Ferret has tagged me to name 10 books that were somehow influential. Im not sure how to decide if a book has been influential or not, so these are just 10 books that have been important to me in some way. In no particular order (apart from the first one): 1. J.R.R. Tolkien - The lord of the rings. This one was so trivially easy. It is, by a large margin, the best work of fiction ever written. Im essentially including The hobbit and The silmarillion in this choice as well. Otherwise theyd be taking up 3 of my 10 slots. He was able to create a world more immersive, more beautiful than any other author and his way with words remains unsurpassed to this day. 2. Isaac Asimov - Foundation. Again, cheating somewhat as it covers 7 books. Interestingly, I wasnt overly enamoured with the original trilogy. Sure, it wasnt bad, and it had some interesting ideas. But for me, the series didnt really come alive until he expanded it with Foundations edge and Foundation and earth. The way he tied it in with the robot and galactic empire novels really worked for me. 3. Frank Herbert - Dune. Just outstanding. Its a shame that the sequels never came close to capturing the magic of the first book. 4. Vernor Vinge - A fire upon the deep. What can I say? I like space opera and this is probably the best example of that. Enormous in scope, with some clever themes. The zones of thought are a fantastic idea. 5. Vernor Vinge - True names. For a very, very long time, I was put off cyberpunk as a genre. The blame for that lies entirely at the feet of one William F. Gibson, and his dreadful novel Neuromancer. You see, not only was he lacking the faintest clue about technology when he wrote it, he did so in a clumsy, amateurish style. And because the book was inexplicably successful, other authors decided that they should copy his style when writing in the genre, leading to a glut of poorly written books. It wasnt until decades later that I discovered that others like Vinge and Varley had not only predated him, but had done so in an infinitely better written way. It may only be a short story, but this is the best cyberpunk book ever written. 6. Cecil Day-Lewis - The otterbury incident. An odd one. I didnt much like the majority of the books we had to read in English Literature classes at school. This one was an exception. I remember virtually nothing about it other than the title and a vague memory of something relating to a broken window. But it captivated my adolescent imagination. The teacher had asked for a 4 page write up of the book. Normally, I would struggle to fill more than a page. But for this, I can remember filling 10 pages. 7. Elizabeth Moon - Vattas war. Military science fiction done right. 8. Arthur C. Clarke - Earthlight. I could have picked a number of other Clarke books, but this is the one that made the biggest impact on me. 9. Marion Zimmer Bradley - The mists of Avalon. A retelling of the Arthurian tale through the eyes of the women involved. Such a compelling story that I hadnt realised thats what she was doing. A masterpiece. 10. Robert A. Heinlein - Methuselahs children. The best of Heinleins books. His later work became too rambling and philosophical. He wrote this when he was still capable of writing compelling stories. I could have gone for Sixth column or The puppet masters or I will fear no evil, but I think this is probably my favourite. Sticking to just 10 is very constraining. I could have added James Blishs Cities in flight or Haldemans The forever war or Tchaikovskys Empire in black and gold or The night angel trilogy by Brent Weeks. Or any one of a number of other books that I enjoyed. But the limit was 10, so I stuck to that. So who else can I ask to do this? Ill semi-randomly pick Bob Eager, Kimberley Chappell, Richard Large and James Love.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 23:45:55 +0000