Favorite Books

[GovernorTarkin 0]

So my favorite book would be heard to choose, so i'll list a few.

 

Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Darth Bane Trilogy, and the Han Solo Trilogy.

[ZM90 100]

The one where I'm a pretty cool guy who restores beta and doesn't afraid of anything.

 

Joking aside I really don't know don't read much outside the internet honestly. I find books on paper to be inefficient when we have the internet.

[DeadMan 103]

Favorite books? It's hard to choose, so a small list of my favorites:

The Master and Margarita (by Mikhail Bulgakov)

Fahrenheit 451 (by Ray Bradbury)

The Witcher series (by Andrzej Sapkowski)

Thrawn Trilogy (by Timothy Zahn)

Lord of the Rings (by J. R. R. Tolkien)

[milestails 264]

Some of mine....

 

Star Wars:

 

Star Wars Shadows of the Empire - Steve Perry

 

Fiction:

 

The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy

Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton

The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth

The Eagle Has Landed - Jack Higgins

The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara

[Boilpoint 12]

Older Stephen King

- Tommyknockers

- It

- The Stand

- The Dark Tower series

- All the short stories (love a horror story that ends in a bad way)

 

The Wheel of Time (re-reading it all now in anticipation of the last book)

[Mandalore 61]

Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, Lord of the Rings Trilogy/The Hobbit (of course by Tolkien), Isaac Asimov's Foundation Saga/Robot series/ Elijah Baley series (and probably Empire series and all others, but I haven't read them yet), Frank Herbert's Dune, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, probably more that I can't remember at the moment.

[Lord Slash 2]

The kind of books I like are the dark, dystopian ones, not 1984-ish, as that's too authoritarian for my taste, but the ones where the Champions of Light don't always win; for example, I never enjoyed the Harry Potter Saga until the last books, Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows, because that's where you get to learn about Snape, Voldemort and their past, though most books and series never end the way I would like to.

 

For example, I would have wanted Harry to find out through Snape's memories that Snape was his biological father, explaining the fact that Harry has dark instead of ginger hair, and that Snape cared for him, and have Voldemort regain his human appearance as Nagini was slain, a gradual process that should have started with the destruction of the first Horcruxes, and the darkness inside him should have gradually departed until he was finally redeemed as he once again became mortal, but Harry, consumed with anger, hate, malice and confusion, should have cast Crucio and then the Killing Curse on him, becoming the new Dark Lord and Master of Death as he would be in possession of all Deathly Hallows. Years later, he, in turn, should have been defeated and redeemed through the only means possible and through what allowed him to survive Voldemort; love. Ginny, unbeknownst to both of them, should have become pregnant with Harry's child before Harry's corruption, and his own son should have brought him back to the light once more, either through sacrifice, through combat, through his unfortunate death at Harry's hands or through conviction that Harry is not an evil man, which should prevent him from killing his son as he doesn't mean it when he casts one of the Unforgivable Curses on him.

 

That would have been an epic, adult saga, instead of the anti-climatic end of Harry Potter which we got instead. Sort of a Darth Caedus-esque end to the Saga.

 

One of the few authors I've found who can accomodate this kind of taste is Drew Karpyshyn; tales of antiheroes like Darth Bane are amazing, the focus on the social darwinism of the Sith is what distinguishes him from the authors who think the world is painted in black and white. Who else but Drew could have come up with the Mass Effect Saga? The original plot of Mass Effect 3 was to be based upon Dark Energy, a concept Drew had come up with since the beginning, and which is a real-life phenomenon, basically a form of Global Warming that will consume the galaxy unless stopped, and it was mentioned in Tali's recruitment mission in ME2, in the Arrival DLC and with Gianna Parasini on Noveria. The Reapers were originally a species who "decided" to meld into sentient machines, in order to conserve energy and be able to harvest each new species that arose, in order to incorporate their knowledge so as to be able to create a solution, which is what they attempt to do during the years they lay dormant in dark space; it is why Sovereign says each Reaper is one nation, one species, why he says we can't hope to comprehend their motives, as we would not willingly lay down our lives for this purpose, as they've learned through experience that brute force every 50.000 years is the best approach, why they leave primitive species alone, so that they can evolve, and why Harbinger's avatars in ME2 in their combat dialogue say that the experiments must go on and progress cannot be halted. The original ending was to be that you would choose between sacrificing your own cycle and species, hoping the Reapers would be able to solve the issue of Dark Energy, or destroy them and hope that the collective intelligence of the contemporary species would be enough to halt Dark Energy before the heat death of the Universe; i.e, a choice which seemed crystal-clear in the beginning becomes much less so as the game progresses, and it's a morally grey choice, both of them being beneficial and detrimental, ending in a sort of dystopian, harsh realism.

 

My favourite antagonists in books would have to be Arthas, Darth Bane, Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus, Tom Riddle/Voldemort and those who work behind the scenes, such as the Dark Voice and Darth Sidious.

[Rtas Vadum 17]

The kind of books I like are the dark, dystopian ones, not 1984-ish, as that's too authoritarian for my taste, but the ones where the Champions of Light don't always win

 

I'd prefer these as well. Although, I haven't found many that are like this(though I'd love to be pointed towards a few). Most stories, be they for any form of media, believe that a story can only be told from one angle, which can never cross certain lines. The way I prefer it is when champions don't exist, or they simply cannot get far enough to actually be such a thing. And if they do get close to the title, that is as far as they get. Why? I'm sick of these things. I've been, rather annoyed at stories that seem to force the apparent good route, no matter how bad it really is. Also, if they are the heros in the story, well, based on what they are, or what they do, calling them such is only due to the fact that they have a set goal that they won't deviate from. Will they take the villain's offer to join them? No, the villian gets killed for what they've done. At any point, will the hero(s) turn on either themselves, or someone else that is not the enemy? Of course not, what is the point of that?

