Books/authors you enjoy reading

**Sanx** · 6th November 2007, 21:49

Just finished Christopher Brookmyre's latest, Attack Of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, a couple of weeks ago. Possibly the best yet. Go and buy it, everyone. Now.

**steveb64** · 6th November 2007, 23:43

Originally Posted by Mikkel

Everything by these authors:

Iain (M.) Banks
Neil Stephenson
William Gibson
Guy Gavriel Kay

They seriously write good stuff, and in very differing genres as well. They cover everything from high fantasy to cyberpunk and sci fi. Banks has written some awesome contemporary fiction works which I simply can not recommend enough.

If you like William Gibson, try Peter F Hamiltons books - "The Reality Dysfunction" is the first in the 'Nights Dawn' series, and there's "Pandora's Star", the first in the 'Commonwealth Saga'. Also check out Peter Beere's 'Trauma 2020' trilogy.

As for my preferences - for Sci-Fi - just listing those authors I/we have the most (more than 6) of, or all of (series), in no particular order:

Peter F Hamilton, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, David Wingrove (Chung Kuo series), Greg Bear, Ben Bova, Orson Scott Card, Gregory Benford, David Brin, William Gibson, Gordon Dickson, Alan Dean Foster (lightweight, but some good yarns), Paul Preuss, Kim Stanley Robinson (Red, Green, Blue Mars trilogy and others), Gene Wolfe (Book of the New Sun series), Robert Silverberg ('Majipoor' books), Patrick Tilley (Amtrak Wars series), Peter Beere (Trauma 2020 trilogy), Anne McCaffrey (really lightweight, but an easy read), Poul Anderson, Harry Turtledove (alternative history...),...

...and for the Fantasy side:

David Eddings, Raymond Feist, Jane Welch (Runespell trilogy), Janny Wurts, Katharine Kerr, Sara Douglass, Fred Saberhagen, Maggie Furey (Shadowleague trilogy), David Drake (The Lord of the Isles trilogy), Michael Scott Rohan, Harry Turtledove (some interesting Roman empire alternatives), J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter),...

...and non fiction:
Ted Simon (Jupiter's Travels), Ewan & Charlie (Long Way Round), various climbing, travel, and adventure books - one of the most outstanding being "Sheer Will" by Michael Groom (mountaineering).

...and there's a shitload more, but I can't be buggered typing any more...or moving couches and chairs to see what's in the other shelves... (our library runs to >2,000 books - most Sci-Fi and/or Fantasy, but with a good smattering of other stuff). And as for 'what do I recommend?' - all of the above. If I have more than one or two of an author, it's because they're a good read! And I have a load of individual books that I enjoy - just haven't found anything else by that author (either in the shops, or that I like).

Peter Hamilton is VERY good - but REALLY solid reading, with multi-threaded plot lines, so not something to pick up, read a page, and put down again for later. The books are pretty big too (The Reality Dysfunction runs to >1200 pages in paperback).

**Mikkel** · 7th November 2007, 06:46

If you want to read something hilarious, weird and absolutely brilliant I can only recommend "The Illuminatus Trilogy" by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Jordan (IIRC).

Multiple storylines, broken chronology, sex, drugs, conspiracy theories and urban myths all packed into an 8-ball of WTF!

**Usarka** · 7th November 2007, 06:54

Originally Posted by Mikkel

Everything by these authors:

Iain (M.) Banks
Neil Stephenson
William Gibson
Guy Gavriel Kay

They seriously write good stuff, and in very differing genres as well. They cover everything from high fantasy to cyberpunk and sci fi.

Check out Charles Stross. Now.

**Krayy** · 7th November 2007, 07:47

Originally Posted by Sanx

Just finished Christopher Brookmyre's latest, Attack Of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, a couple of weeks ago. Possibly the best yet. Go and buy it, everyone. Now.

I second that emotion. Brookmyre is a fantastically funny & witty writer, all while being bathed in buckets of blood & other bodily fluids.

Insightful too. Read "A tale etched in blood and hard black pencil" and I dare you not to cringe at your own recollections of his descriptions of playground politics.

**Krayy** · 7th November 2007, 07:51

Originally Posted by steveb64

*snip*
Raymond Feist
*snip*

Not only is Ray a great writer, but he lurks on Usenet in alt.books.raymond-feist and will answer any (reasonable) question within a day. Hows that for accessibility?

**vifferman** · 7th November 2007, 08:10

Originally Posted by Sanx

Just finished Christopher Brookmyre's latest, Attack Of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, a couple of weeks ago. Possibly the best yet. Go and buy it, everyone. Now.

Oooh.....
I've read most of his, but not that one. Thoroughly enjoyed every one!

**Krayy** · 7th November 2007, 09:52

Originally Posted by vifferman

Oooh.....
I've read most of his, but not that one. Thoroughly enjoyed every one!

