.. Oh my

Ok here is a short list of what I've read and enjoyed.. and what I'm currently reading.

Current book: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (all the books in one book) by Douglass Adams If you don't know what this book is.. don't talk to me.. =P now if you haven't read it.. I can understand.. it takes a while to get around to reading some books.. i only just in the past month or so got around to it.. and it has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for a few years There is nothing I can do to explain this book. Only one word comes to mind. Bent. Oh and a number.. 42 =P

My next read: Star Wars Millennium Falcon by James Luceno This book picks up for the most part after the end of the Legacy series. I am most interested in the new stuff with Star Wars.. I don't like going back and reading books placed during the Empire era any more.

Next after that i will finish up A Feast of Crows by George R. R. Martin (This is book 4 in the 5 book series A Song of Ice and Fire.. there might be more after I am not sure.) I kind of put it down when the last book of Legacy came out. The series is pretty dark, and has no problem killing off main characters in the most ice chilling way I've ever read. The book has plots, and murders, wars and the undead walking. You will find yourself going through every range of emotion you can think of when you read this series. It is one of the best fantasy series out right now.


What I have read and enjoyed in the past few years.

Rift War Sage by Raymond E. Feist. This is the book series that got me into reading. The books follows a little boy named Pug, and his friend Thomas, among others, as they fight a invading army of strange warriors that have invaded through a magical rift that has connected the two worlds.

Star Wars:
X-Wing series (9 books)
The Jedi Academy Trilogy
I Jedi
The New Jedi Order series (21 books)
Legacy Of The Force series (9 books)

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (currently 11 books in the series) This is currently not a complete series and the author is dead. The last book is being finished by his wife if I remember.. and it will be split into 3 parts. My only hope is after a decade of reading this series.. which has caused many grey hairs.. that it will be finished well.. I would really hate to see the many years that I've put into this series wasted.

Jack McDevitt:
Academy Series
I think of these books as the Hutch series.. This is a sifi book series that follows a pilot named Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins. The series covers the search for intelligent life among the stars. In the books they find many planets where life once thrived. But in each they find the worlds devastated. They continue to find this pattern with each world they discover that once held intelligent life. And soon they discover what has been destroying the worlds.

Alex Benedict series
These books are by far some of my favorite that Jack writes.. Alex Benedict is a seller/ broker of ancient artifacts. We are not talking Egyptian here.. The series takes place thousands of years in the future. The rare items are normally from ships that went missing hundreds of years before. And some are pieces that others would kill to find where they came from. The series is one part scfi, one part Indiana Jones, and one part Sherlock Holmes. The books are full of great mystery, and adventure. Worth reading IMO

Here are a few others I enjoyed:

Signal to Noise by Eric Nylund
and
A Signal Shattered by Eric Nylund


Dream Park set of books By Larry Niven

Have not read all those authors but Douglas Adams is almost like a god to me. Shame he passed away. He also did writing for the old Doctor Who series. The original version of the movie is hilarious. In some ways I like it better than the big screen version. I love Marvin. Another set of books is Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency which I found as good as HHGTTG. If you are into antique text adventure games, Infocom (who brought you Zork among others) had a game base on the first few chapters of HHGTTG. If you read the book, it was a snap, if not, it would drive you insane doing the puzzles.

I've read several books by Feist but I think it was a different series than the one you describe. Very good author but I read him when I was finding it hard to find time to read.

Larry Niven is another author that I own nearly everything he has written. Dream Park is actually the one that got me started. Such a neat idea. They actually started a project that was to build an actual place but I don't think it ever got past the concepts stage. That would rock. One of his best series is Ring World though almost everything I have by him is excellent. Much more sci-fi than fantasy.

Now for my past favorites.
Edgar Rice Burroughs - Personally his non-Tarzan stuff is the best in my opinion but I like them too. Pelludidar is my favorite. Everyone loves dinosaurs right? The Martian series might actually be his best series though.

Jules Verne - The granddaddy of sci-fi almost without any debate. Mysterious Island and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

E.E. "Doc" Smith - His Lensman series kicks butt and it was written over 50 years ago.

Yeah, I like old and dead sci-fi authors

Phillip Jose Farmer - He is a disciple of ERB in my opinion and even wrote a couple of stories starring some of ERB's characters. He is a fun to read author.

Oh and I can't forget H.G. Wells. Favorite is The Time Machine followed by War of the Worlds but he has several others that are worth the read. Gotta love the classics!

And one of the very first sci-fi stories I read was in a 6th grade Englsh class. Daybreak 2250 AD (aka Star Man's Son) by Andre Norton. I loved this story then and 2 decades later I rediscovered it and recently I found it again.

God, I wish I had the time to read more. This is bringing so many memories back!

I'm more fantasy but I"ve read some of these. I actually own most of the lensman series Singin! I found them all together in a used book store and got them. It took me abit to wrap my head around his terminology and some of the biases of the day. Once I got past that, way awesome!

I WANT to read the star wars books, but I've always been intimidated by where to start, you know?

I have not read Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency, but I will add it to my list of books to read =) if it is as funny as Hitchhiker I'll enjoy it =)

I have read many of the ones you listed.. but it has been many years since I have read them though =) out of the ones you listed HG Wells is prob the most fun for me...

Zyn.. I know exactly what you mean about Star Wars.. and I'll tell you how I got started. When a friend of mine still lived here we use to get together a bunch guys, and some gals.. and we would play table top.. One of the first games we played was a modded version of the Star Wars table top. I chose to play a wild force user.. a Jensari.. To bone up on them I read the book I Jedi by Michael Stackpole.. where they show up.. I enjoyed the main character so much in the book.. I looked up where he first showed up at.. and started there. This is why I started with the X-Wing series.. Michael Stackpole wrote the first book in that series and that is where Corran Horn was introduced. For time line purposes.. that book takes place during the Jedi Academy series. The X-Wing series takes place at the end of movie 6.. For anyone who hasn't read any of the books may think that the war was over at the last movie.. But it still had many years left, and that is pretty much what the X-Wing series covers.

So Zyn.. IMO.. you should start there. It is a soldseries.. and flows well.

edit: if you would like I can post the order you should read them in.. and which books should avoid b/c of poor writing.