harribo Posted August 6, 2007 Posted August 6, 2007 I clearly need to sample Phillip K Dick, possibly Issac Azimov too. You have no idea how strong an urge there was for me to remove Phillip K from there.
killthenet Posted August 7, 2007 Posted August 7, 2007 Dan, you should definately check out some PKD. I'd recommend The Man In The High Castle as one to check out first, it's the best one i've read and probably his most accesible. After that any of his books really, they all have something brilliant about them, even if the first couple of chapters don't grip you.
welsh_gamer Posted August 21, 2007 Posted August 21, 2007 Chart Throb - Ben Elton Not a great work of litreature, but an adictive read. Basically a parody of reality TV shows, celebrity and mainly the X factor. Makes you wonder how much of these shows are "real" too. Will defintley consider reading more Elton in future. 6/10
Paj! Posted August 21, 2007 Posted August 21, 2007 Catcher In The Rye I'm on a big push and readinf "famous" books. It really is so odd on reflection. So unlike most books, and at the time a breakthrough. 8/10
Daft Posted August 21, 2007 Posted August 21, 2007 Dune - Frank Herbert One of the greatest books EVER written. Stunning in its imagination and execution. I look forward to reading its many sequels. 10/10
triforce_keeper Posted August 21, 2007 Posted August 21, 2007 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Ok, my score might be affected by the fact that I haven't really read many books so I can't compare it to anything... Anyway, I have grown up with J.K Rowlings books, and I am so affected by every little thing that happens, so naturally I was crying, laughing and nearly peeing myself in excitement when I was reading this book. Fantastic ending to the series, and I'm so sad that there will be no more Loved every word. 10/10
Goron_3 Posted August 23, 2007 Posted August 23, 2007 Just finished reading First Blood. Fantastic book and it really shows the mental repurcusions that war causes. Love it 9/10
Nolan Posted December 9, 2008 Posted December 9, 2008 Ilium I'll start this with the wiki as it may help my incoherent ramblings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilium_(novel) I'm mainly using the spoiler tags due to the fact that I really really am positive I can't give a synopsis(I'm not even sure if I can give a short synopsis...) without spoiling. Okay, this is an epic written by Dan Simmons the author of the Hyperion series. It starts off with twentieth century Thomas Hockenberry. Hockenberry is a scholic, who was reincarnated by the Greek Gods to record the day by day happenings of the Trojan war(the Iliad, or apparently a more literal translation is Ilium...or something). Hockenberry never directly reported to the gods, just the Muse(or one of them really) only Zeus nows the outcome of the war, and forbade other gods from finding out. Hockenberry isn't the only scholic, there are many others, and they are replaced sometimes they get killed other times they make the muse angry and are blown out of existence. These scholics all have standard equipment, like a directional mic, enhanced vision, a cloaking device that allows them to assume the identity of any greek, except it's not cloaking....it's literally taking their place/body. The real them is displaced to unknown. Now I know that's alot of info, but before diving into story specific details I have 2 more plots to set....plus a few other elements I may throw in before bombarding with incohesive story elements. On Earth, and indiscriminate number of years into the future, live the post humans. They're called post humans because the old style humans are in a eternal Fax(Fax nodes, essentially teleporters. They kill you and reconstitute your body elsewhere.) loop, which they entered to escape the rubicon(more on that later) virus. The post humans number approx 1 million, they are somewhat similar to H.G. Wells Eloi, just without morlocks eating them. There is one man(Harman) that knows how to read, he taught himself he is 100 years old. There is also Daemon, a lecherous man who likes young girls(he's in his 30s or 40s, they count age by 20s. 1st 20, 2nd 20 ect.) his current target, his cousin Ada who is a bit younger. There is also a girl (no name atm lol) who at the start of the story has built a forge and is going to be the first to forge something new in approx 1000 years. Jupiter.....or more specifically the moons Io and Europa, Moravecs a race of robot things...they are like General Grevious in a way, robotic bodies with synthetic human organs. They have different purposes, like Orphos(of Io) who is a hardvac Moravec, designed to work in the pressure of outer space. Mahnmut (of Europa) is a submarine operator on the seas of Europa. Other more politically important Moravecs have taken notice of Mars, there is an extreme amount of Quantum activity around Mars. There has also been an impossible amount of Terraforming, as in the 100(arbitrary numbers here)years activity has happened, tens of thousands of years of Terraforming has occured. So the Moravecs are out to investigate and possibly stop the activity.