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[heydude6]

The Discworld novels.

These books are in a weird limbo between famous and obscure. On one hand, many people talk about it on the internet and I’m certain you’ve heard of them. On the other hand, no one I met in the real world knows that they exist.

In case you’re in the latter, the discowrld novels are comedic fantasy novels that take place on a disc on top of four elephants who themselves are on top of a giant turtle flying through space. They’re a joy to read and I can’t think of a book that didn’t make me laugh at least once.

Lots of fans like to debate which order you should read them in, but chronological is generally good enough. If you want my suggestion though, start with the first two books (they aren’t that good but they bring a lot of worldbuilding which will help you appreciate some of the later novels including the next one you read), then read the fourth book (considered by many fans to be one of the best in the series and my personal favourite), afterwards read the fifth book and go back to the third book (then notice the similarities between the two and understand why I wanted you to skip it), and from then on just read chronologically.


Alternatively, if you just want to read one book, I would recommend The Count of Monte Cristo.

It’s a large one, but don’t worry about stupid author tracts, all of those pages are filled with plot. A bit slow at the beggining, but it picks up once the titular count gets introduced. He’s quite the magnificent bastard. The novel is also surprisingly progressive for its time so that’s a plus.


If you want something smaller, then 1984 is the book for you. It picks up relatively quickly and it’s one of the only few classics that are still relevant to our modern times. Very intelligent book. Best enjoyed after reading the entire Hunger Games trilogy first.

[Reelya]

Terry Pratchett hey? Just out of interest are you in America? Because in UK/Australia he's probably much better known.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In the 1990s he was the #1 selling author in the UK. And there are tv cartoons and live-action movies of his stuff in the UK, some of which have been broadcast in prime family-oriented holidays such as easter. So it's pretty mainstream in the UK to know about Discworld.

Due in part to the complexity of the novels, Discworld has been difficult to adapt to film – Pratchett was fond of an anecdote of a producer attempting to pitch an adaptation of Mort in the early 1990s but was told to "lose the Death angle" by US backers.

... told to "lose the death angle" when pitching an adaptation of Mort.

Also, Robert Rankin. If you want someone that's a lot like Terry Pratchett, but way more fucked up. He started in 1981 however, so he's no Pratchett knock-off.

Tom Sharpe too, who was writing stuff like that but in the 1970s. He's good, but much darker comedy than Pratchett.

[Archibald]

Ookay... looks like God himself blessed me with the gift of never knowing what FATAL is. Now you ruined it. Thanks guys. Also thanks Reelya, what was read cannot be unread anymore...

I read 1984 and Animal Farm. Read the latter in one day and it kinda made me laugh (even if I have no idea if I was supposed to laugh).

I heard about Discworld but I don't think I will read any of them any time soon. Got a huge reading list and I have no idea if I will be able to read it all. Including, but not limited to, Warhammer 40k series (although I can't fucking seem to find any), Brothers Karamazov, Memoirs of a Geisha, Epic of Gilgamesh and The Tale of Igor's Campaign.

I would also reccomend "The Man in the Iron Mask" by Dumas, "Heart of Darkness" by Conrad and "Gargantua and Pantagruel" by Rabelais if you are into classics. Also, Pere Goriot by Balzac. This one actually hooked me into reading.

For horror fans: Re-animator (short story) and The Color Out of Space. While I hardly doubt anyone can seriously get scared by a horror book (it is not the same as a movie, where you can kinda visualize it and have the sound effects), it is one of those works that set foundations for today genres. Especially cosmic horror.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Someone mentioned Shakespeare. I have to say that I read Othello, Hamlet and Henrik (can't remember which one). I just hate that everyone has to die in the end of every work. Once you read few of his works, you kinda expect to be the same ending over and over.

As for greek tragedy, I read Antigone. The only way for me to understand anything was to lock myself in a quiet room and read it as slowly as possible.

