Infamous Quests
Public Forums => Banter and Chit-Chat! => Topic started by: Chadly on June 04, 2013, 05:52:53 PM
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I enjoy books and reading very much! :). Actually I would say I enjoy reading more than I enjoy playing PC/video games. A good author allows one to enter their world in a profound way, by using your imagination! Reading a great science fiction or fantasy series a thing of joy!
With that said, What kinds of books and authors does everyone enjoy? I myself enjoy science fiction/fantasy genre's, thrillers, and horror novels. For authors I like Tolkien, George rr Martin, Terry Goodkind, Raymond Feist, Robert Jordan,Tom Clancy, and Stephen King. :)
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I enjoy pretty much anything that's entertaining - historically, I've been a huge fan of comedy authors like Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. Lately, though, I haven't had as much time to read, so I stick with children's books. I find the Lemony Snicket series to be particularly fun, and I've got a clear preference for Dork Diaries over Diary of a Wimpy Kid (but to be fair, I've only read the first book of the latter series... it must get better somewhere along the way). How to Train Your Dragon is interesting mainly because of how different the novels are from the movie. I've also got a bunch of novels that inspired manga and anime series that I need to read, like Haruhi Suzumiya, Karin, Slayers... I spend most of my reading time reading the actual manga, though, and there are way too many of those to pick favorites.
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I've always been a fan of Tom Robbins, myself. Kurt Vonnegut, Harland Ellison, Ray Bradbury and Phillip K. Dick are some others I've enjoyed over the years.
I was just talking to Lambonius about how much I enjoy Stephen King's Short Stories. Don't get me wrong - I love his novels, and I just recently re-read The Dark Tower series and was reminded of how amazing it is - but his short stories... man, some of them are just so entertaining! They pack a punch! Off the top of my head, I can think of "The Jaunt", "Survivor Type", "The Mist", "Everything's Eventual", "Dolan's Caddilac".... man, Skeleton Crew, Night Shift - those are some great collections of short stories.
Bt
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I've been reading A Game of Thrones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_song_of_ice_and_fire) and it's a great little companion piece to the show. the advice I seem to get from most readers is to watch and then read it. The show is extremely close to the books, though getting further all the time. You can watch the show and absorb it at face value and when you read it you get into the minds of all the characters and the motivations become so much more clear. They also have room to delve into their enormous backstories in a way that the show doesn't really allow for.
Other than that though I've recently gotten into novels that are very graphic. No not like American Psycho (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psycho) but literally graphic novels. There's so much cool stuff going on over at Marvel these days it's a new age. I sat down and read the entirety of Ultimate Spider-man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Spider-Man) (Still going) and it's so cool how all 4 of the Spider-man movies have borrowed or referenced from it. It also ties in nicely to the Ultimate X-men books.
If costumes and nobles aren't your bag I highly reccomend Brian K. Vaughn's Y: The Last Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_the_last_man). it's a 60 issue series about a plague that kills every male of every species on earth simultaneously except one man and his pet monkey. It can get a bit "Lost" at times with it's multiple mysteries but it's hugely evocative and funny and just plain fun to read.
Bt, if you like Dick in the eyes, as in reading the works of Phillip K. Dick, you should pick up a copy of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep%3F) It's one of the best done comics I've ever seen. It has the entire text of the novel in it as well and in my opinion is better than Blade Runner.
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I haven't read the comic of "Electric Sheep?" but I'll pick it up based on your recommendation!
I also know this is cliched, but it IS really good - I just re-read "Watchmen" recently, and damn, that was a great series.
Bt
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I started reading aged 4 haven't stopped since, mostly the old target doctor who's when I was a kid. loved war of the worlds too.
never quite managed to get into lord of the rings, found it a bit dull but that's me (finding it dull, not being so). Quite enjoying John Zakour's series beginning with Plutonium Blonde at the moment.
Well that and a few other books I really should get back to and finish.
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I haven't read the comic of "Electric Sheep?" but I'll pick it up based on your recommendation!
I also know this is cliched, but it IS really good - I just re-read "Watchmen" recently, and damn, that was a great series.
Bt
My first exposure to Watchmen was the movie and it just rubbed me the wrong way somehow. Lady loves the book though, she even wears a Silk Spectre T-shirt around.
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I just read the 29th and final novel in the Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist. Big big fan, my favorite series and favorite author. I love Douglas Adams writing, it's so witty and charming and funny. But mostly I read biographies, a lot of sport stars, business people and politicians. Especially those of a different political persuasion than myself. Know thy enemy.
