The World of Layonara
The Layonara Community => Just for Fun => Topic started by: Mooneyes on April 11, 2007, 03:04:51 PM
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I would be interested is hearing what other people read during there spare time. Like when Layo is being reset or crashed or somethng like that.:D Seriously, I love to read! Next to horseback riding and Layo it is my favorite pastime. Sooo I'll start this off with three of some of the best books I've read in a long time.
#1 The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever Series
By....Stephen R. Donaldson
#2 The Circle Trilogy (have to read them in order)
By....Ted Dekker
#3 Books with the Character Odd Thomas
By.....Dean Koontz
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Im currently reading "Time of The Twins" (Dragonlance Ledgends, vol I).. its oh-so-good :)
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The Anita Blake series, by Laurell K. Hamilton. It starts off wonderfully, cruises and bruises through another good seven or eight books, and has been tapering off recently... But bloody wonderful, so start reading!
The Dark Tower series, by Stephen King. Gunslinger... The new, awesomer (yes, it's a word I just invented) Knight Errant. The best of Stephen King's work, and I do not exaggerate. It's literally his life's work, and the best of everything. Not his typical formula novels, but a truly captivating yarn indeed.
If those don't keep you occupied for a few months, wowee.
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Terry Pratchett. Period.
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Jonathan Kellerman and his wife Faye (love murder mysteries!), David Weber and David Drake (love military sci-fi!) and Dave Barry and James Lileks (love funny books!).
Oh, and Barbara Hambly.
Oh, and H.P. Lovecraft too. Great horror!
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Most of the DragonLance stuff is pretty good....Raistlin's like the best DnD character I can think of.
If you like the heavy stuff, try Harry Turtledove - WorldWar ( imagine if aliens invaded in the middle of the 2nd World war )
But, if you want a bloody classic, "real" adventure story - King Solomon's mines ( read it dozens of times, adventure dont come much better than that )
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The Chronicles of Amber, by Roger Zelazny. The first set of five is better than the second, but they are both amazing.
Or something new...
Infoquake, - David Louis Edelman
Sun of Suns - Karl Schroeder
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I can't really put number values on them...
Watership Down, by Richard Adams. First read it when I was about eight, and many times since then. Rabbits.
Fall on your knees, by Ann-Marie MacDonald. It is one of the most crafted and sculpted works of poetry and prose I've ever had the pleasure of reading. It's also not for the naive or feint of heart. More than the psychology, the characters, the skill of the writing or the pure and dark beauty of MacDonald's words, the construction of this book impresses me. I swear, every sentence ties in with things one hundred, two hundred, three hundred pages on - it's perfectly akin to a tapestry, the same strings being pulled from end to end, the pattern entirely variant at every point. It's nothing short of a work of art.
I'm going to leave it at those two, for the moment. I'm rather critical of books. :P
Edit: *smacks forehead*
The Eagle and the Raven, by Pauline Gedge. Historical fiction written by a historian - about the Roman conquests in Britannia. Being a big fan of the Roman Empire, and rather fond of the ancient Celts, must say I enjoyed both portrayals. One of those books that are incredibly long, but don't feel as such. (About 800pgs, I think).
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Tolkein, Tolkein, Tolkein, Tolkein, Tolkein, Tolkein, Tolkein, Tolkein, Tolkein, AND! of course, Tolkein.
LOTR rocks, sure its longwinded and slightly confusing but I <3 Tolkein. Period.
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Terry Goodkind : Wizard's First Rule, the first and best book in the Sword of Truth series. From the same series, book four, Faith of the Fallen
Stephen King The Stand, It
Wilbur Smith Warlock, River God and Seventh Scroll. If you like egyptology and horses you'll love these three
Anita Diament The Red Tent. A very good book of biblical history written from a woman's point of view
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Favourite authors.
General fantasy, David Gemmell.
Fantasy with a grown-up twist, George R.R. Martin.
Historical Fiction, Conn Iggulden and Jack Whyte.
DnD, R.A. Salvatore.
Check out Polak's thread along similar lines;
http://www.layonara.com/just-fun/107806-great-fantasy-books.html
PS. David Gemmell. <-- I made it bold that time for emphasis.
