I've never been an avid reader of science fiction excepting Gibson and Neil Stephenson. It seems to me (and this is entirely opinion since I've made very limited forays into the genre) that a good deal of science fiction writers are severely lacking when it comes time to develop characters. I tried reading Heinlein and couldn't believe a single one of his characters. I guess I'm just unreasonably picky and impatient.

I've been on a Mishima binge lately. He was an incredibly prolific writer but so many of his books and articles have never been translated at least into English. His politics (which also lead to his suicide) were sketchy to say the least but the writing is incredible. Spring Snow is on the top of the pile for me at the moment.

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I just wish I'd never learned of Card's political and religious ideas. I utterly and vehemently disagree with almost every one of those, and have started to become far too aware of them in his books, which means that I'm enjoying them a whole lot less than I used to do. Which is a big shame, for as seen as books by themselves they are very enjoyable.

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Card drives me nuts--I loved Ender's Game. But before that he wrote some really nifty stuff too, like A Planet Called Treason, Hart's Hope, & Hot Sleep. Unfortunately, as well as writing new stuff, he keeps rewriting his old stuff each time it is reprinted. And he makes it reflect his "current" worldview each time. And it gets more divergent from my worldview each time. Argh!

Look for Hot Sleep (not the Worthing Saga) or a really old copy of A Planet Called Treason. Both great reads from when he was younger and, I would submit, edgier too.

As for my list, I'm also posted on a dueling list elsewhere on this board.

Heh heh, this is lots of fun. I'm pasting a big-ass shopping list into my Palm Pilot.

Greetings:

Below you'll find my '01 and '02 reading lists. I started keeping a list of what I read each year in order to keep my database of books up to date, but also to see if I could recognize any patterns (hmmmm.....).

These lists scratch the surface, though. A **lot** of what I read each year is work-related (reports, articles, etc.) so I don't list that.

My habits are usually dictated by one book or event that will lead to other books. For example, tackling "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" has led to books on Alan Turing, cryptography, the network effect, "Cryptonomicon" by Stephenson, etc. The events of 9/11, in which I had the dubious honor of participating (and almost becoming a statistic) led to my reading and re-reading a lot of Spider Robinson and (more importantly, from the perspective of self-healing of the mental kind) Clifford Simak.

The lists, by the way, do not include volumes that still haven't been finished or volumes that I've tossed across the room because I could not get through them! If I were to list those titles as well, each list would probably double in size!

Without further ado...

2001 Books Read List

01: Shoemaker by Levy; D.H Levy
02: The Hobbit by JRRT
03: Mars by Bova
04: The Neptune File by Standage
05: Brief History Companion by Hawking, etc.
06: A Deepness in the Sky by Vinge
07: The Sun, the Genome and the Internet, F. Dyson
08arwin Among the Machines, G. Dyson
09: The Starship and the Canoe, M. Bowker
10: In Memory Still Green, Asimov
11: Drawing Life, Gelenter
12: Mars Crossing, Landis
13: Darwin's Radio, Bear
14: Just for Fun, Torvalds
15: Eater, by Benford
16: The World of Jeeves, Wodehouse
17: Faster, Gelick
18: Beyond this Horizon, Heinlein
19: Haunting of Hill House, Jackson
20: A Sense of Where You Are, McPhee
21: Is "Peckerhead Hyphenated", de Cordoba
22: SFWA Grand Masters Book. 1, Pohl
23: SFWA Grand Masters Book 2, Pohl
24: Failure is not a Option, Kranz
25: Collected Stories of ACC, Clarke
26: Over the River and Through the Woods, Simak
27: Lot/Lot's Daughter, Moore
28: Concord/Suisse, McPhee
29: Cosm, Benford
30: Timescape, Benford
31: To A Rocky Moon, Wilhelms
32: Ingenious Pursuits, Jardine
33: The Martian Race, Benford
34: Needle, Clement (part of Best of 1)
35: Mission of Gravity, Clement (part of Best of 3)
36: Lunar Lander, Kelly
37: Ice World, Clement (part of Best of 1)
38: Study in Scarlet, Doyle (SH-I)
39: Necromancer, Dickson
40: The Gateway Trip, Pohl
41: Gateway, Pohl
42: Beyond the Blue Event Horizon, Pohl
43: Republic, Friedman
44: Fermat's Enigma, Singh
45: Table of Contents, McPhee
46: September 11, 2001: A Record...; Editors of NY
47: One Nation; Sullivan/Time Life
48: Pine Barrens, McPhee
49: Holy War, Inc.; Bergen
50: 8:48 9/11, various
51: Tactics of Mistake, Dickson
52: Virtual Light, Gibson
53: In the Beginning was the Command Line; Stephenson
54: Lifeburst, Williamson
55: Kobayashi Maru; Ecklar
56: Blackhawk Down; Bowden
57: Idoru; Gibson
58: Vulcan's Glory; Fontana
59: The Halloween Tree; Bradbury
60: The World, the Flesh and the Devil; Bernal
61: Genius; Gleick

