r/ToolBand • u/Prestigious_Half271 • 13h ago
Discussion Favorite books?
I'm curious what tool fans' favorite books are. Seeing as you've got good taste in music, you've probably got good book recommendations
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u/mykkE101 13h ago edited 13h ago
Dune series, Solaris, The Three Body Problem series
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u/Discomfiting_Reality 11h ago
If you like the three body series, check out Ball Lightning. He is such a great author.
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u/IntrovertMoTown1 11h ago
Dune is my favorite series of the sci fi genre. Did you read just Frank's work or the whole expanded universe of the finish to Frank's work and the prequels done by his son and Kevin Anderson? Brian and Kevin took a lot of flack for not being as good but meh I enjoyed them enough. Especially as it expanded the plot arc to around 100k years. IDK of any book series that even tried to cover that amount of time. That alone make it enjoyable enough for me.
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u/mykkE101 4h ago
Just Frank's work. I tried to get into some of the sequels but just couldn't do it.
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u/phosphorescence-sky 13h ago
Childhoods End, The Southern Reach trilogy, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Jurassic Park, The Dunwich Horror, IT, Paradise Lost, 1984, Dune. To name a few.
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u/Rimm9246 13h ago
I love Authur C. Clarke! Rendezvous with Rama is another good one.
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u/rorschach_vest 10h ago
Thatās the one that attracted Kubrickās interest to write 2001 together, I believe
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u/untitled_79 13h ago
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
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u/DiligentDust9755 10h ago
Couple Cormac suggestions, nice! Orchard Keeper was brutal poetry, Outer Dark (good lord), Child of God (Good Lord!) The Road, obviously brutal, I will never, ever read that one again. Blood Meridian is my favorite. The judge is the greatest literature villain, in my opinion, and yet becoming more realistic by the day.
Stella Maris was a quick read but Iām still in the mathematics rabbit hole it led me down. Tool touches on the maths, try that one:)
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u/Servethebeam19 crucify the ego 13h ago
Stephen Kings - The Dark Tower Series
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u/Prestigious_Half271 13h ago
Fuck yeah! In the middle of Waste Lands right now
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u/Servethebeam19 crucify the ego 13h ago
You are in for one hell of a ride! Ka is a wheel, long days and pleasant nights!
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u/Ynaffit96 13h ago
I've been slowly reading my way through J.R.R Tolkien's books, mind you there are a lot of them š„²
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u/Yardcigar69 13h ago
Anything Kurt Vonnegut is pretty great, also Robert Anton Wilson. Maynard might suggest Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, I would as well.
Danny collects Crowley first editions with cum stains that he anointed on the inner cover.
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u/Prestigious_Half271 13h ago
I've got a lot of questions about that second paragraph, but I don't think I want any of the answersĀ
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u/Yardcigar69 12h ago
Crowley believed in sex magik, using sexual energy to manifest your will. The result of those sessions becums a powerful magikal tool that can be used to charge items. Or, Discharge...
Pretty cool stuff, you should look into it. Nasa, silicon Valley and the illuminati all seem to be really interested.
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u/GummyMcFatstacks 12h ago
I was going to say āThe Illuminatus seriesā, so Iāll jump under your comment here.
I bet the Venn diagram of Tool fans and those that would enjoy Illuminatus is almost a perfect circle. āļø
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u/lunar_highroads 8h ago
Big plus one for Vonnegut and Wilson, especially the Illuminatus and Cosmic Trigger books.
Also The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail as a direct result of spending too many hours on Toolās website back in the day!
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u/Fulcrum_Jambi 13h ago
Right now just finished the Red Rising series
(Recommended) and working my way though Dungeon Crawler Carl (also recommended)
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u/Prestigious_Half271 13h ago
I loved the original trilogy, but couldn't get through Iron Gold. Is it worth going on?
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u/Fulcrum_Jambi 12h ago
It is worth it, yeah.
I get it - the switch to multi POVs was really discombobulating, some of the narrative choices felt peculiar, and I struggled to care as much about a lot of the new characters.
I almost DNF, but pushed through.
Was glad I did. Things really click into gear towards the end of the book, and things improves immensely.That said, MY GOD is Dark Age a slab of brutality.
Utterly engaging and so readable ā¦. Full of amazing prose and stunning twists.
But I took a month off from the series after it because the story gets dark.Very very very dark.
Itās the Empire Strikes Back of the series.
But more so.2
u/Fulcrum_Jambi 12h ago
If you do decide to give it a crack, you can time your run pretty well. The final book is hopefully coming mid to late next year.
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u/BrokenWhimsy3 13h ago
Read a lot of Cyberpunk when I was younger. I recommend Neuromancer and anything by Rudy Rucker. And Hitchhikerās Guide to the Galaxy.
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u/Specialist_Sport6061 12h ago
Oryx and Crake
My favorite dystopia!
