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Re-posting a book description from like a year or two ago in this thread. I don't think anyone ever answered it. I think about this book now and then and I wish I knew what it was! I read this book maybe 8-10 years ago. I don't think it was new at that time but who knows. It MAY have been written by a well known horror writer, or I may have gotten it confused with other books I was reading at the time. It was about this boy who as a baby was almost completely left alone in his crib and not physically handled by his family members, basically neglected but still fed etc. I remember something about his crib being in the dining room, and he had brothers and sisters who did get normal affection I think? He grew up to be some kind of murderer or serial killer. I remember something about a house that the man was living in that wasn't really his, I think maybe he killed the owner and then was living there? Or he was caretaking it or something. There was a short passage about the man getting access to his victim's bank account by figuring out that their pin number was written in their address book under the heading "le pin" as if it was a restaurant. There is a girl/women who features prominently who is a potential victim. I think it might switch back and forth from each character's POV but I'm not sure. She isn't the owner of the house that he stays in... I think she's maybe his girlfriend but he;s eventually going to kill her. I think she starts to figure out what's wrong. That's pretty much all I remember. If anyone can figure out what this drat book is, I'll love you forever!
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Dec 19, 2010 20:32
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Hello all- This is my very first SA post. I've been lurking over a year on the hubby's account but have finally mustered the courage to expose myself to the potential horrors and tortures of an SA breach of etiquette in order to track down the title of a particularly enjoyable story I read about 10 years ago while in high school. I attempted to read through the thread to see if it had been posted but became daunted by the the 35 pages I still had left after the first 10. The story was in a literature course book that could have been at least 10 years older at the time and I have no idea about the cover art or the publisher or anything beyond the fact that it was a course book. The main character is a early middle-aged man who writes commercial jingles. This is set sometime in the future, distant enough that travel between star systems is commonplace. Corporate advertising commercials have taken the place of anycoherent form of media and commercials are now 2 minute whirlwinds of plot and sub-plot with generous helpings of subliminal messaging thrown in to the mix. The writers o these commercials rely heavily on the writers of jingles to assist in creating commercials that will reach the most lucrative top viewed rankings. There are many opportunities for many jingle writers to earn cash and the music-making process becomes trite and formulaic; so much so that the possibility for emotional impact is destroyed. In comes our hero who disdains this faster, shallower creative process and spends much time and effort bringing to fruition and then polishing each piece into a masterpiece. His reward for this effort is the high regard of everyone who hears them. Unfortunately his pieces are so good that each piece can be used over and over again without an audience tiring of it. As well as eliminating the need to commission any other pieces. So our hero is held in high regard and yet stays poor. Anyway, (sorry, I just realized that I digressed heavily into story- telling mode and then how long my wall of text would be) this man eventually realized and started experimenting with, music as a means of expressing and even evoking emotion, something that was no longer the norm. He essentially ends up starting a movement that starts to threaten the profit margins of these big corporations. They invent a reason to have him incarcerated and he is shipped off to a prison world where he spends the next 30 odd years performing, not music, but hard manual labor. He is released when he is an old man and discovers that the movement he started lives on but he cannot play the piano any longer because his hands have become too crippled from his years of labor and inadequate medical care. Old classical music of various genres have been rediscovered and there is even a "music appreciation" national park established with music and scenery working together to establish harmony. He goes there every evening to hear a performance. The story ends with a younger person asking an (employee?) about the identity of the old man listening to the music, remarking that he must love it a lot to come so often. The very last bit is his response to her saying something along the lines of, "Him? Oh, he's deaf." It was such a poignant (and kind of sucky) ending and has really stuck with me. Anyone have any idea what it could be called? Thanks. And sorry again for the wall of text.
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Dec 20, 2010 08:17
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I've been looking for a novel that I read in junior high or high school. I remember it being called 'The Club' though that could be wrong, and having the faces of five or so women on the cover. It's about some women who form a divorcées' club (no, not The First Wives Club). One woman is named Janet, and she pretends to be getting a divorce but really she's just planning to write her thesis about the group. The joke is that even though she thinks her marriage is perfect it really is a disaster as her professor husband is sleeping with every undergrad ever. Another is named Chanel, and all she wants is to marry someone rich and pay back all the women who looked down on her because she was poor. She has a bratty teenage daughter. Another is named Ariel and is married to a creepy psychologist who in multiple years of marriage has never actually had sex with her. She has a rich second cousin who Chanel is trying to snag (and shag). I remember all kinds of other little details but not the author's name. Any help? My guess is it probably came out in the 70s or 80s, based on the cover and the way the story was told.
