Ok, forget good or bad (but good is of course better) and just name some books you've read that are just strange
I'll open with Norman Spinrad's "the iron dream". Have you ever wondered what kind of book Adolph Hitler would have written if he bad emigrated to america in the early 1920's, made a living as a SF pulp artist and eventually wrote an epic sci fi masterpiece? No? Well Norman spinrad answered that question with the iron dream, a novel set in an alternate earth where hitler did those very things.
The iron dream is basically a fantasy version of hitler's life and WW2 written as a post atomic war pulp sci fi fantasy novel. It is not pro nazi in any way and viciously parodies hitler, nazism and the germany that let them flourish. It's a gripping novel in some ways, and can be hard to put down. I can understand why it was banned in Germany for quite a while.
Basically 1000 years after an atomic war, "the fire", earth is overrun with degenerate subhuman mutants and the evil mind controlling "dominators". Onky in the republic of Heldon does true humanity exist as a free people. But the insidious doms are plotting the enslavement of the last bastion of true humanity and only the purest human hero can save the human race from their evil schemes.
I read the "godzilla in hell" comic and man, was it weird... :lookingup:
As the title implies godzilla literally end up in hell. Yep, a dantean inferno, where he must fight man and his kaiju enemies. Along the way he apparently rejects god as represented by I believe mothra and her moth winged angels, who call on him to submit and serve ad nauseim, then has to fight the devil, resorting to some extreme ways to do it. After defeating satan he returns to earth, I guess.
This was a weird story, featuring a mix of dantean and buhhdist hells. I donct know how godzila figured in a battle between good and evil while rejecting both. Apparently.
Honestly I couldn't make a lot of sense of it, I guess not doing Hardcore drugs has some disadvantages once in a while.
From a Buick 8 by Stephen King is a pretty weird book too but that one i did actually love and it took me i think a week to read
punctuation is your friend, pennywise37. :cheers:
sorry about that, that's one thing i've never been good at one of the reasons why i never have really sought out to be a writer, the period's are never in the right place nor are the comma's for that matter
i'm just teasing, my thing is generally too much punctuation. :cheers:
oh i didn't take offense you aren't the first one to point out at how i type at all, so why lie about it ya know? even at my age 40 i'm still not good at stuff like that oh well
Lotsa books about UFO's are the weirdest s**t.
Anything by John Keel is beyond weird.
i love Piers Anthony and he's done a lot of weird sh*t too
Quote from: pennywise37 on June 24, 2019, 06:38:51 PM
i love Piers Anthony and he's done a lot of weird sh*t too
Piers Anthony is great.
Anything by HP Lovecraft. I first read him in 1973. I was just 11 years old!
I read BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley several months ago. It's about a society of test-tube babies where everyone is genetically engineered to fulfill specific roles in society. People take drugs and lie around like zombies when they aren't working. Monogamy is bad; promiscuity is good. Everyone flies around in helicopters. The whole book is a frustrating bummer and doesn't have any likable characters. I loved 1984, but I didn't like BRAVE NEW WORLD at all.
i ended up downloading all of Piers Anthony's books currently i'm re-reading his Xanth Series i own some of them and stopped reading him for a few years, than i picked one of them up and each time i tried i just could not get into the book any of them, so than it dawned on me that i lost touch with the characters and who they are and the series itself so i thought ya know what? I"ll start at the beginning again so i started with A Spell For Chameleon
now i'm on Castle Roogna that i think i have about a little over 100 pages left. i really need to finish that thing too
the ballet dancer Vasily Nijinsky's biography is extremely weird. I don't know if he was illiterate or just wrote very weirdly but he was also somewhat insane towards the end of his life. It was edited to take out al the gay stuff but a recent edition corrects that
i hate censorship and i haven't read that one but i always believe that a book should be what the writer intended it to be. did it help the novel or hurt it i wonder?
Christina Crawford her book on her mom which i have a copy of i dunno which version it is i think it's the original version, they have since released it the way that she presented it to the publisher way back when. and i haven't read that one either but i hear that it's really badly written and the original novel is actually a better novel and better written cause she had help with that version.
this new version was before she had any kind of help. Stephen King has done some weird ass novels too like a favorite of mine Insomnia that's a really weird one.
and i did love Dream Catcher but many seem to hate it and that's fine let's face it that's a weird one too
I finally read the novel "battlefield earth" by L. Ron Hubbard. I was fated to, apparently. Good ghawd it was bizarre! The "science" in it made star wars look like hard SF.
I never read anything by LRH again.
