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Post by cauldronbrewer on Oct 10, 2012 11:08:57 GMT
I just thought of another I wish I didn't finish so it could go on the list - A Canticle for Leibowitz: Walter M. Miller, Jr. Probably some sort of classic but was dull to me. I couldn't finish it, if that helps.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 10, 2012 12:27:43 GMT
Certainly does. Straight on the list.
Dune. Frank Herbert A Cure for Cancer. Michael Moorcock Brothel in the Rosenstraße. Michael Moorcock The Ship of Ishtar. A. Merrit Gormenghast. Mervyn Peake Titus Groan. Mervyn Peake The Great Circle. Henry S. Whitehead Lilith. George Macdonald Cell. Stephen King Night Land. William Hope Hodgson
The Sound of his Horn. Sarban Mysteries of Udolpho. Anne Radcliffe Varney the Vampire. James Malcolm Rymer The Damnation Game. Clive Barker Weaveworld.Clive Barker Lord of Light. Roger Zelazny 1Q84. Haruki Murakam Raiders of Gor (and probably most of the series after this) John Norman A Canticle for Leibowitz: Walter M. Miller, All of Olaf Stapleton
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Post by cw67q on Oct 10, 2012 13:29:27 GMT
I just thought of another I wish I didn't finish so it could go on the list - A Canticle for Leibowitz: Walter M. Miller, Jr. Probably some sort of classic but was dull to me. I couldn't finish it, if that helps. I listened to an audio drama of canticle that a friend sent me and loved it. I bought a pb copy shortly afterwards but have not yet tried to read it. - Chris
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Post by dem bones on Oct 10, 2012 14:55:04 GMT
Without wishing to be rotten, and I know they have (had?) a huge fan base, but these would go in my room 101. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Le Comte de Saint-Germain chronicles and 'sympathetic' vampires as a rule (Vampirella being only exception that springs to mind). What possible use would a jumped-up zombie have for a sensitive side? All things Anne Rice, 'Vampire Chronicles' or otherwise. I sleep-read through Interview With The Vampire, gave up on The Vampire Lestat altogether somewhere around the middle and never made it past Stan Rice's godawful poetry in Queen Of The Damned or whatever it was came next. Don't even get me started on The Mummy, because, after enduring The Master Of Rampling Gate - a novella that seems to gain extra pages even as you yawn through it - I couldn't. Start it, that is. Way back in the mists of time, I read the three volume Dover press edition of Varney, The Vampyre over several months, maybe close on a year (had to keep re-loaning the books from the library) and, while i'm not sure i'd want to repeat the experience, can't say it was an unrewarding experience, though the double columns were absolute murder on the eye. It must be said that, welcome as it is, the recent, tiny print Wordsworth paving slab edition looks to be an almost impossible ask.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 10, 2012 15:48:29 GMT
In one fell swoop Dem raises the bar by over 40 books.
Dune. Frank Herbert A Cure for Cancer. Michael Moorcock Brothel in the Rosenstraße. Michael Moorcock The Ship of Ishtar. A. Merrit Gormenghast. Mervyn Peake Titus Groan. Mervyn Peake The Great Circle. Henry S. Whitehead Lilith. George Macdonald Cell. Stephen King Night Land. William Hope Hodgson
The Sound of his Horn. Sarban Mysteries of Udolpho. Anne Radcliffe Varney the Vampire. James Malcolm Rymer The Damnation Game. Clive Barker Weaveworld.Clive Barker Lord of Light. Roger Zelazny 1Q84. Haruki Murakam Raiders of Gor (and probably most of the series after this) John Norman A Canticle for Leibowitz: Walter M. Miller, Le Comte de Saint-Germain chronicles Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (approximately 30 novels) Anne Rice, 'Vampire Chronicles (loads more of the same) All of Olaf Stapleton
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 10, 2012 15:52:36 GMT
I couldn't finish it, if that helps. I listened to an audio drama of canticle that a friend sent me and loved it. I bought a pb copy shortly afterwards but have not yet tried to read it. - Chris I might have another look at it - just remember it being about monks and nuns or something with none of the juicy bits....
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 10, 2012 16:28:08 GMT
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Le Comte de Saint-Germain chronicles Oh, yes. I tried one of those once but couldn't get past the first few pages What possible use would a jumped-up zombie have for a sensitive side? I refer you to the film Zombie Honeymoon (2004). Seriously, nowhere near as bad as it sounds (how could it be?). Trailer below.
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Post by mattofthespurs on Oct 10, 2012 18:04:15 GMT
Not only have I finished "A Canticle for Leibowitz" but I have done so about four times now.