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Heh, I have not read many books in my lifetime. Quite a few when I was younger, but in more recent years it has been a rare phenomenon. I have, however, read the book Oryx and Crake by renowned author Margaret Atwood. It is both entertaining and disturbing, while dealing with many important issues of modern society. I enjoyed it thoroughly and would recommend it to anyone - as it was, originally, recommended to myself by MJZ.
Obviously, I read The Lord of the Rings as a youngster, and while not planning to read the trilogy again any time soon, I am thinking of reading the Silmarillion again instead. Other than that, I had a Harry Potter phase way back when, and finished up until the end of the fourth book, but the more recent entries have gone by somewhat unnoticed by me, and I have yet to re-ignite any spark for the series.
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creatures of light and darkness - Roger Zelazny
All H.P. Lovecraft
anything Dan Simmons
Terry Pratchett all the way
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Thanks everyone for the responses so far. I've noted a couple and plan to check them out.
Here is another one that I enjoyed. This is the first for this author but I enjoyed his first two.
"Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo"
by....Obert Skye
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So many to choose from...A FEWof my favorite books are:
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salmon Rushdie
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
(I could keep going for a long time....)
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I agree on the Dark Tower. It's a damned masterpiece and Roland is one of the best characters around.
For historial fiction Jack Whyte is really good. I prefer Bernard Cornwell. If any of you have read the Warlord Chronicles by him you know what I mean.
Tolkien goes without saying.
The original Conan stories are amazing. Great comment on the barbarism of civilzation and the civilization of barbarism. He has a great comment about how people can be rude in a civilization because they don't have to worry about getting an axe in the face.
Iliad and Odyssey are good. I like the Aenead alot.
Alright, I need to stop. No one ask me about favorite movies. It'll be even worse.
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The funnest book I read recently Snow Crash by Niel Stephenson. His book Diamond age is also a good one for people that like online games.
Frank Herbert's Man of two worlds was a great book to read for gaining insight into the RP of a shifter. So was Zelazniy's Amber books for that matter. All of Frank Herbert's and his son Brian Herbert's Dune books are totally awesome. Most of my character's "Old wild elf sayings" is a mix of Fremen and Zen quotes that I liked a lot.
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley is one of my all time favorite fantasy novels.
One of the things I do during rare moments that I am not on Layo is volunteer for an organization called books to prisoners. I get a lot of requests for D&D book and related fantasy novels. While often can find a Forgotten realms or Dragonlance novel to send them, we never have roleplaying books to send :(
One guy tripped me out when he asked for books on how to become a better criminal, special forces training, hand to hand combat, medieval warfare, Nazis, how to score with women, magic tricks, and baking cakes. Umm, I felt I was sending books to the anti-christ. Though, I did find some books that I felt were "safe" and not promoting evil behavior.
AeonBlues
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Terry Pratchett Is Awesome, lets see, the ones I've read:
Color of Magic, Light Fantastic, Mort, Reaper Man, Gaurds! Gaurds!, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, Lords & Ladies, Feet of Clay Were all awesome!
Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series
Harry Potter of course, don't hurt me.
I have the Sword of Shannara sitting around somewhere, have to start reading that but I've heard good things...
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tongue and cheeky books- Serrated Edge series Mercades Lackey (modern day elves and fantasy)
Zanth books- Peirs Anthony
Myth Inc books- Robert Asprin
Serious Drama books- Valdamar books Mercades Lackey
Dune Series- Frank Herbert
Dorsai series- Gordon R. Dickson
Historical/legend rewrites- Elemental Masters series- Mercades Lackey (Fire Rose is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast for example.)
Mists of Avalon- Marion Zimmmer Bradely
(notice the repeat usage of Lackey promotion *nods a few times* )
~row
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tongue and cheeky books- Serrated Edge series Mercades Lackey (modern day elves and fantasy)
Zanth books- Peirs Anthony
Myth Inc books- Robert Asprin
Serious Drama books- Valdamar books Mercades Lackey
Dune Series- Frank Herbert
Dorsai series- Gordon R. Dickson
Historical/legend rewrites- Elemental Masters series- Mercades Lackey (Fire Rose is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast for example.)
