Recommend Books

[Jean_Grey]

I haven't been reading as much as I should and want to lately and I was wondering if you guys could give me some the names of some books that you thought were good and write a little summary of it and I'll pick it up if it sounds interesting. Thanks a bunch.

[Michael24]

I don't know if you like sci-fi or not, but I always recommend TIMESHARE by Joshua Dann. John Surrey, the head of security for Timeshare Unlimited (the world's first time travel vacation agency) goes back in time to 1940s Hollywood. There he hangs out with the likes of John Wayne, Bogart, Clark Gable, etc., romances an aspiring actress, and finds himself involved in a spy caper involving Nazi agents. It's one of the most fun and enjoyable books I've ever read. There's two sequels (which I haven't read them yet), but I definitely recommend TIMESHARE.

Also, John Christopher's THE TRIPODS TRILOGY are very exciting books, among my all-time favorites. Set in Europe in the future, aliens have enslaved mankind and travel the Earth in huge tripod machines. In the first book, three young boys attempt to escape enslavement by fleeing to the White Mountains, where the tripods are unable to go. In the second, the kids have joined the rebellion and volunteer to infiltrate the Masters' fortified city as slaves in order to study the aliens and find a potential weakness. In the third, it's all-out war as humans finally spring into action and fight back against the aliens. (The books are THE WHITE MOUNTAINS, THE CITY OF GOLD AND LEAD, and THE POOL OF FIRE. There's also a prequel, WHEN THE TRIPODS CAME, that details how the invasion and enslavement occured, but I haven't read it.)

If horror is your thing, I recommend HOWL-O-WEEN and NIGHT HUNTER. The first is about a private security agent traveling cross-county with a diamond courier. During the trip, the agent is bitten by a werewolf and becomes one, and they also encounter various agents of Black Magic. The story is a little confusing occasionally and is kinda heavy on sex, plus it's a little too long, but it's otherwise pretty good. The second book is about a burned-out L.A. homicide detective investigating a string of grisly murders that appear to have been committed by a vampire hunter. But instead of a standard vampire tale, it's got a pretty cool twist that I think makes it worthwhile.

Hope I've peaked your interest. (Or anyone else's for that matter. I really enjoy these books. :) )

[Cogliostro]

Savage Membrane: A Cal McDonald Mystery and Guns, Drugs and Monsters: A Cal McDonald Mystery by Steve Niles - This is the second novel written by Niles with his character Cal McDonald who has made a career helping and hunting the dark creatures that haunt the world and has made as many friends as he has enemies. Among the docile ghouls of the city he is a friend. But to most, those who prey on innocent human lives, Cal is a sworn enemy.

"To me, Cal McDonald is the logical progression of the hard-boiled detective," commented series writer Niles. "Instead of the 40's hard drinking tough guy, Cal is a hard, self-medicating guy with enough personal and emotional problems to fill a file cabinet. Oh, and there are monsters."

Steve Niles, the hardboiled hipster of the horror set, proves that his exceptional first novel, SAVAGE MEMBRANE, wasn’t just a fluke. Niles, already well-known to fans for his intense comic book writing, presents a book that exists somewhere between the frames of a Bogart flick…but with more creatures of the night. Think of it as a more violent KEY LARGO, if KEY LARGO featured a soundtrack by Rob Zombie.

GUNS, DRUGS AND MONSTERS picks up the story of Cal MacDonald, the private eye/monster hunter from SAVAGE MEMBRANE. And this is just not Cal’s day. First he’s held hostage by a voodoo priest with an axe to grind, then he gets evicted.

But things really turn bad when Cal’s old friend, and monster hunting colleague drops by…well, at least his head drops by. The head, still alive despite its disembodiment, shows up in the mail, begging Cal to help him find his body. Apparently some Satanists in California’s San Fernando Valley have found a way to separate people’s living heads from their living bodies; and Cal’s buddy wants to get his torso back before the Satanists do who knows what with it.

Having little left for himself in his native DC, Cal decides to relocate to the Los Angeles area for good. But Cal, who is a hard man to shock, is nonetheless soon shocked by the sheer volume of creeps and ghouls that call LA home.

In the novel Niles is able to walk the line between action and sarcastic comedy. Cal’s fish-out-of-water observations on the nature of Los Angeles are sure to be appreciated by anyone who’s spent anytime in the city. Such comments were undoubtedly informed by the writer’s personal move to LA from the East. But those not familiar with La-la land will still find the novel compelling, if only because of the stomach-turning twists the excellent horror/mystery takes.

Just as tightly plotted as the first novel, Niles’ less-is-more writing style employs a terse economy of words to build tension and deliver real thrills. review by Cinescape. (http://www.cinescape.com/0/editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Books&action=page&obj_id=37308&type_id=270289&cat_id=270446&sub_id=270515)

If none of that has grabbed your attenion or got you interested then how about reading the first chapter for FREE online? What do you got to lose? Nothing...so take a quick look here for the first chapter or Guns, Drugs and Monsters. (http://www.steveniles.com/images/gdm_ch01.pdf) Just scroll down past the first page which is just a cover art page to the first chapter then if you need to see the text better zoom in with the magnifying glass. (You need Adobe Arcobat Reader to view the first chapter online and is for MATURE readers.)

