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Post by Aedh on Nov 4, 2006 19:12:09 GMT -5
OK folks ... *Aedh sits down ... assumes lotus position* In the interests of clearing off the other threads ... I'll start this. I want to state, to begin with, that in stating my preference for older literature, I am NOT by any means intending any personal denigration to those who like newer reading. (I also prefer ales and stouts for drinking! That doesn't mean I look down on those who like lagers and porters ... ) Any previous statment that might seem to contradict that ... notwithstanding.I can and do read a fair share of books written in the 20th century: nonfiction being fair game; also mysteries, fantasy/sci-fi, humour, essays, and plays. I have drawn a line in the sand with novels which claim to be 'literature;' but, in the interests of fairness, I'll give a look at a few things that come strongly recommended, especially post-1950 ... any suggestions? Maybe some of us can even read and discuss something together ... so you can help this old man along with understanding some of this post-modern stuff ....
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Post by JenGe on Nov 4, 2006 20:07:49 GMT -5
Well, I don't get the time to read as much as when I was teen. If I start reading I just forget the world around me. Kids go unfeed, diapers don't get changed. The world just stops.
I do read short stories in the tub. Currently I'm making my way through Philip K. Dick. Love his bent on reality.
Also Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth has been an active part of my life for several months now.
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Post by Aedh on Nov 4, 2006 20:37:28 GMT -5
I have a gaming mate who's a hardcore PKD freak ... has collected most of his work (which is hard to do!) ... he keeps suggesting I read him. What's his best?
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Post by JenGe on Nov 4, 2006 21:28:12 GMT -5
Well, I started with the classic Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner). You'd be surprised how much even The Matrix used from it. Scott could not put nearly all of it in the film and there are entire aspects of the story that are missing from the film.
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Post by frivolity on Nov 5, 2006 3:36:46 GMT -5
Do try Terry Pratchett. Superb stuff. A whole new world with such brilliant characters and stories. I'm not much of a reader. Well not of fiction anyway. But Mr Pratchett is excellent, although I cheat and mostly have audio books (so I can be doing two things at once)
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Post by Aedh on Nov 5, 2006 9:23:53 GMT -5
Ah yes ... Monsieur Pratchett ... I did start on his his series ... I started in the order they appeared ... I read The Colour Of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Equal Rites, Mort, and ... I'm pretty sure, Sourcery as well. I own them all (paperback) up to ... I think ... Night Watch ... the rest I haven't read yet because they're packed away (with most of my books) in storage where I can't get at them easily ... I find the Discworld thing interesting ... I hope he's kept the good quality of the first few books rolling. Long SF/F series tend to be of uneven quality .... witness Piers Anthony's Xanth books ...
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Post by Greyflower on Nov 5, 2006 9:33:05 GMT -5
One of my favourite authors is Brudbury. By the way, the world we live in starts resembling the world shown in his "Fahrenheit 451"... Sad as it may seem...
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Post by Aedh on Nov 5, 2006 9:47:07 GMT -5
I am not surprised at any EQ fan also liking F451 ... While it is a great story, and while I also believe it is prophetic, I differ with Bradbury's vision in one way ... literature will not need Firemen to destroy it ... literature will be (and ... questionably, is being?) snuffed out by modern methods of info-doping (TV, video, Internet) which because of their high-speed, high-capacity means of assimilation, tend to overload and break down the faculty for reflection and critical thought that real literature needs in order to exist. Books won't have to be destroyed ... it'll get to the point where no one wants to read them anymore except for quick reference to prove their own agendas.
*interesting idea ... starts trying to visualise a possible Libria in which Father has really triumphed ... no one sense-offends anymore ... because they don't want to ... having discovered something ... else ...*
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Post by JenGe on Nov 5, 2006 10:21:43 GMT -5
I differ with Bradbury's vision in one way ... literature will not need Firemen to destroy it ... literature will be (and ... questionably, is being?) snuffed out by modern methods of info-doping (TV, video, ...* It's been years since I read F451 so I'm not certain if it is in there but the film does in fact deal with the TV/pop culture aspect of the lack of deep reading. Another series that is superb is Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles. I might take that to read again while I'm in England and during my flights.
