Books

[The Duke]

I was just thinking that it may be interesting if anyone has read or heard of any good books as of late, things that have come about recently. It is something that hasn't been discussed on the boards yet, and I'd love to hear what people have to say.

[Üncle Snake]

With all the reading and writing I do at work, I haven't been reading as many books lately as I would like. The best one that I have read recently was "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right" by Al Franken. It's a really smart, funny read. His previous books are great too.

[The Duke]

I am about to start reading the Da Vinci code....I have heard mixed things about it (more good than bad, though). I t should be interesting, but also a bit confusing at the same time. I do appreciate more literary works, so I hope not to be disappointed.

[Stomper]

I like to stick to the Horror and Sci-Fi. I will be starting Stephen King's masterpiece, The Stand, here shortly. Will probably be reading that beast for months to come.

[muthagoose]

;D

I recommend anything by Chuck Palahniuk, the writer of Fight Club, Choke, Invisible Monsters.

I am currently reading Lullaby...

[Üncle Snake]

Oh yeah, I was reading Lullaby and was almost finished, but I stopped for some reason. I'll have to get back on that. I have his latest book, Diary, waiting for me after that.

Goose, have you read his others? Which is your favorite? Mine is probably Survivor.

[stallion]

Stomper-The Stand is probably the best book I've ever read. I recommend the uncut version. I don't know how much it adds to the story, but it was the shit. M-O-O-N! That spells Nebraska!

[muthagoose]

Snake -

I liked Survivor the best but Choke was almost as good. Invisible Monsters started out a little slow but is also a good read.

Diary is next on my list as well.

[stallion]

While Stomp is on the subject of Stephen King, I would like to recommend two of his lesser-known but truly epic books-The Talisman and Black House. Black House is the sequel to Talisman. Both have elements of fantasy, but enough drama and horror for even those die-hard King horror junkies. In fact, Black House might be one of the darkest books I've ever read. In the first book, a young boy learns of a parallel world to which he has to travel in order to save his mother, who is dying of cancer. In the sequel, he is a retired police officer who must again travel between worlds to stop a psychopathic killer who has also learned how to travel between worlds. They sound fairly simple, but the stories are like none you'll ever read. In fact, if they were to make movies of these stories and did it true to the books, they'd probably be among the best horror-sci-fi movies ever made. Unfortunately, given the poor translations of King books to movies (Cujo, The Dark Half, Thinner, to name a few), I don't see that coming to pass. Also in the King library that I highly recommend are the Bachman Books, a book with 4 stories King wrote under his pen name. One of the stories is "The Running Man", which the Schwarzennegger movie was based on, but bears little resemblence to the movie. In fact, really the only similarities are the names of Schwarzenegger's character, the game show host, and the fact that he's participating in a game show. Well, I guess this was a mini-version of Reflections in a Stallion's Eye, Hoss Goes to the Library. The real thing is soon to follow.

[The Duke]

Much like many of you, I also enjoy the sci-fi area of books. I recently read some of the Dune series by Frank Herbert, about the whole man vs. machine concept......very good stuff that I highly recommend. I also picked up Michael Crichton's Prey which is also very good. Right now I am in the middle of two books: Jack kerouac's The Town and the City, and dan Brown's DaVinci code, both of which are excellent reads.

[LotB]

I've read thousands of so-called "horror" novels, but the only one that has really ever disturbed me is "The Girl Next Door", by Jack Ketchum (pseudonym for Dallas Mayr). Unfortunately out-of-print, I still think you guys should read this if you really want to be hit hard. Copies are available through many aftermarket websources, like:

www.ebay.com
www.addall.com/used
www.abebooks.com
www.alibris.com

AddAll.com actually searches many different OOP engines. All the Ketchum books I've read so far are good, but this is the one that will fuck with your mind. Seriously. You will be pretty fucking disturbed.

Even worse, it is closely based on something that actually happened..

[LotB]

Richard Laymon

Another of my favorite authors, Laymon is an American who rose to fame in England and Australia, but has never gained the recognition he deserves here in the U.S. Mr. Laymon sadly passed away from a heart attack on Valentine's Day 2001, but left an impressive array of novels in his wake. Here's what I thought of the ones I've read so far:

Excellent:

One Rainy Night
Endless Night
Bite
The Travelling Vampire Show
Night In The Lonesome October
The Stake
Darkness, Tell Us


Pretty Damn Good(you might even find some of these excellent, I can be nit-picky):

Island
Blood Games
Midnight's Lair
Among The Missing
Flesh
Resurrection Dreams

Okay:

In the Dark

So-so/Not as Impressive by high standards that I hold Laymon to:

Allhallow's Eve
No Sanctuary

Anything published in the U.S. by Leisure Horror (www.dorchesterpub.com) can be pretty easily found; for the rest, try some of these sources:

www.ebay.com
www.abebooks.com
www.addall.com/used
www.amazon.co.uk

I highly recommend you familiarize yourselves with Richard Laymon.

www.ains.net.au/~gerlach/rlaymon.htm

[LotB]

Awesome Apocalypse Novel that you should read:

"Blood Crazy" by Simon Clark

This well-thought and executed novel by Englishman Clark kicks ass. It ranks up there with "The Stand" in my mind, though shorter and not as many characters to track.

