The Literature Thread

[Peter Crisp]

Without the movies it wouldnt have even been top 5

I have a feeling you may be right. Both Sci-Fi and Fantasy have a hard time being taken seriously however good they are in the UK. This is a shame as both genres can make for some excellent stories when done well.

[Drawlight]

You've done a great job on the OP. Will this be replacing Memento Mori's thread then?

Thankyou. Uh, I don't know. I don't want to tread on toes, but I did call it, so to speak. I'm going to use and respond in this thread, and I presume Memento will do the same and we'll see which one picks up- if people would be more comfortable with his (slightly bigger) thread then fair enough I won't argue.

Crimson Reaper- Yeah, that helps a lot, actually, my main critisism of the films was the simplicity of the light/dark elements, ala, Lord of the Rings, so I might pick up the books one day.

That's a lovely new edition of H2G2 too, hadn't seen that before. Herb, have you read the fifth one- Mostly Harmless? It gets incredibly bleak and depressing. It was never meant to end that way...

[Memento Mori]

You've done a great job on the OP. Will this be replacing Memento Mori's thread then?

Thankyou. Uh, I don't know. I don't want to tread on toes, but I did call it, so to speak. I'm going to use and respond in this thread, and I presume Memento will do the same and we'll see which one picks up- if people would be more comfortable with his (slightly bigger) thread then fair enough I won't argue.

I'm sorry about that. I didn't realise you had called it. The book thread I remade was based on a little seen thread In The Forum on GR. I don't see why we couldn't keep both threads alive though with literature (high brow) here and books (low brow over in my thread).

[Pan]

I'm reading A Million Little Pieces at the moment. Loving it.

Read My Friend Leonard afterwards.

And remember to take everything Frey says with a pinch of salt, seeing as he made the whole thing up.

[Nova]

Read The French Lieutenant's Woman by John (I think) Fowles. It's brilliant.

That and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

[Captain Kinopio]

Herb, have you read the fifth one- Mostly Harmless? It gets incredibly bleak and depressing. It was never meant to end that way...

I think I lost interest half way through So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, the last thing I remember reading was something happening at a cricket game or something to do with cricket, I can't really remember, I haven't picked it up for years.
On a related note, other books I've given up on reading include:
The World According To Garp
Dracula
TWATG I didn't think was going anywhere in particular, I got about 100 pages in and it's about 600 long so I thought chuff this and moved on to Dracula. The first part of that is excellent, the creepiness of Jonathon Harker in Dracula's mansion and him gradually working out what's going on, it's just brilliant. The bit after where it goes back to London is stupifyingly boring, it was a terrible chore so I gave up on that after about 50 pages into the second half. Shame really because I'ld like to know how it finishes.

[Clarkman]

I am currently reading Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. My brother, who reads gooseberry fool loads, says it's one of his favorite ever books so I'm expecting good things.

All of Vonnegut's works cover Existential Absurdity fantastically well. Cat's Cradle remains far and away my favourite of his masterpieces though. If you enjoy Slaughterhouse 5, go straight onto it.

[IGM]

I am currently reading Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. My brother, who reads gooseberry fool loads, says it's one of his favorite ever books so I'm expecting good things.

All of Vonnegut's works cover Existential Absurdity fantastically well. Cat's Cradle remains far and away my favourite of his masterpieces though. If you enjoy Slaughterhouse 5, go straight onto it.

The only Vonnegut book I've not got on with so far is Galapagos - still finished it mind.

After Slaughterhouse 5 my favourite book of his is Sirens of Titan. I've not read Cat's Cradle yet though. I would also recommend Hocus Pocus, another great read - the usual funny, poignant, 'what are the chances' type stuff, but a very novel idea for a story. Vonnegut says he stumbled across this story as hundreds of tiny scraps of paper numbered sequentially and he just put them together to tell this man's life.

I have been really disappointed with the recent Neil Gaiman books I've read. I loved all his books up until Fragile things and Anansi Boys, both of which I thought were terrible! I need to read up on his new one as I know nothing about it - I really hope it is a return to form though, as his earlier works are among my favourite books.

Hmm, I'm not sure if you'll get on with the Graveyard book- it certainly seems another step away form the much darker mode of his earlier stuff, and 'feels' more like things like Anansi Boys- obviously I can't judge the entire book on what I heard- but I will say that its about some ghosts in a graveyard who raise a small boy whose parents are murdered- like a more serious Johnny and the Dead (Pratchett) and it follows the boys life growing up in the graveyard. Its also getting a Harry Potter style Kids cover and Adults cover.

For the record, I loved Anansi Boys- really good way of doing a semi-sequel/spin off to American Gods, but he hasn't quite reached the same heights as American Gods/Sandman era, has he?

Totally. I confess I haven't read Sandman, but I loved Neverwhere, which has the same kind of premise as Anansi Boys - the normal man thrown into a world behind the normal world. With Neverwhere it just seemed so effortless, and Anansi Boys to me felt forced. I never got transported into the story of Anansi Boys, I always just felt I was reading a book. It didn't grip me at all.

I thoroughly enjoyed Stardust and even Coraline, a great kids book of the kind I would have had nightmares about as a kid!

American Gods was incredible, as was his first collection of short stories Smoke and Mirrors.

But Anansi Boys just felt like he was writing by numbers and living off the reputation of American Gods - a comparison that does it no favours whatsoever.

And I don't want to get started on Fragile things...


Anyway, for the first page, I would recommend Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities to anyone and everyone. A great read and not heavy on the descriptions and asides that you could normally take out of his books to make it about a two thirds shorter!