Mists of Avalon- Marion Zimmmer Bradely
(notice the repeat usage of Lackey promotion *nods a few times* )
~row
*chuckles* I'd forgotten about the Myth Inc. series. They're kids' books, but a lot of fun. Likewise, Asprin's other comedy/fantasy series, the alliterative "Dealing with Demons" series, is hilarious, if a bit light on pagecount.
Also, if anyone is into computer science + fantasy, I highly recommend Rick Cook's "Wizardry" series. Imagine a land where magic could be treated like a programming language (other than Neverwinter). It's a really neat series, though hard to find in-print. Very much a used-bookstore find.
Edit: Oh, also, Mercedes Lackey, and Piers Anthony. (Normally, I'm not a spelling nit-picker, but if it's people's names, I feel they deserve to have 'em spelled correctly. (Even Mr. Anthony, with his first-submission-is-to-Playboy series. ;) )
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Oh Snow Crash, that's a trippy brilliant novel. Not a huge fan of his other stuff, but he brought all his elements together for that one.
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Pretty much all my favourite fantasy novels are up there.
I am reading "Gardens of the Moon" by Steven Erikson. Very good, based on a PnP campaign from what I heard, but also a very good storyteller.
"The Prince of Nothing" series is also very good Although you have to forgive that the author seems to have never had a meaningful relationship with a woman in his life. The books are called, "What Comes Before", "The Warrior-Prophet" and "The Thousandfold Thought".
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I'm just now adding books to LibraryThing | Catalog your books online (http://www.librarything.com) It's really cool, and doesn't take personal information to create an account. Everyone else should too :)
[EDIT: I just made a Layonara group on LibraryThing... go join, now! :D ]
Also, if you're interested in graphic novels, you owe it to yourself to read Cages, by Dave McKean (directed Mirrormask, did a lot of art for Neil Gaiman, and other stuff). By far and away the best one I've ever read.
Oh! and my favorite fantasy short story of all time:
THE QUEST OF THE QUEEN'S TEARS (http://www.sff.net/people/DoyleMacdonald/d_quest.htm) by Lord Dunsany
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Chuck Pallaniuk (sp?)
Kurt Vonnegut (RIP)
Tom Robbins: Still Life w/ Woodpecker is like my real life biography
Steven King's Dark Tower Series... a must read.
Milton, Dante, Shakespeare: I'm a sucker for a good dark story told in verse
Snorri Sturluson: the world's greatest true Skald
Beowulf: Anonymous writes some pretty heavy stuff sometimes
RA Salvatore & Tolkien: of course, I'm a nerd. Can't stomach Greenwood though, Elminster in Hell was truly a hellish experience to read; all flashbacks of Silverymoon nobles' love stories... barf!
Bukowski is hilarious, never seen anybody write about women more accurately
I hate Ayn Rand's self-important boring ego with a passion...
Micheal Parenti: I hate government too
other than that, I mostly read old rennaissance and eastern philosophy and poetry. I'm especially a sucker for haiku and feudal japanese death poems
my favorite philosopher is David Hume
When it comes to comics, I usually digest a steady supply of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee, Preacher, Sandman, EVERYTHING Marvel and anything really racy and dark.
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I would say the series:
Time, Test and War of the twins by Weiss and Hickman( Dragonlance for those who didnt guess )
Everything else from these two co-writing aswell.
Tolkien:the complete works , but hold on the last one ( his son finished it and i havent read it yet)
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Snorri Sturluson: the world's greatest true Skald
Agreed. His works, and other Icelandic texts can be found here.
Icelandic Lore (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/ice/index.htm)
Oh, and for all you people who like Tolkien... this is the real stuff.
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These all sound good. My list is getting longer as I read this thread.
Here are a few more that I wanted to add.
The Screwtape Letters
By...C.S. Lewis
The Chronicles of Narnia
By...C.S. Lewis
Tuesdays With Morrie
By...Mitch Alborn
And this last one I had to read for a class. It can be graphic and sad but it is a true story. It brought me to tears.
A Child Called "It"
By.....David J. Pelzer
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Well, first and foremost, I'm a total Tolkien geek -- as in, people who read as far as The Silmarillion are just rookies. :)
I used to enjoy Tom Clancy, but he got WAY too formula about 3 or 4 novels ago.
