# So we have a thread about books you just couldn't take...



## Devyn Eclipse Nav (Jul 13, 2012)

So why not some about your favorite books?

I personally am a big fan of Frank Herbert's Dune series (even the ones his son wrote. They are not the greatest series in the world, they are just a tribute. I kinda think of them as professional fan-fic that went canon) and his WorShip trilogy he wrote with Bill Ransom. I feel like that's a superior series to Dune, as it ended before it got old, and was very well written and poetic (due to having a poet help write it, I assume.)

I also quite enjoyed The People Next Door by Christopher Ransom. Seriously creepy shit, and really suspenseful.

So what about the rest of SS.org?


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## Guitarman700 (Jul 13, 2012)

1.Dune
2.Foundation
3.Dark Tower
4.Slaughterhouse Five
5.Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep


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## MFB (Jul 13, 2012)

1. Dark Tower series
2. Slaughterhouse Five
3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
4. American Gods

Not sure what my 5th would be, but those are the ones that I've got up there for now. Maybe #5 would be The Trial of Socrates?


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## Mexi (Jul 13, 2012)

I've just started reading the Dark Tower books (on The Wastelands right now) and really enjoying them. Stephen King books are among my favorite really, particularly The Stand, Misery and even his last one, 11/22/63 are beautifully written.

but after that I'd say Nineteen-Eighty-Four, Fahrenheit 451, The Road and No Country For Old Men


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## petereanima (Jul 13, 2012)

No surprise here I guess, but my 2 faves are The Lord Of The Rings as well as A Song Of Ice And Fire.

Others would include The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, 1984, and altough I'm usually not _the_ Stephen King fan, "The Stand" was amazing to read. Also one of the later things I read: Brandon Sandersons "Mistborn" Trilogy caught me by surprise, really really love it, currently very high in my list.


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## tacotiklah (Jul 13, 2012)

Lord of the rings, harry potter, tom clancy's stuff (most notably Executive Orders and The Bear and the Dragon), The Stand, Dark Tower series, some of Edgar Allen Poe's short stories. Really if it's dark and well written, or has a very rich storyline with believable characters, I'd probably like it.


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## petereanima (Jul 13, 2012)

I forgot to add my Lovecraft favourites...


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## skeels (Jul 13, 2012)

Dune
LOTR
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
H. Beam Piper- Little Fuzzy series
Gordon Dickson- Love Not Human
Taran the Wanderer series - Black Cauldron
World War Z- Max Brooks
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


Oh, wait ...five?
Ooops.


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## Devyn Eclipse Nav (Jul 13, 2012)

I never said you had to only put 5 hahaha. Tell us about as many as you want!


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## brynotherhino (Jul 13, 2012)

My current favorite series is the king killer chronicles, even though the last book isn't out yet. Patrick rothfuss did such an excellent job with these so far!


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## fps (Jul 13, 2012)

Well my favourites that spring to mind are

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert Heinlein 
The Trial by Franz Kafka

But there are probably many more I've forgotten. Anybody have an opinion on any of those? 

petereanima I couldn't get into 1984 when I tried to read it, just didn't like the writing. What works for you in it? I might need a fresh perspective before I come back to it. And Paradise Lost= EPIC!!!


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## fps (Jul 13, 2012)

MFB said:


> 1. Dark Tower series
> 2. Slaughterhouse Five
> 3. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
> 4. American Gods
> ...



Fear And Loathing is great fun, the writing has that living excitement to it that really works, massive adrenaline rush from reading it. I'll leave living like that to someone else though haha. Apparently the attorney is a made up combination of real people?


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## MFB (Jul 13, 2012)

Wouldn't surprise me to be honest. I loved F&L and it definitely pushed me to start experimenting with hallucinogens that's for sure  Guess that explains why I'm always uncertain about recommending it to people because while it's fun - the fun is induced by drugs and such so it's like "Well this could cause people to do horrible, crazy things."


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## The Uncreator (Jul 13, 2012)

1. Pushing Ice (Alastair Reynolds)
2. The Prefect (Alastair Reynolds)
3. Revelation Space (Alastair Reynolds)
4. Ring (Stephen Baxter)
5. Imajica (Clive Barker)


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## broj15 (Jul 13, 2012)

1. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (read the book before i saw the movie and it seriously changed my life and how i thought about everything)
2. Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
3. Food Of The Gods: The Search For The Original Tree Of Knowledge - A Radical History Of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution by Terence McKenna (the book that originally interested me in psychadelics, along with Terence McKenna's spoken word pieces, and played a huge roll in the life path that I have chosen)
4. The Doors Of Perception by Aldous Huxley
5. Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo (technically not a book, but the 4 part graphic novel is probably one of the best works of sci-fi liturature I have ever read)

A close contender for the top 5 would probably have to be Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut


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## The Grief Hole (Jul 13, 2012)

A Confederacy Of Dunces
Catch 22
Sutree/ blood meridien or pretty much anything by Mccarthy
A Brief History Of Time
Maldoror

Those are the ones I can't live without and re-read every year. All my other books are in England.


