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

reply to post by NewAgeMan


hi, man discworld rules! my personal favorite is lovecraft but maybe the trippiest book i read was carlos castaneda way of the yagui shaman or something, but then i found out it was all lies... fail..

Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" is probably about the best book I've ever read, and it's also extremely trippy. It's basically a satire of Stalin's Russia but with a twist: the Antichrist (representing Stalin) appearing in Moscow causing panic and fear amongst the populace, who all seem themselves to be a bit insane in a more subdued fashion.

It's filled with descriptions that almost seem like hallucinations and it all adds up to a funny but also gripping and mind-bending book, but also with a political message. Perfect!

One of the trippiest books i ever read was "Vurt" by Jeff Noon, set in a messed up Manchester of the future where folk take hallucinogenic feathers, entering alternate wolds in which the protagonist finds further, even weirder feathers in a quest to find his twisted sister who got lost while in a shared trip... i was lucky enough to see a theatrical version when i lived in manc land performed around the streets where the novel was set, starring the great Danny Jules Johns (Cat from Red Dwarf) - it's kinda teenaged and comes across as trying to be too hip at first but turns into an awesome ride.

en.wikipedia.org...

Then there is Michael Moorcock's "A Cure for Cancer" , a Jerry Cornelius novel and the most whacked out of the bunch. i could barely begin to describe it and in parts it lacks any structure and sense but is quite wonderful and thoroughly out-there.
en.wikipedia.org...

Moorcocks "Dancers at the End of Time" series is on a similar pedastal for me too, a series of tales about those bored and jaded few of limitless powers who inhabit the earths final days.. it's a superior piece of time travelling sci-fi and packed with hilarity and weirdness.
en.wikipedia.org...

Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" and China Mieville's "Kraken" are two weird as you like stories set in Londons with underworlds of the high strange.... both quite different from each other but also intimately related, "Kraken" edges ahead for me, its very dark, extremely funny and has the presence of a replica Star Trek Phaser tricked out on occult power, and an ending to die for.
en.wikipedia.org...(novel)
en.wikipedia.org...(novel)

reply to post by Biliverdin


i too have wu-cheng'en's Monkey... no one ever believes me when i say it's even better than the old tv show !

I haven't read all the replies, BUT, I am a die hard Stephen King fan. I'm hoping everyone is familiar with The Dark Tower series. I started the series in late July, and finished it in early October. I read the last words in the book and threw the book at the wall and started screaming. If anyone has read it, did you feel the same?? Or does that really show how dense I am???

Another great author is Michael Crichton. I highly recommend Timeline, and Pirates Latitude.

Kurt Vonnegut - Sirens of Titan - I want to know where I can get my hands on some UWTB! Also I am fascinated by Cronosynclastic Infundabula !

What's the point in solving murders if we're all going to die? Detective Hank Palace has asked this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. Several kilometers wide, it's on a collision course with planet Earth, with just six precious months until impact.

The last policeman trilogy

I read the first book and the second will be out soon. Very good reading here!

reply to post by NewAgeMan


author: Rex Stout
his nero wolfe stories are wonderful. his writing is superb. his characters seem like he's describing real people.

author: H.P. Lovecraft
his cthulu mythos is eerily fun. his trippiest work (in my opinion) is "shadow out of time. " he weaves time and space and bends it around a man's nightmares.

author: Robert E. Howard
his conan stories and his Solomon kane stories are wonderful to read. sometimes it feels like he is not just writing a story but scribing down the adventures as conan and Solomon tell their story. one of the trippiest is a story titled skullface. it's about a person/creature who is rich, politically connected and endowed with a mystical energy.

good stuff.

My all time favorite author is Piers Anthony.

The trippiest book I ever read was also a Piers Anthony book called On a pale horse.

Some guy attempts to commit suicide and when Death Incarnate walks in to take his soul, he turns the gun on Death and kills him, which causes him to take over death's job.

It was an awesome and trippy book which was the first in several books he did in the Incarnations of Immortality series...


Loved it!

reply to post by Darkblade71


You might like this one then. I ordered it today it comes out July 30 in paper back.

The Survivor
by
Gregg Hurwitz

"Nate Overbay, a former soldier suffering from PTSD and ALS, goes to an eleventh-floor bank and climbs onto the ledge, ready to end it all. But as he’s steeling himself to jump, when a crew of gunmen bursts into the bank and begins shooting employees and customers. With nothing to lose, Nate climbs back inside and, with military precision, Nate begins taking out the robbers, one by one. The last man standing leaves Nate with a cryptic warning: He will make you pay in ways you can’t imagine…

Pavlo is a savage Ukrainian mobster and mastermind of the failed heist. Blocked from entering the bank vault to retrieve a critical item, Pavlo gives Nate a horrifying ultimatum: Either help him break in or watch Pavlo slowly kill his estranged wife and teenaged daughter. Nate lost them once he came back from Iraq, broken and confused. Now the only thing Nate has to lose is—everything. And time is running out..."

also this series.

The Ranger (Quinn Colson Series #1) by Ace Atkins





Editorial Reviews

Patrick Anderson
…what brings the story roaring to life is that it takes place…in a fictional Tibbehah County that is populated by some of the most ignorant, mean-spirited, violent and generally deranged human beings who ever walked the Earth…Atkins has an unerring sense of the rural underworld of trailer parks, truck stops and meth labs…The Ranger is a joy ride into the heart of darkness.
—The Washington Post

I just got the 3rd in the series. They are kick butt good!!

I always liked the black magic stories of Dennis Wheatley.

I like the idea that real chums can talk their friend out of a Satanic cult, disrupt an occult ceremony where the devil himself appears as a goat, and then still make it home for lunch.

Those were the days when real gentleman still existed.

reply to post by halfoldman


This one (For Star Trek fans) ships July 30 "old series crew"


Star Trek: The Original Series: From History's Shadow

by Dayton Ward

"An original novel set in the universe of Star Trek: The Original Series!
2268: Following the encounter with the mysterious Gary Seven in the twentieth century, the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise is startled by two intruders who have transported through space and time from Earth circa 1968. Incredibly, one of the infiltrators is a Vulcan, who asserts that he’s lived among Earth's population for over a decade. The otherrepresents a little-known race, and reveals to Captain James T. Kirk that she has spent that last twenty years working to bring about humanity’s destruction. It is then that Gary Seven’s young protégé, Roberta Lincoln, arrives seeking Kirk’s help...

1947: In the wake of the infamous “Roswell Incident” involving a crashed alien craft and beings from another world, Captain James Wainwright finds himself recruited as one of the first members of Majestic 12, a secret organization with two goals: Collect evidence of extraterrestrial activity on Earth, and develop strategies to combat alien invaders. And it is this very mission that will consume Wainwright’s life for the next two decades, driven by the knowledge that the danger is as real as the aliens living among us..."

reply to post by RUFFREADY


I'll have to check that out if I ever see it around.
Thanks for the tip!

reply to post by NewAgeMan


Just one? I have so many, currently: A Story Of Fictional FACT Magical revelation:

"JONATHAN STANGE and MR NORRELL" (with illustrations) by Susanna Clarke.
Time Magazines 'book of the year' 2004.