Bob's Books

Some of my favourites

Well, I must start out with the best book ever written:  The Lord of the Rings by J. Tolkien.  The Hobbit's pretty good, too.

And on to others that I've enjoyed....  Let's do this by genre then author (can you tell that Mom's a librarian.....)

Science Fiction and Fantasy.   My first choice in mind candy.

• Glen Cook
  • The Black Company series.  A bit dark, but truly excellent.  Make sure you start with the first book of the first (of two) series.  You really need all the background.
  • Garrett, PI series.  The hard-boiled private investigator set in a humorous fantasy world. Hilarious.
• David Drake
  • The Hammer's Slammers books.  Pretty good futuristic combat as you follow the exploits of a mercenary tank company.
• David Eddings
  • The Belgariod series.  Very good, although he stretched the story line a bit too far with his second series and prequels books. 
• Raymond E. Feist
  • The Magician series - and all the followups (except those with co-authors, the Empire series, if I remember correctly)
• The Forgotten Realms series
  • For all you dungeons and dragons fans out there - here are the books that go along with the games.  Some are good, some suck.  The benefits of multiple authors.....   I'm a fan of Ed Greenwood's books.  Elminster rules.
  • Also, anything by Salvatore (Dark Elf books) are GREAT.
• Harry Harrison   
  • The Stainless Steel Rat series.  Just plain funny.  A futuristic world where everything is nice and "normal."  However, there are still a few theives that keep the world interesting - and save the human race on occasion....
• Robert Jordan
  • The Wheel of Time series.  I had to mention this because it's soooo popular these days.  As far as I'm concerned, the series has gone on long enough (8 books so far) and the story hasn't progressed.  Everyone just gets a little badder, more insane, etc... and does the same sorts of things over and over. 
• Fritz Lieber
  • Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser series.  A classic.  And my first ever fantasy read. 
• Shadowrun series
  • Cyberpunk meets magic/fantasy.  Lovely mix.  Excellent mind candy in a different setting.  As usual, some were good, others were bad.  The first batch by Charette were pretty damn good.

Historical Fiction

• Patrick O'Brian
  • Follow the paths of Cap't Aubry and his physician around the world.  He's the captain of a British warship during, roughly, the Napoleonic wars.  Excellent storytelling, and, apparently, very historically accurate (i.e. the ship-to-ship combat descriptions were taken from actual accounts in the Royal Archives).  Only the people and ship names were changed (sometimes).

Mysteries

• Not my genre, but I must say I really prefer the deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes to the inductive reasoning of Miss Marple.

Spy/thriller modern fiction

• Tom Clancy:  Well, his latest book (1998) is a definite improvement.  He started out really good (Hunt for Red October), but then turned into a chest-beating pro-America, pro-Catholic fanatic.  His books were a real chore to get through.   In fact, if the latest wasn't an improvement, it would have been my last Clancy read.
• Clive Cussler:  Your basic he-man hero (Dirk Pitt) shoots some guns, meets some babes, and does some science while saving the world from something or another.  A reasonably pleasant read, but not too much depth.
• Len Deighton.  Nothing fancy, but a good read.
• Robert Ludlum:  The master of this genre in my opinion.   My favourite so far was The Matarese Circle - a close second, The Road to Gandolpho (the pope is kidnapped and decides he's glad to get away from church politics....).

Humour

• Footrot Flats. Starring The Dog! A kiwi comic that ran for years. Truly wonderful.
• Goscinny and Underzo:  Asterisk and Obelisk.  Excellent cartoon books set in France under Julius Caesar.   Marvelous.
• Scott Adams:  Dilbert
• Gary Trudeau:  Doonsbury
• Bloom County
• Bill Watterson:  Calvin and Hobbes
• Vivian Scott Hixson:  He Looks too Happy to be an Assistant Professor
• Patrick McManus:  short stories set in rural Idaho about 50 years ago.   Hilarious - especially if you grew up in the country....

Miscellaneous:  some other stuff that's worth reading

• Anything by or about Richard Feynman.  The dude was incredible.
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Pulitzer winner. A history of the first half of the 20th century from a nuclear physics perspective. Fascinating. Niels Bohr was truly impressive for many more reasons than his physics.
• A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawking)
• Watership Down
• The World According to Garp
• Tao Te Ching
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• The Seven Arrows by Hymenohstis Storm
• The Digital Estate (about the impact of the internet on the business world)
• An Incomplete Education.  A liberal arts education in one book.  Ok - at least enough to recognise a bit about most things.