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I read a lot when I was younger, but find little time for it these days, as I'm sure most of my colleagues will agree!
Of the classics, I particularly like Dickens and Hardy, but I lean more towards old school science fiction, I think I've read almost every book by John Wyndham. Huge fan of dystopian novels like 1984, Brave New World, When the Sleeper Wakes etc. etc. Other writers I enjoy are: Lovecraft, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tolkien, Ian Banks, Carl Hiaasen, Christopher Brookmyre, Alessandro Baricco and Milan Kundera.
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Oh yeah. Second favorite leisure activity besides computer gaming is definitely reading. But lately I've been reading a lot of nursing books for study purposes so when I read for fun I usually like the easy, few-brain-cell-required chick-lit books, lol. A little embarrassing I guess. I like biographies and memoirs too. I'd say one of my favorite authors that I'd like to read more of though is Ken Follett. I love anything to do with World War II. "Night Over Water" is my favorite book he's written (about the Pan Am Clipper's last flight).
I've never read any of Stephen King's books yet but of course seen many of his movies. He's pure genius. Favorite one is "It". I can only imagine how interesting & insanely crazy the book versions are.
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One of my favorite books ever is All Quiet On The Western Front. I will read pretty much anything World War I or II related. Read all the Steven Ambrose books (though they don't really qualify as novels.) Just recently read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I finally finished after owning the book for years and starting it many times. It's funny, philosophical stuff, and I love that about it, but I think the narrative drags a bit at times; I found myself having to put it down a lot because I got bored, to be honest. I have all the sequels in a combined volume--haven't gotten to any of them yet. Also, I reread Huck Finn not too long ago. Love me some Mark Twain.
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It may be off-topic, but I'm noticing plenty of mentions of Douglas Adams, so I have to recommend the radio play versions of the Hitch-hiker's series and the Dirk Gently series. Hitch-hiker's particularly began as a radio play, so it's the original, almost unchanged story as it sprang from Adams' head, slowly over the course of many weeks while the actors waited in closets to receive the scripts so they could record it hopefully before going on air. Very recently, the third through fifth books were recorded as well, featuring as many of the original actors as they could gather, and while they follow the books very closely (the second season in particular is almost nothing like the book), the ending is worth the entire trip, and hopefully worth the cost as well. If you haven't heard the chorus of a hundred Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots singing "Share and Enjoy" off-key by exactly a flattened fifth, you haven't read the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series at all.
The Dirk Gently series is just full of subtle humor that manages to come across surprisingly well in audio.
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I was just thinking that maybe an audio-book version would be easier to get into for the Hitchiker's Guide series. I'll have to track those down.
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There's at least one copy of each season available right now from whona.com, which is where I go for pretty much anything in British sci-fi now. Of course, I live close enough to their warehouse to go there in person and avoid the shipping charge.
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Ha! That must be nice! I'll just walk down to my local "Who" Warehouse and pick up a plethora of goods!!!
Bt
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I just read the 29th and final novel in the Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist. Big big fan, my favorite series and favorite author.
Klytos, I am envious; the last of the Riftwar series I read was "The Serpent Saga"...
It was the extremely well-written "Betrayal At Krondor" Computer RPG that got me interested in Feist's "World of Midkemia" -- only to discover much later that Feist didn't write the game, merely serving in an "executive editor with final say" capacity for the game. Either way, I was hooked...
( "Return to Krondor" had a great start to the game, but deflated once you left the gates of Krondor for the Midkemia countryside... )
Oh well... At least I have the remaining 11 of the 29 books left to look forward to in my old age.
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Loved the Hitchhiker's Guide books, and picked up the first Dirk Gently book while on a trip in England years ago -- brilliant! Unfortunately, the follow-up Dirk Gently was only so-so.
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Unfortunately, I haven't been doing much reading the last few years, but I did finally read Orwells' "Animal Farm" and "1984" recently -- both contain brilliant insight and many cautionary lessons to be learned.
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I think Serpentwar was the best "series" of all the series within Riftwar. I think his character development was awesome especially of Erik and Calis. A couple of the later ones are a bit repetitive but I love them all. I also got into the Fiest stuff through BAK although my dad was already a fan so when he realised I loved it he gave me Magician to read which I think is up there with Tolkien for it's strength of story and writing. Been hooked ever since.