10 Favorite Novels

[livingancestor]

Dale got me to thinking (as he often does) about my favorite novels. Books that I'm willing to read a second time, or in some cases, many times over the years. Here is a list of 10 novels that I would put in that category. Put yours on here as well so that we all might enjoy them.

1. Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
2. Time Enough for Love - Robert Heinlein
3. Startide Rising - David Brin
4. Battlefield Earth - L. Ron Hubbard
5. The Thomas Covenant Series - Stephen Donaldson
6. The LOTR Trilogy - J.R.R.Tolkein
7. It - Stephen King
8. The Stand - Stephen King
9. Calahan's Crosstime Saloon Trilogy - Spider Robinson
10. Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

[Rorschach]

Dang...this one I'll have to post from home, with my bookshelf handy.

[The Watcher]

I can only do this for books from when I started to LOVE reading in 4th grade. Even then, I cannot order them by preference... but this is a very simple list for me to compose as I rarely read books more than once... and these are books I read the first time and fell in love with instantly.

ALL of these books are books I have EASILLY read more than three times... and will probably do so easily three times more.

* My Side of the Mountain - Jean Craighead
* A Cricket in Times Square - George Seldon
* A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
* On a Pale Horse - Piers Anthony
* For Love of Evil - Piers Anthony
* The First, Second, and Third Book Of Swords - Fred Saberhagen (counting as three books)
* Dragons of Autumn Twilight - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
* Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling

Wow. I'm gonna get a LOT of flack for putting Harry Potter in there... but I really could give a flip. She may have "stolen" from other authors, many may say she can't write... but I don't care. I LOVED the book, and that's what I'm basing my list on.

You can probably tell that I likes me some easy reading, and nothing too tough.

[ColGreeley]

No particular order.....

LOTR Trilogy - Tolkien
It - Stephen King
Christine - Stephen King
World War Series - Harry Turtledove

[mruch89]

Trying without a bookshelf (and endeavoring to avoid Series)
1. Shogun James Clavell
2. Musashi Eiji Yoshikawa
3. Noble House James Clavell
4. Neuromancer William Gibson
5. The Peshawar Lancers S.M. Stirling
6. Hardwired Walter Jon Williams
7. The Phoenix Guards Steven Brust
8. Dune Frank Herbert
9. The Guns of Navarone Alastair MacLean
10. The War Hound and the Earth's Pain Michael Moorcock

That was tough, very hard to anrrow down 10 I actually reread numerous times. And also avoiding series as those really can't be done as a single book. Here are some of the series I dig:

1. LoTR
2. The Lost Legion Harry Turtledove
3. The Wheel of Time Robert Jordan
4. Song of Fire & Ice George R.R. Martin
5. Harry Potter
6. Harry Turtledove's seemingly endless the South won the War: 2 trilogies and a Quadrilogy later may finally finish World War 2.
7. Falkenberg's Legion Jerry Pournelle

[Stu]

I'll undoubtedly be adding to this with copious edits. It's hard for me to imagine cutting my favorites down to ten, but I'll try.

V, by Thomas Pynchon
Huck Finn, Mark Twain
Don Quixote, Cervantes
Moby Dick, Melville
Frankenstein, Shelley
The Island of Dr. Moreau, Wells
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Kesey
Catch-22, Heller
Clockwork Orange, Burgess
Ulysses, James Joyce

I think my list sounds square, like something your high school english teacher would like to see, but man--they're classics for a reason.

Some non-classics I love:

Fevre Dream, George RR Martin
Kiss Me Deadly, Mickey Spillane
Cockfighter, Charles Willeford
Heaven's Prisoners, James Lee Burke
The Killer Inside Me, Jim Thompson
The Stand, Stephan King
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
The List of Seven, Mark Frost
The Seven Percent Solution, Nicholas Meyer

OK. There's two lists for the price of one. And still so much unmentioned . . .

[Pilgrim]

This ones a tough one.

Having only just learned to read beyond a rudimentary level I don't have that many novels under my belt... and I tend to like Series of books more then just stand alone.


SO...


Top of the tier right now are the Mallazan Books of the Fallen. #5 just came out in the states and I gotta go pick it up.

Honor Harrington tends to be very satisfying... though I think they kinda peaked at around War of Honor.