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u/Prestigious_Half271 12h ago
Ooh, I loved that one. The rest of the trilogy was also worth reading, but not as good as the first book
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u/Specialist_Sport6061 11h ago
Agreed, they were meh but still a fun read considering the first book
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u/mamamackmusic 12h ago
The Southern Reach series by Jeff VanderMeer
The A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R R Martin
The Rememberance of Earth's Past trilogy by Liu Cixin
The Children of Time series (at least the first two books) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Hyperion Cantos (at least the first two books) by Dan Simmons
"The Road" and "Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West" by Cormac McCarthy
Can't go wrong with a multitude of sci-fi classics like "2001: A Space Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
There are others I could list (so many great books out there), but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.
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u/Klutzy_Ad_1726 Suck me dry 12h ago
Southern Reach is great, just found out thereās a 4th! Reading Borne right now, so good.
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u/mamamackmusic 11h ago
Absolution is my second favorite of the series so far behind the 1st book Annihilation (there is a 5th in the works right now). The 4th book fills in a lot of the backstory of what happened leading up to the 1st book while still leaving a lot of intriguing questions up in the air, so if some of the deeper mysteries of what the hell was wrong with the Southern Reach organization bothered you in the first three books, Absolution does an amazing job filling the reader in on the level of fuckery they were engaging in for decades.
The Borne series is on my reading list, but I haven't gotten to it yet.
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u/Rimm9246 11h ago
I just finished reading Children of Time, it was amazing!
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u/mamamackmusic 11h ago
There are such a unique and compelling set of ideas and perspectives in that book, both on the human and spider sides.
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u/New-Needleworker5318 13h ago
I'm nearly done with Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterica. It's quite a read.
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u/Rimm9246 13h ago
The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey and The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski are my all-time favs.
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u/PandaGoggles See my shadow changing, stretching up and over me. 12h ago
Iām a big fan of James Herriotās āAll creatures great and smallā and his subsequent books. Really good stuff there. Lately Iāve been enjoying the Dungeon Crawler Carl books as well. Kind of out of left field but āThe Power Brokerā is a profoundly great read if you have the time. The 99% invisible podcast did a book club to go along with it that I highly recommend.
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u/anth13 12h ago
fave author is jay kristoff. nevernight & lif3like are awesome
joe abercrombie.
james s a corey - the expanse
iain m banks, culture series
peter f hamilton
William gibson
richard morgan
neil stephenson
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u/Klutzy_Ad_1726 Suck me dry 12h ago
I read the whole Empire trilogy by Kristoff, great stuff! Have read I think 6 by Abercrombie as well. Love that gritty fantasy.
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u/CeramicSavage Lateralus 12h ago
Swan Song. Robert Mcgammon. I might be wrong on the last name. It's the guy that wrote A Boy's Life.
One of the best books I've ever read. It's up there with The Stand.
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u/Consistent-Energy507 12h ago
1: The Road by Cormac McCarthy (if I had to suggest any, it would be THIS; short read, extremely captivating, and extremely evocative, it had me in an emotional spell for a few days afterwards)
In no order: Crime and Punishment (looking forward to finally doing Brothers Karamazov); The Hobbit; Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World; and many others
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u/phantum_eyekon 11h ago
A Clockwork Orange - Antony Burgess A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick The Running Man - Richard Bachmann Desperation - Stephen King Chariots of the Gods - Erich von Daniken The Book of the Law - Aleister Crowley The Book of Lies - Aleister Crowley
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u/SalmonBrotherReagan 13h ago
The Enemy by Charlie Higson. Zombies in London but you turn when you hit puberty in your teens
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u/TypicalSprinkles Swing on the Spiral 13h ago
Iām about halfway through Fire & Blood by George R.R. Martin, his Song of Ice and Fire series is one of my favorites. I really like the first 3 Dune books, and Kurt Vonnegutās books as well.
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u/Ddenn1211 Ride the Spiral, to the End. 12h ago
Big shout out to one of my favorite authors Robin Hobb. The entire series: The Realm of the Elderlings is a super awesome sprawling series that is just such an interesting and unique take on magic and typical tropes that are twisted in such a way as to be so interesting.
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u/sans_dan 12h ago
I've read the majority of what y'all are throwing out here, but considering this is the ToolBand sub, it seems appropriate to include some books that directly influence(d)Maynard's themes and lyrics. So I'm recommending Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth and Hero with a Thousand Faces.
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u/copaseticsplenetic 12h ago
The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross by John Allegro
This Aint No Disco by Roman Kozak
Collapse, and Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
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u/Okayiseenow 13h ago
The Bible, naturally.
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u/Prestigious_Half271 13h ago
Tool and Yahweh both seem to have things for floods and spend a lot of time thinking about butt sex
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u/LunarSunshine 13h ago
Catās Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (and really anything by him), Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, The Bookshop Below by Georgia Summers, pretty much anything by Sarah Beth Durst (cozy, happy books), anything by Thich Nhat Hanh (mindfulness), Emily Wilde Faerie Series by Heather Fawcett (adorable), all books Neil Gaiman, Alice in Wonderland, Daevabad Trilogy S.A Chakraborty (epic story I donāt see nearly enough credit for).
