Favorite and memorable books

[drohem]

Inspired by the worst book thread and talk of Jason's new BRP supplement:

What's your favorite book or series? include brief description and/or why it's a favorite for you.

[drohem]

The Architect of Sleep by Steven R. Boyett.

An average Joe spelunker finds himself in an alternate earth where raccoons evolved into sentient creatures and humans remained apes. The raccoons communicate with a complex form of sign language.

Twilight Kingdoms, Tears of Time, and To Fall Like Stars by Nancy Asire.

Fantasy world where psionics replace magic. Two races in total war of genocide. One race has ethical vows against using powers for evil, but the other has no such qualms.

Hiero's Journey and The Unforsaken Hiero by Sterling E. Lanier.

Apocolypitc alternate earth future centered around Great Lakes area. A mutant priest's adventures. His companion and mount is a giant mutated moose. It has a grim-and-gritty Gamma World feel to it.

[Aycorn]

Hiero's Journey and The Unforsaken Hiero by Sterling E. Lanier.

Apocolypitc alternate earth future centered around Great Lakes area. A mutant priest's adventures. His companion and mount is a giant mutated moose. It has a grim-and-gritty Gamma World feel to it.

Yeah, "Hiero" is a blast.

Some faves - fantasy: Gene Wolfe's "Book of the New Sun," Leiber's "Lankhmar" stuff. Lovecraft and lots of the Arkham gang (esp. "Who Fears the Devil" by Manly Wade Wellman). "The Mists of Avalon," "The Once and Future King." Recently I really like Jim Butcher's "Harry Dresden" books (forget the recent TV series).

Non-fantasy - "Lion of Ireland" and "Red Branch" by Morgan Llewellyn; "The Wanderer" by Henri Alain-Fournier, "The Magus" by John Fowles; "Lord of the Flies" - I probably re-read that one every 5-6 years. Also love the 1963 movie - one of my all-time favorites.

[drohem]

Elfquest graphic novels and books by the Pini's.

[Simlasa]

For fantasy: The Lord Dunsany stuff, E.R. Eddison, Mervyn Peake... Shakespeare... Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Burroughs... The Black Company series.

Master and Margherita by Bulgokov, Rose Red by Robert Coover.

[drohem]

The Videssos series by Harry Turtledove.

[raymond_turney]

Hard to say, but a few that made an impression quickly come to mind:

Harry Dresden series by Jim Butcher

Three Musketeers and Four Musketeers by Dumas

The VIking Art of War - By Paddy Griffith - not a good "Art of War" book but an interesting look at the Vikings and their weapons nonetheless.

Horation Hornblower serious by Forrester

Falco series by "Lindsay Davis"

Three Kingdoms - Chinese classic, Moss Roberts

I'm not sure these are my favorites, but they come to mind as books I've read at least twice and would not mind rereading;

[NickMiddleton]

Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion.

LeGuin's Earthsea series, Hainish Cycle (especially the Left Hand of Darkness, the Dispossessed and Rocannon's World), always coming home and Searoad.

Susan Cooper's the Dark Is Rising sequence.

C J Cherryh's Alliance-Union-Compact books, especially Cyteen, Merchanter's Luck and Rimrunners. The Chronicles of Morgaine.

Michael Moorcock's original Elric Saga (i.e. everything up to ~1980), History of the Runestaff and the Chronicles of Castle Brass, the Warhound and the World's Pain.

Brian Aldiss's Helliconia.

Iain M Banks's Culture books, especially Use of Weapons.

Ken McLeod's Fall Revolution books, especially the Star Fraction and the Stone Canal. Learning the World

Alastair Reynold's Chasm City and Century Rain.

HP Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.

William Hope Hodgson's House on the Borderlands.

Steve Erikson's Tales of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, especially Garden's of the Moon, Deadhouse Gates and Midnight Tides.

that'll do for the moment...

Nick Middleton

[drohem]

oooh...well, Tolkien of course, but I forgot about The Chronicles of Morgaine. I liked that series by C.J. Cherryh. :thumb:

[Kloster]

- Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman: the best non sensical story ever written.

- Foucault's pendulum, by Umberto Eco: the master of contemporary italian litterature tackles the historical complot. Dan Brown can go home.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[drohem]

The Majipoor series by Robert Silverberg.

[Puck]

Foucault's pendulum, by Umberto Eco: the master of contemporary italian litterature tackles the historical complot. Dan Brown can go home.

Agreed, Eco has a writing style all to himself. His stuff is so deap I never know when he is veering from history/reality. The Island of the Day Before really did my head in. All his stuff is great!

