Who's your favaorite author and what are the coolest/trippiest books you've ever read?

The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda that and anything by Bernard Cornwell

My favorite author is still Tolkien. Others have come close, but not quite made it.

In light of the world that we are living in and watching so many things that seem to be coalescing at this point, my vote for the trippiest books are 1984 by George Orwell, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and Phoenix Rising by Mary Summer Rain. To me the 3 of them (among so many others) really help explain whats going on.

Thanks for heads up on some of the others! I will have to start searching Amazon.

What a great topic....thanks OP!!!!!!!!!!

Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson

Accordian Crimes by Anne L Proulx

and this little ditty picked up at a used book store several years ago:

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Hard to pick the One favorite!!!

Namaste...

My fav's are Stephen King and Clive Barker. They aren't for the light of heart though. King's Under the Dome is dark, dark, dark. Barker's Imajica is trippy as hell. They both have many more.

Wow! I guess no one who sees this thread is going to be at a loss for a good book recommendation eh?

I find it intriguing the flavor of the reading taste of ATS'rs.

Oh to be independantly wealthy and take the time to just sit back and read and absorb all these wonderful books..

Curious how many of you have a Kobo or a Kindle Fire e-reader and what you think of it. Was it hard to get used to and do you think it's worth it to pick one up?

Here's my first stab at writing something "trippy" for those who might have an interest..

Galaxian, The Secret of Man

Writing is very HARD in my experience, but for me there's a great joy in the idea of writing with your reader already in mind, so there's a type of communion with the unknown reader while you write which is very generous and selfless (if not also somewhat vain). It's a very interesting process and I greatly admire writers for their creative genius, and I'm a little jealous that they can sit at home in their bathrobe with a cat on their lap doing nothing but researching and writing and thinking and creating worlds and ideas and realities straight out of thin air. It's a Godly act, writing is imho, because you create from nothing something real even if only as a potentiality in the future mind and heart of your future readers.

carlos castaneda yaqui way of knowledge....talk about trippy! There are also two other books to complete a great trilogy.

That is a really tough question, OP, but it is always a really good one.

So today for your thread, my favorite is...

...what are known as The Dryco Novels by author Jack Womack.

Which include, in order of publication date...

Ambient

Terraplane

Heathern

and

Elvissey...

Elvissey (1993) is a Jack Womack science fiction novel, one of his Dryco quartet, set in a dystopian 2033 CE. This fictional universe is dominated by Dryco, a Machiavellian multinational corporation which pursues its plans for global domination of its world, amidst runaway climate change, unstable weather patterns and rising sea levels, which threaten to eventually inundate old New York (although DryCo has constructed a "New" New York on higher ground). It won a Philip K. Dick Award in its year of publication.

In this novel, DryCo is facing problems from a mass religious movement centered on the premise that Elvis Presley was a semi divine figure, who performed miracles for believers in his sect. It decides to resolve this problem by retrieving a younger alternate history Elvis, and bringing him to present day New New York to discredit the posthumous reputation and mythology that now surrounds Elvis.

The retrieval team are a married couple, Iz and John. Iz is actually an African American, although cosmetic surgery has led to an uncomfortable masquerade as a "Caucasian" woman in the chosen alternate history. It turns out to be that of Terraplane, the previous novel in the DryCo quartet, where Abraham Lincoln was prematurely assassinated, the American Civil War never took place, and slavery was only abolished in 1907. Therefore, this world is backward when it comes to African-American civil rights, and racist segregation is still widespread there.

If you all are looking for trippy and something that you can't put down? Look no further than Jack.

You don't need to start in order either. The author's timeline within the series does not at all reflect the publication dates.

Have fun, I envy those reading them for the first time.



X.

So to sum up the thread Stephen King and Dean Koontz

I guess I should revisit them. I read IT twice and a handful of other King books, never any Koontz.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy

So to sum up the thread Stephen King and Dean Koontz

I mean no offense and I realize that you did not address me but, God man, I hope not.

