Being a bookworm isn't easy.  It's so hard to have to do things like go to work, do your laundry, go grocery shopping, eat a meal, take a shower, go to the hospital because you're bleeding to death etc... when all you want to do is finish that damn book!!  And why?  So you could start the next one!!  My favorite genres to read are Sci-fi/fantasy and horror.  No, not the bloody-knife-we-sacrifice-your-child-to-the- powers-of-darkness horror.  Just stuff pertaining to fear of the unknown.  As you may deduce, my literary habits are quite diversionary.   If I am to read something, I want it to be as unrelated to the real world as possible.

     One trend I have been into for the last year or so is the distopian novel.  Works like Zameyetan's We, Frank Nolan's Logan trilogy, and George Orwell's 1984.  Basically stuff set in a less than ideal future that is supposed to be the "perfect" society.  Interesting stuff.

  Once again, here's a list of my favorites!

• J.R.R. Tolkien - His whole Middle Earth series is the best fiction I have ever read in my life.  Period.  I have read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, And The Silmarillion four times each.  In fact, it was Tolkien who got me started reading fantasy back when I was a 12 year old runt.  Even after all these years, his work is astonishing.  The benchmark against which all other epic fantasy is judged.

• H.P. Lovecraft - I must say that after reading his work nothing else scares me.  Sure, he wrote most of his stuff in the 1920's and 30's, but he had a way of scaring the bejesus out of you with the strangest things.  Mixing elements of horror, sci-fi, and archaism, Lovecraft has the most warped imagination I have ever caught a glimpse into.

• Anne Rice - Walking the fine line between elegance and trashyness, Anne Rice has a way of  making anything seem desirably scrumptious.   She could romanticize taking a dump on your neighbor's front lawn at 12 noon on Memorial Day...

• Frank Herbert - Forget Star Wars and Star Trek.   The Dune series is by and large the most incredible and thoroughly thought out science fiction epic there is.  Incredibly deep.  Incredibly complex.  Not for the faint of heart or the feeble of mind!!

• Robert Jordan - A true fantasy epic factory, I just wish he would find a way to end The Wheel of Time sometime during my natural life.

• Clive Barker - It is most unfair that Clive Barker is classified as a specialist in horror.  He is so much more than that.  In fact, he hasn't written a horror novel in the last 10 years!!  He is more of a modern fantasist.  Truly in possession of a remarkable imagination, Mr. Barker can even be spiritually uplifting from time to time.

• Raymond Feist, Tad Williams, Terry Brooks and Guy Gavriel Kay - All solid fantasy writers who write emotionally touching stuff on a grand scale.

• Robert Lumley - The complete polar opposite of Anne Rice.  A horror writer who possesses a twisted imagination and writes with the subtlety of a cinder block falling on your head.

• Simon Green - A nice change of pace from all the heavy crap I like to read.  A real gung-ho sci-fi writer.  He gets away with shit you wouldn't believe possible.  In Fact, it isn't possible!

• Dan Simmons - Though I have not read much of his other stuff, his Hyperion series is excelent.  He is one of those few writers that does not limit himself to any one genre, but writes in many of them.

[Home]  [News]  [About]  [Work]  [Music]  [Athletics]  [Literature]  [Misc]  [Links]
Contact me at marcusg@celeritycomm.com