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?

[7thson]

Concernig Clancy, I read the one where Jack Ryan, as President, deals with the China threat. About every twenty pages or so - in a 700 plus page book - Clancy tells us how dificult it is for the President to have a life outside of the Presidency. Okay Tom, I get your point!

About his writing abilities, I think sometimes the writer doesn't lose it. Some writers just stay the same while we the readers grow and demand better stories. Stephen King is a prime example of this.

[7thson]

Right now, I am reading The End of Racism. It is a hard read. Interesting in parts, boring in others.

[7thson]

Dean Koontz is a very interesting writer and person. I started reading his stuff back in 1977, way before he broke out. It was a fantasy sci-fi paperback I picked up at the airport on my way to San Diego for RM A school, called A Darkness In My Soul. I did not read him again until late 79. Starting in 83, I started reading a lot of his books - Whispers, Phantoms, and Darkfall being three that I thought were great. He is actually one of the few authors today I actually look for his next work.

Just as 9/11 was a turning point for the majority of us, the Waco incident seemed a major turning point for him. Right after that, he came out with three novels - Mister Murder, Dark Rivers of the Heart, and Intensity - that I believe is his best to date. The reader can see his distaste, dislike, and fear of big government - especially his belief that sociopaths tend to drift towards big government. Sadly his last book - Odd Thomas - gave me the impression of something he banged out to fulfill a contract obligation.

[7thson]

I read The Stand when it first came out in 78. By then, I had read Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, and The Shining, and was hooked as a major King fan. The Stand was his masterpiece. In 1990, out came the supposed unabridged version of The Stand. In it were references to movies and incidents that occurred after the 1978 book, so it was clear it was not material that was left out, as advertised, but material he included. By this time, I had become a so-so fan of his. I felt that Koontz was the better writer. I felt that King was dishonest in this version of The Stand as he is with the Gunslinger series. I did not like his liberal leanings. I started to dislike his characters as the all spoke the same. No matter what part of the country a character originated, they all spoke as if they came from Maine. I will finish out the gunslinger series, but that may be it for me when it comes to King.

[7thson]

Sadly, you are correct. One great example is Raise The Titantic by Clive Cussler. It sucked at the box office and that was it for Dirk Pitt. A shame really, considering that with today's technology, some of thos books would be great movies - if only done by a first class director and great casting.

[Long Cut]

Actually, Pitt might return. An adaptation of Cussler's Sahara is currently in production. The idea is to provide an American counterweight to James Bond, and producers have settled on Dirk Pitt as a good candidate.

They're looking to avoid the mistakes from the RTT! movie, most of which had to do with the '70s timeframe in which it was made, which attitudes influenced it to the negative.

[Long Cut]

Cussler has said that the descision not to pursue more Pitt movies was his, after he was apalled at the treatment he and his material recieved from Hollywood.

Numerous others have expressed similar disgust with the movie industry's attitude towards authors of books. Among them are Anne Rice and Tom Clancy.

Hollywood seems to treat them as third-class citizens after they buy the rights to books. They really have little respect for them, overall.

[7thson]

Some of my favorites over the years - fiction and non-fiction:

From Here To Eternity

The Rise And Fall of The Third Riech

Atlas Shrugged

The Choirboys

The Shining

The Stand

Gone With The Wind

In Cold Blood

The Onion Field

Lucifer's Hammer

Just a few off the top of my head.

[Snake65]

I'd forgotten H.Beam Piper... Little Fuzzy...

Don't forget Space Vikings while you're at it!

[PJ-Comix]

I have been reading Richard S. Weaver's Southern Essays where he discusses Penn Warren at length.

Can Weaver's essay about Robert Penn Warren be found on the Net?

[AnAmericanMother]

There is a whole industry in Holmes pastiches. August Derleth wrote a whole series. There are enough of them that several folks have put together anthologies.

Have you checked out Baring-Gould's Annotated Sherlock Holmes? It's just chock full of odds and ends.

A German Sherlock Holmes . . . . ? Hmmm . . . THAT is an odd thought. Do Germans tolerate the sort of eccentricities that Holmes cultivated? Maybe among the nobility . . . it's an interesting idea.

[Long Cut]

Stephen King even wrote a Holmes story, in one of his collections of shorts.

Know what I'd like to see? A Sherlock Holmes story set in the present day. It'd be fascinating to see Holmes use modern tech, like the Internet, to solve his cases.

An imaginative writer could make much of this concept.

(and I be Holmes would've been a FReeper.)

[AnAmericanMother]

Have you read A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter Miller)?

Yes. Very effective (and affecting.) It's much easier to read than Riddley Walker. Gives the same effect as that book of the dislocation of society and culture. (I've never forgotten the encounter between the priest and the girl with two heads.)

[Quilla]

What a great thread. Thanks for starting it as I'm always looking for new authors. I've become obsessed with reading in recent years, going through about 2-3 books per week. What could be better than freeper reading recommendations!

I've read and enjoyed Cussler's Dirk Pitt series (all my copies are signed first editions with the exception of Iceberg). I understand that Sahara is currently shooting in Morocco with Matthew McConaughey playing Pitt; although; Cussler is having a few unauthorized script rewrite problems with producers.

