201 replies to this topic

[the black stone]

members, i just ordered a book WIND FROM THE NORTH by JOSEPH O'NEILL---WRITTEN IN 1934--i do not know much about it, i took a chance . it seems i read that it involves a clerk that regresses back into a viking during the battle of clontarf.do any experts on this list know of it?--i bought it because it reminded me of the james allison/people of the dark and star rover type of genre---ralph g

[sonny sixshooter]

Has anyone read Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs series ?

I was hoping for recommendations about similar cyberpunk like,thought provoking SF.

I know I am almost a year late in reading your post, but yes, I have read them. Great sci-fi action! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find anything to match it. Maybe some of the older William Gibson stuff, but that's about it.

[gunslinger1611]

Another late entry:

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

"A masterpiece of modern Gothic literature, Something Wicked This Way Comes is the memorable story of two boys, James Nightshade and William Halloway, and the evil that grips their small Midwestern town with the arrival of a "dark carnival" one Autumn midnight. How these two innocents, both age 13, save the souls of the town (as well as their own), makes for compelling reading on timeless themes. What would you do if your secret wishes could be granted by the mysterious ringmaster Mr. Dark? Bradbury excels in revealing the dark side that exists in us all, teaching us ultimately to celebrate the shadows rather than fear them. In many ways, this is a companion piece to his joyful, nostalgia-drenched Dandelion Wine, in which Bradbury presented us with one perfect summer as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old. In Something Wicked This Way Comes, he deftly explores the fearsome delights of one perfectly terrifying, unforgettable autumn."

A hauntingly great read that I highly recommend.

[Mikey_C]

members, i just ordered a book WIND FROM THE NORTH by JOSEPH O'NEILL---WRITTEN IN 1934--i do not know much about it, i took a chance . it seems i read that it involves a clerk that regresses back into a viking during the battle of clontarf.do any experts on this list know of it?--i bought it because it reminded me of the james allison/people of the dark and star rover type of genre---ralph g

It looks very interesting; I've just checked his wiki page and it appears that none other Karl Edward Wagher was a fan of one of his books! Let us know what you think of it.

[Lord of the Animals]

I recommend Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt.I knew some things about the plight of the West Memphis Three- Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Miskelly, Jr.- beforehand, but reading the book disturbed me and angered me. I was less than a month from graduating from high school when the murders of Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch occured. I'm glad I didn't grow up in West Memphis, Arkansas, because I probably would have been a suspect. I listened to Metallica and read Stephen King in high school, and that was actually used as evidence that Echols and Baldwin were in a Satanic cult. I'll have to track down the two documentaries about the case.

[EM Erdelac]

Hey all,

Thought I'd throw The Merkabah Rider series in the ring.

Set in 1879, it's a weird western which follows the adventures of a Hasidic gunslinger as he searches the Southwest for the renegade teacher who betrayed his mystic order of astral travelers. The books are written like pulp novella compilations (a nod to the Lancer REH collections), but maintain a sequential continuity.

Among other supernatural perils, The Rider (so called because members of his order assume titles to protect their true names from malevolent entities) battles a cult of Molech worshipers, a possessed ex-Confederate sharpshooter, a bordello of succubi, Lovecraftian entities, and a gang of half-demon outlaws with a mystic intelligent cannon forged during the War of Heaven by Satan.

The first two installments (Tales of a High Planes Drifter and The Mensch With No Name) are available in print and ebook on Amazon from Damnation Books.

The Cimmerian wrote the first book up awhile ago -

http://www.thecimmer...me-weird-tales/

[Crawley]

Another late entry:

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

"A masterpiece of modern Gothic literature, Something Wicked This Way Comes is the memorable story of two boys, James Nightshade and William Halloway, and the evil that grips their small Midwestern town with the arrival of a "dark carnival" one Autumn midnight. How these two innocents, both age 13, save the souls of the town (as well as their own), makes for compelling reading on timeless themes. What would you do if your secret wishes could be granted by the mysterious ringmaster Mr. Dark? Bradbury excels in revealing the dark side that exists in us all, teaching us ultimately to celebrate the shadows rather than fear them. In many ways, this is a companion piece to his joyful, nostalgia-drenched Dandelion Wine, in which Bradbury presented us with one perfect summer as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old. In Something Wicked This Way Comes, he deftly explores the fearsome delights of one perfectly terrifying, unforgettable autumn."

A hauntingly great read that I highly recommend.

I wonder how much the novel varies from the movie Disney put out years ago? I always want to read Bradbury stuff during the fall. Just Picked up a hard cover copy of "The Halloween Tree" another one that I've only seen the film version of.

