Good books needed. :)

[alva]

The annual bookfair is in town and I'm looking for a few good books.
It's a pretty big one, about 200.000 titles and you needn't worry about translations.
I don't mind reading books in a different language as long as it is English.

Books here aren't really cheap, so I do prefer soft-covers.
Hardcover often start at 25$/€ (and those aren't the expensive ones), while soft-covers usually are 10 to 15$/€ which is more acceptable to me.

What I'm especially looking for: (if you have a suggestion that doesn't fit into any category, please, post them anyway )

Science fiction:
But not the hardcore or punkfiction(?) a la Greg Bear.
I'm looking for more 'realistic' SF, Arthur C. Clark style.

Historic novels
I really like this genre, because as with the above books,
they often offer a good story and an easy involvement threshold while at the same time have good educational value.
The trouble is that they are often very innacurate and don't really deserve the historic part.
The good thing is that most of you here are history buffs, so that shouldn't really be much of a problem.
The topic isn't really important, I'm interested in most historical periods or figures.
Think the ' I, Claudius ' serie by R. Graves for example

Thriller
Not horror !!
What I'm looking for, I can probably best describe using an example:
Gorki park - Martin Cruz Smith
Great book especially since for some reason I like books about snow, don't know why, I just do.


War books
Need I say more.



BTW: Has anyone seen 'Hunting Chris Ryan' on the BBC? I quite enjoyed the two episodes so far and by accident,
I last week discovered, quite by accident, he has written a couple of books.
Has anyone here read any of them and more important, are they any good?

Thanks,

PS: Rereading my post, I can't but notice I just descibed Civ meets Alpha-Centauri, haven't I. Well, now I know Why I like the Civ-series, I guess.

[Combat Ingrid]

I have not read it, but it got excellent reviews: "Poltava" by Peter Englund.
It deals with how Russia beat the crap out of the Swedish army in Ukraine in 1709. Bastards.

[aneeshm]

Issac Asimov's Foundation novels (If you don;t have them already) .

Also "The third world war" , by Humphrey Hawksley .

Thrillers - Prey , by Michael Chricton .

Will add more if I can think of any . Please excuse my rather outdated reading habits (if they are outdated) , I live in India .

[alva]

Thrillers - Prey , by Michael Chricton .

Just started on 'thimeline', i do like his books.
-
I read one or two of the Foundation serie, but never really got into them.

"Poltava" by Peter Englund.

Sounds good.
All are added to my list.

[Spiffor]

Harry Potter

[Kuciwalker]

If Spiffor is recommending Harry Potter, I'll chip in and say read at least the first few books of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. First book is titled Eye of the World.

[alva]

@ Spiff : Et tu filii et tu..(sp?)

I'll read one of them eventually, but not right now, maybe in a couple of years when the hype has ( hopefully) gone down.

[aneeshm]

HP really has matured a LOT in the last two books , specially the last .

[FrustratedPoet]

I've enjoyed the first two books in Robert Holdstock's Merlin Codex series. The first one is called Celtika and the second is The Iron Grail.
They aren't exactly historical books, but are re-imagining of ancient mythology: it mixes celtic and arthurian myths with the greek classics (Jason is a major character). T
hey have very mixed reviews on Amazon, but I really liked them. The language might be quite difficult for a non-native speaker, but I'm sure a smart guy like you won't have any problems.

[aneeshm]

I highly recomment The third WW , it has a special appeal for us civers .

[self biased]

the mote in god's eye, by larry niven. also the sequel, the gripping hand.

i'm going to reccomend clive barker's the great and secret show and everville as a pseudoscience fiction. barker's most noted for his horror, but i think it's a more accurate description to say that he writes about the fantastic... things that seem supernatural at first glance, but really aren't.

akso, the galactic mileu trilogy, by julian may

[Kuciwalker]

I second the Larry Niven books.

EDIT: Also get his books The Smoke Ring and The Integral Trees.

[St Leo]

Alternatively, just get The Smoke Ring and The Integral Trees by Niven. Pournelle should stick to writing columns in Byte.

My personal Niven favs are Ringworld and Rainbow Mars.

[Verres]

As far as Historical Novels go, Benard Cornwell is meant to be a v good author. Never read any myself, but have heard many favourable reports.

I think they are set around the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

[FrustratedPoet]

Laz is writing a historical novel, which should be worth reading when it's done.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Verres
As far as Historical Novels go, Benard Cornwell is meant to be a v good author. Never read any myself, but have heard many favourable reports.

I think they are set around the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

I just read his Warlord Chronicles and they were outstanding. They redo the Arthurian legend in a more realistic setting. Good, good stuff. The books are:

The Winter King
Enemy of God
Excalibur

Now, they don't really fit into any of Alva's categories, but they are really good reading none the less.