[LotB]

Cemetery Dance

www.cemeterydance.com

Familiarize yourselves with Cemetery Dance magazine, and the authors and books that they publish. A lot of good stuff will turn up that way.

[LotB]

Graham Masterton

www.grahammasterton.co.uk

Masterton is an excellent novelist who once was the editor of Penthouse, back in the 70's. He wrote one story (read it here: homepage.virgin.net/the.sleepless/ericthepie.htm that resulted in every copy of a British horror magazine being pulled from the shelves. The magazine was subsequently banned in the U.K., and the publisher was driven to bankruptcy. It takes one hell of a short story to accomplish all of that.

[LotB]

Many thanks to Earl, for starting this thread.

[LotB]

Stomper -

Back in middle school, I took the time to read both versions of "The Stand", that being the original published version and the later "Uncut" edition. From what I can recall after all these years, the Uncut edition has a lot of additional scenes, and some scenes are altered. For example, between the two editions, a wholly different character picks up that crazy arsonist guy. There are more incidences like that, I just can't remember them.

[LotB]

"First Blood" by David Morrell

This is one of my all-time favorite novels that I read over and over. It is a pretty fast read, being short and straight action from the beginning. Don't let the later dumbass Hollywood "Rambo" movies prejudice you against the book. They are pretty much unrelated; the book contains the story as it is meant to be told. All of Morrell's books that I've read kick ass, but if you're going to read just one, read this one.

Added Warning: If you happen to pick up one of the newer editions of "First Blood" that proclaim "new introduction by the author", DO NOT read the intro 'til after you've read the book. The new intro gives away several big plot points, and worst of all, the ending.

[LotB]

I'm not a big short story reader, but Graham Masterton also wrote another one that is pretty disturbing. It's called "The Secret Shih-Tan", and can be found in the following compilations:

I45. THE SECRET SHIH-TAN.
a. in Faces of Fear, see "E4".
b. in Fear the Fever, ed Jeff Gelb & Michael Garrett, Pocket, USA 1996.
c. in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Tenth Annual Collection, ed Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, St. Martin's Press/Griffin, USA 1991.

I pulled this straight from the bibliography section at grahammasterton.co.uk. Any of these books can be found through engines I've mentioned in earlier posts.
d. in Manitou Man, see "E6".
e. see also "J5".

[LotB]

"Icebound" by Dean Koontz

Not your typical Koontz novel, this one is a straight Alistair MacLean-style adventure. Alistair MacLean also kicks major ass, BTW.

[LotB]

I think I've done enough posting for one day. I'll be expecting all of you to read at least something that I've recommended here. Otherwise, I may grow angry and exact my vengeance...

[LotB]

I agree with PT about the "Bachman Books" being a good read. Sadly, in an act of self-censoring wussiness, Mr. King had the book discontinued from publication. That's because there's a story in there about a kid who brings a gun to school. The FBI actually interviewed King in an effort to establish a profile of a child killer after the book turned up in the possession of at least two school shooters (that fat kid in the Pacific Northwest and some other one that I can't recall). After the interview, King called his publisher and had the compilation pulled. It can still be easily found online at any of the sources I mentioned in earlier posts.

[edub]

HurricaneEarl -

"Da Vinci Code" is excellent!!

read "Angels and Demons" first though, the main character of the "Da Vinci code" is introduced here first. Even you horror pervs might like this one, plenty of gruesome murders take place in "Angels and Demons" It is all about the Illuminati and the torturous murders of Popes with branding of their skin.

Muthagoose, there is actually some great Graphic design in the book.

www.danbrown.com/novels/angels_demons/reviews.html
(don't look at the secrets until you read the book)

[stallion]

It makes me sick that people censor the artist's form of expression because a few stupid people can't distinguish between fantasy and reality. If parents would raise their children better, you wouldn't have these assholes bringing guns to school and shit. But somehow it's Stephen King's fault, it's Marilyn Manson's fault, it's Hollywood's fault, all because there was a book or song or movie about it.

[muthagoose]

Thanks edub -

Consider it thrown in the Amazon Dot Com Cart!

mg