Dune was good, I thought it was standalone. I'll have to find the others now. And yeah, Terry Pratchett rocks too. But I just remembered, Anne McCaffrey has a couple of interesting ones. And Mercedes Lackey had at least two good books out of all the ones she's written

Two books I loved as a child but that are kind of juvenile are:

The Castle in the Attic

and

The Black Cauldron

Two words: Terry. Pratchett.

The Discworld series is hilarious, and despite popular belief it appeals to an adult audience, too. (There's a lot of sexual innuendos, especially in the new ones).

I met Terry, too. I got "The Truth" signed by him, except he was a bit grumpy.

I think....perhaps it is Discworld that I had on XBox and a Super Nintendo game of....perhaps?

The game of Thrones was by George R. R. Martin. Bloody beautifully written series.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Robert Jordan yet though, he is virtually considered the king of modern Fantasy, and the Wheel of Time is an awesome series.

Other authors of note in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy area are Isaac Asimov (would you believe some people haven't heard of him?), Katherine Kerr, Melanie Rawn, Janny Wurtz and David Gemmell.

Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind, 7-800 pages each book of awesomenessness, think there will be 11 books total, 8 books so far, the triology of the end fast approaching.

I'm personally a fan of shakespear. I love othello and macbeth, and i also like romeo and juliet. I also like th eworks of Poe, especially the raven, eldorado, and annabel lee.

Yeah, GaiJin wasn't very interesting, but the last 300 pages as well as the story on the Japanese side was very good I think. Though, you didn't like King Rat? I thought it was at least up to par with TaiPan (though not TaiPan's great ending). I'm in the beginnings of Noble House at the moment and Whirlwind should be arriving soon.

Personally, I find the Discworld series to be a bit too much, trying to be witty and humorous at every turn. Like eating chocolate-covered chips with marmalade dip. Bit too much.


You have something to look forward to. Noblehouse was my favourite out of the five.

I heard that game was pretty good, even if you hadn't read the books... But I haven't found a copy of it myself.

Yes, Noble House is shaping up quite nicely, I'm somewhere around page 350 about now. So much is going on in so much detail and yet it all makes sense.

Wow. People haven't heard of Asimov? Man. I can't even picture that, we had to learn about him in school at age 10. Some people don't even know who Jack the Ripper was (supposed to be.) And oh my, I missed Robert Jordan! Although I don't think he's as good an author as Margaret Weis & co...he's still great. And I wish I could find any sword of truth books. You'd think with so many of the blinking things it wouldn't be hard to find.

Ok, this one I have to dispute. First five were good. Next three were shocking. I've seen glaciers move faster than these books. The two most recent are starting to get up to speed but he's bitten off too much. Every small character needing their own plotline maintained has really hurt this series. Feist is much better (length is not necessary the sign of a good author - most of his earlier works have endearing characters with fairly unique qualities. The more recent ones are getting rather formulaic but still an enjoyable read), and Martin blows both of them out of the water IMO - take Jordan but with an aggressive pruning approach. A character becomes superfluous, Martin kills them where Jordan would dedicate a book to them.

Edit: Sword of Truth is rather similar to Jordan, which the exception that at least he writes his in single novel "bites" (or was doing so until I stopped reading them).

I read kiddie books.

-Narnia
-Harry Pottah!
-The Da Vinci Code (people in my society must read this book. or die.)
-The Eight

And an assortment of other historic intelligent thrillers. Fun.

Mostly non-fictional tomes nowadays --atm trying to expand my libarary with additional sugar-coated fancies that seem vital to own e.g. works on The Rennaisance, the Art of Body-piercing and Taxonomy (they *do* so fit together well, don't they, folks?)
Plus, I have an abiding love for any (auto)biography that looks like it might inspire. Example --just finished a trilogy(!) on the life and politics of Ron Reagan, which wasn't so laborious as you might think. 'Stan and Ollie: The Roots of Comedy' by Simon Louvish was about perfect as well.

Current works of fictional inspiration, though, would have to be Joseph Heller (Something happened) -- much, much, better than 'Catch 22' says the Goddess of Literary Perfection (offer populist novel to sanctify?) who tips me a nod and a wink on occasion.

Oh, and the chap who likes Perdido St Station??

Methinks you're in good company around here --and a great read it is too.


--Aama

I prefer Hamlet, personally, though Macbeth is also very good. Oddly enough, I wasn't very fond of Romeo and Juliet.

yeah. i never rea dhamelt, oddly enough. and othello just whoops arsch.

So many great fantasy books already mentioned, I actually think the Silmarillion is the best of Tolkien's set. Also I'm a big fan of Stephen Donaldson, both the Thomas Covenant and Gap series'.

Having read the thread about opinions of the latest US politics though, I'm tempted to recommend Max Barry's Jennifer Government and Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival too .

No one has answered my Eddings question yet :-P

Sword of Truth
Discworld
Wheel of Time (although the last few haven't been quite so good)