The Books thread.

Naked_Lunch · Post by **Naked_Lunch** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 5:53 pm

Yeah, he's one of my favorite authors. If you want to get into him I recommend "An American Dream" or "The Deer Park."

johnnygothisgun · Post by **johnnygothisgun** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 6:44 pm

Tingel Tangel wrote:I'm currently reading Ender's Game, just for the hell of it, to get a break from all the big bastards. For a children's book (which it is actually categorized as) it's not really very friendly towards children. Lots of violence and hate and accidental killings, all in zero gravity.

i enjoyed it. i picked up enders shadow for a pittance in a second hand book store when i was on vacation, ive been meaning to get around to it since i enjoyed the first so much. i dont think its a childrens book, it deals with some themes that are slightly out of reach of most children, though it is popular among geeky middle school boys

S4ur0n27 wrote:Is Norman Mailer any good? Never got to read any of his books.

read the naked and the dead, its hardcore

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Mon Jun 11, 2007 11:52 pm

I liked Tough Guys Don't Dance, kind of light and novelly for Mailer.

Executioner's Song is great too, won the Pulitzer, but don't be put off the accolades from the literati, it's very Jerry Springer/dysfunctional America.

Goretheglowingone · Post by **Goretheglowingone** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:29 am

alot of the older books 70's and before, for some reason where categorized a children's books when they most definitely do not belong in that category, most have tons of foul language, sex,blood, violence, racism, adult humor and the cover art easily blows away the cover art of today's books.

Mandalorian FaLLouT GoD · Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:32 am

S4ur0n27 wrote:Is Norman Mailer any good?

No.

I wouldn't catagorize Ender's Game as a children's novel. It does read pretty easy though.
Maybe your country has fucked up kids?

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 2:53 am

johnnygothisgun wrote:
Tingel Tangel wrote:I'm currently reading Ender's Game, just for the hell of it, to get a break from all the big bastards. For a children's book (which it is actually categorized as) it's not really very friendly towards children. Lots of violence and hate and accidental killings, all in zero gravity.
i enjoyed it. i picked up enders shadow for a pittance in a second hand book store when i was on vacation, ive been meaning to get around to it since i enjoyed the first so much. i dont think its a childrens book, it deals with some themes that are slightly out of reach of most children, though it is popular among geeky middle school boys

S4ur0n27 wrote:Is Norman Mailer any good? Never got to read any of his books.
read the naked and the dead, its hardcore

I read enders game and heard there was some sequals so I got them but they were fairly shit but I heard someone else talking about the sequals and how they follow bean or whatever from the Enders Game book. One had to do with Ender like saving some ancient species or something and that one was okay but the other one Xenocide was a snorefest, I barely remeber what the main story was but it had like his sister coming to the planet he was on and there was asian people who did hardcore rituals.

Are there two series of sequals?

johnnygothisgun · Post by **johnnygothisgun** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:09 am

i dont know, i always thought there was six or seven and heard that some deal with bean but i dont really know any more then that. mandalorian fallout god is kinda dumb, btw

Naked_Lunch · Post by **Naked_Lunch** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 1:34 pm

Hey don't diss him guys, he's a science fiction novel database

Tingel Tangel · Post by **Tingel Tangel** » Wed Jun 13, 2007 3:23 pm

Meh, I don't reckon I'll pick up any of the sequals. I liked the book untill about 3/4s into it, but by then it started getting a bit out of it's own character, methinks. Nice little read though, though I still think it's wrong to ever call it a children's book. But it is true, though, that lots of book are called that without really being so.

I've gone back to reading The Historian. Now there's an okay plot and all, if you're in to the entire "Dracula lives! Dracula lives!" thing, but the farther I get into it the more it seems like it just wont end and I get all "meh, I wonder what else I have on my bookshelves" if I read a certain number of pages in a go. I still don't really know if I think it's okay or not, since the weird writing-style is both interesting and boring and they sort of ease each other out so far...

