So, I finished all of the Ghatti books that I mentioned (much to everyone's amusement) earlier. I've ordered the remaining ones from half.com, but they're going to take forever to get here.
I am lost.
And even when they come in, it will only be a matter of time before I've finished all of them.
The long and short of it is, I need new books to obsess over. I'd be most grateful if everyone listed the titles that made you, nay, FORCED you to read them constantly. I'm not talking just good, enjoyable reads, I'm talking obsessive reading.
cecil [email] said at 4:13 PM 08-02-2004: When I was a teenager I was obsessed with the first 8 or so of Piers Anthony's Xanth books, starting with A Spell for Chameleon. I'm not sure how well I'd like them now though. They are full of puns of course; probably irreparably damaged me.
jake [email] said at 6:42 PM 08-02-2004: Pyramids is the one I've re-read the most...It's about the son of a pharaoh learning to be an assassin, who is called home to exhume some recently reborn gods...
But I also really like the last several he's done about the City Watch.
cecil [email] said at 5:28 PM 08-02-2004: then I switched to his Incarnations of Immortality series and I liked the first one about Death. The other's weren't very good.
I also liked Clive Barker's Imajica, Everville and the Great and Secret Show.
ed [email] said at 5:57 PM 08-02-2004: Dude, I totally loved the Incarnations series. All six. But "On a Pale Horse" is admittedly the best of the bunch, by far.
I also liked his "Bio of a Space Tyrant" series, but a quick look at Amazon tells me that there are two more books in that series now than there were when I read it, so I can't vouch for anything after "Executive."
jake [email] said at 6:12 PM 08-02-2004: And there are 7 incarnations--
The latest being "And Eternity"
about the replacement of Jesus, Father, and Holy
With Satan's Wife, a Suicidal Psychic, and a Teen-age Prostitute.
cecil [email] said at 6:29 PM 08-02-2004: I admit I only read the first 3 of the Incarnations books, and I guess I did like them. But pertaining to Meredith's post, I wasn't dying to read the rest.
jake [email] said at 6:44 PM 08-02-2004: I almost dreaded the arrival of each installment in the Gap series, because I knew it meant re-reading everything before it, and then wondering where my social life went...
For that reason, I think I'll wait until the whole fire and ice series is out before buying any of it...
ed [email] said at 7:07 PM 08-02-2004: For that reason, I think I'll wait until the whole fire and ice series is out before buying any of it...
Ahh, if only I had that luxury. Especially since Martin (who hooked me with the "Wild Cards" series, btw) seems to not give two good poops about those who are about to die waiting for the next installment...
And that may sound extreme, but it isn't, in context. Barb was as big a fan of TWoT as I am, but the series outlived her. And as creepy as it may sound, I'm totally not gonna start new series for precisely that reason.
jake [email] said at 7:13 PM 08-02-2004: I may have asked you this before--did you see the Hedge Knight comic book?
It's by him, and is a pretty solid prequel. Very dense with visual and story detail...and just like the novels, it ends with page after page of heraldry...
myriam* said at 7:00 PM 08-02-2004: I second the Foundation series. Dune was alright, although I feel pretty strongly that I would have been amazed by it had I read it when I was 12 or 13--by now the ideas seem a little tired to me, b/c I'm old enough to have come across them already or thought them myself. And personally I just cannot recommend Frank Herbert as a writer.
I already told you about the Sparrow... It's incredible. I must warn you though, I've recommended it to one person who very much disliked it. He's kinda picky, though, being a literati himself.
One non-fiction book that has had a great impact on me was Peter Hessler's "Rivertown," about his experiences teaching English in the Peace Corps in deep mainland China. It is FASCINATING. He won a Pulitzer for it. Watch out, though, it'll make you want to join the Peace Corps.
brandonA [email] said at 2:03 AM 08-03-2004: For good sci-fi that might as well not be sci-fi, try Alfred Bester, particularly 'The Stars My Destination'.
amy [email] said at 11:53 PM 08-02-2004: um, i can't put down harry potter or milan kundera(anything by milan kundera). his books are all so similar in setting and tone that they might as well be a series.
myriam [email] said at 10:13 AM 08-03-2004: off the sci-fi topic... I love Isabel Allende. I couldn't put Eva Luna or Daughter of Fortune down. I think this is partly because I love cultural studies and just plain good stories... plus Daughter of Fortune was partly set in Chile, partly in China in the 1800s, and then in San Francisco at the turn of the century--and I loved the glimpse of what those places were like then! (particularly SF!!)
