My favorite autograph I ever got was Clive Barker, back when Weaveworld came out. I waited in line for hours, and as he was signing my books I commented that his hand must get tired from all the signing. He replied, "Not really, i work out this hand quite a bit."

Leave it to Barker to make a masturbation joke at a book signing.

Bruce Campbell is also excellent to meet at a book signing (and both of his books are truly great reads as well).

This is always a great thread to have on any board. Right now I'm reading Exit Wounds by J. A. Jance. By the bed I have a copy of Ghosts In Baker Street. It's a volume of new Sherlock Holmes stories with a supernatural element to them. My vacation's coming up so I bought a 3 in 1 volume of CSI novels all written by the great Max Allan Collins. For any horror fans out there I can recommend Jake's Wake by John Skipp & Cody Goodfellow. Happy reading, gang!

Here is an old one but a good one if you like Post Apocalyptic survival stories like DeathLands."Wolf And Iron" by Gordon R.Dickson(1990)

I'm currently trying to make my way through a pile of crap called FRAGMENT by Warren Fahy which Amazon.co.uk described as:

Review
'Fahy's imaginative debut puts a fresh spin on the survival-of-prehistoric-beasts theme popularized by Jurassic Park.'

Product Description
Jurassic Park meets Lost in this electrifying new adventure thriller. When the cast and crew of reality TV show 'SeaLife' land on picturesque, unexplored Henders Island it's a ratings bonanza. But they're blissfully unaware that the decisions they make there will shape the fate of mankind ! if they can only survive. For they quickly discover that the island is seething with danger. Having evolved in total isolation from the rest of the planet for millennia, Henders is home to host of vicious and exotic predators, terrifying creatures who live in a lightning fast blur of kill or be killed. A team of crack scientists is sent in to assess the situation and they are astounded by what they find. It soon becomes clear that if even the smallest bug ever made it off Henders island, life on earth as we know it would change very quickly indeed. The President is faced with the toughest decision of his career: take the risk of letting one of these creatures escape so that further research can be done, or nuke the island to protect the rest of planet Earth? Just when it seems the stakes couldn't get any higher, the scientists make a surprise discovery that changes everything!


Well it couldn't be more WRONG, this book is total sh!te. It reads like it was written by a 10 year old. There is less characterisation here than a none Mark Ellis OL book and the author spends page after page showing us that he spent time researching arthropods and wants to tells us all every mind numbing detail he can cram onto a page.

I'm only staying with it because I never leave a book without finishing it.

If you see this one pass it by

1/10

Weird timing that you bring up that book, Jim.

Not only did my wife and I briefly discuss it today when we were walking along the ocean, when the book came out in June, it caused me to become extremely annoyed with a couple of professional associates in the "traditional" publishing industry--not to mention made me thoroughly disgusted with the industry as a whole.

Here is another really old one I inherited from my dad.

"Lucifer's Hammer" byLarry Niven and Jerry Pournelle(1977)
I read this about 15 yrs ago and still remember it well.An excellent post apocalyptic type scenario that I suspect Steven King may have slightly ripped off for "The Stand".It has civilization ending with the earth being struck by a gigantic comet.The "Stand" comparison I am making is in the fact that their emerges 2 distinctly different groups of survivors.The good guy's and the bad guy's of course.
An incredible read!!!I highly recommend this book!(if you can find it)Way better than alot of The OL and DL books (IMO)

OEV - you've hit on one of my favorite books of ALL time..great friggin story....i've read everyting it's crazy sometimes how much $$ i've sunk into Novels...

also Try "Inherit the Stars" by James P Hogan..and the next 4 books he wrote...very very cool...

It's Chris to you Dan ok?No OEV.

Yeah,it is cool that someone else read that book!I only read it cause it is in my dads old collection.Hell I was 4 when it came out in 77'.

I will check out those books you said to man!

Well I also read a lot of the Zombie trifle that is floating around and am currently reading the Morningstar Strain. I like some of the vampire stuff but the vampire eroticism has got to quit!! I am sick of the New Moon freaks panting over some sleazy-looking vampire that glitters!! Another guilty pleasure of mine is anything by Laurel K Hamilton, and JD Robb whom my wife got me hooked on her In Death series because I love SciFI and good cop stories. Ever sat around a bunch of homophobic uber-manly SF guys and read a "romance" novel? I think the only thing that kept them from teasing me too much was the fact that I could put them all on a 12 mile ruck march in full battle rattle for the fun of it.

heh..sorry Chris! one of the best series i ever read was the Incarnations of Imoortality series by Pieers Anthony - that every day forees were actual jobs - "Death" was a job - Time was a job and so on..pretty frigin cool - "On a Pale Horse was the 1st and i think the best...then they had Nature, Time, War etc....the one with Satan was awesome too - forget the title...worth checking out if you like some Fantasy type if stuff - plus i real everything that Dale Brown writes - and tons of other books..