 

Take this instance. Lets say a killer, who has perhaps murdered quite a few people, and isn't going to stop. They believe that they are right, and nothing is going to change their mind. Now, at some point, the killer chooses to target someone close to the protagonist. They fail in this instance, and is caught by the protagonist. Now, they could just hand the killer over to the police, and have the matter settled, but that merely has the killer either bide time, or simply waste away, never once believing what they did was wrong. However, if the protagonist would chose to dispose of them personally, both for the various people they've killed, or for simply thinking to touch their friend, things are different. Depending on exactly what would be done, the person might just face death understanding just how wrong they are. Not only that, they have no possibility of ever doing it again. Now, a rather obvious thing is that some would consider this a Moral Event Horizon. Which isn't untrue, but not exactly. It might be, depending on what the protagonist's goal is. But I wonder what it is that most people would think of a story like this. Would having the killer punished by the law be enough, even if the killer still believes they are right? Or is it that seeing the killer truly punished for what it is they did, no matter the lines the MC crosses?

 

As for the Harry Potter series, none of that really bothered me. Wait, I take that back. Two things do, one of them mostly cosmetic. The first is the fact that even when you have nearly every character fighting for his or her life, the most some of the main characters chose to do, is just stun whoever it is that they are in a fight with, and that's it. I get that they are the heros, but that doesn't mean they have to stay on the defensive side all the time.

 

As for the second, well, it is the cosmetic one. As much as I understand the fact that the character is supposed to be relate-able(mostly meaning Harry), that isn't what I'd expect for what is a series of books about magic. It might not matter as much for the books, as one could imagine the characters wearing something that fits the setting and their character, but for the films it is. Perhaps some of the characters that wear suits might fit, and that I don't have a problem with. But most of what the main characters wear, almost makes you confused, since in some scenes, the only thing that says that they aren't just regular people, would be the wands, and the spells they are casting.

[JK JA's Jaden Korr 30]

I'd have to say,

Starwars:

1.The Thrawn Trilogy

2.well I don't know what comes after that so I'll just list some in no particular order,The old republic, luke skywalker and the shadows of mindor, the truse at bakura, Death Star,lost tribe of the sith,

 

Fiction

1. The Hunger Games

2. The heros of olympus (also persy jackson seris)

3. Persy Jackson

4. Harry potter

5. ?

[Mandalore 61]

Really, Truce at Bakura? I found that to be really dull with some great bits occasionally to stop you from leaving it & reading something else. Also, I must now add Outbound Flight to my list as the only potential rival to the Thrawn Trilogy in all of the Expanded Universe. And I've got to include Watchmen, as that's the best graphic novel ever written.

[JK JA's Jaden Korr 30]

Really, Truce at Bakura? I found that to be really dull with some great bits occasionally to stop you from leaving it & reading something else. Also, I must now add Outbound Flight to my list as the only potential rival to the Thrawn Trilogy in all of the Expanded Universe. And I've got to include Watchmen, as that's the best graphic novel ever written.

I just said I read it I never said it was good.

[Mandalore 61]

Good point. I simply made the assumption that being good was a requirement for it to warrant a listing.

[Malkior 476]

Really, Truce at Bakura? I found that to be really dull with some great bits occasionally to stop you from leaving it & reading something else.

Sir, I must respectfully disagree. I liked Truce at Bakura (not only because I read it after playing Jedi Academy and being curious about the name), though it was slow to start, I particularly liked how it turned out. I mean, c'mon, Luke and the heroes from the OT battling spacefaring dinosaurs that cyberize people and use them to conquer the universe?! How could you hate that?

 

Seriously though.

 

Also, I must now add Outbound Flight to my list as the only potential rival to the Thrawn Trilogy in all of the Expanded Universe.

Hold on. If you're going to include Outbound Flight, you have to include Zahn's other works such as the those with the Hand of Judgement and his pre/sequel to Outbound Flight with Luke and Mara.

 

Heck, some of Zahn's other works are just as good or at least on-par with his Thrawn Duology/Trilogy I'm finding out.

[Mandalore 61]

Good point - I'd forgotten Hand of Thrawn. I concede that they must also be held on par with the originals. Regrettably, I've not yet got any of his other works, though I am looking for them in anywhere that sells books.

 

While I think the premise of The Truce at Bakura is good, and the ending was indeed well-written, I found that most of the rest of it was simply dull and uninteresting (apart from some other more exciting scenes - notably where things actually happened). I got it because I had previously read the Corellian Trilogy (which is also good) and thought I should understand the backstory between Luke & Gaeriel.

[Fair Strides 509]

Hold on. If you're going to include Outbound Flight, you have to include Zahn's other works such as the those with the Hand of Judgement and his pre/sequel to Outbound Flight with Luke and Mara.

 

Yeah, the Hand of Thrawn Duology is my favorite, adding the original Thrawn trilogy. I enjoyed Mara throughout the Thrawn Trilogy, and almost dropped the book(Hand of Thrawn dulogy, book 2) when I read Luke's pro- *ahem* the revelation at the end; never would have pictured it in a million years...