# Your best I book?



## Saeltari (Jan 17, 2009)

What is your most favorite 1st person novel, and why?

What hooked you about it?


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## Hilarious Joke (Jan 17, 2009)

Easy, the Hobb Farseer books.

I guess what hooked me was how real it all seemed, I fully understood why Fitz did things and enjoyed learning about the world through his eyes.


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## dask (Jan 17, 2009)

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES by Arthur Conan Doyle. I like the book Dr. Watson much better than the amiable buffoon portrayed by Nigel Bruce in the films. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike the film Watson -- I enjoy him immensely. When he's not playing the clown he truly is the perfect Watson. The book Watson is, I don't know, more in command of himself and doesn't take a back seat to Holmes even though he's not his intellectual match. Or something like that.


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## Culhwch (Jan 17, 2009)

Bernard Cornwell's _The Winter King_. A brilliantly written first-person. Extremely immersive, and a great take on an old theme.


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## Lioness (Jan 17, 2009)

Hilarious Joke said:


> Easy, the Hobb Farseer books.
> 
> I guess what hooked me was how real it all seemed, I fully understood why Fitz did things and enjoyed learning about the world through his eyes.



Agreed with this. I really loved the Farseer books. 

Second after them is Twilight.


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## chump (Jan 17, 2009)

Culhwch said:


> Bernard Cornwell's _The Winter King_. A brilliantly written first-person. Extremely immersive, and a great take on an old theme.



That is what I was going to say.


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## Connavar (Jan 17, 2009)

*The Killer Inside Me* by Jim Thompson.

_"Probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered." --Stanley Kubrick_

Dexter books and all other books about a likeable,twisted killer  copies this book.

I liked the fact that it was a small town sheriff in texas who acted like a dull,slow avreage guy when he was really a clever,twisted killer with a sickness he cant control.  
No romantizied,charismatic killer that seduces his prey here.  Just a small town guy who is really much more twisted.


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## AE35Unit (Jan 18, 2009)

Easy,2001 a space Odyssey 
Reason?its the first book I read that depicted space as it really is while giving a sense of wonder,something sadly missing from a lot of SF.


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## Scifi fan (Jan 18, 2009)

I don't know if 2001 was a first-person novel, but my favorite one would be the award-winning short story, "Enemy Mine" by Barry B. Longyear. Another one would be the novel, "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman.

Brings back memories, just to write about it.


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## AE35Unit (Jan 18, 2009)

Scifi fan said:


> I don't know if 2001 was a first-person novel, but my favorite one would be the award-winning short story, "Enemy Mine" by Barry B. Longyear. Another one would be the novel, "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman.
> 
> Brings back memories, just to write about it.



I'm a confused about this first person malarkey but my other half informs me that 2001 isn't technically first person but Enemy Mine is(the film anyway) as its a case of one person telling a story. I suppose an example of that is the one i just read,Podkayne of Mars as she tells the story all the way thru(apart from the postlude). Also the one i'm reading now,Midwich Cuckoos,is narrated by one person so thats first person too


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## Saeltari (Jan 18, 2009)

AE35Unit said:


> I'm a confused about this first person malarkey but my other half informs me that 2001 isn't technically first person but Enemy Mine is(the film anyway) as its a case of one person telling a story. I suppose an example of that is the one i just read,Podkayne of Mars as she tells the story all the way thru(apart from the postlude). Also the one i'm reading now,Midwich Cuckoos,is narrated by one person so thats first person too


 

In general if the narrator references themselves as "I" it is first person.


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## ratsy (Jan 19, 2009)

Robin Hobb's Farseer and Tawny Man by Far. 

Also Rothfuss's Name of the Wind (mostly told in first person)


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## Aeris (Jan 21, 2009)

Granted, it's not TECHNICALLY first person, more omniscient 3rd person, but I love the Ender's Shadow series.

Let me explain why it's relevant: You get to follow all of the main character (Bean)'s thought processes. The novels were just so well written, and I really liked seeing the Ender world through fresh (and impossibly smarter) eyes. While there is still a lot of innocence laced through Bean's thoughts (since he's 4 when you first start learning about him), he is impossibly old.

If that makes sense.


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## Spade (Feb 19, 2009)

The Dark Beyond the Stars by Frank M. Robinson. I've never been so engrossed in a first person novel before.


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## Sargeant_Fox (Mar 20, 2009)

I just read James Hogg's _The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner _and it's one of the finest first-person narratives I've read in a while. Robert Wringhim is a young man raised in a strict Calvinist surrounding and he believes he's predestined to eternal salvation. So he wonders if that means he can commit whatever sins he wants without damning himself. One day he meets a man who convinces him so (and who's clearly the Devil) and Wringhim starts doing God's work by killing sinners. But he has doubts and throughout the novel he wonders whether he's right or whether he's just a deluded loon.

I loved it.


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