[Trash]

I'm curious to what you people think are some of the best books out there and why you like them so much. So, to kick this off. Here are some of my absolute favs.


Perdido Street Station: China Mieville
Was utterly burned out on fantasy when I came across this while on a trip. Liked the cover so I bought it to read at night in the hotel. Was utterly blown away when it turned out to be one of the best fantasy books I ever read. The clever urban story, the mixture of steampunk, a huge industrialised almost dystopian setting and the original and clever use of beings and legends from European folklore really drew me in. The story and it's characters are utterly memorable, but the real star of the book is the city. Go read it if you haven't yet. Mieville shows that fantasy doesn't have to be the boring drivel about elves and dwarves that it usually is. (Fun extra. He also manages to make great fun off the usual DnD party of heroes stereotype while he's at it.)


Post Office: Charles Bukowski
The 12 dreary years that Bukowski's alter ego Henry Chinaski spend working at the post office. Bitter, funny, shocking and for someone who ever worked for the mail also incredibly recognisable. One of my absolute favourites.


American Gods: Neil Gaiman
Hadn't read anything by Gaiman before starting this book but had heard he wrote some awesome comics and was a great weaver of tales. And damn, he sure didn't disappoint. His story following the down on his luck ex-con Shadow and his bizarre journey through America is perhaps his greatest work yet. The way Gaiman managed to bring together the modern world, ancient legends and an utterly great story is to me pure brilliance. Any book with a dead wife coming back as a zombie, the internet personified as a spotty fat kid and forgotten Gods whoring themselves out sounds like an awesome idea to me. It takes a guy like Gaiman to actually make that idea in a brilliant book.


The old man and the sea: Hemmingway
An old man goes out to fish. A simple premises and one that Hemmingway turned into one of the most moving and memorable stories about life, futility and endurance ever. A classis for the ages.


Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Hunter S. Thompson
This drug fueled trip into madnes and back was made into a rather funny and cool movie. Well, it pales when compared to this book. Thompson's own brand of insanity combined with his talent for writing created a book that sucks you right in. It's grotesque, filthy, amoral and dead serious at its core. One hell of a read


The Road: Cormac McCarthy
At its heart this is a story about a father and his son. One that is packed in the most hellish apocalyptic tale ever that is. Perhaps the bleakest and most depressing book I ever read, but damn does it grab you. McCarthy turns his vision of hell in a story that just keeps you hoping for better when you just know it won't. Awesome, creepy and extremely powerfull stuff.


Eagle in the Snow: Wallace Breem
The only book you ever have to read about Rome and its fall. The Rhine is slowly freezing over and one general is tasked to keep the restless barbarians on the other side at bay in a Roman empire that is slowly crumbling. It's solemn and sober style, it's utterly human portrayal of it's participants and it's almost palpable sense of decline and the struggle of one man to save that what he is ordered to save at all costs make this book stick with you ages after you will have finished it.


The Godfather: Maria Puzo
What can I say to give any credit to this book that hasn't been said before? Wether you like crime novels or not, go read this. It's amazing literature and even makes the great movie that was made from it pale in comparison. Puzo's masterwork.


Small Gods: Terry Pratchett
The funniest take on religion I ever read. Terry Pratchett has written a lot and it's honestly very difficult to pick out one of his books as my favourite. In the end it's pretty much a tie between this one and Good Omens. Still, Small Gods is written when Pratchett went from writing parodies on fantasy to tackling modern subjects within a fantasy enviroment. In this book he writes about one of the most difficult subjects without getting preachy and while making it one damn funny book. It's cute, fun and will make you think while making you laugh. If that's not something to recommend I don't know what is.


Papillion: Henri Charriere
France used to send it's prisoners to it's colonies to get rid of them and have a cheap work force. This autobiographical book is about one of those prisoners in the hell of the workcamps in French Guyana and his thirst for freedom against all odds. The immense struggle, the years of solitude and solitary convinement and the perseverance in the face of one setback after another combined with the skill at writing of Henri Charriere turn this into an unforgettable book.