[Crawley]

I recommend Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three by Mara Leveritt.I knew some things about the plight of the West Memphis Three- Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jesse Miskelly, Jr.- beforehand, but reading the book disturbed me and angered me. I was less than a month from graduating from high school when the murders of Christopher Byers, Michael Moore, and Stevie Branch occured. I'm glad I didn't grow up in West Memphis, Arkansas, because I probably would have been a suspect. I listened to Metallica and read Stephen King in high school, and that was actually used as evidence that Echols and Baldwin were in a Satanic cult. I'll have to track down the two documentaries about the case.

I watched a documentary last year about this. I was surprised at how calm and intelligent Echols was given what had happened to him he should be angrier than hell. I know that Henry Rollins has been very supportive of getting these young men released and also there was one of the mother's who they interviewed who believes it was her ex-husband that murdered the little boys. Very sad situation all around.

[muskrat]

I'm sure someone's already brought this up, but has anyone here read NIFFT THE LEAN by Michael Shea? It was published in 1982, and spawned a couple of sequels, I believe, but I've only read the first. Pretty entertaining, I must say. Nift is a thieving swordsman/conman/adventurer, featured in four different tales which are interwoven by a 'funeral' narrative. The tales have a pulpy, Fafhrd And The Grey Mouser vibe, with a lot of humor (but not goofy, Hollywood style humor) and Shea has a flair for Howard-esque discription. There's trips to hell, fishing in the demon sea, vampire queens...all sorts of good stuff. I recommend it.

Edited by muskrat, 22 August 2011 - 04:17 AM.

[Ironhand]

I'm sure someone's already brought this up, but has anyone here read NIFFT THE LEAN by Michael Shea? It was published in 1982, and spawned a couple of sequels, I believe, but I've only read the first. Pretty entertaining, I must say. Nift is a thieving swordsman/conman/adventurer, featured in four different tales which are interwoven by a 'funeral' narrative. The tales have a pulpy, Fafhrd And The Grey Mouser vibe, with a lot of humor (but not goofy, Hollywood style humor) and Shea has a flair for Howard-esque discription. There's trips to hell, fishing in the demon sea, vampire queens...all sorts of good stuff. I recommend it.

I really liked NIFFT THE LEAN when I read it many years ago. The story of the vampire queen reminded me of Red Nails. But what impressed me the most was a description of a demon, exclusively in terms normally used to describe flowers and jewels, which somehow made the demon sound more horrifically hideous than Lovecraft's Tsothoggua.

Edited by Ironhand, 22 August 2011 - 05:54 AM.

[Necton29]

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I related greatly to the character Holden Caulfield when I was in high school.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

[docpod]

I'm sure someone's already brought this up, but has anyone here read NIFFT THE LEAN by Michael Shea? It was published in 1982, and spawned a couple of sequels, I believe, but I've only read the first. Pretty entertaining, I must say. Nift is a thieving swordsman/conman/adventurer, featured in four different tales which are interwoven by a 'funeral' narrative. The tales have a pulpy, Fafhrd And The Grey Mouser vibe, with a lot of humor (but not goofy, Hollywood style humor) and Shea has a flair for Howard-esque discription. There's trips to hell, fishing in the demon sea, vampire queens...all sorts of good stuff. I recommend it.

I really liked NIFFT THE LEAN when I read it many years ago. The story of the vampire queen reminded me of Red Nails. But what impressed me the most was a description of a demon, exclusively in terms normally used to describe flowers and jewels, which somehow made the demon sound more horrifically hideous than Lovecraft's Tsothoggua.

I read NIFFT THE LEAN back when it came out and the sequels. Shea is heavily influenced by Jack Vance though with some darker Lovecraftian themes mixed in.

Morgan

[MisfitPanda]

Anyone ever read the Robert Ludlum/Gayle Lynds books? Kinda in the Jason Bourne mode...but much better, i highly reccomend all of them!

[Rockamobile]

Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo .One of the best anti war novels ever written.

[Rockamobile]

Hiroshima by John Hersey.

Edited by Rockamobile, 25 January 2012 - 04:01 AM.

[Sardonikus]

Legion of the Damned, by Sven Hassel (Cassell Military Paperbacks, 2003 printing - originally published in 1957)

Sven Hassel is a native-born Dane who enlists in the German Wehrmacht, deserts, is captured and sent to several concentration camps before being sent to a penal Panzer regiment (the 27th). Along with a collection of other misfits (political dissidents, common criminals, etc.), Hassel finds himself embroiled in the most brutal fighting of the Eastern Front during WWII.

I did not find the book to be especially well-written in any sort of technical sense, and the sequence of events was somewhat vague, but the descriptions of the battles and the colorful characters Hassel encounters (especially the wisecracking Berliner Joseph Porta) make this book a worthy read. This book is the first in a series of WWII novels written by Hassel, based on his own combat experiences; in essence, they are, according to the official Sven Hassel website, a series of fictional accounts which include real people.

