I need suggestions for a really good escapist novel

[jgraz]

Just something to take my brain away from all the crap that's going on in reality. Anybody care to help me out?

(Yes, I've already read Harry Potter ;) )

[zabet]

1. Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy..

You can find it in a large paperback with all the Hitchhiker books
in one. Great read if you haven't already.

Thanks for all the fish! :)

[jgraz]

5. Already read it too many times

42 times, I think. ;)

[Fleshdancer]

2. what genre do you prefer?

My "brain candy" novels are usually psychological thrillers. I love the Alex Delaware Series by Jonathan Kellerman. For fantasy I highly recommend His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman.

[jgraz]

4. I have pretty wide tastes

I love mystery, sci-fi, thrillers and fantasy, among others. I've read Dark Materials, but not the Kellerman stuff. I'll check it out -- thanks. :hi:

[pokerfan]

23. Alistair MacLean from 1959 to 1963

Night Without End through to Ice Station Zebra. These all featured first person (and sometimes unreliable) narration laced with a dry, sardonic, self-deprecating humour, and were all set in contemporary times. These are MacLean's most intensely plotted tales, masterfully blending thriller and detective elements. (from wiki)

This period of his includes the following titles:
1959 Night Without End
1961 Fear is the Key
1961 The Black Shrike (as Ian Stuart)
1962 The Golden Rendezvous
1962 The Satan Bug (as Ian Stuart)
1963 Ice Station Zebra

You might have to hit the used book stores to find them but they are well worth the effort.

[FloridaJudy]

9. Seconding the "Dark Materials" recommendation

It's fantasy for people who think.

I'm also fond of the "Song of Fire and Ice" novels by George RR Martin. Big, sweeping historical fantasy with a cast of thousands. A Game of Thrones is the first in the series, and they really need to be read in order.

When it comes to SF, Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash sucked me in on the very first page.

[Fleshdancer]

12. I completely forgot about the Song of Fire and Ice series!

I adored A Game of Thrones and the second book was good but I never finished the third book...after a while it just seemed like one sad heartbreak after another. It's been too long to just pick up A Storm of Swords so I'll probably start the series over again sometime this winter.

The SF genre is completely new to me. Harry Potter was a fun and light introduction I suppose, but His Dark Materials and A Game of Thrones were incredible and now I'm far more open to SF. I'll pick up Snowcrash soon since it sounds like we have the same taste in SF.

[XemaSab]

28. His Dark Materials

Teh awesome.

I won't say it's better than Harry Potter, but I will say it's right in there. Very strong writing, tight plot, and LOADS of moral ambiguity. :D

[SoCalDem]

3. An oldie..but a goodie.. "Serpentine"

Not a "light" story, but guaranteed to engross you and keep you glued to the pages..


<010375> Thompson, Thomas. Serpentine. New York, N.Y.: Dell, 1981. Charles Sobhraj, the "Angel of Death," robs and murders tourists in the Far East -- a classic.

Charles Sobhraj - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Charles Sobhraj (born April 6, 1944 in Saigon, Vietnam) is a serial killer of Indian and Vietnamese origin, who preyed on Western tourists throughout ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sobhraj - 39k - Cached -

Charles Sobraj - The Crime library
For serial murderer Charles Sobhraj, the idea of retiring to Paris and making $15 million for a movie deal based on his life made spending more than two ...
www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/charles_sobraj/1.html - 54k - Cached -

What is Charles Sobhraj up to?
When the Nepalese police announced the arrest of 'bikini killer' Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj from the Royal Casino in Kathmandu's Yak Yeti Hotel on September 19 ...
www.rediff.com/news/2003/oct/06spec1.htm - 29k - Cached -

'Crime is in Sobhraj's blood'
Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj escaped five times from jails in Afghanistan, France, ... The boss told me, 'We have something related to Charles Sobhraj for you. ...
www.rediff.com/news/2003/oct/07spec1.htm - 39k - Cached -

Charles Sobhraj
Killing tourists: that seems to have been the favorite past time of Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj. But at the age of 60, justice appears to have caught up with ...
goasia.about.com/od/nepal/a/sobhraj.htm - 21k - Cached -

Charles Sobhraj
Knowlton met Sobhraj and he reportedly offered to take her to Pattaya Beach. Like many of Sobhraj's victims, her body burnt. Sobhraj is supposed to have ...
goasia.about.com/od/nepal/a/sobhraj_2.htm - 24k - Cached -

