just that they made a hollywood version recently 

Gene Wolfe, The Death of Doctor Island, and Other Stories
Samual Delany, Nova
Hermann Hesse, Demian
L. Neil Smith, The Probabilaty Broach
Richard Farina, Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me
Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
Thomas Disch, Camp Concentration,
Jorge Borges and Theodore Sturgeon for their short stories

Above derived from just looking around my study at the books that were memorable reads. I have read a lot of fantasy, but other than Zelazny, not much of it has sticken me as being memorable. Serious lit wise, I pick up Don Dillilo, Thomas Pynchon and J G Ballard works to read on occasion; though they have their moments their fiction is wildly uneven. That is the most basic problem with non-commercial literary works in general, no sense of pacing.

I should also add Joseph Conrad's Nostromo to my list of favorites. 

Gene Wolfe, The Death of Doctor Island, and Other Stories
Samual Delany, Nova
Hermann Hesse, Demian
L. Neil Smith, The Probabilaty Broach
Richard Farina, Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me
Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
Thomas Disch, Camp Concentration,
Jorge Borges and Theodore Sturgeon for their short stories

Above derived from just looking around my study at the books that were memorable reads. I have read a lot of fantasy, but other than Zelazny, not much of it has sticken me as being memorable. Serious lit wise, I pick up Don Dillilo, Thomas Pynchon and J G Ballard works to read on occasion; though they have their moments their fiction is wildly uneven. That is the most basic problem with non-commercial literary works in general, no sense of pacing.

I should also add Joseph Conrad's Nostromo to my list of favorites. 

Electric Jesus Corpse by Carlton Mellick III and The Dumas Club by Arturo Perez-Reverte and Dochists, by unknown. :( 

Or possibly 6, anyway the LOTR books and The Chronicals Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever. 

I have a fairly good sized collection of those paperback anthologies of horror shorts. Dark Masques, Shadows, Whispers, The Year's Best Horror Sories, Book of the Dead, The Pan Book of Horror Stories, etc. Most are from the 80's but I cover many decades including the gothic times. It doesn't display much literary sophistication on my part but the variety and imagination shown in these books is excellent. Many of the writers who contibute are hobby or semi-professional writers although these books almost always have some Stephan King, Clive Barker, Ray Bradbury etc. to spice to cover print. I find a lot more fun horror reads in shorts then I do in Novels. I get my books used. 

Well I intend to buy a russian edition of "The Brothers Karamazov", do you know which edition is best and what's the price?

Thanks! 

Vondur... 

For those of you who love magic and elfs and shit...

Steve Erickson series is remarkably well written. Don't be fooled by the lame covers and typical font.
the first one is 'Gardens of the Moon' 

i know only one edition. usual.
i dunno about foreign editions. 

Most of them are so lame/cheesy they scare you off even though there might be good books hiding behind them. 

it isn't generic sword and sorcery, in which case it probably doens't have a generic cover. 

and a bear-skin thong. Probably a badly-drawn dragon in there somewhere. And a lens flare.

That's the impression I get from most generic fantasy art, anyway. 

You forget the unnaturally over-muscled barbarian wearing nothing but a loin cloth and a scarily large sword 

It's a staple of any fantasy world. 

"Bulletproof Nudity" is an awesome phrase, and I shall endeavour to use it more often in conversation. 

... is full of fantastic phrases I can't think of any way to use in any other context. 

what's the price? 

KISS KISS ( a series of macabre short stories he wrote before moving on to childrens books)

oh and his kids books are good aswell. 

what's the price 

Foreign Language large frame paper backs run 12 to 20 US Dollars.

It isn't a good idea to taunt the Grand Inquisitioner ;) 

that price is not too bad 

[deleted by metlslime] 

yay 

Eh... to bump an old thread, but this is important.

Read all the Stanislaw Lem you can get your hands on. He is the genius.

(although there's some crap in the early production, maybe he had to write a couple novels of soviet propaganda to get the censors to relax while he published the _real_ writings)

Believe me, I've read a lot of scifi like heinlein, clarke, bear, vance, hoyle, le guin, dick, isom�ki, you name it.

I find Lem's "best" ones to be the tales of robots, like the short stories in Cyberiad (cyberias/kyberiad whatever it's translated in your language). They are both hilarious, cruel and extremely serious and philosophical at the same time.

All kinds of machines doing the strangest things. There are strange planets and kingdoms ... the speed is staggering and you feel like you've been on an intellectual highway after reading.

Last I read a short story about a cruel king who put uranium headsets on all his people (well, robots) so they couldn't gather around for a coup or the uranium would reach criticality and they'd blow up. But then, an... , well you can read it yourself.