Best And Worst Novels And Stories You've Ever Read

[BAYLOR]

a few that I can reliably reread and enjoy immensely every few year in no particular order

The Broken Sword - Poul Anderson
Three Hears Three Lions same

Midnight at the Well of Souls - Jack Chalker
The Warden Diamond series - chalker

The Dragon Never Sleeps - Glen Cook

Flamesong/The Man of Gold - MAR Barker

The Eyes of the Overworld - Jack Vance (anything by this author)

The New Sun series - Glen Wolfe
A Soldier in the Mist - Glen Wolfe (historical fiction/fantasy)

Armor - John Steakley

The Mote in God's Eye - Niven/Pournelle

Revelation Space - Alistair Reynolds (beware the bad 3rd book in this series)

The Compleat Enchanter series - De Camp/Pratt

The Gap Series - Stephen Donaldson

CJ Cherryh - most of the union/alliance-setting books.

Northworld trilogy David Drake (prose edda and other saga based-sf)
To Cross the Stars - Drake

Terrific List and welcome to Chrons.

 

[TWErvin2]

a few that I can reliably reread and enjoy immensely every few year in no particular order

The Broken Sword - Poul Anderson

Armor - John Steakley

These two are among my favorites. Good list Woofdog2

 

[Woofdog2]

These two are among my favorites. Good list Woofdog2

Thanks to you and baylor for the welcome. I tend to remember more best books the days following posting a list like this, or I go look at a bookshelf and remember better. I have read every book by every author on that list and in some cases am torn about what to single out as best. Often I forget a key favorite author for a week or more until I see the books on the shelf. I guess I am saying there will be an additions post in a week or so.....

other favorite authors predate the sf/f novel format and wrote in pulps (or, in hodgson' case, I am not sure what type of publication published him), W Hodgson, Fredrick Brown, Robert Sheckley, Clark Ashton Smith, Theodore Sturgeon...

NESFA has been a goldmine for me. I discovered Sheckley and Brown there plus many other long out-of-print authors. My general rule of thumb is you are unlikely to go far wrong buying anything from NESFA by an author you aren't too familiar with. Much of their list is available quite cheap second-hand.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

NESFA has been a goldmine for me.

Uh, what's NESFA?

 

[Woofdog2]

Uh, what's NESFA?

I cannot link yet but google NESFA press, and can click through to their both in-and-out-of print list. I bought most of mine well below retail on amazon used.

 

[Randy M.]

North East Science Fiction Association

I have collections from them of work by Sheckley, Cordwainer Smith, Fredric Brown, C. M. Kornbuth, and a few others. Really, a fine small press.


Randy M.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

Ah, good to know. Thanks @Randy M.

 

[Woofdog2]

THis weekends memory-supplement to my favorite novels list

A Talent for War - Jack McDevitt. I like this far better than any of the subsequent stories with these characters. to me this book is rather different in tone from anything else by him I have read.

Eisenhorn (omnibus of 3 books) Dan Abnett. also like this better than anything else the author has written, BL or not.

Santiago - Mike Resnick. his entire general frontier setting (in a few novels) is quite interesting.

 

[BAYLOR]

Gaunts Ghosts by Abnett some the best military since fiction I've ever read, also Caiphis Cain by Sandy Mitchell , Bastion Wars by Henry Zo, Baneblade by Guy Haley .

 

[Woofdog2]

Gaunts Ghosts by Abnett some the best military since fiction I've ever read, also Caiphis Cain by Sandy Mitchell , Bastion Wars by Henry Zo, Baneblade by Guy Haley .

some of the GGhost novels I thought were much better than others, and one subplot (the serial murderer) earlier in the series got a bit old to me.

I also liked Embedded (his non-bl novel a couple of years ago). I wouldn't mind seeing more independent novels from him.

What ever happened to the bequin trilogy? I read the first one and see no indication he published beyond that.

 

[BAYLOR]

some of the GGhost novels I thought were much better than others, and one subplot (the serial murderer) earlier in the series got a bit old to me.

I also liked Embedded (his non-bl novel a couple of years ago). I wouldn't mind seeing more independent novels from him.

What ever happened to the bequin trilogy? I read the first one and see no indication he published beyond that.

I didn't like Elijah Cue at all, it put me off a bit too, still like the series alot. Saw only the first book in the Bequin Trilogy , never read it though.

 

[Woofdog2]

I didn't like Elijah Cue at all, it put me off a bit too, still like the series alot. Saw only the first book in the Bequin Trilogy , never read it though.

eisenhorn vs ravenor wasn't bad but for now it is incomplete. I liked it BETTER than the last ravenor book.

right, i suspect most gghost readers hated elijah cue. I wonder if he had figured out the way cue would eventually die when he introduced the character?