[cinch]

It's not technically a novel, but Simon Winchester's "The Professor & The Madman" is a great historical read, if you haven't already. I just roared through that one; it's quick, easy, & delightful.

Has anyone checked out Winchester's latest ("The Meaning Of Everything") yet? I found "Krakatoa" to be a bit of a misstep (but still good)... Never the less, I'll definitely be picking up "Meaning..." on my way home from uni next week.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by alva
@ Spiff : Et tu filii et tu..(sp?)

Nope. Never even opened a Harry Potter Book. It was just an immature post (I have thought of posting "whatever you read, do not read Harry Potter", but I thought it was an obvious troll )

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Verres
As far as Historical Novels go, Benard Cornwell is meant to be a v good author. Never read any myself, but have heard many favourable reports.

I think they are set around the time of the Napoleonic Wars.

That's his Sharpe series. I've read them all, and they are excellent

His Warlord triology about King Arthur is also great. As is his novel Redcoat, set in the American Revolutionary war.

His Starbuck series is set in the Amercan Civil War but I just couldn't get into it. Two medieval tales: Archer and Gallow's Thief I also couldn't get into.

Plus, he wrote some modern-day thrillers set in the Caribbean, which I haven't even looked at.

[self biased]

Footfall! larry niven and jerry pournell. niven always comes up with the neatest aliens. also flatlander and crashlander are good bets if you can find them.

[aneeshm]

And also in thrillers :-

"The Blue Nowhere"
byJeffery Deaver

[Ben Kenobi]

Bernard Cornwell is meant to be a v good author. Never read any myself, but have heard many favourable reports.

He's an excellent historical author.

[St Leo]

My recommendations:

-Roger Zelazny's original and second Amber series
(Nine Princes in Amber/The Guns of Avalon/Sign of the Unicorn/The Hand of Oberon/The Courts of Chaos and Trumps of Doom/Blood of Amber/Sign of Chaos/Knight of Shadows/Prince of Chaos)
-anything by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), Terry Pratchett (Colour of Magic), Robert Rankin (The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse), and "Grant Naylor" (Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers)
-Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
-Hyperion by Dan Simmons (I don't like it much, but it's classic sf)
-anything by China Mieville (The Scar; warning: "punk")
-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

[Kuciwalker]

Thimothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy. And his Hand of Thrawn duology. Those are the best Star Wars books out there.

[St Leo]

I've reread the Thrawn trilogy about a year ago and it sucks now that I am not fifteen. It's just one meaningless coincidence after another.

[MrRanchito]

The Foundation Series is excellent SciFi.
The positronic man is also good.
Anything by Clark is worth reading.

George Orwell's lesser know books are really really good. I particularly recommend Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Others, Down and Out in Paris and London, Burmese days.

For something to make your head hurt,
The Illuminatus Trilogy or Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy both by Robert Anton Wilson.

[molly bloom]

Alva:

Historical novels-

Alan Savage: 'Eight Banners' set during the Ming/Manchu dynasties.

Also his 'Ottoman' and 'Moghul' novels- the titles are self-explanatory.

Patricia Finney: 'Firedrake's Eye' and 'Unicorn's Blood'- set in England's Elizabethan golden age, and centring on a plot to assassinate the Queen. With lots of lovely historical detail on the Elizabethan criminal underworld, the Jewish diaspora following the Reconquista, and Sir Francis Walsingham's spy network.

Marguerite Yourcenar: 'Zeno of Bruges' and 'Anna, Soror...' and 'Two Lives and A Dream' (title?)- alchemy, science, the occult, the barrier between dream and reality, they're all interwoven in this novel and the two novellas.

Two alternate reality novels:

Keith Roberts: 'Pavane'- set in a world where the Armada succeeded, following the assassination of Elizabeth I. A resurgent Catholic England helped crush the Reformation in the Low Countries and Germany. How would science and knowledge have been affected by the triumph of the Church Militant? A wonderfully poetic evocation of a possible future.

David Downing: 'The Moscow Option'- what if the Germans had pressed on to Moscow, and had seized control of Egypt?

www.booktrail.com/Military_WWII/MoscowOption.asp

Science fiction:

Cecelia Holland: 'Floating Worlds'

Ben Bova: 'Colony'

David Brin: The Uplift sequence (six novels, several short stories)

Detective novels:

Alex Abella: 'The Killing of the Saints'- Santeria and a murder mystery.

Walter Mosley: All his Easy Rawins novels, from 'Devil in a Blue Dress' onwards.

Arturo Perez Reverte: 'The Flanders Panel'- art history, a pictorial conundrum, chess and murder.

Didier Daeninckx: 'Murder in Memoriam'- a story based around a shameful episode of post-WWII French history.

[Myrddin]

Try anything by Iain M Banks

[lord of the mark]

Paul Berman's "Terror and Liberalism"

[alva]

Thanks peeps , I'll see if I can find any tomorrow.
I'll check in again in the morning to see if more are added