Dan Brown has this real Staccato writing style I enjoy... kinda gets you moving and makes you want to plow through the book, but I preferred Angels and Demons to Davinci Code.

Michael Stackpoles Rogue Squadron books were great! Some of my favorite Star Wars Fiction.

Of course George RR Martins Ice and Fire books...

And I started liking Robert Jordan, but man it feels like he's stretching a 5 book series out to 12 now.

[USMC2USAF]

I'd like to add...

"Gates of Fire" by David Pressfield.

The recent release of 300 motivated me to finally read this one.
It started off slow for me but, it is amazing just how much you learn about Spartan society and the military culture.
A must read!

Respectfully,
KEVIN

[Stu]

I just finished a fun one: Snake Agent, by Liz Williams.

Ostensibly a supernatural thriller, Snake Agent reads like a more pedestrian mystery/police procedural, albeit with a twist. Set in a minimally cyberpunkish near-future, in the city of Singapore 3 (Singapore has franchised itself), the novel follows Detective Inspector Chen, the police department's liason with hell, as he teams up with Seneschal Zhu Irzh, a demonic vice cop (responsible for promoting vice,) to solve a mystery of dead young girls going missing on their way to Heaven.

The action is solid, and tension ebbs and flows satisfactorily. The plot is sufficiently intricate to maintain one's attention. The real meat of the novel, however, is the buddy-cop friendship that develops between the detectives. Chen, on the surface, is cautious and square, but the circumstances of his life, a demon wife and censure from his goddess, show he can be moved by powerful impulses. Zhu Irzh's flashy, devil-may-care facade disguises his latent concience, self-doubt, and disillusionment with the powers that be. Together, they are respectful enemies working together to achieve a common objective, often at cross-purposes, with neither ever completely putting his cards on the table. They develop a relationship based on their similarities as individuals as they both come to rely on each other and to mistrust the forces they represent.

The other attention-grabber in the setting is the characterization of the supernatural elements of the novel. Hell is comprised of a labarynthine bureaucrasy of ministries dedicated to various sins. The geography of hell mirrors the mundane world, with sometimes just a wisp of membrane between them. Other geographical features are presumably elements of Chinese myth. Though I've only studied Chinese mythology in the most superficial way, the evocation of the world and its systems of magic and internal logic seem solid and satisfying.

It was a fun book, and I'm looking forward to reading more of these characters' adventures.

We ought to have some threads for reviews.

[squevitch]

Indeed. Tough to narrow those down.
Here goes!

In no order whatsover:

Song of Fire & Ice - George R.R. Martin
The Alienist - Caleb Carr
Our Man in Havana - Graham Greene
The Sorrows of Young Werther - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
The Shadow Over Insmouth - HP Lovecraft
The Razor's Edge - W. Somerset Maugham
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

Those cover a pretty broad spectrum! :)

-Steve

[squevitch]

2. Time Enough for Love - Robert Heinlein



I have not heard of this one Forrest. I'll have to check it out.

-Steve

[livingancestor]

Not his best written piece, but my favorite. Very log at 600+ pages, but a worthwhile read. It's where I first saw the phrase "Never try to teach a pig to sig. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."

[Rorschach]

Not his best written piece, but my favorite. Very log at 600+ pages, but a worthwhile read. It's where I first saw the phrase "Never try to teach a pig to sig. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."

That book was from the height of Heinlein's "dirty old man" phase. :-)

[livingancestor]

It was indeed. Nonetheless, it was a good read. No so much a novel as many short stories tied together with a common theme.

Heinlein's greatest gift was the ability to put you inside the head of his characters. In Stranger in a Strange Land, you struggled to understand the martian mind. In Time Enough for Love, he shows you what it's like to have lived a thousand years. There's probably no author I enjoy more.

[Rorschach]

I didn't get much chance to look at my bookshelves last night. But I think I can post my subcategory of 10 Most Formative Novels. These are not on my Top10 favorites list now, but they informed my development through to adulthood. And I'm just going to group trilogies as one work.

1) The Lord of the Rings
2) The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
3) Elric of Melnibone' saga by Michael Moorcock
4) Moby Dick by Herman Melville
5) Watership Down by Richard Adams
6) People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard
7) The Tomb and Other Stories by HP Lovecraft
8) The Amber Series by Roger Zelazny
9) The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
10) The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

-Dale

[Pilgrim]

Oh How could I have forgotten Ender's Game by O.S. Card. There was a great book. Also Enjoyed Gregg Bears EON.

