Ive been tagged by James Blair to list the top 10 books that have stuck with me over the years. So here goes: 1) The Lord of the Rings - yeah, its three or four books...I have to compact somehow. Tolkien created a rich and amazing universe that made me want to see it. 2) The Star Trek novels - once again...a series...but these were the first books I ever found that made me WANT to read...I owe what I do now to them... 3) Larry Nivens Integral Trees - human kind living in a radically different environment 4) Issac Asimovs Robot-Empire-Foundation series - I first read I Robot and fell in love with how he dealt with them. And though I dont follow the Three Laws in my writing, his characterizations of them have stuck with me. 5) Arthur C. Clarkes 2001 - This was something new to me when I read it. Hard and shiny and different from anything else Id ever seen. 6) David Webers On Basilisk Station - The best of a new generation of science fiction/space opera that made me love the genre anew 7) John Ringos A Hymn Before Battle - Hard military and wacky sense of humor combined into one package that makes me laugh out loud every time I read it. 8) L.E. Modesitts The Magic of Recluse - The first time I realized I was reading a story about magic from a scientific perspective. Magic wasnt a get out of jail free card. There were scientific rules to it. This was the first time I truly understood what Clarke said, that magic and technology may not be exclusive of each other. 9)Timothy Zahns Heir to the Empire and derivative works - I heard the Star Wars music in my mind while reading these books. They revived Star Wars as a property and are an instrumental step in making Star Wars the A-list platform for stories that it is today. 10) Forge of War by...me. :) - In many ways I have been writing that story since I was a kid. The prototype of Aneerin was in my earliest stories in grade school, while the prototype of Jack came around in the late 90s or early 2000s. At various times I have incorporated themes from Star Trek, the real Battlestar Galactica, BattleTech, or the many other universes that show people working to succeed despite everything that has happened to them. That hope, that decision in so many of those stories to never give up and to keep fighting in hopes of finding a world where the fighting is no longer needed, that is what kept me writing all my life. Much like my life, Forge of War is a work in progress, but it is better than it would have been had I been influenced by books other than what I have. And like my life, Forge of War will be better in the future. Because I do no believe in the no-win scenario...and I do believe that there are things worth fighting for...
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 15:44:46 +0000
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