I like the Ender series by Orson Scott Card, though some of the later books get a bit too preachy for my tastes.
Feist is pretty good, but again he is starting to get a little "formula".
I like Dune series, and even the "prequels".
Lord help me, I even like Harry Potter.
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I only got through the first book of Ender series. Pretty good.
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ooh! How could I forget!
Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber: It's a bit hard to find, but one of the best children's fantasy books you'll find. I own two copies, one for me and one to inflict one all my friends.
I think I've kinda ODed on fantasy fiction... read Tolkien when I was young, devoured David Eddings, Terry Brooks, Wies and Hickman, etc when I was in my early teens, and slowly progressed to a little bit more "literate" fantasy. when I was in college, I tended to binge read on anything in the library's fantasy section when I had a break, and now I think I need a break for a couple years.
(Sooo many favorite books... it's taking all my willpower not to write a 50 page essay praising all of them. I'll try to restrain myself)
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HP Lovecraft for horror
The Dark Tower, very engrossing
RA Salvatore
Tolkien
Harold Coyle and Tom Clancy because I love a good military novel.
Eric Van Lustbader
Stephen King
that's what comes to my mind right now. Hornorable mention would be the first horror novel I ever read in elementary by William Peter Blatty - The Exorcist
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Wow..so many good reads above..brings back memories of many of the books I have read.
Tolkien, Feist, Eddings, Bradley, Lackey, Anthony, Brooks, Donaldson...more and more...
The Deathgate Cycle...good series...
The Deryni stories...Katherine Kurtz...as well as her Adept series
Tanith Lee ...Tales from the Flat Earth
Sanctuary Series of Tales...Robert Lynn Asprin
The Sun-Runners series ...Melanie Rawn
Gord the Rogue....Gary Gygax
Elric of Melinibone....Michael Moorcock...one of my favorites
Annals of the Black Company...Glen Cook...another favorite
...hmm...actually they all are I guess
I can go on naming many more within my library/collection...but all have been enjoyable to read and spike the imagination...and I constantly look for more to read.
Lets not forget some of the other classics that have produced great stories...Twain, Melville, Dickens, Swift....and more
Great stories like...Moby , Huckleberry Finn, Gulliver's Travels, Great Expectations.
Guess I like to read...didn't really realize how many books I have read over the years until I started listing just a few above.
Imagination is a great thing to have and nothing like a great story to spark it.
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Neil Stephenson- snow crash, cryptonomicon
Dan Simmons- everything
Enders Saga- orsen scott card
Neil Gaiman- the sandman comics
The Preacher comics -Garth Ennis
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Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos novels. I must admit I haven't read any of his other stuff yet.
Tolkien, Lovecraft, Howard, von Voight, Asimov, Clark, Niven, Bradbury.....etc etc, ad nauseum...
Voltaire (the comedian)
must mention that "The Children of Húrin" comes out this week, in case there was a Tolkien fan somewhere that hadn't heard of it yet
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I'm rediscovering some books by Peter Moorwood, The Horselord, Demonlord etc. Old but still a great read.
Otherwise for non fantasy works I'm plowing into the Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama which is proving quite enthralling. Unfortunately much of my spare time for reading is taken up by work related subjects :( so I miss out on quite a lot that I would otherwise like to read.
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Ender's game is my favorite scifi
Harry Potter
The circle trilogy by Ted Dekker is really good too
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So many to choose from...A FEWof my favorite books are:
White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss
Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salmon Rushdie
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
(I could keep going for a long time....)
HAHahaha...the Lorax! Now thats an absolute Gem!
God that brings back memories. I can still picture the old book, tattered and smeared as my grimy childhood fingers scoured the pages with keen interest.
Thanks for the nostalgia.
Polak76
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Ok Terry Pratchett is something I can read any time (I own every book he has published to date!)
If you want dark and funny look at Neil Gaiman (He wrote Good Omens with Terry Pratchett, the Sandman Graphic Novel series but his best two are Neverwhere and American Gods - both fantastic examples that you can writing stunning fantasy set right here on modern earth)
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever Series By Stephen R. Donaldson - the only series of books I have ever enjoyed where I have despised the main character. These books are really dark, but great.
oh and of course anything by Enid Blyton!