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Post by mawa on Nov 5, 2006 17:04:19 GMT -5
Well, I liked F451 a lot. I both read the book and saw the movie and I found the vision to be quite scary. Anyway - as for Aedh's comment about the fact that books won't have to be destroyed, because people won't need them - I dug out the very fragment regarding this issue:
"You like bowling, don't you, Montag?" "Bowling, yes." "And golf?" "Golf is a fine game." "Basketball?" "A fine game.". "Billiards, pool? Football?" "Fine games, all of them." "More sports for everyone, group spirit, fun, and you don't have to think, eh? Organize and organize and superorganize super-super sports. More cartoons in books. More pictures. The mind drinks less and less. Impatience. Highways full of crowds going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, nowhere. The gasoline refugee. Towns turn into motels, people in nomadic surges from place to place, following the moon tides, living tonight in the room where you slept this noon and I the night before." Mildred went out of the room and slammed the door. The parlour "aunts" began to laugh at the parlour "uncles.", "Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second?generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic-books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade-journals." "Yes, but what about the firemen, then?" asked Montag. "Ah." Beatty leaned forward in the faint mist of smoke from his pipe. "What more easily explained and natural? With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual', of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me." [...] Beatty knocked his pipe into the palm of his pink hand, studied the ashes as if they were a symbol to be diagnosed and searched for meaning. "You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these."
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Post by Aedh on Nov 6, 2006 11:56:50 GMT -5
It is the phase "dread of being inferior" that most fascinates me. Literature--the very concept of 'literature'--has something irreducibly elitist at its core, and I think it is no accident that literature started dying as the age of mass political parties was being born. (Here I am thinking not only of Communism and Fascism, but Labour, Socialism, National Front, the Roosevelt coalition in the US, etc.) I would go so far as to theorize that mass politics and literature are in fact basically irreconcilable occupations ... except for the certain rare situations that produce a Vaclav Havel.
It is somewhat ironic, and not at all irenic, that I should find myself writing this on the eve of Election Day here in the US of A. But so it is ... Literature at bottom depends for its life on the reader's ability to make distinctions ... and the better the literature, the more complete this dependence. But making distinctions is hostile to our modern society, armed at it is with ever-more-efficient means of occupying us with what IT determines we shall do ... Want to login to a certain site to collect information ... fine! Click through these popups ... register here ... give us your info so we can bombard you with spam, and mail and 'phone marketing as well ... we know you won't read all the stuff ... we don't expect you to read it all ... no one CAN read it all ... in fact, we want you to get into the habit of deleting most things unread ... that will make cries of resistance, or appeals for help, all the harder to get through to you ...
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Post by JenGe on Nov 6, 2006 12:50:42 GMT -5
... Want to login to a certain site to collect information ... fine! Click through these popups ... register here ... give us your info so we can bombard you with spam, and mail and 'phone marketing as well ... we know you won't read all the stuff ... we don't expect you to read it all ... no one CAN read it all ... in fact, we want you to get into the habit of deleting most things unread ... that will make cries of resistance, or appeals for help, all the harder to get through to you ... Sounds a tad like what Verhoeven added to Starship Troopers. That film certainly had it's thumb on the pulse of our social future.
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Post by mawa on Nov 9, 2006 14:22:20 GMT -5
As for other books... I don't know whether you guys read anything written by Dan Simmons. The man isn't only limited to one genre - there is some science-fiction, horror and some stuff that's hard to qualify. Anyway, I really dig his writing and admire his ability to create vast worlds and complicated, yet coherent plot. I especially highly recommend the Hyperion books:
"Hyperion" "The Fall of Hyperion" "Endymion" "The Rise of Endymion"
"Ilium" and "Olympos" are his most recent books - books not to be missed. Especially the former.
Currently, one of his earlier works - "Song of Kali" waits on my shelf to be read.
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Post by Walldude on Nov 9, 2006 21:32:39 GMT -5
Off the road for a few weeks! Woo Hoo! Reading huh... Well I don't read as much fiction as I used to, with the exception of Star Wars. I've read all the SW books, there are well over 100. I also used to read alot of Horror, King, Koontz, McCammon. Lately I've been reading mostly non-fiction, Biography, political humor that kind of stuff. Here are a couple books I can safely recommend: Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast. The last true investigative reporter in America. So good no American media outlet will carry him. You Brits are lucky to have him. The Stand- Stephen King. Kings best, the end of the world. Watchers-Dean Koontz. Koontz got on this serial killer kick around the time he released Mr Murder, but his stuff before that was a brilliant mix of sci-fi, horror, and romance. This is his best, a must if you are a dog lover. For Star Wars books I can't recommend highly enough the stuff Timothy Zahn wrote. So good, and so Star Warsy that you can almost hear John Williams while you are reading. He created the best EU(expanded universe) characters and those characters still live on in the current Legacy Of The Force series. I'll post some classics that I love next time
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Serra
Resistance Member
"Resistance ain?t futile."
Posts: 32
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Post by Serra on Nov 10, 2006 4:25:48 GMT -5
MaWa: I agree with you. Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion are the best science fiction books I’ve ever read..
And since some of us are looking forward to the 300 movie (http://equilibrium.proboards17.com/index.cgi?board=reports&action=display&thread=1158899601) ,
I’d like to recommend you all:
Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. (Battle of Thermopylae)
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Post by JenGe on Nov 10, 2006 12:16:20 GMT -5
Since you mentioned 300 I also think that The Crow and Road to Perdition are excellent graphic novels. I would love to read the Sandman series now if I could just find the time.
