Author Topic: The Best Thing We've Read All Year {2011 Edition}  (Read 7892 times)

jim brown

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1751
Re: The Best Thing We've Read All Year {2011 Edition}
« Reply #30 on: January 06, 2012, 01:17:31 AM »
Code: [Select]
The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F Hamilton

The first time I've read sci-fi and wanted to live in that future. Also the most realistic vision of where humanity may be in 300 years I've ever come across.
I read a hokey Hamilton book about people being frightened out of their bodies. It did not make me want to continue with this so called acclaimed series (if you know Hamilton you will know what books I'm talking about). Not that he wrote badly, so would this be a better example of his work?

btw has anyone here read Iain M Banks? If not you really should.

Wasp Factory, if I'm thinking of the correct Banks.
Kevin: Yes, why does there have to be evil?

Supreme Being: I think it has something to do with free will.

-------------------------------------------------------

Verna: I suppose you think you raised hell.

Tom: Sister, when I've raised hell you'll know it.

verbALs

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 9446
  • Snort Life-DOR
Re: The Best Thing We've Read All Year {2011 Edition}
« Reply #31 on: January 06, 2012, 01:23:10 AM »
He writes as Iain Banks when he writes fiction, and Iain M Banks when he writes science fiction, which is a fairly typical sly bit of humour. For some reason I have read every 'M Banks" but none of the "Banks" books. I have a copy of "Steep Ascent To Garbadale" somewhere. I mentioned his name because when I mentioned well written, as far as sci-fi is concerned Iain M Banks defines the phrase. V funny books.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2012, 01:27:48 AM by verbALs »
I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore. - Banksy

FifthCityMuse

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 3375
  • Good work, sycophants!
Re: The Best Thing We've Read All Year {2011 Edition}
« Reply #32 on: January 08, 2012, 03:36:50 PM »
It was the first Hamilton I'd read, and I'm very keen to read more, but I was told to not leap immediately into the trilogy he wrote that follows The Commonwealth Saga. For me, it was very strongly written sci-fi without being unnecessarily dense, strong characterisation, but above all, a consistent and brilliant imagining of the future and an awesome story to go with it. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it.

KasperL

  • Member
  • **
  • Posts: 114
  • letterboxd.com/KasperL & fb.com/favoritefilms
    • Criticker
Re: The Best Thing We've Read All Year {2011 Edition}
« Reply #33 on: January 25, 2012, 07:27:54 PM »
And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie, 1939)
The Big Sleep (Raymond Chandler, 1939)
Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov, 1955)

Honorable mentions: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling, 2007) - The Hound of Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902) - Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie, 1930) - The Outsider (Albert Camus, 1942) - The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway, 1926) - The Thin Man (Dashiell Hammett, 1934) - The Turn of the Screw (Henry James, 1898)

jim brown

  • Elite Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1751
Re: The Best Thing We've Read All Year {2011 Edition}
« Reply #34 on: January 25, 2012, 07:40:21 PM »
And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie, 1939)
The Big Sleep (Raymond Chandler, 1939)
Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov, 1955)

Honorable mentions: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling, 2007) - The Hound of Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902) - Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie, 1930) - The Outsider (Albert Camus, 1942) - The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway, 1926) - The Thin Man (Dashiell Hammett, 1934) - The Turn of the Screw (Henry James, 1898)

Solid list, KasperL. 
Kevin: Yes, why does there have to be evil?

Supreme Being: I think it has something to do with free will.

-------------------------------------------------------

Verna: I suppose you think you raised hell.

Tom: Sister, when I've raised hell you'll know it.

 

love