Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Posts
And I know this has been said before but...
ULYSSES...joyce is a genius, and the insane amoutn of detail in this book only begins to scratch the surface of how.
and Gravity's Rainbow, for being the most insane and beautiful complexity ever written.
Anything by Rod Serling, the older the better... remember the classics, kiddies.
"Red Dragon" by Thomas Harris. Never see either movie made from it. Ever. Don't even let them touch you. Just read the book.
"The Long Walk" and "Rage", by Richard Bachman. I firmly believe these can't have been written by Stephen King... they're too damn good. I've never finished reading a Stephen King book and needed three days to calm down.
"Bible Stories for Adults" by James Morrow. Most of his books have been banned by my particular library, but this one made it through.
Second, let me tell you that Dick Francis is the best author I've ever read. His books are mysteries about horse racing, nothing from out of this world, and If you haven't read them, you're missing out.
If there has been a time the world needed a hero it is now. Or rather yesterday, in fact, you're too late. Go home.
Barry Hughart: Bridge of Birds
Others:
Michael OShaera or something: Killer Angels
The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
I need some Dick novels ASAP, and my local shops don't carry them.
Speaking of, I just finished one called In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien. Anyone here who takes an interest in Vietnam and the horrible ways it can twist a man's psyche, check it out.
It's about a guy who took part in My Lai and now, 20 years and a failed Senate bid later, his wife has dissapeared. You find out all these crazy things. It's really good.
Sci-Fi/Fantasy that's literature with a capital "L". These books are so good that I fully intend to horde them until I have a child, so that he/she can discover them in a dusty corner of the bookshelf, and be as enthraled and surprised as I was by them.
excellent writer, hilarious and moving, and he doesn't make much of an attempt to avoid coloring his books with his life events. i also highly recommend him if you want to understand the mechanics behind (one type of) successful writing -- studying his style has really paid off for me in the last couple of months.
It's about a Japanese kid in the Japan Navy (About 20 years old) who faces discrimination in Japan (and in the navy) for being half white. Therefore, he escapes (after getting into some trouble) to an island off the coast of Georgia, expecting to find peace, acceptance, diversity and "brotherly love".
I don't have to tell you what he goes on to find in Georgia, do I?
The story also revolves around a manipulative, unscrupulous and talentles hack of a writer, a Jewish woman of about thirty who's living in an artist's colony. The only reason she's allowed to stay there (She's a hack and it's a moderately prestigious colony that is selective of its residents) is because she's in a relationship with the colony owner's son. She secretly harbors the Japanese kid, because she happens to be working on a short story about a suicidal Japanese woman and wants to "experience" a Japanese person firsthand. Yes.
It's a page turner as well as a thought provoker, which is rare. Worth multiple readings, first for the enjoyable plot and second for the layers and expansions of ideas.
short synopsis
Sci-Fi
Star-Ship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
No, it is absolutely nothing like the movie. The movie was bombastic with overdone imagery of propaganda and filled with mindless cruelty and bad acting. As a matter of fact, the movie is the polar opposite of the book.
The book was about the author's views of the military and society and why they work the way they do (or how he thinks they should work). The violence has meaning, and much of the book centers on the main character's changing views as he rises through the ranks.
I read this just before I entered basic training and so much that his character goes through and observes came back to me throughout my tour of duty.
If you are interested in writing a sci-fi military novel, it is a must read.
non sci/fantasy books:
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - amazingly moving and beautiful book.
The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway
sci/fantasy:
Rogue Squadren Series assorted authors in the starwars universe.