NEVER!!!
i refuse to read anything that man wrote on principal i don't care how good of a writer is/was i just can't bring myself to do it am i the only one who feels this way? god i hope not but i am that's okay too
Quote from: pennywise37 on June 25, 2019, 01:14:49 AM
i refuse to read anything that man wrote on principal i don't care how good of a writer is/was i just can't bring myself to do it am i the only one who feels this way? god i hope not but i am that's okay too
There's nothing wrong with how you feel. I used to be ok with Scientology as I saw it as a cult that ripped off gullible rich fools and celebs, but a friend of mine showed me the truth about how they hurt people.
I did read Battlefield Earth as a teenager. Why anyone ever thought that would make a good movie is beyond me.
Quote from: pennywise37 on June 24, 2019, 06:38:51 PM
i love Piers Anthony and he's done a lot of weird sh*t too
You are referring to Cthon?
that one is a weird one and i never did finish that one, see what happened was years ago i had the paperback of it, i left it on the ironing board one day and i think i had about half of it read, it was decent and than it fell off the ironing board and hit the floor my mom or my dad didn't pick it out which still does p**s me off because than our water pipe burst and hence no more book that still p**ses me off as i was halfway done reading it and i don't remember how many pages i had left but i have never seen that one in stores again to replace it, it also was an early pressing too which is another reason why i'm still mad about it.
it was the paperback version of it in fact it may have even been the 1st printing i honestly can't remember but i had to throw it out :hatred:
but i do remember it being a really weird one. the ring was pretty weird too i think that was from (1968) i have that on paperback still and i liked it up until the ending which i thought was terrible. the rest was decent have you read that one? another one i liked but hated the ending was another early one called Race Against Time from (1973) i read that one in high school and i liked it up until what else the ending! i hated the ending
Anything by Charles Fort is waaay out there.It's not just what he writes about- it's his way of writing about it, and his not trying to explain it in any kind of normal manner- I can't explain Fort.
It's like trying to explain modern jazz.
Quote from: Svengoolie 3 on June 24, 2019, 11:16:18 PM
I finally read the novel "battlefield earth" by L. Ron Hubbard. I was fated to, apparently. Good ghawd it was bizarre! The "science" in it made star wars look like hard SF.
I never read anything by LRH again.
NEVER!!!
I have no use for L.Ron Humbug
Having cthon destroyed halfway thru you reading it may have saved you from being scarred for life. It got really bizarre and ran up the "eyeeeww!" factor. (It involved invest and Rape)
There were some sequels including one written by another author.
I still say some of you have to read "the iron dream" if you can find it.
Quote from: Alex on June 25, 2019, 02:56:26 AM
I did read Battlefield Earth as a teenager. Why anyone ever thought that would make a good movie is beyond me.
John travolta was a scientologist.
well Piers Anthony has really gotten into some weird sh*t. it's been so long since i last read that book i'm talking about early 2000's i think it was? that i don't remember anything about that book at all. i do remember that it was decent from what i read of it and that it had to do something with working underground and that's about it. yeah that last book Piers Anthony gave permission to for that author to write in fact cause he liked the book that he wrote.
and John Travolta is still in that cult, the thing about Travolta though is i hear he's a really nice guy Actually he's not a freak like Tom Cruise is. i've never heard anyone say anything bad about Travolta and for him to be well Normal even if what he believes in is a cult that's just messed up and well nice to hear that he's normal. i dunno how else you can put that to be honest, i've seen people online say how much they love that movie not because they think it's a fantastic movie but because they are amazed and applaud how bad it is and that's why they love it. i tried watching it once and i think i watched 20 minutes of it IF that and
i could not sit past that on how bad it is. and Travolta even put some of his Own money to get that thing made too can you believe it?
Well, even as bad as BE was, it had a good moment hidden it it.
The scene where the young guy gets teleported to the enemy homeworld and blows it up with a nuke, and he was actually shedding a tear as he silently detonated the bomb that killed him but saved earth. That was the best moment in the movie.
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He didn't crack a one liner, he didn't snarl some four letter words, he died in a more believable fashion. He was a young healthy guy, he didn't want to die. He wanted to live, get married, etc. He was sad and maybe afraid to die, he couldn't help shedding a tear for all he was going to lose.
But he did it to save everyone else, that was real heroism, and his death was more believable than, well, most movie deaths and anything else in that ghawdawful crapfest of a movie.
There! I did it! actually said something good about battlefield earth! People can flame me and boo me all they want, but i was being honest.
honestly i don't even remember anything i watched the fact that you remembered that at all shocks me because the film is that forgettable
no "elron" for me either, even in my hardcore SF phases. his " religion" IS dangerous.