[Reelya]

Warhammer 40k series

I'm going to be brave and state here that W40K novels aren't going to be very good compared to Terry Pratchett novels.

Terry Pratchett was the single most praised fantasy author in Britain in the 1990s. While 40K novels are all written by people nobody outside the game will ever hear of, because they are far below the level of the worst legitimately published author on the market.

They are amateurs (games players/game book writers) paid by Games Workshop to produce "novels", and the novels are "edited" by other people who work for Games Workshop. Then those novels are "published" by Games Workshop. None of the people involved in this process know the first fucking thing about how the industry normally develops novels. Notice how nobody is recommending 40K novels to their friends unless that friend is already a 40K person. That's because they already know the books suck compared to normal books. If any of them didn't suck, then those would naturally attract readers who don't play 40K. But that isn't happening.

You'd better off going to a bookstore and picking up a sci-fi or fantasy novel at random, of someone you've never heard of that has at least a few books on the shelf. It would probably be 10 times better than the best 40K novel in existence, because that person you've never heard of is selling books because they know how to actually write, not because they were paid a commission to write a book about a battle between Eldar and Orks or some shit.

[SalmonGod]

I never hear anyone mention Roger Zelazny.  I've only ever met 1 person other than my dad who had read any of his work not on my recommendation.  He doesn't get nearly enough love.  I recommend to everyone to read some of his stuff.

For some credential as to the quality of his work, many of today's biggest sci-fi/fantasy authors sing his praises.  Most prime example among them I know off the top of my head is Neil Gaiman, who names Zelazny in the dedication of American Gods.

[Reelya]

Ah yeah, Zelazny, i used to have one of his anthologies called Unicorn Variations. It was pretty good.

[SalmonGod]

George R.R. Martin has a memorium to Zelazny on his website, written when he died in '95.  Looks like he was one of Martin's inspirations, and they also became good friends later.

Neil Gaiman credits Zelazny as being his biggest influence.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Warhammer 40k series

I'm going to be brave and state here that W40K novels aren't going to be very good compared to Terry Pratchett novels.

Terry Pratchett was the single most praised fantasy author in Britain in the 1990s. While 40K novels are all written by people nobody outside the game will ever hear of, because they are far below the level of the worst legitimately published author on the market.

They are amateurs (games players/game book writers) paid by Games Workshop to produce "novels", and the novels are "edited" by other people who work for Games Workshop. Then those novels are "published" by Games Workshop. None of the people involved in this process know the first fucking thing about how the industry normally develops novels. Notice how nobody is recommending 40K novels to their friends unless that friend is already a 40K person. That's because they already know the books suck compared to normal books. If any of them didn't suck, then those would naturally attract readers who don't play 40K. But that isn't happening.

You'd better off going to a bookstore and picking up a sci-fi or fantasy novel at random, of someone you've never heard of that has at least a few books on the shelf. It would probably be 10 times better than the best 40K novel in existence, because that person you've never heard of is selling books because they know how to actually write, not because they were paid a commission to write a book about a battle between Eldar and Orks or some shit.

Listen mate, get off your high fucking horse. Terry Pratchett may be a legend, but there are plenty of hiqh quality 40k novels. Gaunt's Ghosts in particular are actually worthy reads. And guess what, there are plenty of trash sci-fi novels out there. Damn man... 40k is at least a breath of surprisingly fresh air in a genre that has been absolutely fucked by the academic establishment and all but abandoned by the contemporary community except as yet another method of achieving the ever-vaunted and increasingly idiotic and mind-numbing label of "literary fiction." God, 21st Century sci-fi is largely a fucking embarrassment.. at the very least, 40k novels aren't afraid to explore the unknown, to imagine something a little different, or to carry on with unabashed camp, and with GWS being run by brain-damaged monkeys I suspect we'll lose even that.

Don't get me wrong, READ Sir Terry, he is excellent--but don't discount 40k because they're not towering achievements of mankind.

