www.ditl.org

if anyone is into horror, a la Poe, or fantasy such as Dunsany, read every damn thing by H. P. Lovecraft that you can get your mitts on! He was one of the greats EVER! Although his style is a little wordy by modern standards, his fiction goes down like an old Chateau Mouton-Rothschild - with no hangover.

I also like Philip K. Dick, for more modern fans, and get this - my local library has everything by William Gibson EXCEPT for "Neuromancer!" I mean, that's only the novel that won a Dick, a Hugo, and invented the term "cyberpunk."

Also, check out OLD Michael Crichton - "Sphere," "Congo," "The Andromeda Strain," the original novel "Jurassic Park" - the later stuff is just written to be made into movies, but the early stuff is true science/medical fiction written by a true scientist.doctor.

And finally, of course, the originals by Michael Moorcock - the first Elric books are true modern classics.

I almost forgot - if anyone is into classics, Richmond Lattimore's translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey are incredible. Lattimore's analyses and commentaries on both the form and the content of the epics are brilliant, and the translations are head and shoulders above any other versions I've read - easy to read, yet still keeping the original flow.

I don't know if Lattimore worked with Latin poetry, and my own Latin is a bit rusty - does anyone know of a very good English translation of The Aeneid? I have the Mandelbaum version, and it seems to fall a little short

Wow - I guess not everyone shares my taste in irrelevant literature written in dead languages.

OK, on a more accessable note, if anyone is a fan of classic sci-fi from the '50's and '60's - Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, etc. - read Philip K. Dick's "Waterspider." It appears in a Dick anthology titled The Minority Report (which obviously also inlcudes that story,) and is as brilliant and funny an homage that one writer can give his predecessors as I have ever seen.

If anyone's into Warhammer 40K I really recommend the Ciaphas Cain series of novels. Also the Last Chancers omnibus was excellent.

Anything written by HP Lovecraft-love the Cthulhu mythos
The best Aeneid would be the oxford version, by far
Suetonius :'the Twelve Caesars'
Herodotus 'the Histories'
Lucius Flavius Arrianus' 'The Campaigns of Alexander the Great'(superior to Plutarch)
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Beowulf
Finally anything by the uber prolific Tom Clancy, same for Stephen King, love the Dune books and ancillary stories, and adore the Dragonlance stories by M Weiss and T Hickman

The penguin version of the Iliad (not read the odyssey yet) and all Phil Dick stories esp 'in a scanner darkly'(also the screamers film was enjoyable,have the short story for that and total recall, in one of the editions of minority report someone,so looking forward...).
There'll be plently more ,i've not mentioned, as tend to buy boxes of second hand books,and sit and leaf through them systematically...

A man ofter my own tastes, Mr. Granitehewer! Who translated the Oxford Aeneid which you mentioned?

BTW, I've had this debate with some friends - do you think "At the Mountains of Madness" was about 5-10pp. too long?

Jasper Griffin(Brian, the dogs' gay lover from ''family guy''?! lol), a fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, wrote the notes but the translation was by C Day Lewis.
By Nyarlathotep,mikey!
Lovecraft was baroquely ornate at times, a little verbose and well, deranged, i tend to agree with the overlength issue, but to be honest, whether it be superfluous or deranged rambling, to me, it further defines Lovecraft and his utterly unique place on the pantheon of horror writers.
I haven't read 'Neuromancer', that you recomended earlier, as keep forgetting, the authors' name,when book hunting, after my experiences in life,when one piece of information is stored, another is lost lol, ps for any enthusiastic souls out there, i know the info isn't lost,its to do with retrieval cues so sssh.
Any chance, i could pm you,with questions on religion?
p

To resurrect this thread, I'll second Pratchett, and for sci-fi recommend David Weber's Honor Harrington books.

As a warning, the man's worked out every little detail of the technical aspects and explains them as necessary, so if you hate hearing about the two extra missile launchers, superior electronic warfare, and the difference they made in the battle, it might not be fore you. They seem like the kind of thing Rochey might like.

David Weber's Mutineer's Moon series was quite good.

I enjoy most anything by Piers Anthony, Harlan Ellison, Arthur C. Clarke, Alan Dean Foster and Robert Heinlein.

Also, even non-fans and people who openly dislike Stephen King are imbiciles if they don't enjoy The Dark Tower series. It is a masterwork that cannot be denied, in depth, scale and power.

Tsukiyumi wrote:Also, even non-fans and people who openly dislike Stephen King are imbiciles if they don't enjoy The Dark Tower series. It is a masterwork that cannot be denied, in depth, scale and power.

The only Stephen Kning book I've ever read was Dark Tower I - I gave up before I got half way through because the blasting thing was so convoluted it was giving me headache,

Huh? How did this thread go a whole two pages without someone mentioning J.R.R Tolkien? Shame on you all.

Rochey wrote:Huh? How did this thread go a whole two pages without someone mentioning J.R.R Tolkien? Shame on you all.

Tolkien is to a discussion of SF and Fantasy as Shakespeare is to a discussion of English literature as a whole. It's almost the one piece of common ground for everyone involved, and so, not worth mentioning until you get into actual literary interpretation.

Likewise, how could I have let this go on without mentioning Bradbury - especially Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes. Two examples of some of the greates ambient mood-building in all of literature.

I read the Aeneid in a prose translation by David West. I have a suspicion by not reading it in a poetic form I may have missed the point and heart of it.
I will recommend Joseph Conrad. He can be hard to get into, but is worth the effort. Lord Jim is the best I've read so far, but Heart of Darkness is a better starting point.
I'll add another recommendation of Terry Pratchett. He went through a bad patch a few years back, but seems to be returning to form lately. It's not the first of the series, but I would say Men-at-Arms is a good starting point. If you don't like that one, he's probably not for you.
I read a few Micheal Crichton some years back. I never really got into them. It seemed to me like he had great ideas, but didn't write particularly well.
I would also like to recommend the Renko novels of Martin Cruz Smith. The atmosphere is great - you feel like you are there. I've read some of his other novels, but didn't enjoy them much, with one exception: Rose, a mystery set in the coal fields of 19th Century Lancashire. How there hasn't been a TV adaptation of it is a mystery in itself.