The Complete Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams
A long time ago I carried this entire book all through the middle east in my backpack. Can't say the advice to always carry a towel helped me an immense lot but it always managed to keep me amused and lifted my spirits whenever I got to read it. Adams tale of an inept Englishman who is thrown into the life of a hitchhiker when aliens demolish the earth to make room for an intergalactic highway is the epitome of dry english humor. Go read it and thank me later.

[FireStomp]

I approve of this topic, so here goes very little! I mean that literally, as I'm limiting myself to five fuck it, it's ten with an honorable mention, and I don't care enough.

The Gone-away World - Nick Harkaway

This is one of the more recent books I've read, and by George is it nuts! I've heard it accurately described as precisely what happens when you slam darkly absurd British-style humor, epic kung-fu action sensibility, and wildly imaginative post-apocalyptic intrigue together at high speeds with a reckless disregard for safety, in that all three are visibly separate, but twisted and twined together, fused into new arrangements, and scattered off in random bits and bobs to the point where it hardly makes sense anymore how the three started off separate. It's also very well-written, to my mind, and the plot... well, I actually don't want to tell you, because it spoils the crap out of the pleasure of reading. I've already re-read it thrice, and I still find it hilariously incredible. However, it does get somewhat long-winded, quite sidetracked, and very wierd, so be warned.

Watership Down - Richard Adams

Yeah, okay, so it's more-or-less Lord of the Rings with rabbits, but it's a more action-packed, more condensed, more clear, more eloquent, and all-around more entertaining version of Lord of the Rings, if the comparison is at all valid. It does have bunnies, that I can't argue, but it's simply magical in some places, disturbing in others, and air-punchingly epic in still others. I sometimes have difficulty finding fault with the book to which I credit my love of fiction itself, but if I must, it's fairly dry and can be too focused on minor characters at times, but the ensemble seems to balance out well enough to make up for the last one, and the characters are all very well fleshed out. Anyone who's yet to read it, do so. Now. Don't worry, the post won't go away. Back yet? Worth it? If you said yes, feel free to continue, you are worthy. If not, well, I'll live, but I'm very disappointed in you.

The Amulet of Samarkand - Jonathan Stroud

This is the only piece of young-adult literature on my list, which is odd, but regardless, I included it because it truly created my interest in fantasy as a whole, and urban fantasy in particular. It's incredibly innovative, full of interesting takes on magic, history, psychology, philosophy, and politics, not to mention being set in a world quite unlike anything I've ever read or considered reading. Now, to be fair, I've read the entire trilogy so many times I can't quite recall which bits go in which book, but they tend to get more methodical, more cerebral, and darker as time goes on (not that they start off break-neck, silly, and fun, but it gets ramped up significantly towards the end). However, it's damn near impossible for me to properly recommend them separately, as they really do go together flawlessly in my estimation. Also, the main character, Bartimaeus, is hilarious. Just a minor bonus.

Rendezvous with Rama - Arthur C. Clarke

What Stroud did for my with regards to fantasy, Clarke did for science fiction. I picked up a copy of this book from this wierd old lady who ran a used-book store near my house, and it so old it came in two parts held together by scotch tape, with a cover just faded enough to obscure the title so that I couldn't make it out. I bought it on a whim. I'm glad I did. The science is frankly astounding to me even now, and to my burgeoning, impressionable mind it was like a bomb went off. I had never even considered an alien story so... cold. Really, it's not an action-packed story with rubber aliens, laser guns and kill sats, like roughly ever story I'd encountered before; it was just a group of interested people dealing with impartial, hyper-advanced technology and raising really thought-provoking and engaging questions. Clarke may have written better novels, but I'll never let this baby go.