For a quick laugh, have a read of the glossary in the back of some of the books (A Hard Tale Etched in Blood and Black Pencil is a good example)

**steveb64** · 7th November 2007, 10:31

Originally Posted by Krayy

Not only is Ray a great writer, but he lurks on Usenet in alt.books.raymond-feist and will answer any (reasonable) question within a day. Hows that for accessibility?

Nothing like keeping the fan base happy to ensure the next book sells well?

...and he probably gets some plot ideas out of it as well...

**Sanx** · 7th November 2007, 13:03

Originally Posted by Krayy

For a quick laugh, have a read of the glossary in the back of some of the books (A Hard Tale Etched in Blood and Black Pencil is a good example)

The glossaries are a classic:

diddies: Protuberant milk-producing glandular organs situated on the chest of human females and certain other mammals. See also Greenock Morton FC.
fanny: The female pudenda. Term of absue for particularly whiny and snivelling individuals. See also certain Scottish broadsheet literary critics.
erse: The posterior, buttocks or anus. Used by Old Firm supporters to accomodate the brain.
heid: Uppermost division of the human body, containing the brains, except in the case of Old Firm supporters. See erse.
honking: Emitting a foul odour; poorly thought of. See St Mirren 2001-04
jobbie: Malodorous human waste products. See the performance of Brian McGinlay as referee, Scottish Cup semi-final replay 1983.
lugs: Organs of hearing and equilibrium in humans, Old Firm supporters and other vertebrates.
self-reference: See self-reference.
tight: descriptive of a young lady of robust moral virtue, who probably has nae tits anyway.

**Mikkel** · 7th November 2007, 13:15

Originally Posted by Sanx

self-reference: See self-reference.

**Swoop** · 26th December 2007, 15:22

A great season for a book. I have churned through the following of recent.

First is Red Star Rogue. Non-fiction about when Russia attempted a nuclear strike on America. Well researched! Most movies stop when the "button" is about to be pushed... this time they actually did it! Amazing. A russian sub, sunk in 16,000ft of water - and the Americans recovered it.

Baa Baa Black Sheep! is Gregory "Pappy" Boyingtons' autobiography. 100% authentic reprint of the original book; nothing changed for today's PC bullshit world.

Bloody Heroes!
A different approach in Afganistan. The SBS doing their thing. From the same author as "Black Hawk Down" and equally well put together.
Saving civillians. Exposing the tellitubbies and their underhand methods of "surrendering" then attacking.
Not on the same level as BHD, but a good read nonetheless.

Currently chwing through Gordon Ramsay - Humble Pie.
FUCK ME!
WHAT a childhood and an upbringing...
A determined and focussed individual, that is to be sure!
Talk about putting in the hard graft. Six days per weeek for almost 20 years - AND sometimes 18 hr days!
Respect.

**PirateJafa** · 26th December 2007, 18:22

Originally Posted by Biff

Originally Posted by Lissa

The Brief History of Nearly Everything.. Bill Bryson. (read it in a week)

That be one of the most wonderfullest books I've ever read that be.

Originally Posted by BAD DAD

Enjoyed Bryson's Brief History recently.

Except for the fact that some of his statements in the book are bloody dodgy if not entirely incorrect?

To quote from my copy of the book verbatim:

Originally Posted by Billy

Since 1946, the United States had been ferrying 55-gallon drums of radioactive gunk out to the Fallarone Islands, some 50 kilometres off the California coast near San Francisco, where it simply threw them overboard.

It was all quite extraordinarily sloppy. Most of the drums were exactly the sort you see rusting behind petrol stations or standing outside factories, with no protective linings of any type. When they failed to sing, which was usually, navy gunners riddled them with bullets to let water in (and, of course, plutonium, uranium and strontium out). Before this dumping was halted in the 1990s, the United States had dumped many hundreds of thousands of drums into about fifty ocean sites - almost fifty thousand of them in the Fallarones alone. But the United States was by no means alone. Among the other enthusiastic dumpers were Russia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and nearly all the nations of Europe.

If he can somehow consider NZ - probably the most anti-nuclear country in the world, with our firm stance resulting in the end of ANZUS and formal alliance with the US - to be a "enthusiastic dumper of nuclear/radioactive wastes, then I shudder to think what other scientific "facts" he has taken liberties with in the text.

**Hitcher** · 26th December 2007, 18:31

Originally Posted by PirateJafa

If he can somehow consider NZ - probably the most anti-nuclear country in the world, with our firm stance resulting in the end of ANZUS and formal alliance with the US - to be a "enthusiastic dumper of nuclear/radioactive wastes, then I shudder to think what other scientific "facts" he has taken liberties with in the text.

New Zealand may not have nuclear weapons or power, but we have several radioactive isotope manufacturing facilities and goodness-knows-what-all other sources of radioactivity that we will need to be able to dispose of waste materials from.

New Zealand isn't GE-free either. Don't believe everything the peacenik tree-huggers glibly espouse. Get over it.