2002 Books Read List

01: The Marathon Photograph; Clifford Simak
02: Visions of Spaceflight; Ordway
03: Rediscovery of Man; Smith
04: High-Tech Heretic, Stoll
05: So Bright the Vision; Simak
06: Skirmish; Simak
07: Special Delivery; Simak
08: City; Simak
09: Goblin Reservation; Simak
10: Ring Around the Sun; Simak
11: Best SF Stories of C.D.S.; Simak
12: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!; Feynman
13: Lord Brocktree; Jacques
14: Man-Kzin I; Niven
15: Man-Kzin II; Niven
16: Man-Kzin III; Niven
17: Jack of Shadows; Zelazny
18: A Beautiful Mind; Nasar
19: Tom Swift and His Flying Lab; Appleton
20: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out; Fenyman
21: Star-Crossed Orbits; Oberg
22: Tom Swift and His Jetmarine; Appleton
23: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat; Sacks
24: To Engineer is Human; Petroski
25: What Do You Care What Other People Think?; Feynman
26: No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated Richard Feynman; Feynman & Sykes
27: The Meaning of it All; Feynman
28: Tuva or Bust!; Leighton & Feynman
29: Ghost from Grand Banks; Clarke
30: Tuesdays With Morrie; Albom
31: The Soul of a New Machine; Kidder
32: Firehouse; Halberstam
33: Report from Ground Zero; Smith
34: Callahan's Crosstime Saloon; Robinson
35: The Road to the Rim; Chandler
36: Contacting Aliens; Brin
37: To Prime the Pump; Chandler
38: The Hard Way Up; Chandler
39: Time Travellers Strictly Cash; Robinson
40: Last Man Down; Picciotto
41: Callahan's Secret; Robinson
42: An Introduction to Visual Deep-Sky Observing; Jordan
43: Callahan's Lady; Robinson
44: The Broken Cycle; Chandler
45: On Basilisk Station; Weber
46: The Honor of the Queen; Weber
47: The Voyage of the Space Beagle; Van Vogt
48: The Bad Beginning; Snickett
49: Starlight Nights; Peltier
50: Diplomatic Immunity; Bujold
51: Ingathering; Henderson
52: User Friendly I; Frazer
53: User Friendly II; Frazer
54: User Friendly III; Frazer
55: The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring Visual Companion; Fisher
56: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Visual Companion; Fisher
57: The Lord of the Rings: The Art of The Fellowship of the Ring; Russell
58: Journeys of Frodo; Strachey
59: Cryptonomicon; Stephenson
60: Farmer Giles of Ham; JRRT
61: User Friendly IV; Frazer
62: Full Moon; Light

2003...So Far...

