Favorite Books

I figure I’d stick with the Top Ten lists either until I have something else I really want to talk about or until I run out of ideas. The following are my favorite books/book series of all time.

The Dark Tower is based on the poem “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” by Robert Browning. This series would have been much higher on the list, but I feel like King kind of dropped the ball on the last couple of books. However, the first four books of the series are Steven King at his best. The main character, Roland, is a gunslinger (the last gunslinger), and is obsessed with finding the Black Tower in order to save the world. Read the first four books, skim the next two, then read the last 50 pages of the finale. Be sure to read the extended ending.

I’ve read most of the Shannara series and while I enjoy all of them, The Sword of Shannara is the best of the bunch. This is also one of the first fantasy books I ever read.

In The Talisman Jack Sawyer, a young boy from a coastal community sets off to find a talisman that will cure his mother’s cancer. During his journey, he discovers a world parallel to our own. In Black House, its several years later and Jack Sawyer is a homicide detective. He has no recollection of the events from the Talisman. That is until a series of homicides sets him on a path to recollection and he once again visits the parallel world.

As you’ll see from the rest of my list, I primarily read fantasy and horror. This book is a drama/mystery. The first 10-15 pages are really slow, but if you can get through them you won’t be able to put this book down.

This book is gripping; I read all 1100 pages over the course of a weekend.

Think “Christine,” but more demonic. Admittedly, I’ve never talk to anyone who’s read this and thought it was good. I thought it was the most suspenseful King novel of them all.

From “The Crystal Shard” to “The Orc King,” I’ve read them all. Drizzt Do’Urden is one of my favorite fictional characters in any medium. The plots are always compelling, but Salvatore really shines when describing the battle scenes.

Dragonlance is the standard by which I measure all fantasy books. The Chronicles Trilogy is where it all started for Dragonlance (technically, it started off as a game, but the novels started here). Today, there are around 200 Dragonlance novels.

In the Chronicles Trilogy, Raistlin was easily my favorite character of the group. By the end of the Legends Trilogy, Raistlin comes in second only to Darth Vader as my favorite fictional character of all time. "Legends" follows the story of Raistlin in his quest to rule not just world, but the entire universe.

The Soulforge follows Raistlin from childhood through his testing to become a mage. I think my favorite part about this book is because you find out why Raistlin is the way he is.

Well, I would have liked to have been more descriptive on a couple of those, but I woke up ill this morning and wasn’t much into it.

Hopefully today’s picture will make up for yesterday’s “shark attack victim.”