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Another book I only recently read. These two men are really funny. No, I mean really, really, really funny. The satire, the wordplay, the parody, the absurdity, the dialogue, the wit, the everything... it just makes me fall head-over-heels. Plus, both of them are masters of description and poetic stylings (especially Gaiman, the annoyingly talented bastard), so it's assured to be well-written and esoteric, not to mention well-characterized and all that jazz. Sometimes lines from this bok will just appear in my brain for no reason, and I'll laugh, and I'll fell bad for all the other mourners, but forget that, I'm remembering Good Omens, so go away! Basically, the fact that it still makes me laugh when I hear a Queen song, cringe when I pick up the phone, and search the back rooms of any bookstores I can (just in case) means it's valuable enough for me. If you want a side-splitting demolition of demon apocalypse stories with its own gloriously insane style, buy it now.
 
Alone Against Tomorrow - Harlan Ellison

Ah, Ellison. So angry, yet so tender. The man is far and away my favorite writer, and while it's almost impossible for me to pick my favorite collection of his works, this will have to do. This book is not light. it isn't funny, or epic, or snarky, or even a little bit self-aware, save in purposefully mood-breaking or dissonant situations. This is the human heart in conflict with itself, showing us all the infinite ways we can be alone and strong in our loneliness. Classic stories include the Orwellian satire and deeply distressing prophecy of "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," the horrible story of true love and true hate in "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," the value of friendship fully enclosed in a tiny bundle within "In Lonely Lands," and the disgusting, vile, empathetic protagonist (not to mention the genuinely haunting last line... I still shiver) of "Lonelyache." In truth, there aren't any especially good stories: they're all incredible.

Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes

Well, I guess I have to pick something old-school, and Cervantes really knocked this one out of the park... okay, forget that metaphor, but regardless, it's really good. Even translated, it's funny, witty, and well-paced, with characters who are so original I'm really not sure how he came up with them and an intellect that shines through even the grime of four centuries of alternating neglect and over-analysis. It truly is the first modern novel, and I can't help but see it as a masterful pastiche of roughly every genre before it, not to mention an entertaining story in its own right. Even with the second book being much lesser in terms of levity, it's still a philosophical odyssey, and enshrined in my own personal permanent hall of awesome next to the first. Also, the musical "Man of La Mancha" was one of the first and best I ever saw, so I may have some bias.

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

Another olden times novel? Astounding! Tolstoy is not brief, as Mark Twain's infamous bit about how he "carefully neglects to include a boat race" in War and Peace attests, but what he does do is character interaction  and its relations to themes. Anna's journey to high society and consequent utter downfall provide a striking counterpoint with regards to the many, many stories of a rags-to-riches, happily-ever-after type. In spite of all of her glamor and whirligig lifestyle at the top, she can't attain the simple, peaceful happiness that comes from living at the bottom. Plus, Tolstoy really was a great writer, and no matter what liberties the translators must take, that always shines through. Maybe it's boring to some, maybe it's slow at times, maybe it gets really mental and pseudo-stream-of-consciousness, but it's still very much worth the time investment.

V for Vendetta - Alan Moore and David Lloyd

Well, it looks like I'm finished with normal text for now, so it be time for graphic novels! WOOO! *applause* So, anyway, Alan More is crazy. I guess we all already knew that, but he really is. However, V for Vendetta is a sometimes overwhelmingly hand-crafted tale weaving conspiracies, film noir, hallucinatory imagery, and some seriously esoteric references (really, Alan? Has anyone ever really read Pynchon's V? Have you, even?) into a curious sort of retrofuturist totalitarian analysis. In spite of the clearly defined protagonists and antagonists, both sides are more or less given a fair shake in regards to their  views and their effects on the country, and given the deeply flawed nature of all of the characters, they deserve it. Also, the visuals are incredibly good-looking, and there's a song. Yes, a song. If you can read music, it's awesome. If you can't, it's still awesome. The book is dense, and may take a LOT of analysis to get everything, but it's wonderful if you try to do so.

