On Mon, 17 Feb 2003, Chris Turkel wrote: @> >>> So... this suggests a new topic. What books/series @> >> have @> >>> you liked and why? @> > @> > Terry Pratchett = they are so funny and just the thing @> > to get me out of a funk @> > @> > Tanya Huff = I only have one of her books but it's @> > enough @> > @> > Poppy Z Brite = she has a very romantic ideas about @> > death and life @> > @> > Jane Austin = oldies but goldies @> > @> > Charlaine Harris = her sookie stackhouse novels are @> > great @> @> two of my very favorites: @> Kurt Vunnegut: Slaughter House Five @> Pierre Boulle: Planet of the Apes. nothing liuke the movies. @> Brilliantly constructed social satire. Um, Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos series? No, seriously. I remember picking up "Yendi" on a whim, thinking it was going to be a throwaway crapwad fantasy novel[0] (I was in that kind of mood). Instead... well, you know. Plus, the books were cheap enough individually that I could pick up three of them at a time. Have to second the nomination for Pratchett. Then there's Zelazny, particularly Lord of Light. The Amber series was also good, of course. I felt physically ill when I found out he'd died. Alan Moore: Swamp Thing, Top Ten, et al. (Incidentally, if anybody has back issues of Marvel/Miracleman they're interested in unloading...) Mmm. Shakespeare. Had a big impression on me when I was in school, for some reason. I spent ages hacking angrily through his stuff, then we did some readings of Hamlet in class and it suddenly all made sense. Barbara Hambley: the Dog Wizard and Benjamin January series, particularly. She manages to wield Donaldson-sized words in a responsible way, which is rare. Niven, the non-Ringworld stuff. Particularly the Gil the Arm stories. Not sure why. Plato's dialogues are pretty interesting, although they're no fun to read unless you have someone willing to argue about them with you. Card's Ender's Game. Just that one book. Oh, and Alfred Bester, although I found out about him roughly 6,000 years later than anyone else. I could go on, but it's someone else's turn. [0] I dunno. From the cover, I think I got the impression that it was some kind of Fantasy version of the Flinx series.