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## SirMyghin (Jul 15, 2012)

Dune (Only Frank's works though)
The Dark Tower (King)
Malazan : Book of the Fallen (Erikson)

Close contenders are many but I'll give the honorable mention to Jenning's Aztec.


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## kung_fu (Jul 15, 2012)

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer


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## Dan_Vacant (Jul 16, 2012)

Lately I have been reading lots of Stephen King. Not to long ago me and a friend said he is boring and takes for ever to pull you in, I take that back now. haha


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## Grand Moff Tim (Jul 16, 2012)

There are only two novels I've ever reread multiple times. I suppose it's fair to consider them my favorites.

_Musashi_ - Eikji Yoshikawa.








_Ringworld - _Larry Niven









Honorable mentions, because they aren't novels but I've reread them countless times:


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## morrowcosom (Jul 17, 2012)

All the books in the Redwall series.


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## Nyx Erebos (Jul 17, 2012)

1.the Iliad and the Odysseus (most epic and human story ever to me)
2.the Witcher saga (the characters are pure gold)
3.Book of stars (it reminds me of my childhood)
4.Lovecraft (the way you don't know what's going to happen next is genius)

I read plenty of books and like many of them but now I can only think about these four that I truly love.


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## Stealthdjentstic (Jul 17, 2012)

I used to read a lot of Tom Clancy stuff when I was little but looking back on it...it was all really shitty and generic.


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## Malkav (Jul 17, 2012)

H.P Lovecraft is definitely one i agree on, amazing work all round.
Clive Barker is great as well 
I also really enjoyed Philip K Dick's Ubik 
I'd also like to mention Terry Pratchett and the Discworld series which all through my childhood up until now has always been one of my favourite reads (almost all of them really)
A lesser known author who's work that I have encountered that I really enjoyed (Well I say lesser known but I guess that's really among my friends) is Robert Holdstock, his books Merlin's Wood and The Hollowing were incredible! 

I've been hearing a lot of positive stuff about Jeff Noon's Vurt which I shall be tackling soon! 

Lately I've been reading a lot of philosophy, really enjoying the work of Nietsche (Man Alone With Himself) and Sun Tzu (The Art Of War) I've also got a book called The Prince by Makiovelli (sp?) and though I haven't touched that yet I have also heard that it should be a pretty enjoyable read


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## MFB (Jul 17, 2012)

Oh boy, Machiavelli's something alright and you probably know his famous line, "It's better to be feared than loved"


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## SirMyghin (Jul 17, 2012)

Malkav said:


> I'd also like to mention Terry Pratchett and the Discworld series which all through my childhood up until now has always been one of my favourite reads (almost all of them really)




Discworld is excellent reading material. The brilliance is in that he writes stand alone stories, that drip satire. So if you don't get the references you don't really lose out, but if you can unearth them it adds that extra kick.


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## Xaios (Jul 17, 2012)

brynotherhino said:


> My current favorite series is the king killer chronicles, even though the last book isn't out yet. Patrick rothfuss did such an excellent job with these so far!



This, multiplied by like... a million.

Dead serious. "The Name of the Wind" is basically the single book that really got me interested in fantasy. Sure, I'd read Lord of the Rings when I was younger and I enjoyed the Harry Potter books, but that book just sucked me right in. The writing style is just brilliant, and the characters and world are also incredibly well fleshed out, without feeling over-expository.

In fact, in his blog (which is brilliant by the way, you should all read it), Patrick Rothfuss has a great post about the dangers of the "info dump" as one of the most common mistakes writers make.

But yeah, "The Name of the Wind" is just brilliant, and "The Wise Man's Fear" is every bit as great.


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## Cyntex (Jul 17, 2012)

Catch 22 (Joseph Heller) is my number one fav. the absurdity is so awesome.
Cosmos (Carl Sagan)
At The Mountains Of Madness (HP Lovecraft)
Of Mice And Men (John Steinbeck)


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## texshred777 (Jul 17, 2012)

LOTR trilogy. Also enjoyed The Silmarillion and the Hobbit.

Wheel of Time series is my current favorite.

Really liked the first three books of The Dark Tower Series, should reread those and finish the series.


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