Will you really be reading during your family Thnksgvng party*? Or is it you are staying overnight and need something to do before sleeping? *might not be a bad thread to create- odd things we've done at parties
The Mars Series by Kim Stanley Robinson - Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars, about people from Earth colonizing and terraforming Mars. I agree with Badger that the Foundation series (the original three books - the others were written much later and weren't that great) by Asimov is amazing. Slightly less well-known were the two robot mystery novels, Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, which were terrific (later novels with the same characters, like the later Foundation books, were not as good). And one of the most currently obscure Asimov novels, The End of Eternity, was completely outside the Robot/Empire/Foundation worlds, and is a fantastic look at a subject he rarely treated, time travel. I remember being amazed when I read it one summer about 35 years ago (gulp).
I've read the first 3, and I have the next 2 and 1 of the prequels but haven't gotten around to them yet. I didn't know there was a dropoff in quality but I think I'll still want to find out what happens.
If you want something that'll take forever to read, with awesome characters and some interesting twists, you might wanna look into the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. There's like seven volumes or so, and each one is long enough to last you a good while. But, like you mentioned, King has problems ending his stories, and the finale is somewhat disappointing. It's still worth the read though.
the dan brown books are similar in plot, character, everything. If you read one book of his, it looks good. But it got to the point where I could predict stuff in other books based on what I've already read of him. Not a very creative or flexible writer.
I went Foundation --> Foundation and Empire --> Second Foundation. Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation are prequels. Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth are sequels.
easy reads, but if you get a couple of them, it may last you thursday-sunday... the Myron Bolitar series. they are mystery books written by Harlan Coben
Dark Tower by Stephen King is excellent A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin is just as excellent, but only 4 of 7 planned books have been written. Both of those series is about 2000 pages, so that will keep you busy. I just pickedup A song of Ice and Fire in the spring and I have read the 4 books, back to back. Very good series
I agree. And also very unpredictable, imo. The only problem is waiting for the fifth book to come out!
Objectivism may be inane, but Atlas Shrugged is really entertaining fiction, and the plot in Atlas Shrugged is as original as it gets. If you like long books written by insane Russians, I recommend the Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. -X-
I never really understood the prequel dynamic. Writing something afterwards that happened earlier in the timeline. What I never figured out was whether it's best to read them in the order the author wrote them, or in the author's chronology.
In the Dan Brown-type books, you would really enjoy anything by John Case. If you want something along the King/Koontz lines, there's Dan Simmons' horror novels and Robert McCammon. Anything by these authors is worth a try. If you want just certain books instead of authors, Carrion Comfort, Dan Simmons The Genesis Code, John Case The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers and as for a series, if you want to get more involved, The Otherland series, Tad Williams