Books that have stunned you.

[HareBrain]

ha

I just read it few weeks ago but I am trying to recall what guy said what thing?

give me a hint so I can jog my memory.

There's always the possibility of course that Lord Soth and I were thinking of completely different scenes (and here's where we find out!). The one I meant was when the guy answers a question and the answer involves a number.

 

[rai]

There's always the possibility of course that Lord Soth and I were thinking of completely different scenes (and here's where we find out!). The one I meant was when the guy answers a question and the answer involves a number.

I'd like to buy a vowel.

Must be my ambien kicking after I read it, but I can't recall what you are referring to...

 

[HareBrain]

"Amok, what are you?"

 

[Heather Myst]

I have to go with Jennifer Fallon's Second Sons trilogy that begins with The Lion of Senet. I loved the fact that the hero uses his brains instead of magic. It is my favorite Fallon series of all time and she has some good ones.

 

[pom]

well most of the books that really stunned me, have been mentioned above so I wont dwell on them.

But one book that did leave a lasting impression for god or bad was "the dice man" by luke rhinehart. Now that was one disturbed mind.

And to echo some posters, I loved MSR serious

 

[woodsman]

Ah S*^$% The Diceman really is worth a read, definitely a big thinker.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

There were many skies. The sky was invaded by great white clouds, flat on the bottom but round and billowy on top. The sky was completely cloudless, of a blue quite shattering to the senses. The sky was a heavy, suffocating blanket of grey cloud, but without promise of rain. The sky was thinly overcast. The sky was dappled with small, white, fleecy clouds. The sky was streaked with high, thin clouds that looked like a cotton ball stretched apart. The sky was a featureless milky haze. The sky was a density of dark and blustery rain clouds that passed by without delivering rain. The sky was painted with a small number of flat clouds that looked like sandbars. The sky was a mere block to allow a visual effect on the horizon: sunlight flooding the ocean, the vertical edges between light and shadow perfectly distinct. The sky was a distant black curtain of falling rain. The sky was many clouds at many levels, some thick and opaque, others looking like smoke. The sky was black and spitting rain on my smiling face. The sky was nothing but falling water, a ceaseless deluge that wrinkled and bloated my skin and froze me stiff.

There were many seas. The sea roared like a tiger. The sea whispered in your ear like a friend telling you secrets. The sea clinked like small change in a pocket. The sea thundered like avalanches. The sea hissed like sandpaper working on wood. The sea sounded like someone vomiting. The sea was dead silent. And in between the two, in between the sky and the sea, were all the winds.

And there were all the nights and all the moons.

 

[merritt]

Great story - I have no mouth & I must scream by Harlan Ellison

 

[Daisy-Boo]

Great story - I have no mouth & I must scream by Harlan Ellison

I agree 100%. This is one of the most disturbing stories I've ever read. I'm not a huge Ellison fan but this story is, in my opinion, a masterpiece.

 

[tangaloomababe]

I have read some wonderful books, books that left you just sitting and thinking after you have finished them but as far as stunned me I guess "The Shadow in the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon was up there, not because it was action packed but it was very absorbing and magical in a way. The other "stunner" "The Pillars of the Earth: Ken Follett, erveryone should read this book, brilliant and absorbing.
However the book I am reading at the moment, and I force myself to put it down because I don't want to read it to quickly has the potential to be a stunner! It may not live up to that but it is still a very good book at the moment. "The Kingdom of Ohio" Matthew Flamming. Well worth picking up, not only that it has me running to the computer to check details that are in the book and its very factual in its information. The man has done his research well!

I have never read The Sparrow, but I will have to find a copy now after the recommendations.

 

[dask]

Great story - I have no mouth & I must scream by Harlan Ellison

Yes, I agree. In fact it's the only story I really liked in HE's collection by the same name.

Super avatar, by the way.

 

[Spade]

The Dark Beyond the Stars by Frank M. Robinson

Perhaps the only time where an ending was truly shocking and amazing for me.

 

[Coolhand]

Hmmm...
If you define stunned as my "WOW this book is fantastic" then I think the last book to have that effect on me was Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. Everything about it, from the prose to the story and the world building just seemed to hit all the right nerves in my brain. I was running around for a month telling all my friends they had to read it. I like a lot of Morgan's other work, but nothing he's done has ever quite reached the heights of Altered Carbon, for me anyway.