I've been reading quite a few books as of late. Best of the bunch have been the Axis of Time trilogy by John Birmingham. Basic plot - a task force from 2021 is caught in an experiment gone awry and find themselves sent back in time to June 1942, to the battle of Midway.

Three books are available - Weapons of Choice, Designated Targets, and Final Impact.

Next is the Vatta's War series by Elizabeth moon. Five books in total (on the last) that deal with a powerful merchant family that comes under attack, leaving few survivors. One of the survivors ends up going after those responsible for the attacks. Can be a little slow at times, but I've enjoyed it none the less.

Finally March Upcountry by David Webber and John Ringo. 4 books in the series thus far, starting with March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars and We few.

The military battles in book 2 started to make my eyes glaze over, but it's not bad.

Chris

No way Scourge!I have read all the Anita Blake books by ol'Laurel K. Hamilton(she is my myspace friend too)She actually was telling me why Anita Carries that Browning Hi Power one time!!!

Her books are getting way too erotic for me(an I admit I am a perv)LOL!I am gonna finish "Blood Noir" any day now.

Nothin'ta be sorry about Dan,I just want friends to call me by my real name bro!

Lately I have been reading the Dexter books by Jeff Lindsay. Good stuff. The next book on my list is The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmasuka Magdalena Rosalia Maria Josefa Barbara Orczy. The Scarlet Pimpernel is pretty much the original masked avenger, the very first superhero with a secret identity. By day he is the foppish Sir Percy Blakeney, but by night he becomes The Scarlet Pimpernel - a master of disguises leading his band of adventurers across the English Channel in order to rescue the victims of The Reign of Terror. Prototypical stuff, that.

I just bought Blood Noir and it is on the pile to be read. I just finished "Plague of the Dead" by ZA Recht - it was pretty good. Yeah the eroticism in Hamilton's books is getting a little thick - but from what I read that is what sells. The fastest selling books are vampire eroticism written for 12 - 15 YO girls. Now I have a 7 YO daughter and there is no way she is reading something like "Blood Noir." I really liked Hamilton's earlier books when Anita was not quite so bad ass but was not effing everything with a stick & two veg. I always admired Anita's choice of a pistol. I do not own a Hi Power (it is on the wish list) but have shot quite a few when I lived in SA. The Panamanian Army issued them as a standard sidearm to its troops and as far as I know they still have them although when we(USA) left Panama disbanded its Army, Airfarce and joke of a Navy.

Yeah I agree totally Scourge.I am getting a little tired of how much of a slut she has made Anita into.It is cool to have some sex but she has her screwing anyone and everyone and her lame excuse is to "Feed The Ardure".I think Laurell is just a horny 46 year old  is all with some cougar issues.lol.

The older books were alot more action and now it is just all erotica and little action?

Yeah it is getting to be more erotic fiction than action. I really liked the kick-ass action in the early books. Anita is still bad ass but now she is some super slut with a lame excuse to f everything. It is getting to the point where I might stop buying the books and borrow them from a brother or the library. The Harliquin really lacked on the action and it was more erotic and political intrigue - first of her books I was a bit disappointed in.

My thoughts exactly.Early books rocked.The harlequinn was just alot of Anita blowing everyone.I have not finished Blood Noir cause I have been to busy Re reading the old DL books and the new ones too.

I have been reading a lot of Zombie books lately - but Blood Noir is up next. I just finished "Robbing the Bees" by Holley Bishop which was non-fiction but really neat about apiararys and bee keeping. If I ever get a large enough place I would like to keep bees as a hobby.

The Runelords by David Farland, not a HUGE series, but a very good one! I thought that I was done with fantasy until I ran into this one the other day at a used book store, nope... lol... this guy is a great author, really knows his characters and has a very cool little twist to warrior society... all in all a very cool series IMO!

Sun

I still read a lot of fantasy - some of my fav authors are Dennis L. McKiernan, Raymond E Feist, Robert Jordan, David Eddings, and Terry Brooks. I am particularly fond of Eric Van Lustabder's asian-flavored fiction like White Ninja, The Miko, etc due to my interest in the martial arts and Asia.