favorite reads

this may have been done before, but what the hey.


what are your favorite books, and or authors??

just a couple from my 10 or so boxes of choices....

Heinlein "time enough for love"

W.E.B. griffin the corps series

Tolkien "Lord of the rings" (of course)

Can't recite author names at the moment for a few of these, so I decided to cut them all out of the post. (I'm so exhausted. Bear with me.)
/Hamlet/
/The Iliad/ /The Odyssey/
/The Elder Eddas/ (If you read this you'll find out that Tolkien didn't take part in the creation of his stories' world in any way.)
/Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister/
The Gormenghast trilogy (unfinished trilogy)
/Einstein's Dreams/
/Snow in August/
/The House on Mango Street/

If I think of others I'll post. These are just a few...

Frank Herbert: Whipping Star, The Dosadi Experiment, The tactful Saboteur, and of course: Dune

Dan Simmons: Hyperion (4 books, probably the best space opera after dune)

Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash (how can you play SL and not know it?)

Douglas Adams Hitchhiker series

Stuff that isn't exactly favorite, but still pretty good reading:
William Gibson (I just find Stephensons style much more appealing)
Robert Jordan: the Wheel of Time (finished book 10)
Peter F. Hamilton: the Nights Dawn (another good space opera, almost finished)

I think I might be the only "not a fan of science fiction/fantasy" heh . . .

The Bone People -- Keri Hulme
Baby No Eyes -- Patricia Grace
Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks -- Donald Harrington
All of T.S. Eliot's poetry
All of Brigit Pegeen Kelly's poetry
All of Sylvia Plath's poetry (ok so that might be a feminist cliche but there you go)


Those are the tops. The list is too long to finish.

Zana

Kurt Vonnegut = Slaughterhouse 5
George Orwell = Animal Farm and 1980
Richard Adams = Watership Down

Darwin Ditto:

Kurt Vonnegut = Slaughterhouse 5
George Orwell = Animal Farm and 1980
Richard Adams = Watership Down

and

Piers Anthony = The Xanth Series, the Adept Series.
J.R.R. Tolkien = The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Raymond E. Feist = Riftwar Saga
Randall Garrett = Too Many Magicians
Robert C. O'Brien = Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Thomas Harris = The Silence of the Lambs
Mary Shelley = Frankenstein
Whitley Strieber = Billy
George Lucas = Star Wars
Michael Crichton = The Andromeda Strain
Peter Bentchley = Jaws
A.A. Milane = Winnie the Pooh
Stan and Jan Berenstain = Inside Outside Upside Down
The Brothers Grimms = Hansel and Grethel, Snow White,
Rumpelstiltskin, Little Red Riding Hood,
The Bremen Town Musicians,
Tom Thumb, and More...

The City, Not Long After -- Post-apocalyptic San Francisco. It's one of my favorites because it's just this far off from real.

Frank Herbert's Dune books. At least, the first three or four. I gave up before I hit _Chapterhouse Dune_ because I no longer recognized any of the character elements in his books because they were so far from what they'd been in the first few books.

Tim Powers. All of his stuff. He gives you the sense that magic can really exist in the real world. Not airy-fairy magic either, but a real, rough kind of magic.

W.B. Yeats's poetry. 'Nuff said.

Diane Duane's Door series. Fantasy, but well-done fantasy with twists that really made me sympathize with the characters.

Rainier Maria Rilke's poetry. Also 'nuff said.

Walter Wangerin Jr's The Book of the Dun Cow -- this one also comes well recommended by a number of people. It's the allegorical story of Chanticleer, the First Rooster. Talking animals, yes. Cute, no. Somewhat in the vein of Watership Down, but more stylized.

Some of W.H. Auden's poetry makes me literally hold my breath lest I shatter the mood.

Roger Zelanzny = Chronicles of Amber
Arthur Herzog = IQ 83
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle = Lucifer's Hammer

I have never been able to finish Hitchhickers guide to the Galaxy, Nor Dune. for different reasons.

Ditto, Zana, not a big sci-fi fan for the most part (with very few exceptions):

Anything by Margaret Atwood
The Hunger Artist, The Trial and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Moo by Jane Smiley
Straight Man by Richard Russo
Handmaid of Desire by John L'Heureux
Sharon Kay Penman's historical fiction
Patrick F. McManus' humor
Love Signs by Linda Goodman (I'm an astrology freak)
Utne Reader (okay, it's a magazine )

Naked Lunch = William S. Burroughs

gee Darwin i always preferred Orwell's sequel 1984 hehe..

The few I read again and again:

Startide Rising, by David Brin
Dune, by Frank Herbert (just the first book)
The Changeling Sea, by Patricia A. McKillip
Tales of Known Space, and Neutron Star (short stories) by Larry Niven
The Lensman series by E.E. "Doc" Smith
Ole Doc Methuselah, by L. Ron Hubbard
The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

Hey! Someone else who read and loved that one!

I also loved _The Riddle-Master of Hed_ trilogy.

Off the top of my head, sci-fi/fantasywise:

The Stars My Destination, Demolished Man -- Alfred Bester.

all possible Lankmahr -- Fritz Leiber.

Chronicles of Thomas Covenant -- Stephen Donaldson.

Snowcrash, Gilded Age, Zodiac, Cryptonomicon -- you know who.

All the stock masters (Tolkien, Asimov, even ol' crotchity Ellison). I have a soft spot for Terry Pratchett.

I'm very fond of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Frank Miller and Grant Morrison are close behind.

Blah blah blah!

'Ringworld' series by Larry Niven,
'Hyperion' series by Dan Simmons,
'Gateway' by Poul Anderson,
'Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha' by Roddy Doyle,
'The Shipping News' by E. Annie Proulz,
'The Giant's House' by Elizabeth McCracken,
'Atlas Shrugged' and 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand,
'Eye Of The Needle' and 'The Key to Rebecca' by Ken Follet.
'Behold the Man' by Michael Moorcock

The Doomsday Book commissioned byWilliam the Conqueror August 1086

Junky, William Burroughs

East Of Eden John Stienbeck


Hunter S Thompson...everything hes ever written

errr...forgot to add The World As Will and Representation (Volume 1)
by Arthur Schopenhauer ...how could i forget??????

1)Dune
2)Dune
3)Dune
4)Anything by Frank Herbert

Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife: "The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness."
--from "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan

very tryue Eggy.....Dune is a classic.......

i see another moorcock fan....chip, bless you.

for light and fun i go with robert asprins myth adventures

and robert jordans wheel of time is amazing

With my background in developing over a dozen virtual worlds and their platforms, people I work with ask me for a reading list at least once every few months. Recently I created a Amazon list that includes most of it:

Randy's Virtual Communities Reading List

Enjoy.
Oracle Omega

Darn you, Oracle, how in the heck am I supposed to check out some of these intriguing books you listed while still working like mad on textures and spending many hours in SL???

Oh yeah... not so much anymore, but I cut my teeth on Moorcock books. The Elric series is what originally got me hooked on fantasy books. 'Behold The Man' is an atypical Moorcock book. It's about a guy who is searching for religion and steals a time machine to go back and witness important moments in the life of Christ... the only problem is that he accidentally ends up BEING the historical Christ, hehe. It's short, cynical as hell, and a fun read.

"Brave New World" Aldous Huxley
"Complete Hitchikers Guide" Douglas Adams
"The Oddessy" Homer

Some more, but I can't remember right now...

Or even The Odissey.
I like Homer. But Lisa will always be my favorite.