Sobhraj gets life imprisonment-Rest of World-World-The Times of India
KATHMANDU: His face showed surprise, shock and then finally anger as a Kathmandu court on Thursday sentenced the legendary Charles Sobhraj to life ...
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/812425.cms - 51k - Cached -

Charles Sobhraj to sue film-maker-India-The Times of India
KATHMANDU: Charles Sobhraj, a household name in India in the 70s, still has time to keep an eye on what the media at home and abroad are saying about him. ...
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Charles_Sobhraj_to_sue_film-maker/rssarticleshow/2299455.cms - 44k - Cached -


Charles Sobhraj Serial Killer
Charles Sobhraj, one of the world’s most notorious serial killer celebrities, also known as the “Bikini Killer’ and the ‘Serpent’, was convicted for murder ...
www.tomvater.com/charles.html - 16k - Cached -

The Serial Killer Hit List - Part II
Charles Sobhraj (20) Known as "The Serpent" for his cunning and poisonous ways, Charles is Asia's premier serial killer. A French national of Indian and ...
www.mayhem.net/Crime/serial2.html - 184k - Cached -

[jgraz]

6. Cool! Sounds like a good one.

[SoCalDem]

7. i don't usually like these types of books, but I picked it up

by accident at the library and could not put it down..

I posted some additional links.. (It;s a true stroy)

[enigmatic]

8. "Another Roadside Attraction"- Tom Robbins

[jgraz]

10. Thanks!

[lildreamer316]

31. Strongly seconded.

Love it, love it.

[skygazer]

52. Fabulous book

And rather apropos for the times.

[krispos42]

11. "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump"

by Harry Turtledove

Trust me, you'll wind up reading it like 4 times in a row to find all the subtle jokes, puns, and parallels to our world! Entertaining, funny, subtle, and very imaginative.

I'd loan you my copy, but I read the covers off of it!

[jmowreader]

13. I recommend "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"

A little light novel from Solzhenitsyn is just what the doctor ordered.

[SKKY]

14. "The Alienist" by Caleb Carr...

...PHENOMINAL.

[ceile]

21. Have you read "Angel of Darkness"?

very, very good.

[SKKY]

49. Oh yea, but I specifically suggested Alienist first...

...because it's a good one to read before Angel of Darkness

[KatyMan]

15. The Historian

by Elizabeth Kostova, http://www.amazon.co.uk/Historian-Elizabeth-Kostova/dp/0751537284/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/202-1975087-7508626?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187938241&sr=8-1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Some stories can be told again in endlessly different ways. Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian combines a search for the historical Dracula with a profound sense that Stoker got some things right--that the late Mediaeval tyrant kills among us yet, undead and dangerous. From Stoker, she also takes a sense that the supernatural seems more real when embedded in documentary evidence.
Three generations search for Dracula's resting place, and their stories are nested within each other, so that we know that at least two quests ended badly. Kostova rations her thrills very carefully so that we jump out of our chair at quite slight surprises, especially when we have come to expect buckets of blood and loud bangs. She also has a profound and well-communicated sense of place and period, so that the book is equally at home in 1930s Rumania, Cold War Budapest and 1970s Oxford. Kostova is particularly good on the sights and sounds of remote country places and the taste of real peasant food--this sensuous realism does not always go with her other skill, the creation of imagined documents and folksongs that feel as real and true as what might be actual.

Really good read, highly recommended. Not an Anne Rice type vampire book, no gory stuff.

[Poll_Blind]

16. "The White Nile" by Alan Moorehead. It will transport you back to...

...the 1850's describing far off places so removed, even today, from the world we live in as to be as exotic as any alien world.

  It is non-fiction about the "discovery" of the source of the Nile in Africa, European colonization, the decline of said colonization and the rise and fall of Christianity in Africa.

  Absolutely spellbindingly written.

[cemaphonic]

17. Raymond Chandler

On the fantasy side, how about Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar stories? They are pure pulp fantasy, but they are surprisingly well written (except for the last few - avoid them)

[jgraz]

18. OK, I'll share a few of my favs

A Fire Upon the Deep / Vernor Vinge
A Deepness in the Sky / Verner Vinge
Replay / Ken Grimwood
Diamond Age / Neil Stephenson

[Dave Reynolds]

19. I'm catching up on some of the "Ender's Game" sequels.

Or another fave is anything by Roger Zelazny.