Also, Robert Rankin - 'Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse' and 'The Witches of Chiswick' are excellent. He is a crazy person and writes incredibly funny crazy stories. His other books (that I've read) are a little more zany and random but these two have as solid a story as you could hope for from one of his books so are great ones to start with. I have not yet read the Brentford trilogy though.

[Clarkman]

I'm sure you know as a Vonnegut fan, IGM, that he rated his books towards the end of his life, on how well they worked as a piece of literature and conveyed the message he wished them too: Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle came out top. Personally, Breakfast of Champions pips Slaughterhouse to second, but you can't question the authors own judgment. It's just such a Vonnegut thing to do, and it's why it sticks out in my mind as a fantastic existential exercise. Only allow yourself to be assessed when you've reached the totality of your output and the sum of your actions. Genius.

[Commander Jameson]

I have been really disappointed with the recent Neil Gaiman books I've read. I loved all his books up until Fragile things and Anansi Boys, both of which I thought were terrible! I need to read up on his new one as I know nothing about it - I really hope it is a return to form though, as his earlier works are among my favourite books.

Recommendations? For Sci-Fi you have to read Consider Phlebas by Iain (M) Banks, it really is a great yarn. His sci-fi stuff is head and shoulders above his non-genre novels, I really would recommend any and all of his culture novels and most of his other sci-fi that I've read.

I don't want to fill the post up with 'books you must read' so early in the thread but I will pop back again and again to put more in. I am finishing Joe Abercrombie's Book of Law trilogy at the moment - pretty good gritty fantasy stuff, goes against the grain of most fantasy/quest type books I've read so seems very fresh for it.

(first post on new forum, Hi everyone)

Read Inversions a few years back and couldnt get into it.

Inversions was a good read - a Culture novel with no real references to the Culture at all. However, Excession is still probably my favourite Iain M Banks novel, purely for the mind-based shennanigans.

As for the first post list, I'd add At The Mountains Of Madness as the definitive Cthulu novella as well as the Nights Dawn trilogy by Peter F Hamilton, an Alistair Reynolds Inhibitor books (plus Century Rain) as both are excellent UK SF.

[IGM]

Read Inversions a few years back and couldnt get into it.

Inversions was a good read - a Culture novel with no real references to the Culture at all. However, Excession is still probably my favourite Iain M Banks novel, purely for the mind-based shennanigans.

As for the first post list, I'd add At The Mountains Of Madness as the definitive Cthulu novella as well as the Nights Dawn trilogy by Peter F Hamilton, an Alistair Reynolds Inhibitor books (plus Century Rain) as both are excellent UK SF.

Inversions was a great read. Embarrassingly didn't make the connection with Culture at all Well, not true,

I did click that they were both from an advanced civilisation and obviously alien, but just did not make the final jump to Special Circumstances

Feersum Endjinn is a really good book if you can stand reading about a third of it written like the title if u no wot eye meen. EYe kood hf givvin up haf wae fru tha fursst chappeder as eye wos jussed not getten ento it a tall. Butt persiveerins paes auf in thee enned. A very entertaining read.

[Commander Jameson]

Inversions was a great read. Embarrassingly didn't make the connection with Culture at all Well, not true,

I did click that they were both from an advanced civilisation and obviously alien, but just did not make the final jump to Special Circumstances

Feersum Endjinn is a really good book if you can stand reading about a third of it written like the title if u no wot eye meen. EYe kood hf givvin up haf wae fru tha fursst chappeder as eye wos jussed not getten ento it a tall. Butt persiveerins paes auf in thee enned. A very entertaining read.

Lol

Her knife was the give-away, IMO

Feersum Endjinn was good, once you got passed the dialect.

[IGM]

Her knife was the give-away, IMO

Yeah, I should have known. Looking back now it is pretty obvious. But what the hell, I enjoyed it immensely anyway. Though I may re-read it again next just so I can nod inwardly at all the bits I should have got first time round.

[Dowbocop]

Just finished So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. Have to say the ending is a total let down, albeit a not entirely unexpected one, but I'm really happy I finally got around to reading them, had a lot of laughs all the way through. Is it worth tracking down Mostly Harmless?

[Memento Mori]

Just finished So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. Have to say the ending is a total let down, albeit a not entirely unexpected one, but I'm really happy I finally got around to reading them, had a lot of laughs all the way through. Is it worth tracking down Mostly Harmless?

It isn't great. Apparently the radio ending of Mostly Harmless is completely different to the book.

[Dowbocop]

Just finished So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. Have to say the ending is a total let down, albeit a not entirely unexpected one, but I'm really happy I finally got around to reading them, had a lot of laughs all the way through. Is it worth tracking down Mostly Harmless?

It isn't great. Apparently the radio ending of Mostly Harmless is completely different to the book.

I'll see if a friend's got it for me to borrow. It won't be soon though, as I have a lot of reading to do at the minute, both for my new course and for my own pleasure (my girlfriend did a sci-fi module at uni, so she has a big selection of awesome sci-fi for me to get through )

[John Galt]

I read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand a few months back and whilst the story does go downhill after about page 700 (it's over 1000 pages - longer than War and Peace) it is by far the most thought provoking book I've ever read and I would recommend it to everyone. In fact it clearly highlights what is wrong with our current loser-free society and enabled me to put words to what I always felt. It also contains some of the most admirable characters I've ever had the pleasure to read about and traits of the villains are obvious in some real life public figures today.

[Oh Teh Noes]

The Picture of Dorian Gray really needs to be put in 'The Classics' section...

It is literally, strawberry floating brilliant.

Totally. I really need to get around to finishing that.

I'm reading A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway at the moment. It's very good.

[Vermin]

http://www.theatlasphere.com/

*bolk*

[Extralife]

How come we have both this thread and the book thread? Which are we using?