Book discussion (or stuff you like to read when you should be doing other stuff)

[RushAss]

Continuing from the topic we where beginning to hijack here:

http://yourmovegames.com/forum/index.php?action=post;topic=403.0;num_replies=11

What do you folks like to read?  My prediction is a high Sci-fi/Fantasy count like myself.  My top 10 authors right now in no particular order other than #1:

Tolkien - duh
Tad Williams
George RR Martin
H.P. Lovecraft
Robin Hobb
Clive Barker
Steven Erikson
Guy Gavriel Kay
Dan Simmons
Peter Hamilton

The list changes a bit and 5 years ago it was somewhat different (Anne Rice, Brian Lummley and Steven Donaldson would have been in there) and I'm sure it will keep on evolving.

So let's hear it folks!

[Forevernyt]

I'll see if I can come up with 10.

Stephen King
Dan Abnett
Anne Rice
Douglas Adams
Robert McCammon
H.P. Lovecraft
Joel Rosenberg
Robert A. Heinlein
Clive Barker
Larry Niven

[darwin_YMG]

My 10 favorite fantasy/sci-fi authors are:

Jim Butcher
George RR Martin
David Weber
Jennifer Fallon
Lois McMaster Bujold
Dan Abnett
Orson Scott Card
Timothy Zahn
Terry Goodkind
Steven Brust

I found it took me a couple books to appreciate how amazing Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is, perhaps that is how it will be with Erickson's Malazan series... also turns out I'm only 125 pages into Deadhouse Gates so there is still hope!

[andrewgr]

My top 10 authors:

1.  David Foster Wallace
2.  Mark Helprin
3.  Iain Banks
4.  Bret Easton Ellis
5.  Neal Stephenson
6.  Roger Zelazny
7.  John Crowley
8.  Don DeLillo
9.  Dashell Hammet
10. Steven Erikson

My top 10 sci-fi/fantasy authors:

1.  Iain Banks
2.  Neal Stephenson
3.  Roger Zelazny
4.  Steven Erikson
5.  Jack Vance
6.  Gene Wolfe
7.  Peter Hamilton
8.  Harlan Ellison
9.  Guy Gavriel Kay
10.  Patricia A. McKillip


Interestingly, all 3 previous posters have exactly 1 author that I actively dislike on their top 10 list:  Terry Goodkind, Joel Rosenberg, and Robin Hobb.  I can safely say that I would tear out my own eyes before reading any book by these 3 authors again.  The reason this is interesting is because I mostly agree with the other choices on those lists-- most of those authors wouldn't make by top 50, but they're mostly all authors that I have read, enjoyed, collected, and would continue buying.

[Forevernyt]

Oh come on, the Guardians Of The Flame series was AWESOME! The dragon especially. Who doesn't like Karl Cullinane?

[gull2112]

I'm an old fashioned kind of guy mostly and I'd be disingenuous if I didn't put myself down because I always write the kind of things I'd like to read.

1. Tolkien
2. Tolstoy
3. Richard Bach
4. Ayn Rand
5. Charles Dickens
6. Joseph Conrad
7. Laurence Sterne
8. Heinlein
9. Bram Stoker
10. Mike Strand

[Chad_YMG]

My top 10 overall (in no particular order):

Shakespeare
Tanith Lee
Jim Butcher
Stephen Pinker
Artur Yusupov & Mark Dvoretsky
George RR Martin
Charles D. Ellis (OK, it's 'cause he's my Dad)

Hrm, I have to go fight Darwin...ambush or trap?

[Forevernyt]

Ambush him, he's bigger than you.

[Kaile_YMG]

Can you be on your own favorite author list?? lol!

[Chad_YMG]

OK, where was I?