All in all, for anyone with an interest in the brutal, bloody maelstrom that was the German-Soviet war, I definitely recommend this book.

For more info on Sven Hassel and his works: http://www.svenhassel.net/

Edited by Sardonikus, 09 July 2012 - 01:42 AM.

[MoeTheBarman]

"All in all, for anyone with an interest in the brutal, bloody maelstrom that was the German-Soviet war, I definitely recommend this book"

I'll second that, I have all th ebooks and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

[Rargentum]

Kiss Me, Judas by Will Christopher Baer


Very... not sure how to describe it.... dark psychological noir?

A drug addled crime/love story?

A guy fall in love with the woman who steals one of his kidneys!

I have given away about 9 copies of this (I actually have, not making it up for dramatic effect) because Baer is so awesome and nobody else I have ever met has ever heard of him!

It is the first of a really dark ****ed up trilogy about a guy called Phineas Poe,

[Cap'n Kidd]

I just started reading "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan. I was in Lubbock, TX at the southern tip of the Texas Panhandle going through orientation with my son who is just beginning school at Texas Tech University and found a book that is being recommended to all students and faculty by the president of the school.
It's about the Dust Bowl which effected the Great Plains during the depression era of the 1930's. It was literally the worst hard time. This was very close to where Howard lived and he and the entire area were greatly effected by it although he did not live in the middle of it. You get a sense from his letters about the area.
Reading some of the factual information it's seems hard to believe this could ever happen but in one storm, the amount of dirt that was uprooted equaled the amount that was dug out of the Panama Canal and dirt from the storms made it all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
Much of this occurred because of environmental arrogance and greed. The Great Plains was once full of prairie grass and buffalo. The U.S. Government actually aided in killing the buffalo and moving the Plains Indians to reservations which opened the area up for farming and commerce. Over a few short years the prairie grass was dug up for farming, windmills were used to pull water from deep underground for irrigation, and when the market dropped going into the Great Depression, the weather abruptly changed a bit creating huge storms which pulled the unprotected dirt into the air. Steinbeck's book "The Grapes of Wrath" is about a family that escaped the dust bowl but this book is about those who stayed and survived it.
Here is an excerpt about the book from Amazon.com:
"The dust storms that terrorized America's High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since, and the stories of the people that held on have never been fully told. Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist and author Timothy Egan follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, going from sod homes to new framed houses to huddling in basements with the windows sealed by damp sheets in a futile effort to keep the dust out. He follows their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black blizzards, crop failure, and the deaths of loved ones. Drawing on the voices of those who stayed and survived—those who, now in their eighties and nineties, will soon carry their memories to the grave—Egan tells a story of endurance and heroism against the backdrop of the Great Depression."

Edited by Cap'n Kidd, 26 August 2012 - 03:39 PM.

[THE KID]

TRUE HAUNTING BY EDWIN BECKER - A REAL GHOST STORY THAT WILL HAUNT YOU!

"This is the story of a true haunting. It was the first ever filmed and televised by NBC in 1971. A young couple purchases a building that was built and occupied by a single family that refused to relinquish their hold, even after death. Investigated and verified by experts, this residence brought chaos to the lives of those who chose to reside there. Unlike a horror novel, this chronicles what a real ghostly experience would resemble. Long before the laws of disclosure, a young couple winds up in the midst of strange occurrences prior to the term 'paranormal' becoming a common description. Searching for help at time when supernatural events were a taboo subject and being ignored by the Church, sent them into a desperate search for any assistance.

Only a little known organization came to their aid. Author Tom Valentine, brought in a nationally known psychic, Joseph DeLouise, who then asked assistance of an exorcist from England, Reverend William Derl-Davis. Together, they gave their best effort at exorcising the multiple spirits inhabiting the building and disrupting the lives of the living. Events were filmed by NBC, who sent their most prominent Chicago journalist, Carole Simpson, to cover the event.

In 1971 Ed and Marsha Becker purchase a two story house in Chicago for $16,500 and sell it one year later for $10. They heard voices, footsteps, and furniture moving when no one was there. A priest comes to bless the house and the metal cannister holding the holy water explodes into pieces. The priest runs off never to return The house is so cold in summer no AC is needed. Two former tenants go insane including Ed's sister who was dabbling in the occult and Ouija Boards.

It took 40 years for Ed to write this book. It was published just last year. It's an incredible true story that is told in earnest with no hollywood style to it. It's a down to earth story, believable, and scary. If you go to Youtube and type in True Haunting you will see the NBC 1971 video and at the 1 minute and 48 second mark see an entity moving behind the glass door. Ed noticed this when he watched the flim frame by frame.

I give True Haunting my highest recommendation and five stars!!

Edited by Richard, 26 August 2012 - 07:59 PM.