I love all the basic cannon:Tolkein, Howard, Lovecraft, Moorcock, Leiber, Burroughs. Actually I originally learned about many of these from the bibliographies of role-playing games. Dune and Starship Troopers top the Si-Fi list along with the Foundation Trilogy. A less known gem is The Earth Abides by Stuart, which is definately the best "after the bomb" (actually a disease) book I have ever come across. I may get mugged for this but I also really enjoyed Battlefield Earth (The book not the movie).

Other books I have not seen mentioned are:

The Once and Future King by White.

The First Man in Rome series by McCullough (I mentioned this before on the "Rome" thread), This is an incredible series but a couple of very disturbing parts.

One of the best history books I ever read was A World Lit Only By Fire

by manchester. Gives a really gritty feel to the Dawn of the Renaissance.

One history book that I found that is a great sourcebook for role-playing is Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Life and Society in the West. If you can pick this up used and cheap it is as good as most real-world role playing suppliments and written in much the same style.

[Dredj]

The Architect of Sleep by Steven R. Boyett.

An average Joe spelunker finds himself in an alternate earth where raccoons evolved into sentient creatures and humans remained apes. The raccoons communicate with a complex form of sign language.

[

That was a great book! I would also like to add The King of the Wood by John Maddox Roberts.

Also, anything by Robert E. Howard. As well as the the original Elric series.

Geeze, I haven't read any fantasy since the early 90's.:shocked:

[seneschal]

H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines and She

C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series ... but also his Martian trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength. It starts out as sci fi and becomes wierder and more mystical as you go along.

Madeline L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time series. Other titles include A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters.

George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie

The author's name escapes me for the moment, but The Black Cauldron series: The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Lyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King

[Puck]

The author's name escapes me for the moment, but The Black Cauldron series: The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Lyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King

That's Lloyd Alexander. I remember people reading those books back in the day when everyone was starting to role play. My students still really enjoy those books today. Great stuff. I cannot remember what happens in them very well. I may have to re-read those.

[Aycorn]

That's Lloyd Alexander. I remember people reading those books back in the day when everyone was starting to role play. My students still really enjoy those books today. Great stuff. I cannot remember what happens in them very well. I may have to re-read those.

A very, very enjoyable series.

[Dredj]

That's Lloyd Alexander. I remember people reading those books back in the day when everyone was starting to role play. My students still really enjoy those books today. Great stuff. I cannot remember what happens in them very well. I may have to re-read those.

I remember reading those books and greatly enjoying them--though I've forgotten everything between the covers. Are those still in print?

[rust]

Generally, all the old science fiction stuff (Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein,

LeGuin, McCaffrey, etc.), with LeGuin being my all time favourite.

Currently, the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, more because of the

very detailed and interesting diplomatic and political background than becau-

se of the military action.

[Puck]

I remember reading those books and greatly enjoying them--though I've forgotten everything between the covers. Are those still in print?

Yes, I think so but the more recent covers are terrible; They look like books for two year olds. The old covers were much, much better.

with LeGuin being my all time favourite.

I only read the Earthsea trilogy(very good) and the Left Hand of Darkness.

Are there any others that are particularly good or should be read?

[rust]

Are there any others that are particularly good or should be read?

I am very much tempted to write: All of them. But of course it depends on

your taste. If you are interested in political ideas, "The Dispossessed" is a

most fascinating book; if you prefer very colourful science fiction stories,

"Rocannon's World" is great; if you like true drama, "The Word for World is

Forest" is hard to beat.

You could take a look at the descriptions of the various novels in the Wiki-

pedia entry on Ursula LeGuin to see if one of them could interest you:

Ursula K. Le Guin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[RMS]

There's been a lot of my favorite author's mentioned in this thread, but one I really like that hasn't is Louise Cooper. I really enjoyed the Time Master trilogy by her, and also really like the sequel Chaos Gate trilogy. These take an interesting twist on the classic Law/Chaos issues, ala Moorcock. The Time Master books were released in the late-80s and went out of print, but recently have been available in print again and I'd highly recommend them.

[Shaira]

I'd definitely second "Master and Margarita" by Bulgakov - there's a cool campaign idea in there if only you can winkle it out, plus of course it's a masterpiece.

Tolkien, Le Guin (Earthsea mostly), Leiber, Clark Ashton Smith, the Lovecraft Dreamlands and Mountains of Madness stories, Moorcock's Hawkmoon and Dancers at the End of Time (the latter is IMHO Moorcock's best work), also Stephen Baxter's Time / Space / Origin and Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy. HG Wells' Shape of Things to Come.

Also up for mention: Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising sequence, particularly the "Dark is Rising" book itself, CS Lewis' Perelandra trilogy, naturally ERB's John Carter of Mars (particularly the first book), Earth Abides, Alan Garner's Moon of Gomrath, Herodotus Histories, the Thousand and One Nights, and Marco Polo's Travels for some really mad ideas, Journey To The West. Name of the Rose. Larry Niven's Known Space.