Twentieth Century Boys - Urasawa Naoki

For my final book, it's only fitting to have the most recent of them all, and is it ever a grand find. Having already seen the animated adaptation of Urasawa's other magnum opus, Monster, I was expecting frighteningly detailed, ultimately flawed and yet strangely compelling characters wrapped up in the mad machinations of a horrid force, a force intimately connected to them, who pits them against one another and themselves and reveals the truth of human nature in a darkly psychological exploration of... that sort of thing. What I found was essentially that, with added amazing and compelling and deep and broad and detailed and frankly incredible storytelling tied to a plot that's unparalleled in almost anything else I've read. I like it, I love it, I may have to go read everything the man's written, but I can't imagine them being any better than this.

Honorable Mention:

The Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan

I don't feel comfortable calling this my favorite book. First, it's not incredibly well-paced or well-written, and in fact drags so much at times I'm shocked it doesn't get rugburn, though I don't mind the pacing that much. Second, there are too damn many characters and plots to keep track of, and nowhere near enough of them have been resolved in any way. Third, the author has a very... bizarre view of interpersonal relationships on the whole, especially those involving anyone unfortunate enough to be female, who, in spite of the author not being at all misogynist, will piss off most readers immensely. Fourth, and finally, it's not one book, so there's that. However, I've read all of the books at least twice, most of them more, and I feel myself being very strongly aligned with the characters, the setting, and the style, so no matter how good I actually think it is or ought to be, I clearly like it a whole hell of a lot.

[Vince]

Books that I consider outstanding and re-read often:

The Scar - China Mieville

Lord of Light - Zelazny

The Stars My Destination - Alfred Bester

The First Law Trilogy - Joe Abercrombie

American Gods - Neil Gaiman

The Black Company (the first book that started the series) - Glen Cook

The Tower of Fear - Glen Cook

Darkness that Comes Before - Scott Baker


Honorable mentions:

Robert Sheckley's sci-fi stories
Philip K. Dick's post-apocalyptic stories
Early Michael Moorcock's books
The Malazan Empire series by Steven Erikson
The Otherland books by Tad Williams
Oryx and Crake by Atwood
The Godless World trilogy by Brian Ruckley
The Prince of Nothing books by Scott Bakker
The first few books of the Amber Chronicles by Zelazny
Starship Troopers by Heinlein
Neverwhere by Gaiman
Snow, Glass, Apples by Gaiman
The Day of the Triffids by Wyndham
The Weapon Shops of Isher by Van Vogt
Retief by Keith Laumer

More books come to mind but I can't remember the titles or the authors.

[SnallTrippin]

Vince if you like those try Scott Lynch and Richard Morgan, and I hope you tried Cook's new stuff.

[Vince]

Tried Cook's Instrumentalities of the Night. Liked the first book (8/10), but the second book was kinda boring and failed to grab me.

Scott Lynch - 7/10. The first book was ok-ish, the second - so-so. The theme had potential but was poorly executed, in my opinion.

Richard Morgan - not bad, but something was missing. The fantasy book was ok-ish, the sci-fi books were a bit better, but overall they are one-shot books - read once and you're done with them.

[Gareth]

The Day of the Triffids by Wyndham

Hah, another person who enjoyed that book. Man, they don't make sci-fi like they used to. Fuck AI singularities and expanding on where modern research will take us. Where are the shambling, carnivorous plants?

[SnallTrippin]

I'll stick with science, finally getting back into Kevin Anderson's Sons saga, solid if not inspired. 

[caster]

Oh ye unwashed masses!  
Wash your filthy mouths before speaking of things you cannot grasp.

Day of the Triffids is one of the classics but if you want to see what those old masters (all of them) caused to be born, what they caused to be created... what they set foundations to? This is their legacy as much as their own works.



*Put on protective eye-wear before reading further*




Shambling plants? ill give you shambling plants!