I would do just about anything to get folks to read something else.

What about Jack Vance's, Demon Princes novels?

The Demon Princes is a five-book series of science fiction novels by Jack Vance, which cumulatively relate the story of one Kirth Gersen as he exacts his revenge on five notorious criminals, collectively known as the Demon Princes, who carried his village off into slavery during his childhood. Each novel deals with his pursuit of one of the five Princes.

If no one has ever read an actual Space Opera Vance's novels are a really fun place to start.



X.

reply to post by Xoanon


Have you read Weaveworld? Barker leans more to fantasy than horror but both are there. I read him before that but this guy is a helluvan author.

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy
So to sum up the thread Stephen King and Dean Koontz

I guess I should revisit them. I read IT twice and a handful of other King books, never any Koontz.

edit on 28-9-2012 by Lucid Lunacy because: (no reason given)

Not a fan of Koontz personally(I tried) but as to King I've read them all. He has his floaters like anyone else but he's more hit than miss. If you can get passed the Gunslinger(borriiiiinnnnnggggg) the rest of the Dark Tower series is excellent. Over half way though, 7 or 8 books, he says that this is his LOTR. I thought, "That's pretty arrogant" . But he pulled it off.

If you liked IT try Under the Dome. Warning though, it's his darkest I have seen. Necrophilia and all. Duma Key was good. Full Dark No Stars was good but dark as well. If you haven't read The Stand you haven't read his best. Well, with the exception of Different Seasons. That's not trippy though. Just his best. 3 out of the 4 stories were made into movies. The Shawshank Redemption. Excellent, both the story and the movie. The Body. You'd know it as Stand by Me. Great story and film. Apt Pupil. OK movie but great story. And the last wasn't made into a movie. Breathing Method.

Hands down(this might be seen as stereotypical) my favorite author of fiction is Phillip K. Dick. Trippiest book however is the Invisible Landscape by Terrence McKenna

I'd have to say the best are definitely the Dark Tower series,

reply to post by PatriotGames2


I agree with you completely, the Dark Tower Series are the best books I have ever read, so good that I worry that i'll never find another fiction book that could possible beat this series by Stephen King,

I'm not a really big reader but I do enjoy it when I get chance and I'd never read anything by SK before and my colleague at work begged me to read them, these books are unlike anything i've read ever, they really do open your mind up and get you thinking.

Have you read any other books that you enjoyed as much as the DT series that you could recommend to me please?

Thank you

reply to post by Minnie1985


I know this wasn't directed at me but King infused characters into the DT that came from earlier books. The Crimson King was first written about in Insomnia. Father Callahan is from one of his earliest books, Salem's Lot. Lots of flow there. If one is a fan and has read all along a bunch of stuff makes sense. It's like Tolkien's Silmarillion. Boring book but it makes the LOTR make much more sense.

Has anyone ever read Jonathan Livingston Seagull?

I have fond memories of it as a child (someone read it to me at some point I think), but otherwise, all I know is well, it's a cool name for a book and it makes you wonder how someone could write a story from the perspective of a bird in quest of self-improvement!

The book tells the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a seagull who is bored with the daily squabbles over food. Seized by a passion for flight, he pushes himself, learning everything he can about flying, until finally his unwillingness to conform results in his expulsion from his flock. An outcast, he continues to learn, becoming increasingly pleased with his abilities as he leads an idyllic life.

One day, Jonathan is met by two gulls who take him to a "higher plane of existence" in that there is no heaven but a better world found through perfection of knowledge, where he meets other gulls who love to fly. He discovers that his sheer tenacity and desire to learn make him "pretty well a one-in-a-million bird." In this new place, Jonathan befriends the wisest gull, Chiang, who takes him beyond his previous learning, teaching him how to move instantaneously to anywhere else in the Universe. The secret, Chiang says, is to "begin by knowing that you have already arrived." Not satisfied with his new life, Jonathan returns to Earth to find others like him, to bring them his learning and to spread his love for flight. His mission is successful, gathering around him others who have been outlawed for not conforming. Ultimately, the very first of his students, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, becomes a teacher in his own right and Jonathan leaves to teach other flocks.

