The Mayor ,'End of Days'
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
You might want to add Oryx and Crake and/or After The Flood (Atwood) to the dystopian list. I love Handmaid's Tale, but the later one's are, IMHO, drily hilarious, and really modern and terrifying, and all-too-plausible, with a more eco-focus. LOVE.
Quest...does it have to be a physical journey? Because I love Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison unreasonably, and it's a definite mental joun...yeah, I dunno if it fits. But you should all read it.
Brain fried, sense later.
For quests, Siddhartha.
I love Handmaid's Tale, but the later one's are, IMHO, drily hilarious, and really modern and terrifying, and all-too-plausible, with a more eco-focus. LOVE
AGREED.
King writes long well, but my favorite of his is a collection of shorts, Night Shift. Scary stuff in small packages. Gray Matter has stuck with me for a very long time. As has the title story.
Re: King, the Dark Tower series is wholy quest, and pretty darned epic (even including commentary on descent and lists of weaponry) but might take a few months to finish. On the plus side, there's an awful lot of side topics and universal themes in there to discuss.
Night Shift was my very first collection of short stories--love those! I think my favorite from that book are the one where the guy has to walk around his highrise on the ledge for a bet, and the one where a guy decides to quit smoking via an extremely strict program.
The Raft from Skeleton Crew is the King short story that sticks with me the most. Goddamned being pulled through the slats. Ick.
Thinking of King and quests, does The Talisman count? I haven't read it in forever, but it does seem to fit.
I can never forget the final sentence of "survivor type" but can't recall which short story collection that was from.
talisman was a quest, but a rather boring one.
Quests: On the Road
Ulysses (James Joyce)
As I Lay Dying is written as a quest, but it's not a book I'd ever recommend.
Huckleberry Finn is often discussed as a quest, in the sense of an episodic journey towards enlightenment.
Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion books are all quests. Bujold is my default answer for many questions.
Heinlein's Glory Road
If you want a short story for dystopias, there's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas."
I wouldn't know which Stand to recommend. I love the book, but lord does the man need editing.
talisman was a quest, but a rather boring one.
Heretic!
Okay, I adored it at the time. But it's been 20 years.
In college my pleasure reading was only short stories or plays, I could not handle books. I read several Steven King collections, and all I really remember is being terrified of rats and/or fish that lived in caves and mutated to have no eyes, or wings or whatever. I hate mutation!