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Recommendations!
TheFuriousWombat:
not sure if this has been mentioned but neal stephenson's 3000 page "Baroque Cycle" triology is frickin unbelievable. it's easily up there with the best historical fiction i've ever read, full of fascinating characters and lotsa action and tons of stuff on everything from politics to economics to science to religion to cryptography. all 3 are fantastic books and well worth the time it takes to read them.
tehseal:
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Mature reading in case you are sensetive to such things.
Oh and I agree with SilentJ about the Halo books except that I hated The Flood. The other 3 are completely awesome.
DangerouslyRandom:
Mmm, not sure if someone has said this or not:
The Sovereign Stone Triology, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (The first book is "Well of Darkness", followed by "Guardians of the Lost" and "Journeying into the Void")
I believe it to be a very good read. When I picked it up, and read the inner flap, I was like, "Oooo!" and bought it. It's fantasy, so I guess it depends on what you like, but when I started reading it, I didn't stop until I reached the last page.
SilentJ:
--- Quote from: DangerouslyRandom on 31 Dec 2006, 08:15 ---and read the inner flap
--- End quote ---
I totally read that as "inner fap"
mmmm, Zen of masturbating.
KnnOs:
Kushiel's Dart
Ok, it was mentioned previously but I had to add my own two cents, seriously, this is a well written series. I picked it up at first on the recommendation of a friend, largely because of the overt sexiness he mentioned. Anyone approaching these on that one level will find themselves delightfully surprised. The world of Terre D'Ange is filled with characters of every shape and description, but unlike those terribly dry Russian novels you had to read in High School, they are actually characterized... WELL! You find yourself caring about characters very minor to the story, just because they are so richly drawn. You may also find yourself understanding parts of yourself you never did before.
The plot itself is intricate but drawn very logically from the characters that give it shape. Phedre was abandoned as a young girl into the care of one of the foremost houses of "The Night Court". She considers herself no more than a "whore's unwanted get" until Anafiel Delaunay sees her, and recognizes the flaw in her eye, a tiny mote of red floating in the darkness, as Kushiel's Dart, the mark of a god's hand. Under his training she becomes one of the most cleverly placed spies in the land. There are cleverer forces at work in the world, however, and Phedre will have to match all of her talents with her own brand of defiant spirit to preserve everything she holds dear. It's one of those series I try to convince all my friends to read.
Hustle
Another example of excellent storytelling based strongly around character, Hustle is a BBC production which you can catch unreliably on AMC television. I got into it when they were shown regularly but now it's kind of hard to run into. However, Season 1 is out on DVD and Season 2 is out next month, they're 20 dollar DVDs that I strongly recommend.
The show centers around a small group of professional con men. Albert Stroller (Robert Vaughn) is an older con man but no less sharp for it. He plays the role of the roper, meeting the marks, sparking their interest. He introduces them to the inside man, Michael Stone, a.k.a. Mickey Bricks. Under the tutelage of Stroller, Stone has become the premier long con player, and he plays his game with this sort of freewheeling charm that makes it hard not to like him. Ashley "Ash" Morgan is the chainsmoking "fixer." Need an alarm reprogrammed, retinal data replaced, or a company "created" overnight? Ash is your man. There is a long-standing axiom which tells us that a woman may get into many places a man finds barred to him, but dismissing Stacy Monroe as just another pretty face is a mistake that's left many victims bleeding from the bank account. Finally, there's the newbie, Danny Blue. Already an experienced short-con player, Danny forces his way into a con and eventually makes of himself a valuable, if volatile, member of the team.
These aren't the modern con men, "robbing old ladies of their pensions" but rather the gentlemen con artists of old, holding themselves to the maxim that "You can't cheat an honest man." Every mark is left an out, a place where they can walk away by doing the right thing. As you might suspect, almost no one takes that route. The show is strangely moral, funny, dramatic and overwhelmingly charming.
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