*updates his list*

Science Fiction(both realistic and fantastic):
Almost any of Orson Scot Card's writing(more specifically the Ender Series)
The Swarm By Frank Schatzing
The Berserker Series By Fred Saberhagen
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series(yes, yes I know. Of course. Shush all of you, you thought it too!)
The Genesis Machine By James P. Hogan

Horror:
The TommyKnockers By Stephen King
The Hollower(Hey, another author I can't remember, I'm pretty bad at this!)
The Shining By Stephen King
Anything by Micheal Crichton aside from the Andromeda Strain(it was far too complex...I understood it, but it wasn't a particularly fun read)
Salem's Lot By Stephen King
The Strain By Giermo del Torro(and some other fellow nobody's heard of before...see the below comment on being bad with names...)

Fantasy:
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy(I realize many people have already read this, but will reading it again really hurt?)
The Dark Tower Series By Stephen King.
Bridge of Birds by Hughart
The Last Unicorn by Beagle
Alice in Wonderland By Lewis Carrol
Through the looking glass By Lewis Carrol

Fiction(plain and simple):
Atlas Shrugged By Ayn Rand(yes, I know, but it was an interesting read nevertheless)
The Bell Jar(I know the author but the name escapes me...someone's going to string me up for this...)
Dispatches(yet another forgotten name...god, all three of these books are fairly depressing...)

Well, there that is. Thank you kindly Sessine for the author updates.

Now, as to the complaints.
Beeker: Understood, and your vote has been tallied. I'm in the same boat as you in regards to King and Crichton, but I'm such a fan of their work, I couldn't not put those books up there. And I know, ranting is a danger...but it happens everywhere. In any case, duly noted.

Sessine: Really? I was a fan of the first few books in the Dark Tower series, I thought they were inventive. Admittedly I got very bored with the series after book three, and I wouldn't recommend it all that strongly. However, I just wanted to put it up there as an option. And sorry for sounding so author ignorant, I own all of the books I suggested, but I'm away from home at the moment and I'm horrible with names.

This is the updated list as it stands, I'll update it more as I remember/you all suggest them!

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Some people see the glass as half full, some people see it as half empty, I just spit in the cup until it isn't a problem anymore.

King's a very good writer -- but he's not an SF fan himself and it shows. When he tries his hand at fantasy it has a paint-by-numbers feel to it. His heart isn't in it. No passion.

I'd suggest Charles Stross's Halting State... except trying to discuss that book in-character would probably blow a fuse somewhere. (Chapter One starts with the real-world police being called to a bank robbery in an online game. By a band of orcs, backed up by a dragon.)

yes...thats defiantly an in-game implosion in the works. I'll pop that one into the list for the next update, but I want to wait until I have a few more books/author names to update the thing. However, I do agree with you on the Stephen King comment, its very true. However, I mostly liked how smoothly the series weaved through all the different novels he had written and how it played a part in them all. However, the ending frustrated me...quite a bit...In any case, it is what it is

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Some people see the glass as half full, some people see it as half empty, I just spit in the cup until it isn't a problem anymore.

this has to be one of the most dangerous sentences of all time, it has so much awesomeness packed into it:

it has the muppets
it has swedish
it has chefs (i like the eating more than the cooking, but i can 'not burn water' also)
it has chinese
and it has mythology

the five other words are just there so it doesn't spontaneously explode.

what? oh there's a topic and conversation going on. ok, well, i like anything Asimov, Douglas Adams (Dirk Gently), Card, Moorcock and Pratchett.

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"tis better to be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt"

I'll be putting my own list up for critique shortly, I just wanted to throw my hat into the ring regarding King...

My problem with him is...his endings. A goodly chunk of his books read like this to me:

Good.....goood..........gooooooood...........oh, interesting idea..............oh, that's cool.................goooooooooood...............coming around the bend to the last fifty pages...........wait.....wait, what?....but.....but.........OH HE JUST GAVE UP DIDN'T HE.

Yeah, its unfortunate, some of his books do read like that...a good deal of them do actually. In any case, Nobody says we HAVE to read his stuff...in any case, yeah. I just figured I'd get a head start. When you put yours up, go ahead and just copy my suggestions in, then it'll just be one big list. It'll be Easier that way.

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Some people see the glass as half full, some people see it as half empty, I just spit in the cup until it isn't a problem anymore.

My list:

Otherland series by Tad Williams
The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton (This one can get rather vulgar at times, Your Mileage May Vary)
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Deep Drive by Alexander Jablokov
Airframe by Michael Crichton

Warning, Ayn Rand will also cause Beeker to channel his player ranting. It will not be pretty.

Hey, we could read Kierkegaard, which would make us really want to beat him up when we ran into him in the jungle!

I WANNA DO JASPER FFORDE. And if you take the time to look up his books, you might understand why

And I put my votes in for Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and...and...holdonlemme see what everyone else's suggested...

IAN FLEMING!!!

But my charries creator aside, lemme check my extensive bookshelf before I get my list back to you guys.

(Michael Critons "Timeline" is a good one, as are any Dragonlance, Song of Ice and Fire, Temeraire, Dragon Outcast, or Wheel of Time. Keep in mind, this is NOT my full list! )

I think the most exasperating book I've read was Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. That was such a slog, I only finished it because I told people I would. I have had more fun reading encyclopedias (seriously).

