|
Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman



Registered: 03/12/06
Posts: 11,529
|
|
Quote:
awesomebastard said:
Quote:
OneLessForeskin said: Ender's Game was a great book, but I found the sequels to get progressively lackluster. They all had interesting concepts but none holds a candle to the original.
true did you ever read any of the hegdemon series the one that followed peter, were they any good?
I read the quartet and liked the books more as they progressed. They got more mature and thought provoking. I didn't even know there was additional books to the series, I'll have to read them sometime.
-------------------- Discuss Politics
|
kriminalelement
"jesus wept."



Registered: 09/26/07
Posts: 1,201
Loc: Ay! los popos estan aqui!
Last seen: 13 years, 6 months
|
Re: Recommended reading. [Re: g00ru]
#7969816 - 02/02/08 06:05 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
I loved Ender's game as a kid, but when I went back to reread the quartet I realized that Orson Scott Card is a really terrible writer. He has no style, and like most science fiction writers, no concept of pacing. This holds true even for the first book, which is a stylistic nightmare. I like his ideas, but the execution is terrible.
The best science fiction is clearly Phillip K. Dick. A fantastic writer and a serious junkie, he makes his concepts emotional and perfectly executed within the frame of the novel. He's also much more creative than Card, who relies on traditional gimmicks to get his point across, eventually bludgeoning the reader to death. Dick's ideas spend more time in development and are richer for the process.
I also didn't like Catcher in the Rye. I'm not sure why, but I couldn't identify with Holden. He seemed too juvenile, even at the young age I read the book. The whole business seemed like a mid 20th century version of "Prozac Nation", another stilted read.
-------------------- While there is a lower class, I am in it While there is a criminal element, I am of it While there is a soul in prison, I am not free. Eugene V Debs
|
DirtMcgirt
in a pinch



Registered: 10/20/04
Posts: 2,213
Loc: city of angels
|
Re: Recommended reading. [Re: mayfly]
#7969879 - 02/02/08 06:22 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
I liked that one, but the sequel was pretty lame.
I didn't even know there was a sequel!? Sounds lame...
Also Master and Margarita by Mikhael Bulgakov is one of my favorites.
-------------------- "And we, inhabitants of the great coral of the Cosmos, believe the atom (which still we cannot see) to be full matter, whereas, it too, like everything else, is but an embroidery of voids in the Void, and we give the name of being, dense and even eternal, to that dance of inconsistencies, that infinite extension that is identified with absolute Nothingness and that spins from its own non-being the illusion of everything."
|
WhiskeyClone
Not here


Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
|
|
Quote:
OneLessForeskin said: Right now I'm reading a Russian science fiction book by a descendant of Leo Tolstoy, named Tatyana Tolstaya. It's called The Slynx and it's quite good. I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic anything.
Me too. What other post apocalyptic books have you liked?
Did you read The Road by Cormac McCarthy?
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
|
JackTheBear
Pick Me I'm Clean



Registered: 09/27/07
Posts: 130
Last seen: 12 years, 4 months
|
Re: Recommended reading. [Re: Ferris]
#7969914 - 02/02/08 06:33 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
I am currently reading:

It's fucking epic.
|
OneMoreRobot3021



Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,024
Loc: the sky
|
|
Quote:
WhiskeyClone said:
Quote:
OneLessForeskin said: Right now I'm reading a Russian science fiction book by a descendant of Leo Tolstoy, named Tatyana Tolstaya. It's called The Slynx and it's quite good. I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic anything.
Me too. What other post apocalyptic books have you liked?
Did you read The Road by Cormac McCarthy?
No, I've never read any of his books.
My favorite post-apocalyptic novel is, without a doubt, Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
|
jewunit
Brutal!

Registered: 01/11/07
Posts: 34,264
Loc: Ohio
|
|
The only books I ever finish are Bukowski because they're short. If it takes me too long to read a book I never finish.
-------------------- !
|
mayfly
.