Dial M for Monster: A collection of Cal McDonald mystery stories by Steve Niles - In the sequel to Savage Membrane, and Guns, Drugs, and Monsters Cal McDonald and Mo'Lock are back and up to their nostrils in monsters and trouble in this collection of ALL NEW short stories.
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I don't read much but came across these short novels and fell in love. The first was Savage Membrane then Guns, Drugs and Monsters which is followed by Dial M for Monster which is a collection of short stories following the the main characters of the two novels. The books follow a hard drink, smart and fowl mouthed detective named Cal McDonald who has a gift/curse to see the monsters that live among people who does his best to hunt them down and kill them while making some booze money at the same time. It's filled with dark humor, very interesting characters, mysteries, action and much more. I highly recommend them to anyone who loves this stuff. If you are unsure if you would like these books or not just read the first chapter that I have a link to earlier in my post and if you like it then you will like all of them but if you don't like that first chapter then these books are not for you.

The books are not easy to find but you can buy them off of the writers website at http://www.steveniles.com/store.htm

Steve Niles has mentioned that there will be another novel coming out eventually and hopes to make it twice as long as the others, also the movie rights for Criminal Macabre: A Cal McDonald Mystery have been bought and a script is in works.

If anyone wants more info on the books PM me. Hope I got someone interested. Thanks for your time. :D

[Phantasm]

Alright, the most memorable, heartfelt, beautiful book I've ever read up until this point is Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. I mean seriously, I couldn't get over this, I couldn't believe that I hadn't gotten my hands on this book sooner. It just grabs you and puts you there with the characters; I laughed with Henry and Clare and I cried with them.Its so heartbreakingly engrossing...I couldn't put it down even after it was well over. Heck I'm reading it once more these days.

The language of the book is plain, simple and to the point. The story is told through the narratives of Henry Tetamble and Clare Abshire/Detamble. Henry has a 'genetic disorder' which has him abruptly transported back and forth through time. He meets Clare when she's only six even though at the time he's 42.

In the words of the Publisher:

A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant.

An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler's Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.
This is a deliciously tragic piece of fiction that had me stuck on it for days. I simply couldn't get over it. Read it, you will regret not picking it up sooner.;)
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?isbn=015602943X&itm=1

[cross blues]

The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis -

a collection of letters from demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, giving advice on how young Wormwood should go about guiding/tempting his "patient" (a human) to Hell. I'm not religious in the least, and still this book makes my head swim with all sorts of ideas. so don't be scared away by the fact that the book will be found in the religion section.

[Gatomon41]

"Foundation" and "Foundation and Empire" and "Second Foundation" by Issac Asimov

Basically a series of short stories collected together in 3 novels. The Trilogy tells the story of a scientific Foundation's attempts to lessen the effects of a Dark Age.

The Story: The Galatic Empire has lasted for over 10,000 years, but is collapsing. There's no way to stop the collapse, so it's up to the Foundation to lessen the effects of the coming dark age.

Although there is little action, it vrey good and interesting Science fiction story.

"A Canticle for Leibowtiz" by Walter M. Miller.

A multigerational story of a monastary trying to preserve knowledge after a Nuclear Holocaust. Some Dark comedy elements, but also asks many questions about science, ethics, and humanity. It also shows history not as progress, but as a cylce. Very serious, sad, and interesting stuff.

[Daughterof_Evil]

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson; I was wary in picking it up, as his last novel left me wanting something more, but I grabbed it just so I could at least understand the direction of his writing these days. I was absolutely stunned. One of the biggest reasons I neglected reading it (it appears to have been Gibson's response to 9/11) made it timely, poignant, but not preachy. Centers largely on the commercialization of our society and the tragedies within it, as the main character is a marketing advisor who has a peculiar "allergy" to brand names, logos, and branding in general, which eventually leads her to have an allergic reaction to anything having to do with 9/11. It doesn't help that her father, a former CIA heavy, disappears in New York City the day of the attacks and is presumed dead. There're more things to the dense plot, revolving mostly around the internet, and all of which eventually join together with a single purpose at the end, but I don't want to risk giving anything away.

[JohnCrichton]

Anything by Dan Simmons.. greatest writer I've ever come across. His latest ILIUM was phenomenal.

[Matt-a-Tastic]

The best book ever IMO is Star Wars Dark Mauk: Shadow Hunter. I would very much reccomend that, its extremlly exciting stuff.

Another good book is Yoss, its basiclly about a boy going to an old age town (from an old age village) and kinda "growing up" and discovering the world. It has very little action or comedy but its very deep

A good classic is "Of Mice on Men" its not really for the light hearted, but its extremlly good, its also quite short. Really though, if your into reading, then you just have to read this, even if you don't like it, its just something youv'e got to read.

If you want so retarded James Bond action book you should look into the Alex Rider series, its kinda like James Bond, only.... different.

...umm, theres some more, I just can't think of any right now