Guilty Secrets--The Have's vs. Have Nots

[shwankie]

So, per Ocicat's post in the original "Guilty Secrets" thread, I am going to post my most embarrassing SF favorites, the things I was reading when I should have been reading something else.

-Piers Anthony's Immortality Series. As long as you mentioned it, Ocicat, I might as well include it. of course, i was like 15; but, still, no real excuse to read it *all.* I actually like a couple of them, and have re-read them in recent years. Shameful, but true.

-The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned. Okay, I am not as embarrassed by this as some folks might be. I have a pretty hardcore obsession with vampires, though thankfully not in a 14-year-old Goth girl way. I enjoy the full mythology, the way the changes in vampire lore illustrate the changes in cultures and societies, and the psychology behind it. Oh, and the sex and violence. What can I say, I am a well-rounded kinda girl.

I am sure there  are many, many more; but, it's late, I'm tired, and there's only so much shame one person can take in a week.

[Darwinist]

The Gentry Lee "Bright Messengers" books.  I was a fan of the Rama series he co-wrote (hijacked) from Clarke and since these books were set in the same universe as Rama I had to read them.  I forgot much of them but seem to remember that there was alot of overdone violence and unlikeable characters in the books.  A rape or two thrown in for good measure.  Dreadful. 

[Tango Alpha Delta]

So, per Ocicat's post in the original "Guilty Secrets" thread, I am going to post my most embarrassing SF favorites, the things I was reading when I should have been reading something else.

-Piers Anthony's Immortality Series. As long as you mentioned it, Ocicat, I might as well include it. of course, i was like 15; but, still, no real excuse to read it *all.* I actually like a couple of them, and have re-read them in recent years. Shameful, but true.

-The Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned. Okay, I am not as embarrassed by this as some folks might be. I have a pretty hardcore obsession with vampires, though thankfully not in a 14-year-old Goth girl way. I enjoy the full mythology, the way the changes in vampire lore illustrate the changes in cultures and societies, and the psychology behind it. Oh, and the sex and violence. What can I say, I am a well-rounded kinda girl.

I am sure there  are many, many more; but, it's late, I'm tired, and there's only so much shame one person can take in a week.

The Incarnations of Immortality were high literature compared to most of the Xanth series... and I read a fair number of those before realizing that they were really pretty gross and unfunny.  (But the puns kept me coming back...)  Like you said, though, that was more than half a lifetime ago.

[stePH]

-Piers Anthony's Immortality Series. As long as you mentioned it, Ocicat, I might as well include it. of course, i was like 15; but, still, no real excuse to read it *all.* I actually like a couple of them, and have re-read them in recent years. Shameful, but true.

I thought I *had* read all of those, but years later somebody told me that there were volumes for Satan and God as well (I thought they were the Eternals, not simply two more positions to be filled by just anyone  ).  From what I've heard, I'm not at all sorry for having missed them.

[Heradel]

The X-Wing series. Can't really defend myself, but dammed if I don't have all but a couple embarrassingly well thumbed on my bookshelf.

[Alasdair5000]

The X-Wing series. Can't really defend myself, but dammed if I don't have all but a couple embarrassingly well thumbed on my bookshelf.

It's the Dirty Dozen!  In SPACE!  What's not to love?

[Talia]

Piers Anthony's 'Blue Adept' series. At least the first three (I found #4 to be unreadable). I have mixed feelings on this: parts of the series were pretty imaginative and fun, but other parts were sheer crap.

[DKT]

Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule.  The other books in that series (I think I read four of them) really annoyed me, but I had a blast reading that first one at the end of high school. 

[Ocicat]

I read far too many of the Xanth novels myself.  My only excuse was that I was still in high school at the time.

Mostly I don't think I have much patience for the real offenders.  I threw Sword of Shannara by Terry Books across the room when I was able to predict another plot point based on already having read LotR.  I could never get into the Anita Blake Vampire / sex books by Laurell K. Hamilton, which seems to be the "guilty pleasure" of choice for many of my friends these days (along with the Kushiel series by Jacqueline Carey - which I also threw across a room).  I finished Orson Scott Card's "Children of the Mind", but only because it was the audio version, and I still nearly strangled myself a few times while listening.

I do like some light stuff though, like the Myth Adventure series by Robert Lynn Asprin.  And though I don't read Star Trek or Star Wars novels, I've read several books set in the B5 universe.  Hey, they were good, really!