[angel_lord]

Only Ten? well let's see. Off the top of my noggin -

Legacy of Herot by Larry Niven and Others
LOTR Trilogy By J.R.R Tolkien
The Hobbit By J.R.R. Tolkien
Song of Ice and Fire by G.R.R. Martin
The Belgariad by David Eddings
The Histories of King Kelson by Katherine Kurtz
The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey
The Year of the Unicorn by Andre Norton
Riley's Luck by Louis L'Amour
Kilkenny by Louis L'Amour

That's about it, nothing terribly intellectual or mind bending. That's another list entirely.

[livingancestor]

I really enjoyed the Amber series. I can't walk a maze without thinking about it. Some of the imagery has really stuck with me, but the story was such that it wasn't a great read the second time.

[Rorschach]

I really enjoyed the Amber series. I can't walk a maze without thinking about it. Some of the imagery has really stuck with me, but the story was such that it wasn't a great read the second time.

Kinda why its on my "formative" list :-) Zelazny is always one of the brilliant ones, who doesn't get read nearly enough today.

-D

[newdigitalblue]

Hmm a tough one to answer at work.

Well there are a lot of books I love. Most of them are in a series though so I'll list my favorite series.

WoT (Wheel of Time) by robert Jordan
Sord of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind
Most books by David Gammel
Dragons of ****** By Wies and Hickman
LoTR by tolken

[livingancestor]

I was kind of surprised that no one mocked me for having Battlefield Earth on my list. It's one of my guilty pleasure reads. Not a great novel, but very fun. I've probably read it 3 or 4 times. It's unfortunate how incredibly bad the movie was. Forrest Whitaker and John Travolta must have been blackmailed into participating (notice I didn't say acting) in it.

[Pilgrim]

I think Travolta felt he had a religious responsibility to be in that one.

Kinda Like Mel And The Passion!


Speaking of Guilty Pleasures, I really did enjoy the Mission Earth series. Only read them once, but that was a good Month of my Reading time Burned away on Hubbardism!

Forgot to mention one of my Favorite book series The Pendragon Cycle by Stephen R Lawhead. Any Arthur legend that Starts on Atlantis is gonna be good!

[DoomedToRepeatIt]

Where necesasry, I'm going to list series/trilogies/whatever because in all cases, they are continuing stories. Putting "Return of the King" on the list but not Fellowship and Towers is in an injustice, so bear with me.


1. The Wheel of Time -- Robert Jordan
2. Lord of the Rings -- JRR Tolkien
3. Anything involving Drizzt Do'Urden -- RA Salvatore
4. Blood of Kerensky Trilogy -- Michael Stackpole
5. In Death Ground -- White & Weber
6. The Forever War -- Joe Haldeman
7. The Man-Kzin Wars -- Larry Niven, et al
8. The Shannarra Series -- Terry Brooks
9. The World War Series -- Harry Turtledove
10. Dragonlance: Chronicles -- Weis & Hickman

[The Watcher]

{Trying so very very hard not to step on toes}

Those of you who liked the Lord of the Rings books please tell me why you liked them. I have tried (officially now) three times to read them, and I just cannot force myself to continue after they get out of the forest aided by Tom Bombadil.

{/Trying so very very hard not to step on toes}

[Pilgrim]

Burn the Heretic!!!!



Ok honestly I've never read any of the Lord of the Rings books either... I've even got a real nice set of them and just haven't read them.


Ironically I did write a very detailed book report on all 3 books in sixth grade, mostly based on the cover art.

[Rorschach]

Those of you who liked the Lord of the Rings books please tell me why you liked them. I have tried (officially now) three times to read them, and I just cannot force myself to continue after they get out of the forest aided by Tom Bombadil.

The key is to skip over Tom Bombadil, and to skim the interminable Frodo and Sam wanderings in Two Towers.

I suppose I liked it as a kid because Tolkien is a GREAT Travel Writer, and he makes you feel like you're in this totally cool other place. When you grow up, and imagination isn't quite the virgin soil it used to be, that doesn't play as well.
That's why I now say that GRRM is the best Fantasy Writer because of Game of Throne...

