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Books - check them out

Started by reeper, June 26, 2008, 02:16:40 PM

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reeper

Quote from: Vostroya on July 16, 2008, 11:16:43 PM
The famous ones. A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner), The Man In The High Castle... you really can't go wrong, but I've actually not identified any gems hidden in his lesser-known works.
When you're bored take a picture of your shelf with all his work. I kind of want to see it.

reeper

Quote from: Vostroya on July 16, 2008, 11:25:03 PM
They were all at my dad's, and right now they're in a box in mini-storage because his new house isn't done until November

I had all my Arthur C Clarke, Asimov, and Lovecraft stuff there too
Lovecraft you say?

I've never read anything from him, any suggestions?

Houdini

All this talk of Philip K. Dick reminds me that I need to watch Waking Life again. Actually, I've already seen it so many times that I should probably just buy it instead of renting it over and over again.

reeper

Bought Cat's Cradle and Invisible Monster by Palahniuk.

What should I expect from Cat's Cradle? I still haven't got my books in the mail so I had to get something in the meantime.

Dullahan


reeper

Quote from: Vostroya on July 18, 2008, 05:06:39 PM
It's not Vonnegut's absolute best, but it's certainly up there. I liked it. If I remember correctly it's kind of weird in the beginning and you wonder when the biographical part will end but if you get through it it's good. That might have been Jailbird, though, I always get them mixed up.

My favorites of his are Slaughterhouse-Five and Galapagos.

Reefer, on H.P. Lovecraft: I'd say if you're a mild fan of Poe's style (dark and fantastical, but elegant) and also a fan of sci-fi thrillers, you'd enjoy Lovecraft. He is my personal literary hero and in my opinion one of the greatest authors to have lived... he only has a few real novels; mostly just short stories (and lots of them). I'd recommend one of the compilation volumes Penguin has published... I know I've had The Cthulhu Mythos and Other Weird Stories, which is a pretty good collection of the Cthulhu stories (the best ones).

Alternatively you could buy some of the old Del-Ray paperbacks on eBay, which all had one or two of the longer stories and then a bunch of short ones. I think it's a 7 volume set.
I don't know much about Lovecraft but since I listen to metal I hear about him a lot, so many metal bands include Lovecraft into their lyrics.

My brother suggested Slaughterhouse-Five, I'll check it out. My book list is huge, and somewhere in there, I want to read Brave New World. Someone told me that it was like The Giver's more mature father or something, and The Giver is so far my favorite book (I haven't read that many books by the way.)

reeper

Quote from: Vostroya on July 18, 2008, 11:45:57 PM
Last time I read The Giver was years ago... I think I liked it. Brave New World is pretty good, but not incredibly deep. You might get more out of some Dick stuff or other noted sci-fi.
I really love anything about futuristic societies much like Total Recall and Minority Report, which both are stories written by Dick.

The Giver is in the same style, about a kid that is living in a society where pleasures are taken away from people. He is being passed down all the things that no one can experience because they've been eliminated from society. Like the experience of snow, sex, and whatever else.

Of course I haven't read Total Recall or Minority Report but I assume they're not too far off of the movies.

Sam

Jesus christ, finally my book got here.

I'm on about page 50 of My Name is Asher Lev.

So far it's decent.
1.8mb is too huge for a sig nigga

reeper

Quote from: Vostroya on July 20, 2008, 12:02:14 AM
HAH

Read them. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
Haha sounds like they're way off.

I can't wait.  befuddlement

Houdini

A Scanner Darkly somehow managed to both be a really good movie and faithfully capture the spirit of the novel, which is pretty rare in the world of cinematic Dick interpretations. Bladerunner was really good but didn't have that Philip K. Dick feel that A Scanner Darkly did. I didn't even know until recently that Minority Report was based off a Dick story, because it just seemed like another boneheaded big-budget action flick.

reeper

Quote from: Houdini on July 20, 2008, 12:25:55 PM
A Scanner Darkly somehow managed to both be a really good movie and faithfully capture the spirit of the novel, which is pretty rare in the world of cinematic Dick interpretations. Bladerunner was really good but didn't have that Philip K. Dick feel that A Scanner Darkly did. I didn't even know until recently that Minority Report was based off a Dick story, because it just seemed like another boneheaded big-budget action flick.
Minority Report actually had a really cool idea, but of course it's only because it was based on Dick's work.

