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[Teddman]

Anyone read any Alfred Bester? I hear he's got a couple absolutely classic SF novels like Demolished Man.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

That strategy works, too. Tad Williams's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn was just reissued in trade paperback, and while I never considered reading the mass market paperback edition (esp. with the third volume split into two books), I'm thinking the new tradecovers might be my summer reading this year.

I enjoyed that series quite a bit, although I was a little pissed when they split the paperback of the final book into two volumes. Of course, it would have been one huge book otherwise!

And yes, I've read a little Bester. Good stuff, and the character of Bester on Babylon 5 was named for him. JMS is a big fan.

 

[Richiban]

DRAGONLANCE FOREVER BITCHES.



All in good fun, of course. Dragonlance is like the Jr. Reader Version of Fantasy.

I did love the first War of the Lance trilogy though.

Unfortunately, I burned out on Wheel Of Time as well. I made it to book three before I got angry and bored and moved on to other series.

Can't say I've read much fantasy/Sci Fi, but if you want an interesting little sci-fi book, get The Coyote Kings Of The Space Age Bachelor Pad by Minister Faust.

Great read.

 

[FnordChan]

Anyone read any Alfred Bester? I hear he's got a couple absolutely classic SF novels like Demolished Man.

Bester's two novels are some of the finest SF ever written: The Demolished Man (winner of the first Hugo Award for best novel), a tale of murder in a world of telepaths, and The Stars My Destination, an epic revenge tale in a dark, almost cyberpunk future - which is particularyl impressive when you realize that it was written in 1956. These are truly astounding novels that hold up extremely well today. His early short fiction (some of which is collected in Virtual Unrealities is also quite good. Then Bester left the field to publish a travel magazine for a couple of decades. When he returned his writing was - well, let's be charitable and not try to describe it, shall we? Still, those early works are amazing.

While I'm at it, allow me to plug one of Bester's contemporaries, Cordwainer Smith. All of Smith's SF writing was told within a far-ranging future history (The Instrumentality of Mankind) and has a sense of history to it, like folktales handed down from generation to generation. All of his short stories are available in a lovely hardcover edition as The Rediscovery of Man; personal favorites include "Scanners Live In Vain", "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell", and partciularly "The Lady Who Sailed The Soul". He only wrote one novel, the remarkable Norstrilia, a sort of coming-of-age novel about a young man who purchases Earth in his search for something he truly longs for - and it's not quite what you'd expect. It's very funny, very touching, and very, very good. Norstrailia stands alone perfectly well, but you'll get more out of it by reading his short fiction first. Cordwainer Smith gets my highest possible recommendation.

FnordChan

 

[snaildog]

A Song Of Ice And Fire is the best series I've read. It's funny, but I don't like fantasy for the magic or the battles or "travelling across the whole map", but for the characters and politics. In ASOIAF I was generally a bit bored by parts concerning Dany or the Wall, and most enjoyed the Tyrion chapters. Anyone similar that can recommend books to my taste?