I do think I learned a lot from reading his 'book' (I have my doubts that he wrote it all himself).
Mostly what not to do, but learning still took place.
i'm sorry but i refuse to call that a religion i just don't have that in me it's a cult, you know what's funny if you and me and everyone of us on this site decides to do a religion we'd be thrown in jail cause it would be a cult and yet his cult is really only allowed because the goverment i think got tired of suing them to pay their taxes so they i think gave up trying and let them be a so called religion. that's my take on it anyways, also if you try to leave any religion they will ask you why you want to leave and they no doubt will accept your decision. but if you try and leave that cult
unless you are famous you pretty much have to plan to escape cause they put guards on you if you say you want to leave to prevent you from leaving. a real religion doesn't do that crap, how messed up is that? sorry when i hear anyone call that a religion it just bugs me that's all, i don't even as far as i'm aware don't know anyone who's even in it or was but still.
How do you define the difference between a cult and a religion Pennywise?
a very good question. PW37, that's exactly why i put the word religion in quotation. in some ways yes, it fits MY definition of cult, but so does the catholic church, and my own"religion" , wicca. in my case i use wicca as a definition people will understand immeduiately, but i don't practice the new agey stuff at all. i'm old school.
Quote from: pennywise37 on June 25, 2019, 07:07:21 PM
honestly i don't even remember anything i watched the fact that you remembered that at all shocks me because the film is that forgettable
Well, so many peolle in movies die with badass one liner that seeings more realistic act of self sacrifice was kinda memorable.
for me i don' t consider wicca a cult and i never have, i dunno if i consider that a religion cause i've never thought about it to be honest, a friend of mine gave me a book about wicca some years back for i think my birthday. and i still have it in fact, now for me i do believe in god but i don't go to church i prefer to believe in my own way. now if you take Catholic since that's what i am i don't follow the rules as i call them because i've never liked being told what to do unless it's a boss and no i'm not married but you will find me much better if you ask me to do this rather than tell me.
but take Catholic or even most of the other ones they let you leave and you are free to leave, the only ones that really are harder to leave is the old fashion ones that you are raised in from generation to generation. like the old type of famlies who set up a wife or a husband for you, i disagree with that they do that but that's their faith and in some countries they still do that and sometimes it even works out for the best but not always. i disagree with the faith where they wont let you get divorced if you are in a really truly awful marriage for example.
but most of them like i said you can say to them father to use as an example though i've never said this, you can say father i'm thinking of leaving the church and he'd ask why you tell him and sometimes he helps you get your faith back and sometimes they just wish you well if you've lost your faith.
the catholic's at lest don't get goons to watch your every move and lock your ass up if you want to leave the church. they also don't forbid you to see or talk to any of your family's at all, sure some parents can disown you and so forth but i'd say a small percentage does that these days. at least in america as far as i know. the cult does all this and they also have you seen/heard what the cult does to people who try to leave?
the idiot who runs it David Mis. i forget how his name is spelled, his father left a few years ago and he had to sneak out with his wife one day when they thought he was going to work at a jazz club i think? he's banned from seeing his grandkids or his family members that are still in there. his own son won't even talk to him.
that to me is a cult. sure one say all religion is a cult to some degree but most of them let you change your belief's like if you be a muslim if you want to i forget the term though. kinda like Cat Stevens is a muslim now and he didn't used to be, or if you want more info on it check out you tube there's a guy on it that tells his dealings with it and he left i forget his name off hand i'd have to look at my you tube page. but there's plenty of videos about it.
to me a religion is what you believe in and with all your heart and soul, but if you have something happen to you for example and you lose your faith you can than leave your religion and i forget the term but not believe in god anymore if that's what you prefer,
with the cult they don't even want you to use the internet or watch tv, or even leave the place at all if they can help it. but if you are famous than you have more freedom i think. check out Leah Remin's stories cause she can explain it far better than i can. sorry for the rambling on about this but you asked
1stly i noticed some error's when i was just re-reading my post and the word i was looking for was Converting as it just hit me now actually. Strange books one that did just come to me is well King has some strange ones too 'From a Buick 8' is one i mean when you have a car that has to do with another Dimension of sorts. it's a weird one another weird one is Dreamcatcher both books i really loved when i read them.
and than there's Desperation that's a really goofy one as is that truly awful one "The Regulators' WOW is that one awful i'm sure there are more of course but that's just a few of his that are just plain weird