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Dec 21, 2010 08:02
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Shieala posted:The main character is a early middle-aged man who writes commercial jingles. This is set sometime in the future, distant enough that travel between star systems is commonplace.
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Dec 21, 2010 10:59
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Posting this on behalf of a friend who asked me the question. "hey do you know a book that's about this house where some people live and they have like a magical cloak that turns them invisible, I think there were maybe 12 kids and some of them were like trying to get out of the house. I probably already mentioned it before, but I read it in 4th grade and can't remember the name of it."
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Dec 22, 2010 02:44
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branedotorg posted:Sounds like The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl or one of the sequels.
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Dec 22, 2010 05:37
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MinionOfCthulhu posted:but I read it in 4th grade and can't remember the name of it." Sometimes just knowing when you read it can rule out a lot of newer books/stories.
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Dec 22, 2010 06:52
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edit: I lack comprehension, ignore
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Dec 22, 2010 20:33
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I had this book when I was a teen during the 80s before losing it and I'm having a damned hard time remembering the title. On the cover was this guy in an open Hawaiian shirt with a barbarian-style axe hanging on his shoulder. He looked sort of like Mel Gibson-Leathal Weapon era with that kind of mullet hair and a dumb grin on his face. The story was in an economically crashed future and there was this island where you could go and take chances with your life in various violent and hilarious games that were 24 hour-broadcast around the planet in order to make money. I think this book was published shortly after the Running Man movie came out. The island was weird. While you got a nice hotel room close to the beach, when you drove around there were minimum speed limits that had to be observed, especially on dangerous, curvy roads with cliffs on them (you had to drive at least 100 mph or something like that). The more killing you did, the better your hotel and amenities were. I remember the American main character (the guy on the cover) at one point had to play some form of hockey with those razor-sharpened hockey sticks and there was another competitor who was English and had some kind of breathing problem from having inhaled massive amounts of gunpowder fumes from all the shooting he had done. Can't remember the villain or anything though.
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Dec 23, 2010 23:47
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RandomEffects posted:Not busting your balls in particular as I see this posted many times, but aside from the fact that reading level of fourth graders can vary quite a bit, what was available to 4rth graders at your age and when anyone else was could be quite a discrepancy. [/rant] Yes, but fourth grade for me was about 19 years ago, for all I know it was 40 or 10 years ago for you 
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Dec 24, 2010 00:28
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IceNiner posted:Deathrace 2000 meets Fantasy Island This sounds delightfully bad. zedar posted:Yes, but fourth grade for me was about 19 years ago, for all I know it was 40 or 10 years ago for you Argh! I saw this and smugly thought, "Grandpa," then I realized fourth grade was like 24 years ago for me.
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Dec 24, 2010 23:52
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I'm looking for a book I read about 15 years ago so I don't know if this is even going to be possible to find. It's a scifi book about a woman who is a sex worker who finds out her other sex worker friend has been raped to death by a machine. She then gets beat up or something and wakes up on Mars or another planet to find out she's a clone or something. I remember the cover is a "beautiful" red headed woman. It's not like it was popular or anything, but god drat was it ridiculous.
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Dec 26, 2010 05:17
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I'm looking for a fantasy book where the lead is a female character who is a magician, iirc she was a redhead and also immortal in some way(at least unable to die of age). It's a series of 4 books. Any clue guys?
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Dec 28, 2010 14:23
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krunaldo posted:I'm looking for a fantasy book where the lead is a female character who is a magician, iirc she was a redhead and also immortal in some way(at least unable to die of age). It's a series of 4 books. Any clue guys? Was "she" actually an ancient mage/lich trapped in a beautiful woman's body? (Really hoping you say no, here, I'd hate to think anybody is actually looking for these gawdawful books.) NinjaDebugger fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Dec 28, 2010 |
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Dec 28, 2010 17:51
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Shot in the dark here but..... Possibly a Dragon Lance series (just remember it had orange on the cover so maybe not DL) from the early 1990's. Had what seemed to be 3-4 foxes?? on the covers. I was a young teenager and was beginning to read them but then I found the wonderful world of drugs and girls and well.... So any help is appreciated.
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Dec 28, 2010 18:57
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NinjaDebugger posted:Was "she" actually an ancient mage/lich trapped in a beautiful woman's body? (Really hoping you say no, here, I'd hate to think anybody is actually looking for these gawdawful books.) Nope. It was actually rather classy it was also written by a woman.
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Dec 28, 2010 20:41
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krunaldo posted:I'm looking for a fantasy book where the lead is a female character who is a magician, iirc she was a redhead and also immortal in some way(at least unable to die of age). It's a series of 4 books. Any clue guys? This might be the Soprano Sorceress series by, uhh, I wanna say L.E. Modesitt. Be warned, it's awful.
