Recommend me a book

Guilty as sin on the tangent thing, PJ, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find me getting snooty when I've asked for help.

Mike's in the good ol' US of A, so "house rules" apply, gents. It's that whole "know your audience" thing again, and just cuz England did it first doesn't mean us filthy American pig dogs can't change the rules of the language and then hold you to it.

Actually, your first swipe was at Stephen R Donaldson before the Code ever got mentioned. And that's if we overlook the running squawk on Eddings.

Anyway, it looks like PJ got you a recommendation that met your standards, so I guess we can call the thread a success. Hope you find the book sufficiently stimulating.

Originally Posted by Benedict
You've misquoted me a little there, if you're going to paraphrase someone please don't use quotation marks, they do tend to imply that you're quoting them verbatim.

Wasn't trying to quote - jut citing a tactic. Thus the single rather than double quotes. Sorry to have implied otherwise.

*clears throat*

Hum, I hope I won't get bitch slapped for recommending this :

Fantasy :

Weis and Hickman, like Titus proposed : Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends.
You don't need to read any of the other novels of that series.
Only these 6 will suffice.
And don't call Tracy a bloke again please.

R. A. Salvatore (My personal favorite) : Everything with Drizzt Do'Urden.

Originally Posted by Benedict

Except for the Da Vinci Code, which really is utter shit, and if any of you liked it you should be ashamed. Particularly if you liked it enough to recommend it to some unsuspecting innocent.

The Da Vinci Code is awesome!! It pwns everything else out there, and if you don't like it then you're stoopid!

Originally Posted by Benedict
*Note for future reference - please don't take anything I write too seriously (including the last line above). Particularly if I'm ranting. Please do tell me if I am causing offence but please assume that I'm not setting out to do so.*

Ditto

I haven't read fantasy in ages, but as for non-fantasy, I'd like to recommend George MacDonald Fraser's 'Flashman' series… for the laughs and the historical innuendo, so to say. Then I'd like to recommend the only Star Wars novel of the last six years I liked: Karen Traviss' 'Republic Commando: Hard Contact' for the different angle on the SW universe it provides (the successor 'Triple Zero' wasn't as good, though). And finally, one of my favorite books of modern-day SF: Pat Cadigan's 'Mindplayers'. Remember the Jennifer Lopez film 'The Cage'? They borrowed heavily from 'Mindplayers', but you needn't be afraid: the book is generally entertaining and rather creepy while the movie had exactly one good scene.

Originally Posted by Jaz
. Remember the Jennifer Lopez film 'The Cage'? They borrowed heavily from 'Mindplayers', but you needn't be afraid: the book is generally entertaining and rather creepy while the movie had exactly one good scene.

Did you mean 'The Cell'?

Yep, that was it. Sheesh. Thanks, JDR.

the cell was the only movie i have ever walked out on…uggh.

i've never read da vinci code or seen the movie, but didn't it borrow heavily from focault's pendulum?

Havent touched the daVinci code, but from the reviews I gather that there is a rather significant difference between it and Foucaults pendulum . Foucaults pendulum is however a good but somewhat straining read.

But then I think the book it is based upon, and whose authors even sued Brown for plagiarism, is "Holy blood - holy grail". A hodgepodge of reasoning along the lines: "There is no sign of A, but then that makes sense since the secret society would work hard to conceal A, hence A is likely." Right next to "There are clear signs of B, hence B is likely". I did enjoy the take on Jesus family background, but otherwise it was a read that got increasingly ridiculous by the chapter.

Originally Posted by curiously undead
the cell was the only movie i have ever walked out on…uggh.

You obviously haven't seen 'Transformers' yet.

Originally Posted by Zaleukos
Foucaults pendulum is however a good but somewhat straining read.

I think Umberto Eco is being way too clever for his own good in that one. The Name of the Rose was great -- thoughtful, well written, unpretentious, with a lot of depth and detail to it in many ways. Foucault's Pendulum isn't anywhere near as good. "Full of air" is a phrase that occurs in it, and IMO it describes the book rather well. I liked even How To Travel With A Salmon better.

Originally Posted by dteowner
Guilty as sin on the tangent thing, PJ, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find me getting snooty when I've asked for help.

Mike's in the good ol' US of A, so "house rules" apply, gents. It's that whole "know your audience" thing again, and just cuz England did it first doesn't mean us filthy American pig dogs can't change the rules of the language and then hold you to it.

Actually, your first swipe was at Stephen R Donaldson before the Code ever got mentioned. And that's if we overlook the running squawk on Eddings.

Anyway, it looks like PJ got you a recommendation that met your standards, so I guess we can call the thread a success. Hope you find the book sufficiently stimulating.

Never! You colonials may go around mangling the queen's english but that doesn't mean those of us with some dignity should sink to your level.

I'd hardly call it a swipe anyway, I asked for recommendations and listed some authors I really liked and some I really didn't like. If you chose to interpret it is "Talk about books you like but if you like any of these then you're an idiot" then that's hardly my fault

Originally Posted by Zaleukos
Havent touched the daVinci code, but from the reviews I gather that there is a rather significant difference between it and Foucaults pendulum

Spoiler

Namely that the secret society in the daVinci code has a PLAN

. Foucaults pendulum is however a good but somewhat straining read.

But then I think the book it is based upon, and whose authors even sued Brown for plagiarism, is "Holy blood - holy grail". A hodgepodge of reasoning along the lines: "There is no sign of A, but then that makes sense since the secret society would work hard to conceal A, hence A is likely." Right next to "There are clear signs of B, hence B is likely". I did enjoy the take on Jesus family background, but otherwise it was a read that got increasingly ridiculous by the chapter.

If anyone quite likes the general subject matter as a foundation for a novel I'd highly recommend Robert Anton Wilson's Historical Illuminatus Chronicles (written I believe well before anyone wrote any of the others). An enjoyable read (at least if you leave all the footnotes alone). For those who've read Illuminatus this is much more of a standard novel.

Originally Posted by Jaz
I haven't read fantasy in ages, but as for non-fantasy, I'd like to recommend George MacDonald Fraser's 'Flashman' series… for the laughs and the historical innuendo, so to say. .

THey were good fun, amazing what kind of overt racism one could get away with then . . .

Originally Posted by enodenroH
Weis and Hickman, like Titus proposed : Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends.
You don't need to read any of the other novels of that series.
Only these 6 will suffice.
And don't call Tracy a bloke again please.

If she isn't she's got quite an impressive beard for a woman

I thought they were pretty good anyway, Raistlin in particular was a good character.

Originally Posted by JDR13
You obviously haven't seen 'Transformers' yet.

If you go in with expectations high enough to muster the energy to walk out on it, that is … I sure didn't

Originally Posted by txa1265
If you go in with expectations high enough to muster the energy to walk out on it, that is … I sure didn't

Then you were obviously never a big Transformers fan as a kid, I was.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Then you were obviously never a big Transformers fan as a kid, I was.

What was the funny bit of see through red plastic you got with them for? Was that transformers?

And didn't they have some bit that if you touched it for long enough for your body heat to heat it up revealed the appropriate logo?

Man, I was easily pleased back in those days.

The toys\cartoons\comics were simply magic to me and my friends when we were kids.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing isn't it.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Then you were obviously never a big Transformers fan as a kid, I was.

No - that was well past my childhood … 12" GI Joes with actual hair, 8-tracks, yeah, those were me And my kids are too young for me to catch it on the flip-side - so this was pretty new for all of us, and so it was a meaningless, shallow, hole-filled action flick you forgot about before leaving the theater.