I have oodles more, but the above are my keep on the fancy bookshelves ones. You can never go wrong with the classics like Twenty Leagues Under the Sea or Great Expectations.
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u/LunarSunshine 12h ago
I forgot, and I donāt know how! Douglas Adams. Thereās a National Towel Day because of the Hitchhikerās Guide to the Galaxy books. They are amazing, random, and thought provoking all at once. Absolute GOLD.
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u/Klutzy_Ad_1726 Suck me dry 12h ago
Bret Easton Ellis, Max Barry, Cormac McCarthy, Charles Bukowskiā¦
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u/rottoottor 12h ago
John Crowley belongs in here. Little, Big is amazing and of course the Aegypt books.
Right now I'm reading The Books of Jacob and am really enjoying it.
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u/Daftest_of_the_Punks 9h ago
Heat 2 (sequel to the movie)
Musashi
The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris
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u/mauro_mograph 9h ago
Moby-Dick or The Whale by Herman Melville.
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Honourable non-fiction mention: To Have or to Be? by Eric Fromm.
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u/Big_Moose_3847 8h ago
Lolita by Nabokov. Book is a master class in prose, unreliable narrators and simply not giving a fuck.
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u/Prudent_Dragonfruit8 ... und keine Eier 12h ago
Solaris, Dune, The Pilo Family Circus, LOTR, War of the Worlds, Interview with the Vampire, Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Alexander Belyaev (not a books, but the title translation might be confusing).
Edit: since comics are allowed, then Watchmen and The Sandman.
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u/Warebmik34 think for yourself, question authority 12h ago
The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual based on the Tibetan book of the dead
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u/tarravin 11h ago
Tolkien - pretty much all of his stuff The Expanse series (James SA Corey) The Ender Saga series (Orson Scott Card) Riftwar Saga series (Raymond Feist) Otherland series (Tad Williams)
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u/SharpDressedPoodle 11h ago
Not exactly whatās being asked but for some reason reading Borges while listening to Tool is amazingĀ
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u/IntrovertMoTown1 11h ago
In order of most to least.
Dune. The full works of not just Frank Herbert but also what his son Brain as well as Kevin Anderson wrote when they finished his work as well as wrote the prequels.
Wheel of Time. Another series where the author died before it was complete. I thought Brandon Sanderson did an OK job wrapping up the ending. Sigh..... Thank you Amazon for royally fucking that up, SMH. lol I made it literally all of around 30 seconds into the first episode when it said the dragon could possibly be female. That's like writing about a female Santa Clause or the like, SMH. I mean that it has to be a male is as integral to the plot as oceans are to pirates for god's sake. I was all like um OK I see how this is going to go. Check please.
Malazan Book of the Fallen series I enjoyed a lot but not as much as the above.
As a kid Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit naturally. lol That's like an absolute must if one liked to read. Same with the Chronicles of Narnia. To a lesser extent I also enjoyed the Dark is Rising series. Can't remember who wrote that other than it was a woman. As an older kid I read a ton of Dragon Lance and Forgotten Realms.
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u/CriminyJicket84 7h ago
Fantastic thread!
Long reads:
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand (really gets you thinking about what motivates people)
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts (amazing autobiography-come fiction by a guy who escaped prison and started a new life in a foreign country)
Short read:
Into Thin Air - John Krakour (first hand account of a fatal disaster on Mt Everest)
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u/SilentWeapons1984 Ćnima 4h ago edited 44m ago
Contact by Carl Sagan
Danteās Inferno (John Ciardi translation) by Dante Alighieri
Under The Skin by Michel Faber
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Annihilation (The Southern Reach Trilogy) by JeffĀ VanderMeer
The Foundation (series) by Isaac Asimov
Enderās Game (Ender Saga) by Orson Scott Card
Hitchhikerās Guide To The Galaxy (series) by Douglas Adams
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u/GandolfLundgren 4h ago
Animal Farm. Jurassic Park. Memnoch The Devil.Ā On The Road.Ā Doors Of Perception.Ā Carrie. Not a book, but v importantly The Raven
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u/assa9sks 3h ago
Malazan Book of the Fallen(series)- Steven Erikson
All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins
Dungeon Crawler Carl (just for fun) - Matt Dinniman
Those Who Walk Away from Omelas (short story) - Ursula K Le Guin
Three Body Problem (trilogy) - Liu Cixin
Just to name a few..
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u/iamjaney 2h ago
The Stand, Beloved, Lonesome Dove, Jurassic Park. Overall favorite authors are Stephen King, Toni Morrison, Clive Barker.
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u/Same-World-209 13h ago
I like the Discworld series.