On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 7:27 AM, Jerry Barnes wrote: .... >>> The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Wonderfully irreverent. >>One of my absolute favorites (although the later ones _were_ a little > self-indulgent).. > > They progressively got worse. The last was terrible and Adams pretty > much admitted it. Too bad he died before he could clean it up.
Awww, I liked the longest trilogy ever. But the author probably had something to do with it. =] >>> Dune - The depth of this book is incredible. >>Too true. Nearly the perfect novel in my opinion. Just stay away from the > prequels! ;^) Dune was awesome. I'd seen the movie first, and the book blew me away. > The prequels and the two sequels (non-Frank Herbert) are awful. I read > them for two reasons. I wanted to complete the series (They were all > supposedly based on FH's notes). Second, I wanted to see how bad they could > get. They were like a bad movie you can't stop watching because you want to > see if it actually can get any worse. The answer is: Yes, they can get > worse. Amazingly, they have done very well commercially. The depth of FH's > work is nowhere found anywhere in these books. L. Ron was the same deal for me. Battlefield Earth? Oy! They just got worse. But I read all ten of them or whatever. The protagonist and antagonist made an impression, I guess, as I still remember some of it. >> Ender's Game - If you haven't read this, do yourself a favor and pick it > up. It is sci-fi in theme, but there is so much more to it. >>>I considered adding to it. I actually still love the book. But damn > Orson Scott Card has been annoying me lately. He's also done all he could > to drain any magic from it... the crazy sequels, the umpteen retellings, > etc. > > I have only read the next book. I didn't care for it much. Well, you know that someone who likes the Heart of Gold and "the will and the word" (Pawn of the Prophecy was kick ass, BTW) would like the way he went with 'em. The first one was the best, though, I think. Heard a movie is coming, but haven't seen anything solid. Last thing said "coming summer 2007" or something. :-)P >> Watership Down Excellent. Animal Farm, anyone? What about Fahrenheit 451? Catch 22? > I wouldn't argue against this book. Probably should have added it to my > list. > >> Snow Crash Quite nice. Cryptonomicon was also WICKED COOL, man. If you haven't checked it, do so. Go Shaftoe! Neuromancer was pimp too... Wintermute is such a cool name for an AI... Psion was the first book in a series I liked, more "on the side" SciFi. Did I already say Stranger in a Strange Land? Hell, sometimes it's just faster to list the author, when they're that good. :-) I really liked fantasy the best, I think. The "Castle" series by John DeChancie, I ate up-- easy, fun reads. Same goes for Xanth series by Piers Anthony. Couldn't get enough. And lastly: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid was pimp! Stephen Jay Gould does excellent work as well. Chomsky (his political stuff is fine, but the linguistic stuff was a nice tie-in with Snow Crash :-). Some philosophy probably wouldn't be bad. There's a lot of good philosophy books. Hmm... yep, fun stuff. -- and with a twist of an atom, he was gone ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:266244 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