Magic Kingdomg for Sale Sold Series Terry Brooks
Shannara Series Terry Brooks
i support everything said about Terry Pratchett, he is freakin genius, as is Douglas Adams, the Redwall series is brilliant as well. i have read almost every starwars novel up til early 2000 where they started to suck, but Rogue Squadren has been my favorite series in all of them. [/i]
Godel Escher Bach-Douglas Hoefstaedter
Pale Fire- Vladimir Nabokov
The Club of Queer Trades- GK Chesterton
The Woman in the Dune + Box Man- both by Kobo Abe
The sailor who fell from grace with the sea-Yukio Mishima
Monkey- Wu Ch'Eng-En
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller- Italo Calvino
"The Dark Tower" Steven King
I admit I've only finished 6 of the 7 books but i cant really imagine how he could possibly fuck up the last one and regardless the first 6 are a the best story I have ever read.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BaronofBank/
Blog: www.blakesmisko.com
Portfolio: www.cargocollective.com/bsdesigns
"Who Are We Now" - Lawrence Ferlinghetti
"Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology" - Albert Goldbarth
Anything Pablo Neruda
Description:
Sewer, Gas & Electric is the exuberant follow-up to Matt Ruff's cult classic and critically acclaimed debut Fool on the Hill. High above Manhattan android and human steelworkers are constructing a new Tower of Babel for billionaire Harry Gant, as a monument to humanity's power to dream. In the festering sewers below a darker game is afoot: a Wall Street takeover artist has been murdered, and Gant's crusading ex-wife, Joan Fine, has been hired to find out why. The year is 2023, and Ayn Rand has been resurrected and bottled in a hurricane lamp to serve as Joan's assistant; an eco-terrorist named Philo Dufrense travels in a pink-and-green submarine designed by Howard Hughes; a Volkswagen Beetle is possessed by the spirit of Abbie Hoffman; Meisterbrau, a mutant great white shark, is running loose in the sewers beneath Times Square; and a one-armed 181-year-old Civil War veteran joins Joan and Ayn in their quest for the truth. All of whom, and many more besides, are caught up in a vast conspiracy involving Walt Disney, J. Edgar Hoover, and a mob of homicidal robots.
I ordered his "latest" book about 2 years ago on chapters site, god damit, one day I should really cancel that and get my money back. Alas but I am also very lazy.
Yeah someone mentioned Moorcock! Finally, I love his books.
Also, if you like fantasy or Harry Potter, check out Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel. It was fantastic.
www.slowlydownward.com
I really like this story:
http://www.slowlydownward.com/con.html
wiseblood is fantastic.
other titles (with some authors i might remember) i lump in with that classic:
Cats Cradle (chocolate double-dipped kurt vonnegut)
The Movie Goer
all Paul Bowles (shelter sky especially)
and Naked Lunch (burroughs)
oh f me...i forgot this guy:
Raymond Carver. every single story this man wrote is beautiful. every sentence. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a good start.
Fiction:
M. John Harrison, Light
Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
Samuel R. Delaney, Dhalgren
Non-fiction:
Ursula K. LeGuin, Steering the Craft
A.D. Coleman, Critical Focus, Depth of Field
Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
Sites of Interest:
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Association
Neil Gaiman's Blog
The Caves of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
Legend, by David Gemmell
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold
Non-Fiction:
Bobby Fischer Goes to War, by David Edmonds and John Eidinow
Chaos, by James Gleick
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford
The Pelopponesian War, by Donald Kagan
Classic:
Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
Blindness by Jose Saramago - Second greatest novel ever written.
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Sea of Fertility Cycle (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay of the Angel) by Yukio Mishima
A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe
Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata
and it is damn good. Bought To Reign in Hell by the same guy and have high hopes.
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (+ the other 4 books in the Hitchhiker trilogy)
Piers Anthony, the Xanth novels
T.A. Barron, The Lost Years of Merlin Books 1-5
Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game (book 1)
Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead (2)
Orson Scott Card, Xenocide (3)
Orson Scott Card, Children of the Mind (4)
Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow (5/1)
Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Hegemon (6/2)
Orson Scott Card, Shadow Puppets (7/3)
Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Giant (8/4)
Orson Scott Card, First Meetings
Orson Scott Card, Songmaster
Orson Scott Card, Pastwatch
Orson Scott Card, Enchantment
Orson Scott Card, Lost Boys
Anne McCaffery, The Dragonriders of Pern
Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife
Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass
J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter...
