Recommend Me Some Good Books
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Have you Ever heard of the Darren Shan saga? It's another vampire story, yes, but it's not exactly the same as the usual idea of vampires, and not only is it not some terrible vampire-werewolf-human romance, but it's kind of a deconstruction of the vampire genre, in my opinion.
Then there's also the Series of Unfortunate Events, which also a sad series (duh, series of UNFORTUNATE events) and although the writing style kind of annoys me, it's a rather touching and tragic story of how three siblings stick by each other when it seems the whole world is against them.
Those are my recommendations.
Then there's also the Series of Unfortunate Events, which also a sad series (duh, series of UNFORTUNATE events) and although the writing style kind of annoys me, it's a rather touching and tragic story of how three siblings stick by each other when it seems the whole world is against them.
Those are my recommendations.
Go ahead and read some classics. Authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne or Oscar Wilde have some pretty good ones, and it gives you an opportunity to see how literature has evolved over the past decades.
The Name of the Wind and it's sequel, The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss are also very good examples of fantasy. I heartily recommend anything by Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, as well as Neil Gaiman.
I do recommend reading some of Dan Brown's work, but don't take it at face value. He put a lot of loose, baseless information in his novels, so further study and research is necessary in order to get the full facts.
The Name of the Wind and it's sequel, The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss are also very good examples of fantasy. I heartily recommend anything by Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, as well as Neil Gaiman.
I do recommend reading some of Dan Brown's work, but don't take it at face value. He put a lot of loose, baseless information in his novels, so further study and research is necessary in order to get the full facts.
mein kampf actually is pretty boring.sean360h said:
the series A Song of Ice and Fire, is awesome. I'm recommending it.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (also reccommend the film)
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Diaspora by Greg Egan
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (also reccommend the film)
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Diaspora by Greg Egan
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
<link=http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/john-dies-at-the-end-david-wong/1100355994>John dies at the End
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It seems as though we have a similar taste in books. I would recommend you read Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World if you liked 1984. Dune by Frank Herbert is another good book. I don't know if your interested in (alternative) history but if you are I would recommend Red Inferno by Robert Conroy (I think). I am currently awaiting to get my copy of Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse (which someone recommended to me on this website). Check them out they fit with the books you've read.sean360h said:
Raymond E Feist's "Faerie Tayle" In fact, anything by Raymond is usually great, but this one is my favourite.
Wow. The first reply ninja'd me. And with a slightly more obscure fantasy series.Darknacht said:
I would personally also recommend the following:
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - dystopian novel similar to 1984 but better in my opinion
Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder - a book about a girl discovering the world through philosophy
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series by Stieg Larsson - a great murder mystery for book one and a great thriller trilogy overall
Neuromancer by William Gibson - lots of science fiction like The Matrix owe this book everything for being an amazing and captivating story
The complete unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo.
I also have comic recommendations:
- Fables
- Unwritten
- Sandman
There are more but I am not in a position to check my library.
I also have comic recommendations:
- Fables
- Unwritten
- Sandman
There are more but I am not in a position to check my library.
A book topic that hasn't yet had me suggest Anno Dracula?! Horror!
Anyway, yeah, the Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman are hands down the best vampire books ever written. The first, Anno Dracula, is set in the late 1880's, three years after Dracula came to England and soundly thrashed those upstart Englishmen (and one Dutchman, silly Van Helsing) who tried to stop him. By this point, Dracula has married Queen Victoria and become the new Prince Consort, vampires are an accepted part of everyday life, a good chunk of English society across every level have become Undead, and life, or unlife as the case may be, is moving on. Then some nut with a knife begins butchering vampire prostitutes in the district of Whitechapel. Before long, the murderer has become known as Jack the Ripper.
They're all fantastic books. The second one, the Bloody Red Baron, is my favourite. Set during the height of WWI, one of the German flyers, the Red Baron (Mannfred von Richtofen) has earned a fearsome reputation as one of the best pilots on either side of the war. This is partly due to this ability to shapeshift into a colossal bat-monster and tackle enemy planes in midair. Edgar Allan Poe (a vampire, of course), living in exile in Austria after the end of the American Civil War, gets hired to write the Baron's Biography, and a lot of crazy stuff happens. Really, really brutal book (they're all pretty gory, but some scenes in the Bloody Red Baron were just... wow), but does a brilliant job of capturing the despair of a neverending war. And this is a war fought by both the vampires and the living, so when they talk about an eternal war, they know what they mean.
And then there was the third book, the Judgement of Tears, set in Rome during the 1960s. By this point the series has conditioned you to accept all the weird stuff it likes to throw at you, and that's good, because this book has one of the most brilliant scenes ever involving a vampire spy called Bond and Frankenstein's Monster, the latter of which was working as a hitman for the cat that runs the Russian Spy Bureau in Rome.
