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Favorite and memorable books


drohem

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I've got to mention 'Mythago Wood' by Robert Holdstock,which i'm reading right now.A brilliant,haunting novel set in England after WW2.It won a World Fantasy Award,and deservedly so!His concept of mythagos could quite easily be worked into most RPG's.

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Funnily enough earlier this year I took a run back through Mythago Wood, Lavondyss, the Bone Forest and the Hollowing - and I must get round to reading Gates of Ivory as well. I love the Mythago books - I'm still not entirely sure that Lavondyss is as successful as it could be, and the Hollowing, for all it's by far the most approachable volume is also perhaps the least profound; but a wonderful series of books, well worth reading.

Cheers,

Nick

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I am currently re-reading some of the "Golden Age" Underwater-Science Fic-

tion ("The Deep Range" by Arthur C. Clarke, "The Undersea Trilogy" by Frede-

rik Pohl and Jack Williamson) - very interesting and very well written, with a

lot of useful "colour" and ideas for my setting.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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I love the Mythago books - I'm still not entirely sure that Lavondyss is as successful as it could be, and the Hollowing, for all it's by far the most approachable volume is also perhaps the least profound;

I think I only read as far as Lavondyss which i thought was something of a disappointment. I obviously need to check out the rest of the series.

Does anyone have an www.anobii.com account? It's sort of like Last.fm and similar sites but for books.

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Clarke's Dolphin Island

Thank you very much ! :)

I did not know of this book, and now I have ordered it right away - Clarke

is one of my favourite authors, and dolphins indeed are always fun. :)

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Thank you very much ! :)

Most welcome. :) I was too lazy to check if that was indeed the title, I think I've only read it in Swedish.

And if you're into Dolphins and Space, you should check out the Uplift series by David Brin if you haven't already. It's got chimps too.

At the moment I'm reading the whole Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series for the first time. Lots of fun. (no dolphins so far though)

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  • 2 months later...

I'll second all the classics. Lately I'm into "planetary romance" so I'm reading Leigh Brackett, Lin Carter, and CL Moore.

I have to say the Mythago series was a bit disappointing. It's a profound concept - these mythic archetypes come to life - I didn't find the event in the novels engaging.

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Guest Vile Traveller

I have to say the Mythago series was a bit disappointing. It's a profound concept - these mythic archetypes come to life - I didn't find the event in the novels engaging.

I did like the first novel, and used the concept as an entry into a successful and long-running campaign. I have to admit that subsequent books did nothing for me.

I still go back to and get inspired by Raymond E. Feist's triology, Daughter of Empire, Mistress of Empire and Servant of Empire. I believe it was inspired by medieval Korean culture, which makes a change from the usual European or Japanese stereotypes found in fantasy.

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  • 1 year later...

Call me weird but I find Harry Potter series thrilling and interesting too...I also find da Vinci code mysterious and you will surely tried to follow the story even if its boring

I've only read the final two Potter books but I thought they were excellent. Someday I'll read the rest of them. I have nothing but respect for Harry Potter - it's got kids interested in reading, the stories seem to be very good and have real depth, and its something that got mega-popular for no other reason than that a lot of people really liked it. Can't knock that.

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William S Burroughs _The Ticket That Exploded_.

One of the grimmest, nastiest books I've ever read. Me and another guy ran a short lived campaign that owed a lot to Burroughs style of terrorcore science fiction.

Anything by Jim Thompson

A lot of my games, no matter what genre, have characters heavily inspired by Jim Thompson characters. His characters are heavily detailed, and have real, believable motivations (no matter how crazy). His stories are quick and entertaining reads as well. People lie and cheat, there is a decent amount of sex and there's usually a high body count.

HP Lovecraft _The Dreams in the Witch House_.

I love HP Lovecraft. People have their opinions, and I personally think he was a pretty horrible writer, but I love his stories, they're unforgiving and weird as all hell. In this one a guy kidnaps and murders children while he blacks out from time dilation overload, and counts among his friends a man with no face, a 500 year old hag and a vampire mouse with a little man's face. He dies at the end because the little mouse eats his heart. I love games that take it far out like this. I'm not so much a fan of Lovecraft pastiche Call of Cthulhu scenarios, just more the spirit of how weird a lot of his stuff is. I have ran entire campaigns of CoC/Lovecraft inspired xyz that have no branded Mythos connection whatsoever.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky _The Brothers Karamozov_

Robert Musil _The Man Without Qualities_

James Joyce _Ulysses_

Louis Celine _Death on the Installment Plan_

These four books influenced me tremendously in storytelling. Each of these has a dozen or more very important characters who all intertwine in the world of the story in some way, no matter how minute. I read these all during a long campaign of Call of Cthulhu, and they influenced my gaming style so much that I'd say they had a big part in my ditching DnD and going full on BRP until a few years ago.

Cormac McCarthy _The Road_

This book is an extreme of every emotion you can feel. You will laugh, cry, fear and dread for the characters for real _sometimes all in the span of a paragraph_. McCarthy's voice is his own, and no amount of discussion will do it justice. Read this book and walk away both utterly crushed and sublimely happy. BTW I hate the word sublime, but this is one of the few times it really fits.

121/420

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  • 4 weeks later...

C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy

George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series.

King's Dark Tower series.

but especially Tarzan, John Carter, and Pellucidar series by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

I am currently very much enjoying the Dark Horse comics productions of the Robert E. Howard series - Conan and Solomon Kane.

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And there I was thinking I'd be the first to mention it as I went through the posts. This series is awesome, and although there is a roleplaying game of it (two, actually) I think BRP could run it really well.
Yes. That Guardians of the Order book is beautiful. You know there is a Game of Thrones HBO series in the making. Or at least a pilot episode.

Game of Thrones on IMDB

Looking forward to Dance With Dragons. Any word on when that comes out?

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Nearly forgot,

The Otto Prohaska novels by John Biggins have proved to be excellent reads over the past couple of years. Basically the fictional memoirs of a officer in the old Austro Hungarian navy in WW 1 ( apart from the last one which covers his cadet days around 1902 ish ). Pitched perfectly between tragedy and comedy they're outstanding....shame he never wrote any more. He hints at other aspects of Prohaska's life: there's a mention of Prohaska being in Buchenwald, as an officer in the Paraguyan navy around the time of the Chaco war, so the scope is there if he ever wanted to.

Edited by Agentorange
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How about favorite and memorable comics?

I adore Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind comic. Made me cry. I really like ElfQuest (brought me to BRP). I think Dark Horse did a wonderful job with Tarzan and they're doing it again with Conan. Gotham Central was outstanding. James Robinson's Starman was great. I loved Christopher Priest's run on Black Panther.

Those are some of mine. What's some of yours?

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