Mandalorian FaLLouT GoD · Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:55 pm

johnnygothisgun wrote:i dont know, i always thought there was six or seven and heard that some deal with bean but i dont really know any more then that. mandalorian fallout god is kinda dumb, btw

Coming from a war novel buff, I don't consider that too bad.
And he doesn't use punctuation or basic writing techniques.
If you are going to attempt something, atleast put some effort into it.

And technically, there are 4-5 if I remember correctly. I'm pretty sure you could use wikipedia if you wanted to really know.

Tingle, the sequels aren't really worth picking up.

PS:
Comments from naked lunch are worth about as much as comments from Pyro in my books.

Tingel Tangel · Post by **Tingel Tangel** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 12:00 am

Thanks mate, good to know. Guess I'll just find something else in someone else's bookshelf soon enough then.

Naked_Lunch · Post by **Naked_Lunch** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 1:45 pm

And there's eight novels in the Ender saga anyway

Ender's Shadow
Ender's Game
Shadow of the Hegemon
Shadow Puppets
Shadow of the Giant
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind

Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon are the only sequels worth reading. Speaker for the Dead had promise but it went downhill as Card's sanity shattered. This is also known as the Heinlein syndrome.

jetbaby · Post by **jetbaby** » Fri Jun 15, 2007 1:54 pm

Ender's Game is a great book. And whatever bookstore owner classifies it as a children's book should be beaten.

Speaker for the Dead was a great book if you read it the whole way through. The majority of it bored me to tears but the way it all wrapped up in the end was amazing. After that the series went to absolute shit. I couldn't even finish Xenocide and had no urge whatsoever to read Children of the Mind.

Also all of the "Shadow" books are not part of the Ender saga, per se. They're a parallel series, basically. Cloudnine tells me that Ender's Shadow was good, but I think that character was pretty shit.

If you're in to sci-fi I'd highly suggest picking up Aasimov's Foundation series. Anything Heinlein.

If you ever see it in stores buy The Past Through Tomorrow. It's a collection of Heinlein's Future History books. A whole slew of interesting, throught provoking short stories that follow a timeline. If nothing else pick up The Man Who Sold the Moon, which is the best part of the chain, one of the best stories I've ever read in my life.

macluver · Post by **macluver** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:30 pm

just read lovely bones. good one.

Naked_Lunch · Post by **Naked_Lunch** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:08 am

i just picked up the new chuck pahliaababyajaynuk novel "Rant" and read right through it and it was almost insufferably mediocre, lots of "omg shock offensive" slop and really dumb metaphors using car crashes and DESTRUCTION DERBY. Did I also mention the book sucks?

China Mieville's "Looking for Jake" was absolutely amazing though, specifically the title story, the graphic novel, and "Reports Of Certain Events In London." Very Lovecraft-esque. Good shit, mates.

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:20 am

just finished "fearless jones" by walter mosely, a solid raymond chandlerish crime story about a negro librarian in 1950s los angeles. awesome snappy, noirish writing

are any of chuck p.'s writings good? judging by their covers/hearing others talk about them i get the impression they all have an insufferable college boy quality to them, though i'd like to read at least one to, you know, connect with the youth

Naked_Lunch · Post by **Naked_Lunch** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:43 am

Invisible Monsters was good, although at times did smack of a "young adult" fiction vibe. Pretty much what Chuck P. does is take the themes from young adult novels like omg lost love and alienation and then dresses them up with stupid superfluous offensive crap like the whole transvestism and pointless gay sex in Invisible Monsters to make it all seem more "adult."

Fight Club wasn't that bad either, come to think of it.

Cimmerian Nights · Post by **Cimmerian Nights** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:19 pm

Anyone read Zombie Survival Guide or World War Z from Mel Brook's son there? Can't decide if they're worth reading.

Naked_Lunch · Post by **Naked_Lunch** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:52 pm

They're pretty much essential reading for any modern thespian, no?

TNP · Post by **TNP** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:30 pm