thanks rpg, i started reading the thread but well, i mainly just felt like sharing, so i made my post. im gonna order those 3 when i move into my apt =) 

Ranked in order even!

1.Use of weapons
2.The Bridge
3.Excession
4.Against a Dark Background
5.Inversions
6.Player of Games
7.Feersum Endjinn
8.look to windward
9.Consider Phlebas

But really, they are all good. The guy is just a fantastic writer, with a huge imagination.

The bridge is the only "non-SF" book of his i have read, i was thinking of maybe "the wasp factory" next. 

The Dream Cycle of H.P. Lovecraft
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345384210/

The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345384229/ 

Which are exactly the ones I mentioned in my post. Except I didn't bother with handy Amazon links.

But neither of us bothered with amazon women. 

 

What is it with Use Of Weapons and Against A Dark Background....I found them pretty sparse and lifeless compared to the rest of his stuff....but enough people like them.

Anyway, his non-SF stuff. The Bridge is the best, but also very good are Walking On Glass which is surreal and brilliant and The Wasp Factory which is just plain warped. I'd say Complicity is also well worth it....you may like Song Of Stone since you liked UOW and AGADB, but I found it too minimal. The Crow Road, Whit, and The Business are too normal and Canal Dreams is nasty without any bite. Never tried Espedair Street for obvious reasons. 

'Only Forward' by Michael Marshall Smith is one of my favourite books, I must have read that 4-5 times at least... quirky, lots of humour, and its one of the few books I've found genuinely moving. Unfortunately that author's later books weren't anywhere near as good as his first (Only Forward). Still worth a read, though.

Dean Koontz... this guy used to write fairly average horror/thriller type novels earlier on in his career (not bad, but not exactly remarkable). He sure learned from experience though, because most of his recent work is so well written that its just not funny. My favourites would have to be 'Sieze the Night' and 'Fear Nothing' (they go together).

Elek, I'm a bit of a Stephen King fan too, and I read through all 1100 pages (or is it more?) of 'The Stand', and still wanted more. Great stuff. He (King) kind of lost the plot for a while there, but his recent stuff is quite good. He does really good characters/dialogue I think! I really liked 'Desperation'... tak!

A few people mentioned Ian Banks... I've read a few of his (Inversions, I can recall, at least), and they were quite good. I tried to read 'Player of Games' and couldn't get into it though... I'll have to try again, as I see several recommendations for it here.

Dan Simmons - almost anything by him is gold.

I'm currently reading a new sci-fi novel called Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan... his first novel, apparently. When I saw it in the bookstore, I figured that if it had the whole back cover and the first 3 pages of the book devoted to quotes about how brilliant the novel was, I figured it almost had to be worth a read. And it is quite good, perhaps not as spectacularly awesome as the quotes would have you believe, but I've been compelled to read it whenever I get the chance and have raced through it much faster than most books I've read recently, so its certainly worth a recommendation. 

Can't believe I forgot Clive Barker! I've liked everything of his that I have read, 'Weaveworld' is the first that springs to mind, though.

Douglas Adams, well, that goes without saying... I loved the Hitchiker's Guide and Dirk Gently books, I steadfastly refuse to even look at the 'book' they released after his death though...

Eh, who is the guy who wrote the medieval books about Sparhawk? The Diamond Throne, etc... oh yes, David Eddings? I've only read the Diamond Throne series, haven't looked at the Belgarath stuff and the rest.

I've got to try to pick up 'Flowers for Algernon' by Daniel Keyes (I think). I read the short story and I really enjoyed it, apparently it was turned into a full novel later on though, so I'll have to check it out. 

It wasn't a book, it was a cartoonstrip of Francois Bourgeron, six beautifull drawn
artworks called "The Children Of The Wind"
He received a price for it, as being the best drawn artbook of the year 1998.
It was a very strange reckognizing "The Ebony
Fortress" as being a real slave forth.
In this book I found the map for the boat I tried to build in Quake.
But reading books, Poe made me feel as falling in my own imagination, as for 2001 and 1984.
There is a kind of reminesance with the work of
Cortazar's "Rayuelah" and the episodical thing in Computergames.He made lots of ScienceFiction what seems as so, but in his own land Argentinia maybe wasn't so fiction. 

Sorry, can't help it. When arives
"The Totally Manual for Quake1 Making" 

UOW [especially] and AGADB are the books i connected with the characters the most, out of his SF stuff. They seem the most "emotional" and "human", to me.

UOW is a masterpiece, its one of those science-fiction works that "transcends its genre" [sounds like marketing blurb on the back cover!], to simply stand as a superb book in any terms. 