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Post by Gothicgds on Nov 10, 2006 14:38:54 GMT -5
Seconded on the Timothy Zahn books. Grand Admiral Thrawn pwns the galaxy. The only new fiction book I've read lately is Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time". Even though a few of the details have since been disproven, it's still a very good book. (Apparently I'm a bit of an oddball because I became a Ricardian before reading that book.) I've always gotta be different. With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual', of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. Now that's scarily accurate these days.
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Post by Libby on Nov 10, 2006 15:27:04 GMT -5
The only new fiction book I've read lately is Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time". Even though a few of the details have since been disproven, it's still a very good book. (Apparently I'm a bit of an oddball because I became a Ricardian before reading that book.) I've always gotta be different. OMG! Did an absolute backflip when I read your post...I read DoT many to the nth power years ago and it blew me away! I was a total Richard (II and III) too and this became an obsession for quite a time. I agree that some of it has been disproved, but back in the dark ages when I first got hold of it, it was like a holy grail. I think it was actually the beginnings of my love of crime thrillers (aside from Agatha-it's-all-revealed-in-the-last-few-pages-cos-I couldn't-pull-it-together-Christie)
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Post by Aedh on Nov 10, 2006 18:03:56 GMT -5
Currently, one of his earlier works - "Song of Kali" waits on my shelf to be read. OMG! ... MaWa ... let it sit no more. Read it. Start to-day.
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Post by Gothicgds on Nov 10, 2006 19:11:00 GMT -5
The only new fiction book I've read lately is Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time". Even though a few of the details have since been disproven, it's still a very good book. (Apparently I'm a bit of an oddball because I became a Ricardian before reading that book.) I've always gotta be different. OMG! Did an absolute backflip when I read your post...I read DoT many to the nth power years ago and it blew me away! I was a total Richard (II and III) too and this became an obsession for quite a time. I agree that some of it has been disproved, but back in the dark ages when I first got hold of it, it was like a holy grail. Another Ricardian, yay! I knew people around here have good taste. For me it was a book about the Wars of the Roses, plus the movie Looking for Richard. Even though Shakespeare's play had very little to do with actual history, something about the fictional character contrasted with tantalizing snippets about the valiant teenage Duke of Gloucester made me want to learn more. So lately I've been eating, sleeping and breathing the fifteenth century. Speaking of which, don't you think Christian Bale would make a lovely Richard?
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Post by Aedh on Nov 11, 2006 10:51:12 GMT -5
I think Bale'd make a good Richard ... II OR III ... speaking as a long-time Ricardian and Yorkist. (I still ritually curse that usurping swine Bolingbroke once a year.) Current reading ... not meant to offend anyone ... just saying what I'm reading ... "The Book of the Duke of True Lovers" by Christine de Pizan. (Written, by the way, by an exact contemporary of Richard II.)
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Post by Gothicgds on Nov 12, 2006 17:11:14 GMT -5
I think Bale'd make a good Richard ... II OR III ... speaking as a long-time Ricardian and Yorkist. (I still ritually curse that usurping swine Bolingbroke once a year.) Current reading ... not meant to offend anyone ... just saying what I'm reading ... "The Book of the Duke of True Lovers" by Christine de Pizan. (Written, by the way, by an exact contemporary of Richard II.) Is that fiction or nonfiction? Ooh, ritual curse, I like it. I think I'll come up with a good one for Henry Tudor. (Don't even get me started on him.) Maybe we should start a new thread for all the EQ Ricardians. Perhaps: BRAWL: York vs. Lancaster (and Tudors)
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Post by Aedh on Nov 12, 2006 23:36:25 GMT -5
I think Bale'd make a good Richard ... II OR III ... speaking as a long-time Ricardian and Yorkist. (I still ritually curse that usurping swine Bolingbroke once a year.) Current reading ... not meant to offend anyone ... just saying what I'm reading ... "The Book of the Duke of True Lovers" by Christine de Pizan. (Written, by the way, by an exact contemporary of Richard II.) Is that fiction or nonfiction? The Book of the Duke of True Lovers is a tale of courtly love, written around 1402-05 as a commission from a French nobleman who wished Mme de Pizan to explore the topic from her own viewpoint, both as a woman and as a critic of the older tradition of courtly love as exemplified in the Roman de la Rose. In particular, the anonymous Duke who was Mme de Pizan's patron wished his protagonists--the "Duke" of the tale, and his beloved, a married cousin--to have very different moral philosophies. This she achieved. It is a narrative poem of about 3500 lines, incorporating in it a number of shorter lyrics, chiefly ballades and rondeaux, as it follows the course of the clandestine love affair through many hopes, passions, dreams, and disappointments. It is available in English translation from Persea Press (ISBN 0-89255-166-6). Ooh, ritual curse, I like it. I think I'll come up with a good one for Henry Tudor. (Don't even get me started on him.) Maybe we should start a new thread for all the EQ Ricardians. Perhaps: BRAWL: York vs. Lancaster (and Tudors) Indeed! I say ... Long live good King Richard ... confusion to the King's enemies, especially heinous Richmond!!