As for stuff I like to read. Most of which is the standard boilerplate (Or at least already mentioned):
Asimov, because I like how he integrates almost all his writing into a mostly cohesive universe.
Robert Heinlein. I have enjoyed Citizen of the Galaxy for years.
Orson Card, it never hurts to read Ender's Game when you are a still a kid.
Frank Herbert, the Dune series is epic and wonderfully complicated.
David Gerrol, I've had the first two books of the War against the Chtorr series, for i don't now how long and how many rereadings.
I was a fan of Tolkien, but his writing is so dry that I've not really wanted to revisit it much - especially the Simarlion (sp is wrong, so what?).
Tad William's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series is a favorite of mine,
William Gibson, the souce for cyberpunk, in my opinion.
P.K. Dick, wonderful mind trippy work. And how can anyone not enjoy Blade Runner?
Lemony Snickett's Series of Unfortunate Events. Sure it's a "kids" series, but even as an adult I've enjoyed the story so much.
Early Kurt Vonnegut, I've enjoyed his early stuff like Cat's Cradle and Sirens of Titan a lot, but the later books are less science fiction and more absurd, silly autobiographies which aren't as enjoyable for me.
1984, Brave New Word. They're good, they're distopian, etc,etc.
L. Ron Hubbard's Mission Earth Series. Ok, so maybe he was a nutcase, so maybe Scientology is silly and mocked. That's irrelevant for this silly and bizzare series. I find it better than his more serious Battlefield Earth book (the movie was a tragic accident waiting to happen).
Battle Royal by Koushun Takami. Violent and dark, a lot of people seem to know the movie (and it's sad, tragic movie sequel), even the manga version is pretty good.
Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, big huge, doesn't have many disposable characters that appear once and are never seen again - yes, I like how even minor incidental characters reappear throughout. It seems a nice way of giving a novel more of a feeling of consequences for the characters actions. (or something)

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Lions. Lions the whole way up.

In goes my oar again!

-- Has anyone considered making up books for this plot? That is to say, just inventing something absurd like: The Ghost of Brimshaw Street by Nathanial G. Housenburer. - Give a basic genre and a few names and we "make up" the story as we discuss? That might be more creative and fun than picking a real book and expecting people to read it in character. . . And it would also avoid awkward rants from Beeker, I'd think.

It's just a suggestion. Hopefully you know what I mean by that.

----------------------------------------
Also. . . nobody's mentioning my favourite classics! Are classics just too cliche or what?

hmm...thats an interesting Idea. I dont see why we couldn't do both. Every once in a while have our characters come up with a made up novel and we make it up as we go. However, an out of game one with real books, and having our characters read real books, also seems like a wonderful Idea. So yes, I agree so long as we can keep with the idea of including real books.

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Some people see the glass as half full, some people see it as half empty, I just spit in the cup until it isn't a problem anymore.

Oooh, I am INTO the fake book idea. Yesyesyes. Let's do that.

As for book discussions, we've already got a hoppin' one RIGHT HERE!

Ooh, most excellent suggestion, that. I propose writing a story about a big intelligent grizzly bear's adventures in and around the world of something not too dissimilar to your average text adventure (with all the lack of logic involved!) Essentially, what happens with a poor old II creature without getting horribly mauled by a marauding man with a rusty chainsaw and robotic armour. Or a story about an experiment gone bad resulting in a sentient cabinet with stereotypically mexican features (big sombrero, moustache, etc.).

Also, I heartily support adding Dirk Gently to that list (wonderful read. Convoluted as hell, but wonderful), and the Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea (a jumbled mess of sex, drugs, violence, conspiracies, half-truths and outright lies that somehow works perfectly well).

Because Ex Libris was *NOTHING* like Lost in a Good Book.

::shifty eyes::

"Don't pay any attention to her.

She reads alot."

_

"But, this is preposterous!"

"No. This is Kafka."

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`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

Ok, back on topic....

Love the idea of fake books for the RP aspect.

I also move to exclude entire series if we do this as an OOC thing. Having everyone read a single book, great. Even if they hate it, it's over and done. But a series is kinda rough to do in a book club. We've done it. It can heartily sucketh.

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`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

Ooh, this looks like great fun! I second the Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Also like to suggest anything by Neil Stephenson, my favorite author.
...
Also I'm back. Hi.

I third the Almighty Lord Pratchett.

Heck, i'll spontaneously develop several strange personalities and have them fourth, fifth, and sixth it.

Other suggestions; Cap'tan Buebear - Walter Moers, The Redemption of Althalus - D&L Eddings, and realy just any of the Empire books by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurtz.


Dusk; Now i have to go find those books and read them! Why did you do it! Oh, wait. First i have to buy an expansion for my bookcase. Its full. Again.

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"Censure acquits the Raven, but pursues the Dove." "So, that means i'm -always- innocent, right?"

HELLO BACK MAX


Aaalso. Since I'm one of those folks that will read pretty much everything... Of all those mentioned, the only two books which I have already read are The Shining and The Swarm (Schätzing, never read a book before that was so much made for picturising) , so I'll happily go and get whatever-ends-up-most-suggested.