01: The Short Victorious War; Weber
02: Longitudes & Attitudes; Friedman
03: Virtual Light; Gibson (re-read)
04: Crypto; Levy
05: Idoru; Gibson (re-read; in process)
06: All Tomorrow's Parties; Gibson (re-read; upcoming)
07: Field of Dishonor; Weber (in process)

"As for that downloading stuff, I think those guys who seriously consider that stuff are crazier than a sackful of rats."
--William Gibson

- James Ellroy
- Jack Womack
- one or two of Doris Lessing's
- Haruki Murakami
- post-"White Noise" DeLillo
- Philip K. Dick
- Martin Amis: contemporary fiction has few characters as vivid as Keith Talent
- the Pynchon of "V." and "Gravity's Rainbow"
- Stephen Baxter can be entertaining
- Paul Auster
- Michel Houellebecq, who I enjoy reading in the same way that watching a train wreck is compelling
- the guy that wrote "Rule of the Bone," what's his name, Banks?

It was not my intention that this list be (predominantly) a sausage party. I find it sort of upsetting that there aren't more contemporary women writers I enjoy.

i read a load of different things. but i'll try and keep it to SF roughly for the moment. several of the folk i'd recommend have already been mentioned, but i'll mention them again anyway just for the sake of it and just so that i don't forget anyone.

bruce sterling - obvious, but i just finished zeitgiest and think it may well be his best!

ken macleod - someone said the political references put them off his work, for me thats part of the appeal. though i guess by this point in his career it may becoming predictable. still, well worth reading.

greg egan - his short story work is mind blowing, particularly the "axiomatic" collection. i've been less impressed with recent work, but i suspect thats partly cause he blew so many circuits in my head already.

paul mcauley - particularly stuff like "fairyland" and "the invisible country" short story collection.

simon ings - just recently found a copy of his most recent book, "painkillers", which is a bit of a change. but totally recommend "hot head", "hot wire" and "headlong"

michael marshall smith - "only forward", "spares" and "one of us" are all worth reading. more recently he has turned to crime/horror writing under the name michael marshall, "straw men" being decent enough.

kathleen ann goonan - really pleased to see her "light music" just published in the UK, though for some reason the published seems to have decided to skip the third book in the series!

richard morgan - his debut novel "altered carbon" was certainly promising, i see he has a second book due soon, look forward to that.

ian mcdonald - just finishing "chaga" having read the sequel "kirinya" previously. both those and "ship of fools" are recommended.

steve aylett - "shamanspace" is his most SF based i guess, but his stuff is out there and quite mad, his beerlight stuff is quite funny as a sort of crime/sf/slapstick amalgam, his accomplice stuff is more fantasy based.

mick farren - recently read the collected edition of the "DNA cowboys" trilogy that was published last year. reminded me of his stuff i read when i was younger. "exit funtopia" strikes me as oweing a considerable amount to neuromancer!

hmm. suspect i missed some. but thats bound to give folk an idea of the stuff i go for.
regarding:
1 - iain banks - strangely i've been reading his non sci--fi stuff for like 10 years and only started his sci-fi stuff recently.
2 - jeff noon - i read automated alice and was extremely underwhelmed by it. since then i've picked up vurt and pollen cheap and found them much more enjoyable. undoubtedly there is some hype associated with him, but he isn't too bad, just different.
3 - murakami - personally i started with "dance dance dance", partly because of the bruce sterling quote on the cover, but also cause it is a really nice cover. as for "hardboiled wonderland" i am half way through it at the moment, it is sitting on my desk in front of me. it is the sixth of his books i've read, with another two at home in my "to read" mountain.

quote:

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Originally posted by remotepush:
kathleen ann goonan - really pleased to see her "light music" just published in the UK, though for some reason the published seems to have decided to skip the third book in the series!

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Could you tell me something more about how these books compare to others? They've been languishing kinda sadly near the bottom of one of my to read piles (I currently have seven, all reaching at least to my knees) and I've been pondering bumping them up a bit...