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Dec 28, 2010 21:14
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NinjaDebugger posted:Was "she" actually an ancient mage/lich trapped in a beautiful woman's body? (Really hoping you say no, here, I'd hate to think anybody is actually looking for these gawdawful books.) Now I am looking for these books  That plot sounds horrible enough to be a funny read.
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Dec 28, 2010 21:44
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Adar posted:This might be the Soprano Sorceress series by, uhh, I wanna say L.E. Modesitt. Be warned, it's awful. Definitely not it, I remember it being quite good actually. It was released 1994 or so(first book) ended around '98. There was also some kind of prequel series released around 2004/2006
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Dec 28, 2010 22:00
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Now I am looking for these books Jim Faris, the first book of the series is just called "Mage". Don't blame me when you regret ever opening them, though.
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Dec 28, 2010 23:13
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Holy poo poo... The first result on google is a review of the book, and wow... I don't think I would read these on a bet.
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Dec 28, 2010 23:28
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:Holy poo poo... Ahahaah, man, the author (apprently) has googled himself and has posted a comment in the review post justifying his horrible book http://ninjadebugger.livejournal.com/226678.html
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Dec 29, 2010 00:25
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zedar posted:Yes, but fourth grade for me was about 19 years ago, for all I know it was 40 or 10 years ago for you yes it might be..thus the whole point of my post being people posting when they read the book first and the grade level as a side note. and to keep in with the spirit of the thread feel free to post these somewhere in the next few pages as i am sure it will be useful The book you are looking for is by John Bellairs The book you are looking for is the Westing Game RandomEffects fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Dec 29, 2010 |
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Dec 29, 2010 05:33
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krunaldo posted:I'm looking for a fantasy book where the lead is a female character who is a magician, iirc she was a redhead and also immortal in some way(at least unable to die of age). It's a series of 4 books. Any clue guys? Redhead fits, as well as magician, though I don't know about immortal/hard to kill as it has been ages since I read it, but this makes me think of Fire in the Mist by Holly Lisle. It is, if I recall correctly, part of a trilogy at least. edit: vvvvvvv Heh, yours seems more likely to be accurate than mine. v  v
Fire In The Disco fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Dec 29, 2010 |
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Dec 29, 2010 06:24
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krunaldo posted:I'm looking for a fantasy book where the lead is a female character who is a magician, iirc she was a redhead and also immortal in some way(at least unable to die of age). It's a series of 4 books. Any clue guys? krunaldo posted:Definitely not it, I remember it being quite good actually. Could it possibly have been Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness series? Immortal doesn't fit, but redhead and magician do, though it was released in the 80s I think. As for the prequel series, there was a sequel series about the protagonist's daughter released around that time. e: And a prequel series in 2006! There's also another four-part series by her, Circle of Magic, where one of the leads is a redhead magician called Tris. The dates fit better with this one. There's a second four-parter and a standalone sequel (released in 2005 ).Now I want to read them all again, it's been years. eating only apples fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Dec 29, 2010 |
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Dec 29, 2010 17:04
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NinjaDebugger posted:Jim Faris, the first book of the series is just called "Mage". Don't blame me when you regret ever opening them, though. So are you the same ninjadebugger that did the review of Mage on LJ that Farris replied to? Because I laughed my rear end off at that review, and laughed my rear end off again when the author pretty much said "Well yes all the negative things you say may be true, but those are STREGNTHS and design decisions!"
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Dec 29, 2010 17:18
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Please help me identify this terrible fantasy book or series of books - probably from ~15 years ago: The main feature of the magic system was that you could somehow make yourself faster and stronger at the expense of shorter life. So, you could be twice as a fast and strong, but live only half as long, or three times as fast and strong, and live a third as long. That's really all I remember.
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Dec 29, 2010 19:05
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Dramatika posted:So are you the same ninjadebugger that did the review of Mage on LJ that Farris replied to? Because I laughed my rear end off at that review, and laughed my rear end off again when the author pretty much said "Well yes all the negative things you say may be true, but those are STREGNTHS and design decisions!" Yes, yes I am. I read bad books for fun, and when I find particularly bad books, I make fun of them to get the badness out of my system. e: Holy crap, I can't believe my review is the #1 hit on google. What the hell. NinjaDebugger fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Dec 29, 2010 |
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Dec 29, 2010 19:21
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gvibes posted:Please help me identify this terrible fantasy book or series of books - probably from ~15 years ago: vv Hooray! vv Runcible Cat fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Dec 29, 2010 |
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Dec 29, 2010 20:03
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Engelbrecht posted:Might be the Runelords series, which sort of has this - the magic system's based on people donating points of their D&D ability scores (though it's not put like that, but that's blatantly what's going on), and upping your metabolism score has pretty much the effect you describe.