Mostly though my guilty pleasure is comics.  Tons of them.  A lot of good, fairly literate stuff (in the vein of Gaiman's Sandman or the fabulous retelling of the War of Troy, Age of Bronze), but also lots of Superhero junkfood, from Superman down to Booster Gold and the Avengers.  I just love me some comics.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

Mostly though my guilty pleasure is comics.  Tons of them.  A lot of good, fairly literate stuff (in the vein of Gaiman's Sandman or the fabulous retelling of the War of Troy, Age of Bronze), but also lots of Superhero junkfood, from Superman down to Booster Gold and the Avengers.  I just love me some comics.

Sandman is awesome... and I love me some Astro City!

[DKT]

Mostly though my guilty pleasure is comics.  Tons of them.  A lot of good, fairly literate stuff (in the vein of Gaiman's Sandman or the fabulous retelling of the War of Troy, Age of Bronze), but also lots of Superhero junkfood, from Superman down to Booster Gold and the Avengers.  I just love me some comics.

Sandman is awesome... and I love me some Astro City!

I'm a sucker for a good comic.  Anything Gaiman, Hellblazer, Y the Last Man (sniff), Runaways, X-Men (although it's been a long time since I've read a really good X-Men book), Daredevil.  Yeah, some very fun stuff, there.

[stePH]

... though I don't read Star Trek or Star Wars novels, I've read several books set in the B5 universe.  Hey, they were good, really!

To be fair, the worthy ones finish parts of the story that the TV show didn't have time for, i.e. the stand-alones To Dream in the City of Sorrows and The Shadow Within, and the trilogies of the "Psi Corps", "Technomages" and particularly the "Legions of Fire" trilogy which chronicles the story of Centauri Prime and Emperor Mollari II.

All of those, I've read and liked.  The rest I'm not interested in from what I've heard.

[gelee]

The entire Deathstalker series by Simon R. Green.  I love the damn things, but I have to conceded that they aren't exactly...highbrow.  Great fun, but there is definatley a campy feel to them.

[bad_andy]

Guilty secrets, eh...

Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Fuzzy

Darned good 1962 exploration of what we mean when we say "sentient". I tried pushing on one of my friends when I read it in high school and he couldn't get past the name of the book.

[stePH]

Guilty secrets, eh...

Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Fuzzy

Darned good 1962 exploration of what we mean when we say "sentient". I tried pushing on one of my friends when I read it in high school and he couldn't get past the name of the book.

I found that as a free downloadable ebook and read it on my Palm V (which has since been stolen  )

[Graham]

MIne would have to be Warday by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka.

[shwankie]

Mostly I don't think I have much patience for the real offenders.  I threw Sword of Shannara by Terry Books across the room when I was able to predict another plot point based on already having read LotR.  I could never get into the Anita Blake Vampire / sex books by Laurell K. Hamilton, which seems to be the "guilty pleasure" of choice for many of my friends these days (along with the Kushiel series by Jacqueline Carey - which I also threw across a room).  I finished Orson Scott Card's "Children of the Mind", but only because it was the audio version, and I still nearly strangled myself a few times while listening.

I do like some light stuff though, like the Myth Adventure series by Robert Lynn Asprin. 

You and I share some similarities. I *love* Asprin, and guess I don't consider it a guilty pleasure. It's fluffy, but not "bad' in the sense that the Anita Blake's are bad (and boy, are they...the only things worse were her fairy porn books. I am sure that series had a name, but I forgot it in the lurid fog she loosely deems "plot"). I, too, gave up on Sword of Shannara rather emphatically.

We do differ in that I never finished "Children of the Mind" in any format, and from the sounds of it, I am better off (thanks for the phrase, Joss)!

[DKT]

I picked up Simon R. Green's Something from the Nightside and just finished reading it the other night.  It's in the same vein of urban fantasy we get Jim Butcher and Laurell K. Hamilton from, although I enjoyed it more.  It's ridiculous goth noir fun, something Ben Phillips should be narrating for the audiobook version.  The plot is a bit formulaic at times -- where our hero takes us from one place in Nightside so we can get to the next place.  But it's dark enough and fun enough to make me consider picking up more of the series.

[wintermute]

Guilty secrets, eh...

Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Fuzzy

Darned good 1962 exploration of what we mean when we say "sentient". I tried pushing on one of my friends when I read it in high school and he couldn't get past the name of the book.

I found that as a free downloadable ebook and read it on my Palm V (which has since been stolen  )

Thanks for the recommendation, you two.

I've downloaded an e-copy, and am about halfway through it. As kids' books go, it's pretty good. And the sentience question is dealt with very well.

As with so much science fiction, though, the xenobiology annoys me. There's no way that alien species are going to fit into neat little boxes labelled (for example) "mammal". Even the distinction between "animal" and "plant" isn't going to be recognisable on a different evolutionary tree. But that's really a tiny quibble. Overall, a book well worth reading for free.