Speaking of weird stuff, the books feature both a lot of historical figures and characters from the public domain lifted out of Victorian literature. You have Dr Jekyll and Dr Moreau working as coroners on the Jack the Ripper cases (the latter turns up working as a field medic/vampire researcher in the trenches of WWI in the Bloody Red Baron), the Dioegenes Club plays a big part in the first two books, Inspector Lestrade is the representative of Scotland Yard, a hopping Chinese vampire turns up in the first book, Count Orlock is put in charge of the Tower of London, Professor Moriarty makes an appearance now and then. The list goes on and on and on, and it is awesome. If you know your vampire media and Victorian literature, these books contain reference after reference, some of which will have you splitting your sides.
These books tend to be extremely gory, but they're by far the best vampire books I've ever read. Becoming a vampire isn't a free ride to immortality (written in the early 90s, so pre-Twilight), you still have to conform to the social norms, keep your bloodlust in check, avoid all sunlight for at least your first century, if you were religious in life then religious icons can now hurt you, and there are always anti-vampire hate groups (often religious in nature) that would gleefully stake any vampire they get their hands on. Basically, even by the 60's, vampires only rarely live longer than they would have as a mortal, and as the pace of technological and societal change picks up during the 20th Century, more and more of the elder vampires begin to fall into a lethargic state, no longer interested in a world that doesn't even remotely resemble what they used to know.
Fascinating books, all in all, and I heartily recommend them to anyone, especially people getting tired of the way vampires tend to be portrayed in media these days. The books are full of black humour, interesting messages and ideas, provide extremely unique plots and characters, and are generally very well written. Best of all, Kim Newman is writing a fourth book, which has me over the moon with glee.
Anyway, yeah, the Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman are hands down the best vampire books ever written. The first, Anno Dracula, is set in the late 1880's, three years after Dracula came to England and soundly thrashed those upstart Englishmen (and one Dutchman, silly Van Helsing) who tried to stop him. By this point, Dracula has married Queen Victoria and become the new Prince Consort, vampires are an accepted part of everyday life, a good chunk of English society across every level have become Undead, and life, or unlife as the case may be, is moving on. Then some nut with a knife begins butchering vampire prostitutes in the district of Whitechapel. Before long, the murderer has become known as Jack the Ripper.
They're all fantastic books. The second one, the Bloody Red Baron, is my favourite. Set during the height of WWI, one of the German flyers, the Red Baron (Mannfred von Richtofen) has earned a fearsome reputation as one of the best pilots on either side of the war. This is partly due to this ability to shapeshift into a colossal bat-monster and tackle enemy planes in midair. Edgar Allan Poe (a vampire, of course), living in exile in Austria after the end of the American Civil War, gets hired to write the Baron's Biography, and a lot of crazy stuff happens. Really, really brutal book (they're all pretty gory, but some scenes in the Bloody Red Baron were just... wow), but does a brilliant job of capturing the despair of a neverending war. And this is a war fought by both the vampires and the living, so when they talk about an eternal war, they know what they mean.
And then there was the third book, the Judgement of Tears, set in Rome during the 1960s. By this point the series has conditioned you to accept all the weird stuff it likes to throw at you, and that's good, because this book has one of the most brilliant scenes ever involving a vampire spy called Bond and Frankenstein's Monster, the latter of which was working as a hitman for the cat that runs the Russian Spy Bureau in Rome.
Speaking of weird stuff, the books feature both a lot of historical figures and characters from the public domain lifted out of Victorian literature. You have Dr Jekyll and Dr Moreau working as coroners on the Jack the Ripper cases (the latter turns up working as a field medic/vampire researcher in the trenches of WWI in the Bloody Red Baron), the Dioegenes Club plays a big part in the first two books, Inspector Lestrade is the representative of Scotland Yard, a hopping Chinese vampire turns up in the first book, Count Orlock is put in charge of the Tower of London, Professor Moriarty makes an appearance now and then. The list goes on and on and on, and it is awesome. If you know your vampire media and Victorian literature, these books contain reference after reference, some of which will have you splitting your sides.
These books tend to be extremely gory, but they're by far the best vampire books I've ever read. Becoming a vampire isn't a free ride to immortality (written in the early 90s, so pre-Twilight), you still have to conform to the social norms, keep your bloodlust in check, avoid all sunlight for at least your first century, if you were religious in life then religious icons can now hurt you, and there are always anti-vampire hate groups (often religious in nature) that would gleefully stake any vampire they get their hands on. Basically, even by the 60's, vampires only rarely live longer than they would have as a mortal, and as the pace of technological and societal change picks up during the 20th Century, more and more of the elder vampires begin to fall into a lethargic state, no longer interested in a world that doesn't even remotely resemble what they used to know.
Fascinating books, all in all, and I heartily recommend them to anyone, especially people getting tired of the way vampires tend to be portrayed in media these days. The books are full of black humour, interesting messages and ideas, provide extremely unique plots and characters, and are generally very well written. Best of all, Kim Newman is writing a fourth book, which has me over the moon with glee.
The Sprawl Trilogy by William Gibsom (Neuromancer, Count Zero,and Mona Lisa Overdrive)
Probably the best cyberpunk writer of all time. And he wrote them pre-internets.
Probably the best cyberpunk writer of all time. And he wrote them pre-internets.