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Hey, babies with 11 fingers or no eyelids can be funny!

Doing what?

Me? never!

Last.

Totem

Am I the only one who finds the the Covenant series to be absurdly depressing? I only read the first trilogy. As for McCaffery, you may have already read them, but the Freedom series is easy reading and something different from dragonriders. Not too shabby. Also try some of her short stories, which are varied (I like "the girl who heard dragons"...there are some good stories in that one and only the first connects to the dragonriders series). If you can get ahold of a copy of The Anything Box, it's a good book of short stories (that I can't find, even though I own it, *fury*).

If you like history and biographies and that sort of thing you can try Nisa by Shostak or if you want to read something modern and interesting, try Everything in It's Path by Kai Erikson...about a flood and its effect on a appalachian community (trying to think of things you probably haven't read, haha, but maybe I'm boring).

Anyway, yay for variety! Hope you're all fixed up soon!

Nexa

I'd recommend Mailer's The Executioner's Song, about Gary Gilmore's death penalty case. I just finished it, and I truly believe that no matter how you feel about the death penalty it'll make you examine your stance.

For those who don't know: Gary Gilmore was a career criminal who spent something like half his life behind bars, juvenile and adult. The last time he was paroled, he moved in with a cousin in Utah to go straight. He failed, of course (or there'd be no story). He murdered two men in two separate robberies.

He was convicted and sentenced to death - all very routine. However, this was 1973, and no one had actually been executed in the US in over 10 years. A death sentence had become a de facto life sentence, and Gilmore wanted no part of that. He refused appeals, fired his attorneys when they filed routine appeals against his orders, and demanded to be put to death.

This brought up all sorts of ethical questions, not just about the death penalty but about this particular instance of it. Would the State of Utah be a partner in helping Gilmore commit suicide?

Mailer did an excellent job, in my opinion, of staying out of the story and letting the facts speak for themselves. Every individual involved, except for the victims and the executioners themselves, has a chance to tell the story from his/her own point of view. The victims' wives did grant Mailer interviews, which was damned generous of them as they had no guarantees about his intention to tell their side fairly, with all the focus being on Gilmore instead.

And at first the focus IS all on Gilmore; then, gradually, you realize that the emphasis has shifted to the process itself; finally, this was probably the first time that a serious critique of the role of the media had been undertaken. It isn't a matter of Gilmore or the victims being lost in the process - it's just that the scope keeps widening, so gradually you don't notice it at first.

Anyway, a classic at this point. Highly recommended. I'm not sure how you'd hold this behemoth up with a broken collarbone, though.

I read this a long time ago. I forget the name of the film maker in the book... either Lawrence or Robert Schiller... in any event he came to symbolize this entire story to me. Gary Gilmore and his crimes were pretty much forgotten in the media feeding frenzy that followed, with Schiller being the most grasping barracuda in the bunch.

Edited, Aug 8th 2006 at 4:43pm EDT by Deathwysh

About two years ago I was riding my Honda Shadow 750 down the right lane of the highway when this crazy old ***** in a cadillac started to change lanes into me. There was heavy traffic with a pickup in front of me and 18 wheeler behind me, so I had nowhere to go. I blasted my horn but she just kept coming and ended up running me off the road at 65 miles an hour. I laid the bike down with my leg still under it and fractured it in 2 places. Luckily I went down on grass at 60 miles an hour instead of concrete and I only ended up with the leg and a black and blue body. The trucker got the lady's plate number (she diddn't stop, he did) and her insurance payed for everything, plus she got her liscense revoked.


Oh and on the book front, I like Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga

Tom Robbins put out a collection of thoughts/wisdoms/quotes/meanderings recently called Wild Ducks Flying Backward. Definitely worth the read if you're familiar with his other work.

Here's a glowing bit of praise from a fan.

Just finished reading recently:

Phantom Terry Goodkind, can't wait for the last.
Hell's Angel's Hunter S. Thompson, very interesting read.
The Zombie Survival Guide Max Brooks
Good Omens Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchet, very, very funny.
When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops? George Carlin, almost all is recycled material.

Oh and I saw Taledega Nights, almost pissed myself.

Get well soon, and consider yourself lucky it's your collarbone and not your tailbone.

If you want an unusual and quite good fantasy book, try "On a Pale Horse" by Piers Anthony. About a guy who kills Death when his time comes to die and has to assume his duties. Very nicely done, in fact it is a series:

INCARNATIONS OF IMMORTALITY Series by Piers Anthony
-On a Pale Horse
-Bearing an Hourglass
-With a Tangled Skein
-Wielding a Red Sword
-Being a Green Mother
-For Love of Evil Morrow
-And Eternity Morrow

Edited, Aug 9th 2006 at 9:03am EDT by fhrugby