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While not fantasy, David Weber's "Honor Harrington" series is fantastic.
You will hate Pavel.
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Wait.. non-fantasy authors... I love Tom Robbins! Smart, funny, weird and insightful.
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Nibor,
I agree with you about Thomas Covenant. I've read the whole series and kept looking for some redemptive value in him but at the same time I just couldn't put it down. I love hated him.
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Three additional authors who I cannot believe have not yet appeared on this list:
- Robert A. Heinlein
- Spider Robinson
- Douglas Adams
(The fact that the last was not on the list is some sort of travesty.
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Ah, books! Such lovely things, and so darn distracting when you need to be working on something else. They're very similar to Layonara in that regard.
I see some of my favourites have already been given attention in this thread, so I'll throw out a couple authors and books I've enjoyed that haven't been mentioned yet.
Guy Gavriel Kay -- A Canadian fantasy writer with two Aurora awards under his belt, and many years of good writing still to come. He's the author of the "Fionavar Tapestry" series, "Tigana", "The Lions of Al-Rassan", "Ysabel", and half a dozen other books.
Susan Cooper -- A childhood favourite, and a very celebrated English children's author. I think she has at least one or maybe two Newbery awards for her series "The Dark is Rising". Personally, I always liked "The Boggart" too, but it was "Seaward" that captured my heart.
O. R. Melling -- Another childhood favourite, and another Canadian. She wrote "The Hunter's Moon" and "The Singing Stone" among other things, and tends to have a focus on Celtic and Irish folklore in her fantasy.
Lois Lowry -- "The Giver". (While I'm on childhood favourites). If you've read this one, you probably know why I'm mentioning it. I think this may have been one of the books that set me up to love fantasy and science-fiction so much.
Some other more adult favourites:
- "High Fidelity" -- Nicholas Hornby
- "The Poisonwood Bible" --Barbara Kingsolver
- "The Lovely Bones" -- Alice Sebold (Also, an interesting biography by the same author -- "Lucky")
- "The Loop" -- Nicholas Evans ("The Horse Whisperer" was also good, but I liked "The Loop" better)
- Several of Farley Mowat's books -- make me laugh till I cry every time
- Anything by Christopher Moore, when I'm in the mood for something wacky/absurd/funny/awful/dark/unique. This guy is crazy, but crazy in an interesting and often very very funny way. The last book of his I read? "A Dirty Job" (all about Death with a capital D). One before that? "Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story" (wacky vampire romances)
- Lots of the classical English literature types. Comes with the English minor, I guess, but I genuinely like Shakespeare, the Romantic poets, Dickens, Joyce and the like. "Wuthering Heights" is a definite favourite.
- Plays. I took a course on Canadian drama two years ago from a great prof, and it really opened up my eyes to a genre I'd been ignoring. I know they're "meant to be seen" but they make pretty good reading too. And no, I don't just love Canadian plays. I just know them best. Have to say I love Tom Stoppard too.
- "The Time Traveller's Wife" -- Audrey Niffenager. This is an amazing work -- probably my current favourite book. I simply cannot praise this highly enough. It had absolutely everything I was looking for, and was absolutely uncompromising in the path its story took.
I could go on, but I won't, because I could literally post all night!
p.s. For those that are wondering ... No. There really is no rhyme or reason to my taste in books. I'll read anything, from cereal boxes to instruction manuals. Call my taste random, crazy, eclectic, or non-existant, but I'm just that kind of person.
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The Hourus Heresy set
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So many where do I start. King of course, LOTR, Also like Kellerman a lot. Classics wise I am a big fan of David Copperfield and Jayne Eyre. I also like James Patterson. Enjoyed the Harry Potter Series. Books I read the most are true crime books though no particular author expect maybe along the lines of John Douglas and other former FBI profiler folk. I'm sure I will think of many many more and have to come back and edit.