"Chaga" by Ian Mcdonald

The story starts with strange changes affecting Saturn's moons: Hyperion disappears, Iapetus starts to turn progressively black. Young Gaby McAslan immediately feels destiny calling: her life is changed by these strange events, she feels herself drawn towards the mystery. When a meteor strikes Mount Kilimanjaro and, despite a military clampdown, word leaks out that something alien has started to grow, Gaby has to investigate. Now a SkyNet journalist, she manoeuvres and manipulates her way towards a career move to Africa, where the alien landscape - called the Chaga, after a local tribe - is spreading, destroying and/or transforming (depending on your viewpoint) all in its path.

http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/chaga.htm

And then ask Ian has he ever read Day of the Triffids!  




Vacuum Diagrams by Stephen Baxter
- a short story collection expanding on many events from his Xelee books

Want to read a little about Liserl?

*Liserl documents the title character's life from birth until shortly after her physical death. The story explains how the development of nanobots has enabled virtual immortality for humans by virtue of the nanotechnological manipulation of the chemical processes that cause cells to die. Liserl's body is engineered by such nanobots but, instead of extending her life, the nanobots cause her to age rapidly. Memories and learning are also implanted into her cortex. The combination of these effects results in Lieserl living the equivalent of 90 year life in 90 days.

Lieserl is told that her existence is just one of many projects initiated by mankind to ensure the survival of the species. Lieserl's task is to study the sun since it appears to be dying, aging more quickly than was to be expected without some exterior influence.*

Or find out how Bolders Ring got his name?

See humanity over next several billions of years and follow them and other races futile race forward on the trace of uber godlike alien race called the Xelee unto entropy - where all stars are spent and dark, where the time thins out like air into the vacuum and only things left are singularities, nothing spreading into nothing - and further still to the last grains of dark?

Follow it over wars lasting hundreds of thousands of years, times of prosperity and then under occupation and almost total degradation and decadence then into expansion over galaxy and even bigger failures and then into dispersal into millions of destinies?



See people living on the surface of sun, but regressed to almost "stone ages" because they lost all real knowledge of technology that makes them and sustains their bodies now. Living in the wonderful ecology of the upper layers of the star with its "flora" and "fauna" but reduced to worrying will your Sun "cow" escape or get eaten by other "creatures" living in the forests of magnetic turbulence's or seas of plasma.



Find out what to do when you smashed into Ghost cruiser with your life raft, only three of you still alive in the raging space battle around you, because your ship simpl< fell apart once it entered a region around Ghost Fortress - a whole star undergoing some strange change.
A whole star thats just part of the giant line pf stars Ghosts set up in front of incoming humanity thats spreading over systems scratching them bare of resources like a huge virus.
A huge fucking wall of stars called fucking Orion Line

- and all you have is a knife and youre not exactly the brightest of the lowly cadets on the ship to start with and two other survived companions are a killing machine commando type that was actually a sort of political officer on the ship and a dyintg "scientist" who despises how totalitarian whole human kind got to be (worse then anything Heinlein imagined baby)




Or see whats happening deep down in the regions of Planck zero sizes and spaces?

Or visit the site of the Ghosts latest experiment from time of cooperation between two races and witness birth of the singularity AI *for realz*

How about actually flying one of the fucking Xelee nightflyers?

And much more. Really.






 Hyperion & Fall of Hyperion  by Dan Simmons

A story of humanity dispersed across the neighboring stars after the slow agonizing destruction of Earth by escaped miniature singularity (black hole), into  Hegemony, hundreds of star systems connected by Farcasters.
(thats where my nickname is from.. should have added far ...damn...)
Which were built by Earth AIs to help save humanity and as an attempt of atonement since it was AIs that led the experiment with the black hole and ultimately failed to control it.

Hegemony is actually a newer, even bigger, even richer version of Earth where different planets and systems have taken over the role of states. Basically the same thing but with much, much more shinier toys.