Houdini

Quote from: reefer on July 21, 2008, 02:19:10 PM
Minority Report actually had a really cool idea, but of course it's only because it was based on Dick's work.
The idea was cool, and the visual effects were also kinda cool, but the movie itself wasn't great.

Kingmush

Here are some books I've recently read;

The Good Guy by Dean Koontz -  First off I noticed the OP read The Husband which while it does have a cliche story line, I still like the author. Anyway, this one is about a guy who is in a bar and get's mistaken as a hitman. A guy comes in and hands him the money and a picture of the victim, he then goes on and trys to save her. I must say, it was a lot better than I thought and the ending was totally unexpected

Cell by Stephen King -  This was my first Stephen King novel and I wasn't disapointed. I love these kind of books that focus on world wide disaster and humanity's atempt to survive/set it back right. But the brief synopsis of this novel is that a world wide epidemic of sorts was delivered by cell phones simaltaneously which turned people into basically animals with killing on their mind. A whole new society and mindset appears. Very good as I said before.

Currently Reading:

Prey by Michael Crichton -  Only about 50 pages in so far, but anyways a friend of mine loves Crichton and I decided to check him out. So far it's pretty good but I'm waiting for some action to start. I love books that have some sort of catcher early on, and this one has only half satisfied me.

Gave up on Reading:

The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz - First off, Dean Koontz is one of my favorite authors so it's surprising I gave up on this one. However, like I stated above I like books with early catches. I was 100 pages in and all that's happened is some maniac girl burnt an old person's home, the rest is filled with the main character's love for dogs and her boyfriend's obsession with drawing dogs...

reeper

Quote from: Kingmush on July 21, 2008, 03:17:00 PM
Here are some books I've recently read;

The Good Guy by Dean Koontz -  First off I noticed the OP read The Husband which while it does have a cliche story line, I still like the author. Anyway, this one is about a guy who is in a bar and get's mistaken as a hitman. A guy comes in and hands him the money and a picture of the victim, he then goes on and trys to save her. I must say, it was a lot better than I thought and the ending was totally unexpected

Cell by Stephen King -  This was my first Stephen King novel and I wasn't disapointed. I love these kind of books that focus on world wide disaster and humanity's atempt to survive/set it back right. But the brief synopsis of this novel is that a world wide epidemic of sorts was delivered by cell phones simaltaneously which turned people into basically animals with killing on their mind. A whole new society and mindset appears. Very good as I said before.

Currently Reading:

Prey by Michael Crichton -  Only about 50 pages in so far, but anyways a friend of mine loves Crichton and I decided to check him out. So far it's pretty good but I'm waiting for some action to start. I love books that have some sort of catcher early on, and this one has only half satisfied me.

Gave up on Reading:

The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz - First off, Dean Koontz is one of my favorite authors so it's surprising I gave up on this one. However, like I stated above I like books with early catches. I was 100 pages in and all that's happened is some maniac girl burnt an old person's home, the rest is filled with the main character's love for dogs and her boyfriend's obsession with drawing dogs...
The Husband was so boring, I probably won't read anything else by him again because the story was pretty cliche and boring. His writing was straight to the point but described things, small details that didn't matter too much.

I didn't like it at all. Have you read anything else, seems like those authors you're reading are the cliche, big author, same story books.

Kingmush

Those are just what I've currently read this summer. And actually Reefer, aside from  Dean Koontz, those are the first books I've read by the other authors. But I say you give Dean Koontz another chance, It seems his older books are much better than his newer ones, so try maybe Dark of the Woods or MR. MURDER, I found both of those to be better than the rest.

And do you suggest any other authors I should check out?

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