OFF: not even interesting IMO... / books

playboy

 

Lem been said already. But I will say it again. His Sci Fi will have you thinking and laughing. His nonfiction is great stuff for reding while you sit on the toilet.

John Irving
World according to garp
Setting free the bears
180 pound marriage
Water method man (this book had me laughin so hard I almost shjit meself couplr times)
etc

Robertson Davies
Debtford Trilogy
Salton Trilogy
What's bred in the bone
Lyre of orpheus

Tim Allen
Don't stand to close to a naked man

Anything by RH Heinlien (before he went fucking nuts in his later, elderly, dotage)

WS Churchill
See if you can find anything by him. Holycrap batman. Not only one of history's most effective war leaders, but a great journalist and writer and scholar of some import.

HG Wells
His non fiction is even better than his fiction

 

I've read LOTR too and much other books, 1984 is available at home here, I'm trying to get my hands on those Sakai, Gabresky and Closterman's books, in SF Crichton is good, Cussler isn't SF but it's some science and lotsa fiction here and there... pretty good

lotsa other funny books I can't remember the title off I've read...

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

thanks for the help anyway

greetz, Zembla

 

You really should have mentioned Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (and most other books of the Ender series)

Also highly recommended: Lois McMaster Bujold's books (so her newer novels are, err, a bit soapy)

 

Tom Clancy's : Red Storm Rising

 

WOW!!!

It's getting interesting!

Anything by RH Heinlien (before he went fucking nuts in his later, elderly, dotage)

Hmmm... I mentioned "Time enough for love", is 1972 (when I was born ) too late for you?

Tom Clancy's : Red Storm Rising

SeaHawk, please, ask your parents if Clancy's picture of life in USSR is "real". My Father have read this book with great interest, but there is too much things to laugh about there

Also highly recommended: Lois McMaster Bujold's books (so her newer novels are, err, a bit soapy)

I am reading "Barrayar" in Russian translation right now, and I know it's a "prequel". I still don't like her world.

Now, everyone hold on please. My ever favourite book in sci-fi genre. The most sencible description of Communist society where I want to live in.

Midday, XXII century , by Arkadiy and Boris Strugatskiy brothers. 1965.

http://lib.ru/STRUGACKIE/xxiiwek.txt

It's in Russian, and I doubt that any translation to any language of our "former ideological enemy" will ever be possible

I know that it's an Utopia, but I really want to live THERE. And I hope that our little project is a small step towards it.

It's my own personal opinion, and I know that many of the FH developers don't share my POW, but I still hope our work isn't futile.

Sorry, I'm drunk. Just returned from Monino VVS museum....

 

Tom clancy >> every man a tiger

mao tsetung >> six essays on militray affairs ((really OLD book ive got, converted by china international press))

rise and fall of an US army ((veitnam))

dune series

 

Time enough for love was the first of his novels where incest was a (minor) theme. That's about the time RAH started losing it, however, I could handle it. Good book. I believe to that was around the time RAH decided to veer away from Hard Sci Fi...

I still hold many things Lazarus Long said as gospel, credo, if you will:

Always sit with your back to a wall.
Go armed.
Hair is useless, keep it short.
Never trust paper money.
Avoid taxes.
Find a spot and bury some guns there.

 

I suggest you..

The Time Machine, by HG Wells:

ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext92/timem11.txt

I also enjoy some Jules Verne's classics, like 20,000 leagues under the sea:

ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext01/2000010a.txt

or Around the World in 80 days:

ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext94/80day10.txt

There are a lot of cool books, It's hard to suggest one.

Take a look at them, and if you still feel bored, try reading the kamasutra

http://www.ebooksonus.com/download/The Kama Sutra.pdf

Enjoy!

Btw, click on the links to download them, no need to spend money!

 

Hey plz sent your votes to this great ranks for SF&Fantasy!!! I check it when a can`t decide whether to buy some book - hasnt lied to me yet.

I attach my list of votes I keep (oops, I saw some of you like books i distasted ) - its maybe 90% of all SF books I`ve read so far.

My official fantastics fav authors are Tolkien and Pratchett.

BTW what means "hard SF"? the book-shoppers here use it too. I always related the name "hard" with "unpleasant" - like hardrock for example. "Neuromancer" is hard then, but how could Asimov or Simak be hard? I divide SF into serious and unserious (simply action/spy/detective/love story transfered in other world). So e.g. Bujold is unserious (has all of them, lol). BTW last books become indeed soapy, but I found out I like them (recently finished "Civil Campaign") . Boroda, have a second try with later book - there goes galactic. BTW she tries to make Barrayar somewhat russian and Beta reminds me of Holland.

 

IMO "hard" sci-fi means strictly scientificaly (or at least logicaly) approved fiction. Like Lem's "Invincible", "Pilot Pirx" or "Fiasco", Asimov's "I, Robot", Clarke's "Odysseys" etc, contrary to "fantasy" "mental trips" like PKD or "social" fiction like Orwell.

Niles, my favourite quote from Lazarus Long was "The early bird eats a worm while late bird still cleans it's nose - it means that the worm should have stayed in bed a little longer" Sorry for translating it "back" to English from Russian

I have read "The number of the beast" and "To sail beyond the sunset" - there RAH really steps beyond some strange limit, but I think that books are as strange as "Stranger" (sorry )

Continuing to add weird writers to this list: Boris Vian

Another French author definetly worth reading is Albert Camus. "The plague", "Spectator".

Question: how much do you read? I read at least 150-200 pages daily, it's 2 hours in the underground to work and back, sometimes - more. Getting something to read is a problem, sometimes I even read detectives or "stupid" sci-fi. A good book can knock me out for the whole night so I go to work late and sleepy...

 

But there could be "serious" (i.e. the author treats some problem or has certain message rather than writing lumps of books for the money) which are not scientific at all.

Except SF (I grew up for the fantasy rubish last years ) I read mostly history books (diaries included - this is what I call "hard" , although actually it`s not unpleasant), historical novels (bulgarian classics included) and popular science books.

Most of these I guess wont ever be translated in other language. Right now I can think of very few good non-bg history books:
Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1500-1980) by Paul Kennedy
report of the international commission to inquire into the causes and effects of the balkan wars published by the carnegie endowment for international peace (hehe - copy&paste is useful thing)
The State of Samuil - PhD thesis of Sardjan Pirivatritch (umh, this is in serbian)
Civilization by Keneth Clark (not exactly history), also The Naked Body
in this order of thoughts also Bertrand Russel`s History of Western Philosophy

Novels:
Agony and Ecstasy - by Erwing Stone?
Julianus - Gore Vidal
Belizarius - Erwing Stone?
the series for the french kings by Moris Druon, also Alexander the Great
Pericles - by ?
...


Since I entered university I find out I have fewer and fewer time to read. On the other hand now I can add such absorbing titles to my list as the 3rd volume of Mathematical Analysis by Blagovest Sendov and Ilin (the latter is from Moscow univ) or General Topology by Kelly. The future textbook by my lector on Theory of Sets - Tinko Tintchev - is great too!