If you mean stunned as in a shocked, skin crawling sense of unease then Use of Weapons by Ian Banks. THAT scene. Yeah, you know the one. And if you don't, trust me, read that book. I find the book quite uneven over all, with some brilliant bits and some bits that don't quite work for me, but THAT scene is horrific genius and left me feeling quite unsettled for the rest of the day.

 

[Connavar]

Hmmm...
If you define stunned as my "WOW this book is fantastic" then I think the last book to have that effect on me was Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. Everything about it, from the prose to the story and the world building just seemed to hit all the right nerves in my brain. I was running around for a month telling all my friends they had to read it. I like a lot of Morgan's other work, but nothing he's done has ever quite reached the heights of Altered Carbon, for me anyway.

Have you read Woken Furies ? I think its almost as great as AC was.

I agree about AC and Morgan, that book is the only contemporary SF book i read and thought wow this is fantastic. The world,way of life specially is stunning. Sometimes creep me out the unnatural far future,re-sleeving etc

His stories,world feel realer than real. In comparison to other similar contemporary SF i have read that felt as real as role playing board games....

 

[Coolhand]

Have you read Woken Furies ? I think its almost as great as AC was.

I agree about AC and Morgan, that book is the only contemporary SF book i read and thought wow this is fantastic. The world,way of life specially is stunning. Sometimes creep me out the unnatural far future,re-sleeving etc

His stories,world feel realer than real. In comparison to other similar contemporary SF i have read that felt as real as role playing board games....

Yup, read WF. I liked it a lot but it didn't quite hit all the notes that AC did for me. I felt that a couple of sections of the book dragged quite a bit, felt like padding. But then maybe that's because I went into AC not knowing what to expect and had built up big expectations with WF. I actually prefer Broken Angels to Woken Furies, which I know makes a lot of people look at me funny as most seem to view BA as the weakest Kovachs book.

But yeah, the whole Kovachs trilogy is fantastically well written, even at its weaker moments. I know what you mean about how his prose makes it all feel "real." Morgan has skills. Serious skills.

Have you read Black Man or The Steel Remains?

 

[Connavar]

I'm finishing Woken Furies right now, i agree it dragged alittle in some parts but most of the book it had almost the same quality as AC. The hole series is fantastic.

I have The Steel Remains next to read. I was waiting to finish Takeshi's story.

Black Man i look most forward to read though very soon. It sounds more like Morgan natural sf and not him trying something new in fantasy.

 

[Coolhand]

I'm finishing Woken Furies right now, i agree it dragged alittle in some parts but most of the book it had almost the same quality as AC. The hole series is fantastic.

I have The Steel Remains next to read. I was waiting to finish Takeshi's story.

Black Man i look most forward to read though very soon. It sounds more like Morgan natural sf and not him trying something new in fantasy.

Yeah the trilogy is fantastic. I've read Market Forces and really enjoyed it (not as good as the Kovachs books but still visceral and interesting) but I've heard mixed reviews about Black Man and Steel Remains, so I'm looking forward to getting hold of them and finding out for myself.

 

[Vir]

"Nineteen eighty four" by George Orwell stunned me. Other books have had quite a strong impact but none quite as deeply as this effected me. I was quite shocked.

i couldnt agree more, the ending was shocking! but i guess it was the only logical ending

 

[Stephen Palmer]

TBOTNS, Neuromancer, Helliconia Trilogy... and LOTR of course!

 

[amzolt]

I'd be interested in hearing about any books that when you read them, stunned you. By this, I mean that the story took you in, you did not see where it was going and then *BAM*, you are sitting in a daze, feeling completely in awe of a book.

I would have to give my stunning award to Cyteen, by C.J. Cherryh.
{Really need to re-read it soon...}

I'd already read a number of Cherryh's books, mostly the ones in which Union (the System explored in Cyteen) was only mentioned as the "bad ones", what with their cloning and manipulating minds.

The stun that took me in was when I found myself becoming emotionally involved with the Unionists. Not that I agreed with the things they were doing but that I could understand why they were doing it.

I was going through a major change in my life at the time--accepting my own weirdness more and consequently accepting others more--so the nearly consistent "magic" of a book of fiction paralleling my own development hit me harder than usual...