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Official Recommendation Thread: Books

Discussion in 'Books and Anime Discussion' started by Marguerida, Apr 5, 2005.

  1. Nae

    Nae The Violent

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    Prince of nothing by R. Scott Baker is a trilogy, so you have all three books.

    Also, I keep hearing about Dune. I know it's something of a classic sci-fi, but is it really that good, or just hype?

    Edit : I see The Silent Knight's post now. Maybe I'll give this one a go once I get some time on my hands.
     
    Last edited: Jun 24, 2011
  2. iLost

    iLost Minister of Magic

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    The Dune movie from the eighties was pretty bad. The Sci-fi miniseries was actually pretty decent. Avoid the miniseries Children of Dune. It rapes Canon. The book, Dune, itself is fairly decent. The prose is a bit abrupt, not much flair, but the imagination behind it is pretty good. It does have some political play, but that comes into more focus in the next books.
     
  3. NotreDameGeo

    NotreDameGeo Squib

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  4. Tehan

    Tehan Avatar of Khorne DLP Supporter

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    [​IMG]

    Problem with Dune is when Frank Herbert kicked the bucket, his son took over, and his son fucking sucks. Y'see, good ol' Frank only wrote six books out of the sixteen in the Dune universe, and he wrote his six over a period of thirty years. Brian Herbert's pet author shat out one every year for a decade straight. So enjoy the first... uh... sextuplegy (?) but be ready to dump the series like a pregnant girlfriend after that.
     
  5. Agravaine

    Agravaine Seventh Year

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    Three, but there's also a sequel trilogy (two-thirds completed) and another trilogy after that. PoN is reasonably self-contained, though.

    You might also dig Joe Abercrombie (The Blade Itself and sequels) and Scott Lynch (The Lies of Locke Lamora and sequel).
     
  6. iLost

    iLost Minister of Magic

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    This is very very true. I wanted so bad to pick up the last books after Chapter House: Dune, regardless of who wrote them. I wanted to see the story finished. I picked up one of the prequels written and said fuck it. Kevin J. Anderson does not have enough imagination to continue the story in any way for me to enjoy it. Which makes me sad.

    Also, the comic says it all.
     
  7. Fiat

    Fiat The Chosen One DLP Supporter

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    I just read Singularity Skies by Stross and found it to be pretty great.

    However, you left out the best part of that quote.


    As for other book recommendations, I'd recommend Accelerando (also by stross) which is both awesome and weird (the first short story in it features an uploaded gestalt mind of russian lobsters as a major plot point). The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson is also really good in a post-cyberpunk-ish way.
     
  8. Portus

    Portus Heir

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    So, my wife is working on her Master's in English, and one of the courses is Gothic Literature, or maybe it's American Gothic Literature. Either way, she decided to write her final research paper on The Shining.

    I used to really enjoy Stephen King's work, and read a ton of his popular stuff at that time, including IT (fucking scary but I loved it), Pet Semetary (VERY fucking scary, and I really loved it), The Stand, Christine (disturbingly and wonderfully creepy), Apt Pupil (mind-screw), most of his short story collections, and a dozen or so more than I'm forgetting right now. I wasn't impressed by a lot of his later stuff like Hearts in Atlantis and Dreamcatcher, so I pretty much moved on from King.

    I'd seen the original Stanley Kubric movie of The Shining (somewhat creepy but mostly meh) as well as the made-for-TV remake (far better), but I'd never read the book, so I figured what the hell, we'll read it together. (She'd read it before, though it was a long time ago.) What I'm trying to say is that I went in with no expectations.

    Damn. I'm convinced that it's his best work. It's certainly the best I've ever seen from him, and it works on more than the horror level, because you feel for every character in the book. They're so well fleshed-out and so sympathetic, being that it's told from all points of view. Just a complete modern tragedy, really, except that - well, I don't want to spoil it if by some miracle you haven't seen either of the films or know what happens.

    It is almost nothing like the Kubric/Nicholson version, by the way, and if that's all you know about the story, you'll be doing yourself a favor by reading the novel as soon as you can.
     
  9. LittleChicago

    LittleChicago Headmaster DLP Supporter

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    Never liekd Kubrick. For all the touting of how he's such a perfectionist, I never saw a fucking thing by him that impressed me.

