Cultural Epiphany

[Captain Untouchable]

I am woefully uncultured.

To clarify, there are whole swathes of storytelling that I know nothing about - famous books I've never read, classic movies I've never seen, computer games I didn't get around to playing, incredible television shows I've never bothered to watch, and all that jazz.

Over the last month or two, I've sampled some of that stuff. I'm now absolutely hooked on Fringe and Mass Effect, after trying them out on a whim. I played World of Warcraft, and while I found it boring, it wasn't as devastatingly terrible as I'd expected. I watched Stardust today and not only enjoyed it: I realised that I've never read anything by Neil Gaiman. (I know, right? >_<)

There are a lot of gaps, some of which are pretty surprising given the kind of guy I am. I've never seen or read Dune. I haven't read more than a chapter or two of a Terry Pratchett novel, or those Subtle Spy-Compass books. I don't have a clue what War and Peace is about (a lot, I'm guessing), or where a Cthulu comes from. I've only ever watched two movies with zombies in. I'm sure there's a bunch of other stuff as well.

So basically... what is awesome? And what's so great about it?

Suggest anything and everything that comes to mind, even if you think I've probably already seen/read it. Honestly... I'll feel better knowing that I already have crossed some of the stuff off the list. ^_^;

[Peter McCoy]

Well you can kill two bird with one stone by reading Good Omens - written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (recorded in 1655, just before she blew up her entire village and all its inhabitants – they’d gathered to watch her burn and got more of a show than expected) the world will end on a Saturday – next Saturday, as it happens. So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, the Four Bikers of the Apocalypse are revving up their hogs, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring and everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan.

However, the somewhat fussy Aziraphale and the fast-living Crowley – each of whom rather favors the lifestyle of Earth’s mortals – are not especially looking forward to Rapture. Thing is, if they’re going to prevent that from happening, they’ve got to find and kill the Antichrist, and, er, someone seems to have misplaced him...

Thats from Gaiman's website. The book isbonkers and thoroughly entertaining. There's subterranean monks, a team-building paintball weekend that turns into a real combat situation, slapstick humour involving holy water, and the strange phenomenon whereby any cassette tape left in a car for more than a few days will metamorphisise into a Queen tape.

Read it!

[Dasquian Belargic]

Jace... you are such a terrible nerd :o

Good Omens is a good place to start :) Once you've read that, get American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Once you've read that tell us what you think, then we'll advise you further :mneh

[Yog]

As far as movies go, you should make an effort to see the most movies possible from these 2 lists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI's_100_Years...100_Movies
http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

After completing that challenge, you can no longer say you are "movie uncultured".

TV Series.. watch HBO's Rome, if you have not already. Best TV series ever. Battlestar Galactica is also great.

Digging too deep into zombies, fantasy / sci-fi etc does not make you more cultured, IMO. It gives you a more narrow perspective. There are however some in those categories which are widely considered classics no matter your reference point.

Edit - this is a good starting point for scifi / fantasy books, however:
http://www.box.net/shared/static/a6omcl2la0ivlxsn3o8m.jpg

[Peter McCoy]

I'm pretty sure he's seen BSG. But if he hasn't then I think we should all refuse to help him at all!

Jace, if you are online later I'll hit you up in a chat! I should be online around 11:30pm.

[Crusader]

Watch Firefly because this show has basicly defined why Nathan Fillion and Joss Whedon are awesome. Infact FOX had to cancel this show after 14 episodes because otherwise their awesomeness would have created a super nova once they would have reached a season final.

If you want to watch zombie movies you have to watch 4 movies Dawn of the Dead (the remake), 28 days later, Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead.

If you have a strong stomach and a gory sense of humor watch Evil Dead 1-3 with Bruce Campbell. If you like this watch Bubba Ho Tep.

If you want to learn everything there is to know about the wasteland. Watch Mad Max 2 or however this movie is called in your country.

If you want to read kick ass fantasy read a Game of Thrones.

If you want to read a kick ass Sci Fi book that teaches you what responsibility and being a leader means read Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Just two remarks here although I love the Starship Troopers movie it really does not have much to do with the book and like the movie it tries to trick you in believing that military regimes are great. Like in the movie you have to read between the lines.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Do you want to be cultured, or pop cultured?

I haven't read any Cthulu stuff either, but I'm a huge wimp. ^_^;

As far as Pratchett, read Guards, Guards and then if you like it continue through the Night Watch books at least until you get to the one called "Night Watch." It's the best one, but I think jumping in right there is a mistake because there's so much good stuff that comes before it.

Gaiman - American Gods is a must read. I've only read two of his books though, and Good Omens.

I'd say watch Fringe, but you have that handled. ;)

[Captain Untouchable]

I've only seen 21 of the movies in the AFI Top 100, and 63 of the IMDb Top 250. That's shameful... :(

Fortunately I have seen Firefly, Battlestar, and Rome... so I'm not a complete lost cause!