A brilliant book.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Oct 10, 2012 18:27:35 GMT
In fairness to Walter M. Miller, Jr., I was around 20 when I tried to read Canticle and haven't looked at it since.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Oct 10, 2012 18:47:37 GMT
Interesting that "all of Olaf Stapledon" ends the list. A copy of "Star Maker" was pressed on me enthusiastically some years back by a friend whose judgement I rated, with comments like "best book I've read in ages", "you must read this, you'll love it", etc - you get the picture.
With his recommendation I started off reading keenly, but just got slower and slower. Reading it was like wading through ever-deepening treacle, and when it got waist-deep I just stopped. I must have been about half way through. I hadn't the energy for the last 130 pages or so. Eventually it squatted on the sideboard and we glowered at each other for several months. Every so often my friend would keenly ask me how the book was going and wasn't it great, and would I like to borrow some of his other Stapledon books, and I really couldn't bring myself to tell him that it'd fought me to a standstill. I'd make some vague, non-specific comments to buy some time and then hurriedly change the subject.
The only way I finished it was to take it with me on an island-hopping tour of the Outer Hebrides with no other books. At all. Even then I found that I'd do pretty much anything rather than resume the wretched thing. Given the TOTAL lack of anything to do on some of those islands, this was no mean feat. Eventually I took it on a trip to uninhabited Mingulay, which is only 2.5 square miles; the boatman dropped me off early in the morning and returned at tea-time, about six hours later.
I still only just managed to finish it by the time he returned.
If the book hadn't been a friend's property it'd still be on that uninhabited, bog-strewn outpost now...
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Post by doomovertheworld on Oct 10, 2012 20:03:37 GMT
Not only have I finished "A Canticle for Leibowitz" but I have done so about four times now. A brilliant book. I agree. I really enjoyed it when I read it although interestingly enough I failed to finish a collection of his short stories In fairness to Walter M. Miller, Jr., I was around 20 when I tried to read Canticle and haven't looked at it since. You should give it another go. It is really good
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Post by doug on Oct 11, 2012 7:11:55 GMT
In fairness to Walter M. Miller, Jr., I was around 20 when I tried to read Canticle and haven't looked at it since. I found a battered copy at the Red Cross used book store a few months ago and reread it for the first time since High School (1970s) and I think that I enjoyed it more this time than I did back then. I feel that it has aged very well and is more in tune with my middle age than it was was with my teen-aged years. take care. Doug
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 11, 2012 8:01:10 GMT
In fairness to Walter M. Miller, Jr., I was around 20 when I tried to read Canticle and haven't looked at it since. I found a battered copy at the Red Cross used book store a few months ago and reread it for the first time since High School (1970s) and I think that I enjoyed it more this time than I did back then. I feel that it has aged very well and is more in tune with my middle age than it was was with my teen-aged years. take care. Doug Name and shame that collection from the following Conditionally Human (1962) 3 stories The View from the Stars (1965) 9 stories The Science Fiction Stories of Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1977) - omnibus of Conditionally Human and The View from the Stars The Best of Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1980) - omnibus of Conditionally Human and The View from the Stars plus two added stories, The Lineman and Vengeance for Nikolai Conditionally Human and Other Stories (1982) - 6 stories from the 1980 omnibus The Darfstellar and Other Stories (1982) - the remaining 8 stories from the 1980 omnibus Didn't know Miller had committed suicide.
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 11, 2012 13:24:27 GMT
Interesting that "all of Olaf Stapledon" ends the list... I preferred the earlier incarnations of this list where it just said "All of Stapledon" - I wasn't sure if the pun was deliberate, but it made me smile. The only thing I've read by him is Odd John, which I read as a teen, and I seem to remember it being reasonably easy-going (at least by the standards of some truely awful SF that I occasionally attempted to read back then).
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 11, 2012 15:45:34 GMT
List amended - I wish the pun had been intentional now. There's not too much horror on the list but I don't think that's just because this is a horror forum. Plenty of people here dip into the other genres.
Dune. Frank Herbert A Cure for Cancer. Michael Moorcock Brothel in the Rosenstraße. Michael Moorcock The Ship of Ishtar. A. Merrit Gormenghast. Mervyn Peake Titus Groan. Mervyn Peake The Great Circle. Henry S. Whitehead Lilith. George Macdonald Cell. Stephen King Night Land. William Hope Hodgson The Sound of his Horn. Sarban Mysteries of Udolpho. Anne Radcliffe Varney the Vampire. James Malcolm Rymer The Damnation Game. Clive Barker Weaveworld.Clive Barker Lord of Light. Roger Zelazny 1Q84. Haruki Murakam Raiders of Gor (and probably most of the series after this) John Norman A Canticle for Leibowitz: Walter M. Miller, Le Comte de Saint-Germain chronicles Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (approximately 30 novels) Anne Rice, 'Vampire Chronicles (loads more of the same) All of Stapleton
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