Excellent Book to Recommend

[wulfgar]

The List of Seven
By Mark Frost


http://www.amazon.com/List-Seven-Mark-Frost/dp/0380720191/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222105975&sr=8-1

Just read this book, and found it thoroughly enjoyable on a number of levels.  I don't want to give away too many details, so here's the short-short version:

-It's Sherlock Holmes meets H.P. Lovecraft
-It's the kind of adventure you wish you got to play in as a PC
-It's one of the rare books that actually creeped me out at times (a compliment)
-It was one of those books that I picked up every spare minute I had until I was done.  

List of Seven stands alone as a great book, that being said there is a sequel- which I went out and got through my library, and read through in the few days since I read List of Seven.

The Six Messiahs (also by Mark Frost)

Equally well written.  It does what a good sequel should do, in my mind- continue the story with the same calibre of characters and plot.  It wasn't quite as engrossing as the first one, simply because- it wasn't the first one, yet I still highly recommend it.  

I guess the best recommendation I can give, is that while these two are the only ones in the "series" as far as I can tell, I just started reading another non-related novel by the same author because I enjoyed these two so much.  They get my highest recommendation, and my extra-highest-super-duperereedo recommendation to anyone looking for great ideas for an rpg campaign.

[wulfgar]

2 requests:

1. If you've read these books, I hope you enjoyed them too.  Let's keep this thread spoiler free so anyone that gets turned on to them doesn't have the fun ruined for them.

2. Recommend a great book you've read recently!

[One Horse Town]

Mission by Patrick Tilley. I have to read it again soon. I had a big bout of flu when i read it in one sitting. Amazing - but i wonder whether the fever made it better than it was.

A messiah book...or is it?

[Seanchai]

I'm reading the Taltos series right now. I'm not digging on Arythra and Orca, but enjoyed the previous books a fair bit.

Seanchai

[CavScout]

Have recently finished:
Ender's Game
Speaker of the Dead
The Dark Wing

Just started re-reading:
Blood, Tears, and Folly by Len Deighton (Vol 1 & 2)

[wulfgar]

CavScout: If you enjoyed Ender's game, definitely pick up Ender's Shadow.  I thought it was just as good.  After that, the quality of sequels starts sliding downhill, I still read them all, but it had more to do with me being a completist then them being good.  Ender's Shadow is good stuff though.

I never went down the Speaker's of the Dead branch of the sequel tree though. Maybe I'll have to give that one a look.

[CavScout]

CavScout: If you enjoyed Ender's game, definitely pick up Ender's Shadow.  I thought it was just as good.  After that, the quality of sequels starts sliding downhill, I still read them all, but it had more to do with me being a completist then them being good.  Ender's Shadow is good stuff though.

I never went down the Speaker's of the Dead branch of the sequel tree though. Maybe I'll have to give that one a look.

I'll give it a gander. I've read blurbs on the books and none really jumped out at me. But I'll think I'll give that one a chance. I almost grabbed Shadow of the Giant when I was traveling last week.

[wulfgar]

Ender's Shadow basically covers the same events as Ender's game, but from the point of view of a different character.  I really enjoyed it- as much as Ender's game.

After that though, the rest of the series turns into formulaic Tom Clancy novels.  Not the ones actually written by Tom Clancy.  The ones written "with" Tom Clancy.

The series goes:

Ender's Game
Ender's Shadow
Shadow of the Hegemon
Shadow Puppets
Shadow of the Giant

Or

Ender's Game
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind

or you can just look at this handy-dandy chart I just found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ender.svg