Actually, I loved the whole damned thing, really. I had a class dedicated to it, and I loved it.
But now I look at my hugemongous annotated copy and realize that I couldn’t tell you anything about Spenser that you couldn’t get from the opening paragraph of a Cliff’s Notes and then I want to bawl like a bitty baby!
I read those in high school. I can still remember the giant’s name, Saltheart Foamfollower.
I think I’m the only one to have read Shadow Castle. It’s a story about a little girl who comes across a man in the woods, and he tells her a story about a fairy man who fell in love with a human princess, and all the conditions that had to be met before they could get married.
Also, The War of Power series by Milan and Vardeman? Published by Playboy, funny enough, so they are a bit sexually graphic, but the story about Fost Longstrider and the twin royal sisters, Moriana, who should have been queen, and the evil Synalon, who overthrew her sister in the Sky City is rather good.
Wow. I thought everybody had read Stephen Donaldson. Have you checked out the Gap series by him? Amazing stuff. No one can write an anti-hero like Donaldson. If you think Thomas Convenant was a hard character to sympathize with, wait’ll you meet Angus Thermopyle.
I’ve also read John Lennon’s two books of… call it poetry. And I’ve seen the movie The Quiet Earth, but not read the books.
I haven’t met too many other people who have read James Morrow or Tim Powers, who are two of my absolute favorite authors. Everyone should read Blameless in Abaddon, and The Anubis Gates is just too fuckin’ cool.
I’ll come out of the closet as another Spenserian … I really liked The Faerie Queene. I’m a sucker for a good sprawling, rambling, discursive, allegorical epic.
Stephen Donaldson’s books had a fair-sized following at one time; they’re still pretty much continuously in print on this side of the ocean, anyway.
Hmm. I know only one other person who’s read Nicholas Seare’s Rude Tales and Glorious (a somewhat risqué retelling of the legends of King Arthur). But more people should. Really.
*Where Were You Last Pluterday * by Dutch author Paul Van Herck. A comic sf novel that is actually funny. I’ve tried to explain the plot to people before, but it takes more time to explain the plot than to read the book. It involves time travel, class warfare, little green Martians, magicians, the Bible, and Sam dies and goes to heaven – four times.
My bookclub read a book called Immodest Acts. Its a history book, not a novel, about a fourteenth century (?) nun tried for what we would now call Lesbianism. I was pretty sure that outside of my bookclub or Gay/Lesbian acedemics or Medieval History professionals I’d never run into another human being that had read the book. Then there was a thread here on historical cases of homosexuality, and within minutes Maeglin and I both recommended the book.
I will never again believe anything I read is obscure.
Powers? Obscure? Didn’t he win the World Fantasy Award? I guess you can win that and still be obscure, but not obscure obscure like Mark S. Geston.
Anyway, I read everything Powers writes as soon as I can get my hands on it. “Declare” is my fave to date, though I’d love to see a movie made from “On Stranger Tides.”
Read it, in fact, its titular concept entered into our family vocabulary. When we go out on the street and traffic is unusually light, or we go to a popular store or restaurant that has very few people in it, one of us is prone to ask, “Is it Pluterday already?”
Birthright by Andrew Coburn. In it, the author supposed that the Lindbergh baby survived, entered politics, and on the eve of a Senate (?) campaign, found out his actual heritage.
Yay, I’m so glad not to be alone. I remember stumbling across the Books In A Minute page, and was stunned to find a summary for the Covenant series. If you haven’t checked this site out, you have to. Funny, funny stuff.
“Ariel, a Book of the Change”, by Steven R. Boyett. This book has everything: post-apocolyptic doom, samurai swordfights, hang-gliding, evil overlords, sex, and unicorns! What’s not to love? And yet no one else has ever heard of it…
Here’s another who’s read The Faerie Queene. I couldn’t tell you a damned thing about it now; I seem to remember something about a knight. But I read the whole thing in undergrad, about 12 years ago.
I’ve yet to run into any other fans of J. P. Donleavy. Whenever I go into a bookstore, I head over to the Ds to see if they’ve got any of his I haven’t read yet. They rarely do.
I’m sure I’ve read this. It’s about what rich people do with all the time they save, isn’t it? And doesn’t it start off with the lead not knowing what the traditional calendar is based on because Christ was just some guy? “Uh…no. Christ, I think.” is a line that sticks in my head. Is this the one.
REad them, and love them. Lennon was an amazing wordsmith.
I haven’t read it, but The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant was one of the best selling fantasy series of all time. It’s hard to believe anyone would think it only hand a small number of readers.
For my choices, first is The Ultimatum to Mankind by Zeev Dickman. I may be the only person other than the author to read it – it was self-published and pretty bad. I only did it because I was writing a review.
I am the only person I know who’s read “The Greatest Gift,” the story that inspired “It’s a Wonderful Life.” I’m certainly the only person on this board who read it before I saw the movie, or even knew the movie existed.
Coming Soon!!! by John Barth The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad (I’m one of the few who actually read it all – the book is deliberately poorly written). Les Clowns de l’Eden by Alfred Bester (in French – US title: “The Computer Connection”) The Time Servers by Russell Griffin Walk the Moons Road by Jim Aiken