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Fall far, and fall well,
Sander - http://juima.org - Just Imagine...

Hello:

Here are some of the authors I read:

J.G. Ballard, James Ellroy, Steve Aylett, Tibor Fishor, Stever Erickson, William Faulkner, Bruce Sterling, Michael Moorcock, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Salman Rushdie, Martin AMis, Warren Ellis.

Read everything from non-Fiction to comicbooks.

During the semesters, most of what I read is for school. But two or three suggestions that I'm kinda surprised nobody's come up with yet:

"Only Begotten Daughter" by James Morrow. I flew through this and then went for everything else he's ever written, which unfortunately doesn't quite compare. All of his stuff is based on some pretty good concepts, but this one takes a great concept and puts it into a great story, takes the idea about as far as you could reasonably expect it to go and then shoves it a little farther... it's about Jesus's half-sister on his father's side and her mother's. More or less.

Also, lots of people seem to be big fans of Haruki Murakami, but nobody seems to have mentioned Ryu Murakami (no relation, as far as I know...) who won an award for his first novel, "Almost Transparent Blue," (late 70s, I think) and then wrote a second one, "Coin Locker Babies," in like 94 or 95. "Coin Locker Babies" is probably the novel I've read that works the hardest to push as many buttons as it possibly can. I don't really know how else to put it... if you think a good time would be waiting for surgery while you eat a rare steak and read "American Psycho," "Coin Locker Babies" might be the book for you. The opening sentence is a good indicator... I'm not going to put it here, but if you see the book, pick it up, read it, and aren't immediately tempted to burn it or throw up, you might be onto something good. Ryu Murakami also wrote the novel that the Takashi Miike film "Audition" was based on, if that rings bells for anyone.

Also: Borges is always a good idea. His collected short stories are out in a single volume from Penguin. Raymond Chandler is also always a good idea-- ALL of his short stories are FINALLY out in a single volume from Everyman's Library, as of recently. It's about time.

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Spike
Memes don't exist. Tell your friends.

the invisibles rock.
who else lives on an acid trip?

pc.

"Ryu Murakami also wrote the novel that the Takashi Miike film "Audition" was based on, if that rings bells for anyone."

Takashi Miike rocks!!! I saw Audition at the Seattle International Film Festival and people were leaving during the last twenty minutes of the film because it was so disturbing. Two other movies of his I've seen are Dead Or Alive and Fudoh:The Next Generation both worth looking for if your in to twisted dark movies.

I'll have to check out Ryu Murakami, see if I can find one of those books.

Gah, almost all of my faves have already been mentioned. Italo Calvino, Chuck Palaniuk, Don DeLillo, Haruki Murakami, Thomas Pynchon, Neil Stephenson et al. are there. As for others....can I really call Dave Eggers a favorite, given his small body of work? Well, I will, along with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ayn Rand (don't agree with her views or particularly enjoy her writing, but once a year I read Atlas Shrugged, just to clear my head with a world-view which is completely black and white), Christopher Buckley, Nick Hornby...
I've never really been into much scifi or fantasy, simply because in junior high I was repearedly told that I would, and I, in a valiant but ill-minded struggle, tried not to for six years. Even now I feel a shiver and glance behind myself when entering the SciFi/Fantasy section, lest someone see me. Any suggestions about what I should read to kind of ease myself in?

The Negative Utopia Trinary:

1984 - George Orwell
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
We - Yengeny Zamyatin

Other Favs

Mirrorshades - ed. Bruce Sterling
almost anything by Philip K. Dick
some of Robert A. Heinlein's stuff

Comics writers (seems like the Brits/Europeans make more imaginative scribes)

Alan Moore
Grant Morrison
Garth Ennis
Alan Grant
Pat Mills
Dan Abnett
Warren Ellis
Frank Miller

I have read stuff by Kadrey, Stephenson and a few other forgettable writers (their earlier works). Sadly, their early works didn't sustain my interest to follow through with the rest of their writings.

