Novels FReepers Love (discussion)

April 4, 2004 | me

[Long Cut]

Over at THIS THREAD, discussing Tom Clancy's movies, one FReeper lamented the lack of threads discussing books we all might like, like Clancy's, or those of Clive Cussler, Matt Reilly, Patrick Robinson...The list is almost endless, as writers with a conservative tilt have long produced works that appeal to a wide audience of Americans, not just conservatives.

So, ever willing to help out, herewith such a thread. I'm not totally motivated by altruism here, as I am working on my first book right now, and opinions matter to me. Also, I love discussing my favorite works. I started reading at the tender age of four, and kept most of the books I read starting with Treasure Island. I married an English Lit major, and even today I attempt to consume as many books as possible.

What say you , FReepers? Let's chew on some books, shall we?

[Huber]

Read All The King's Men and you will be AWED by the literary power of Robert Penn Warren. Yes, it's about politics but it is a GREAT work of literature. Makes you look at the ordinary books as, well, ordinary.

I'm glad to see that you posted this. Living in North Carolina, I have been trying to get a grip on Southern Literature. I have been reading Richard S. Weaver's Southern Essays where he discusses Penn Warren at length. Weaver's works are must reads for conservatives. Another important work that includes Penn Warren, Allen Tate and others is I'll Take My Stand, which is a manifesto of the Southern Agrarian Movement.

On a different note, I am also reading Albert Jay Nock's Mr. Jefferson (introduction by Russell Kirk), Victor Davis Hansen's Carnage and Culture and Fugitive Essays by Frank Chodorov. All are great and essential conservative reading.

Lastly, since this thread is nominally about novels, I strongly recommend working through the entire Patrick O'Brien Aubrey/Maturin series. There is nothing finer in 20th century fiction!

[John Farson]

Operatives, Spies, and Sabateurs -- real life accounts (declassified) about the "Shadow War" conducted during WWII.

Endurance: Shakelton's Incredible Voyage -- true story of arctic explorers and their adventures.

And if you like historical fiction or just a quality story set in medieval times, I highly recommend George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones

[AnAmericanMother]

I was a very serious Holmesian for awhile, member of the Goose Club of the Alpha Inn and a correspondent with the editor of the Baker Street Journal.

My favorite will always be The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Have you read Conan Doyle's other works, specifically his historical novels? I think you would really like The White Company and Sir Nigel - sagas of an English mercenary company in the 14th century French wars. He also did a couple of hysterically funny first person accounts of the Napoleonic Wars by an impossibly vain French brigadier of Hussars . . . The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard - and a couple of oddball novels about Monmouth's Rising (Micah Clarke) and boxing in the days of the Regency (Rodney Stone). I think I have read everything Conan Doyle ever wrote (except for his abominable books on spiritualism.)

[AnAmericanMother]

If you like ghost stories, check out Donn Byrne's Destiny Bay. It's nominally a novel of country life in Ireland, but the supernatural keeps creeping into the story in so natural a way that you don't realize what you're thinking until it suddenly dawns on you with a shudder.

[squarebarb]

Here I am. Late again. Wish I had been on this thread earlier.

I am a writer so am glad to see literary discussions on FR.

And today is my birthday! 04 04 04!

If you want to see something of my novel it has a website, Enemy Women.com. It made the cover of the NY Slimes Book Review and was given a rave, so can't put down the Slimes too much.It's about women imprisoned during the Civil War.

Now I'll have to go back and read what everybody said. As far as my book being conservative, it is by default. No graphic sex scenes or attacks on rednecks.

Love Philip O'Brien.

[BibChr]

Someone here once said that Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn (four-paperback) "trilogy" was better than LOTR. That piqued my interest, and I eventually got it.

The first two hundred pages or so were just painful, hardly any fun at all to get through. I only kept on by stubborn curiosity as to how anyone could possibly say it was better than LOTR, and because the writing, if not fun, was substantial in style.

Well, about that 200th page, the story FINALLY took off, and hundreds of pages later I'm still working through it, intrigued and hooked and enjoying.

But better than LOTR? Good, yes; well-written, yes. But no way is it better.

Dan

[cyborg]

hehe...I figured that would be your favorite!

[Euro-American Scum]

the current circumstances its not too difficult to imagine a world where things go wrong with Red China and the confederate with our other enemies.

Yes, Jeff. I'm sure the Red Chinese will be more than happy to supply us with all the JDAM guidance assemblies whose manufacturing we've offshored to them that we'll ever need. They're our friends, after all.

And there's no danger that could ever reverse engineer so complex a design. No worries from the culture that gave the world gunpowder hundreds of years before it ever got to Europe. They could never figure it out.