[jrderego]

Okay, time to come clean about my unnatural love for "The Destroyer" series by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. I've read all 120 something of them, used to collect the comics, and even have a DVD of the moderately crappy film starring Joel Gray as Chiun. Dollar for dollar these are the most entertaining 45 minute reads ever, hilariously funny, super fast paced, and as mentally cleansing as an LSD lobotomy.

My other admission - I hate all fantasy literature with the exception of select stories from Robert E. Howard's writings. I've read plenty of it. I waded through Tolkein's stuff, the idiotic Xanth books, all manner of series stories in various young adult titles like Lloyd Alexander's Prydian books, or CS Lewis' Narnia stories, I've read the shorts in genre mags too, F&SF, Asimovs, and Science Fiction Age. I can't stand any of it. I even reserve special hatred for Robert Heinlein's "Glory Road, his only true fantasy story, while I will happily read and reread anything else in his collection. The only thing I hate more than traditional fantasy short stories or novels, is modern or urban fantasy. These stories actually make me seethe with anger.

Short of that though, I've got nothing else guilty or otherwise.

[qwints]

One word: Animorphs.

jrderego - What about Terry Pratchett? I normally dislike straight fantasy, but I really enjoy some of his books (which might count as a guilty pleasure, but it certainly isn't something I'm ashamed of. Good Omens is one my top 5 books.

[Heradel]

One word: Animorphs.

I went through almost all of those when I was younger, but I got into the "I R serious reader, I R reading literature" phase of high school before they got to any kind of conclusion (did they ever get to a conclusion?).

[jrderego]

One word: Animorphs.

jrderego - What about Terry Pratchett? I normally dislike straight fantasy, but I really enjoy some of his books (which might count as a guilty pleasure, but it certainly isn't something I'm ashamed of. Good Omens is one my top 5 books.

Never read him. I have a few friends that love the Discworld stuff, but I've never given them a try.

[Windup]

My other admission - I hate all fantasy literature with the exception of select stories from Robert E. Howard's writings. I've read plenty of it. I waded through Tolkein's stuff, the idiotic Xanth books, all manner of series stories in various young adult titles like Lloyd Alexander's Prydian books, or CS Lewis' Narnia stories, I've read the shorts in genre mags too, F&SF, Asimovs, and Science Fiction Age. I can't stand any of it. I even reserve special hatred for Robert Heinlein's "Glory Road, his only true fantasy story, while I will happily read and reread anything else in his collection. The only thing I hate more than traditional fantasy short stories or novels, is modern or urban fantasy. These stories actually make me seethe with anger.

Short of that though, I've got nothing else guilty or otherwise.

OK, I'll bite.

What's the story on "hate" for fantasy?  I'm not saying you or anyone else should like it.  But, finding the genre silly, or tedious, or boring, or trite I could understand.  But hate? (or I guess it's actually hate!!!)  Did an elf abuse you when you were a child, or what?

I'm also curious as to why you consider Glory Road a "true fantasy story" while Job, The Number of the Beast and The Cat who Walks Through Walls don't fall into that category.  He certainly made an effort to create science-fictional (I hesitate to say "scientific") underpinnings for Glory Road, while he really doesn't even try with the others I mentioned.

[jrderego]

OK, I'll bite.

What's the story on "hate" for fantasy?  I'm not saying you or anyone else should like it.  But, finding the genre silly, or tedious, or boring, or trite I could understand.  But hate? (or I guess it's actually hate!!!)  Did an elf abuse you when you were a child, or what?

I'm also curious as to why you consider Glory Road a "true fantasy story" while Job, The Number of the Beast and The Cat who Walks Through Walls don't fall into that category.  He certainly made an effort to create science-fictional (I hesitate to say "scientific") underpinnings for Glory Road, while he really doesn't even try with the others I mentioned.

It's a completely irrational hatred. There's nothing inherently wrong with fantasy literature, but I can't suspend my disbelief enough to even remotely enjoy it. Sort of like eating asparagus (guilt admission #3), I know it's good for me, I know my wife made it, I know she made hollandaise sauce from scratch, and I know it should not make me want to heave when I see it at the table... but it does. Strangely, I am perfectly okay with fantasy in film or television, and actually enjoy it. But reading it is like wiping my eyes with 100 grit sandpaper.

As for Heinlein's stuff, Job, and Number of the Beast (which was hilariously awful), and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls doesn't use any of the fantasy mechanics that Glory Road does, and even when he is scientifically showing how the dragon has firely breath, my willing suspension of disbelief has gathered a length of twine and is throttling my brain.

(on edit - huzzah, I figured out the tags!)