Some of my Favourite books
Best get this in now as a good chunk have already been mentioned and loathe to repeat others, but hey, im going to waffle and this might be an epic!

1) Douglas Arthur Hill - The last legionary series. When I was in junior school my reading was considered slow, and I had a small childs level apparently. However, discovering this old sci-fi series just enveloped me and I was lost to Sci-fi forever. The plot is lost in the midsts of guinness and a few thousand novels but the last surviving warrior with armoured bones fights to find who slaughtered his race.

2) Miles Gibson - The Sandman. This is a spiteful, nasty evil little book and I loved it, picked it up at an oxfam, it was battered and yellow but I devoured it many times, lent it to loads of people who all agreed until one day it never came back. Eventually got a copy from amazon but hated the cover and it didn't feel or smell right, the seedy grim state of the book helped the seedy grim contents come across so much better, should have gone into one of my favoured possessions really thinking about it.
This is where it statrts to get a bit geek sad! I read a lot, but not really ploughed through the classics but anyhow . . .

3) 2000AD and Battle. Read these growing up and they were unbelievable, I luckily caught 2000AD in one of the classic aras, with Zenith, Ballad of Halo Jones,ABC Warriors, Nemesis, Slaine the horned God, Chopper, Harlem Heroes and when Judge Death first rocked up and battle (then Eagle I think) for one reason only . . .

4) Pat Mills & Joe Colquhoun - Charleys War. Words fail me, this blew me away, the absolute horror portrayed in this is just not what you expect as a young kid, the artwork is brutally realistic and the stroyline would make a peacemonger out of anyone.

5) while we are at it Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons - Watchmen. nothing I can say will explain the greatness of it so wont even try.

6) Jeff Noon - Pollen & Vurt. Awesome books, again struck gold picking one of these up at oxfam and kicked off my love of cyberpunk and then found neuromancer again in the same shop!

7) Iain M Banks - Player of games & Against a dark background. Think I have read these books about 60 times put together, its the book version of comfy slippers, pipe and smoking jacket, love em love em love em.

8) Clive Barker - pretty much anything, always enjoyed his dark "happy to smash the whole thing up halfway through and start again from scratch" visions and short stories.

9) Richard Morgan - The Takeshi Kovacs books. Absolute fantastic brutal sci-fi pulp can recommend this to all and sundry, nasty, violent and hardcore, brilliant. The blackman and Market forces however are abominations to be reviled and burned.

10) Anything else by Alan Moore. He is god. nuff said

11) Michael Moorcock, another one where i found on a whim, picked up 50 books at a carboot for a £5 and most of them were hawkmoon, Elric, Corum and others in the eternal champion saga and never looked back, great stuff that I lose myself in for a few hours per book (he didn't hang around and churned out lots of 150 pagers)

12) Seamus Healey - Beowulf. Fuck the film, read this, read various versions of it in my youth (love mythologies from norse to Celtic to greek / roman) but this is my favourite

edit 13) Scott Lynch - The Gentleman Bastard Thief books. Great stuff, the best Fantasy twaddle I have read for years

14) Azzarello & Risso - 100 bullets. check it out, great violent gangster noir graphic novels

thats about it for now, there are many many more, but im hunting down the posts already made and replying to them rather than repeating here.
(Halfy By light alone, Thu 15 May 2008, 18:04, 4 replies)

Yay
Keill Randor FTW!

I loved the Last Legionary series :)
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 15 May 2008, 18:22, closed)

never seen them since
just remember they got my love of books going and saved my school career!

just found Dougie the Digger and friends as well hahahah another classic!
(Halfy By light alone, Thu 15 May 2008, 18:59, closed)

Your review of Richard Morgan's body of work is rather good
If it includes Takeshi Kovacs - read it, it'll be massive fun.
If it doesn't - maybe don't. Market forces read like a first attempt at a screenplay (odd that) and black man didn't hang together well enough for me.
( Mockingbird Practitioner of SCIENCE, Fri 16 May 2008, 9:31, closed)

I think I'd have to agree with you
about your first choice there :)

Also with you on the Iain Banks. I bought a couple of his Culture books a few years ago to fill the time whilst I was doing jury service, only to discover (by dint of remembering small passages) that I must have read Excession at some point when I was at primary school. I think I got rather more out of it the second time around!
( Legionary - My god, Brian, there's a message in my alphabets, Sat 17 May 2008, 21:39, closed)