    The best part of that movie was Jack Nicholson, but he's Jack Motherfucking Nicholson.

    As for The Shining book, yes, possibly King's masterpiece. His best besides the Dark Tower (and you can skip almost all of Book 6 of that).
     
  10. Fiat

    Fiat The Chosen One DLP Supporter

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    I totally hated the Dark Tower series. I liked some of his other stuff, but yeah, the Shining was by far his best.

    Also: another book I just read and enjoyed a lot was The Player of Games by Ian Banks. It's a part of The Culture series, but you don't need any familiarity with the series to read it and - in my opinion - is the best one to start with. It's...good. I don't really know how to describe it. I enjoyed it more than most of the books I've read in recent memory, and as it's only like 300-400 pages, it's not a huge time investment.
     
  11. Crash

    Crash Fourth Year

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    I'd strongly recommend Malazan, along with The Darkness That Comes Before. Malazan's definitely more in-depth, and has a few other companion novels, not only by its author, Steven Erikson, but by the co-creator of the Malazan world, Ian Esslemont.

    The downside to Malazan is the great host of characters and sub-plots can lead to confusion and a lack of character development. Despite this, it's worth it due to the sheer scale and intricacies of the world Erikson creates along with the plots make up for it.
     
  12. Carmine

    Carmine Unspeakable

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    Non-fiction stuff, but whatever. Che Guevara's diaries, Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War and The Bolivian Diary are both very interesting, very much enjoyed those. Also, I recently started Omaha Beach, a Flawed Victory, by Adrian R. Lewis. Also particularly interesting.
     
  13. Scrib

    Scrib The Chosen One

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    Funny RL Book recs

    I'm a bit jaded with fiction right now but I want to read and can't figure out where to start. So I turn to DLP for recs.

    To be honest, I need something light. I've read the Tucker Max books (and am burying myself with beer just in case, after all the laughing I did, I might be joining him) and the Shit My Dad Says book and laughed my heart out and was wondering if there was anything else like that out there.

    Not that bullshit rl-troll,Denis leary bullshit where someone rips into Western culture, thinking they're funny. Just light, anecdotal comedy that I can suspend disbelief about and pretend happened.
     
  14. Mutt

    Mutt High Inquisitor DLP Supporter

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    Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris is a collection of light, anecdotal essays.

    And they're absolutely hilarious.
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2011
  15. Mage

    Mage Chief Warlock DLP Supporter

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    It's not the same type of humor, but Marley and Me is fucking hilarious for most of it. It does get sad though, just a warning.
     
  16. LittleChicago

    LittleChicago Headmaster DLP Supporter

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    Absolutely anything written by Patrick McManus. The man specializes in 'outdoorsy' humour - the trials of camping, hiking, fishing, etc, mixed with tales about his completely absurd childhood. Nothing serious in any of his books, which are all short-story collections. I've hurt myself laughing at his stuff.
     
  17. Bittersweet Freedom

    Bittersweet Freedom Second Year

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    Dunno if this has been mentioned, but The Bartimaeus Series by Jonathan Stroud is excellent read especially for HP fans. Originally called a trilogy, it now has four books and while haven't read the fourth yet, the first three were hysterical. I just love Bartimaeus. He's just so.... him. XD That's the only way to explain it.

    Another humorous series is the Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. However, some of the twists can get too be too much and slightly soap opera-y.

    Also, Eragon Book 4, Inheritance is apparently coming out November though you can start putting a hold on it in the library.
     
  18. Mage

    Mage Chief Warlock DLP Supporter

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    I agree that Bartimaeus was an excellent series... but how are there 4 books? I've only read three and

    Doesn't the protagonist die at the end of book 3?
     
  19. Bittersweet Freedom

    Bittersweet Freedom Second Year

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  20. Portus

    Portus Heir

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    HAHAHAHAHA. I cannot believe you've recced *this*, on DLP of all places.

    Take a look right here for some info on this bloated bitch and her blatant plagiarism.

    Here's a post with more info on it.

    Obviously, read what you want. But don't toss rehashed fanfiction into the book reccs thread.
     
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