 

[BAYLOR]

eisenhorn vs ravenor wasn't bad but for now it is incomplete. I liked it BETTER than the last ravenor book.

right, i suspect most gghost readers hated elijah cue. I wonder if he had figured out the way cue would eventually die when he introduced the character?

The sad part is Cue had a lot potential. I would taken Cue in different direction, I would not have made him into a villain serial killer. I would have made him a a heroic anti hero. There is so much Abnet could have done alot better with with him.

 

[BAYLOR]

The Deep by Peter Benchley Really not a good novel.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

I'm struggling with Neuromancer right now. Will stick with it for a while, but it may end up being a DNF. Will post proper review soon.

 

[Toby Frost]

A friend of mine once said it was like "a really good novel with a fifth of the words deleted at random".

 

[paeng]

Some of the best:

Nabokov's Lolita (clothbound Everyman edition, brand new from a bargain bin):

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”

Opening Lines of Lolita

In this archival recording, James Mason reads from one of the most recognizable beginnings of twentieth-century literature.

pen.org

Mishima's Sea of Fertility set (hardcover and used, but very good quality, and the price was regular):

“Dreams, memories, the sacred--they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are even marginally separated from what we can touch, the object is sanctified; it acquires the beauty of the unattainable, the quality of the miraculous. Everything, really, has this quality of sacredness, but we can desecrate it at a touch. How strange man is! His touch defiles and yet he contains the source of miracles.”

Spring Snow Quotes by Yukio Mishima

78 quotes from Spring Snow (The Sea of Fertility, #1): ‘Dreams, memories, the sacred--they are all alike in that they are beyond our grasp. Once we are e...

www.goodreads.com

Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov (clothbound, Everyman's edition, brand new from a bargain bin):

“The more stupid one is, the closer one is to reality. The more stupid one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence squirms and hides itself. Intelligence is unprincipled, but stupidity is honest and straightforward.”

The Brothers Karamazov Quotes by Fyodor Dostoevsky

1968 quotes from The Brothers Karamazov: ‘Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that ...

www.goodreads.com

Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (clothbound, Everyman's edition, SRP):

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

On the Iconic First Line of One Hundred Years of Solitude

I have come very late to the work of Gabriel García Márquez. I cannot quite explain why it has taken me so long to read one of his books: perhaps there was too much of a sense of duty about the end…

lithub.com

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

A friend of mine once said it was like "a really good novel with a fifth of the words deleted at random".

I continued with it last night. There was a scene where the protagonist gets taken to meet a 'Mr Big' character who offers him coffee. He then tries to throw the hot coffee over Mr Big, who ducks. They then continue the conversation as if nothing had happened. Why did he throw the coffee? Why does nobody remark on it? I have no idea.

I'd say your friend missed the mark (like the coffee-throwing hero of the book). It is more like a really good novel with a fifth of the sentences deleted at random.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Here it is:

"Get some coffee in you. Look like you need it." She took

off her black jacket, the fletcher hung beneath her arm in a

black nylon shoulder rig. She wore a sleeveless gray pullover

with plain steel zips across each shoulder. Bulletproof, Case

decided, slopping coffee into a bright red mug. His arms and

legs felt like they were made out of wood.

"Case." He looked up, seeing the man for the first time.

"My name is Armitage." The dark robe was open to the waist,

the broad chest hairless and muscular, the stomach flat and

hard. Blue eyes so pale they made Case think of bleach. "Sun's

up, Case. This is your lucky day, boy."

Case whipped his arm sideways and the man easily ducked

the scalding coffee. Brown stain running down the imitation

rice paper wall. He saw the angular gold ring through the left

lobe. Special Forces. The man smiled.

"Get your coffee, Case," Molly said. "You're okay, but

you're not going anywhere 'til Armitage has his say." She sat

cross legged on a silk futon and began to fieldstrip the fletcher

without bothering to look at it. Twin mirrors tracking as he

crossed to the table and refilled his cup.

"Too young to remember the war, aren't you, Case?" Ar-

mitage ran a large hand back through his cropped brown hair.

A heavy gold bracelet flashed on his wrist. "Leningrad, Kiev,

Siberia. We invented you in Siberia, Case."

 

[Toby Frost]

Yes, there's quite a lot of that. I'm not going to say that all becomes clear if you keep reading, but I will say that the sequel, Count Zero, is a much better book and does all the things that Neuromancer tries to do. It also contains sufficient words.

(Edited because I forgot the title of the second book!)