I am currently rereading the cheesily titled but beautifully written Songs for the Blue Ocean by biologist Carl Safina; it's a yearlong trek around the world assessing attitudes and facts about destruction of the oceanic ecosystem. It begins with a study of the loss of bluefin tuna in New England and the most graceful depiction of anadramous fishes I've come across; ending up in Pulau, where third world fishermen armed with AK 47s are trying to sustain their coral fisheries by using nets instead of dynamite. It's really a book about everything; history and science and politics and it has a wonderfully objective view of the working class people whose livelihood depends on fisheries. He doesn't mollycoddle them or romanticize them.

I have just picked up the third volume of Junji Itto's Uzumaki a manga about a small town infected by spirals. It was made into a terribly cheesy film, while the manga remains wonderfully unsettling for its ability to push the otaku-ization of a semiotic pattern in nature into a murderous obsession. It's wonderfully perverse in detailing the sweaty neuroses of fetishizing the secret code of the universe.

I'm also reading short stories by Michael Chabon; probably the best "bourgeois" novelist as J.G. Ballard would have it since Raymond Carver.

I think nobody mentioned yet When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger, a must for all lovers of cyberpunk and hard-boiled detective fiction. The rest of the books in his Budayeen trilogy(The Fire in the Sun, The Exile Kiss) are also excellent.

The Appleseed manga series by Masamune Shirow is one of the best SF stories I've read.

As for non-SF,I keep re-reading Chandler, Borgesand (Hungarian writer) Géza Ottlik.
I also really enjoyed Nick Hornby's High Fidelity;incidentally, in this book you can find the following list:

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I have read books like The Unbrearable Lighntess of Being, and Love in the Time of Cholera, and understood them (they were about girls, right?), but I don't like them very much; my all-time top five favourite books are:
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Sweet Soul Music by Peter Guralnick
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
and,I don't know, something by William Gibson or Kurt Vonnegut

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I haven't read Guralnick yet but I have to agree with his other choices..

quote:

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Originally posted by batou:

The _Appleseed_ manga series by _Masamune Shirow_ is one of the best SF stories I've read.

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Batou-san> Ghost In The Shell manga is much closer to the Gibson-ian Cyberpunk stories, heavily annotated with tech mambo jambo. Appleseed is leans towards the post-Apocalypse bent. Dark Horse comics is due to publish the second series of GiTS: MAN MACHINE INTERFACE (albeit without the sexier materials of the Japanese original)

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Where is the Disneyland?

hey FredKiesche i keep a list of books read just like yours and for exactly the same reason: for a record and also to discern any patterns that might show themselves between books. only big difference is that i put the date i finished after each entry. here's to being non-unique!

Hi all, first post here.
There's a name left off your lists that I have a feeling won't be left off similar lists you compose in the future. Neal Asher is a UK sci-fi writer just now really starting to make it in an international sense. Most of his works are temporarily unavailable due to his just getting signed to a new publisher. His writing is heavily influenced by the "classic" sci-fi writers of the middle part of the last cenutury, and incorporate horror, a touch of fantasy (though not in that crappy dragons and laser beams way that so many authors have tried unsuccessfully to pull off), and a bit of the cyberpunk. I can recommend Gridlinked, The Skinner, and Africa Zero. Gridlinked is pure sci-fi, The Skinner leans towards horror, and Africa Zero is a sci-fi tale that was originally serialized - I forget the magazine. Google him if you'd like more background.

kenneth rexroth (mostly his translations of japanese poetry), jorie graham (erosion), kierkegaard (the concept of anxiety), and paul feyerabend (against method)...actually, PR is the first novel I've read in a while- I've been on a philosophy kick (and I'm always on a poetry kick).

and Hanatsubaki mag ...

with a cherry on top

Jean Baudrillard and CTheory

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I am addicted to