[Archibald]

Methinks Reelya read something from Ward or Goto. That or he/she is a fanboy/fangirl.

But I agree with McScoopbeard. There are some trashy novels out there (dime-novel anyone?) where you can see that the author just does not care about his work, but writes them only to get a quick buck. This seems to be a trend nowdays, as most books rely on "spit on something/make fun of" technique to gather their audience. You know that if you write a novel-sized rant about how you hate religion you are quickly gonna get an audience of those who hate thinking that someone may have a different opinion than them.

One example of a trashy novel is the Twilight series. I wanted to see why people hate it so much, so I picked one and read it. Good God, it is not so much about the plot as it is the horrible (and I really mean horrible) writing. I dunno about you, but when you read 50+ novels, you kinda develop this sixth sense where you see just by reading that the author did not give a fuck about the book.

[Reelya]

Methinks Reelya read something from Ward or Goto. That or he/she is a fanboy/fangirl.

Fanboy? How? I suggested reading anything that's not that. How is that being a fanboy? Did you miss the part where I said go to the bookstore and pick just about any author? That's not fanboying. You go to a good bookstore and look over their sci-fi section and they'll have the best stuff written in the last 50 years, right there. 90% of it will be way better than those 40K books. The point with Pratchett is he is an award-winning best-selling author. I only brought him up because you mentioned ditching him to make time for the 40K books. That's not fanboying either. If you'd mentioned ditching Tolkien then I'd have said the same thing about Tolkien, or any of a multitude of other authors. It was only Pratchett because that's who you mentioned.

Perhaps some of the 40K books are fun to read. But the point is ... don't go for "40K books" because they're 40K books. If you have an author who isn't successful with non-fans he's probably a shit or mediocre author. Good stuff will get popular with people who aren't into the game at all. e.g. Dungeon's and Dragons had one author, R. A. Salvatore, who got 22 books onto the New York Times Bestsellers list. And it wasn't just D&D players reading those.

Basically, the main person in 40K writing who seems worth a damn is Dan Abnett. He was a writer for 2000AD comics and marvel as well. Sounds like you should just read his ones to start with. Most of the other writers sound pretty terrible, and not just Ward and Goto.

Sure, read a couple, but why would you waste all your time on fanfic-level game company books if you aren't going to check out what's considered the best in the genre? And you want to read fanfic level stuff instead of that? It just boggles the mind.

[Trekkin]

If you do insist on reading 40k, though, you could do worse than Dan Abnett (of the aforeranted Gaunt's Ghosts) or Sandy Mitchell. I leave it to people with stronger feelings than me to decide whether they're "worthy" or not, but I enjoyed them when I was a kid.

[Reelya]

Yeah, it's purely per-author with those kinds of things. e.g. I read a pile of D&D novels years ago, they range from terrible to mediocre. R.A. Salvatore was the only one who really stood out as a good writer in his own right, with those. And they only got him by luck. All of TSRs in-house writers were various shades of terrible, but then R. A. Salvatore happened to send his first manuscript to them along with a number of other publishers, and they managed to hire him since he was a D&D fan.

Game company novels really are glorified fanfic in print.

[Archibald]

Before this turns into a shitstorm, I will remind you that I also wrote other books. I picked 40k cuz I am new to the fandom and I wish to get a feeling of it through few novels. The reason why I chose to put Terry aside is because frankly I am not interested in his works and from the looks of his books, they don´t really look appealing.

[Eschar]

I would love to write in-depth reviews of these books, but haven't the space, so I'm using quotes.

- Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (Douglas Hofstadter)
"A metaphorical fugue on minds an machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll," as the subtitle says.

- Code: the Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software (Charles Petzold)
I was delighted to find this article on programmer Jeff Atwood's blog, praising Code. As he wrote in the article, the book is "a collection of elegantly written sonnets" to the computer.

I highly recommend that everyone on the forums reads these two books (preferably everyone, but that's too ambitious.)