UOW - bored me.

Dan Simmons - Hyperion series promised much and only delivered tedious over-poetic bollocks.

Altered Carbon - I looked at many times but ultra-trendy cyber-sf is all style and no substance.

Clive Barker - was great esp. Weaveworld....but just got too arty and plain GAY.

David Eddings - is good basic lite fantasy for kids and teenagers but it definitely lacks bite. Unfortunately his books all repeat pretty much the same theme and characters. 

although im yet to read his stuff... i didnt know he was gay until he appeared on real time with bill maher.

i havent read any douglas adams yet (although i did by hitchikers guide, its planned summer reading) but i have read Starship Titanic, a book he cowrote with... gah, i forget his name, he was in monty python, but it was hilarious and very enjoyable. 

That was the feller, I believe. Though why he insisted on writing it in the nude escapes me. 

I decided to read it when I heard about the success of the movie. The LOTR trilogy is a great story, a real masterpiece of fantasy genre. Maybe it's a bit like a tale but it's all the way great stuff IMO.
Haven't read other Tolkien's books yet but I think I'll do it.

And after reading the book this movie seemed too shortened and less athmospheric to me.

Does anyone else like Tolkien's books and can recommend me something else to read in a such style? 

Crap i have 18 david eddings books... both belgarath series (5 books each), then the two side-books told from the wizard's perspectives (Belgarath and Polgara), then both parts of the Diamond Throne series (3 books each). I read all of them and enjoyed them back in my middle school days, but I doubt I'd get much out of them now.

A few years ago I was majorly into Isaac Asimov... the Foundation series of books is great, still amazing after 50 years. Read the original trilogy first, then get the newer additions (Prelude to Foundation, Foward the Foundation, Foundation's Edge, & Foundation and Earth). I think Forward the foundation was the last one wrote, but one of the best.

There's also Asimov's robot-themed short stories, of which there are several collections. Interesting and thought-provoking, but they don't have the same epic scale.

Neil Stephenson is great too, definitely some of the best cyberpunk since Gibson. Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, and Cryptonomicon: I recommend them all (and apparently he has a new book coming out at some point too).

Oh and Robert Heinlein... I read Starship Troopers a few years back, another classic; don't be turned off if you've only seen the movie, the book is nothing like it. I have Stranger in a Strange Land too... so many good books, so little time. ;)

Orson Scott Card - Ender's Game. Great book. Seems most people read this when they were younger but I never got around to it until just this year. I'm not sure if I wanna read the sequels though, seems it might spoil it a bit.

And of course there is JRR Tolkien... I enjoy the more esoteric material (Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, etc) as much as his main 4 books. Though I think I'm gonna have to re-read the trilogy sometime soon, the movies just haven't sat well with me. Tolkien's writing is just way too intricate and personal to me for any movie adaptation to be sufficient. Sure, they did a great job... but why must every great piece of literature be transcribed into digestable movie form? Why not just... read the real thing, for fuck's sake.

Sorry... rant over.

Lastly, my to-read list... James Clavell - Shogun, and then some anarchist philosophy if I can find the time... Hakim Bey or Noam Chomsky or somebody like that. 

the sequels are okay, but don't approach the first book's goodness. 

The Crow
It's in print again.
Get it. 

did you ever read the cross over novel between Asimov's Robot and Foundation sagas? 

Just read some Philip Dick for the first time. Very nice! It's true oldskool sci-fi indeed. 

Possibly... I've only read the first book of the Robot trilogy proper, which i don't think made that connection. Though I do recall some robots in Prelude to Foundation.... or is there another book you speak of? 

When I'm king, everyone will be made to read PKD. If you're at all into sci-fi, grab any of his middle-period books (1962 - 1974), or one of the last two volumes of short stories.

There isn't a single one of those books that I haven't enjoyed, and most are among the best I've ever read. 'Faith of our Fathers' is definitely the best (and scariest) short story I've seen. Go on. http://amazon.com . Shoo.

Finished lately:

* Ursula K Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness

Interesting Dune-y examination-of-an-alien-culture type book. Slow and serious, but strong writing and very thought-provoking (if you don't mind thinking about hermaphrodites, anyway).

* Albert Camus - The Outsider

Most of it goes over my head, but still a good read. Would probably be called 'intense'. Read it on the beach. 

Read it on the beach.

Yeah, that would be like reading Tolkien in the woods. Or Poe in a graveyard. 

u are teh rok

i'm gonna seek for more PKD books fo sure after i just finished reading some of his stuff. this author deserves closer attention indeed.

when you're king i hope to be your main minister ;) 

for world domination