliveable way.

Yeah, I'm a fan.


There seems to be an unusual number of people who read fantasy here...

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I'd have to recommend Dan Brown. Just Angels And Demons and the Da Vinci Code though - his earlier books aren't much good. The basic idea behind both of them is that the main characters follow a series of riddles, evading people who want to kill them at every turn. They also each follow a conspiracy theory of some sort - in Angels and Demons it's the Illuminati, and in the Da Vinci Code it's the Priory of Sion.

I'd take the author's claim that the secret societies really existed with a pinch of salt (he doesn't claim they still do), but they're still good reads if you're interested in that sort of thing. Also, while I can't vouch for any of the other content, if nothing else Dan was completely right about anti-matter in Angels and Demons, so he obviously does some research.

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dddddddd
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I would Recommend The book Eragon by Christopher Paulini. It is suprising that he was only fifteen when he wrote it. Also, I agree. The Davinci Code is a good book. I got it for Christmas.

Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

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Registered: 05-29-2003
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Strabo wrote:

But 'The Well Of Echos' is amazing,the best fantasy series ever, in my opinion. The fourth book has just been released, and I've read the first 150 pages, which are the best 150 pages I have ever read. If you read and remember the end of the third book, you'll remember that it ended on a massive cliffhanger, where it seems that all the (many, varied and intersting) good guys are certain to die. But Ian manages to write himnself out of a very difficult corner in a awesome and beliveable way.

Yeah, I'm a fan.

Don't worry, you'll be ready to kill him by the end of the book. Still a good series, though.


The best $5 I ever spent was a couple of days ago, when they have the latest Jasper Fforde novel on sale for $5 Australian. Snapped it up, yessir. Jasper Fforde writes the Thursday Next series, which is set in an alternate version of 1985 where the Crimean War is still going and dodos weren't sent extinct (because all the idiots that killed them were off in the Crimean War). There's other changes: the duck is non-existant, the Toast Marketing Board has considerable wealth and influence, and the most important one, books are alive, and their plots can change on the fly and characters can escape into other books and the real world. Naturally, they need policing, which is where Thursday Next comes in. She polices books as part of the Literary Crime division of the British SpecOps force. It's absolutely absurd stuff, but it's easily the funniest series I've read (better than Discworld). There's puns all over the place, clever satire (there's usually a few advertisements towards the end for fictional products that raise a laugh) and take-offs (in the latest one there's a counselling scene in Wuthering Heights so the characters don't go and kill one another), and a mystery plot in there as well. It's absolutely insane, and very British, but anyone who likes that sort of thing (or that finds Monty Python hilarious) will be well advised to pick up The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book or The Well of Lost Plots.

Matt(tm) is owned by the Toast Marketing Board

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What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?

Maurog
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1501
Registered: 09-16-2004
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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."

____________________________
Slay the living! Raise the dead!
Paint the sky in crimson red!

Maurog
Level: Smitemaster

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Sorry if my posts are too big, but here is my favorite tale from that book:

"Finishing the construction of the world, and so getting rid of the Dalayn God for countless centuries (let us be clear on this - Tenger built the world as home for the Dalayn God), the old Tenger returned to his Creator's Throne to finally have some rest. But He discovered that the place was already taken - while the owner was gone, a little zhirh (bug) crawled on top and was lying all over the Throne. Tenger blowed on the zhirh to clear the seat, but the zhirh held on with all his tiny legs, of which he had much more than needed for walking, and managed to stay in place.
Then, Tenger wanted to crush the unwanted guest with His finger, but the zhirh told Him: "I'm a stinky zhirh, and if you crush me, your precious Throne will stink forever and ever. How will you think about Eternity with all that stench around?"
"Then go away from the Creator's Throne yourself" - said Tenger.
"No way!" - said the zhirh - "You, almighty and immortals, could only fight with each other. Go and fight then, and I will rule the world."
"This is not going to happen" - said Tenger, and He went down and picked some fresh grass to wipe the zhirh away. But while He was going, the short lifetime of zhirh has ended and it died. Tenger looked at the dead creature and understood that He will never defeat zhirh. It maybe was small and disgusting, but it was on the Creator's Throne and it reeked on all the universe from there, and died there before anyone could kick it out, which means undefeated. And all the creatures whose lifetime was even shorter than zhirh's, believed that the world from the beginning of all, and to the end of time, is ruled by the holy zhirh, may his dozen of dozen legs stay dry forever.

____________________________
Slay the living! Raise the dead!
Paint the sky in crimson red!

Chalks
Level: Master Delver

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Registered: 04-17-2005
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I was about to make a new thread...but then I decided I might as well try that insane "search" thingy. it worked!

Anyway...I'm a huge sci fi fan...but I read other stuff too. here's my list of books that are absolutely essential.

Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card (read the whole series)
Foundation series - Isaac Asimov
Dune - Frank Herbert (believe it or not...I actually just now started reading these books...very very good. I still like heinlein better though).
H2G2 trilogy (of 5 books) - Douglas Adams

oh geeze. my list is way to long....how bout my fav authors instead:

Isaac Asimov (he was the first to addict me to sci fi)
Arthur C. Clarke (rendevous with rama was a great one...)
ROBERT HEINLEIN!!!
Douglas Adams
J.R.R. Tolkien ( )
Frank Herbert
C.S. Lewis
George R.R. Martin (wrote some of the few fantasy books I've liked)
H.G. Wells (this guy has some strange stuff...)
and...getting away from the scifi stuff:
Tom Clancy (hunt for the red october and rainbow six both ruled)
Dorothy Sayers
Dave Barry
and of course: Bill Watterson

if you like scifi...read those books. now.