When I find an author I enjoy, I read everything they've written before moving on to another. I love Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan and John Carter - Warlord of Mars, John Sandford's prey series, Lawrence Sanders' commandments books, John Grisham, and for great laughs, Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum. I'm currently reading Nelson DeMille and Lisa Scottoline.

[Huber]

The essay is part of a collection published by Liberty Fund Books. You can purchase it directly through Liberty Fund or through Amazon. If you purchase directly from Liberty Fund, you will save shipping. Here is the link and some additional information on the book. BTW, Weaver is the author of the true Conservative classic, IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.

http://www.libertyfund.org/details.asp?displayID=1745

Southern Essays of Richard M. Weaver, The

Foreword by George Core
Edited and with a Preface by George M. Curtis, III, and James J. Thompson, Jr.

Richard M. Weaver (1910–1963) was one of the leading figures in the post-World War II development of an intellectual, self-conscious conservatism. His thought and his appreciation of liberty were rooted in his understanding of Southern history. He believed that Southern values of religion, work ethic, and family could provide a defense against the totalitarian nihilism of fascist and communist statism.

This collection of fourteen essays demonstrates George Core's point that "few writers of the South rival Richard Weaver in comprehensiveness of vision and depth of thought."

FOREWORD xi
PREFACE xv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xxi

ONE
“Work with the Word”: Southern Literature and Thought
1 THE TENNESSEE AGRARIANS (1952) 5
2 THE SOUTHERN PHOENIX (1963) 14
3 AGRARIANISM IN EXILE (1950) 29
4 CONTEMPORARY SOUTHERN LITERATURE (1959) 50

TWO
“The Contemplation of These Images”: The South in American History
5 TWO TYPES OF AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM (1963) 77
6 TWO ORATORS (1963) 104
7 THE OLDER RELIGIOUSNESS IN THE SOUTH (1943) 134
8 ALBERT TAYLOR BLEDSOE (1944) 147
9 SOUTHERN CHIVALRY AND TOTAL WAR (1945) 159
10 LEE THE PHILOSOPHER (1948) 171

THREE
“Discipline in Tragedy”: The Southern Tradition for an American Future
11 THE SOUTH AND THE REVOLUTION OF NIHILISM (1944) 183
12 ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN PHILOSOPHY (1952) 189
13 THE SOUTHERN TRADITION (1964) 209
14 THE SOUTH AND THE AMERICAN UNION (1957) 230

INDEX 257

[Johnny Gage]

Most of my favorites are older books. But ones I reread every so often.

James P. Hogan The 4 book "Giants Novels" set
  "Inherit the Stars"
  "Gentle Giants of Ganymede"
  "Giant's Star"
  "Entoverse"

Tom Clancy
  "Hunt for Red October"

Pat Frank
  "Alas Babylon"

Dennis Smith
  "Report from Engine Co. 82"

[archy]

Stephen King even wrote a Holmes story, in one of his collections of shorts.

Know what I'd like to see? A Sherlock Holmes story set in the present day. It'd be fascinating to see Holmes use modern tech, like the Internet, to solve his cases.

An imaginative writer could make much of this concept.

(and I be Holmes would've been a FReeper.)

That might be the *FreeAmerica website described by Travis McGee in Chapter 3 of his novel Enemies, Foriegn and Domestic, which sure did remind me of FRee Republic.

Perhaps the present-day Holmes would be a descendent of the original. We can kick this idea around a little. And a couple of surprise hooks are possible....

[blackie]

Perfect!!

[archy]

There is a whole industry in Holmes pastiches. August Derleth wrote a whole series. There are enough of them that several folks have put together anthologies. There is a whole industry in Holmes pastiches. August Derleth wrote a whole series. There are enough of them that several folks have put together anthologies.

Have you checked out Baring-Gould's Annotated Sherlock Holmes? It's just chock full of odds and ends.

No, but I promise that I will. FYI, I've got a list of over 200 books that I've used for references and background, including all of the Arthur Conan Doyle books, of course.

A German Sherlock Holmes . . . . ? Hmmm . . . THAT is an odd thought. Do Germans tolerate the sort of eccentricities that Holmes cultivated? Maybe among the nobility . . . it's an interesting idea.

True, Holmes doesn't sound like a stiff-necked Prussian or NordDeutscher, but that's not quite the direction I've gone in; I've postulated him as an Austrian/Bavarian veteran of the First World War, disgusted with German politics and the nationalism that got so many of his fellow soldiers killed. On a disability pension from the war, he lives with his wife and reads, a particular fan of the Holmes novels, and follows in the British consulting detective's footsteps; I'm even playing with the idea of having an aging Dr. Watson turn over his old crumbling files and notes on the late Holmes' unfinished cases to The German Detective. We'll see.

[Long Cut]

Right you are. Just hink of Holmes being able to take advantage of modern forensic techniques, for example.

Perhaps Dr. Watson could be a modern surgeon or coroner. And as for Moriarty...well, it's not too far a leap to see who HE'D be working for nowadays. And the idea brings up many intriguing possibilities...

Visitor to Baker Street: Good Day, Mr. Holmes. You were recommended to me by very high authorities..

Holmes: Pleasure, Sir. This is my associate, Dr. Watson, of the coroner's office.

Visitor, extending hand:Pleased, Dr. Watson. My name is Bond, James Bond...

The potential alone gives me chills!