T.H. White, The Once and Future King
Fiction:
Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies
Holly Black, Tithe
Orson Scott Card, An Open Book (poetry)
Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Sheri Reynolds, The Rapture of Canaan
Jose Saramago, Blindness
Bram Stoker, Dracula
Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club
Amy Tan, The Kitchen God's Wife
Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses
Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter
Non-fiction:
Richard Preston, The Hot Zone
Anelli Rufus, Party of One
The New York Times Press, Writers on Writing Vol. 1 & 2
Manga/Graphic Novels (series):
Hiromu Arakawa, Full Metal Alchemist
Nanae Chrono, Peacemaker Kurogane
CLAMP, Tsubasa
Tite Kubo, Bleach
Kazuya Minekura, Saiyuki
Daisuki Moriyama, Chrno Crusade
Maki Murakami, Gravitation
Yasuhiro Nightow, Trigun
Yu Watase, Fushigi Yugi
Nobuhiro Watsuki, Rurouni Kenshin
SciFi/Fantasy
Fred Saberhagen, Book of the Gods Pt.1/2
Jane Yolen, The Pit Dragon Trilogy
David Farland, The Runelords (and its many Sequels in order) The Brotherhood of the Wolf WizardBorn The Lair of Bones
Fiction
James Clavell, Shogun
James Clavell, Noble House
sorry if some of these are reposts!
Twitter Facebook Last.FM
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
A good and very accessible philosophy book, on the value of everything.
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Simply a fantastic book.
Practically anything by Iain Banks or his sci-fi alter-ego Iain M Banks.
Especially The Player of Games, Consider Phlebas and above all Against a Dark Background
I've seen 1984 mentioned, but not Down and Out in Paris and London, an autobiography of George Orwell's time living on or below the poverty line in those two cities.
Onto Graphic Novels
I've seen Neil Gaiman mentioned a couple of times, but not his absolutely stunning graphic novel series Sandman.
I really cannot praise this enough, it really must be read, and allow yourself to read the first few sections before putting it down.
And of course, the indispensable Akira series of graphic novels. A true example of what can be done with the genre.
Enjoy!
The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny: From the tales of Corwin on to his son Merlin, tied for first as my favorite series of all time with:
The Elric Saga: Michael Moorcock also A Nomad of the Time Streams, Von Bek, The Eternal Champion...
The Dark Elf Trilogy: RA Salvatore
The Myth Inc. Series: Robert Asprin Funny, funny stuff.
Sci-Fi
Neuromancer: William Gibson
God's Dice: S. Andrew Swann an amazing book on so many levels, and very personally relevant to my own theories of the universe.
Dune: Frank Herbert
The Wild Cards Series: Hard to believe this was missed, one of the most fantastic and realistic views of superhumans in a modern world outside the comics arena.
The Dungeon, Riverworld: Philip Jose Farmer note he created the Dungeon world, each book is written by a different author.
Thrillers
Anything by Andrew Vachss: Defines the term "gritty". Flood, Strega and all the other Burke books are must reads, also highly recommend his Batman novelization The Ultimate Evil, which brought an unprecedented level of realism to the Dark Knight mythos, if such a thing can be said.
The Footprints of God: Greg Iles
Dark Rivers of the Heart: Dean Koontz
The Da Vinci Code: Dan Brown
Graphic Novels/Comics/Manga
The Dark Knight Returns (but not DK2), Sin City, 300: Frank Miller
The Books of Magic: DC Comics
Grendel: Matt Wagner
Mage:Matt Wagner
Astro City: Kurt Busiek
Arrowsmith: Kurt Busiek
The Authority: Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch
Planetary: Warren Ellis
Transmetropolitan: Warren Ellis
Preacher: Garth Ennis
Maus: Art Spiegelman
V for Vendetta: Alan Moore
The Watchmen: Alan Moore
Hellblazer
Full Metal Alchemist: Hiroaki Arakawa
Bleach: Tite Kubo
Hellsing: Hiroaki Samura avoid the adapted anime at all costs
Naruto: Kishimoto Masashi do see the anime
Non Fiction
The Power of Myth, Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God, The Hero with a Thousand Faces: Joseph Campbell
A Short History of Nearly Everything: Bill Bryson
Hagakure The Book of the Samurai: Yamamoto Tsunetomo, as translated by William Scott Wilson
A Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi, as translated by Thomas Cleary
The Art of War: Sun Tzu
Ancient Mysteries: Peter James and Nick Thorpe
Fantasy
Anything by Roger Zelazny
The Saga of Recluse - L. E. Modesitt
The Riftwar Saga - Raymond E. Feist
Sci-Fi
