The Last Homely House
General => Council of Cobra => Topic started by: Smeagollum on April 08, 2010, 10:59:43 AM
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I like scifi and fantasy a lot; read Raymond E. feist, Eddings, Goodkind, Brent Weeks (loved his writing), Clemens, Brooks, Markus Heitz (german), Bernard Hennen (german) and ofcourse tolkien. And I read the Star Wars novells.
Anyway, nothing feels such epic and is so intelligent written as Tolkien does. Can anybody advise me a (SF/fantasy) writer who has the same feel of intelect and write epic novells?
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Dune by Frank Herbert
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Dune by Frank Herbert
I think you're right, but I don't dare to read his works, because I saw the film (which was bad). So I'm afraid that when I read Dune that I'll have this film in my head again or even worse the miniseries... I know sounds stupid... but hey I'm a stupid person :)
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My favs are: Tolkien, Grisham, Stephen King, Lin Carter, Lovecraft (love the concepts and writings, hate the author). That's all. Lovecraft has some writings that resemble a lot how Tolkien writes and feels, except for the horror thing (mainly The Doom that came to Sarnath).
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Just googled lovecraft.... It seems interesting. But how come you hate the author; he died in 1937?
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Lovecraft was... eccentric, to say the least.
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When talking about Lovecraft, I prefer to say *everything* I think about him. I will not do it now. Anyway, he was a 20's American writer, so his terrible racism, sexism, anti-semitism and extreme rightism are kinda understandable.
Anyway, I still enjoyed most of the Necronomicon, and was pretty inspiring.
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I read wiki about him, but what I understand out of it he was inspired by his nightmares and that his word is nihilistic (if that's an english word for it) and that he knows to create a psycholgic fear and that one of his themes is how little humanity is. But I haven't read any of his work, so I can't judge the man and his reason for writing in the way as described. But I'm sure that after I've returned some books from Terry Pratchet to the library that Lovecraft is on my list!
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When talking about Lovecraft, I prefer to say *everything* I think about him. I will not do it now. Anyway, he was a 20's American writer, so his terrible racism, sexism, anti-semitism and extreme rightism are kinda understandable.
Anyway, I still enjoyed most of the Necronomicon, and was pretty inspiring.
But did he meant that or is it more that he did try to say something else by it?
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He clearly reflects his own ideology in his writings. Some of his descriptions, adjectives, etc regarding jews or black people pretty much reflect what he personally believed. What I meant was that he was a white American, in the 20's. That was pretty much what everyone believed and was the dominant way of thinking in the society that time. Scroll down a little bit more in his wiki, there are some pretty good examples of what I said before.
And yes, it IS of course an entertaining read. If you start reading him, start with simple but still frightening stories such as The Statement of Randolph Carter and Dagon (pretty disturbingly entertaining stuff!
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Dune is impressively far-reaching in scale. Star Wars novels have been hit-or-miss for me; I like the ones by Timothy Zahn (Thrawn trilogy) and Karen Traviss (Republic Commando series). And although background detail is needed since it's set in the midst of the New Jedi Order series, Traitor by Matthew Stover made for great philosophical discussion on the nature of the Force.
Other suggestions:
Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling:
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Star Rigger series, by Jeffrey Carver:
- Dragons in the Stars
- Dragon Rigger
- Eternity's End
The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander:
- The Book of Three
- The Black Cauldron
- The Castle of Llyr
- Taran Wanderer
- The High King
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He clearly reflects his own ideology in his writings. Some of his descriptions, adjectives, etc regarding jews or black people pretty much reflect what he personally believed. What I meant was that he was a white American, in the 20's. That was pretty much what everyone believed and was the dominant way of thinking in the society that time. Scroll down a little bit more in his wiki, there are some pretty good examples of what I said before.
And yes, it IS of course an entertaining read. If you start reading him, start with simple but still frightening stories such as The Statement of Randolph Carter and Dagon (pretty disturbingly entertaining stuff!
I read the Dutch Wiki about him; http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Phillips_Lovecraft
As you can see it's not that much information. But I'll check the english one tomorrow!
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@Elessar
I forgot to mention Harry Potter.. course I read them. I even read the ongoing series about him ! ;)
Will check the other ones tomorrow as well.