How cute and marvelous is that?!

Part One

Part One of the book finds young Jonathan Livingston frustrated with the meaningless materialism and conformity and limitation of the seagull life. He is seized with a passion for flight of all kinds, and his soul soars as he experiments with exhilarating challenges of daring and triumphant aerial feats. Eventually, his lack of conformity to the limited seagull life leads him into conflict with his flock, and they turn their backs on him, casting him out of their society and exiling him. Not deterred by this, Jonathan continues his efforts to reach higher and higher flight goals, finding he is often successful but eventually he can fly no higher. He is then met by two radiant, loving seagulls who explain to him that he has learned much, and that they are there now to teach him more.

Part Two

Jonathan transcends into a society where all the gulls enjoy flying. He is only capable of this after practising hard alone for a long time (described in the first part). In this other society, real respect emerges as a contrast of the coercive force that was keeping the former "Breakfast Flock" together. The learning process, linking the highly experienced teacher and the diligent student, is raised into almost sacred levels, suggesting that this may be the true relation between human and God. Because of this, each has been described as believing that human and God, regardless of the all immense difference, are sharing something of great importance that can bind them together: "You've got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull." He realizes that you have to be true to yourself: "You have the freedom to be yourself, your true self, here and now, and nothing can stand in your way."

Part Three

In the third part of the book are the last words of Jonathan's teacher: "Keep working on love." Through his teachings, Jonathan understands that the spirit cannot be really free without the ability to forgive, and that the way to progress leads—for him, at least—through becoming a teacher, not just through working hard as a student. Jonathan returns to the Breakfast Flock to share his newly discovered ideals and the recent tremendous experience, ready for the difficult fight against the current rules of that society. The ability to forgive seems to be a mandatory "passing condition."

"Do you want to fly so much that you will forgive the Flock, and learn, and go back to them one day and work to help them know?" Jonathan asks his first student, Fletcher Lynd Seagull, before getting into any further talks. The idea that the stronger can reach more by leaving the weaker friends behind seems totally rejected.
Hence, love, deserved respect, and forgiveness all seem to be equally important to the freedom from the pressure to obey the rules just because they are commonly accepted.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Curious how many of you have a Kobo or a Kindle Fire e-reader and what you think of it. Was it hard to get used to and do you think it's worth it to pick one up?

I received a Nook color for Mothers Day. Besides doing crossword puzzles and checking my email it doesn't get much use. For some unfathomable reason I cannot get myself to read an ebook. It feels almost sacraligous to me to not read an actual book. I prefer used, dogged paged paperbooks in particular. In fact, I would much rather read a library copy unless I know for sure that a certain book will be treasured and read over and over by me and then I will purchase a used copy from amazon. Thank God for books!

reply to post by itsallmaya

I figure the main advantage to the e-reader is that all the old classics that are over a 100 years old and thus now in the public domain are available for free. The idea of collecting them all in one small device, is tantalizing.

Originally posted by k1ngarthur
The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda that and anything by Bernard Cornwell

Iv'e read a couple of his books but not that one. Amazing that he was able to chronicle such experiences, which eventually scared him so bad he took off without completing his training from Don Juan, although I understand that he eventually went back, and I think if I'm not mistaken that that's where this book you've mentioned enters the series.

Red Storm Rising is what got me hoocked on Tom Clancy because I was stationed on USNAS Keflavik Iceland at the time and the things he knew about the base straight up scared me. I was on what was at the time was called "Barracks Duty" and he knew things that he probably shouldn't have about the posts I was guarding. It turned out to be a good thing as it forced me to stay awake and patrol knowing that if he knew others knew. Peace.