Finding Previously Read Books

[solacedagony]

Hi, I'm new to the forum here. I was just at Barnes and Noble and picked up the DragonLance Chronicles set which sparked my interest in finding science fiction/fantasy books that I read a few years ago but cannot recall the names of. I'm hoping I can describe the book enough for ANYONE to give me some kind of a lead on finding.

First off, I read the Tripod series, which I found again. Cool books.

One book I want to read again was a book about a virtual reality game which three people are in. One guy is in a wheelchair, one girl is a diabetic and one younger kid is a hacker of the system. Each chapter is told from one of the character's POV and the next chapter is given from another's characters POV. The hacker locks the diabetic girl in the game and the guy in the wheelchair has to save her life.

Another book I wanted to find was about a guy who finds this silver pool out in the woods. He jumps in it for a swim and finds a shining thing at the bottom of the pool. I vaguely remember it turning the people who were diving into the pool transulant and eventually making them disappear. The guy in the book fights it somehow at the end.

I've read Ender's Game, which I loved, and Sphere, which the movie was based from. I'm going to start rereading the DL Chronicles tonight. I also read a really cool short story by Kurt Vonnegut in English Comp II last semester called Harrison Bergeron.

Thanks for taking your time in reading my post!
Jake
aim: solacedagony
email: arsonicconvergen@hotmail.com or arsonicconvergen@gmail.com
icq: 14260031

 

[Nesacat]

The book about the virtual reality game I think is Killobyte by Piers Anthony. I read it quite some time ago but it's available on Amazon.

Here's what Amazon has to say:
This stand-alone book by the bestselling author of the Xanth series features two characters who play a computer-generated virtual reality game called Killobyte. Walter Toland, an incapacitated former policeman, and Baal Curran, an angst-ridden, diabetic teenage girl, get to know each other as they enter into a game that calls for them to rescue a princess from a castle. But then they find themselves trapped inside the simulation by a hacker named Phoney Phreak.

 

[solacedagony]

Thanks so much! I really like this one. I'm going to order up the Tripod series and that book when I get my income tax refund.
I just finished two books in the DragonLance Chronicles series. I totally forgot how great reading is!

 

[Dr. Atomic]

Careful solacedagony -- I've gone back to re-read books I enjoyed in my past, and discovered that they lost a lot now that I'm older. Ruined more than a few nice memories for me...

I don't read much fantasy anymore -- some weird fiction, but not the normal sword and sorcery type stuff -- but I remember really liking the Dragonlance books. Every once in a while, I consider going back to read them again -- especially after I had a chance to speak with Tracy Hickman. But part of me resists the urge because I don't want to risk ruining them. So for now, I'm content to stick to my memory of the stories.

 

[solacedagony]

That's a good point that I didn't at all consider. I am surely enjoying the DragonLance books again, but I don't remember what age group the other books may have been aimed at. I also mostly enjoy the straight fiction as opposed to the sword & sorcery fantasy type stuff. I mostly read fiction earlier as well, but the Dragonlance Chronicles was one that stuck out to me. Any interesting/weird fiction you could personally recommend? I enjoy space/sci-fi and odd fiction very much.

 

[Dr. Atomic]

Well, as far as weird fiction is concerned -- and I mean Weird Fiction, as in the category of stories that generally appeared in Weird Tales and Unknown (as opposed to fiction that's just plain weird, if you catch my drift) -- Lovecraft is the textbook example of a weird fiction author. But many stories by Bradbury and Theodore Sturgeon also qualify. Most of their non-science fictional work...

As for science fiction, I wouldn't even know where to begin with suggestions. There's SO MUCH out there. I'd poke through this forum and see if any of the books discussed catch your eye. If after all that you're still trying to figure out what to read, drop me an email or private message or whatever and I'll toss some suggestions your way.

You could just go to the book store, start at A, and work your way through to Z.

 

[j d worthington]

For weird fiction, a good general guide is Lovecraft's essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, for things up to the 1920s or early 1930s:

The H. P. Lovecraft Library

Scroll down to Supernatural Horror in Literature. There's also an entry to help you link to many of the stories HPL suggests. For others that aren't available there, a lot of them are now available in either electronic or pod formats, so you should have no trouble finding a huge selection to choose from. (Unless you are a fan of the older literary classics, I'd suggest picking up the essay from about the fifth chapter on (though there are some wonderful things in the earlier chapters as well).

Also, S. T. Joshi has done some nice anthologies of weird classics, as well, such as Great Tales of Terror, Great Weird Tales, etc. Or look for the older paperbacks by Leo Margulies, Weird Tales, Worlds of Weird, The Unexpected, The Ghoul Keepers, etc. Or D. R. Bensen's two anthologies from Unknown magazine, The Unknown and The Unknown 5. There have been several anthologies that are quite good selections of stories from the weird pulps; most are devoted to WT itself, but some, such as Rivals of Weird Tales, is a selection from a variety of them, Weird Vampire Tales the same (some very unusual versions of the vampire family here...), etc. Not all horror, either. There's humor, fantasy-oriented weird, atmospheric pieces, grotesques, etc.

 

[Dr. Atomic]

Hey, thanks for the suggestions, J.D. The Lovecraft link, in particular, is useful for the few things I didn't already know about. But the anthologies -- just what I've been looking for. I'll never get tired of reading sf, but there are times when I don't mind a break, and I'm not in the mood for non-fiction, and still want something out of the ordinary... A nice tale of the inexplicable tends to act as a perfect counterpoint to all the technological gee-whizery.

 

[j d worthington]

You're welcome! Just call me your friendly neighborhood (book) pusher....