Favourite Genre...and Why

[MagicNakor]

Have at it. Of course, the discussions are usually more interesting than the polls anyway. ;)

:ninja:

[TRshady]

I see no option for 'education' .. or similar. Only books I read are instruction manuals, tv guides and the odd revision book. Would read more .. but reading an ebook from comp just isn't the same for me.

[MagicNakor]

It's there now. :P

:ninja:

[hobbes]

Horror is the best genre.

The reason is rather simple. The author is either using the story as a vehicle to explain his concept of God/ the meaning of life or he is attempting to find what scares us the most and to figure out why?

So the story is a pretense to discuss a deeper concept.

Also, when we consider the story of the "Haunted House", notice how the possiblity of the ghost is much more terrifying than the ghost itself.

Humans fear the unknown and the uncontrollable.

[chalice]

I tend to steer clear of genre novels altogether.

I've pumped for poetry. Though, not a genre; more a dicipline.

[longboneslinger]

Thats a damn hard choice, but I'll have to go with Heroic Fantasy. This is a genre not seen to much today. A good example of HF woulf be the Conan series by Robert E. Howard.
As to why, I'm just a little tired of 'Your every day guy turns hero'. I like to ocasionally read about heros that are larger than life like Conan. THese are take charge, kick ass warriors that do what needs to be done. They don't look for fights but sure as hell won't run from one. These are also
a pretense to discuss a deeper concept. :D though some are pure escapist fantasy. Sometimes those 'deeper concepts' are just the author up on his/her personal soap box, which is tiring and sometimes annoying not to mention ruining an other wise good story.

3 last examples:
1: Peter Moorwoods Aldrick Talvalin. He lost everything, including his family to an undead sorcerer. He goes through hell to regain his title of High Clan Chief of Clan Talvalin-about equivilent to a grand duke- and goes through more hell to keep it.

2:David Eddings Sir Sparhawk and his fellow knights. Bad ass knights of the church who must save the world from a power mad elder god.

3:The most militarily accurate-Robert Adams HorseClans series in general and his best character, Billy the Axe, in particular. Billy is the eldest son of a Clan Cheif-here about equal to a baron-who returns home to stop a rebellion in progress. The late author made his own historically accurate medieval costumes including armor and swords and was a student of middle age warfare.

[alpha]

I love humorous sci-fi like Douglas Adams, Harry Harrison and Robert Shekley(sp?).
Why? I cant say.

[100%]

Humor -terryPratchet - Douglas Adams -
anybody know something like that - contemporary
(no im not into wizards n stuff)

[pusher]

I love reading educational books. My favorite is the Langenscheidt Pocket Guide to English Usage and Word Power. I also like cookbooks and some horror books.

[uNz[i]]

Comic Fantasy for me too. Science Fiction a close second - if it manages not to take itself too seriously.

I used to go for the epic varieties of both genres, but it became a chore rather than a
pleasure to read those thick-as-a-phonebook tomes after a while.

I became bored with the same old good versus evil battle in every epic I was reading,
regardless of whether the fight was set in space or a castle.
It all got so damned inevitable.

So I made a conscious decision to enjoy my reading, not endure it.
When I read, I look for wit, humour and original concepts.

Edit:
@ MagicNakor - I just realized that you haven't said what your favorite genre is! :o
Come on... spill the beans. :D

[MagicNakor]

;) I'm a combination. I'm far too eclectic to have a single favourite genre, which likely is the reason for the stacks and stacks of books I've got. However, I won't touch Westerns or Romances with a barge pole.

:ninja:

[lee551]

i really like mysteries. they keep me enthralled until the end and i have a great feeling of accomplishment when i reach the end. :lol:

i also love reading books that are just narrations about something with hilarious commentary... B)

[Falconetti]

I guess i`m a mystery,detective type of a person.

[Afronaut]

I cannot remember the name of the last book i read. :o
And i think it was before i found my way to the board.
Its about time to fix this.

I make music, so that requires me to read some sheets etc, but that doesnt count, right?
:P

The stuff i like is, well, combination. I dont read so much that i could give a one specific genre.
I've got a lot of S.King books on the shell, typical, i know,
but for me they've been a great tool for learning English (more down-to-earth-enklish)
I dont read them because of the Horror but i just like the way he builds up his characters
and how they pop up in different books etc.
The gunslinger series been one of my favorites, really weird set of books.

I've read some Shakespeare too, and for a great surprise they was more than
just a romance layed out in old English.

I've read The Lord of the Rings in Finnish and English, will read the Norwegian version
too when i get just a little bit better with the language.

I dont go for a genre really,
most of the stuff i've read is not really considered Good/Classical stuff,
i've read a lot of Star War books also, he he he..
It seems that i do like series, some sort of continuety in the books.

I have to start reading more and now i know where to look for inspiration,
right here folks.

:)

[j2k4]

I'd like to say that I am as eclectic in my tastes as MN, but I don't think I'm quite on his plane. :)

At any given time I'm working on 2-3 books, plus a few opinion-oriented periodicals.

I read historical/political books, biographies, and many popular authors as well; Sandford, Grisham, Clancy, DeMille, Thayer, Connelly, etc.

BTW-MN:

Even if you don't do westerns (I don't either) you do yourself a grave disservice if you have not read Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry.

Trust me on this one, buddy. ;)

[MagicNakor]

The names sure sound familiar, but if I've read it, the details are long lost. Never enough time. ;)

:ninja:

[j2k4]

Well, as I said, I hate westerns.

I love that book for it's own merits (A Pulitzer Prize-winner, if I remember correctly), also because it introduced me to McMurtry.

You are, of course, correct, as to the difficulties of time management; that is why I always try to have a novel of some kind going along with the other things, if for no other reason than as a reminder that not everything has to be serious.

Hell, I just subscribed to MAXIMUMPC; don't have the slightest idea when I'm going to read that, too, plus the CD that supposedly comes with every issue. :blink:

[MagicNakor]

I first read that as Maxim Umpc, and wondered why'd you be reading it anyway. ;)

:ninja:

[SeK612]

Fantasy - Epic battles between good and evil encompassing massive canvases. Knights, Dragons, Wizards, Elves, Magicians. Well written books that suck you into their world and encourage you to keep reading :)

[j2k4]

Originally posted by MagicNakor@6 April 2004 - 00:37
I first read that as Maxim Umpc, and wondered why'd you be reading it anyway. ;)

:ninja:
For all the sexy PCs, of course.

What would UMPC stand for?

Up Martha's PettiCoat?

[Chame1eon]

a system that puts stephen king in the same category a s dean koontz seems kind of useless to me. what most of the books i like have in common is style.

Clive barker probably has one of the most perfect styles. i've seen the sounds of the words in his long silky sentences are perfect witht the cannotations of the words. I knew i would read a more of his books after the first paragraph. His stories (especially imajica) are wildly creative too.

Steven king is also a great author because his writing seems to come straight from his unconscious. (maybe it does, he didn't know that the shining was symbolically about his life untill someone pointed it out). You can kind of feel a deeper undercurrent in his novels, and i think it is probably effortless.

barbara Kinsolver's metaphors are great too. she seems to write on a lot of different levels at the same time. you can go as deep as you want. :)