[The Watcher]

I can honestly agree with you, Dale, that I did feel that I was going along with the group as they journeyed through the forest. Every painful step through the forest listening to that DAM* Bombadillio-so songio!!~

"Hi, I'm Tom Bombadil. And I'm a GAWD."

I hated Tomilisio- Bombadillio-solo-mio... and I'm happy Jackson left it out... but I digress to another topic (sorry about that).

I guess it was just so slow at the beginning... and I just lost interest. I got further this last reading than I did before... I actually got out of the forest. I'm not looking forward to Return of the King though... "Oh Master Frodo... just a bit further... Oh Master Frodo, don't give up.... Oh sweet, darling Master Frodo... let me carry your hot sweaty bod...."

WOAH! Good thing Peter Jackson didn't add THAT into the... oh... I guess he did, didn't he? (Digress digress digress)

Perhaps I'll try again to read them after I'm done with the INCREDIBLY entertaining books of the Dresden Files. Wow... I am really liking book #2: "Fool Moon". Looks like that author just wrote some fantasy novels as well.

[mruch89]

LoTR is a terribly slow read by modern standards. Just no way around it. But they are just too formative to not list in any top 10 list.

[Rorschach]

Perhaps I'll try again after I'm done with the INCREDIBLY entertaining books of the Dresden Files. Wow... I am really liking book #2: "Fool Moon". Looks like that author just wrote some fantasy novels as well.

Jim Butcher has a real talent for the pulp fiction, and merging lots of different genre bits. Here's an author who's probably played plenty of WHITE WOLF over the past 15 years, and knows what works from those stories. :-)
The Sci Fi book club has 5 more of his books in omnibus editions for cheap - I'll have to budget them for next month. In the meantime, I need someone to get the 3rd book and lend it to me. :-)

[The Watcher]

In the meantime, I need someone to get the 3rd book and lend it to me. :-)
I'll lend it to you when I see you next. You should have told me yesterday when you were over. I have it.

And to everyone else... go out and read "Storm Front". Great book. The TV and book series are diverse enough that they can be enjoyed on different levels. I love both.

[newdigitalblue]

I'm surprised no one's flamed me for having both Sword of Truth and Wheel of Time on my list. Since all I ever keep hearing is how those two robbed each others stories, or something along those lines.

[The Watcher]

I'm noticing that many people have guilty favorites that are more than just "guilty"... so everyone's been pretty good about accepting other's reading habits.

Kudos to us all!

[ColGreeley]

LOTR is an incredibly slow read Justin. It took me a few times to get through it.

[The Watcher]

Jim Butcher has a real talent for the pulp fiction, and merging lots of different genre bits. Here's an author who's probably played plenty of WHITE WOLF over the past 15 years, and knows what works from those stories. :-)
Listening to his podcast (http://butcherblock.libsyn.com/)... he ran a Birthright campaign. Cool.

[angel_lord]

I'm surprised no one's flamed me for having both Sword of Truth and Wheel of Time on my list. Since all I ever keep hearing is how those two robbed each others stories, or something along those lines.

Actually I liked the endless wheel of time. I'd probably like it more were it finished.

Then again I think Song of Ice and fire is one of the better fantasy epics of our age - even though the author has ever mistaken certain poor writing habits for gritty story telling. I still love Martin and his work.

Then I'd have to add the Gord the Rogue, Conan, Tarzan and John Carter of Mars books to guilty pleasures - but again, there are far too many to list. Heinlein would have made my list for instance, but I wanted to include some outside favorites.

Narrowing to ten is always a harsh task. I'm a bibliophile - and that seems a particularly cruel sort of torture :-)

[Nate Train]

1. Starship Troopers-Heinlein
2. Gates of Fire-Steven Pressfield
3. Flight of the Intruder-Stephen Coonts
4. All Quiet on the Western Front-Remarque
5. Lonesome Dove- Larry McMurtry
6. Rendezvous With Rama-Arthur C. Clarke
7. A Fall of Moondust-Clarke


I can only give 7...dont read that many novels.