(Quatum activity literally rips holes in the galaxy making it extremely unstable.) Okay, random important details. Both main moravecs are old literary fanatics, one loves Shakespear(Sonnets to be specific) the other is fond of Proust. Shakespears Prospero, Calaban, Areil, Setebos, Calypso and others are real entities. Calaban is a monster who is fought against, there are also Calabani (slightly weaker clones). Rubicon Virus, an unknown party developed this to exterminate all the Jews, it back fired however and killed nearly every other being on the planet( not the unknown party though). Voynix, as far as p.Humans are concerned they are just protectors, really though they are meant to kill the jews. Arnist, a group of radicals who using RNA brought extinct creatures back to life, examples being dinosaurs (carnosaur to be specific) Terrorbirds. There are two Odysseus(es, seriously whats the plural?!) one is on earth, the other at the war. Turin Drama, P.Humans often indulge in watching a drama, which in fact is the Trojan War. It's the only thing to watch btw. P.Humans actually only number about 3K, quite far from the told 1 million. There is one person who missed the final fax, Savi, the Wandering Jew. She is technically over 1000 years old, but spent most time in cyro sleep. Burning Man is still around! Trojan War, actually on Mars...the terraformed one. God live on a different unterraformed Mars, in a different dimension/universe/whatever. Hockenberry, trying to save his own life, manages to unite the Greeks and Trojans to fight the gods, who are killable-ish they just get rebuilt...He also has relations with Helen of Troy;) . The Moravecs take heavy casualties, but get there and manage to open up short range Quantum worm holes and move a bulk of forces to mars, but they don't fight a prolonged war they withdraw and collapse all the quantum tunnels. They also make tracks to earth.(with a really cool ship btw) Hockenberry, is special.....his quantum probability of death is set to 0(or 1 some very specific death, like achilles is set to only death by a wound to the heal, possibly only from Prince Paris or Hector I can't remember atm.) he actually travels to Tarturus and talks with the Titans. He can also teleport. The P.Humans, do alot....they find Savi for one, and manage to find Odysseus(who hunts terrorbirds.) Shortly after they start splitting up more. Odysseus trains P.Humans for fighting, because a war is brewing, one chick hangs out and makes weapons. Ada stays as a leader, plus shes pregnant(something normally impossible without breeding permission, Harmans baby btw, not Daemons). Everyone else travels to Jerusalem, place of the final fax. Voynix activate and want to kill them. They travel down a mediterreanean Valley(The sea is held back by the hands of God, a big wall I think at the Straight of Gibralter), to a set of chairs(yes chairs, ordinary chairs) that take them to the E-Ring. The E-Ring is a ring orbiting earths equator, there is also the P-Ring which plays a smaller part. The rings are where humans reaching there final 20 go to live the rest of their days. When Daemon, Savi, and Harmon get there, there are no humans and the atmosphere is barely breathable. What they do find.....is Caliban. Caliban captures them, and speaking in a manner befitting of Golum, he kills and eats Savi, but is wounded by daemon. Harmon and Daemon hide for a while barely able to live getting weaker by the day. Finally they decide to leave, and crash the E-ring in the process(don't remember if they did it purposely or not) They have a few semi epic battles with Caliban, who can survive in Zero-Atmosphere space for quite a long time. Meanwhile back on earth, most settlements are being destoryed by Voynix, who were once protectors of the people, Odysseus and his followers however manage in a way to prepare and stave them off for a while, but It's a losing fight they eventually retreat to a high plateu, which isn't super helpful due to Voynix being able to practically run up a verticle incline. IIRC, the voynix fall motionless with the destruction of the E-Rign, but I could be getting my facts mixed up, hell I could be getting my timelines fubared too. That's kinda more or less it, I went from detailed to skimping on the detail back to detail, but if there are any others that have read this, I believe they may sympathize with me. This has taken quit sometime to do, so I'm going to be done for now, but I may revise it later, and at some point review the equally large epic and epicly confusing sequel Olympos. I really hope I didn't tread to far into the other book, or mix things up, but my statments are fact either way. 8/10, as much as I love it, it's got a fair bit of confusion and it's really really really hard to tell people about it to try and get them to read it.
Paj! Posted December 9, 2008 Posted December 9, 2008 and nearly peeing myself in excitement when I was reading this book. I lol'd. ---- Hamlet by William Shakespeare Technically a play, but hey, it's analyses is done through the text. And it's a 4 hour long play, and so is a fairly sizeable book too. Loved it. Less fun than The Tempest (did that last year/revising it now), but a lot darker and deeper in it's characterisation. Of course it couldn't get anything less than 10/10. I love reading Shakespeare though.