End of bitter, sarcastic rant.

[Trinity_Tx]

As I posted earlier to long cut, if you like that genre, and haven't read them already, be sure to read the classics by Wilke Collins: Moonstone, Woman in White, No Name...

I promise, you will love them. : )

[AnAmericanMother]

I am a big fan of Wilkie Collins -- also of John Buchan - especially the 39 Steps, Greenmantle, and Mr. Standfast.

[Euro-American Scum]

I was just looking at a list of Koontz titles and half of thim I can't remember the plots. Which one was Lightning? I know I read it.

You know, I hate to say it, but I'm having the same trouble. Let's see. Little girl growing up. Guardian angel protector type stepping in at key moments of her life. Turns out to be a time travelling protector looking out for her. If I see it in a bookstore, it will all come back to me. Been years since I read it. I just remember it being one of my Dean Koontz favorites.

I have better recall of False Memory and From The Corner of His Eye. I read them more recently and enjoyed them both very much. Especially False Memory. The number she did on those two legbreaker assassins in the BMW was priceless. Pays to pack a Colt .45 Combat Commander in your purse, I always did say.

[squarebarb]

right now I am catching up on American classics. I'm reading An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser.

Has anyone here read Riddley Walker? I was entranced by it for a long time.

[Long Cut]

It's part of a series...it's the inaugural tome in a series she calls The Lives Of The Mayfair Witches

It includes, in order, the following:

The Witching Hour

Lasher

Taltos

It combines with The Vampire Chronicles in these, in order:

Blackwood Farm

And concludes in Blood Canticle

If you don't want to read all those, just read Witching Hour. It stands very well on its own. Be forewarned, though, you'll want to read the sequel anyway.

[Euro-American Scum]

I read The Stand, unabridged version, over 13 years ago in one marathon 12-hour session, cover to cover. I agree with your assesment.

That was about the same time I picked it up. Funny thing, I had seen it in bookstores -- in its original incarnation and then the new and improved version -- and never picked it up, judging it too long and involved.

When I finally got into it, I was consumed by it. I don't have the ability to go at it non-stop for hours on end -- with any book. Also, I wanted to take my time, because King had something extremely significant to say in this tale.

I got to it at a point in my life when I really could appreciate the high stakes morality play that was going on, and the ultimate reliance on God by the protagonists when all else failed.

Like I said, simply a masterpiece. Stephen King can make noises like a sniveling, whiney, liberal victim at times, but deep down, I get the sense that he really gets it.

[Long Cut]

I haven't seen Passion. How is Longinus treated there? In Casca, he is at the beginning presented as a simple soldier, a legionary content and happy with his job. One day, after a night of drinking, he is detailed with a squad to execute two thieves and a "mad Jew".

The Piercing is presented as Casca's trying to get the whole thing over with, as he is hungover and disgusted with the whole day. He was trying a "mercy kill" which backfired horribly. As Christ says to him at that moment:

"Soldier, you are content with what you are. So you will remain, until we meet again..."

He is cursed forever after that. He begins wandering the Earth, figthing in wars, always searching for the Jew he wounded.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

I would like to throw some support to Steven Lawhead. Some of his stuff is really bad, but the Pendragon Cycle is a really interesting and different take on the Arthurian Legends and his Byzantium is the best historical fiction I have ever read, hands down.

[Long Cut]

She's written a number of non-vampire/witches stories. Ramses takes place in the 1800's, but it is later referred to in The Vampire Chronicles as having taken place in their "world", although Ramses never makes an appearance in any "vampire" novels.

There's also Violin, another ghost story, and two non-supernatural tales from past centuries, Cry to Heaven, about Italian castrati singers, and The Feast Of All Saints, about quadroons (half-breed black/whites) in 1800's Louisiana. You can almost SMELL the Jasmine and feel the languid air in that one.

[AnAmericanMother]

Riddley Walker is an amazing tour de force.

As the definitive post-apocalyptic novel it beats Earth Abides by ten lengths and going away . . . because it doesn't abandon the spiritual aspect of the narrator's (and man's) situation.

Also, given the current occupant of the seat of the Ardship of Cambry, it has given me the opportunity to say a lot of ugly things about Rowan the Archdruid and the Litl Shining Man the Adam . . . . :-D

[Trinity_Tx]

I couldn't agree more. I've read a handful of other novels by Steven King, and came away feeling ambivalent at best. The Stand was the first I read, and it was unforgettable. Nothing since comes even close, IMHO.

[Long Cut]

Well, folks, it's almost Midnight here on the East Coast, and I have to be up at 0530 tomorrow. Have a good night, hope y'all liked the thread!

See you tomorrow!