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Dec 29, 2010 20:12
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I've been trying to track down some books I read as a kid for years now and I'm running out, hopefully someone here may recognize my vague recollections of them. It's a series of young adult books (possibly written in the 50's or 60's though I read them in the 80's) about some kids and their strange green skinned neighbor. He eventually turns out to be an alien and I think he takes them to Mars (or his own planet) via his rocketship (not gay). I know there were at least 3 books in the series, but I never read past the first book. I think they called the martian guy Mr. X or Mr. Martian, and I want to say he wears a top hat and bow tie. I know it's not much to go on, but I'm hoping someone out there read it.
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Dec 31, 2010 17:31
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hemanoncrack posted:I've been trying to track down some books I read as a kid for years now and I'm running out, hopefully someone here may recognize my vague recollections of them. Best I can come up with is "The Alien Next Door" series by Geoffrey T. Williams. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/w/geoffrey-t-williams/alien-next-door.htm
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Dec 31, 2010 18:05
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hemanoncrack posted:I've been trying to track down some books I read as a kid for years now and I'm running out, hopefully someone here may recognize my vague recollections of them. Long shot but was it the mushroom planet series. They built their own rocket ship to visit his planet, of mushroom people, and he was called MR Bass
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Dec 31, 2010 21:50
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I was reading on this very forum a couple of months ago about a Sci-fi/fantasy type book where the whole world is this never ending wall, I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to explain this very well, I think it was a trilogy. I wrote it down and everything then lost it.
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Jan 1, 2011 11:42
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4000 Dollar Suit posted:I was reading on this very forum a couple of months ago about a Sci-fi/fantasy type book where the whole world is this never ending wall, I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to explain this very well, I think it was a trilogy. I wrote it down and everything then lost it. This one. It's out of print, but there's some used ones on Amazon. edit: looks like getting the third one might be tricky Unkempt fucked around with this message at 12:51 on Jan 1, 2011 |
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Jan 1, 2011 12:16
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Yeah, The Stone Trilogy, which is the one I was pimping around here. The problem is, while it's quite easy to find cheap copies of the first 2 books, the third is ridiculously expensive to buy used. I got a bit obsessed with buying duplicates of the books when they went out of print. I have like 4 copies of the first, 3 copies of the second, but still only one copy of the third. I really loving hope they get a reprint or an ebook version someday soon.
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Jan 1, 2011 12:52
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I hate when that happens. It bit me on the rear end with the Centari trilogy from Babylon 5. I spent YEARS thinking the third book never came out, and when I finally decided to just check (cause it wasn't showing up at the bookstore), it was something like 300 bucks for the third book. I think if you are under contract FOR A SERIES of books, then the publisher needs to release that third book in the same amounts as the first two, or at least as a ebook download nowadays. Literary blue balls are the worst man  Gonna try to find the stone trilogy though, it sounds kinda cool.
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Jan 1, 2011 15:19
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The first book (Stone and Sky) sorta works as a stand-alone so if you want a taste of such an awesome, vivid and beautiful fantasy series then go for that, you can get it for about a dollar on AbeBooks. If you really love it then you can worry about paying $30+ for the third book, when you get to that. I wonder, how easy would it be for an author of an out-of-print book to regain the publishing rights, and put it up on his website as an ebook with a paypal storefront or something similar? edit: Having just read Ringworld by Larry Niven, I can enthusiastically recommend the Stone Trilogy as sort of a fantasy version of that book. Only, replace the ringworld with an infinite wall, and replace the future humans with 19th century humans. But it still has the same feel of a motley band of humans and non-humans crossing a vast alien world, encountering all sorts of bizarre incomprehensible architecture and machinery. Hedrigall fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Jan 1, 2011 |
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Jan 1, 2011 15:33
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The other day, I was reminded of a book which may have been part of a fantasy series I read some time ago. The main thing I remember is there's a city in or at the edge of a desert with a huge wall, and when the hero gets there and/or does something foolish, the wall gets attacked by some four-legged sand beast(s?). Sound familiar to anyone?
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Jan 1, 2011 18:38
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hooah posted:The other day, I was reminded of a book which may have been part of a fantasy series I read some time ago. The main thing I remember is there's a city in or at the edge of a desert with a huge wall, and when the hero gets there and/or does something foolish, the wall gets attacked by some four-legged sand beast(s?). Sound familiar to anyone?
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Jan 1, 2011 19:30
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