Shakespeare
Tanith Lee
Jim Butcher
Stephen Pinker
Artur Yusupov & Mark Dvoretsky
George RR Martin
Charles D. Ellis (OK, it's 'cause he's my Dad)

This is hard for me, because I almost never think in terms of lists or favorites.  I have authors I like a lot, but I don't really care whether I like this one more than that one.  I guess I'll go with:

Laurall K. Hamilton...but not her most recent stuff.
Stephen Goldin & Mary Mason, for two books on Jade Darcy.  I've read and reread them both enough to qualify it as a whole series...and hey, it's where I got my first daughter's name from.

I'll think of another eventually.

[Chad_YMG]

The reason this is interesting is because I mostly agree with the other choices on those lists-- most of those authors wouldn't make by top 50, but they're mostly all authors that I have read, enjoyed, collected, and would continue buying.

Wow, you must read a lot.

[andrewgr]

Wow, you must read a lot.

I used to read quite a bit more than I do these days.  For most of my life since the start of High School, I read 2 or 3 books a week. 

In the last 5 years, that number has fallen dramatically.  Getting old sucks.  :-(  My attention span is much shorter, my ability to concentrate is much less, and I guard my time more preciously.

Of the authors on the first 3 lists, the only 3 that I haven't read are Dan Abnett, Jennifer Fallon, and Robert McCammon.  The only 4 authors that I don't own books by, either at home in my library or else in my storage facility, are Dan Abnett, Robert McCammon, Joel Rosenberg, and Jennifer Fallon.  (Actually, I may have sold the Terry Goodkind books I bought rather than putting them in storage, but I don't think so.)

Also, my lists were for fiction only; I wasn't including my favorite non-fiction authors, nor playwrites.  I think including Shakespeare is cheating.

[Chad_YMG]

Ambush him, he's bigger than you.

I went for "trap".  It worked.

[gull2112]

Chad, I really like Steven Pinker also.

If anyone is in to languages I've got this to say, I had a very difficult time reading The Hobbit in German (it was much easier in Spanish), in fact I gave it up, but I found that I was able to read Michael Moorecock's Stormbringer in German quite handily. BTW - That was over ten years ago and at present I have retained almost none of my German, Spanish, Finnish, or Swahili.

I really like Don Quixote by Cervantes also, but I don't know who I would knock out of my top ten. I also included only Tolstoy, but I really love Russian literature and that should be understood to include Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Chekov, who I think is the greatest short story writer (which I can't even read in its original Russian, which some say is the only way to read it).

I like Shakespeare also, but to be honest, most of his genius is lost on one like myself who has very little facility with Middle English and to really appreciate the plays I must have some sort of reference by my side to capture much of the subtlety and most of the wit as wit depends on irony and irony depends on expectations and expectation depend on contemporaneous familiarity. I'm not putting down those who included the immortal bard in their list, I'm just saying that is why he is not in my list.

[andrewgr]

Chad, I really like Steven Pinker also.

I've seen him twice in person now.  He's fairly charismatic, and very clear.  If you get a chance to go to a reading of his, I would.  My copy of _The_Stuff_Of_Thought_ just came from Amazon a couple of days ago, so now it's on The Pile.

I really like Don Quixote by Cervantes also, but I don't know who I would knock out of my top ten.

_Don_Quixote_ is probably number 1 on my list of books I'm ashamed that I don't like and have never finished.  That, or _The_Brothers_Karamazov_.

I like Shakespeare also, but to be honest, most of his genius is lost on one like myself who has very little facility with Middle English and to really appreciate the plays I must have some sort of reference by my side to capture much of the subtlety and most of the wit as wit depends on irony and irony depends on expectations and expectation depend on contemporaneous familiarity. I'm not putting down those who included the immortal bard in their list, I'm just saying that is why he is not in my list.

My wife and I go to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival every summer.  It's pretty much the highlight of my year.  I can't overstate how fun it is.  Seeing Shakespeare performed live by world-class actors with top-notch production values is about as good as life gets.  But to echo what you're saying, I don't enjoy just reading the plays nearly as much as I do seeing them performed; the actors are able to convey much of the context that I'd otherwise miss with body language, intonation, and props.