And Hyperion is a small backward planet with indigo sunsets, few million colonists  and seas of grass and forests of Tesla trees on its norther continent where also lie Time Tombs, a strange yet unexplained archeological site to which you cannot travel by any sort of flying vehicle - and main city called Keats.
It is not yet connected to the web of Farcasters and integrated into the Hegemony.


Its...amazingly written from every perspective you can think of... Its amazingly beautiful because the writing is so clear and possesses such imagery strength that you actually see everything in full HD while youre reading.

You follow the plot through six different characters while they travel to Hyperion on board the Tree Ship Yggdrassill.
A giant Sequoya kind of a tree surrounded by force fields controlled by help of a telepathic link between Templars and their Ergs, small beings found living in the outer shells of several stars, and with Hawking engines installed.

*When you travel with ships you incrue time debt, even with Hawking drives which only the military and the wealthy can afford (which means - a lot, in Hegemony), while cargo, frozen colonists and embryos, or robotic factories for assembly of farcasters travel on "ordinary" slower then light propulsion.*

So they talk after waking up from Fugue, and tell how they got involved into all of this and why are they the only six people out of several thousand billion humans in hegemony who are allowed to go to Time Tombs, on board of a Templar Tree ship - one of only a few in all of Hegemony no less, in the middle of what seems to be an invasion of one of the Ouster swarms.

Which swiftly turns into all out war in which survival of Hegemony and all its people are at stake.


Each character is amazingly well realized and once you meet them you will never forget them. They will become prototypes you will use in conversations to describe someone. You will laugh your ass off, clutch and rub you chests unbelieving, grit your teeth waiting for imminent impact at several gees or flinch and grab your crotch,  or barely managing not to shed a tier murmuring... "bastard...  how could this be so hard... i never thought..." - just to give a few basic, very basic examples.
Im not worthy o talk more about this aspect of the books.

Each story they tell is totally unique and each one is a masterpiece on its own and then they intertwine into the whole overarching story so masterfully in such genius ways that that alone will often leave you just... amazed.
Its not only that they connect, but they intertwine and then grow, spread and create new story lines, meanings, realizations, more plots, resolutions, and then came back and forth through time and ... sometimes it seems like your trying to follow a wild fire on a lake of gasoline from a helicopter at neck braking speed.

And its a story about love. And pain.

In a sense this is not a book. Its a wonder of story telling through and through.




Last Hero by  Terry Pratchet
Although Small Gods is in any "best five Discworld stories" list i make Last Hero is the best one for me.
The last mad dash of Cohen the Barbarian and his Grey horde (experience over brawn... and brains mostly) onto the Dunmanifestin, the seat of gods themselves with a barrel of magical ultra explosive in order to blow it and the gods to kingdom come will leave you crying from laughter and laughing through tears so many times you wont even care.
The peak of peaks.



Scar by China Mieville

If New Crobuzon was a height of Perdido street Station the the Armada is the same to Scar. But not the only one.
The Armada, the amazing characters and all the seas of Bass Leg and the Scar itself... oh man...
The Twins and their mad plans, Uther Doul and his sword or Silas Fennec and his doll.

Awesome and made from awesomnium.



- thats first five.

[Gambler]

I actually have a list of everyone-must-read books stashed somewhere online. The way a book gets to that list is simple. It must have a capacity to change your world view, if only in some specific area. I don't have time to describe every single one of them right now, so I just mention my favorite.

Solaris by Stanislav Lem. Solaris is a research space station with a small crew. But that's as much I will say about the plot, because simply summarizing it is completely pointless. Lem managed to combine existential philosophy with a love story, a detective-like mystery with hardcore science fiction. The book works on so many levels at once, and they all interact in such a complex fashion, that it is extremely difficult to describe. You see, most novels are driven by the "wants" of their characters and the conflicts those "wants" cause. Solaris is not like that. (Very few of Lem's works are.) It has drama, but no usual hysteria and artificially inflated dramatic tension. It's not about characters' arbitrary desires, but about the situation they're in, the way it unfolds, and the way they react. Extremely powerful story.

