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October 2025

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[Teatime]

PUNISHER :D:D

Shut up. The recent run written by Garth Ennis was good stuff. Quite an odd mixture of realistic guerilla war with some over-the-top action and characters.

Hzza, the question is what you are looking for. "Watchmen" and "Evil Ernie" are very different animals.
Great stuff I can recommand: "Transmetropolitan", "Preacher", "Hellboy", "Batman: Killing Joke", "Batman: Dark Knight" (very different story than the movie), "Planetary", "Hard Boiled" (has nothing to do with the John Woo movie), "Astro City", "Fables", "Marvels"
(and these are just a few of the very best)

[Chaos]

ok i deserved that

[Hzza]

Yeah J, I was 8, I didn't know any better! Cheers for the recommendations Tea, was thinking about checking out Killing Joke and Hellboy anyway. V for Vendetta is another one that caught my eye, I like the Alan Moore style.

[Finaldeath]

I'd recommend Hyperion (there's 4 in it's series) by Dan Simmons, which was pretty damn good, defiantly a page turner, and not too steeped in sci-fi rubbish to make it silly.

I too say Iain M Banks is good - I've only read 2 so far, have several more but want to get the set before starting some of the others (despite them being independent novels). I'd recommend The Player of Games right away for the crowd here though

Also, the Iain Banks novel The Crow Road is good too. I think The Steep Approach to Garbadale might be okay, I've only just started this. I'd say avoid any of his other ones under the name "Iain Banks" though just from what I've heard (these two are decidedly different then the rest of the ones he's done).

Terry Pratchett is very good - I would say read them in order (some of the later ones do much referral to previous books), especially since there are some rather more unique pieces of writing early on when he didn't have the setting nailed down, although the early Mort, Wyrd Sisters and Pyramids do well. One of my favourites (and entirely readable separate from other books, since it is set at a rather distant point in the past) is Small Gods. Some of the later ones are okay, although Going Postal and Making Money are...urg, not so great to me (The Truth was okay though).

I also have read David Eddings' The Belgariad, which was okay despite the abundance of tropes.

Some good ideas for books I've not checked out here, although I have a set of Azimov, Philip K Dick and other classics to read at some point, heh.

[Nineblade]

I envy you lot with your literary knowledge. Unfortunately I never learned to read that well because our family was so poor, only the eldest 3 were allowed to have two eyeballs.
I had one eyeball up to the age of 9 but couldn't turn the pages properly without binocular vision so I gave up until we could afford another one for me. I'll never get that time back *sigh*

[LtMama]

A personal favouite author of mine is Sven Hassel. Wrote his first book, "Legion of the Damned", whilst in a PoW camp. For the most part it's fictional, but he draws from events that did occur during his time in the german army. Basically it's written in the first person.

He's danish (OMG) and joined the Wehrmacht. After a year of serving during the war, he tried to escape and didnt come back after short leave. He was then captured and made to serve in a penal regiment. That part is all true about his life. The shenanigans that him and his friends get up to after that are just awesome and sometimes totally ridiculous (for example, escaping from persuing russians but jumping onto a herd of cows and riding them back to their lines)

Sounds a bit retarded but all great reads. A must if you love a bit of WWII

Also Max Brooks. I'm prepared for the zombie invasion now. are you?

[[ZiiP] Lazzars]

got march battalion and monte cassino on my book shelf next to me and legion of the damned at home.

they are fun to read but contain A LOT of fiction for a supposed set of memoirs

[LtMama]

Lol i know, I don't think he claims them to be accurate memoirs. i believe it's decribed as a pseudo-autobiography.

Besides, I doubt that he fought on the east, west and southern fronts. sometimes at the same time

And somehow i dont think Porta really had an eating contest with a Yank in the middle of no mans land

[Gasman]

My God, Final! Hyperion is seriously hard core SF and not for the faint hearted. It is good but not the best. I've said it before but two classics are the unmissable Dune (the serious wallows at times but is worth it if you buy into the Dune Universe), and Eon (absolutely the best SF novel ever). Iain M Banks is good but very difficult if you are not immersed in the genre. Peter F Hamilton is one of the later and better but his endings can suck. Pratchett is good if you want comedy writing.

[Hzza]

Oh yeah, everyone should read The Count of Monte Cristo and Crime and Punishment. Just because I had to (g/f bought me both) and ended up really enjoying them! Crime and Punishment is hard work though. Russians have too many names!

[Finaldeath]

My God, Final! Hyperion is seriously hard core SF and not for the faint hearted.

I disagree since I think it was one of the most simple books I've read recently (and certainly less tiring), very well laid out, and is just perhaps long, compared to much sci-fi (which is exceedingly short at times). The first book is perhaps slightly confusing since you are placed in the setting with little build up, but is easily taken at pace with it's "Canterbury tales" like way of formatting. Unlike most sci-fi which throws around garbled technobabble languages, masses of technology, alien races, tons of Deus Ex Machina and so forth, it's pretty simple damn on the technology front too. Just my experience with it though.

I have, however, not read Eon or Dune, although isn't Dune meant to be hardcore itself? I can't compare them to those novels, but I found them actually easier to read then Iain M. Banks stuff, which varies from book to book but sometimes is very confusing and/or unexplained or rushed in places (with masses of technology to contrast!).

Considering I am not a hardcore sci-fi reader (having only read a half-dozen authors), I must say, if you are and you're shying people away from it, I don't really understand why Maybe I don't read the "more accessible" stuff?

Oh, and also, I think pidegonholding it in "sci-fi" is bad too. Like many sci-fi stories, the technology/science doesn't necessarily make the books, as I am sure is similar in Dune and Eon. It's hard to say what is accessible, but you might as well start with short stories I guess?

[Gasman]

I think the really hard core, space opera stuff such as Eon is where it's at. Banks would perhaps be the modern epitome of that. But you have to concede that the modern trend with these writers is to conceptualise a universe and baffle the reader for at least the first half as the threads are pulled together. Take Ian F. Hamilton's latest Dreamer series as a good example of this. Had you not read the prequel trilogy, you would not have a clue. Now, whilst this vast conceptualisation is what appeals ultimately to the SF buff, it's also what completely deters the genre attracting a new audience. Hence my comment hard core. I would always encourage anyone to try SF but wouldn't want them put off by starting in the wrong place.

Most SF addicts probably evolved into the genre from kids. So you gradually move up into the more hard core zone.

Don't miss out on Dune. Just don't. Read it and then admit I have made your life complete.

[Junta]

With Sci-Fi I like a lot of the older writers: Asimov (which as I recall hasn't many fans here)

The man was genius to write so much before his time I-Robot was an interesting set of stories... Foundation was better. Read these as a kid but haven't gone back to them much.