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Wag
 
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Last Login: Thursday, August 21, 2008 11:39 PM
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| Of you want to find some new good authors look at the fantasy/sci fi masterworks series. The best stories of the best authors are in there and you will certainly find something to your taste. If you want a more intellectual and less crap version of the Da Vanci code look at Umberto Eco's Foccault's pendulum. Its a translation from the original Italian so the style is a bit iffy in places (the flow of the prose falters a lot) but it is an excellent black comedy which takes the piss out of every occult conspiracy you can think of. It helps if you know in advance concepts like the various Templar conspiracies, what the Rosicrucians were and who John Dee was but Wikipedia can help there. For modern fantasy look at China Mieville. Perdido Street Station is excellent. I disagree with some of the points made in the first post (though not the Stephen King one, totally agree with that, and the Dan Brown one is dead right  ). Personally I think Gemmel is great for light reading, when you really need to switch the brain off and I think Pratchett's main flaw is sometimes trying to be too clever in a way which may baffle some of his audience rather than repeating the same story. I think part of the problem is that many people have their own likes and dislikes and many authors do not live up to them. The Tolkien criticism, for example, is largely based on the fact that Tolkien wrote in a style which lends itself more to the concept of 'the Great Novels' of the latter part of the 19th century/early part of the 20th century than the modern novels of the late 20th/early 21st century. The MTV/internet generation like thier kicks now and in a style which delivers fast and frequent. They don't want umpteen pages describing a trip to a mountain. So many modern readers don't relate to Tolkien's style. Personally, I don't think he would have cared about that. He only wrote it for his own personal satisfaction rather than any sales
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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Devil's Advocate
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Last Login: Thursday, August 07, 2008 8:35 PM
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TBH I'm mainly reading non-fiction political interest books at the moment (go classwar, go!) so all of this is academic interest for the time being: Until I get bored of reading about how awful the real world is, and want to escape to a fantasy one for some time...
My point was mainly that (in general) you can't read a popular fiction novel without 10 different people jumping on you to tell you how crap it is. And while it is important to have standards, it does all smack a tad of elitism to me "oh, you pleb, you enjoyed Dan Brown?". Obviously taste is an entirely subjective thing, so it's all a bit odd really...
Apart from Tolkien, obviously. Tom fucking Bombadil? what was he thinking?!
I think it all boils down to what you want from a book really. Do you want entertainment for 30mins on your lunchbreak, or do you want to be amazed, wowed and informed? or all of the above?
If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing.
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Squire
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Last Login: Thursday, January 03, 2008 4:12 PM
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| George RR Martin! Richard Morgan! Froth, froth, froth, froth!
------------------------------------------------- "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." Mark Twain
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Champion
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| Currently reading Perdido Street Station, and would agree so far so good I also rate Neil Gaiman for a nice easy (and mostly pleasant) read Umberto Eco is less easy to get your head round (mostly due to translation issues) but is okay
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- Brighton Below : Organiser
- Serenity: Capt Tom Crowson
- RL: Simon / Trez
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I do talk a good fight
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Italo Calvino for the win. Especially _If on a winter's night a traveller_ and _Our Ancestors_. Both those books should appeal to gamery types.
George R R Martin is good but is starting to suffer from the classic writer's problem of "victim of own success." He knows people will buy his books now; his publishers know this too; so his books are getting a bit less tightly written, a bit more unnecessarily wordy, than the initial brilliance of A Game of Thrones.
Alastair Reynolds is probably the best SF writer around at present, closely followed by Greg Egan. Iain M Banks is superb if patchy.
Roger Zelazny, Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, and Robert E Howard are all you really need, in terms of fantasy literature. None of yer modern authors hold a candle to 'em....
My favourite book of recent years though has been Rupert Thomson's _The Five Gates of Hell_. Thomson is a British author and presumably lunatic. I can't easily describe the book but it's a real rush.
Michael Marshall Smith is good, too, particularly his recent thrillers written under the name Michael Marshall. (Of his more SF work as Michael Marshall Smith, I like _Spares_ the best, followed by _Only Forward_.)
http://www.hyboriantales.com
PD: Ghostdance ("The most irritating curse I've ever encountered" -- NPC played by H.)
Riftworld: Rossar Kuug ("Clearly mad, because he thinks he's a Com-Trow Skirmisher" - Aela)
Hyborian Tales: Crew, cook, dogsbody, general labourer, toilet cleaner ("Dangerously overoptimistic ref" -- Tom Nowell)
Otherwise usually crew ("Quite spry & fit, & willing to wear a big costume & run around a lot" -- various event organisers)
"My other oversized foam weapon is THE LORD" -- Questionable Content
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Champion
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there is the works of the war fiction author Sven Hassel, whom I found out today was actually a real person
____________________________________As the old robot saying goes "does not compute"
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Heroic Knight
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Last Login: Thursday, October 09, 2008 7:51 PM
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| I've only read Baudolino by Umberto Eco - but it was a good read, and I'm happy to lend it to you this weekend Tart (along with whatever else you want to raid my place for). I should probably pop out and get some more of his stuff really... I massively rate all the stuff I've read by Stephen Fry. There are a few good Ben Elton books too. Robin Hobb is my favourite fantasy author by a long way (Assassins, Liveship Traders, Tawny Man all being truly excellent), though her previous stuff as Megan Lindholm left a bit to be desired. I've been having a fair amount of non-fiction to go through too - which has also been good to read.
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Wag
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Last Login: Thursday, August 21, 2008 11:39 PM
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| Ben Elton's Dead Famous is utter genius in parts. Read it if you REALLY hate Big Brother as it lets you wallow in a nice, comfortable zone of feeling superior over about 90% of the characters Avoid if you have any positive feelings for reality TV at all as it is totally against it as a concept. First Casualty is also good but don't read it expecting a 'Ben Elton style comedy'. It is a more serious work (though still with a bit of dark humour and sarcasm in it). If you liked 'Blackadder goes forth' you may like this as it seems to be a development of some of the ideas in that but with a more serious tone. For example, the main female character in it is a nurse and I cannot help but see her as Miranda Richardson as 'Nurse Mary'. Maybe it is just me, though. His older stuff is patchier in quality. He has definitely got better as a writer as he's moved away from writing out his old stand up routines in prose and calling it a chapter. Blast from the past is very good, though
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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