Non-fantasy: anything by Dostoevsky, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, Evelyn Waugh, William Burroughs, Shakespeare. Jane Eyre & Wuthering Heights. Odyssey and Iliad. Diary of Samuel Pepys.

Also just reading The Worm Ouroboros by Eddison - still not sure what I think, but I'm still reading so it must be doing something right!

Best novel ever? Toss up between Devils by Dostoevsky, Master and Margarita by Bulgakov, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, and Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

I'll stop now...

[nightlamp]

Count me as another fan of the weird fantasy/S&S of Howard, Smith, Lovecraft (Dreamlands), Leiber, et al.

I'll add:

Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure, Dying Earth, and Demon Princes cycles

Michael Shea's Nifft the Lean books + In Yana

The first 3 or 4 Thieves' World anthologies

M. John Harrison's hallucinatory Viriconium books, especially The Pastel City and A Storm of Wings

Roger Zelazny's first Amber quintet

[Sunwolfe]

Like most of you here, I enjoyed the "canon": Tolkien, Leiber, Lewis, Moorcock, Howard, Lovecraft, Burroughs, Cherryh, LeGuin, Herbert, etc. (too many to mention).

In the fantasy genre, I have to admit I burnt out quickly long ago. Pop-fantasy authors seem to have a tough time breaking the mold and either creating a unique story or telling an old story uniquely. Some have even blatantly admitted that they were trying to write a story that was, say, Tolkienesque right down to the race, character and storyline archetypes :mad:. Worst of all sinners (IMHO), is Terry Brooks' Sword of Shannara. Yes, yes, I know he went on the write better stuff and has become a mainstay of the genre, but I just can't quite forgive him for that first miserable tome. I also make it my personal policy to avoid any book that refers to dragons anywhere in the title or has a dragon depicted on the cover. Eregon comes to mind (retch).

I don't mean to diss anyone's favorite author; it's just my take on things. I heartily enjoy reading, but get tired of having drivel propagated via pop-culture when there are really richer pickings out there should anyone take the time to dig. Unfortunately most want to be served rather than serve and thus Christopher Paolini has yet another movie coming out based on his second book to serve-up and stupefy the young reader crowd into believing his ho-hum betcha-I-can-guess-what's-gonna-happen-next storylines are "...so good".

A few notable exceptions come to mind, however (Again, MHO only). I really enjoyed Steven Burst's work in the Vlad Taltos series: Jhereg, Yendi, Teckla, Taltos, etc. The humor in these always made me chuckle. His Pheonix Guard series was fun too; an "old story told uniquely".

Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle Master series: The Riddle Master of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire and Harpist in the Wind, were a whole lot of fun.

Roger Zelanzny's Amber series really helped me out with plane-ular travel and the quest mono-myth for my games.

Barbara Hambly's The Ladies of Mandrigyn series (at least the first two)was great for believable (I.E. no chain mail bikinis) women warriors.

I also liked Katherine Kurtz' Deryni novels...at least the first half dozen. They gave me ideas on medieval puzzles and intrigue and politics that were deep enough to employ in game play, but not so deep as to lose players.

The series I have enjoyed the most as of late are Jack Whyte's retelling of the Arthurian legend: The Camulod Chronicles. Usually I stay away from Arthurian-rehashes, but this one tells the tale from a distinctly pseudo-historical perspective describing how Britian's Roman population tried to keep the light of civilization burning. A unique telling of an old story, it has the feel of Rosemary Sutcliff's The Sword At Sunset sans the sentimentality for the legend.

Presently I'm reading Simon Scarrow's Eagle series: Under the Eagle, The Eagle's Conquest, etc. I'm enjoying great descriptions of how the Roman army operated during the Britain campaign of Claudius through the eyes of a couple of earthy and interesting characters. I am presently working up a rather grand war in my RP world and these books have given me plenty of ideas.

Some one mentioned the Thieves World novels earlier. I found another city-centered series with a distinct Middle Eastern flavor by a cadre of authors and edited by Will Shetterly and Emma Bull: Liavek and Liavek: The Players of Luck, Liavek: Wizard’s Row, etc. These have great gaming ideas as well as a great essay in the back of the first anthology explaining the magic and traditions of the city that many a GM would do well to emulate when working up a major city from which they plan their players to launch their heroic endeavors.

And then...LOL...so many books, so little time

[seneschal]

Harry Turtledove's "Fox and Empire" series. It features a pseudo-historical Dark Ages Europe where the various polytheistic pantheons are real and active.