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
The Forever War / Forever Free / Forever Peace - Joe Haldeman
See how many books I've read so far in 2010
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by: Ludwig WittgensteinThe Logic of Scientific Discovery by: Karl R. Popper
Naming and Necessity by: Saul A. Kripke
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge by: Jean-Francois Lyotard
Consciousness Explained by: Daniel C. Dennett
Warranted Christian Belief by: Alvin Plantinga
Specific books/series:
Hitchhikers Guide (5 books) Douglas Adams
Dark Tower (7 books) Stephen King
Chronicles of Thomas Covenent (1 , 2 and 3 being written - 7 books so far) Stephen R. Donaldson
Mirror of her dreams (2 books) Stephan R Donaldson
Dragonrider books (many books, haven't read them all) Anne McCaffrey
Myst Trilogy, don't know the author(s) off hand
Chronicles of Narnia (7 books) CS Lewis
Incarnations series (6 books?) Piers Anthongy (before he started doing erotic fiction)
Dune series (don't know how many) Frank Herbert
Wrinkle in Time Series (4 books) Madeleine L'Engle
The EarthSea series (3 books?) Ursula K. Le Guin
A Canticle for Lebewitz, Walter M. Miller Jr.
The Stranger, Albert Camus
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Most anything by this list:
Kurt Vonnegut
Niel Gaimon
Edward Albee
Samual Beckett
Raymond Carver
Samuel Beckett
Ernest Hemingway
Kate Chopin
Moliere
August Strindberg
Tennessee Williams
Aurther Miller
Milton
Christopher Marlow
Henrik Ibsen
Adom Duritz
Joseph Conrad
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Nathanial Hawthorne
Shirly Jackson
Franz Kafka
Joyce Carol Oates
Flannery O'Connor
Amy Tan
John Updike
Guy de Maupassant
Ugene Ionesco
Carl Jung
Joseph Campbell
Orsen Wells
George Orwell
Marx- Read Marx, not Capital but anything before the 1848 Communist Manifesto. In the early stuff Marx was much more applicable and a bit more open to being understood. Any Marx, however, will give a different viewpoint from which to understand the world.
Michael Harrington- An American Socialist (you can see what classes I took this semester) who was influential in the Democratic party and the advancement of American Marxism. Speaking American by Robert Gorman (a teacher of mine) is a great read and a good all-around introduction to the nooks and crannies of Marxism.
Seymour Martin Lipset's Political Man is a look at what conditions foster democracy. A bit outdated, but worth a read if you enjoy the mechancis behind successful democracy.
Henry Rollin's Smile, you're traveling is a great read, Rollins in the late 1990s and his travels around the world, and on tour. Any written Rollins is good though. Especially Get in the Van his history of his years with Black Flag. A great read (or listen, it's on audio too) this is music at the bottom, no Smoking Gun Tour Riders here. The early '80s Punk scene was tough.
Farley Mowat and E.B. Sledge's two memiors of WWII And No Birds Sang and With the Old Breed. There are many good memiors out there, but these two shine. War sucks, and both chronicle the patriotic sending off to the utter horror and finally, numbness. No grand strategy here, both men hardly knew what was going on beyond sqaud level. Next time you fire up Call of Duty you may think harder about it.
Finally, Carl Sagan's Demon Haunted World is a good introduction to the debunking of psuedo-science. If you are interested in UFO, Ghosts, and other things like I am this is a great counter balance.
Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Hobbit - JRR Tolkein
America: The Book - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Lies and Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right - Al Franken
Animal Farm - George Orwell
1984 - George Orwell
A Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Candide - Voltaire
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Sarum: The Novel of England by Edward Rutherford
Russka: The Novel of Russia by Edward Rutherford
I'm very fond of Rutherford's historical fiction. I've read Sarum four times now, and it seems to get better with each read through. With so much information and history in the book, it stays fresh with each read. I could only find Russka in hardcover, and it's a thousand pages and a bit, so I'm waiting until my wrists heal up, I like reading laying down, before rereading it.
The Halo novels are actually supposed to be pretty good. I read the first one and found it pretty interesting and fun. Again, it is more pulpy action than anything deep, but it is interesting.