RossK Posted December 9, 2008 Posted December 9, 2008 : peace: hurray an old thread that looks interesting.. Today i finished Nemesis : Ride of Death by Catherine Mcphail Its the 4th and Final book in the Nemesis Series which follows the story of a boy who wakes up in a lift in a flat with a dead man , he has no memory of his past wheres he from or who he is . He is wanted by the police in questioning for the murder and is constatly being followed by a man he knows only as the dark man who h eknows is from his past but doesnt know why . The books standalone are brilliant with essnetialy a crime thriller base but with also horror and sci fi with a clever plot involving terroist cells and conspiracy theorys and beasts on the moor. The books are incredibly drawing and i finished each of them in 1-2 days max and they are a good 250-300 pages each . They keep your interest and your always wanting to find out what happens and geniunly care for the character and constastly wondering who is on his side and who will turn against him , the short breakdown of chapters is something i like , it makes me read more if anything really . This book I give 7/10 but the series as a whole is a 9 easily . If you want something exciting and keep you guessing and involves conspiracy,murders,beasts,terrorists , mad doctors , alien gods. ... then here is your boooks
The Bard Posted December 9, 2008 Posted December 9, 2008 Julius Caesar: I read this before but enjoyed it so much more this time, especially due to an essay I had to write comparing it to Othello and Paradise Lost, actually quite awesome. Brutus is a bad motherfucker. Bit on the short side. 10/10. Frankenstein: Interesting, but only really because I went straight into it after reading up on Marx's theory of ideology. I guess it was written when MS was 18 so fair props. More than just a horror story, even though that's what it was really intended to be. 7/10.
Emasher Posted December 9, 2008 Posted December 9, 2008 Brisinger(SP). I found it much better than Eldest, and perhaps better than the first one too. 9.
nightwolf Posted December 9, 2008 Posted December 9, 2008 Brisinger(SP). I found it much better than Eldest, and perhaps better than the first one too. 9. Agreed. It made me sad near the end though! I loved reading it, but it means waiting a while for the next one! EDIT: its brisingr btw, I only know that because the box is right next to me!
Ashley Posted December 9, 2008 Posted December 9, 2008 Certain Victory. Images of World War II in the Japanese Media Funtimes. Book full of annotated photographs, cartoons etc (mostly propaganda) from the build up to Japan's involvement with WWII to Hiroshima and essays scattered throughout. Reading for an assignment but still, interesting. Had to flick through it though, one of those annoying one night borrows from the library. (All I get time for at the moment are academic texts. Hell even my personal reading is a collection of essays regarding Battlestar Galactica)
Beast Posted December 9, 2008 Posted December 9, 2008 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Love the Harry Potter series, I'm a big fan of it. This is one of my favourite books, it's awesome 9/10 I'm going to read Twilight and it's sequels next, sounds interesting.
Nolan Posted December 10, 2008 Posted December 10, 2008 I suggest staying away from twilight unless your a tween girl. I've heard nothing good. I tried to read Brisingr, but I just couldn't. I got about a chapter or two in, but my attempt was half-hearted. I'll try again at some other point.
The Bard Posted December 10, 2008 Posted December 10, 2008 I suggest staying away from twilight unless you actually have no real sense of cognition whatsoever. Sp. It's okay. Mistakes like this are made all the time.
Nolan Posted December 10, 2008 Posted December 10, 2008 Sp. It's okay. Mistakes like this are made all the time. I'm really not sure what your getting at...
jayseven Posted December 10, 2008 Posted December 10, 2008 You said you shouldn't read it unless you're a tween girl, while he's saying you basically shouldn't read it unless you're a retard.
Nolan Posted December 10, 2008 Posted December 10, 2008 Ah, well it's late, almost 2 AM now. Anyway.......is there nary a difference? (man.....that's kinda mean)
Jav_NE Posted December 10, 2008 Posted December 10, 2008 Ben Elton - Popcorn Awesome. I sometimes get annoyed with Ben Elton as he likes to digress an awful lot fromt he story. It's just his satirical style, which is usually funny, but sometimes i just want the story to progress. In this book for instance, he spent half a chapter three-quarters of the way through the book introducing new characters. Now, these characters did have a small role to play, but it needn't have needed such a lengthy diversion from the story just to get them in. Anyway, besides that point, its an excellent book. I love the story, the characters and the point it makes about our society and how we all excuse ourselves of blame. It also has a hard hitting epilogue at the end which i thought was amazing. Great tension, very gripping and very funny. "I stand here on legs of fire!"... genious. 9/10 Oh and Deathly Hallows 4/10?!?!?!? Are you mad? It's fuckin' brilliant! it's a 10/10 for me. Ends the series brilliantly, and answers all the questions.
Daft Posted December 10, 2008 Posted December 10, 2008 American Psycho Fucking stonking great read. First time a book has made me want to throw up...and this did it three times. Only problem now is that while before I would ignore anyone who annoyed me, now I just want to nail them to the floor and rip out their tongue while violating them with a coat hanger...did I just say that out loud... ...did they hear me... 10/10
Daft Posted December 10, 2008 Posted December 10, 2008 *Slowly backs away towards the door* It's locked.Mwahahahaaaa!!!
Dan_Dare Posted December 10, 2008 Posted December 10, 2008 American Psycho Fucking stonking great read. First time a book has made me want to throw up...and this did it three times. Only problem now is that while before I would ignore anyone who annoyed me, now I just want to nail them to the floor and rip out their tongue while violating them with a coat hanger...did I just say that out loud... ...did they hear me... 10/10 agreed. that shit be fucked up, yo. It's an interesting read and occasionally brilliant. It is, however, guilty of over indulgence. In this regard, I'd actually call the film adaptation the superior version.
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