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Post by Aedh on Nov 13, 2006 14:48:06 GMT -5
As a scion of Londoners, who displayed the white rose of York proudly ... I can't blame you at all for patriotism ... I find it a thoroughly attractive trait. However, if one thinks for a moment ... it is difficult to avoid admitting that being the son of a daughter of a bastard of Edward III's third son (none of whom, by the way, occupied the throne themselves) constituted a rawwwther dubious claim for Richmond. Edward IV and Edward V were both direct heirs in the male line ... by Edward' III's youngest son, to be sure ... but named and confirmed by Richard II himself, over and against that evil, depraved, murdering swine Bolingbroke, who by the way is rotting in the nethers of Hell reserved for regicides.
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Post by Libby on Nov 13, 2006 17:20:10 GMT -5
As a proud native of Lancashire with it's red rose emblem and House of Lancaster heritage....should I be upset by all this??? ;D Nah! We Lancastrians are made of sterner stuff! (well I'm a Mancunian married to a Lancashire lad) Rob and I spent 3 years at Uni in Leeds with the Yorkshire lot and it didn't harm us one little bit!!
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Post by Gothicgds on Nov 13, 2006 18:47:42 GMT -5
Indeed! I say ... Long live good King Richard ... confusion to the King's enemies, especially heinous Richmond!! As a proud native of Lancashire with it's red rose emblem and House of Lancaster heritage....should I be upset by all this??? ;D Not at all, m'dear, not at all... *surreptitiously loading crossbow* ;D
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Post by Gothicgds on Nov 13, 2006 20:28:36 GMT -5
Not at all, m'dear, not at all... *surreptitiously loading crossbow* ;D *turns and brandishes dual black puddings and dons ceremonial flat cap* Ar't frit'n d'eath yet??? The Lancastrians display most unusual battle tactics... Confuse the enemy with seemingly random yet obviously coded verbiage, and brandish unidentifiable native foodstuffs. Proper dosing should nullify the effects of these bizarre behaviors, and the clerics should have no trouble supressing these odd combatants. Furthur notes on the aerodynamic potential of aforementioned foodstuffs will be added after additional study. *ducks*
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Post by Aedh on Nov 13, 2006 23:29:09 GMT -5
The Lancastrians display most unusual battle tactics... Confuse the enemy with seemingly random yet obviously coded verbiage, and brandish unidentifiable native foodstuffs. Proper dosing should nullify the effects of these bizarre behaviors, and the clerics should have no trouble supressing these odd combatants. Ill straighte relate thys matter to my Lord of Warwicke ... let no one thynke that hee or shee can escape vnpunished that committeth treason, conspiracy, or rebellion against his soueraigne Lorde the Kyng, thogh he commit thesame neuer so secretely either in thought, woorde, or deede; neuer so priuiliy in his priuie chambre by hymself, or openly communicatyng and consultyng with other. For treson will not be hid; treason will out at the length. God Hymselfe will haue that most detestable vice bothe opened and punished, for that it is so directly against Hys ordinaunce and agaynst his hygh principall iudge and anoynted in yearth. Wherefore lett those espousying ye cause of my Lorde of Richmond take thoghte for thys, Clericke Gothyke; ther blacke Puddinges shal avale them nought. *leaps onto horse, setting spurs for Cambridge*
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Post by Aedh on Nov 16, 2006 4:18:49 GMT -5
*shake head frowning and lob black pudding expertly at the back of Cleric Aedh's head as he makes to leave.....stand with arms folded, flat cap set at a jaunty angle, red rose glowing in buttonhole...grin and spark clogs threateningly on the kerb stone* ;D SPLAT! Aedh quickly dismounts ... scrapes the disgusting mess off the back of his helm ... rapidly shovels a large quantity of jellied eel into the sling of a nearby mangonel ... and accompanies the volley of Billingsgate wares with some commentary of like provenance ... then leaps up again and disappears post-haste, crying vengeance on the foes of an anointed King.
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Post by ginxy on Nov 16, 2006 10:56:24 GMT -5
This thread is great! My list of "must read" books grows ever longer!!! I agree. I'm reading The Prestige right now (quick read) and then I'm off to work on His Dark Materials Tril. But there are a lot of books listed here that I haven't read - yet. [Holy Prestonacious Posting Mira...... you've posted well over 1,000 posts.... nice work lol]
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