[Blackraine]

This Present Darkness
The Oath
The Thor Conspiracy
The entire Zion Covenant series
The first four Wheel of Time books (REALLY started to drag on after that)

That's about it. Dyslexia and ADD have combined into an unholy alliance to prevent me from enjoying books.

One thing I've never understood though... if there are so many of them, why are they called "Novels"?

[Blackraine]

Btw, while most of my list is Christian fiction... it's also a good read for planning/playing Mage games. Oh the trouble you can wreak with fallen Choristers!

[angel_lord]

This Present Darkness


Along With Piercing the Darkness I enjoyed this one as well.

[Stu]

I wish I'd put Watership Down on my classic list and The Alienist on my non-classic list. Those are great books.

I like Harry Dresden, but I like Teddy London just as well, and I think I may like Detective Chen better than both of them. Starting in 1992 with The Things That Are Not There, PI Teddy London uncovers occult menace--jumping right in, stopping an incursion by mighty Cthulhu! He's featured in six or seven nevels by CJ Henderson. I reviewed Detective Chen elsewhere. My favorite all-time occult investigator--right up there with Kolchak--is Jules DeGrandin. He was a fixture in Wierd Tales through the thirties, appearing in almost a hundred stories and often getting the cover. Written by Seabury Quinn, DeGrandin stories have been collected in paperback in the seventies, and in a ferociously expensive small press hardback a few years ago. DeGrandin's a fiesty cross between Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, battling the supernatural in New Jersey! Never shy about violence and peppering his investigations with high school French epithets, DeGrandin rambles and roars through stories that don't often make a lot of sense, but don't often have to. Highly entertaining!

[Genestealer]

In no particular order:

Gaunt's Ghost - Dan Abnett
Honor Harrington - David Weber
Vlad Taltos - Steven Brust
Black Compnay - Glenn Cook
The Garret PI books - Glenn Cook
The first set of Fiests books
Neuromancer - William Gibson
LotR

I don't know but all of the above are still in the bookcase so they must still be good. It gets smaller and smaller every year as the girls stuff overflows their bookcases (floor to ceiling) and invades dad's book space.

[Rorschach]

Okay, I finally remembered to consult my bookshelf. Here's my Top10 Book List of my favorite Novels or Collections:

1) A Song of Ice and Fire, by George RR Martin
2) Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny
3) Shatterday, by Harlan Ellison
4) Tales of Terror and the Imagination, by Edgar Allen Poe
5) A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce
6) Dune, by Frank Herbert
7) Shogun, by James Clavell
8) Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson
9) Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson
10) To Reign in Hell, by Stephen Brust

Besides these and my formative books from earlier, I want to list my next 20. The formative books would be on top of these I guess, so this is really my top 40 in all...
First to recount the formative books:

11) The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien
12) The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
13) Elric of Melnibone' Saga, by Michael Moorcock
14) Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
15) Watership Down, by Richard Adams
16) People of the Black Circle, by Robert E. Howard
17) The Tomb and Other Stories, by HP Lovecraft
18) The Amber Series, by Roger Zelazny
19) The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
20) The Halloween Tree, by Ray Bradbury

21) The Hyperion Saga, by Dan Simmons
22) Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
23) Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
24) Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
25) A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
26) Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
27) The Stand, by Stephen King
28) The Books of Blood, by Clive Barker
29) The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco
30) Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming

31) Nicholas Nickleby, by Charles Dickens
32) The Sherlock Holmes Mysteries, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
33) Neuromancer, by William Gibson
34) Something Wicked this Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
35) Carrion Comfort, by Dan Simmons
36) Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
37) Deathbird Stories, by Harlan Ellison
38) Friday, by Robert Heinlein
39) The Honor Harrington Series, by David Weber
40) Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

And to round it out, here's 10 Guilty Pleasures
41) The Vlad Taltos Series, by Stephen Brust
42) The Necroscope Series, By Brian Lumley
43) The Le Comte De Saint Germain Series, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
44) The Vampire Series, by Anne Rice
45) The Discworld Series, by Terry Pratchett
46) The Harry Dresden Series, By Jim Butcher
47) The Horseclans Series, by Robert Adams
48) The Fu Manchu Serials, by Sax Rohmer
49) Saga of the Pliocene Exiles, by Julian May
50) The Eisenhorn Trilogy, by Dan Abnett

I'm sure I could go on to 100... :D