Okay, so I don't read a LOT. A few books a year, maybe 3 or 4 if I'm really in te mood.

Anyway, I'm looking for a great saga. I love LOTR, obviously, and The Dark Tower series by Stephen King.

I'm looking for a nice long epic I can sink the next few year of my life into. Nothing too cheesy. I need a solid universe, and solid characters. Secondly, I would prefer to avoid people who have a social agenda in their stories. I'm just looking for a good long epic, fun to read, with worlds I can dissapear into.

Any suggestions???

Hyperion. Dan Simmons.

Thank me later.

(It's followed by The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion and The Rise of Endymion.)

Robert Musil's two-volume Man Without Qualities will kick your ass, take your ass's name, make your ass eat its own name, shit out the name it just ate and then make it eat it again.

Dan Simmons won't be nearly as violent to you.

Thurston McQ wrote:Robert Musil's two-volume Man Without Qualities will kick your ass, take your ass's name, make your ass eat its own name, shit out the name it just ate and then make it eat it again.

I was reading up on that online. Looks like a WW1 epic? Not finished? tsk tsk.

That Simmons one sounds better...

Score one for Ipsy.

Darth Snoopy wrote:

Thurston McQ wrote:Robert Musil's two-volume Man Without Qualities will kick your ass, take your ass's name, make your ass eat its own name, shit out the name it just ate and then make it eat it again.

I was reading up on that online. Looks like a WW1 epic? Not finished? tsk tsk.

That Simmons one sounds better...

I second Hyperion, or more properly, the Hyperion Cantos, which consists of Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion. That tetralogy makes up my favorite SF series of all-time. Simmons' way of describing different worlds and conveying the fantastic possibilities grounded in real-world science is sublime. And the story is as epic as you can possibly get.

Master Ulic wrote:

Darth Snoopy wrote:

Thurston McQ wrote:Robert Musil's two-volume Man Without Qualities will kick your ass, take your ass's name, make your ass eat its own name, shit out the name it just ate and then make it eat it again.

I was reading up on that online. Looks like a WW1 epic? Not finished? tsk tsk.

That Simmons one sounds better...

I second Hyperion, or more properly, the Hyperion Cantos, which consists of Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion. That tetralogy makes up my favorite SF series of all-time. Simmons' way of describing different worlds and conveying the fantastic possibilities grounded in real-world science is sublime. And the story is as epic as you can possibly get.

Done and done. I'll go read a chapter at the bookstore, and pick it up if it grasps me.

It will.

I have foreseen it.

Remember, Hyperion is first.

Not a World War I epic at all. It predates it, in fact.

It's really about a good-for-nothing with a perceived limitless potential working his way through Musil's fictionalized version of Vienna at its most decadent (in both senses of the word).

It's about learning to shade, recognize and come to terms with moral ambiguity in a society that necessitates it while claiming to abhor it.

It's about all kinds of awesome shit, and it forces your pre-pubescent, great granddaughter's eggs into a state of self-fertilization.

Yikes.

Dan Simmons will stay far, far away from your pre-pubescent granddaughter.

Thursty, you're making this too easy.

Thurston McQ wrote:Not a World War I epic at all. It predates it, in fact.

It's really about a good-for-nothing with a perceived limitless potential working his way through Musil's fictionalized version of Vienna at its most decadent (in both senses of the word).

It's about learning to shade, recognize and come to terms with moral ambiguity in a society that necessitates it while claiming to abhor it.

It's about all kinds of awesome shit, and it forces your pre-pubescent, great granddaughter's eggs into a state of self-fertilization.

Thursty, my friend, movie studios should be hiring you to hype up their films. The promotional campaigns could only air on HBO or Showtime, of course, but they'd be a sensation.

All I'm trying to say is that The Man Without Qualities is uncommonly, brain-shreddingly good.

There's also Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain. That'll take you a while to get through.

And then there's Hermann Broch's Sleepwalkers trilogy.

Thurston McQ wrote:All I'm trying to say is that The Man Without Qualities is uncommonly, brain-shreddingly good.

There's also Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain. That'll take you a while to get through.

And then there's Hermann Broch's Sleepwalkers trilogy.

But do either of those put your great-granddaughter's eggs into a state of self-fertilization?

:P

There's a possibility I was being a mite hyperbolic.

Ipsy!!! Dammit! That book is GOOD so far. Read 60 pages last night, way beyond my normal scope of reading. LOVE it so far, very excited to see what hapens to that Priest.

Late to the thread, but I'll just back up Ipsy and Ulic.

The Hyperion Cantos is one of my favorite stories ever.

Simmons' Ilium/Olympos duology is almost as great (but still great) with some really cool Troy/mythology mixed with post-apocalyptic sci-fi. Yeah.

Darth Snoopy wrote:Ipsy!!! Dammit! That book is GOOD so far. Read 60 pages last night, way beyond my normal scope of reading. LOVE it so far, very excited to see what hapens to that Priest.

You're welcome.














Looks like my opinion, about something, matters, after all.

The Man Without Qualities (id est, yours truly) scoffs at your science fiction Hyperion, and recommends you read Friedrich Hölderlin's epic, two-volume Hyperion in its stead.