It was the first novel in many, many years that made me actually feel something. And it also had a significant impact on the way I see people and their emotions.

[Scott]

A comprehensive list would take too much time, so chew on this:
The Book of Lost Things - John Connoly.  This is a fantasy one-off from a guy who typically writes really strange detective/horror hybrids.

Amberville - Tim Davys.  This is a Swedish Roman Noir.  I am a big critic of the genre, meaning from the first page I can't stand 98% of it, but this is one of the best I've ever read.  The twist:  the characters are all stuffed animals in a stuffed animal world with its own rules.  It's also a story about love, revenge and the meaning of mortality.  I tried to bring this up to some colleagues and all they could do is go Furries, hurrhurrhurr, furries... It's about furries, Scott, hurrhurr, etc.

Fantasy - Gene Wolfe.  For the most part, his stuff goes from awesome to magnificent.  Recently, The Knight and The Wizard are a fantastic effort, rewriting Norse mythology as contemporary fantasy.

Science Fiction - Michael Swanwick, the older the better.  Stations of the Tide, Gravity's Angels, In The Drift (post-apoc!), Vacuum Flowers.

[Zaij]

Don't have a lot of time, but I'll add a description later

House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski. Just a fantastic a novel (ha) piece of work.

[Palmer Eldritch]

People rarely mention Hunter S Thompson's other books. Hell's Angels, The Rum Diary, and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 are all good fun (and very different from each other).

Regarding Bukowski, I think Women was the one work of his that stood out to me. Factotum is also very good.

As for personal favorites, well that's a hard one. Some books that made a lasting impression:

Albert Camus - The Stranger
Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master & Margarita
Louis-Ferdinand Céline - Journey to the End of the Night
Franz Kafka - The Castle
Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow

[Ted]

Well, the topic said favourite reads, not favourite books, so I will go for short stories (since the best books, Watership Down and Lord of Light, have already been mentioned. As they should have.)

Berenice by Edgar Allen Poe - glorious, glorious, glorious prose with a total creep-out ending.

Leaf by Niggle by Tolkien - wonderfully simple fairy tale has many layers from both a theological and autobiographical perspective.

For a breath I tarry by Zelazny - sci-fi retelling of Job (with a touch of Faust thrown in).

[JuJu]

For a breath I tarry by Zelazny - sci-fi retelling of Job (with a touch of Faust thrown in).

Don't you mean "Job - Comedy of Justice"? "For a Breath I Tarry" was a short story about AI in postapocalypse.



My absolute favorites are:

Kiln people by David Brin - Not only is it the best detective I've ever read, but also explores in depth how people change and whether they are the same person, they were yesterday. Set in a sci-fi setting where people can make short-lived copies of themselves to be able make most of their time.

The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher - Almost mindless urban fantasy action in book format. The most gripping books I've ever read - it is very hard to stop reading once you have started. Also quite funny. Not recommended for serious reading.

Watchmen  by Alan Moore - The only comic graphic novel I've ever read. It is very, very good. It has deep characters and it makes you evaluate your own moral values.

Cryptomonicon by Neal Stephenson - A mixture of pure awesome and educational value with a sprinkle of witty narrator in a package of good plot.
Also by the same author - Snow Crash, which is made of awesome, but lacks in other respects.

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny - I started reading it after recommendations in this thread. Very beautifully written. I plan to read it again sometime soon.

[Ted]

Don't you mean "Job - Comedy of Justice"? "For a Breath I Tarry" was a short story about AI in postapocalypse.

You get smart, and you get to church! Job - Comedy of Justice is indeed a great book - how many others have the parousia 2/3 of the way through? - but "For a Breath I Tarry" is a retelling of the Job story in a post-apocolyptic future. Where "Job" is a robot.