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Ann McCaffrey, Dragonriders of Pern, the entire series. A bit promiscuous at parts but overall a very well-built universe.
The Darksword Trilogy is a good read (but I don't hold the fourth book in high regard) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
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In no particular order: Michael Moorcock(Count Brass, Elric), Robert Silverberg(Majipoor), Poul Anderson(boat of a million years and others), Frederick Pohl(Gateway), Philip Jose Farmer(To your Scattered Bodies Go, the other Riverworld novels), Roger Zelazny(Amber series), Robert Heinlein(anything of his), Philip K. #$&*@!(anything of his), Alfred Bester(anything of his)
There are others in my collection that I'm missing but can't remember right now.
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Do not hesitate. Read Dune asap. In fact, read at least the first 3 original Dune's.
Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
It's up to you if you want to read the last three. Don't even bother trying to read the newer stuff written by Frank Herbert's son Brian and his friend KevinJAnderson. It's trash.
On Star Wars - I agree that the Thrawn Trilogy is very well done and well worth the read. After that it gets harder to find decent ones. Again, avoid KevinJAnderson at all costs.
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Well Splinter in a minds eye is one of the best sw novells imo and I love the1 and 2 book of the Darth Bane trilogy (didn't read nr 3 yet).
Allthough I'm a sW-fan I must say it doesn't have the feel of grandeur and brilliance in comparison with the work of Tolkien. Actually 99% of SW universe is pulp (though love that kind of pulp).
@Ulmo the writers you mentioned are that the ones you reed or the ones you say about: well they write intelligent and creates a real epic story? The only one I know is philip jose farmer. Saw a film based on his writings which I liked and I must say that his work seems interesting.
Update: I just learned that Syfy made a new tv serie about riverworld.
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Robin Hobb is quite entertaining, and I would absolutely recommend the George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, which is, imho, brutal. He is constantly switching and today's hero can be tomorrow's zero. I also enjoy the Wheel of Time cycle by Robert Jordan, allthough it is a bit far stretching at a certain point.....
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Well, as German Fantasy is one of the best,I read or have read:
Markus Heitz: (definitely at least number two of all living fantasy writers!, after Hennen, of course!)
Shadowrun (all 6!)
Vampires
Dragons (both)
All 9 Ulldart!
All 4 Dwarven Books!
and also some more...
Bernard Hennen (which is my favorite writer after Tolkien, btw!):
Everything, as last, Elven Queen!
At this point, I must say that if you understand German, Bernard Hennen is definitely the best. He writes fluently, but the describsions are awesome. Really cool storyline. I can just recommend his books!
Wolfgang Hohlbein:
Many, like some of his Elves, a Dragon book and some others
Witzko:
His 2 Goblin Books.
Christoph Hardebusch:
Trolls,
Sturmwerlten
Stan Nocholls:
Orcs!
Just to list some of them, now I'm reading the 4th part of the Great Dragon serie by Julia Conrad (read all the other parts before), which is, her best book at last.
I think since I really started to read fantasy (about a year and a half ago), I read about 150 books! I know nearly every author, and if your favorite one isn't listed here, I can name some others: Rowling (7 books), Cavanan (6), Licia Troisi (6), Alfred Bekker (6), Susanne Gerdom (3) and many, many, many others! I actually cansay that I'm an expert of German Fantasy!
EDIT: And of course all the Star Wars Books I didn't count into the 150 before, those are about 30.
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oh I know both hennen and heitz. Loved the dwarves (heitz) and loved the elves (thoughdidn't love the one with the poems)
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The Peom was awesome, but it was very difficult to read, and if you read a translation, stupid anyway.
Oh, und ausserdem, there are also some others that come to my mind;
The Hitchhiker's guide through the galaxy (all 7/8/9?)
Monika Felten: Elfenfeuer (all 3)
Morgan Howell (all 3)
and also some others, I think I'll get the whole list some day.
Of course, all books of Tolkien once in English, 5 or 6 times in German, about 10 times in Czechish and about 100 "???" (=die 3 Fragezeichen) when I was younger.
And when reading, what page rate do you have? I have about 100-130 pages per hour in Germna, 90-110 in Czechish, 70-100 in English, depending on the book. Really fast, uh?