[jgraz]

20. Thanks for all the suggestions!

I'm going to go to my local bookstore (yes, we still have those around here) and look for a few of these tonight. :hi:

[bif]

22. "Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

You won't be able to put it down. Best book I've read in a long time.

[bikebloke]

24. Bernard Corwell's swashbucklers

He writes historical swashbucklers. Though early on, he wrote some contemporary sailing thrillers.

There's the Sharpe series, during the Napoleonic era.

His Arthurian trilogy is good.

[XemaSab]

29. Flashman

You have to be able to laugh at over-the-top sexism and racism though. :P

[jpljr77]

25. "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War"

Good book by Max Brooks (Mel Brooks' son). It's a follow-up to his Zombie Survival Guide.

Anyway, it's good stuff, very well-written, and entirely escapist...although sometimes it can get very, very real.

[jobycom]

26. I just read an interesting novel--"The Poe Shadow" by Matthew Pearle.

I didn't love it, but the writing style won't offend, and it had a bit of historical/intellectual challenge to it. Set in 1850's Baltimore (mostly), it's about a lawyer trying to track down the truth about Edgar Allan Poe's somewhat mysterious death. The lawyer is fictional, but the details are real, and Pearle does a good job of setting the background. He has done a lot of his own research and claims to have uncovered details that even Poe historians have missed--I have no idea, not being a Poe expert.

He gets a little silly at times--some of the scenes are just unlikely. But there were a couple of aspects I like. First, as a history major myself, I enjoyed the way he portrayed the evidence his hero collects. Second, he shows how outlandish theories can come out of simple facts, when often the facts really prove a more simple theory. This is something that drives historians crazy! Third, he recreates pre-Civil War Baltimore in a believable way, and even touches a little on slavery. Nothing epic, and now and then the writer almost seems lazy at not pursuing obvious interesting tangents. But overall, the image is believable.

Escapism, but not so simple you'll feel offended. And the writer's love of Poe is contagious at times. You might just like E A Poe when you finish the book more than you do now. :)

[Cetacea]

27. An Inconvenient Truth. You'd get off on it.

:hi:

[XemaSab]

30. Some of my perennial favorites:

Sabbathday River by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It's about a Jewish woman from New York living in upstate New Hampshire who finds a dead baby in a river. One of her employees is promptly accused of the crime, and Naomi sets out to prove her employee's innocence. Good times ensue. :P

Name of the Rose. Two monks visit a monastery. People get killed. Umberto Eco rips off JK Rowling. Good times ensue. :P

Angle of Repose. A young family moves west. The husband is a very pragmatic type, and his wife is an artist and intellectual. Good times ensue. :P

The Secret History. A young man goes off to college, falls in with a group of Greek students, and they all get together and kill their friend. Good times ensue. :P

The Poisonwood Bible. Crazy missionary takes his family to the Congo right on the eve of revolution. Good times ensue. :P

Lolita. Crazy dude falls in love with a 12-year-old. Good times ensue. :P

Pelican Blood. Crazy birder engages in a vigilante campaign against poachers. Good times ensue. :P

The Haunting of Hill House or We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Crazy people live (and die) in huge houses. Good times ensue. :P

Anything by Ruth Rendell, especially No Night is Too Long or Gallowglass. She's got the pen name "Barbara Vine," under which she writes her best stuff, IMHO. In No Night is Too Long a young man tires of his lover and murders him. In Gallowglass a (different) young man falls in with this other man who is stalking a princess. Good times ensue. :P

The aforementioned His Dark Materials. Young girl navigates a really rich fantasy world with some truly, truly messed up people (and bears) in it. How can you POSSIBLY describe these books? (This is one of three books/series I *BAWLED* during, the other two being HP and Where the Red Fern Grows). Good times. :P

In general, I am fond of books that have "Snape's Worst Memory"-type chapters, where you THINK you know, but you JUST DON'T KNOW. :P

I also have no use for reliable narrators. :P

[jgraz]

33. OH god, shoot me now

Angle of Repose -- probably the least favorite book I've ever read. I'll check out some of your other "good times" selections.

[XemaSab]

42. Ouch.

:D

[jgraz]

48. heh -- I like your other suggestions. Wallace Stegner is just not for me ;)

[XemaSab]

45. Oh, and that's a bit of an odd one out.

Most of the others are more suspense-type books.