Had forgotten about the Starship Troopers book - always meant to get around to reading that. Game of Thrones too... been holding off on watching the show until I got around to reading them first. ^_^;

Have only read four (:cry) of the books on the graphic Yog posted, two of which are Lord of the Rings related. >_<

On my immediate read list -
- Stardust
- American Gods
- Game of Thrones
- Starship Troopers
- The Princess Bride (favourite movie ever, and I want to read it to my hypothetical kids when they're sick :3)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (haven't seen the film either ^_^;)
- Chronicles of Conan the Barbarian
- I Am Legend
- Animal Farm
- I, Robot
- 1984

A Kindle is starting to seem like a wise investment... though on the other hand, hard copies will help space out all the Star Trek and Star Wars books in my library. :uhoh


I'd say watch Fringe, but you have that handled. ;)

Soooooo handled. I started a week or two ago... I'm on episode 3x18. :ohno

[d'Art Lefou]

Along with the Evil Dead films, I highly recommend the wonderfully cheesy Repo! The Genetic Opera.

TV-wise, also check out series 6 and 7 of Doctor Who if you want some timey wimey silliness, and Buffy after season 1.

In terms of books, I'm going to recommend checking out anything by Joe Abercrombie and The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. I suggest starting with either of these before you go into Game of Thrones. They're character-focused, especially Locke Lamora, but less... dense... than Thrones.

[Dasquian Belargic]

If you read Game of Thrones and feel like it isn't dense enough, try the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.




Shit son, you gonna be busy this weekend.

[Park Kraken]

If you want to read a kick ass Sci Fi book that teaches you what responsibility and being a leader means read Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Just two remarks here although I love the Starship Troopers movie it really does not have much to do with the book and like the movie it tries to trick you in believing that military regimes are great. Like in the movie you have to read between the lines.

On that note, Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet series is pretty awesome, although I've only read the first book in the series (Dauntless) and the first book in the sequel series (Dreadnought), I will be looking to buy the rest of both series.

And still on that note, it is advisable that if you do watch the Starship Troopers movie, that you stay away from Starship Troopers 2 & 3. Very very far away, although there are those that enjoy fetishs like being compelled to bore out your eyes with rusty drillbits before pouring citrus acid down the holes. :\ <!-- / message -->

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

It's not hard at all to find inexpensive Lovecraft collections :)

[Sanis Prent]

Definitely read Starship Troopers, and acknowledge the care with which it is written, while compartmentalizing your revulsion in doing so. That book both intrigued me and disgusted me.

Also I didn't realize Rome was a nerd thing, but vae victus bitches. If you want to truly get the nerd experience out of Rome, you ought to read the book it's loosely based upon, Caesar's very own chronicles of the Gallic Wars. Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo are the only grunt characters Caesar actually writes about in his memoirs.

[Captain Untouchable]

I have just bought Stardust, 1984, The Princess Bride and Starship Troopers from the interwebs. I've also reserved a basket with Conan, American Gods, and Animal Farm in it, for when I finish those. I'll try and hunt down Caesar's Legion and some of the other suggestions in my local bookstore in case I run out of reading material.

It turns out that I actually have an Isaac Asimov short story compilation thing that I got for Christmas, and just haven't got around to reading yet, so I guess that one's up first.

Amazon is recommending "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", the epically-titled book that Blade Runner is based on. Has anyone read it... and if so, should I?

Also, I have never read Lord of the Flies - we didn't have enough copies at school for the whole year group, so my English class did a different novel instead. Should I bother, or is it one of those horrible things they torture kids with?

As for Starship Troopers 2... I only made it as far as three minutes in before I switched it off. All I saw was it being a little bit windy, and I was already bored. >_<

[Yog]

I've only seen 21 of the movies in the AFI Top 100, and 63 of the IMDb Top 250. That's shameful... :(
Ok, since you have a lot to see, I'd start with the IMDB list and forget the AFI list for the time being. Start from #1, and work your way down the list. I actually kinda envy you, because you have lots of great movies to see. :)

[d'Art Lefou]

Also, I have never read Lord of the Flies - we didn't have enough copies at school for the whole year group, so my English class did a different novel instead. Should I bother, or is it one of those horrible things they torture kids with?


Avoid it. Avoid it like the plague.

The same, in my opinion, goes for anything by Ayn Rand and most things by Ray Bradbury. If you want a nice little bittersweet romp, though, I do recommend Bradbury's The Halloween Tree. It's generally geared towards kids, but it's something near and dear to me, so I have to recommend it.

As far as fantasy goes, if you don't mind a bit of gay (really, there's only passing reference in either), I highly recommend both Melusine by Sarah Monette and Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner. Swordspoint especially, which can, in some ways, be described as a small scale Thrones, at least in terms of its character-focused story and sheer backstabbery.

[Morgan Evanar]

Are you seriously dissing Bradbury? Ignore that and read Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Martian Chronicles. I'd argue F451 is one of his weaker works.

Rand is awful and should be avoided unless you want to know how assholes in government are made.

[d'Art Lefou]

Sorry, Morgan. :P Bradbury just isn't for me. Blame my 9th grade lit class taking any scrap of interest out of 451 while completely missing the point of it.

[Sanis Prent]

Lord of the flies rules

[Dasquian Belargic]

Amazon is recommending "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", the epically-titled book that Blade Runner is based on. Has anyone read it... and if so, should I?


I wrote my graduate dissertation on that book and A Scanner Darkly by Phillip K Dick. They are absolutely worth reading.

[Loklorien s'Ilancy]

If you haven't read The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin yet, you really should.

Also Diabologic by Frank Russell if you can find it. I've got it in a collection of short sci-fi stories somewhere around here, and out of that entire collection, it's my favorite short story.

You'll need to watch Barbarella if you haven't seen it ;)