Registered: 01/05/08
Posts: 800
Loc: planet home
|
|
Quote:
OneLessForeskin said: My favorite post-apocalyptic novel is, without a doubt, Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.
Same. I had to start it a couple times though, it took me a little while to get into it.
-------------------- "The important thing to remember: if we ship all our fat-bottomed girls off to foreign countries, the terrorists win."
|
WhiskeyClone
Not here


Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
|
|
Oryx & Crake noted...
I recommend The Road.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
|
OneMoreRobot3021



Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,024
Loc: the sky
|
|
Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is also quite good. Not so much post-apocalyptic in a physical, logistical sense but...there's sort of been a cultural apocalypse.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
|
WhiskeyClone
Not here


Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
|
|
I'll check out Margaret Atwood on your recommendation.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
|
jewunit
Brutal!

Registered: 01/11/07
Posts: 34,264
Loc: Ohio
|
|
What I got through of Oryx and Crake seemed good.
-------------------- !
|
andrewss
precariously aggrandized


Registered: 08/17/07
Posts: 8,725
Loc: ohio
Last seen: 1 month, 13 days
|
|
On the Genealogy of Morality Friedrich Nietzsche
-------------------- Jesus loves you.
|
WhiskeyClone
Not here


Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
|
Re: Recommended reading. [Re: jewunit]
#7970074 - 02/02/08 07:21 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
jewunit said: What I got through of Oryx and Crake seemed good.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
|
jewunit
Brutal!

Registered: 01/11/07
Posts: 34,264
Loc: Ohio
|
|
Don't mock me 
Books just can't hold my attention man, I don't want to start reading shit and have to take forever to get to the point, it's exhausting and I don't enjoy it in the least bit. When I get my paws on shorter things that are interesting though, that I can handle.
-------------------- !
|
OneMoreRobot3021



Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,024
Loc: the sky
|
|
Quote:
WhiskeyClone said: I'll check out Margaret Atwood on your recommendation.
I always shunned her, I don't know, for some reason I had attached the label "supermarket checkout literature" to her name. No idea why. She's an EXCELLENT writer. When I'm done with The Slynx I intend to read her novel, The Blind Assassin.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
|
WhiskeyClone
Not here


Registered: 06/25/01
Posts: 16,509
Loc: Longitudinal Center of Canada ...
|
Re: Recommended reading. [Re: jewunit]
#7970096 - 02/02/08 07:25 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
I give the author fifty pages to convince me to continue. That should be more than enough. The best ones have me in the first paragraph. I put down a lot of books, and have no regrets about it.
-------------------- Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. ~ R.W. Emerson, "Self-Reliance"
|
Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers



Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 21,287
Loc: The Ocean of Notions
Last seen: 5 months, 23 days
|
Re: Recommended reading. [Re: Madnessinc]
#7970106 - 02/02/08 07:27 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Madnessinc said:
Robert Heinlein kidnapped my teen years, LOVE friday, but Stranger in a strange land was the first i ever read of him.
Just finished SiaSL yesterday.
Great book.
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
|
mayfly
.



Registered: 01/05/08
Posts: 800
Loc: planet home
|
|
Quote:
WhiskeyClone said: I give the author fifty pages to convince me to continue. That should be more than enough. The best ones have me in the first paragraph. I put down a lot of books, and have no regrets about it.
I wish I could do that, but I can't stand not finishing a book, even if I know it's terrible. I can count on one hand the amount of books I've not finished.
-------------------- "The important thing to remember: if we ship all our fat-bottomed girls off to foreign countries, the terrorists win."
|
jewunit
Brutal!

Registered: 01/11/07
Posts: 34,264
Loc: Ohio
|
|
Even if the book catches my attention I still never finish. I haven't been much of a reader since I passed the age of 12 (I used to read every night when I was younger), but the few times I pick up a book I rarely finish. And every single one of them, to this day, I still say to myself "Man, I wonder what ended up happening?"
I did love Ender's Game, though, and if whoever liked that should check out Ender's Shadow if you haven't, it's about Bean (one of the other characters.) I read both of those when I was younger, so it may or may not actually be good.
-------------------- !
|
|