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sunrunners were mentioned by melanie rawn
both trilogies are great the dragon prince is the first trio
and dragon star the second
robin hobb- ship of magic, madship, and ship of destiny
the ships are actually alive
any dragonlance by weis and hickman
any forgotten realms novels
battlefield earth by hubbard
and one i notice hasnt been mentioned at all
anne mccaffrey- anything from pern
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1) Harry Potter, the series, by J. K. Rowling
2) Redeeming love, I can't remember the author
3) Screwtape Letter by C. S. Lewis
4) Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
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I read all the time, and here are just a few.
-The Wheel Of Time (Books 1-11)- by Robert Jordan
-The Left Behind Series(not exactly know how many books there are)
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I've read those too. Good books.....lot's of suspence in the Behind series.
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There are many already listed above that I like very much, like D&D novels, Tolkien, Dune saga.
I myself would like to add the Finland's folk story legend: Kalevala, although it is in a poetic form and works best in finnish. But I'm sure there are aplenty of translations available nowadays.
The other that I would recommend is Robin Hobb's Assassin Series.
Assassin's Apprentice, Royal Assassin, Assassin's Quest
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Alot o fthose books I've read.
L.E Modesitt Jr. - The magic of Recluce series.
Its very good, all about Chaos and Order and the struggle to Balance.
He does other fantasy books, and sci-fi books. One of my favorite sci-fi ones by him is the Parafaith war. Good take on a religous war, its worth a read.
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To add to the list:
Jane Yolen - Dragon's Blood
Edit: For those of you considering reading the silmarillion and get incredibly bored in the first section to the point where you're about to give up... just skip to the main section of the book. It'll give you the reason to read the beginning (which has been (accurately) portrayed as reading like the old testemant.)
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I just had to add this one since I just finished reading it.
Children in the Night
By Harold Myra
An epic fantasy of yearning, horror, myth, and wonder. A story of good versus evil in a subterranean world of Perpetual night.
It may be difficult to locate this book as it is now out of print but it's worth the search if you find it!
Mooneyes
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great books all
i have collected the complete forgotten realms books to date (twice since my mum gave away my complete first collection) The maztica trilogy is one of my favorites. but when i feel like being a big kid i actually mess around with my collection of steve jackson and ian livingstone's FF (fighting fantasy books). ahh the good ol days!
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FYI
Terry Goodkind : Wizard's First Rule, the first in the Sword of Truth series.
It is now in TV format: Legend of the Seeker Series. Available for download as its up to episdoe 6. (Mininova.com for bittorrent) I have it here on WPHL 17 Philadelphia.
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Hmm, let's see
- Tolkien
- Pratchett
- Raymond E. Feist (especially the Empire's Trilogy, and the first 4 books of The Krondor's Chronicle)
- Anne McCaffrey - The Chronicle of Pern)
- Asimov and Philip K. (name automatically erased/edited for a strange but obvious reason)
- David Lodge (nothing to do with Sc-Fi or Fantasy though)
- Malory (if anyone else read him, and/or know what he wrote, let me know ;) )
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FYI
Terry Goodkind : Wizard's First Rule, the first in the Sword of Truth series.
It is now in TV format: Legend of the Seeker Series. Available for download as its up to episdoe 6. (Mininova.com for bittorrent) I have it here on WPHL 17 Philadelphia.
I just finished the last book Confessor... I recently was able to buy it paperback.... awesome series. :D not to mention that the series looks good. I've only seen episode 4 though...
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Conn Iggulden's Emperor Series:
- Gates of Rome
- Death of the Kings
- Field of the Swords
- Gods of the War
All very good books, just started the final one in the series today, it's about Julius Caesar's life and is brilliantly written. Definitely going to move on to his other books after this one.
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Do yourself a favour and do so, the Genghis Khan series is even better (IMO).
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I recently started to read Jeff Long - The Descent once again, marvelous storytelling and creepy & disturbing.
I would also recommend some sort of a collaboration book about ancient greek mythology, I enjoyed reading these as a child.
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Of course, the Dune saga. What more could you ask for in a sci-fi =).
Historical fiction, Jack Whyte, hands down. The A Dream of Eagles series is excellent. Probably in my must-reads.
If I'm feeling a little more... deep, I'll pick up Walden by David Henry Thoreau, which is excellent. Great stuff.
Or, As aforementioned, Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis, Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, and Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne. Excellent reads, and interesting ideas, even if you don't agree with them. :)