[pitohui]

36. very much agree about rendell/vine

she really does kick it up a notch when she's "vine"

[Arkham House]

32. "The Quincunx", by Charles Palliser

A huge--800 pages--modern Dickensian pastiche...believe me, you'll lose yourself...

[Glorfindel]

46. It's a wonderful book, I agree...I couldn't put it down

And I want to re-read it one of these days.

[pitohui]

34. last call by tim powers (fantasy genre but not goofy ass elves)

some of it set at commerce in los angeles and in old/new vegas

vastly entertaining if you ever frequent those areas

also it is one of the better if not the best of the "tarot" novels i've read

[graywarrior]

35. Stephen King's/Richard Bachman's new/old one: Blaze.

Great book.

[idgiehkt]

37. The Thorn Birds?

Calgon, take me away...

:rofl:

[Fox Mulder]

38. If you want to read another book series with a wizard named Harry,

I suggest The Dresden Files series. Storm Front is the first book in the series.

IMO, these books are more enjoyable than the Harry Potter books.

[Greyskye]

39. Charles de Lint

Any of his "Newford" novels or short story collections. (and I normally LOATHE short stories!) The genre is Urban Fantasy.

I also second the Neal Stephenson "Snowcrash" recommendation from upthread. His other novels are as good as better, but not quite as accessible.

(edited for typo)

[Patsy Stone]

40. P.G. Wodehouse or Robertson Davies

From Wodehouse, any of the Jeeves stories. From Davies, I'd suggest the Cornish Trilogy.

Very wonderful.

[CBHagman]

41. "Mr. Timothy" by Louis Bayard.

It's a Victorian thriller about a grown-up Timothy Cratchit (Yes, Tiny Tim of A Christmas Carol). It's not giving away too much to tell you that Scrooge did indeed reform and that he saw to young Tim Cratchit's education.

But don't expect a Dickensian tone in this novel. It's written in the first person, told entirely through the eyes of Timothy Cratchit, and deals with some of the seamier aspects of Victorian London.

But oh, after I got through the first few pages, I couldn't put the damn thing down. It would make a hell of a movie. There's also an emotional payoff to the story, too.

Like some of our friends upthread, I too can recommend Ruth Rendell (AKA Barbara Vine), particularly No Night Is Too Long. But I'll warn you that her tone is rather chilly. Her protagonists can be morally compromised and rather distant from the reader. It's hard to find one you can approach with affection, and that's mostly due to how the stories unfold. Some of the characters may be quite sympathetic, but you're not on this ride to get cozy.

[yellowdogintexas]

43. Jeffrey Deaver, anything; Carl Hiasen, anything, Janet Evanovich, anything,

CArole Nelson Douglas: The Midnight Louie Detective series
Patricia Cornwell
Alexander McCall Smith: #1 Ladies Detective Agency series
My escape fiction has to not make me think too hard.

anything by Jasper Fforde, start with The Eyre Affair

[MorningGlow]

44. I'm almost embarrassed to mention it

but for escapist fiction, I really liked The Chalice and the Blade by Glenna McReynolds. It's :blush: because it's shelved in the Romance section, but there's lots of Celtic magic, historical fiction, and adventure. Plus dirty bits. How can you go wrong? :hi:

[susanna]

47. Oldie, but...

have you ever read "Rebecca" by Daphne DuMaurier? That one just gets me every time. Even though I know the ending...

[Jade Fox]

50. Memoirs of An Invisible Man-H.F. Saint......

Just about the best escapist novel I ever read.

[Fire Walk With Me]

51. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon

[Liberal Lassie]

53. I read 4 novels a week so where to begin?

In my bathroom I have Stephen King; The Langoliers and A Minute Before Midnight. In the bedroom I have the entire Dune series by Frank Herbert (4). Last week I was into Ringworld triology. Very cool Sci=fi! Next week, who knows?

[Fire Walk With Me]

54. Follow Ringworld with Riverworld (Phillip Jose Farmer).

And I believe that there are more than three books in the Ringworld series.

[jgraz]

55. See that's my problem

For some reason, I've been chewing through a bunch of escapist fiction over the past 6 1/2 years. :shrug: I just re-read the entire Known Space series last year. I suppose I could read Dune (yet again), but I'd like to find something new.

I'll check out A Minute Before Midnight, even though I swore off Stephen King after reading "Cell" :puke: