Wednesday, September 09, 2009

10 Books to Read - In No Particular Order

Necroscope By: Brian Lumley

This is NOT your typical romantic vampire story. It scared the crap out of me when I read it 15 years ago, and all the books that follow it are just as scary. Highly recommended!

Harry is startled to discover that he is not the only person with unusual mental powers--Britain and the Soviet Union both maintain super-secret, psychically-powered espionage organizations. But Harry is the only person who knows about Thibor Ferenczy, a vampire long buried in the mountains of Romania--still horribly alive, in undeath--and Thibor's insane "offspring," Boris Dragosani, who rips information from the souls of the dead in a terrible, ever-lasting form of torture. Somehow, Harry must convince Britain's E-Branch that only by working together can they locate and destroy Dragosani and his army of demonic warriors--before the half-vampire succeeds in taking over the world!

Decipher By: Stel Pavlou

This is a very exciting book – I had great fun with it, and wrote about it in my blog even. What was even more amazing was that the author himself put a comment in my blog thanking me for my good review!

For 12,000 Years, The Message Has Been Buried. In a frozen Antarctica wasteland, in the depths of the Amazon River, in a chamber beneath the ruins of the Sphinx, something has surfaced: a cluster of crystalline artifacts composed of an energy source unknown to modern science, and inscribed with ancient hieroglyphs. Between them a strange signal courses through the oceans. Where it emanates from is a source that has stunned mankind. The lost city of Atlantis has been found.

Subterranean By: James Rollins

This is another exciting book. In fact, it’s the one that got me hooked on this type of book. I think I read it in three days, and was so tense by the end I was sore for a week afterwards. Very intense.

Beneath the ice at the bottom of the Earth is a magnificent subterranean labyrinth, a place of breathtaking wonders—and terrors beyond imagining. A team of specialists led by archaeologist Ashley Carter has been hand-picked to explore this secret place and to uncover the riches it holds. But they are not the first to venture here—and those they follow did not return. There are mysteries here older than time, and revelations that could change the world. But there are also things that should not be disturbed—and a devastating truth that could doom Ashley and the expedition: they are not alone.

The Skystone By: Jack Whyte
I am a King Arthur fan and have read pretty much everything I can get my hands on about him. This series offers a very unique take on the story: it’s very believable, and just might be how it really was.

Before the time of Arthur and his Camelot, Britain was a dark and deadly place, savaged by warring factions of Picts, Celts, and invading Saxons. The Roman citizens who had lived there for generations were suddenly faced with a deadly choice: Should they leave and take up residence in a corrupt Roman world that was utterly foreign, or should they stay and face the madness that would ensue when Britain's last bastion of safety for the civilized, the Roman legions, left? For two Romans, Publius Varrus and his friend Caius Britannicus, there can be only one answer. They will stay, to preserve what is best of Roman life, and will create a new culture out of the wreckage. In doing so, they will unknowingly plant the seeds of legend-for these two men are Arthur's great-grandfathers, and their actions will shape a nation . . . and forge a sword known as Excalibur.

Firefly By: Piers Anthony

If you’re familiar with this author at all, you’ll know him for his whimsical humorous stories. This is his first (and only?) attempt at horror, and I must say – the man has a sick, twisted mind.

Anthony conjures up a nightmarish creature who stalks humans through sexual attraction and leaves them grotesquely sucked dry of their protoplasm. When bodies reduced to skin and skeleton are found on a remote wildlife sanctuary, the reclusive owner of the estate refuses to call in outside help to track down the killer. His employees are left to fend for themselves against the menace of a predator who lures them in the way a firefly traps its prey--by emitting pheromones, powerfully sexual chemicals--and uses digestive acids to dissolve the bodies of its victims.

Gravity By: Tess Gerritsen

I thought for sure they were going to make a movie of this one. It’d be a good movie, too – although as always, I’m sure the book is better. She has since written a lot of other books, but I have to say this is her best.

Much of this scary thriller is set aboard the International Space Station, where a team of six astronauts suddenly find themselves threatened by a virulent biohazard. Victims first register a headache, followed by stomach pains; then their eyes turn blood red. Finally, they convulse so violently they literally bash themselves apart. Most frightening is what spills out of their bodies: green, egg-filled globules. As astronaut Emma Watson, the station's onboard doctor, struggles to fight the outbreak, her colleagues are dying one by one. A Japanese astronaut, the first to get sick, is sent down to earth via the space shuttle, but he's dead on arrival. Panic spreads when military physicians discover a deadly mutant--a creature that's part human, part frog and part mouse--in the eggs that spill from his body. The military, fearing bioterrorism or even an extraterrestrial invasion, quickly traces the contaminant to an experiment on the space station that was funded by a company researching tiny organisms in the ocean off South America, where an asteroid hit thousands of years ago. Meanwhile, back on the station, Watson is the only one left alive. The military says she's already infected and must be left to die in space, but Watson's husband, fellow astronaut/physician Jack McCallum, won't tolerate that decision, and scrambles to find a way to get her home.

The Descent By: Jeff Long

This is another book that scared the crap out of me. It’s a MUST read, for sure. The author has several other books out, and they’re all quite good.

Hell Exists. In Tibet, while guiding trekkers to a holy mountain, Ike Crockett discovers a bottomless cave. When his lover disappears, Ike pursues her into the depths of the earth.... In a leper colony bordering the Kalahari Desert, a nun and linguist named Ali von Schade unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity call Older-than-Old.... In Bosnia, Major Elias Branch crash-lands his gunship near a mass grave and is swarmed by pale cannibals terrified of light..... "So begins mankind's realization that the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth riddling the continents and seabeds, one inhabited by brutish creatures who resemble the devils and gargoyles of legend. With all of Hell's precious resources and territories to be won, a global race ensues. Nations, armies, religions, and industries rush to colonize and exploit the subterranean frontier.. "A scientific expedition is launched westward to explore beneath the Pacific Ocean floor, both to catalog the riches there and to learn how life could develop in the sunless abyss. Is there a natural explanation, as the scientists hope? Or is there a true supernatural basis? Are the "demons" part of our evolutionary family tree? Is their enigmatic leader merely a freak genius, or could he be the legendary Satan?

Moonseed By: Stephan Baxter

I love the concept of this one! It is so possible, and so ingenious. Talk about a disaster movie… I have actually bought this book multiple times to give to several people.

When a mysterious "moonseed" dust is accidentally spilled in a Great Britain lab, it begins to eat away at the Earth's crust; soon the rock-solid crust is altered to shifting sand. NASA geologist Henry Meacher is the only one who fully understands the situation's serious implications. Moonseed is a taut, well-researched, and finely tuned speculative spine-tingler that solidifies Baxter's position as one of the genre's most imaginative scribes.

Evolution By: Greg Bear

This one starts out before history began and ends millions of years in the future. In between is some very interesting content… really makes you think. It’s a little hard to “get” at first, but if you persevere, it will get better so that by the time you’re finished, it will be one of your favorites, too.

Stretching from the distant past into the remote future, from primordial Earth to the stars, Evolution is a soaring symphony of struggle, extinction, and survival; a dazzling epic that combines a dozen scientific disciplines and a cast of unforgettable characters to convey the grand drama of evolution in all its awesome majesty and rigorous beauty. Sixty-five million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, there lived a small mammal, a proto-primate of the species Purgatorius. From this humble beginning, Baxter traces the human lineage forward through time. The adventure that unfolds is a gripping odyssey governed by chance and competition, a perilous journey to an uncertain destination along a route beset by sudden and catastrophic upheavals. It is a route that ends, for most species, in stagnation or extinction. Why should humanity escape this fate?

Dust By: Charles Pellegrino

This one is a great story of what could happen if we continue to abuse our planet. I tell everybody I know to read it, and have given it out to several people to make sure they do.

The change begins silently, imperceptibly, inexorably. One natural effect topples into the next, like an array of dominoes that stretches to every corner of the globe. Before anyone realizes it, the earths ecology has utterly transformed itself. And the days of the old world are finished. In an idyllic Long Island community, paleobiologist Richard Sinclair is one of the first to suspect that the environment has begun to wage bloody, terrifying war on humanity. What initially appear to be random, unrelated events are, in actuality, violent eruptions in a worldwide biological chain reaction. Along with a brave group of survivors, Sinclair must learn to understand the catastrophe while it rolls around them, slowly crumbling a panicked world and energizing a reactionary fringe that welcomes the apocalypse. The survival of humankind depends on finding an answer immediately—for all else is dust.

The Ruins By: Scott Smith

This book is fantastic. You’ll never go on vacation again! Or at least, not to Mexico. They mangled it in the movie – so even if you’ve seen it, you simply must read it. As far as I know, he’s only written one other book; it was good, but not nearly as good as this one.

Best friends and recent college graduates Amy and Stacy and their boyfriends, Jeff and Eric, are thoroughly enjoying their summer vacation in Mexico. In a few weeks the quartet will begin new chapters of their lives -- but until then, the group is partying with fellow travelers from all corners of the globe. One tourist, a German named Mathias, tells the four about his brother, who disappeared with a seductive female archaeologist working at a dig near Cobá, one of the oldest Mayan settlements on the Yucatán Peninsula. The four Americans agree to accompany Mathias in his search but the journey quickly turns into a waking nightmare…

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